sunny day in the snow

Sunday was a gorgeous day - just beautiful!! Not quite 50* out but with a sun so strong it felt even warmer. Plus all the horses are back to sleeping outside overnight given this break in the weather. Yay for not having to muck all the stalls!! 

It felt like the morning chores practically did themselves, and with B's help they were all finished by 11:30am. This is early enough on its own - but factor in daylight savings and it felt REALLY early!

The original plan was to haul out to FV for schooling... But it was so nice out and the horses have been so good (and we're soooo tired of all the time and effort that goes into schlepping them around) that we opted to try riding in the upper field at home instead. 

It was so nice to just bring the horses in, tack up and hop right on!! No long commutes, no packing, nothing. I think Isabel was relieved too haha.

There's one roped off section that serves as a temporary arena so we started in there. It was a little too packed down and slippery (and is too small anyway, really) for anything faster than a trot. But at least it served as a safe place to figure out whether Isabel would lose her mind in the open field (as has been known to happen lol). 

isabel says 'no pics plz' haha

Actually, Isabel and I have had quite a few very unpleasant rides (think: spin-n-bolt type shenanigans) in this field, visible in the back left corner of the above pic. So I generally avoid it... The weather was so nice tho... and the melting snow was deep and heavy enough to hopefully take some of the edge off if the horses got a little hot. 

'ugh, fine... paparazzi much?' - isabel

And of course Isabel was fine - even when we moved out of the roped off section and into the open field where it was less slushy and icy. She even managed to show off some fancy trotting and very polite walking.

'i only sorta put my ears forward bc of the carrots in your hand' - isabel

The canters .... well, they were admittedly a little wild and better resembled hand gallops - esp going up hill. And we couldn't transition immediately back to walk right away without any jigging - so I just kept her forward and trotting until she'd agree to walk in four beats again. But it wasn't really that bad, and I didn't feel like I risked losing control, or like we were going to wipe out at any moment. Yay!! 

And as an extra special bonus, Isabel busted out a totally clean and flawless lead change from right to LEFT (super super rare for her to change the whole thing - she usually just swaps the front). I mean, it wasn't exactly on purpose... but hey, now I know she's got changes in both directions! Maybe I need to ride out there more often in the snow so we can practice?? haha