Weather Complaints Continued

I have a friend in Northern Saskatchewan, and quickly after writing my last post about temperatures in the -20s, I felt bad because she has been experiencing temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius. That was going to be the subject of my post today, but then I woke up and found out that we were in the middle of our own severe wind chill warning of -41 degrees Celsius. Incidentally, -40 degrees Celsius is also -40 degrees Fahrenheit so we can all commiserate about this deathly temperature together.

Naturally, I went to the barn anyway.  Leave it to me to insist on going in extreme temperatures.  Because of course, if I were even remotely sick, I'd probably find a whiny reason to get out of my dreaded lesson, but when the weather network tells me that it is unsafe to be outdoors for any longer than 5 minutes, I decide I'm Canadian and I can handle it.

Clothing worn for this adventure: 
- long johns under fleece-lined winter breeches
- normal socks under subzero thermal socks
- a long sleeve shirt under a sweater under a coat
- topped off with gloves and a gigantic tuque

When we got out to the barn, the kids riding in the lesson before us were beyond frozen.  I have never seen people so red in the face from cold before.  My barn owner was surprised H and I even came (she has so little faith in us), and she told us that our instructor had already thought of other non-riding activities we could do instead.  We decided to take her up on her offer since it was getting progressively colder as the night went on.

Instead, we did some body awareness activities where our instructor had us sitting on a hard surface and really feeling the way we use our bodies on the horse.  We also learned to wrap polos, and although I had watched a billion videos, I realized it's not as easy as it looks - at least to get them tight and even and semi-decent.  Walker was not impressed that he was guinea pig for this adventure since H and I wrapped and re-wrapped all of his legs a million times.  H also got a lesson in lunging because although she's been riding for 5 years, she has never actually lunged a horse.  She doesn't own a horse, and the lesson horses are rarely lunged because they get so much work.

Surprisingly, doing all that actually took over an hour (and of course we talked as well).  Our instructor's horse is in his mid-20s so she doesn't ride him very much anymore.  After our lesson, she always lets him free in the indoor arena because he likes to roll and run around for a few minutes.  After she did that, I decided to "free lunge" Walker as well.  I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but free lunging Walker is more an exercise in join-up or "whose the boss" than actual lunging.  There is too much junk in our indoor arena that is in the way, and although I think he knows that he's supposed to run around me, he usually just ends up running like a maniac to and away from the hay that is inconveniently stacked at the bottom of the arena.  Add -40 degree weather and a horse who hasn't been ridden since Sunday, and he was an absolute lunatic.  I was actually kind of embarrassed by his behaviour.  I never got a chance to talk to my instructor about him afterwards since she left halfway through the adventure, but I hope she doesn't think that Walker is disrespectful/uncontrollable.  If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you've probably figured out by now that I'm a major worrier and I really shouldn't care what people think, but hey, we all do that to a certain extent!

Anyway, Walker was a lot like he was the other times I've "free lunged" him this past week - tail up in the air, snorting like a dragon, galloping full out towards the hay, and bucking around.  It's just that he was even more hyper because of the other circumstances and the temperature.  I trust him not to run me down or anything, but whereas when I normally put the whip in his path as he is barrelling towards me, he will change directions and go back the way he came, tonight he was changing directions but still zooming past me towards the hay - just in another direction.  It reminded me a lot of those basketball players on TV who fake a direction and then spin around the person guarding them.  To do this, he had to get really close to me, and when I was getting him out of the hay each time, he would usually buck while exiting the area - unfortunately, he was bucking with his legs kicked towards me, which he usually doesn't do.  I don't think he meant anything disrespectful by it since it's quite close quarters the way the hay is stacked and he was sooooo up that he needed to let loose.  It's just that when my instructor lunged her horse, he happily cantered around the arena very controlled while Walker went bonkers.  If it was just me, I wouldn't care at all because I know he is just young and has so much energy.  Sigh.  It's just always my luck to have Walker be a lunatic when people are watching.

Tomorrow I'm going out to the barn to properly ride him although we are continuing to get this severe windchill warning.  I'm hoping that if I ride him in the afternoon, the sun will at least dissipate some of the cold, whereas at 8:00 at night, it is pretty deadly.  I'm going to see if I can get away with just hopping on him and not lunging him, but I'm not completely ruling it out...