What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

Warm bright sun, refreshing cool breeze, the smell of green things arousing from their slumber and horse fur up my nose…ahhhhh, winter is FINALLY passing! The days are getting longer and temps are getting warmer. It seems my body is all too in sync with its environment, as my energy levels and moods seem to follow the sun quite closely…not to mention the new moons and the full moons, both of which have a peculiar way of interfering with my sleep patterns.

Yesterday was bright and sunny and warm. Which of course was a day that could not be passed up for a ride on our mares, getting fat and lazy from their winter ‘vacation.’ Both were covered in multiple layers of mud, which, combined with the seasonal shedding of their winter fur coats, made grooming twice as complicated. It’s that time of year when an afternoon with the horses means a nose full of hair, while all exposed areas of skin become covered in a thin film of furt, a unique and slightly gritty combination of winter fur and dirt, common to every change of season.

Kendall’s appy mare was a gem, as usual. My arab was again, as hot as a firecracker. I weaned her off sweet feed and put her on pelleted feed of a higher protein ratio, assuming the excess sugar was contributing to her hotness, but am not sure the protein rush is not equal to the sugar rush. On the other hand, her excess spunk could have been due to her estrus cycles which have clearly begun in earnest. Had she not been geared up in a martingale, I feel relatively certain I’d have kissed the ground on perhaps more than one occasion. However, once we left the pasture and began strolling about the neighbor’s park, she finally began to relax – she LOVES to go ‘sightseeing.’

It looks to be a similar day today…which will undoubtedly call for another ride. There are really much more needful things around here to be done, but I am convinced that the whole purpose of heavenly weather such as this is to ride horses and putter around in the garden, or do yard work, and I would not be able to sleep with clear conscience tonight, knowing I had failed to allow this day to fulfill it’s purpose…