Winter is Here!

It's official. I woke up yesterday to find a blanket of snow upon the ground. It was absolutely lovely. The loveliness was enhanced by the fact that it wasn't cold enough to stick to the road, meaning my road (read: giant fucking hill) was clear. Hooray! I still have my highly worn all-season tires on, so this was indeed cause for joy. It all melted by the afternoon, but the morning sure was pretty.

On Monday night we had a massive storm. Thunder and lightning, rain and hail, and 49 mph winds with 67 mph wind gusts. It was almost straight out of a movie. It wasn't so bad at my place, I'm sheltered by the giant fucking hill that I live on, but at the barn apparently it was awful. They put Cherry and her pasture mate in stalls that night since their shelter got ripped apart by the wind and as such they refused to stand in it. Instead they stood out in the driving rain and hail, shivering their butts off. So they got stalls and lots of hay for the night.

The storm did a fair bit of damage around here. The next town over was without power for a few days, and a steel shed my boss has got its doors wrenched off and crumpled up in the yard. On campus the roof of the Beef Center was ripped off. Thankfully the roofs at the barn remained on!

Poor Cherry, she was wound up so tight on Tuesday. She made the very annoying decision of calling to (and answering) the new buddy she'd made the night before. It was still pretty windy and gross outside, and as soon as I got on her, it started hailing. Of course! So now I'm on a super stressed, super nervous horse in a metal-roofed indoor arena while hail comes pelting down. I couldn't even hear my own voice. I thought about getting off, but I decided to stay on and make her move around a bit to try and loosen up. If I turned her out, she'd just gallop around and work herself into a lather. And then be freezing and require blow drying. No thank you to that.

We did a lot of walk, a little trot, and lots of circles. Every little noise made her jump, but fiiiiinally at the end she relaxed. I got a little bit of work out of her once she focused and then we were done. I'm proud of myself too for sticking it out and staying on her, even though she was really high strung and jumpy. Hey, if I can ride her through that, I can ride her through anything.