Round Two Thousand Five Hundred and Thirty Eight

Ya, it snowed again yesterday. Started out raining a whole lot and as the afternoon wore on it turned to snow.

That is what we had when I went to bed around 11 and it was still coming down like crazy.

When I woke up this morning it was sunny and beautiful outside so even though I'm totally OVER the snow I had to take some pictures. It was all foggy outside too, very pretty.

The snow was really wet and heavy and falling off the trees very quickly. I had to dodge falling snow to take this picture.

Ok, that's all. Enough snow. When is summer?!?

March

Well, March has certainly come in like a lion. A really cranky, manic-depressive lion with bad ju-ju and possibly multiple personalities.

In one weeks time we've had sunny, blue skies and 60 degree absolutely beautiful weather, wind, rain, showers, more rain, thunder storms and now snow. As I am typing this it is dumping snow and going on 2 inches accumulated. Over the weekend it would go from sunny blue skies, to wind to snow to hail and back to sun every half hour or so. I swear I'm only exaggerating a tiny bit.

It's March 9th for crying out loud. It's not supposed to be snowing any more! Am I imagining things that not that many years ago we could get thru an entire winter and not see one single snow flake? I know last winter it snowed quite early (around Thanksgiving) and quite late too (at least the end of Feb, if not into March). And it snowed quite a bit last winter, just like it has this year. I'm not liking this trend.

Have I mentioned I'm ready for summer? I'm really over the snow.

ps - weekend update coming soon! I went to a working cowhorse clinic. SO. MUCH. FUN!!!

Hibernating for winter

What is it with this time of year and my complete lack of motivation to do...well, pretty much anything?

It's annoying, that's what it is! I'm sick of it. I'm tired of being in hibernation mode. I want to not have to fight with myself to get something done in the evening. I want to be able to go out and jump on my horse when I get home from work and not dread the cold or decide I don't feel like being out in the weather because I'm a weenie and bag the whole idea. Again. I want to look outside at the sun and blue skies and not get shivers because, while it is a nice day, I know it's also 20 degrees out there. I want to see green leaves on trees and flowers coming up and hear birds chirping. I want to have more then 45 minutes of day light when I get home, though that is an improvement over the 3 minutes of daylight I had just a month ago. I want to be able to wear my new heels (see previous post) without having to worry about stepping in a mud puddle with them or my feet turning purple in the 15 seconds it takes me to walk to my truck because I don't have thick socks on and it's freezing cold out.

I miss my horse. I miss seeing more then her head and her legs from the knees down because she's all bundled up in her cozy water and weather proof blanket. I'm ready for her to not be a muddy, extremely hairy mess. Not looking forward to the actual shedding part, but I'm definately ready for the summer coat.

I'm tired of winter. I'm tired of cold. I'm tired of darkness. I'm also just tired. I want summer already! Or atleast spring. I need some vitamin D.

On a not so depressing note...it's only partly cloudy today, no precipitation in the forecast and a somewhat mild 40 degrees. I might actually stay motivated to get on my horse tonight. Yeehaw!

Brrrr!

I think maybe I was meant to be a southern Californian.

It has been darn cold around here lately. Most mornings for the past week or so it's been 27 degrees. This morning, after I froze in the 10 seconds or so it took me to get from my house to my truck, the temp gauge in my truck said 27 and then started dropping as soon as I pulled out from under the car port, eventually bottoming out at 23. 23!!!

Now, I know I'm just a big weenie and it could be a lot worse, and was just a few weeks ago, but that is just way too darn cold for me. I'm more a fan of a nice 75+ degrees. Hence why I think I belong in So Cal right now. Even though I'm not blond (and don't ever plan to be) and everything on me is 100% real, I still think I could fit in just fine down there. :-)

I wonder...

...does Mother Nature get P.M.S.?

I think she must. Why she has chosen Western Washington to pick on for the past few weeks I'm not sure, but I do know that she is being rather nasty. First there was rain. Then there was snow. Then there was melting snow. Way below freezing temps. Ice. More snow. More ice. Rain. Rain. More rain. Some wind thrown in for kicks. Then more snow. Then non stop rain on top of suddenly warm temps causing way too much snow to melt and come gushing down the mountains. Add that to lots more rain and we've got quite a mess out here!

I'm very thankful that it was rather soggy and near flooding when we were house shopping so that we were concious of how wet any land that we looked at got. Our house is up on a hill and the whole property slopes just enough that it doesn't get too terribly soggy. Atleast I hope not. I guess we'll be finding out for sure here shortly. There is a creek that runs thru the front of our neighborhood that is now more closely resembling a raging river and I think I heard we have a new lake down there too. Things are getting pretty dicey down here by my work too. Sounds like there are evacuations going on all around me. Good times.

Could someone please tell me where I might be able to locate good ol' Mother Nature so I can pass along a big bottle of Midol? Thanks!

Totally cleaned up!

I'm beginning to like this snow/cold/bad weather and roads stuff! Apparently it keeps all the good people home from the shows so we can clean up! :-)

Yesterday I did sorting for the first time ever. I've been hesitant to try it out because my horse gets a little amped up around cows and being in a small pen with a bunch of them just never really seemed like a great idea to me. After our work last summer with cows/buffalo and watching the boyfriend sort at a clinic and the last show I was itching though. It looks like fun and I was beginning to really understand it. I hadn't ever really paid too much attention before, but when I actually watched closely and figured out what they were doing it started to appeal to me. So I decided to take a stab at it this weekend. I figured I would either get it or totally suck and never do it again. Apparently I got it. My very first sorting run ever I ended up tying for first place with a couple other teams. My first run was also with the boyfriend so we both came home with pretty first place ribbons and a small jack pot. It was kind of fun!

The exciting part was, Midori was great! She was mostly quiet and went into the herd just fine. She picked it up really quickly and we did awesome for our first time, in my opinion, placings aside. During all three runs she was cooperative and did great shaping to the cow I wanted and cutting them out and pushing them. I didn't feel like a fish out of water trying to get the cow I wanted, like I've seen so many people do. I was thrilled. She wasn't so happy sitting in the gate, but she did alright. Until the big black baldy charged us. She didn't quite know what to think of that on the second run and we ended up letting him thru so we got a no time. But when the same cow tried the same thing on our third run we were able to stop him, twice, and we got 3 cows.

Yes, that's right. 3 cows in 90 seconds. The sad part is, our "winning" run was 4 cows. Love the small shows! I'm still very excited with how well Midori did sorting and I think I may be hooked now. I can't wait til the next one to see if it was just a fluke! :)

We cleaned up!

This weekend the boyfriend and I went to another reining show in the winter series that we're participating in. We're both doing the beginner reining class and so far this series we are pretty much stuck in the middle of the pack. We had debated even continuing with the reining since the sorting is way more fun, but decided that since we started it and it's a pretty inexpensive class we may as well finish the series just for kicks.

This weekend in particular we were really debating going since we hadn't been able to ride much because of the weather. On top of that, the few oppurtunities that we did have to ride I had passed on because I was just burned out. I wanted to stay home and clean my house (yes, I do realize how crazy that sounds) and just relax instead of being outside freezing and riding. I was going thru some major pony withdrawals and would stick my nose in my horses neck any chance I got, but I just couldn't bring myself to actually ride.

The weather was still bad and the roads were a little icy since temps had dropped way lower then they had predicted over night, but we still braved the elements and headed out to the show. I went into it with the attitude that I really didn't care, I just wanted a good ride on my horse. I had ridden once in the past 3 weeks and that was just briefly so I wasn't expecting anything. Of course with the weather a lot of people decided to not chance it and stayed home so the show was tiny. There were only 4 people in the beginner class that usually has 8-10.

We got there extra early to have plenty of time to warm up and get their kinks out. Midori was being an angel. I didn't ask for much since I hadn't been on her in a while, but she did everything I asked. I think she was excited to be out. I even got a flying lead change out of her, though it wasn't pretty and sort of by accident. lol

The boyfriend went third and I went last in the class. I didn't watch the first two, but the boyfriends pattern was much improved over what he had been doing. I was really happy to see that. I felt pretty good about my pattern, in relation to my other patterns. We got our leads, our "spins" weren't any worse then they usually are, the stop was good and she backed nicely. She launched into the big fast circles. I was afraid I wasn't going to get her back to slow down for the small circles, but she did. I think she knows the pattern, even though I never do it except at shows. Brat.

Since it was so freaking cold we put them away as soon as they were cooled out after the class. While we were at the trailer untacking we heard placings for our class. The boyfriend got 2nd and I got 1st. We wohoo'd and high fived eachother and laughed. We rocked that show! But only because everyone who usually beats us were too chicken to come out. Oh well, I'll take what I can get! Atleast I was happy with my pattern that I won with! We're both improving and that's all that matters. The ribbons and jackpot are just a bonus!

My Midori

While I was out taking pictures of the snow, Midori decided to come say hi. She's usually pretty camera shy, which is the one characteristic that I can surely tell you is not like her "mom" (me).





She let me take quite a few pics before she got completely bored of me. I credit the new camera. :-) I can't wait to take more pics of her when she's not a shaggy, hairy, soggy mess!





Speaking of a shaggy, hairy, soggy mess...here she is in all her glory. She is perfectly dry and warm under that blanket, believe me, I check. A lot. But still: barn is priority this summer!!!!!! We are pretty darn sick of the hair (and dreading shedding) and swear next year they are getting lights, heaters, heavy, heavy blankets, the whole 9 yards because they will not be hairy next year!!! Maybe.



Here she is with the sun behind her. She was drying off a bit.





Here she is trying to decide if I'm really important enough to come say hi to. Notice Sugar peeking at me under her neck. Sugar is a peeker. I rarely see her look up and over the fence, she always peeks thru it. She's funny like that.





Midori finally decided to walk over and see me and she was greeted with a big glop of melting snow from a tree above falling right on her head.

She still stayed and visited for a few minutes.

I love my pony. And I love horse's eyes. Can you tell? :-)

More snow!

We got more snow the other night. It was a complete surprise to me this time as the last forecast that I saw only included rain, rain and more rain. I wasn't terribly upset about it though since I had a long weekend ahead of me, no commuting required, and I didn't have anything better to do with my time then go out and take pictures with my new camera! I was particularly thrilled when I saw that there were also sunny blue skies. Wohoo!

So almost 200 pictures and very numb fingers and toes later, these are some of my favorites.

Chey had fun digging things up to play with. Crazy dog!

The ponies weren't so amused by the snow. They were actually pretty darn soggy.


This threw me for a loop. The snow was accumulated on the bottom of the rails... ??? How does that even work?

Rain, rain, go away!

Far, far away!

Seriously.

I don't know which is worse, rain or snow. Snow is atleast pretty and mostly dry while it's freezing a$$ cold out. Though it does totally suck to drive in and being house bound for any length of time is not so much fun. But rain this time of year is just miserable. Especially rain and wind! It's cold and wet and wet and cold. And ugly and gray. And wet. Oh, and it's cold too. It makes driving oh so fun in it's own way, but atleast it's not completely debilitating to my commute like snow can be. I am very glad that it's alteast a few degrees above freezing and I was thrilled when I woke up to most of the snow melted a couple days ago! It's pretty and fun to look at for a couple days, but I was really over it. I was also very happy to be able to go out and feed the horses without having to take 10 minutes just to get bundled up enough that I'd be able to feel most of my extremeties when I got back in. Cutting out a good 20 minutes of busting up ice in water troughs was nice too. Not that I did much of that. I did stand there and hold the flashlight for the boyfriend while he did it though.


Now that all the snow has melted and it's supposed to pretty much pour for as many days as the weather forecast shows, I'm not looking forward to the state of my ponies' paddocks. Or my mental health. Does anyone else have just a touch of cabin fever? Wow. I had 5 days off in a row because of Christmas and even with all of the hustle and bustle of celebrating I still got some major cabin fever. I was pretty well fried by the fifth morning. I do enjoy relaxing and being a lazy bum for a little bit, don't get me wrong. But I think it's part of that whole "you always want what you can't have" thing. The weather was keeping me inside, since I'm a total weenie, and I wanted more then anything to be able to be outside and get some sun. Thankfully, the weather changed a bit yesterday so I was able to get a little fresh air. It was only for a few minutes, but it made a huge difference. The sun even peeked out for a bit! Back to gray and rainy today though. I have caught a couple glimpses of blue sky, but it never lasts very long. It should be an interesting couple of weeks.

Our poor horses are already looking like drowned rats. Makes me feel really bad for not getting them some sort of shelter other then big blankets and trees to hide under. Hopefully they forgive us. Summer goal this year: finish the barn!!!


Which brings me to a bright spot in all of this...we are past the shortest day of the year! It's only going to get better from here on out! Atleast for about 6 months. That is such a huge relief! We're on the down hill slide into summer! Wohoo!!! I'm ready! I can't wait for summer to get here!

ps - I got a super snazzy new camera over the weekend. I'm sure pictures galore will be here shortly! Well, maybe once the weather clears up...there aren't so many interesting things to take pictures of in the house. And while it does have a lot of zoom, I'm still on my macro kick and taking pictures of things outside from inside just isn't all that much fun.

Snow!

I can't decide if I like the snow or not. Generally I'm a big fan of it. It's very pretty and, if I decide to not be a complete weenie, it can be really fun to go out and play in. I do love a good snow ball fight or sledding adventure every once in a while.

The last couple years though, I've been perfectly content to sit inside and more or less ignore it while I hibernate. Now that I am older, snow can be very annoying. At our old house, traffic was hell if it snowed. I was expecting more of the same, or maybe worse since my commute is twice as long now, but was pleasantly surprised by how light traffic was on Wednesday, the first morning waking up to snow. I made it in to work in almost record time. It's times like these that I'm very thankful for my truck and definately not willing to part with it, even though it's hardly practical to drive a 3/4 ton lifted truck for my 60 mile round trip commute. My truck is heavy with good tires and four wheel drive. Even when I try to "test the roads" to see just how bad they really are, my truck hardly goes any where. I've never had a single problem with it in the snow (finding wood to knock on now).

Last year, when the highway that used to get me to and from work was a big sheet of ice and there were cars slipping and sliding all over the place, hitting curbs, going in ditches, stopping at lights and not able to get going again, I just put 'er in four wheel drive and wound my way thru the carnage so I could get back home. I did feel a little guilty for just going around the little old people in their Cadillac trying to make a turn on a slight incline with tires spinning, but what was I going to do?

Anyways, traffic and trying to get to work just plain sucks when it's snowing. Surprisingly, my new commute isn't as crazy bad as my old commute and I've managed to make it in in one piece, in decent time with only minor irritations both mornings that I've tried, but it still puts a damper on my enjoyment of the fluffy white stuff. I want to like it, I really do. I try to be happy when it's in the forecast and enjoy it while I can, but it's hard when I'm anticipating the hell on earth that is commuting in the snow.

I decided to call yesterday a snow day, mostly because I really was a little sick, so I did get a chance to enjoy it some. I ran outside to take some pictures during a break in the snow where the sun actually peaked out a bit. The ponies aren't so happy about the snow and were happy to come say hi to me for a minute. Cheyanne got to go out and play in the snow for a bit and I think she had fun, though she did seem a little hesitant to really get out in it much. I think she was perfectly content in the house for most of the day. She followed me around while I was out there, but most of the rest of the time she was out there I think she just hung around on the porch under cover.

Later in the afternoon the boyfriend got a little stir crazy and decided we needed to go for a drive. We had planned to get a little Christmas shopping done, but once we headed out it started snowing like crazy and it looked like everyone was trying to beat it home because there was traffic every where. We gave up on the Christmas shopping idea pretty quickly and decided to just make a little loop that would normally have taken us maybe 45 minutes. It ended up taking us 3 1/2 hours. Roads were being closed, cars were going in ditches and sliding back down hills or pulling off to chain up before going up hills. It was bad. Finally, after a tour of almost every single back road in existence between home and "town" we made it back home where 2-3 inches of new snow greeted us. Sheesh! Talk about bad timing.

I'm planning to enjoy the snow this weekend. I really want to. We still have a little bit of Christmas shopping to do, but it should be fairly easy. Hopefully I can have a little fun with the snow while it's here!

Finally, some therapy!

As I've mentioned before, riding horses is amazing therapy. For me. Most of the time. Every once in a while, you just have a darn frustrating ride, I guess you can't win 'em all! Most of the time though, it is very therapeutic. Last night was one of those incredibly therapeutic nights. I have been more than a little crabby and stressed this week. Our last drill practice was cancelled because there was a long show at the arena, so it had been a week and a half since I last rode my horse. I think it was going on three weeks since I rode my horse on my own, not at drill practice. How sad is that?!?

The weather here has been absolutely miserable lately. Gray, windy, cold and rainy. Very, very rainy. Besides the weather absolutely sucking any motivation to ride my horse out of me, and the depressingly short days, I've been really busy with other things. Trying to take advantage of the last bit of nice weather to get some yard work done and I have been working on getting my kitchen painted. The kitchen is taking way more time then I thought it would. I spent most of last week picking colors and prepping it for the painting, then I spent most of the weekend painting it. Monday I touched it up and pulled all the tape off. I still want to give the counters and floor a good scrubbing before I move everything back into it. Because of that, the whole rest of my house looks like the kitchen barfed all over it. Or has just plain been neglected because I've been so consumed by the kitchen. I have also decided that I'm really not such a big fan of painting. It kinda, sorta, really sucks. I love the end result, but there are so many things that I would rather be doing then actually painting.

I know, I know...excuses. They are like...ummm...noses, everybody has one. We have another show in the winter reining series coming up this weekend though so getting on my horse this week is just not optional! Last night there was a flag clinic at the arena. I love flag clinics! They are fun, a good workout and a fabulous tool in reminding my horse to use her damn butt again! After our stop at the last show, this clinic couldn't have come at a better time! The boyfriend definately needed the saddle time to. He's been so busy hunting that poor Sugar has just been hanging out getting fat for a month now! She has always been very athletic looking and a little harder to keep weight on then the other two, but she has actually put some weight on and looked like I think a horse sitting in the pasture should going into winter. Of course, as soon as she started working last night, she sucked that gut right in and looked her ideal working weight again. Not sure how she managed that.

Both of the girls were a little snorty and spicy when we first got there, but it didn't take them long to warm up out of it. By the time the clinic got going, they were both working really well. Midori and I totally hit our groove, which is always fun! I could tell I hadn't ridden in a while though. I felt like I kept dropping my shoulder or leaning to the inside and I kept catching myself looking down more then up. Since I felt like I was doing that, I couldn't hardly blame Midori when she dropped her shoulder or stumbled thru something. I really had to think hard about keeping myself straight and balanced. It's amazing what just a week and a half off from riding will do to your body! I felt like Gumby up there for the first couple laps, trying to figure out where my legs and arms and body were. Probably didn't help that Midori was a bit of a wiggle worm during that to, but again, I blame myself. It's a lot more productive then blaming the horse! That's usually when you get one of those darn frustrating rides!

Anyways, when it came time to work the flag, which Midori had been watching intently during the other riders turns, she decided to ignore the stupid thing and run right past it. We had a quick little conversation that went something along the lines of "Um, HELLO! That flag thing over there? Ya, you're supposed to stop and turn with it! Remember?!? It hasn't been that long since you did this on buffalo!" Luckily, she's a good listener and it only took two little conversations for her to catch on. But then she started anticipating the turn, instead of waiting for the flag ("cow") to turn her. It was fun and good experience to work her thru those issues though. We worked on shaping and getting her to really use her butt to stop, which is never all that hard with her. She just needs a little reminder sometimes and it's always easier when more then just my butt and maybe the rail are involved. Overall I was very pleased with how she worked and how quickly we were able to correct our little issues. The trainer said he really liked the basics we have, that we did really good. I didn't listen in to see if he told everyone that, but I like to think we were a little impressive for how little we really do with cutting. The first time I ever worked the flag with Midori, the trainer that did that clinic said she was amazed that that was our first time ever and that Midori has the kind of natural talent she looks for when she's picking young cutting horses. Again, I like to think she wasn't just blowing smoke, but I try not to let it go to my head.

So after a good almost two hours on my horse I had all but forgotten all of my worries and crabiness and stress. None of it even crossed my mind the rest of the night. Not even when I got home and had to wander thru the maze of kitchen crap in the living room or shove the mountain of laundry waiting to be folded aside so I could snag a spot on the couch to sit down for a minute. I was totally, completely relaxed and I'm sure if it hadn't been past my bedtime already I would have been chipper. I sure woke up in a pretty good mood this morning. I love it that riding horses does that for me.