Snow is here, for now

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 own trail network until the snow melts in April.

It was fun to rediscover our winter trail. But this is now our shoulder season with often the most challenging footing of the year with freezing rain, slippery icy trails and often being stuck indoors. So even if the footing was crusty, Ill take it.