January 2010 is done. It’s my least favourite month – post Christmas, ridiculously-short days, frigid temperatures, snow to shovel and plow, a never-ending cycle of forking hay to horses and cleaning manure away, water troughs to fill, water troughs to unthaw, de-icing everything, more frigid temperatures, more snow . . . green grass, new foals and reining shows too far away to imagine! January usually seems longer than the thirty-one days it is.
This year not so much. After a wicked December (-40 twice, lots of snow), January was kind. I took advantage of long evenings to catch up on jobs (like mending horse blankets) and to start a new hobby. Although riding was trimmed down to not-too-enjoyable, bundled up, circles in the snow on slippery footing for my young stallion (who I must continue training if he is to compete in 3 year old reining futurities), I had more time to read Quarter Horse News, peruse tack catalogues, check out reining and performance statistics, transfer 2009 video to my computer, update my web page and make Fan pages on Facebook for my stallions! I planned and dreamed about spring and summer activities. January slipped by. I turned the page on the calendar . . . and flipped a switch in my mind.Today I am going to start riding my 5 year old stallion, Running With Wolves (aka Wolf), laid off since September. I counted the days ahead - in two and a half months my mare will foal. Breeding and show season begins in May, only three months away. With the sky overcast more than it has been sunny for the past month, what’s the chance the ground hog will see his shadow tomorrow, heralding six more weeks of winter? Even if he does, nobody can take January 2010 away. It’s all good…
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