Maybe the last ride at Pinto Creek

This might have been my last ride at Pinto Creek Ranch! Yesterday I picked up Steph and we went out to go for a ride. It was finally positive temperatures after 3-4 days of -30F. 25F felt like spring. Of course as soon as I get there it starts snowing, but we didn't let that stop us. Naturally our first order of business was to turn the horses out in the side pasture and watch them run. There were no foot prints out there so I figured they hadn't been out there in a while. This time I lucked out and everyone went for a spin in the snow, running and playing, and having a grand ole time. I made a few goofy videos of them running which you can check out here:

Don't mind the soundtracks, I was trying to cover up the talking on some of the videos and it's hard to find 18 second music.

When everyone was done with their romp in the snow Axel and Kalani came in the barn to get groomed to go for a ride. I attempted to give Axel some bute, who knows if he ate it all or not. After all that running and then a ride down the road I thought he might just be sore the next day. He was feeling pretty good at the time though. Our ride down the road was fairly uneventful. Kalani was a little speed demon but can you blame them after standing still for a week due to ice and cold? Axel was lagging behind as usual but seemed pretty comfortable with it. The road wasn't too slippery but we did our best to keep it at a walk just in case. Axel and I are going to have to work on lateral movement, right now when I put one leg on to move him out of the ditch he thinks that means speed up, and since he's been a little cranky about "speed up" lately he flings his head and pretends he's going to buck. So the walk down the road was okay. The walk back was quite a bit faster. The sad thing is that we don't get that walk out of Axel very often so when it happens I really want to encourage it, but on the snow and ice and Axel's not so coordination I wasn't really comfortable letting him move out like that. He offered the trot a few times and was difficult to slow down. Luckily those times Kalani was right in front of us so we didn't go for an out of control buck/canter down the slippery road.

After we made it back safely we un tacked, cleaned out hooves, and gathered more of my junk to bring home. I grabbed two of my saddles and left the AP saddle since Steph has been using it for Kalani. I'll get the two synthetic western saddles after Kiko and Kalani sell. I think all that is left to grab when we haul horses is the grooming box and first aid kit. I have to say I am looking forward to having an indoor arena and not having to slow Axel down when he's feeling frisky.