Post-storm horses

Or perhaps first-snow-of-year horses.

Very in-my-face per his usual

Not per her usual....

I love, love, love her brown highlights around her nose/eyes

Angry mare-face tells Griffin what's up!

Its GROWING! 2x as long as it was back at our first parade.

She does this a lot around me...

Ear rubs, her favorite

 Q has some odd swelling on the back of her right hind fetlock. At first inspection, she was tender, but then she was tender to me touching all of her legs/feet. After a quick run around in the round pen and seeing that her gait wasn't boggled at all, I re-assessed her legs and she stood solidly and let me touch them all without jerking them up and around. She seems to have trust issues when tied, but when left at liberty within a round pen she's much happier to let me assess her. Perhaps knowing she could escape it at any moment eases her? Its something we need to work on at any rate - no matter how well she ground ties in the pen, she needs to let me assess when she's tied, too, without acting a fool.

Griffin on the other hand... Well, better you watch than me write:

And then in the round pen:

: : : : :

Q is full of herself. Absolutely full of herself. This cold weather makes her go gah-gah. I can't wait to dig myself out from under this proverbial pile of homework and harness her energy into something new and exciting. With snow on the ground, wet sloppy conditions, and hunters in the woods I have plans to teach  both horses to self-load onto the trailer. The gravel drive shouldn't get too messy and hunters aren't around there!

IF it decides to dry out at all I have plans to put her through several little gymnastic routines and try and get her jumping a little more structured and balanced. She's got skill and power, but she's all over the place! Likely though, a lot of our US work will be on the rail trail until hunters vacate the woods! I do have some plans to do more groundwork with her, too, polish up our relationship with one another through various liberty exercises.

Griffin has a lot coming to him this winter. He's already got some foundation for liberty work, so I'd really like to improve upon that and see how far we can go with it. I need him to be my leader for duo liberty work with Q. And depending upon many factors perhaps he shall be sat upon this winter, too. Time shall tell!

Frankenstorm 2012

We didn't die. But we did lose power for 3 days. Some folks still don't have power as of this writing; temperatures are in the 30s and 20s depending upon your elevation. We were fortunate enough to have a gas stove to cook with and a working fireplace to keep the house warm.

I managed to get in my first turns of the season with Kenai Monday night before everything went to hell and a hand basket. We're so used to getting these mondo-predictions for snow fall and it never happening that we really didn't believe the forecasters when they said we could get 1 - 4 feet of snow... We got 22" at my house. The Valley (where I patrol) got 3 some feet, and I honestly wouldn't doubt that areas like Dolly Sods scored around 4 feet. I've seen photos of drifts well over 10 feet in height from a neighboring county.

While pretty, heavy, wet snow is cause for a lot of trouble. The weight of it coupled with the vast amount of it that was dumped upon our wee heads caused roofs to collapse and many, many trees to come crashing down on powerlines, houses, roads, cars, and anything in their way. Its utter and complete destruction and I absolutely FEAR seeing my trails when I get time to get back out on Q. A mere glimpse of the rail trail as I drove past on my way to the barn to check the horses today afforded me with a view of at least 3 downed trees. The only positive is that they will provide Q with some interesting new jumps to consider!

My neighborhood was an absolute MESS of trees. The plow guys had to cut their way into and OUT of the neighborhood during their Monday night plowing session. Hundreds of trees are down in the roads and hundreds more are down in our yards/driveways/etc. The plow even refused to do our drive so we had to shovel it...my driveway is ~500 feet? That's a LOT of shoveling when you consider there were 22" of wet, heavy snow!

But we were lucky overall. Kenai was convinced that this was the greatest event EVER. He ran amok like a total idiot with a blissful grin on his face the whole time. For those not friends with me on Facebook to see my updates, he was like a little child on Christmas morning. He even begged to go out as if he had to crap himself right then and there only to run around in the snow and perform evasive maneuvers to try to get me to leave him out all night. Silly dog. Love him to death - though I wanted to kill him several times because of his enthusiastic antics!

4Runner begone!

Bad snow trees

Good snow trees!

WW: A kitten for Halloween!

Twas a good Halloween!

a last hurrah

Our riding club got together the past weekend for one last hurrah trail ride before winter sinks in. About 20 of us set out on the trail Saturday morning. We started at the river and climbed the mountain to the almost-top, stopped for lunch, and then descended back to the campground we were basing out of.

Seeing folks I hadn’t seen lately, and riding with folks I hadn’t ridden with in weeks/months/years was really a treat. The day was overcast and a little breezy, but the chances of rain were minimal. The trees weren’t quite at peak, but a lot of rusts and golds still cling to the trees. It was still beautiful. West Virginia autumns always are.

I was exceptionally excited for this ride because it was in an area that I have always dreamed of riding. The time I’ve owned Q has really opened a lot of doors for riding places I’d always dreamed about. Its been such a treat finally getting to experience these places on horseback. Many of them are places I’m familiar with through hiking and various work through the years. This mountain was no exception.

I’d spent the entire summer of 2009 working on the mountain we rode last weekend. It’s close to home, too, and I’d grown up playing and hiking most of the trails. I know most of the Forest Service roads up there rather intimately from my summer 2008 job with the Forest Service (that job is the biggest reason I have an intimate understanding of so many FS roads and the trail systems within the Mon. Forest).

The trails we road were a mix of FS roads, old logging roads (circa early 1900s), and a few game trails to link adjacent roads. Steep and rocky, beautiful and fun. No more of a challenge than the trails on the endurance ride, really. Q was more than up for it.

I booted her all around in anticipation of the rocks. I think we slid a little more than she would have barefoot on the leaves due to the boot plastic, but nothing too crazy. The leaves were very thick on the forest floor. I’d reckon to say that ~75% of them have fallen.

Overall, I was very proud of Q through the whole ride. She’s still a bit mare-ish about horses running up her butt, but nothing crazy. She had a few moments where she became exceedingly worried about all activity around her and had a little skitter-fest. One of my good friends, the area’s equine vet, even noticed and we laughed at Q for being a spazz.  Truly though, I hope to figure out what triggers her concern and remedy the problem for her. She never put me in danger by behaving in such a manner, but I’d like for her to be able to work through and overcome things better so she doesn’t have to be distressed.

She took care of me through the whole ride though and out-performed all my expectations for her.

• When bush-wacking (minor) up a hill to link two trail-roads, she took my cue to move away from the other horses and skillfully navigated through the trees at a canter, breaking through onto the road above like it was nothing. She promptly dropped her head to eat, totally unconcerned with all the crashing going on as people plowed through the woods behind us.
• We deviated from the beaten path to drop off a short, steep incline as the terrain below appeared better. She tucked her hind legs underneath and slid down the short incline per Man From Snowy River. I was nearly lying on her back due to the steepness! Upon reaching the bottom we found it to be quite rocky under all those leaves. Soccer ball-sized stones. Tricky, tricky footing. I gave her her head and let her work her way back up the slope a little further down. She stumbled a moment into the side of the hill; I took this moment to step off and let her take the last three or four tricky steps on her own.
• At the very end of the ride we had yet another short, steep incline to reach the point of crossing on the river. She took this slower, and more precisely than the former hill. This resulted in my saddle slipping forward onto her neck and putting me immediately in a very tricky position. I didn’t know HOW to get off safely without spooking Q or hurting one of us. It was NOT a good place for this to happen! Apparently, Q’s back leg was also caught up in a stick (per the account of a friend behind me). She’d lifted the leg high, high, high to get it over the stick. She didn’t spook over that sensation coupled with me + saddle on her neck. She situated her feet, got stable, and then turned uphill into a safer position so I could dismount and fix everything. GOOD GIRL, Q!!!!!
  
• Finally, at the river crossing our biggest yet, she was a super star. She let me guide her to the least-deep section that still came up to her belly. I had to take my feet out of the stirrups to avoid wet boots! The bottom was cobbled river stone and a likely a little slick in places. She picked her way carefully and I giggled the whole time. It was just a too cool ending to the day.
• And then, all through the night she stood stoically tied to the trailer like a champ. Even with a small crowd of rowdy drunks and a campfire being ~20 feet from her location, she was unbothered and relaxed. Such a good girl!!

You can see where her belly and chest are wet from the deeper water!

A great end ride to the season. We had a blast. I’m so happy with my little horse and grateful that she stumbled into my life when she did.