Winter blahs

Oh, here we go again, the delightful period when all I can manage to write about is:
1. The early dark
2. The unending mud and
3. My inability to ride often because of 1 and 2.

Frustration sets in quickly and I begin to question more often, wondering if I really am a crazy person for wanting to keep my horses at home where I have no indoor arena and am constantly at the mercy of the weather.

Then, the ground freezes during the weekend, the sun comes out, the horses aren't plastered with mud and I can ride in the brisk, bright sun on a snorting, prancing, full-of-vim-and-vigor horse.

And life is good again.

Until the ground thaws, the horses take mud baths and I'm slogging through muck in the cold dark while cursing the winter solstice, frozen fingers and mud-caked boots.

But the hay shed is full, the horses are fuzzy and the tank heaters working. I'll get through another miserable winter, endlessly craving those seemingly scarce days when I can ride, finding contentment in simply burying my face in the warm, fuzzy neck of Gabe while he slobbers through his warm evening meal, dribbling some of it down my neck or across my back as he returns my affection with sticky, wet horse kisses.