Real winter

The Puget Sound area's idea of winter is generally in the 40's to 50's with grey skies, often with drizzle. Dismal, depressing and oh so muddy. While I will happily ride in most weather, riding in the rain or even just in the wet (assuming it isn't raining at that moment) takes a lot of ambition and sometimes I really have to force myself to do it.

This week however, snow lovers like myself got an early present. Snow! And lots of it (for around here anyhow). My backyard has nearly a foot in places and we've had snow for nearly 6 days straight. Sadly, today we're getting freezing rain instead but I'll ignore that for now. So this weekend I had to get out and enjoy the snow with Ketah!

Friday afternoon Ketah and I went out for a fairly quick jaunt and took Sati along. We didn't go far, but everything is covered in snow so it was a new experience for the young'un and she was fine. Saturday I talked a friend from the desert into coming along too and we got far enough up the skid roads to enjoy snow on the trees, and we were riding while it was snowing! I haven't done that in years. Ketah was feeling energetic and Sati was great. She'd skitter at things occasionally, but with Ketah just moving on Sati didn't want to be left behind and her scares didn't amount to much.

At one point on the way home we decided to let them trot. Ketah's trot, especially her extended trot, tends to leave all other horses behind. My friend on her little Quarter Horse had to canter to keep up with Ketah's energetic (but not yet extended trot). Sati kept on trotting. Finally we let them stretch a bit, I didn't want Ketah galloping with the youngster so I just asked her to extend her trot (little QH had to gallop though, and still got left behind). I fully expected Sati to start cantering to keep up. She's a bit taller than Gali (sorry mom, I never spell it right) and all leg, but most horses would rather canter then stretch. Not Sati though. She stretched right out into an extended trot, never even tripped herself (amazing for a youngster) and I had the distinct impression she could've stretched it even further before breaking into a canter.

This one is going to be a lot of fun and a lot of work to ride! I better work a lot harder at the gym to be ready for her.

The pictures are from Sunday (when ponying a young horse there is no way I can take pictures too). I decided Sati had worked her young brain enough and Ketah and I went out again to just enjoy ourselves. It was colder and snowing but it's the same trail so you can see how lovely it looks right now! I'll pretend that it won't all be mud in a week...