Still here.......

While all of you in the South are enjoying our "typical" Alaska weather, we are suffering thorough no snow and very cold temps. Last night at feeding time, it was 0.0*F. The digital thermometer can't decide if that is above or below zero and shows it both ways. Anchorage has had ice fog. It leaves beautiful hoarfrost on the trees but it's nasty on the roads. There have been several fatality car accidents due to the horrible driving conditions.

With that, Briar and I loaded the horses and trailered to the indoor on Sunday. We had an okay ride. My knee is still bothering me and I felt very unbalanced. There were 8 horses in this indoor and Voosh took exception to the way Ned (the horse) was loping circles. She got very "excited", crowhopping and snorting. My first instinct is to whoa her down and make her stand still. My riding buddies yelled at me to keep her moving forward and I did! She settled okay and we worked on the leg yielding assignment that we were given a couple of weeks ago. The assignment is to work a 20 meter circle at a trot with her nose tipped in and yielding off my inside leg. Then we are to spiral in and out using leg only. Mostly we can do that but our circles are not round.

Our group has exclusive use of the arena from 10:30 am until noon. I have left as late as 2 pm and no one else has been in the arena. Yesterday though at 12:02, in came a Friesian stallion, 2 mares with their handlers and a foal. The foal was haltered but had no person on the end of his leadrope. It came in and ran around helter skelter. One mare kicked at the stallion and the whole crew, people included, were just not very well mannered. We left at 12:05.

My knee is not as swollen. I can move easily but it sets up overnight and if I sit too long. I am planning on snowshoeing with Wild Horse Annie and her crew on Saturday. The sheep need to be dewormed and vaccinated with CD & T tomorrow. I also need to get hay and a ton of barley. There's lots of other stuff to be done before next month when the ewes start lambing.

Thanks for all the good thoughts.