The weather has remained pretty stinky this past week. We're living on a hill, otherwise I'm pretty sure we'd be flooded by now. At the barn, poor Ginger has a paddock that's about half flooded - thank goodness her shelter and bedding are nice and dry and the footing in the rest is just wet - not deep nasty mud! I'm not sure there's an ideal way anyone could manage all this wet, but I think Ginger's situation is pretty close, having a fairly large paddock on a slight slope, with a 3 sided shelter in a dry place facing away from the weather. I'm trying to tell myself the weather would eventually mess with my horsey time no matter where I live - In Alberta those snowstorms in the winter and thunderstorms in the summer wrecked my lesson plns more than once. I'm still missing Alberta though- dry and cold beats flooded and windy any day.
G and I pretty much just said we're going to pretend the rain doesn't exist and have gone hiking every day, trying (and usually failing) to find breaks in the weather. I've yet to find a coat that can withstand 2-3 hours of rain and wind so am usually cold and wet by the end and ready for a hot bath. In other words, not all that motivated to get Ginger out. Good timing since she needs a break anyways. I've still made it there daily for at least a good grooming and usually a short walk up and down the road with both of our raincoats done up tightly. She still seems to enjoy the outing, On Wednesday, she was pretty much sound when I trotted her up, but I haven't wanted to push it too soon. In the meantime, G and I have explored quite a few trails that would be excellent for riding on. There's one I'm particularly happy about that will be about a 2 hour ride that will make almost a perfect loop starting and ending at the barn. There are quite a few sections of old railway grade through a mature forest, they're excellent footing for trot/canter and quite a bit more peaceful than logging roads! I'm hoping we can work back up to that soon if all goes well.
We're incredibly lucky here in that over 90% of the province is not privately owned. So we have "Crown Land" (because we are historically tied to the British, legally it is land belonging to "the Queen in right of Canada") What it basically means is the province manages it, that it cannot be sold, and as our government advertises, belongs to all of us. Which means that you can basically ride or hike anywhere - even the areas that are actively leased out to something like a mining or forestry interest usually have an agreement to allow public access. I find in Alberta, the situation is reversed - at least in the area I live in there, everything is privately owned and you're depending on the landowner's permission. I'm guessing it's partly because no one really wants most of the land here - it's all steep mountains and lakes ;)
I'm tied up clearing up some paperwork today, then a visit to a friend who had a fall from her horse trailer and manged to break a few bones in her foot. I'm told tomorrow we might see a hint of sunshine for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping I'll be enjoying that sunshine on Ginger's back - she seems to be better, but I won't know for sure until I can get her down to the ring and working properly on some good footing. Fingers crossed it goes well. I have plenty of other horses to ride, but it's just not the same without Ginny!
No pictures - I dont want to pull out my iphone and have it die getting wet!
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