Thanks to my move, Poe got a four-day mini-vacation. I have to admit last night I was hemming and hawing about going to the barn — it was cold, I was tired, I have so so so much to do at home. But habit and the thought of the jumping clinic barreling down on me had me pulling on my breeches and boots and dragging myself out for that long grey drive. I thought, too, about a nice little post I read a couple weeks ago on Retreadeventer’s blog: The Big S.E. (where S.E. is Sustained Effort). It really hit home for me; this winter has been a bit of a long, ugly grind, and more often than I’d like to admit I’ve wanted to do nothing more than crawl under my covers and hide away until the world’s green again. I’m crazy about my horse and what we do together, and I feel like this horse thing defines a big part of who I am; any feeling of I-don’t-wanna is kind of heartbreaking. I recognize I’ve entered this phase where I don’t want to do the things that are good for me. So I’m pushing through, trying to do them anyway, trusting that they will lead me back to happy.

And last night once I had Poe inside, that magic thing happened: the rest of the world went away. I reprised last Thursday’s ride: warmed him up at the usual swingy loose-reined walk, then had him trot around on a loose rein, stretching himself out. I took a little gentle contact after a few laps, letting him come into my hand as he wanted, then followed with a bunch of canter in each direction, just lapping the arena and letting him cruise, working on my own half seat. Long walk break, working on encouraging him into a soft, bending contact, then more trot work doing the same. I focused focused focused on sitting correctly and letting the tension out of my forearms in particular (terrible habit of mine; I get very tense in the forearms), and he came into a beautiful light contact and really started to step under himself. It’s still very much a work in progress; he pops in and out of the contact regularly, and still occasionally grabs the bit and twists his head around, all ugly and gnashy-teethed, but we’re making progress. We ended with a few leg yields and some ground work — I’ve been teaching him to walk correctly next to me, to stop when I stop, and to back up when I step back. He’s a good boy and is starting to get sharper with it.

I felt great about the work I got last night, and left the barn on a real high. Now I just need to figure out how to carry that feeling back into my non-horse life.

We’ve had a howling beast of a winter. Snow and snow and more snow and interminable stretches of sub-zero. But this past week we’ve finally gotten our first sweet whisper of spring. We’ve gotten up into the 40s. The sun feels warm and bright again; everyone’s waking from their long winter grumps. And on Monday? On Monday I rode outside.

The days have been getting longer and I got to leave work a little early, so when I got to the barn the sun was still peeking over the trees, glowing orange and promising pink. I gave Poe the most cursory brushing ever, chucked his saddle on, and we wove through shoulder-high snow drifts to the outdoor arena. The top of the three-step mounting block was peeking out from the knee-high snow, so I lead him over and hopped on. He marched right out into the drifts (which in half the arena were up to his knees too), ears pricked, happily checking everything out. I may have mentioned it before, but: I love this horse.

We weren’t out for long — after 10 minutes or so of wandering around in each direction I brought him to the indoor so we could do a bit of real work. We were in there for maybe a half hour, doing the same-old: connection, leg-yielding, a few canter transitions. The footing’s gotten pretty greasy in spots and he slipped a little while cantering, so we went back to just trotting. Plenty of work to be done there.

Yesterday Lennie and I started talking about the season’s competition schedule, which is both exciting and extremely nerve-wracking. I can’t wait for spring, but that first outing is coming up awfully fast…