I haven’t been riding much this winter. For one thing, I have a lingering fear of riding in icy conditions. Not sure I’ll ever get over that! But also I’ve been traveling a lot and when I’m home, it’s hard to get motivate to ride in temperatures under 20 degrees.

However, we had a few nice days and I managed to sneak in two rides with Freedom. You can see from my smile that it was a good day and I think Freedom looks happy to be out, too. Why Freedom? He doesn’t do very well when left on his own and when he’s spent several weeks bonding with the girls, he gets frantic pretty quickly. Funnily enough, he has no problem leaving them — in fact, he likes having a job.

Zelda got a ride as well. We went out as a group and all the horses got a change of scenery. The ground was too hard to do more than walk, and the wind up their tails added a bit of excitement, but all in all, the magic of being on a horse was as good as ever. It’s a pleasure that never grows old.