Snowy Morning Ride

I had the morning shift at the barn today. We had a snowstorm yesterday though the evening and there was 2 to 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground. I was no hurry to get to the barn planning to arrive around 7:30 am. I was just a few minutes later then that by the time I cleaned the snow off my truck. I was doing chores for MaryJo this morning but of course she came to the barn anyway and was there before me. She had already fed everyone, put her horses out and was watering everyone as I arrived. I put Ellie Mae out and right away she started running around. When I put Marie and Louie out, Ellie Mae got them all stirred up and the three of them ran around like crazy things. Marie was bucking her head off! It was so funny watching my old girl run and buck like that. MaryJo and I just had to stop and watch. So did her horses. We were surprised that they didn't get all stirred up also but they just watched for a bit then went to munching on their hay.

Walking back up to the barn, I realized what a lovely morning it was. The forecast was for strong winds but that wasn't supposed to start until the afternoon. It was sunny, fairly warm and with the new snow, the footing was very good. What a perfect day for a trail ride! I mentioned this to MaryJo and she said how much she would just love to ride too but she had to go to work. Before long, I had talked her into calling work and switching her work days so she could go riding with me. Yippee! I am such a bad influence on her. So, we worked together to get the stalls cleaned. I had decided to ride Marie and MaryJo was riding Tanguary. I had brought Zephyr with me as I had not thought of riding when I headed out this morning. MaryJo also had her dog Maggie with her. Zephyr and Maggie get along well so we put them both in her car while we went riding. We tacked up and headed out on the trails behind the barn. The trails were overall pretty good. Though we didn't go all the way around the perimiter of the property as we got to a spot where we were punching through where frost was coming out of the ground. that was about 3/4 of the way around so we turned and went back, then made a loop around the pond. We had so much fun that we did this a second time. Marie was very forward and happy to be out. Tanguary was happy to be out also. She was very happy to follow Marie. When she got in front of us, she would get a little too excited so MaryJo kept her tucked in behind Marie for most of the ride. As we were about 1/2 around the pond on our second trip, we saw another rider coming towards us. Her horses was jigging and prancing but she seemed to have him under control. MaryJo jumped off Tanguary as she has not ridden her in any groups yet and was not sure how she would react. MaryJo was also starting to get a little chilled so she decided to go back to the barn and I did one more loop with the other woman. Her horse was VERY excited about being out but we had a nice ride. When we got back, I went in the arena and rode Marie a bit longer in there. MaryJo was still at the barn and she rode Marie also. After I put Marie away, MaryJo and I hung out for a while in the viewing room and chatted for quite a while. Just a very nice day at the barn. Louie was NOT a happy camper about me taking Marie away from him and he got his exercise running the fence line. By the sweat on Ellie Mae, it looked like she had done some running also.