rainy recess

With the recent brief respite from frigid wintry conditions, my friends and I got a tad ambitious and planned to school cross country last weekend. Like, real cross country. Out in a field

Not that anything is wrong with the arena xc that we recently did - and there are certainly plans for more of that hopefully soon! But.... there are more fields closer to home available for less expense lol.

i hadn't even noticed charlie's neighbor's sassy kick threat when taking this picture. clearly charlie wasn't worried either lol

Unfortunately, as anyone who lives in the area or who read my last post can attest, the recent thaw only ushered in a new era of mud mud mud. And actually it's not even really "thawed" any more, since the temps quickly dropped again.

All this to say: the ground was not in any kind of shape for running and jumping.

"my only worry is where you hid the snax, lady" - charlie, probably

Sadness. At least tho, I was able to get Charlie out and about with a barn mate for some hacking on a warm rainy day in between freezes. It was enough to show that .... yea it's SLICK out there. But still somehow better than picking our way across rock hard frozen ground in a howling wind.

behold, charlie's perma mule ears. and a soggy trail.

Charlie, for his part, seemed slightly indifferent to the change in plans. He's kinda a funny trail horse, honestly. I think he would be right at home in one of those "rent a nag" trail strings that tourists ride for an hour or two, nose to tail, down some scenic path or a beach or whatever. 

sometimes i wish he carried his ears in a more traditional "happy" expression lol

He mostly just plants his nose either on the tail or flank of the horse in front of him (in this case, his field- and lesson-mate ottb Punky), and trudges on along. He'll lead as well as follow tho, too, I just don't really know my way around the woods super well yet.

but i swear, he enjoys these rides and spends a fair amount of time looking all around his surroundings

Secretly, tho, I think he likes it. I know *I* like it haha. It breaks up the monotony of being trapped in the small dusty indoor for endless 20m circles or grids.

And maybe it's just me, but there's something charming about the woods in winter. Especially on an overcast, damp day where all of winter's colors come through with no hint of shadow anywhere.

the woods certainly have a unique type of beauty this time of year too

Plus there are so many pretty birds around the farm too - colorful bluebirds and cardinals, huge flocks of starlings, and the occasional hawk. Not to mention the zillions of squirrels who have all apparently started going a little stir crazy lately and go crashing through the leaf mulch like herds of elephants lol.

as do the fields, with the varying hues of golden, yellow and pale green grass

And. Ya know. It's also just plain good for body and soul (of both horse and rider) to be out on changeable terrain, over hill and dale, and across natural streams and ditches of varying depth and width. Always with lots of gate practice too as we move from area to area. Proud to say Charlie's getting the hang of this game too!

mostly tho, all the trails still kinda look the same to me haha, so i'm happy to have a navigator!

Charlie's come a VERY long way when it comes to little water crossings. On his earliest trails he couldn't go through a puddle, and resorted to spastically leaping over small streams. Now tho? He just marches right on through, tho occasionally breaking into trot on the far side haha (always #soproud of himself).

then finally we emerge on the long driveway back to the barn

And even tho he really didn't care for the slick, slippery mud in many places in the woods and lanes between pastures, I appreciated that it forced him to pay more attention to each foot step. Since his natural habit is to be a little.... careless lol. One of these days we'll get him reading the ground better! Tho I may actually die trying....

where, naturally, there has been even more construction lately. the window to charlie's stall is jussssst visible in the upper left corner of this shot, so he's been hearing a lot of the work going into this shed. and is pretttttty sure they're hard at work building the mausoleum for what must be his ultimate sacrifice to the horsey gods. in other words, shit's scary, yo!

This winter has been hard on sticking to a regular hacking routine bc the ground has just been so so bad. I'm glad we made it out at least once in January tho. Hopefully with more to come soon! Especially with sunset creeping a little bit later every night (almost at 5:30pm now!!!) it's getting easier to reconcile giving up a daylight weekend ride for hacking.

All the same, tho, March 11 can't come soon enough haha. Maybe we could just cancel February altogether and skip straight to spring??? Anybody with me???? lol....