Indian Winter

 

Terri of Team 4: MacKeogh mentioned taking advantage of this “Indian Winter”.  I am not sure if she coined the phrase of picked it up some where, but she described it perfectly.  We have one more temperatures in the 50’s before we drop back down to what is closer to normal for us.

 

I rushed home from work and pulled into the driveway right at 5:00.  Knowing sunset is right about 5:15 now, I didn’t have much time to change clothes and fetch my horse.  Windy was a little off on Saturday; I was hoping her day off yesterday put her in the same frame of mind I was in tonight; time to move out.  And oh, yes!  We did. 

 

 

Our first loop was in the big beanfield across the road from us.  We followed the fencelines and then dropped down and followed the creek; long trotting and loping for the most part.  My dog, Ritz, scared up four deer and tried his best to catch them as Windy and I loped a safe distance behind.  I will definitely use this field as my loop when I’m racing daylight.  The footing was fabulous.

 

When we reached that road, I stopped and reset my GPS.  I wanted to track that loop separately.  Garmin Connect kind of screwed it up; where it got 54 mph as a top speed, I don’t know, but when I glanced at the unit, it was around 8 or 9 mph average, so at least it caught that right.

 

 

We crossed the road and I planned to slow her down to cool her off.  By now the sun had set and it was dusk – or as my friends, Jules and Kathy say, it was twilight.  We walked down the hill and then once again moved into a nice trot.  When we turned toward home, we loped the east trail and then one final lap in the alfalfa.  I was very much overdressed; both of us pretty sweaty by the time we were through.

 

Enjoy what’s left of “Indian Winter”.  I hope to see it again soon. 

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