merry almost christmas!

Well the holidays are officially upon us around these parts, and idk about you but I'm 100% looking forward to a little time off!

time off to include: riding in the day time!! 

And as you may or may not have noticed, we're already full blown into the holiday spirit haha. Bolstered in large part by Hillary from Equestrian at Hart's secret santa gift! I'm a little late in posting this, but we've been fully enjoying the gifts (esp those treats, Charlie is pretty sure they're made of pure crack cocaine LOL).

thank you Hillary for your lovely gift!

Thanks so much, and thank you Tracy from Printable Pony for hosting and coordinating every year!!

my parents bake charlie special horse muffins for every special occasion now <3 

Charlie's actually been getting a few gifts already this season, including some homemade muffins from my parents.

these muffins are beyond belief, so sweet and made with love!

Before his (second) retirement, my stepfather spent his (second) career as a muffin maker extraordinaire and is an extremely talented baker. These days he's been plying his craft by developing a horse-specific muffin recipe. And honestly it's pretty amazing haha <3

charlie obvi approves

I'm sure Charlie would be equally pleased with something a bit simpler, but damn he does love these things! Such a nice treat, right?

our ground is alternating between mucky wet or frozen solid.... but hey, daylight helps!

Anyway, tho, we're finally getting into winter proper too. Winter officially began this past Saturday, with the days starting to lengthen again. Talk about a double-edged sword, tho, haha.

I'm already so sick of all the nighttime riding, but we're only just now starting to brace for actual winter temperatures. Combined with fully frozen ground, le sigh.

it really is a pretty time of year to be out there tho

Up to this point, we've been able to ride basically wherever there's light, which includes both outdoor arenas. Now tho, the rings are starting to freeze, esp the jump ring that's just plain pale sand. At least the dressage ring has darker footing and as such stays a bit warmer longer.

if this is all we get for now, it's good enough !

Even that has been freezing a lot lately. Meanwhile, the indoor footing just got redone and is a bit too deep for my tastes at present, so we've been avoiding it completely other than the occasional walk-only ride.

Meaning, our nighttime rides have been pretty boring with no good place to do any real work. And early weekday morning lessons are on hiatus bc.... there's no ground to do anything with, sigh.

these migratory birds that pass through our farm are amazing

At least in the daytime we can hack out -- which obvi we've been doing a lot of lately! Even that is just walking too, for the most part, with the ground either too sloppy or too hard for anything more.

But it's still so much nicer than endless circles inside four walls haha.

lots and lots and LOTS of wanderings for now haha

I'm taking the week between Christmas and New Years off from work tho, AND the weather is actually looking pretty good!! So maybe we'll be able to ride outside in the daylight AND maybe at speeds faster than a walk haha. Fingers crossed ;)

merry christmas, inside and out!

Which is obviously really exciting haha. I don't have too many family events left for the season, either, and they're all local anyway. So most of that time off can be used for literally whatever I want, yessss!

For now tho, I'm just looking forward to tying up loose ends at work and then settling into a nice long staycation !! :D  Anybody else taking time off for the holidays? Do you have to travel or can you stay home and relax a bit? Hoping you all get to have a wonderful season with friends, family, and ponies <3