What's Up Wednesday

I think you know what's up. It's snowing. AGAIN. And not like the cute little dusting we got Sunday either.

Nope. This is real snow. Like 8 to 10 inches of it. Gross. Fortunately, it's not sticking just yet. I'm hoping to jet out of work in an hour or two before it gets really bad. Yay for being able to work from home! Though if I stay till three, that "work" might be minimal. Don't tell the boss.
Anyway, enough whining about snow, let's talk about the past week!
I managed to ride almost every day last week after work. It was glorious! Well... as glorious as riding Jamp in the dark can be. He IS afraid of his shadow so there's that. But it was just so nice to be in the saddle.
Riding this time of year is so funny. You can't really work on anything since your horse has no fitness. It's kind of like rehabbing but you can lunge out the crazies if you need to. But if you do that, you can't spend much time in the saddle or you just might cripple your horse. Probably for the best since rider isn't too fit either. So long story short, we haven't really worked on anything other than moving around and starting back to some level of fitness.
All this was for naught though unfortunately. Friday blew in... literally. We were hit with a Nor'Easter on Friday which luckily for us in southern CT came in the form of rain. But very high winds too. Sustained winds between 20 and 30 mph and gusts upwards of 60. I thought for sure the ring would be a swamp. But Saturday morning, it looked like this:

That's not bad! A little wet in places, but nothing crazy. Unfortunately, the wind was still blowing like crazy. It blew the doors open on the hay barn at some point over night, but I was really lucky and the hay was far enough back to stay dry. And while it did blow the door off one hinge, it's still functional and it was all fixed up yesterday. It also did this:

I dunno... that looks expensive to me. I'm waiting until after today's storm to deal with it. No sense fixing that twice.
Since it was still crazy windy, I didn't ride Saturday, but I was fairly productive. I had cleaned out the trailer tack room a couple weekends ago, but I hadn't stripped the shavings that were in it. So I did that first.

Then the mail came with my new rat traps, so I got those all set up and placed.

I caught the little jerk last night! Definitely recommend these traps. We'll see if any more rats show up. And if they do, we'll see if they can catch another one. I'm not sure if rats are like mice, but I swear the mice figure out it's a trap. I keep having to get different ones to catch them. Hopefully not the case with rats, but I hear they're pretty smart. Time will tell. Fingers crossed they just don't show up anymore?

I also got caught up on the horse laundry. Washed all the horse show towels, plus two weeks worth of Rio's wraps, some saddle pads, etc.

And then I dragged the ring! I really need to move the jumps and do a better job, but this is good enough for now. Especially since it's just going to need it again when/if the snow melts.

Look! No mud!

And then finally, I spent some time grooming the boys. They're shedding out really well, and starting to like fancy horses again instead of wooly mammoths.

Shiny boys! And then it was night time. I didn't have any crazy plans like last weekend. Instead, I got to work weeding out the dressers. The great clothing purge of 2018 is nearly complete! Just in time to start the spring/summer version... It will be nice when it's all done though.
Sunday, though pretty chilly and still kind of windy was a better day to ride. And I figured possibly my last for a bit since the evenings were looking chilly for this week. I lunged Jampy before I rode him and he was a bit of a cuckoo bird. Thankfully due to lack of fitness it didn't last long, and I was able to hop on for a quick ride. Since there was no mud, I figured I'd give my blue Pioneer boots their first ride.

He would look so fancy if only he's close his mouth...

I'll talk more about them tomorrow on Thursday's Threads but the quick and dirty is that they are very comfortable, will break in super fast, but patent leather is awfully slippery.
I threw Rio on the lunge line tacked up in hopes of getting on him too. Unfortunately, he was VERY unsound. So instead I sent the farrier a text. Hopefully he'll be here at the end of the week to take a look. If he can't fix it, I'll call the vet. He's comfortable hanging out and walking around, so I don't think it's an emergency situation. Hoping for an abscess or bruise or something simple. But it's Rio... so, we'll have to see.
And that was the last of my riding. I was hopeful Monday, but the ring was already crunching up when I got home from work. So we just groomed instead. Same with Tuesday. And now it's snowing. Should stay in the forties for the foreseeable future though, which makes me hopeful I'll be back in the saddle soon.
In other news, my Boy-O-Boy items arrived on Friday! They're GORGEOUS and I have to say, the quality is amazing.

I should have ordered a little bit bigger belt, but with breeches it's fine, so not a big deal. I LOVE the metallic gold, it's subtle enough to be pretty and not gaudy. And the browbands looks fab on the custom bridles I got from FSS.

I haven't oiled the bridles yet, but that's hopefully going to happen no later than this weekend (maybe tonight if I'm motivated). I can't wait to ride in them! I think the boys are going to look extra handsome.

Well. That's what's up this Wednesday. What's up with you? Is mother nature messing with you too? Get any fun new pony stuff you want to talk about?