In which it's still December and it's still dark and we are still riding

Fiddle let me know, at my last lesson, that

we needed some trail time.

Fine:  it's pouring rain, but we are on the trail. 

Lessons this season are concentrating on me, on improving my form and on teaching me to canter properly.   For the "canter" lessons I borrow a horse:  Fiddle and I have too much shared bad baggage for either of us to make progress together.  That, combined with her 2016 stifle injury, has led me to say "enough"--Fee and I do not need to canter together in the arena.  It's just not worth the possibility (probability) of injury for either (or both) of us.

"We go fast now, okay?"

Lately, I've been working on basic equitation issues in lessons, and the weather has been so hideous (frozen cold, mostly, but at least no sn*w so far) that the covered arena has been the only place to be.

Until today.

"OUTSIDE!" demanded the Dragon today, and despite the very short day (8 hours, 27 minutes of actual daylight, assuming that because the sun is above the horizon you can call it "light") and the dumping rain, outside is where we went.

Most of my photos today were blurry--there just isn't enough light for clarity!

Santa Jim gave me some red jingle bells to tie onto her breast collar.  It's a bit late in the season for bears, but the sound is rather merry--and we'll take any merriment available, this time of year.





We were almost back at the trailer when we saw it:

Aliens <--my best guess

Not the sun, of course.  Don't be silly.

But a thinner bit of cloud in the sky, allowing a little more light to shine down through the rain on us.  I should clarify that the photo was taken around 3pm.  Please note how close the bright spot is to the western horizon.  Official sunset was 78 minutes later.

This time of year, that much light is mostly as good as it gets.