A Day of Beauty

Let's face it - wintertime can suck in the South, too.  We may avoid the massive amounts of snow that our northerly neighbors are forced to deal with, but instead, we get a wetter precipitation - in fairly equal amounts.  What does that mean for us, you might inquire?

Puddles.  Sometimes ponds.  And MUD.  Oh, the neverending stretches of mud, that seem to continually surface.  I feel as if I can't possibly bring in enough footing to fight the mud this time of year.  It seems as if we are putting down more every two to three weekends lately.  Inevitably, that results in sore muscles, but slightly better footing - til the next monsoon, that is.

So Robyn and I were fighting the wintertime blues this week, since it has been so incredibly rainy that the arena hasn't had the slightest chance to dry.  We decided to retaliate the other night by giving our ponies a much needed "Day of Beauty"....mainly, their manes - no play on words intended!

Now Robyn only has one pony (and therefore one mane!) to deal with.  Thankfully, for me, she had a bit of trouble with her solo comb, and spent enough time trying to fix it that I was able to get both of my ponies done in the same amount of time.

April got the beauty treatment first.  I have to say, I think she has mostly resolved herself to the fact that I am in charge.  The first time I did her mane, I ended up using the solo comb when she started getting fussy.  This time I asserted myself a little more firmly, and got the job done without much trouble at all.  Then it was Samson's turn. 

I like to joke that Samson is my ethnic pony.  He has the kinkiest frizzy hair I have ever seen on a horse.  Of course, the longer I neglect to pull it, the worse it gets.  So when I pulled him out, he had quite the chestnut poof going on.  Thankfully you can pretty much pull his main with two fingers, so he was done in no time.

So now we have had a pony spa day, and I'm back to wanting to ride.  Go figure -it poured again yesterday, and any bit of drying that happened the day before is long gone.  SIGH.....  Here's to hoping for a few sunny days to dry it up.....