Experience the ENDURANCE of Foundation Breeding
AN ADVENTURE IN THE SNOW
March 18, 2007
Man, what an awesome day I had today. If you were on the email that invited you tocome with me on this ride today, and you failed to get out of bed (due to the alarm not going off) or failed to receive my invite (until it was TOO LATE) or had to go visit a mother in the hospital with a broken hip ...
TOO BAD! You missed it.
How do I even start to describe the day? Snappy in the morning while we were doing chores, the snow fall from Friday had crisped up from the temps falling in to the teens last night so everything was bright and sparkly like diamonds over a clean white sheet of snow crusted under a crystal clear blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen. The sun was rather warm on our faces even though the temp was still in the low 20's. It's a grand day.
The adventure begins BEFORE chores, actually. Poor Walt went to bed last night so excited about getting out of the dreary New Smithville Valley for a REAL ride, that he woke this morning with a belly ache. After some morning purging (bleck) he felt much better and was glad to be able to get into his van and ...
HOLY CRAP, the township hadn't plowed his road yet (since Friday!) and the car smashed snow on the road turned into a skating rink over night. Holy bejeezus. Walt said he had not trained his van to ice skate so with great trepidation, he began the mile long skate to the major roadway (which did get plowed and was clear of ice and other minor inconveniences).
Apparently, the ice skating lesson didn't set well with Walt's van and in retribution and rebellion, the van blew a tire. Better than blowing a gasket, I suppose. Walt said that changing the tire was an adventure in itself, pulled off the road in the snow.
So while I'm waiting and waiting on Walt, I begin the morning outdoor chores. This involved toting 2 bales of hay up the 35% incline behind the barn to the pasture through a foot and a half of deep drifts. On a good dry day, when I've been exercising at the Dojo regularly, riding regularly, and haven't smoked twenty packs of cigarettes in a two hour period, I can do this chore with without breaking a sweat.
Today, after two and half weeks of sitting on death watch for my Dad and eating way too much food and smoking way too many cigarettes and not doing any exercise other than wiping tears from my eyes or blowing my nose, carrying those bales of hay to the pasture was a most daunting task ONLY to be attempted by the most strong hearted. Fortunately for the horses to be turned out, I am pretty darned strong willed (oops, I mean strong hearted).
WOW. (puff puff wheeze puff) Half way up the hill. Holy crap.
I think I'll sit here on this bale of hay for a moment and stare into the sun, that is much less painful than sliding up the hill, knee deep in crusty snow. Now that I'm blind and can't see the agony that awaits me on the second half of the hill, I get my sorry ass up and trudge upwards.
Man. Now there's snow down in my boots. Isn't that a pip?
Okay, I get to the gate and the snow has drifted it open. Back down the hill I go to get a shovel. The downhill part was fairly easy (by the way). Let's do that more often.
Shovel, up the hill, puff puff puff...
Gate. Wheeze. Man, I need to get a new pasture at the bottom of a hill instead of the top of a hill. Wait, I DO have a pasture at the bottom of the hill...why the heck am I killing myself today?
Shovel, shovel, shovel...
Wheeze, puff, groan...
Shovel, shovel, shovel.
Squeak ... YEA! The gate closes.
Now, where is that other bale of hay? You know, you can't train bales of hay for nothing. That sucker did NOT follow me up the hill like I commanded it to. Just for that, I'm going to break it in half and scatter it to the four corners of the pasture.
Wait.
It's too far to walk in the snow drifts to the four corners of the pasture, I think I'll just bust it up and throw it around as far as I can without moving an inch.
Whew.
Now, down the hill. WHEE!
Five horses to get into the pasture. Gads. I want you to know that every single one of them (except the four year old who was a perfect lady) skied me up the hill. A lot less work for me! Of course, once we reached the gate, I then had to tromp my way up to their head to open the gate and take off their halter. But for most the way, I didn't have to work too hard.
Down the hill. Whee.
Walt's here! Yea!
Walt has the easy pasture, it's down the hill from the barn and then he can come up the barn steps for the next horse. Go figure.
I'm all worn out now and don't need to go riding, I decided.
I have to get the plow off the truck so I can hook up to the trailer. Now, my hay guy came on Friday before the snow started and left me twenty big bales of hay and straw. Guess where? In the middle of the arena. Hmmmm. I think if I feed the rest of this bale of hay and move this bale of straw (takes two people minimum to move a straw bale and three to four people to move a hay bale) I can probably squeeze the truck through the opening so I can put the plow away.
Walt is shaking his head at me ...
"Come on! Have some faith!" I reply.
I suck in all my breath and SQUEAK right on through between the two mounds of hay and straw to reach my special plow resting place.
Ta-da! Ye of little faith.
While the truck is in the arena, we load up our gear. (Actually, Walt loaded up the gear while I breathed. It was very hard creating a vacuum inside the truck so it would be skinnier and could fit through that opening.
I drop the plow, suck in my breath again and squeeze back out. Then carefully I back down the driveway (an adventure in itself) on the slippery ice around the turn with the big oak tree. Whew...I didn't slide into Walt's van while slipping into place to hook up the trailer.
We're only an hour behind schedule. And the sun is really beating down so even though it's windy, we should have a nice ride.
"Walt - hold up." I holler down the vast aisle way, hoping he can hear me over the screeching horses. "Let's clean our stalls before we go so it's done and we don't have to do it later."
Zoom, I grab a wheel barrow and fork and run to Joker's stall. The horses are carrying on something horrible because they are SO jealous of the ones outside. Seems while I was in North Carolina these past 10 days, it either rained, hailed, or flooded so horses didn't get turned out. The ones in the barn are FRANTIC to get outside with the ones that are running around like crazy crack babies.
Okay - now we're an hour and a half off the original schedule...that's okay, I have nothing better to do today anyway and since I haven't ridden in three weeks, it could be a monsoon outside and I'm still going to trailer over to Blue Marsh and ride. You betcha!
Joker practically dragged me out of the barn and down the driveway. She is normally very well behaved in hand, but she was READY to roll. I'm not sure how Whoopie was, Walt got her out the door before me.
Joker hopped up in the trailer before Walt could get her lead line from me. Damn - she really wants to go. I expect to get killed today, this mare hasn't been ridden in three weeks. Nor turned out....I'm dead meat. Maybe I should have brought my helmet. (shrug)
We're driving and the trailer is rocking. We're ALL ready.
We're here. At Blue Marsh. I stop in the middle of the road and look into the trail head parking lot. I sure don't like what I see. it hasn't been plowed and people have been in there and made ICE everywhere. Since there's a small incline to get out of the parking area, and incline hat is filled in with snow from where the township plows have pushed it off the road and into the drive, I'm not sure I will be able to get back out once I get in there. I ponder it and Walt (such a wonderful man) says...
"It's okay, Dodie. We can go on back home and ride."
"WHAT?!?!?!?" Was that a subtle challenge from my good buddy, Walt? Hmmmmm.
"Nope," I reply. "We're going down in there. Watch this boss V-10 get us back out. Trust me." (And the check is in the mail and...)
Down we go into the icy blue yonder...
I turn the trailer so we're facing the direction to get out of this ice rink we've decided to park in...and then I skillfully maneuver the truck into position with the two left tires in a cleared area that the snow had melted out of. This SHOULD give me enough "oomph" to get her rolling to make it up the icy incline to get back onto the road. We'll see if my mad driving skills are still working after three weeks of slack time.
We get Joker and Whoopie out of the trailer and they're both remarkably calm about grooming and saddling. Usually, Joker is bouncing side to side while I'm trying to get her ready, but she's still as a statue. In retrospect, I think standing on the ice may have contributed to their docility. Maybe.
I'm up! Thrill, oh thrill. I'm on my horse and we're going riding ... somewhere other than the arena, the barn or the valley. Whoo Hoo.
The sky is clear, the snow is crisp, the trail is ...
UNBROKEN? We're the first ones to hit this trail? (Is this an omen?)
WOWZA! We get to do the trail breaking. This is grand. What more can a person ask for.
Good thing I know this trail. The snow is drifted and all the normal landmarks are gone. Joker has been on this trail so many times, I actually missed a turn but she didn't. (Good mare)
We start on the 4 mile hard side of the lake, figuring we'll work that first while they're fresh. It's straight up and down trails over hills. Winding in and out of trees, some places are so narrow that our knees brush against the tree trunks. The 4 mile good side of the lake is flat and mostly straight stretches, so they can do that after we've worn them out.
The snow is really deep in places. It's nice that it crisped up over night because it isn't balling up in their feet so we can trot some in the fields. When we're in the woods, we're mostly walking because we're either going up or down. Remarkably, we weren't slipping or sliding. These two mares are truly trail troopers. So sure footed. Several times, Joker took me off trail to get better traction and that was fine by me.
I was thrilled. I couldn't stop grinning. Good thing there were no bugs out today or my teeth would have been covered in icky green bug goo. Today, I was definitely the windshield (some other days, I'm the bug - but not today).
We were having a blast. This was great. I haven't played in the snow in two years (mostly because we haven't had a good snow to play in for that long). And on top of not riding for three weeks, this was an added bonus.
One part, we have to go down a steep embankment to the muddy creek and cross over. Joker did do some butt sliding down that hill and it was rather scary. She stopped at the creek and took a long drink. Fortunately, the mud we usually go through was frozen so we weren't sinking into the swamp up to our boots. That's what usually happens in the summer. This was great!
They both drank deep at the creek. We crossed over and started the switch backs.
SCARY!
Narrow trail, barely wide enough for the horse, drop off on one side, cliff on other side and slick with deep snow.
FUN FUN FUN!
We managed to get through the switch backs without incident and I was laughing out loud. I'm sure that Walt figured I was ready for the looney bin.
Up the long long hill. it winds around the side of the hill up and up and up. We saw bobcat tracks...then where the bobcat had a kill (don't eat the red snow, either). Then we saw raccoon tracks. Then we saw a ground hog pop up out of his hole. He was cussing Punxatawney Phil. We heard it! He was loud and disturbed to find himself 6 weeks after Phil said spring should have started and there's SNOW everywhere. Grumble, grumble.
Then we saw little bird tracks, and big bird tracks, and more bobcat tracks, and where a hawk had butchered a rabbit and left tufts of fur and red snow all around. And we saw coyote tracks and something I swear was bear tracks. And remember, we are blazing the trail. We are the first people to come out on this trail since Friday's snow storm and we're so lucky to get all this interesting stories written in the snow by Mother Nature's creatures. It's awesome.
Now we're approaching the portion of trail that collapsed in 2003 and in dry perfect weather, it's enough to give a seasoned endurance rider a heart attack. We're about to attempt it with 6 inches of snow on top of the last ice storm, which is still on these trails (we know, we've crunched down through it several times - scary!)
Walt
and I are discussing how sure footed and reliable Joker and Whoopie have been so
far on this tough terrain in the snow so we're looking forward to testing their
"snow skills" on this section. It's a deep switchback down and right back
up, it's narrow. This trail is an old rail bed that runs around the side of
the hill (see picture.) Where it collapsed we have to run down the side of
the cliff and right back up. If you miss one foot, you're done because
you'll slide down the cliff into the lake at the bottom. There's nothing
to stop you. In the summer, the trail itself (not counting the 50 feet
where it collapsed) it rather nice, it's flat and wide and safe to canter
on...just stay away from the edge because it drops down 300 feet into the lake.
Now, we negotiated that drop off with no trouble at all. NONE! Those two mares acted as though they did this every day. The sides were all crumbly with erosion, but we could see enough through the snow to keep them right in the middle - down and up.
BUT!
Once we got UP ... Holy cow.
Right
there in front of us, the wind had been drifting snow down the hill, over the
trail and down the cliff tot he lake below. I looked at it a minute and
figured we could punch down through the drift (it was about 4 feet high and
about 20 feet across) and we'd be okay. I started towards the drift and
headed Joker uphill on it. She didn't really punch down into it...it was
solid. She did keep enough traction to get across with only slipping once
(scream!) Once I was over it and looked back at it from the other side, my
oh my - I was a little shaken at attempting that. There was zero room for
error. Ask Walt! He and Whoopie had an error.
I heard Walt go "Oh, shit."
I turned around and Whoopie had her front feet at the edge of the trail and her back feet were slid down the cliff, She was literally holding on with her front feet and nothing else. The very heart arresting thing I saw was that Walt had fallen off her and was underneath her, hanging onto the reins. That was all keeping him from sliding down into the lake below.
I remained calm and kept my mouth shut. Inside I was screeching like a banshee.
Walt got up onto the trail before the drift and pulled on Whoopie until she got herself up onto the trail.
Whew.
Now Whoopie is looking at this drift like, "No way, man." and Walt is shaken up. He gets back on her and now the instructor in me starts yapping.
"Walt, when you start over the drift, head her uphill on it. Try to get her to stay heading uphill until you're across."
Walt starts on the drift and Whoopie slides down.
"WALT!" I am a little louder. "UPHILL! Head her uphill."
Slip some more.
Gads....I can't watch this.
In the meantime, Joker is all worried that Whoopie isn't coming and is trying to back me over the ledge. I am desperately trying to keep her on the trail and keep watching that ledge getting closer and closer as she dances around. STOP IT!
Slipping, slipping....Whoopie makes a tremendous leap and clears the end of the drift and is on the trail. I sigh a deep breath of relief and almost fall off Joker and she plunges ahead to crank on down the trail. Wouldn't that be embarrassing?
We strut our stuff down the rest of the railroad bed like no big thing. There were a couple other places that were drifted, but not that bad and we were able to punch through them as they weren't solid like that one.
On the road....trotting across the bridge, we hit 4 mile and it took us 45 minutes. Long 4 miles, tough on the horses, but it was amazingly fun.
Now we're on the easy side. Believe it or not, it went rather quickly but they were tiring from trudging through the snow. In some places the snow was to their knees. In other places it was just a couple inches. This side of the lake is flat and we made good time. No more adventures. And on this side of the lake, a cross country skier had flattened out the trail for us so the girls weren't struggling as hard with the snow.
We met up with the cross country skier on his way back and thanked him for making the trail nice and packed. He was a nice guy (and really good looking, too! Whee!)
Back tot he trailer with no more incidents. The sun was warm and a lot of the snow melted out of the parking lot where cars had made tracks so getting out was pretty easy, too.
I had a grand time and Walt and I are so glad we went. I haven't blazed a trail in the snow in a very long time, That was great. Being out in the sun and the snow and being comfortably warm was great, too!
Instructor/Manager: Dodie Sable
Located in New Smithville PA at 37 Fenstermacher Road, 3 miles north of Kutztown University
Call us at 610.756.3836 or email us at dodie@newpromisefarms.com