Ahhh, December

December seems to get crazier and crazier each year.  Between the holidays, my birthday, various other birthdays, and the fact that I work in marketing now, December ends up being a flurry of desperately trying to check things off my To Do list.  At least on the days that I remember to make a To Do list.  December is also the month of Fighting Off Every Illness Known to Man (or at least known to Elementary School Children).

This December brought with it an unusual few weeks of very cold weather.  Our barn just isn't set up for weeks and weeks of temperatures that don't ever get above freezing.  I know in the grand scheme of things, that's not that cold but we just aren't well equipped for it.

First, the last two months of rain turn our pastures into mud holes.  Add some horses and they churn all that mud up so that it's fetlock deep.  Then, everything froze.  And froze hard.  Which means the turnouts were all skating rinks of pocked mud.  And since it was so cold, all ponies had extra fizzy temperaments.  So, they couldn't get turned out because they would slip and fall and strain or worse, break something.

So, all the horses were being lunged in the arena and turned out in there to blow some steam off.  Until a few days ago when the arena (we just put in sand) finally froze solid.  The cold weather meant the sand was too solid to break up with the tractor and it couldn't be wet down.  So it was dusty and got increasingly packed over the last few weeks.  This week they cancelled lessons until later in the week when the temperatures will have been back to normal (40's) for a few days because the arena is rock hard.  Horses are limited to lungeing and light riding, no free turnout.

And of course, this is coinciding with a giant deadline at work for me and I seem to be 'off' every other day.  I haven't gotten entirely sick, but just that dead tired, sinus aching feeling when you're trying not to get sick.  So, I have only ridden once on Sunday.  Licorice got lunged on Saturday also, but he hasn't been out since.

I will be texting my trainer to see if I can pay someone to lunge Licorice this week.  I have a lesson scheduled for Friday, but I just don't see myself getting the time or the energy to go out there before then.

I'm excited for my lesson on Friday and look forward to more normal, rainy, cold-ish weather where I can resume my regular riding schedule.  Most likely though, this will be in January.  Next year, I may try to remember this and just gift myself the gift of full time training in December.  After all, it is my birthday month!