And onto 2012

Well, I survived my last semester at school, but I blogged less than I ever have since starting my blog a few years ago!  The semester went well, but my time was pretty focused on school, then Wren (when I came home and she was awake), then school in the evening after she was asleep.  And weekends were focused on family when I could, but studying when I had tests looming early the next week, which thankfully were not often.

While I did visit them in the pasture (Wren really likes the horses), my horses have mostly been ignored.

I did make time for some hoof trims and did ride once or twice over the course of the semester.  Now that I'm on winter break (for a whole month!!!), and the holidays are over with, I finally feel rested and recovered.  And I have now ridden three times since Christmas!  I know!  That's a lot!  And I have the sore butt to prove it! 

Sadly, I've put the young horses on the backburner and really have not done any work with them, even though I had Griffin ready to work with me before school got busy.  I've really decided that I need to downsize my herd, but that is so hard to think about.  I worry about where they will go and what may ultimately happen to them.  So making that decision is really hard, but I know I will not have the time to work with them.  My original three are never for sale (Cody, Chico, Catlow), but the others are all being considered up for sale.  I'll work on that more this spring, since I doubt anyone is looking to add to their herd in the middle of winter.

And my nice snowy horse picture that I added to my header is sort of deceiving.  That picture was taken last winter in February.  We had a lot of snow.  This year, we have NO snow so far (the pics in this post were taken about a week ago and reflect what we truly have, with the exception of the dusting from a couple days ago which will be gone when it hits melting temps tomorrow).  It's been a crazy mild winter.  A blessing in some respect (it sure makes it easier to feed our 150 cows and horses and I've been able to ride anywhere I want), but I do miss the snow.  I guess I won't be cross-country skiing anytime soon!

And even though I haven't blogged at all, I have still kept up with most blogs I've always followed, just reading them whenever I needed a mental break while studying...which is often!  I hope you all had wonderful holidays!