Winter Vacation

In case anyone missed me, I was on vacation. Somehow, Ellen and I ended up with too many vacation days left in December. Now, December in Cleveland can be pretty bad. There have been years that the river is frozen over, the driveway is ice, the temps are frigid and we have piles and piles of snow. Not this year. We were so lucky!

And the trail rides? They were very, very uneventful. I have nothing to write about. Sure, there were a few times that Cole got a little over excited. Dante did spook a time or two. Starry—well he is always getting into trouble, so that is normal.

For the first time—ever—Ellen and I have horses we can safely ride in cold weather. We have even had Dante and Cole out in the snow with little trouble. Cruiser was so bad when the weather cooled off that I couldn’t ride him on the trail in the winter and not be scared to death until he was around 7 years old. Even then, for a few more years, we could only walk towards home. Any faster work meant problems. Actually, I don’t think he could consistently trot towards home if we were fairly close until he was around 20. Ranger was nearly as bad. That meant we would either freeze on the way home or have to get off and lead.

Of course, Mingo was a sweetheart. I loved riding him in the winter. He would speed up, but he was so sensible. A ride with Mingo in the snow was a delight—but I couldn’t do it with Ranger or Cruiser. I had to go out by myself.

Cole and Dante are only slightly faster than they were in the warm weather. It is really hard to believe that Ellen and I can ride in the cooler weather with such ease. We finally have winter horses—and so far we have had a great winter to go along with them. I’m sure that part won’t last… At least we have used up our vacation riding on the trail.

I have reluctantly started to ride Cole in the arena. I put it off by riding out on the loop at night, but it started to get a little boring, and cold and dark. Now that vacations are over, I will be doing it on a more regular basis. We’ll see what we can accomplish this year.