Spring Has Sprung

I love spring. The warmer weather, the burst of colors, the singing birds and amphibians, the longer days, the sun rising at the ass crack of dawn to better mesh my normal routine, the flowers, the lack of long winter coats on the horses, and the list could go on!

Winter was hit and miss this year. Spring has been threatening to begin for months. The hot-cold wet-dry cycle of a turbulent shoulder season between pseudo-winter and spring was exceptionally hard on local horses this year. Abscesses were a too-common occurrence. Stan, especially suffered with foot soreness and abscesses for about three straight weeks. It was kind of the pits.

But he's all better now! And we've hit the ground running (literally) as if we hadn't missed a day.

I don't know if it's because spring is here, or if Stan's finally truly enjoying regular work with me instead of Lauren, or maybe he's just finally come to the full realization after a winter with me that he's mine and I'm his, but suddenly he's nickering at me and approaching me in the field and enjoying work with gusto. It's so refreshing and such a blast from the past to have this working relationship with this animal again. We've got a lot of work to do yet to be ready for an early August LD, but I'm confident we'll get there. 😊

Griffin is doing well with his work, also. He's still the most willing partner I've ever had in a horse and really loves his work. We did have a mild choke scare (my first with this horse) last week that had me scared for a bit because I literally had no vet access nearby if things took a swing for the worse. Fortunately, Grif was able to pass the blockage on his own after a nerve-wracking 20 minutes.

We haven't done anything explicitly focused with our dressage lately beyond being certain that we are consistent in the contact at both the walk and the trot. It's enough for right now and has served to help us develop a very good "work" mode that I can get him into even on his more distracted of days.

Our jump sessions have been exceptional lately. I've been jumping almost exclusively with my bareback pad and it's really helping me see and feel distances better than I have in the past. Something is really clicking. Griffin is great about hunting down jumps, but until the last month, I was having a hard time being more than a monkey on his back. Lately, we're a TEAM and it feels so sweet. It's everything I knew it could be and it gives more tangible promise to what I know it will be.

We're tangoing with the idea of our first full phase schooling event at the end of May. I've got a couple weeks left before I have to make my decision, so we will see. (There are several outside extenuating circumstances that need to resolve first.) If we went, we'd be competing at a level much lower and jumps than we work at home (a W-T dressage test and 18"- 2' jumps; we work on WTC at home and jump 2'6" regularly), so the biggest challenge for Griffin will be handling the stress of the atmosphere that is Loch Moy. Fortunately, the dressage court, jumping stadium, and XC areas for the intro and elementary levels are a bit quieter than other areas. Time will tell if we can go or not!

Beyond 2 to 3 rides per week on each of the boys (quick aside: Q is fat and happy and healing well), my life has been relatively humdrum for me lately. Dave's nursing a rotator cuff injury from February still, so we aren't climbing - I need to get on the climbing wall with more consistency, but it just hasn't been in the cards the past couple weeks. I plan to change this soon! We're biking a fair bit to make up for it though. And hiking with Kenai, too. (He's doing great, by the way! 😄)

I'm also spending a fair bit of time "nesting" and homesteading. It's so wonderful to have a home of my own and a yard of my own and a GARDEN. I've got most of our veggies and herbs planted and sprouted and I spent a fair bit of my Sunday this past weekend transplanting trees, flowers, and shrubs from my parents to our house. It was a lot of work, but I'm absolutely in love with the effects so far. Landscaping really makes a house a home, IMHO.

I've got three straight weekends of horse plans hovering in my near future if things go as I hope. And somewhere in that time, I think I'm finally going to be able to share my final "big" updates on my horses and our moving situation(s). They're a long time coming, I know, but they still aren't final.

So, what's your favorite part about spring? Horse-related and non? Any fun things to look forward to in your near future with or without horses?