With the frigid air though comes the frozen ground. Which means that my fancy ring isn't so hot to ride in. The whole outside world isn't so hot to ride in (because it's cold! Oh ha). Believe it or not, I did have a suspicion that winter would occur and have been thinking about how to ride the dear sweet ponyface. I can go on walking hacks, and we've been doing those. Before it was so snowy, we visited the geese down at the lake.
You can't really see them, they're pretty far away by now, which is how EZ likes them.
But even walking is hard on the rutted fields, and, sorry to say, gets a little monotonous. So, I was thinking of boarding somewhere for about a month. With my really rich bank account I thought I could swing it, and since I wasn't coaching, I would have time to ride in the afternoons and maybe get some lessons in.
About that "not coaching" thing: Millbrook didn't have anyone to take the 6 kids who were riding at Kildare over the winter to the barn, and were looking for someone to do it for some extra cash. My scheming mind saw some potential--I could use that cash to pay for board, and maybe even at Kildare. It is super close to school, I'd be going there anyway with the kids three days a week, the little jumps we do with them would be perfect for me and EZ. I wanted to confirm with Kildare that this would be possible before I committed myself to the job, to be sure I would have enough time for EZ. But, I didn't. It's still unclear that they will have room, and I'm still unsure that I want to pay such a vast amount of cashola, even with the infusion from the extra coaching duty, but because I am at the core a selfless educator, I signed on nonetheless. Thanks for all the back-patting. Since the kids are not doing the volunteering gig we did in the fall and probably will do in the spring, the time commitment is only a few days a week, and I do think it's important to have some continuity in the program and in communications between the school and the barn; I'd like to see the program develop somehow more substantially, still not sure what that will be, but figure I should be around to figure it out.
In the meantime, a farm down the road from our own Indian Pond Farm has an indoor! (Cue enthusiastic and relieved applause!) Broken Wheel Ranch is about a 12 minute ride from Indian Pond Farm, Liz and I used to ride our horses there for 4H. Good times. Now the owner lets people use her new indoor for $10 an hour.
Pretty nice, right? It's legit. EZ and I have gone over there a few times now, and he loves it. Not really, it makes him nervous riding up to the farm with all the strange horses around and he starts to sweat. And that cart in there seems highly suspicious. But I love it, and he will too.
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| "Argh, this creepy indoor is making me sweat! And speak Pirate!" |
Margaret, the owner, thinks all the riding over and around in the freezing cold is a little craycray, and suggested we could figure something out to keep EZ there. I don't really mind the craycray freezing hack over, (although the way back, when EZ boy is all sweaty and in the frigid wind, makes me uncomfortable for him. I rub him down with a towel and think I will employ Cathleen's lapcover/quarter sheet in the future) but once I'm back at school, being the selfless educator, it will be hard to do it in the afternoon before it gets dark. So, keeping him there for maybe the month of January or so might be another good option. And I won't have to pay my whole paycheck? Compared to Kildare it will lack the convenience of being close to school/being paid to go there anyway, and also the instruction and jumping. But it will be right down the street from the herd, as well as being much more sane pricewise, and EZmoneybucks will already be somewhat accustomed to it. Hopefully less sweaty eventually too. Although I might have to do some clipping for that to be totally the case.
Anyway, moral of the story, this is why people move themselves and their EZ's to Florida for the winter.
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