Weather

Friday night I headed to the barn to ride after work. Due to an awesome work place, I was at the barn by 4:20 and made short work of getting Ashke ready. It has been a life saver to follow Saiph's suggestion to feed Ashke a half flake or flake of alfalfa while getting him saddled to help settle his stomach. His reaction to my lifting the girth has diminished significantly since I started this. I lead him out to the mounting block, tightened my girth, and then swung up. He was snorty and bouncy to start, but by the time we reached the park across the street, Ashke was swinging at the walk and willing.

We rode 45 minutes, covered 3.15 miles at 4.2 mph and got back to the barn before dark.

Saturday was supposed to be the bummer day of the weekend, with highs in the upper 30's and a 70% chance of snow. It was grey and a bit windy and cold. I decided to be a wimp and opt out of riding. Instead, J and I and Tia (T's godmom came up for the weekend) decided to go to the hardward store to buy stuff to make a Quintain for Working Equitation. One of the people here in the area is making bull based quintains and I was inspired to build one of my own, paint it blue and call it Babe.

 This is the silhouette image I have picked. We are going to set up the ball at his horns, then the post for the quintain and the rings will rise above the shoulder.

Two and a half hours later, we came home with this pile and were too exhausted to do anything with it.

I wandered around Lowe's with my diagram in my hand, searching for all of the things we needed to make this project a reality. Since we have no place to store the Quintain, we need to create an obstacle we can take apart to move and store, but that is easy to set up and use. In the middle of finding our items (we forgot the paint and are still working on targets for the spinning part of the quintain) we stopped and picked out a storm door for the condo to replace the one that is held together with spit and duct tape. The number one thing on my list, the garroucha pole, was impossible to find. Lowe's doesn't carry a wooden pole (curtain or shower rod) that is between 10 and 12 feet long. The only thing we found was an aluminum flag pole that screwed to another flag pole to make a 12 foot aluminum garroucha pole that was on sale for $14, total. It is bright blue. I figure it will be good enough to practice with, even if it isn't practical in a schooling show. The final item we were looking for was a way to hold the ball on the pedestal, which I believe I solved with an item at home. 

Then we went to Best Buy, Krogers and Chilis. By the time we got home we were too exhausted to do anything. 

This morning we had planned on doing a ride. Sunday was supposed to be 50+ with sun and no wind. I figured starting February with a 10+ mile ride would be perfect. Ha! I woke up to eight inches of snow, which wasn't in the forecast AT ALL. And that completely derailed any idea of riding today at all. So instead, we did another photo shoot, complete with videos. Ashke was a little shivery when I pulled the blanket off (he luvs his blanket) but was very flirtatious, snorty and spooky in the outdoor.

His floaty trot is just amazing.

He absolutely takes my breath away.

He kept coming right at me.

He thinks he's a race horse.

So much there.

Look at his back!!!

He was flirting with Tia, too.

He loves to race back.

As if demons are chasing him.

Taunting me.

Really playing with me.

Left lead here. He cross cantered to the left a lot. I need to work on the left lead more.

The Last Unicorn can levitate.

I love this picture. I love the rippling muscles and the attitude.

This is going to be our Christmas card need year.

The dark spot on his shoulder is a bit of mud from where the snow blew in under his blanket last night WHILE HE WAS STANDING IN THE SNOW!!!

Tracking up on the right

In B & W

Snow mustache

The next week is supposed to be in the upper 50's to low 60's. This snow storm was definitely a spring snow, heavy, wet and deep. It dumped plenty of water in the form of snow on the front range. Next Saturday is supposed to be 67 and Sunday is supposed to be warmer than that. Saturday is a riding day for sure.