Happy Easter!

For those of you who celebrate, happy Easter!

I have seen talk on FB of group trail rides and other exciting horse related things going on this weekend and I have to say that I am a bit jealous. With the often unpredictable Eastern Canadian weather, this weekend can be a historical snowfall, or shorts weather. Fortunately, this weekend has been more on the side of shorts weather for us, but alas it is difficult to plan much ahead when you just. don't. know. what the weather is going to do.

My family doesn't have any sort of Easter tradition that specifically has to do with horses but my mother was known for clue based egg hunts. We would follow hand written notes from spot to spot to find our final prize - usually a large basket with lots of candy, a clothing article or spring toy. The absolute most memorable Easter treasure-at-the-end-of-the-hunt had to be the year that our big matriarch broodmare foaled the night previous. My hunt ended outside of her stall with a pair of tearaway warm up pants and a gorgeous loud coloured filly. Can you guess what we ended up calling her? Easter!

These days, this holiday is very family centered. My boyfriend and I took some time for ourselves yesterday, had dinner at the farm with my family today, and are doing a dinner with his side of the family tomorrow. Someday, I hope that we can incorporate some kind of horse related tradition into our Easter weekend, when we have children to share it with and a home with horses in the back yard!

And in the spirit of sharing pictures... this isn't a picture of the filly, Easter, but it's a picture of me probably a year or two before I found Easter at the end of my egg hunt!

Why hello there!

I'm just a wee bit embarrassed that it's been so long since my last blog entry. The truth is that there is nothing new to report.

Lately, I have been brushing Bronwyn a lot but not doing much riding. It has been about two weeks (okay, yes, two weeks exactly) since I rode Bronwyn, and the last time, I ended up leaving the barn looking like this:

We had quite an excellent ride under saddle and when it was time to leave, there was a good song on the radio so I figured I might as well cool her out bareback - which I haven't done in a while. Part of the indoor was quite mucky and so I jokingly told her, as we rounded that end "don't you dare drop me in that mud!" -- she took about four steps OUT of the mud, I believe I heard an enormous CRACK and she took off to the right and I went to the left, landing on my hip and butt. It took a few days for the bruise to see the day of light, but it sure was a good one!

Unfortunately, since then I have been having a lot of problems with my hip (not the same one I fell on and these are some problems that started before the fall), so I haven't ridden since then. I have, however, given a couple of "pony spa" treatments... mud is here but that hair is coming out (and as I say every year -- "IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME OF THE YEAR!"), and that makes me happy.

I've started a new position at my job which now has me working 12 hour days (or nights) in 3 or 4 day runs, interspersed with 3, 4 or 7 day off stretches. The time off is nice but I have found with the 12 hour work schedule, it really does not allow any time for anything else if I want to get a reasonable amount of sleep (and trust me, I do - I am one of those 8 hour sleepers...), so there are stretches where I can't get to the barn. There are basically stretches where I can't do anything but go to work, come home and walk my dog, have supper and go to bed shortly thereafter. It is worth it for the time off but makes it difficult to do anything with too much real consistency (including writing blog entries, but that's not an excuse...).