planBE

Classes are over for the holiday season and I have 6 weeks to finish grading, clean up some administrative tasks, facilitate an executive session and get ready for a new term in January. Not quite easy street but an important marker for the year and plenty of riding time ahead. As long as the weather and footing cooperates. Good news is that footing has been great so far and I have enjoyed it so much that my body aches all over. Good news is that my horse is doing brilliantly on solo trails, lagging behind a group and leading out front. His jog is phenomenal and his cantalope is coming along pretty well. I haven’t cantaloped on the buckle while riding with others as his energy is more forward, but his jog on the buckle leading or following others is coming along very nicely. After having ridden several days this week with others, I now feel the need to ride alone for a bit. To be quiet with my own thoughts. I am getting annoyed at little things and it’s probably best to distance myself...

Some glorious footing these last few days as we got a recent snowfall then a series of warm days. Makes for slushy footing and perfect for cantaloping. I was surprised to see some fellow boarders stick to the indoor arena, but everyone has a slightly different definition of perfect footing. My slowly greying horse is still very black in the legs, so wet sand and mud splatter does not bother me at all. Some folks consider any footing that might dirty their horses legs to be inappropriate. Both Q and I are always keen to go on the trails, so I restrict our outdoor riding only when it is unsafe (ice, heavy winds, hail). It is our plight as barefooters to be constantly aware of footing and I am relatively prudent when it comes to risks of soft tissue injuries.  As barefooters though, we are fairly well equipped most of the year. Q has plenty of natural grip in mud, slush and those in betweens. But when the arctic freeze hits the wet tracks, we slump our shoulders and head to the indoor...

There is snow on the ground. which made for challenging footing but was fun nonetheless! Lucky for us the wind was quiet and the sun was shining bright, which made the -5 degrees celsius so much easier to bear. I dressed up in my heavy winter breeches, boots and even cracked out my winter coat for the first time of the season. And we were just fine. I trotted every 5-10 minutes to keep the circulation going but I did almost no cantering for fear of slipping on a hidden frozen puddle. Q was lovely but did try and avoid gross footing by stepping off the trails. We had to do a reminder course on what leg yield means. If you have ever had your knees hit a tree at the trot or canter, you know how  important these lessons are. We took advantage of the situation to do our first “winter” trail which I have avoided for the last six months. This one was about a 60 minute loop of lots of narrow and medium wide trails, which crisscross the cross-country ski trails. We will be limited to our ow...

 Coviditis = general anxiety expressed as anger, impatience and disproportionate reactions to benign events. Often experienced in parallel to much time spent on social media or digesting current political events. The cure is to saddle up and ride. Time spent in the woods with a great equine partner and dozens of walkers gushing over your beautiful well-mannered horse as they ask to take your picture, is the perfect balm. So many happy people, and every once in a while I give them a peppermint to give Q. He loves that! Winter is coming, with warnings of our first storm to appear tomorrow. Im planning on locking myself into my house once the freezing rain begins until the sun comes out. So I, and the walkers, took in every ounce of sunshine present today.

These last few days I have had some really nice rides, but yesterday's really took the cake. After a few slow rides with fellow boarders needing a little hand, I woke up yesterday with the strong desire to cantalope to my hearts content. My buddy B at neighboring barn was happy to comply and so we picked one of the trails with the better footing in our increasingly frozen ground network of trails and he let me lead the way. Q is developing such a nice soft cantalope that almost feels like a "rocking horse". It's smooth, quiet, relaxing, and I can just sit tall and focus on my breathing. Nonetheless, by the end of that stretch I was out of breath. We kept up the pace at nice trots and cantalope for the rest of the trail and even got to do one of our last stops for the year at the babbling brook where Q converts into a camel and drinks in the cool spring water until he has his fill. Several times during the trail I would smile or giggle as I would watch Q with his radar...

I fell at a walk. My horse took off as I was screaming obscenities at the nearby dogwalker that let her dog chase us through the bush. Unleashed of course. My horse didn’t get very far as he stood twenty feet away from me, watching me with both eyes. The seconds before the fall are very blurry. I remember seeing the dog walker at a distance, but didn’t think anything of it. Then I heard the dog tearing through the bush to get us, the horse we were following bolted off, and I was not paying attention as I was putting on my gloves. My horse spun 180 degrees and literally left me hanging into a dead pine tree. I hit the ground fast but not so fast that I didnt shout six or seven swear words before my back hit the branches on the ground. I think my horse was spooked at his buddy bolting off, and all my screaming and swearing. I was so angry. But I do learn an important lesson every time I fall. Lately my lessons have been about my lack of awareness and my taking my horse for granted. On th...

Yesterday it was summertime in November. Blue skies, sunshine and 22 degrees! A record high for November and it was wonderful. My new buddy T and I left the barn at high noon in t-shirts for a long trek in sector 3. Given the record temps, I packed my little water bottles around my waist and some peppermints in my pockets. We were going to be gone for 3 hours with plenty of trotting and cantering involved. The footing was mostly dry as we had six consecutive days of dry warm weather. Sector 3 can be boggy in spots, so this was very helpful. Somewhere along the way, most probably in one of our canter stretches, I lost one of my little water bottles. But once I got back home, someone from our club posted its location on our facebook page so I should be able to find it again. T and I did have some struggles at speed. When she had her mare in front, the mare would spook and stop and was generally slow as molasses. It helped when we cantered because the mare trips less when in front, and al...

Well, I am now declaring the “summer of canter” a resounding success. I had a brilliant solo ride today with multiple brilliant stretches of loping on the buckle, occasionally correcting for proper leads but otherwise dropping all contact. Q was brilliant, relaxed, rhythmic, with a lovely cadence that was soft and controlled yet forward and ground covering. We were probably doing 8-9 foot strides so longer than a lope but shorter than a hunter pace. The feeling of that lope-on-a-buckle on a horse that has way more power is amazing. To have achieved this on a horse without professional western training is pretty incredible. Of course it does also require some trust because a strong spook or spin can literally leave you hanging when you have zero contact. But as I have learned, the more I let go and trust my horse, the more he trusts me. And when things do go wrong, by the time Ive picked up the contact the issue has been resolved. On top of all this, Qs neckrein has gotten very good at ...

It’s that time of year where the weather is a roller coaster of snow, ice, sunshine, warmth and strong chilling winds. The forest is barren aside from the conifers and moss. The odd beech tree is still hanging on to the dark brown leaves until the spring and the increasing rains have made the footing range from boggy to frozen. But we have plenty of fun just the same. Found myself a new riding partner who is just a delight. We canter and hand gallop down the big wide trails and my inner 9 year old giggles. She is back in the saddle after a 20 year absence, and her previous life as a cross-country eventer makes her bold and secure on the trails.  Work is always busy this time of year so riding time takes a backseat. Im usually managing to ride 3x a week. But every once in a while 6-7 days go by without a trip to see Q. And Im happy to report that this lovely 7 year old andalusian gelding is easy as can be when I finally show up: brush, tack up, foot in the stirrup and off we go. No ...