Jiggity Jig

We're home again!  Yesterday marked the 5 week mark at Broken Wheel Ranch, and our date of departure.  It is still mad snowy around and not a whole lotta options for outdoor riding, but it was time to return to Indian Pond Farm.

 Although still snowy, as seen from the ride down to the road from the Ranch, the air does undeniably have a spring feeling to it.  It has been alternately raining, snowing, melting and freezing, but it seems to be moving towards a general thaw from the Snowpocolypse 2011.

Trying to aim from horseback is tricky.  Here, though,  you get a good view of where EZ's mane gets bunk.  I've been considering braiding it to try to get it to lay all on one side.  Then I think, why?  I mean, if I was going to attempt mane-care, probably I should start with pulling it to a decent length, no?  But it's so thin to start with, I'd rather leave it long, as long as it's acceptable to French Braid it if/when we show.  I don't know what Emily Post would say about that.

EZ was somewhat confused and kept looking back over at his bachelor gang; it had been awhile since we had made the mailbox-riddled road ride back to Indian Pond Farm.

Once we got home though, there was much reuniting with the D Gang.

Note Donovan's trademark "I am so big/give me treats" neck arch that he employs on occasions such as these.

 It's not like they were embracing in joy and love, but nor were they snorting in rejection.

Once everyone had deemed each other non-threatening, it was back to the full herd.

Donovan thought it was his duty as self-appointed herd leader to follow EZ around to make sure he wasn't up to no good.

EZ and Dutch also checked each other out a bit

But they determined nothing required further investigation.  And EZ's tongue felt really heavy.

All in all, it was all so uneventful that Donovan thought he'd just catch a little nappy. 

And EZ had to just get a little roll in, in order for it to fully feel like home.

Sorry it's so bouncy, Donovan was literally breathing down my neck.  I think I should start a rolling video collection.  They are always endlessly entertaining.

The reintroduction of babyEZcakes means restructuring the feeding process, which has been helpfully streamlined with his absence and the relocation of the goaties, who are living in the lower pasture since they realized they could wiggle through the pig door and wreak havoc in the tack room.  Now though, they get quality time with Dukey boy.

Poor Duke looks like he's about to get impaled in this one.

But he recovered quickly.

I was trying to get them both standing on the fence at the same time, but goats and dogs are not the most cooperative, I discover.

Country Animals

EZ and co. had some more visitors this weekend.  Randi and Caroline made the trek from New York City to the Millbrook School Log Cabin for some fresh country air.  And gossip magazines.  Ooooh, and the zoo, where we were all captivated by these guys (all photo credits to Caroline):

Yup, high school with a zoo, no big deal.

Since in the country there is really nothing else to do than look at various animals, both exotic and farm, we also made a visit to both Indian Pond Farm and Broken Wheel Ranch.

Here is Caroline, both she and Donovan seeming awestruck with each other.

And here Randi and Dutch Boy seem equally delighted with each other's company. 

 Even more delighted here!  The horses are hoping that the proximity to the tack room door may indicate a possibilities for treats, and just working their charming magic on the lady from the boogie down.

"Yeah, ok, this is fun and all, but where are the treats?"

The tiny charmers were also out in full force.  Donker was not enjoying the rainy weather though.

Myma was totally digging her hay-filled burrow, however, only emerging at the ever promising possible presence of food.

Next we went next door to visit Mr EZdarlingdoo.

And to do some doctoring, because that's what we do when we go to Broken Wheel Ranch.

Some for the chest...

A little more on the eye...he loves it.  He actually is a very good patient, and I bribe him in between each dab.

The star of this visit though, had to be Rafter Cat.  Ask Randi and Caroline to sing you the song they composed in his (her?) honor.  It's a great jingle.

Here Randi is probably trying to get a better look at Rafter Cat.

The good thing about having visitors, other than that they are wonderful people whom I love, is that they take pictures of EZ and me, and we get to work on our glamor shots.

We're pretty serious

EZcutiepie and I have moved to our winter quarters: the aforementioned Broken Wheel Ranch.  We've been there for about two weeks, and just in the nick of time.  Seriously, the snow/ice is out of contreezy.  I don't think we would be able to ride at all without access to an arena--it is the layers of ice and then snow that really would've done us in.  I probably just would've tacked him up, sat on his back, and been like, "I love you!  Let's hug."  Doesn't sound allll that bad.

Broken Wheel Ranch

All my complicated decision making worked out in the end--I just trittrotted little EZangelpie down to farm, as we were used to, and then had helpful Mr. Dad bring all our stuff and we were all set.  Check out the digs.

This is his stall, where he takes his meals like a fancy boy.  Please note his gorgeous O'Halloran cooler, borrowed from Cathleen, like all our nice stuff.

So the upshot of these winter quarters is the arena, not, in fact, that he gets to be spoiled with a stall if the weather gets nasty.

We built a baby jump to celebrate.

When I say "baby," I mean, "baby."  EZ was pretty sure he should just trot over it.  

Once that task is completed, he waits patiently at the door.

"Aren't you forgetting it is time to wrap things up now?"

"No, seriously.  I'm ready."

He did actually jump some things.  Which was good, considering we are going to a little schooling show in a few days where the hope is that things will be jumped.  Since I decided that we were shooting for the Beginner-Novice event at Kent on May 15, Ronan thought it would be good to get out a little bit, get a little practice with the whole "jumping" thing, as well as the whole, "leaving home" thing.  So, we'll see how that goes, but it would seem we're becoming quite professional.

I've been spending hours every day at this place now, which is much longer than I should, considering the fact that a boarding school never sleeps, and they are the ones who pay my bills (sorry about skipping classes to go to a show on Saturday!).  Part of what takes me so long every day is this business:

Wound cleaning.  EZdelicateflower is apparently finding his new pasture-mates to be rather rough.

 There they are, clearly up to no good.

"Who, us?  We're nothing but good.  Swear."

"Please get me out of here."

They actually don't seem very mean to him; he doesn't seem scared by them and I never see anyone giving him a hard time, but every day there's a new scratch or scrape.  Nothing too serious though, and it gives me a chance to brush up on my mad doctoring skillz.  We may look rather raggedy though, just sayin. 

15º with a chance of Sleds

It was 15º when I got out of the car to ride today.  I think that's technically the coldest temperature I have ridden in so far, but weirdly it didn't feel as bad as other days have--it's all in the wind I think.

Now that we are approximately three snowstorms into the winter, it is increasingly difficult to get through the drifts in the fields to make it down the street to the indoor arena.  As a result I have ridden on the road the last few times, and maybe this is counter-intuitive, but because I'd rather not spend all that much time on the road, I have been trying to trit-trot as much as possible.  Maybe more things can go wrong at the trot, but it greatly decreases my time on the road, and the plows clear enough room so that I can be on the shoulder and EZ just loves mailboxes.

We made it off the road into the field up to the indoor, and the nice cushion of snow meant that we could have a little canter up the hill, which I have been dying to do since we've been making the trip.  This is our view from the top:

We had to make our own trail, but EZ didn't mind.  You can tell by the way his hair is sticking up like that.

On our way home the mailboxes were pretty well established as non-threatening, but we did not foresee the presence of screaming children on sleds, careening towards us at high speeds and did not take to them too EZily.  When the poor guy is nervous I can feel his little body quiver and his heartbeat against my legs.  He probably would've been sweating too, if it hadn't been 15º.  Anyway, we stood and watched the festivities until we were convinced nothing would eat us, and made it home in one piece, where we took another quick jaunt up the lake road hill.

 

 There is a lot of snow.

Good thing there are those trustworthy ears to lead the way!

This is the view though when a hound dog sneaks up behind us and we jump while holding the camera.  Sort of impressionist, no?


And, while we're talking about degrees here, driving home after dorm duty my car helpfully indicated that it is now -1º.  Winter does not kid around. 

Good thing the herd is all nice and bundled!

Winter riding?

So it's cold out.  I was prepared for this and have in my possession some awesome winter-wear which makes it not so depressing.  Who cares if it's freaking freezing if you get to wear a cute hat?!

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. 

"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.