Snow riding

We got snow over the weekend! Yay! I much prefer the ground be frozen and covered in the white stuff than the mucky yucky mud we usually slog through most of the winter.

It's been a number of years since we've had enough snow on the ground to really go out and have a fun "snow ride." This time we did and I rode in it. Funny how riding in the snow, listening to the squeak and swish of the snow beneath your horse's hooves and feeling that brisk, snow-scented wind against your face brings back memories.

It quickly brought back memories of riding in Kansas when I was a child. Kansas gets some serious snow and huge drifts and we always took advantage of those snow days off school to go galloping through it or tying a disk sled to the western saddle horn on my pony, Blaze, and racing all over the place with one of us terrified on the sled and the other on the pony with one goal in mind: Get the sledder OFF the sled in the most obnoxious way possible. Dumping the sledder into a deep drift was one of my favorite methods. Oh, the memories! 

The snow this weekend excited me. I was really, really ready to go for a good hell-bent for leather gallop through the white stuff and I think Gabe would have gladly and eagerly obliged, but somehow, age and maturity has clouded my brain with sensibility, and racing through a field covered in snow didn't seem like the smartest, safest thing to do upon my steed. In my teens and early 20s I would have thought nothing of it and just did it with a whoop and a holler and a grin plastered across my cold-reddened face. Now, I think of the holes and uneven surfaces hidden beneath that smooth layer and imagine a twisted leg or painful fall by both of us.

Sometimes, getting older and more mature sucks.

We did have fun, even without riding hell-bent and whooping through the fields. We trotted and cantered through the snow and just had a really good time. The kiddo rode the rotten pony (Little Lou), and Jacquie joined us on Teddy and we giggled and trotted and thoroughly enjoyed our ride. Kayleigh rode Lou bareback, her first foray off-property on him bareback and he was a gem.

The snow was heavy and wet and clung to tree branches, which turned out to be quite amusing. Did you know that if you're on the tallest horse, and a shorter horse is following closely behind, that you can grab a high branch  as you pass under the tree and ALL that snow will fall on the rider behind you? It does! Poor Teddy, he was absolutely covered in snow by the time we got through the woods! Jacquie even managed to get some down her pants, to our great amusement.

Our horses put up with such nonsense from us sometimes, but I do think they had fun, too. Snorty, happy horses out playing in the snow.