You win this round, Mother Nature

I'd started to think I was going to make it through this winter without a break for weather.  Work, sure, but Theo was still marching around while I took planes, trains, and automobiles to get to our Manhattan office.

Watching the sun rise over NH with Venus and Jupiter putting in an appearance with Antares just barely showing in the photo, then the grid of NYC as we came in to land

No, seriously, I took a plane from NH to Newark, NJ.  Then I hopped in a car with our CTO who drives like an absolute lunatic.  Then we got on a train to get to Penn Station in New York.  THEN we got on a subway to Greenwich and then we walked about six blocks.  I left NH at 6am and made it to the office at 9:45 am  It took two hours to go from the airport to the office.  I will never, ever live near NYC.

Back to Theo and his work schedule.  I toughed out a lot of cold nights to try to work through the winter and not lose any condition or progress.  On Monday night I saw that it was 18 degrees.  That's below my threshold for actual work because I don't want him to breathe hard.  He did in hand work and some bareback jogging in a rope halter and two coolers.  Thank goodness he didn't decide he needed to do the dance of his people again, I would have slid right off.

  Looking super wild and crazy

Tuesday I packed up his surcingle when I went out for his farrier appointment.  I figured it would be warm enough in the early afternoon to get him on the lunge for 20 minutes or so, but that failed.  It was 16* at 1pm.  I gave up, put him back in his field, and accepted that a break was upon us.

Eyes closed asleep while getting his feet done, this horse is ridiculous

Last night I got caught in a snow squall and had to pull over to wait out the white out conditions.  Today, the high is 3*.  All he's getting is an extra blanket, extra hay, and a kiss on the nose.  Tomorrow will be more of the same.  Saturday we're supposed to pop back up to normal so I'll get him going again (aka stick him on a lunge and pretend I'm flying a kite for 30 minutes while other riders gasp and run in terror).  On Tuesday, I leave for my next work trip.

I am so done with winter already.   How many days until spring?