1. Weather
2. Life (ya know, that thing that takes up the other 21-hours of my day)
Weather
In a normal year, our area gets 40-60inches of precipitation*. Due to mild temperatures, it is rare that the ground would freeze and snow would accumulate. This means, not only do we have 6-months of grey clouds and rain, but we have 6-months of MUD.
I. Do. Not. Like. Mud.
Having spend the past winter in mud, I have discovered that there are varying degrees of it, and my attitude toward mud seems to change based entirely on it current state of plasticity. October: The rainy season began, and our nice dry arena became unusable and the entryways to all of the paddocks began to resemble play-dough, not firm ground. November - January: It rained so much, so frequently, and with the lack of daylight to dry it up, the mud became a liquid, runny muck that coated the horses legs and all the way up under their turnouts and on their bellies. Daily hosing of feet before snugging up in dry stalls every night was a must. February: The rain let up at long last, enough to dry up the paddocks a bit so that they were usable for something other than a poor man's day spa. March: The rain started up again, proving February to be a tease. The mud at this point though, was no longer runny, just a thick gooey mess. April: It seems that the rain will just continue to come down. I believe we had 3-weeks of rain in a row. This past weekend though (I was told, see below) was mostly dry with just a few showers, so maybe summer will arrive in June as hoped. Maybe not.
*I have begun to question why I moved here...leaving behind my sunny snowy climate and 14-inches of precipitation? Oh, yeah...the recession.
Life
I had a relative pass away recently, which required me to spend a week on the opposite coast. Then immediately following that I had to leave for another 4-days to attend a prep-class for a licensing exam that I am taking in June. In the mean time, my work schedule picked up and I had a bunch of deadlines. Generally speaking, this is "normal" in my world. Thanks to the exam, for the next 8-weeks I must STUDY! This is also one of the main reasons for deciding to send Rose to a trainer for the month of May and the first bit of June. I need to have time to study and not feel guilty about not having as much time for her as I would like.
So, between the weather and my life, Rose hasn't been worked in the past few weeks. After I got off my flight and back into town yesterday, I picked up our dog and drove straight out to the barn. To my relief, it was sunny and in the mid 60's! After arriving at the barn I did a quick assessment and found that Rose managed to stay in one piece for a change and was in a generally pleasant state of mind and happy to see me. Capitalizing on the sunny weather and mostly okay footing, I gave the dog a quick bath and decided that I should longe Rose for a few minutes. Given that she'd had over two weeks off from any sort of work, she was a pretty good girl. She still tried to pull some rude baby bolts on the longeline, to no avail, but that's to be expected. Overall she was a good girl and I'm happy to be home with no airplane trips in my foreseeable future!
So far today we had a bit of a sprinkle this morning, but the ground outside my office window looks dry, so hopefully the footing will still be okay and we can do a bit more walking and trotting on the longe (well and cantering when she gets too excited and until I can get her to transition back down).
Wish me
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