Mid-March is being true to form. This time of year is in between February (winter) and April (spring). The day began with it being overcast with the sun, diffuse. Then a storm blew through, leaving a half-inch of snow. The day ended with it being overcast with the sun, diffuse. It was if winter and spring were dancing together, with no hope of the relationship being permanent.

I first took Tinni for a walk. Joshua, our farrier, appeared as scheduled, at noon. We’d decided this being the time in between winter and spring, to go with ice shoes on the mares. Ice shoes have borium calks, which reduce slippage. For the past two days I’ve been road riding;

Hrimmi stands patiently while Joshua nails on a shoe

yesterday, after Pete rode with me, he agreed that ice shoes would be the best option – the road is slippery in places now but is going to get even more slippery as it thaws and freezes.

Ice shoes are expensive. And it takes a long time to shoe the horses. I attempted to speed the process up by digging out the old ice shoes and pulling the pads and the nails. I think our farrier appreciated this.

The horses, all four, stood quietly as Josh did what he does best. All total, three horses in shoes, and one (Tinni) getting just a trim took three hours. Pete was the real hero – he stood out there, in the cold, with all the horses during this time. He didn’t even ask me if I would take his place.

After, I took all three mares out for a test ride. They all seemed to think that having ice shoes was the way to go. They quickly figured out that this way, there was no slippage. I rode Hrimmi and Tyra both on road and on trail. I got off, was walking both when they respectively punched through about midway through the trail portion of the ride. Neither panicked. I was so proud of them.

I had just enough time to do a short ride, around the loop, on Raudi. She trotted really nicely on the upper road. No surprise, of the four she most prefers to have shoes.

The high point of my day was this: I was heading down road on Hrimmi when our neighbors, Ron and Cathy, coming from the opposite direction, stopped. They answered the question, “did you get a puppy?” In the affirmative. I had Ron hold Hrimmi and looked in the back seat area. Ohh, the oxytocin started flowing, for there was a 10-week-old puppy that looked exactly like Shadow when she was that age, with the one difference being this pup had one white foot. Cathy told me they were smitten; she didn’t have to say anything. The pair obviously love this dog. He was bitey – reminded me of the way Shadow used to behave. The world is their chew toy when they are that young.

They named him Bear, after their other dog. I thought upon seeing him that this would be the perfect dog to breed to Shadow. Then I came to my senses, sort of. If Pete didn’t have his feet firmly on the ground, we would, ahem, get to experience the miracle of birth. Fortunately, there are many, many puppies in this world – I can continue to experience puppy ownership vicariously.

Next: 75. 3/16/21: No Absolutes