Blanketing

I sort of feel like blanketing is one big game over the winter in MN. If it were, I'd be nearly ready to level up and gain a whole bunch of cool new blankets or something.

I'm only partially kidding.

This past week was a great example. One day was 11, the next was 30, then 40, then back to 17, and then back to mid 30s for a few days and it's been that way ALL winter so far. The week before Christmas the highs were in the negatives and then Christmas day was 40 with thunder storms.

I got the bridle tag idea from someone but I can't remember who, they work really well!

Between the crazy weather and the fact that when the horses are in the barn (kept in the 30s) they wear the same blanket they were out in it's tricky to figure it out. Luckily for the past few days it's been in the 30s outside as well so it's easy and with the amount of fuzz that Katai has I've been using my light blanket liner a lot. In fact I've been using all of my blankets a lot and I've got a pretty good collection.

These velcro tabs are here to work with the Horseware
Ireland blanket but it's never been an issue that I don't use them

In total (turnout sheets only) I have two turnout sheets, one 100 gram liner, one 200 gram liner, one 200 gram high neck blanket, one 300 gram high neck blanket. Plus I can use the liners in any combination with any of the blankets. I LOVE my liners but this is really my first time using them this extensively and they've been working really great!

Where the magic happens ;)
These clips fasten to the leg strap dees and keep the liners completely straight.

I love the flexibility that the blanket liners give me and even if it sort of looks like Katai is wearing a sleeping bag they've held up really well so far.

What's your favorite blanketing hack?

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.

ASSFS Blog Hop: Location, location, location

I've been fascinated as I'm reading the blogs on this blog hop and decided that I needed to blog this one. What an amazing idea from Sara!

I'm located in St. Paul, MN and Katai is boarded at a barn that's about half an hour north of downtown.

From Rock the Garden this year

I've grown up in MN and lived here my whole life so although I grew up on a farm more than an hour north of the Twin Cities I'm very familiar with the MN horse community. As far as costs it's not bad. I actually think that based on some of the other blogs on this hop our board seems a little pricy in comparison to hay/farrier/vet prices but because it gets so cold here most of the "nice" boarding barns have heated indoor arenas and need to feed a lot of hay and grain to keep weight on horses along with more limited turnout in the middle of winter which means more shavings so I guess it makes sense.

Previous barn but it's a pretty picture

Trim-$35-$50
Shoes-$120+ for all four, the farrier I use would charge $80 for the fronts and $120 for all four
Average cost of a month of full time training- $500-$700 not including board
Average monthly pasture board- $250-$400
Average monthly stall board- $400-$1200 (I pay $350)
Round bale, mixed grass- $30-$60
Square bales, orchard grass- $3.75-$7.00 per bale

Yep, that road is actually glare ice

Weather: Is not good. In the winter we routinely, from about December - March, have sub zero temps. During January and February we can have a wind chills as low as -30* on the regular. Fall and spring are often rainy and stormy and we do get tornados although they are rare (very glad we don't need to deal with more of the big nasty storms). The summers are muggy and still get quite hot. In a normal summer we'll get above 100 for a week or two. Nothing compared to more southern climates but the jump between winter and summer is so large that you never really get a chance to get used to the heat. Plus the humidity makes it dangerous much more quickly than a more dry heat. We can't ride when it's above the mid to upper 80s, for the most part, because of this.

Most horses do pretty well in the cold especially with stalls overnight and smart blanketing. Mostly it's just miserable to get in your car in the dark, after work when it's -10*, drive the half hour to the barn, get groomed, tacked up and ready to ride in the heated barn (heated to 35-40*) and then ride in a heated arena (usually heated to 20-30*). It certainly makes motivation tough when you're basically operating in a freezer for 3 or so hours.

Twins Baseball Stadium from this summer

We don't have any really icky bugs or wildlife. There are rattlesnakes in places but they're rare. Near the barn there are black bears, wolves, coyotes etc but not much that's dangerous to the horses.

The riding demographic is primarily western, as reflected by our horse expo and most big horse shows. With that being said the twin cities has a decent dressage community as well as a eventing and hunter/jumper community. I'm more involved in the dressage community so it seems like more people do dressage than jumping but that might just be based on my slightly skewed perspective.

Large, fancy eventing facility complete with RV

We have several well attended rated shows in the twin cities area and also most people trailer to Mason City Iowa for the rated shows they hold there. We have some fairly big name clinicians that visit such as Janet Foy, and Jen Truett and I'm sure I'm missing some others as well. Our shows are usually well attended but we have a lack of true upper level riders. At most shows I've been to, everyone gathers to watch the 1-2 people showing above 3rd. The bigger rated shows are more well attended but even then, there really aren't many people at 3rd or above.

We have excellent vet care. There are three big vet clinics in the twin cities including the UofM vet clinic which is able to provide many diagnostic and emergency services. We also have several well known smaller clinics and vets that are very horse savvy.

We also have some great tack stores especially compared to some of the states that I've visited. One of my favorites is right near my barn and the other is near H's barn so I make the trek over there when  I want more shopping opportunities.

So much snow!

The most frustrating thing for me is the weather/bugs. In the summer between the sudden intense humid heat waves, horrible mosquitoes/horseflies, rain, storms, etc. it's tough to enjoy riding outside very much of the time. There are brief times in spring and fall when it's nice but otherwise it's tough.

I also wish that english riding styles were more well represented. It's frustrating to go to our horse expo and find maybe 1-2 booths out of over around 100 that actually have nice english type gear or to find more presenters/clinicians that cover english disciplines.

Other than that I like it here! I would say that since I don't deal with the heat well and there isn't such a thing as an air conditioned arena, I'd rather be someplace cold with heated arenas than someplace much further south.