palace of winds

Ladies and gents, I give you spring.

Well, two days before spring — but this was the start of snow that lasted through yesterday, and is supposed to continue intermittently throughout this week. Inches and inches of snow. I have other pictures from Friday out my balcony, but they’re on my camera at home and are almost too depressing to contemplate. There shouldn’t be a pretty snowed vista outside my balcony right now. Give me green!

In happier news, my horse (if I’ve neglected to mention) is lovely:

For the past month or so we’ve been working on ground-tying (the doggie equivalent being ‘stay’) after every ride. He picked it up right away, and he’s getting quite good at it. It’s quite useful to be able to leave him to go grab a whip or turn out the lights or whatever, but I really should transfer the lesson to the barn aisle now, where there are significantly more distractions.

Also, that pony you can see in the background there? That’s my friend and her daughter’s new pony, a fjord/mustang/paint (which is a crazy mix). He is about two hands (eight inches) shorter than Everett, but their taped weight is the same. (There’s a tape you can wrap around a horse’s barrel just behind the front legs to estimate their weight — they give you a pretty good idea, though I’m not sure what the margin of error is.) He’s going into training and on a serious pony diet. Anyhow, I hopped on him last week and he is crazy amounts of fun. He feels ridiculously smooth. I’m very excited for them.

Also, totally unrelated word to the wise. If you’re ever tempted to buy green tea flavored gum, don’t. It’s not good.