Another year, another hiatus until Spring.

This time, it's my hip. Last summer, the hip which has always been a little 'off' got very sore, so I went to a physio yet again, but this time the treatment has vastly improved things.

What I noticed was that when I did the treatment, the pain lessened, but when I got astride a horse, the pain came back with a vengeance. It's a pretty quick realization that if I want the hip to heal more, I'd best give riding a break, so no being on…

This is a good summer, so far.

Last winter, I decided that I would just take it easy, no galloping through the snow in the blowing wind. my appetite for bitterly cold winds and frozen hands has severely diminished. Not this year. I did feel well enough, in January, to begin once again, with my 5BX fitness program, since it starts so gently, it was good way to get back into fit shape. Oakley got occasional grooming, maybe an apple or a carrot, and just hang out for a bit. No riding,…

After taking two months off since my rotational fall, I got back in the saddle once for a nice, quiet ride across the now empty farm fields that stretch along the ridge behind the barn. I didn't even think of going into the sand ring. We just had a nice, calm walk and no excitement, no trotting, no workout. He skirted around the fallen trees from the wind-storms and we didn't go into the forest because of the fallen trees in the forest. We probably wouldn't have gone in anyway because I…

It is snowing today. It snowed like this exactly one month ago, which saved my life. I'll explain.

On the day after it snowed, I went for our usual training, some trotting over cavaletti, some canter - stop - turn on haunches - canter again; nothing we haven't done a dozen times before.

But suddenly Oakley decided he'd had enough and threw his nose in the air, then reared. He went up, then slipped, and, before I could get out of the saddle, he was above me, and we both landed…