Evening Ride

During the winter months I get bogged down with daily chores. By the time everyone has their evening meal and everyone is happy for the night, it's dark. I'm usually exhausted tramping through the snow, throwing hay, and usually grumbling to myself wondering why in the world I opened a sanctuary for old horses in South Dakota (of all places).

But tonight reminded me of something. The weather was beautiful (relatively speaking) at just under 32 degrees. Winter chores in "warmer" weather makes life so much easier. The days are getting longer; the sun doesn't set until 5:30 and it doesn't get pitch black until 5:45pm.

I decided that since it was such a nice day, that I would take Rain out for a quick ride because I had a little bit of light left in the day. I didn't want to ride far but didn't want to ride in the yard because of the ice. We skirted the icy driveway and headed down the gravel road which was frozen solid. We avoided the icy patches and headed into the neighbor's field (we asked permission this fall).

Rain and I took it fairly slow since the ground is completely tore up (they did a deep rip on it when disking in the fall). Rain is most definitely barn sour. We can get out of the driveway but the minute we turn around and he thinks we're headed for home he freaks out; not freak out bad or anything but gets worked up into a foamy lather.

By the time we were done riding, which lasted all of about 15 minutes, he was in a complete lather. It looked like we'd been riding hard for a good 10 miles instead of circling a small field twice. Granted Rain is out of shape but he mainly got worked up when we turned around and he saw the barn. I guess I'll be working on Rain's barn sour issue. Hopefully the weather will stay nice; although I heard a nasty rumor that we're going to get another arctic front rolling through. It's bound to bring colder temperatures. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that winter will be mild. I'm trying my hardest to keep up with my new years resolution to ride more.

And in keeping with my new years resolution, I wanted to include at least one picture on today's blog. Here's Chaos from this spring. He sure is a handsome fella. We really lucked out considered we took him sight unseen as an unhandled, yearling stud colt.