Wind whipped and mudified

It's only December and I already hate this winter. It's muddy. It's cold. It's windy. And of course, we have these wonderful periods of icy rain and sleet that just make outside chores and driving a delight.

I haven't been able to do much of anything with the horses. I hate that. I just want to ride and I want to play with Gabe. I did get him out for a drive yesterday, even with the 45 mph winds snatching the lines and whipping them around bringing tears to my eyes. He was prancy and jiggy, but for the most part good. The wind was certainly not helping our communication through the lines and our steering is still sticky. But, I drove him down the driveway, further than he'd been, and let him look around at all the "new" stuff. He was definitely interested in the cows across the way! We practiced halting and speeding up, slowing down our gaits as well as turning left and right. It takes him a bit of time to turn and at the moment he handles more like a tank than a Porsche. No power steering on this baby! But we are installing power steering as well as air brakes...slowly but surely.

Kayleigh and I went for a short ride on Saturday. It was, once again, windy as heck and cold, making for a cold, not very enjoyable ride. The horses were being silly and snorting at everything and the footing was slick and swampy. I wish the mud would just freeze and stay frozen instead of this back and forth between crispy top layer and slimy, sucking under-layer of mud.

Calypso has not shown any more signs of lameness at all, so I'm thinking she just hit a "funny bone" or twisted something. Thank goodness!

My horses were not overly fond of the last load of hay we brought home. It was grass hay, no alfalfa in it at all. It was okay quality hay, not moldy or musty, but not nice and green and soft. Kind of stemmy with lots of fescue in it. They really don't like the fescue much at all. So, they aren't eating it all and I've had to feed MORE of it to make sure they are getting enough. Gabe is being particularly pissy about eating this hay. He has a TON out there, but he's turning it into bedding instead of eating it. The other two are eating it better, but not finishing it off like they should. They are picking through it. It kind of pisses me off. I paid the same amount for this hay as I do for the nicer hay, but I'm having to feed twice as much to make sure they are getting the same amount of calories, nutrition and bulk. Plus, having to feed a little bit more because it's been cold. So, at the end of it all, I went through this last load of hay almost twice as fast as I planned. Grrr. I'll have enough to get us through Wednesday and I'm crossing my fingers that my hay guy will 1) have a better load of hay in the barns and 2) be willing to set up a weekday appointment so I can go pick up a load. He usually prefers to do all his hay dealings on the weekend but I'm hoping he'll work with me. If not, I'm going to have to buy a couple of bales from friends, which I hate doing, but you do what you have to.