Winter Withdrawals, & Contests!

So I had a nice post and Blogger ate it. Take two...

Okay so first of all, Jen at Cob Jockey has a great post on how to prep your horses and barn for a tornado! I don't know about you but I never learned such things. However, living in TN-a.k.a-the-new-Tornado-Alley, I need to learn about them! So check it out if you live around tornado country!

Warning: a bit of a whine ahead. But contests at the end! So you can skip there if you want. ;)

It is November now.

November from my room.

It's warm (sometimes, comparatively), mostly yo-yo's between 60+ and 30-40 degrees, but oh-so-rainy.

I am going through riding/lesson/jump withdrawals. Lol. I haven't jumped or had a lesson in six months (May 9, I checked, lol). Haven't seen Coach since July or August (though we do keep in contact by text). But it is sooo wet and rainy, and I don't have the time to ride except on Fridays and the weekends, so it seems a bit stupid to me to try and take lessons when I'm not going to be able to really do my homework between lessons. I dunno, perhaps I'm wrong there, set me right if I am? February-ish it should warm up and the days should be long enough that I can ride evenings again. That's only a couple, three months. What's three more months when you've already missed six?! I can give Riv's the winter mostly off, it's not like he's going to mind. ;)

I go back and forth, really. I miss Coach, I miss riding regularly, I miss jumping every week. I'm mostly alone at the barn now, feeding and grooming in the dark, and it's a bit lonely. I can't afford lessons every week anyway, but we've got our homework done--River's sound, he can do walk/trot/halt/back transitions fairly well (when I ride him the way he likes--softly, gentle hands, and sit lightly, haha). We need to work on our canter but canter is my hardest gait and so I need some help to figure out how to help him through it. But I'm not sure it's fair to ask for a lesson when I'm not going to be practicing much in between lessons.

Good thing I love my Beastie because I'm not spending an awful lot of time actually riding this semester! :P

Beastie says, "Teach me more tricks-for-treats!"

Oh and contests! So many contests!

So, first Amy is having a giveaway for awesome saddle soap at Slow and Steady Wins the Race. I really need to clean my tack, so...yeah. Hope I win! haha
Hawk is having a SmartPak gift card giveaway at Forging Fiction. SmartPak is always awesome!
And Equine Snob is having an EquiSpa gift certificate giveaway at My Equine Odyssey! This stuff looks amazing!

Wow! :D