The Year is Ending...

It's been a while again, hasn't it? I was fortunate enough to recently have some of my writing featured on another more prominent horse blog. I hope no one is too offended if my writing here is of a much more casual nature!

So what have Halo and I been up to? Well, it rained most of December, so there hasn't been much opportunity to ride. I did get out and ride her this past Tuesday, and I'm still sore. We had a short little trail ride down the road with the camp kids, and then the barn owner was kind enough to let me ride with them in the indoor arena since the outdoor is still a sloppy mess. I even got to go over a little crossrail a couple of times, and got some good pointers. Mostly I need to push her to the fences more, especially when jumps are set up for larger horses. Halo has to work a little extra hard to make the lines!

November was National Novel Writing Month, so I was busy writing a book as usual. I'm now sitting down to revise last year's NaNo novel, which is something I've never attempted before. Usually just knowing I've written it and tossing it in a drawer is good enough for me, but I feel like these last two books are begging to be made into something great. So I'm going to try. Revising is a lot harder for me than writing,

October was full of insanity at work, but I still made it out to work with Halo most weekend days. I even started getting brave and doing a little jumping in the outdoor arena. Halo is going really well over small fences, and finally starting to get pretty solid on her leads and canter transitions.

Here's a picture of the pony from November, before the rain started. We had a terrible drought this year, and you can see how parched everything looks. The good news about all the rain is that grass is starting to grow again. The forecast isn't looking good for 2012, though - we still need tons more rain to get out of drought mode. Keep your fingers crossed for grass and turnout this spring!

Soon I would like to set some goals for 2012, so I'll be back to do that in the next week or so. Have a Happy New Year!