Winter's Over.... right?

​Winter is officially OVER. With Roy, Prestigious V, and little hitchhiker named Zip's Amerigold in the trailer, I drove out Varian Arabians driveway at about 10:00 AM on a Thursday morning. The drive up highway 101, 46, 41, 5 and then 80 to Grass Valley, east of Sacramento, is always crowded, no matter what day of the week it is or what the time of day. I never even look at my cell phone while I'm on this route, so I get set up with my audio book or my podcasts at gas station stops, which are frequent in the old diesel truck. I was just glad that it was nice and cool compared to earlier drives, cooler is much easier on the horses than too hot. Day two got us to Winnemucca. There was a bad wreck just west of the Nevada Stateline, which kept us parked on highway 80 for a hour or more. This was enough time for the horses to get over any need to paw in the trailer. They also were exposed to sirens and emergency vehicles. In Winnemucca at the fairgrounds, all three horses were happy to run around and roll in the sand and blow out their travel stress in the big arena, then I put them in their pens for the night and crawled into bed.

I woke up to rain falling on the roof of the trailer. Lily wagged her tail at me as if this was just the best thing that could happen. I sort of agreed, because who doesn't love a little rain.. but by the time I fed the horses, brushed my teeth and got ready to load up, it had turned to snow. Zip's Amerigold was shivering, even though they were all in covered stalls, and dry. They'd all shed their winter coats and this was too cold! Out came the horse blankets, I closed up all the roof vents, and off we went. It was an all out blizzard off and on all the way to Elko, then the sky cleared and the sun came out. We were home by about 2:00 in the afternoon. Prestigious looked at me like we'd just landed on Mars. This is such a different world, 6,000 feet altitude, pine trees and darn it was cold! It was like winter all over again. I left their blankets on for the first few overnights until it quit raining and the temps warmed up. At first I had to chase him to put his blanket on but after two days he was the one running to me.

Zips Amerigold soon went off with Martina, a good friend and excellent horsewoman who is riding her for the summer (we will be hearing more about Martina and this pretty little mare in months to come). After a few days, David and I saddled up the horses and went out for a stroll. There is a large piece of property just north of us that we call the polo field. It's about forty acres, all flat, like a big rectangle. It would be a perfect polo field.. also the guy that owns it plays polo, but he lives in England, so for now it is just a big flat field. We just rode out to the far end of it and back. It was a cold, blustery, windy afternoon, probably not the best day for a first ride out on a green horse, but I just couldn't stand to wait another day. Prestigious was happy to be out, with Roy, and nothing to much happened, just cold wind. He was a little tense at first, but it turned out to be just right. This is a new place, a new life, and you know, it might be okay.