Wind, snow, highway travel not recommended

Ah, springtime in Saskatchewan! Poked the radio on as per usual this morning before I got my eyes fully opened, to be greeted by a litany of dire weather-related conditions from freezing rain in the southwest to heavy snowfall warnings in the north of the province, with us folks in between getting a mixture of both, all accompanied by high winds. Made me glad that it was Alpac's day off and the one day a week I don't go out to the barn, so highway travel wasn't in my plans for today. Mind you, if it had been a riding day I *would* have gone anyway. That's what snow tires are for. Looking out the studio windows as I type this, I see it has started snowing again, in a half-hearted sort of way.

Not to be deterred by any of this, I have been buying bulbs and corms of flowering plants for our future enjoyment. I like starting my own as container flowers, and my studio is an excellent place to do this, situated as it is on top of the house with large south-facing windows that get lots of light, when there is light to be had, at any rate. Seems to me this has been a "darker" than normal winter with fewer sunny days than we can generally expect. My great discovery this year was that my grandson Mark not only is willing to help with the planting, he actually enjoys it and is very capable. In the end, I was functioning mostly as supervisor, suggesting proportions of potting soil and peat moss for him to mix up, and he did all the dirty and heavy work while I had the fun of playing with the label maker to identify which bulbs were in which pots. That's an organizational detail I've neglected in previous years, much to my ultimate confusion, so knowing exactly what is in each pot will be a bonus.

Seems to me the freesias never grow anyway no matter what I do, but at least I'll know which pot they "should" be growing out of. The others that we got potted up over the past couple of weekends are a variety of canna lilies, an ongoing favourite of mine for their size and drama, and a bunch of gladioli of various colors. The Gardenscape show is on this weekend at the Exhibition grounds here, so doubtless we will come home from that with many new ambitions and possibly some new plants as well. We dearly need the hope that thoughts of gardening bring, since March and April, while spring elsewhere, are still late winter here and we are feeling a tad desperate.  

Today's photos bring us a mix of seasons. I was "up top" at the stables last week, where the school horses live, lurking with the camera to get a shot of a young client with his school pony, as per his mother's request. Once I had accomplished that, I realized that Terry (husband of my riding instructor and starter of all the young home-bred Ebon horses) was harnessing up a team of horses to drive with my favorite red sleigh. It was a pretty nice day and I wasn't in any sort of rush to get home, so I waited until they emerged from the barn, harnessed and ready to be hooked to the sleigh. After quite a bit of jockeying around, Terry and Clayton (our young barn manager) got the team ready to roll, at which point the young Warmblood of the pair decided he'd had it with being immobile, and had a bit of a meltdown. Notice the calm with which Terry just holds the reins and waits for the storm to blow over. The youngster had a couple of go-rounds before he was willing to settle and move forward, so I got an interesting series of shots. The horse person in me likes everything to go calmly and smoothly, but the photographer part of my make-up is quite happy with the naughty moments. Shot two shows them steaming along nicely north of the stables, all as it should be and everyone co-operating well. 

Shot number three is one I took of the rails for the jumps, in storage until this summer's show season. Doubtless the paint will have to be touched up yet again before they are put into use. Keeping jump elements in shape and looking good is just one of the endless number of chores to be done at the stable. I liked the mix of colors here, and the pattern of the rail-ends.

On to the opposite side of our present coin for shots four and five. I've been rooting around in the photo files of the last year and realized I had a whole lot of polo shots, most of which were quite nice. I sent off an email to my contact for the local players, and as a result am putting together a CD for them rather than deleting the shots, which was my initial thought but which would have been a shame. It was nice to spend some time going over these shots and seeing green(ish) grass, riders with bare arms, and the sheen of sweat on the hard-working and fit horses. As I recall, it was quite hot most of the days that I made it out to get shots last year. 

The final two photos are from last summer, and illustrate two of the features I enjoy about the polo shoots. One is the up-close-and-personal nature of the tight-crop shots I can get when the play comes close to where I am located, and the other is the  neat phenomenon that happens occasionally of two horses galloping side by side in synchronized strides. Not an everyday occurance,  but it does happen and always makes the photos extra special to me. 

Just noticed a couple of dark forms swooping by outside the window, which I believe are crows, back from their winter sojourn in more southern latitudes, and I have also seen the first of the returning Canada Geese this past week, so spring is coming, snow or no snow.