Baby It's Really F'ing Cold Outside

So, after my last post on how motivated I'm feeling I was all excited to ride every day this weekend. I took Monday off, to celebrate my birthday, and was looking forward to a good three rides in a row. Then I woke up on Saturday, put on my riding clothes, looked at my watch and realized that it was 2* out. I looked at the forecast and the high was around 6* with a windchill of -2* all day.

I just about cried. I could probably suck it up, put on my warmest clothes, and with the help of the "hopefully" heated arena I could possibly stay warm enough during my ride haha. However, I just don't think it's fair to Katai to ask her to work in the cold like that. It's not easy on tendons and ligaments or her respiratory system. At the very least since this was our very first really cold day and it was a major drop from the 30s that we were getting just about a week ago I felt like I really needed to at least give her some time to adjust. Then at the very least I could just do a lot of walking. In the end I stayed home and made myself a vegan birthday feast instead.

I was excited because Sunday had a forecast high of 23* so I figured I'd ride then. There was some snow forecast but the weathermen rarely get that right so I figured I'd be ok. However, We ended up getting at least 6" and since it was still quite cold (it never made it up to 23*) the chemicals they put on the road weren't working very well and it was extremely slippery. I made a trip to Target in the afternoon and felt like I was taking a risk with my life. I love my tiny, itty bitty car, until we get weather like this. So, I stayed home. The snow finally stopped around 9:00pm and after shoveling our driveway at least 3-4 times we still ended up with more snow overnight.

This was part way through the day, we ended up with at least another inch.
At least it's pretty!

Then, I was all excited to ride on Monday, my day off. It had been forecast to be 18* (remember that thing about the weathermen always being wrong?) but it was 3* when I woke up and the high today is still in the single digits with a wind chill around 2* as a high. Plus we're supposed to get more snow later.

Even for MN this is usually cold and snowy which is what the Farmer's Almanac told us it would be like this year. I honestly don't quite know what I'll do if the whole winter is like this and since historically January and February are our really cold months I'm really starting to wonder how much worse it will get.

This was last year on my birthday.
Not a bit of snow and I'm wearing a sweatshirt

I am still planning to head to the barn this afternoon as long as the snow doesn't start until the late afternoon/evening like they're forecasting (remember that thing about weathermen) but I likely will stick to walk and possibly a little trot depending on how stiff she is and how warm the arena is.