indoor ride

Weathering the Winter

My barn average is definitely down the last few weeks. For one thing, I’ve been working a lot, and for another I’ve discovered that days where the high is less than 5 degrees, the trip just isn’t worth it. Even going bareback doesn’t help on such days. It is just too cold to be bearable,… Read more »

A Winter Ride: In Numbers

degrees above zero when I left the house this morning: 11 articles of clothing worn: 17 miles from my house to the barn: 15 other people at the barn: 0 horses loose in the aisle when I arrived: 1 seconds it took for the unheated toilet to steal all my saved body warmth: .025 utensils… Read more »

Winter at the Barn

It has definitely taken me a little while to adjust to riding in the winter here. I got very used to my long, leisurely trips out the barn, taking my time with grooming, groundwork, riding and then lounging outside in the green and the sun while Steen grazed. Lately, the temperatures have not been at… Read more »

Fat and Sassy

Well, perhaps not exactly fat, but in the last couple of weeks Steen has definitely been changing shape and I am heartened by this. I wasn’t at the barn for quite a few days because we left town for Thanksgiving. On Sunday the farrier came, so Steen got his feet trimmed and Duke took a… Read more »

Slow Day

Since Brian and I have been riding so much lately, my last extended bareback loping session left my legs pretty sore, and I had to cram a trip to the barn in between many other things yesterday, Steen and I had an easy ride. The weather was more pleasant than it has been the last… Read more »

Fatten Up and Go Faster

As Brian mentioned in the last the last two posts, we’ve been going out to the barn a lot lately. We have been particularly motivated for two reasons. One is that, as I mentioned in previous posts, Steen is apparently not the kind of horse that will get fat on a pasture diet. I knew… Read more »

Time Off

I was out of town for a few days, so after a brief bareback ride on muddy, wet Thursday during which Steen was so relaxed it was almost comical, he got a number of days off. Tuesday found me back at the barn with my visiting brother in tow. We went down to the pasture… Read more »

Farrier/Potluck

Yesterday the farrier came to the barn to work on feet, and a boarder’s son turned two, so we had a grand old foot-trimmin’, food-eatin’ get-together. I was a little worried that Steen’s ruffled nerves over the vet visit would affect his behavior with the farrier since such care-givers operate in the same part of… Read more »