New Years Day Ride

Well, I decided that I just HAD to ride on the first day of the year. I wanted to start the year off right. it was a sunny day and not horribly cold so, after coaxing Marie down off the hill, where she stood for a while looking at me like I had two head when I went out to get her, I saddled up and headed out. I had a bit of trouble getting the back paddock gate open as the snow is quite deep. We'd just had a nasty storm. A good ole' Nor'easter. About 18" of wet, heavy snow. We'd lost power for 24 hrs. and shoveling so much wet heavy snow was was not all that much fun. After a bit of pushing, I managed to get the gate open enough for us to both go through. Then I had to clear off my mounting block. Marie patiently waited. I hopped on and off we went. Very quickly I knew it was going to be a short ride. The snow was deep and so wet and heavy it was hard going for Marie to break a trail through it. And the wet, heavy snow had all the trees bent down over the trail blocking them. And in the process of pushing though I was getting pelted by big globs of wet snow that was sliding into my saddle and melting there. I pushed Marie though to my brothers driveway as it's not all that far. Marie was not impressed. Especially when we came to the stream crossing and she could see glimpses of open water between the snow. There is no ice at the streams yet so I knew it was safe to go though but it took some work to convince Marie of that. Once out on the driveway we went up Beechnut Hill to the Starks house as that is where the plowing stops. Marie was happy once out on the dirt road and seemed to enjoy that. The wind picked up and soon we were getting pelted with large globs of snow blowing off trees and the power lines so we headed back. We didn't do much more than a mile but at least we made the effort and got out. I really am not fond of Maine winters........