Sunny Sunday in January.

Well it's the end of my first week of writing this blog.  It's been an interesting activity.  One thing I've learned already is that I lead a pretty uninteresting life.  It's been hard for me to figure out each day what I'd actually write about as nothing really significant seemed to have happened.  That I guess is really the big reason why I'm forcing myself to blog.  I actually have to get up out of bed and do something to write about.

Today was one of those days that took me by surprise.  I woke up and it was cold, I was more than annoyed because yesterday it had been lovely, mild even.  Anyway a hauled my pissed off self out of bed grabbed my big bucket of beet pulp and headed to the barn.  The barn was still surprisingly warm, the horses body heat had kept it cosy even while the temperature dropped outside.  I fed the boys their beet pulp and grain, checked there water, it wasn't frozen and topped up their hay.   I decided they could stay in for the morning, keeping them in would keep the barn warmer.  Back up to the house for tea and breakfast.

So the morning passed while I watched The Amazing Spiderman 2 and played on the computer.  At that point I thought I'd better get out and do something...as the horses are in maybe it's a good time to try out my binder twine wisps.  Grooming my boys is an activity.  Rolo likes to step on my toes when I'm reaching up to brush the tall bits, and Derby is as ticklish as they come and there's a lot of tail swishing and the odd hind leg cow kick.  So I have to stay on alert.  Floyd happily is a dream to brush, just as long as I keep him in the fake cross-ties and not the real cross-ties.  Well brushing went well and so out came the binder twine wisp and shock of shocks, they all loved it.  You sort of do this odd arm movement that ends with you thumping the wisp on a large muscles on the wisp.  It really brought out the oils in their coats even on the first try.  So now I think I'll have to make at least one for each horse.  The larger one worked much better and was easier.

By this time the sun was out and while cold it was a very nice day so blankets went on and I turned the boys out.  I felt it was a good time for me to get some exercise as well.  I have been wanting to go out on my snowshoes and as I actually thought about it today when it was still day...I dug them out and started tramping around the 5 acre field.  It was great, no wind, sunshine and of course three horses watching the whole activity from the edge of their paddock.   After one trip around the field moved to the paddock in front of the house.  That is the area I've decided will be my winter riding ring.  There finally is enough snow to have some decent footing, it just needed a little help to crunch up the thin ice layer.  So I tramped around there for another hour and now have a pretty good area to start to work the boys.  This week I'll start with some lunging and hopefully work up to some long lining.  You'll have to check in with the blog later to see if I actually achieved my goals.