I am over here with max anxiety thinking about daylight savings time change, eternal darkness, the wet the cold the mud....

My horses missed one day of turnout yesterday, because we are replanting our front pasture. They both still got turned out in our small sand turnout and when I went to ride my 4 year old got a little Broncy-after she lounged very lazily. Today when I was able to turn them out on pasture she ran and bucked like a maniac for 15 minutes straight haha. Even my arthritic retired horse was bucking and leaping through the air!

Soon the rain will come and my pasture will be a marsh... so no pasture turnout till late spring. Idk how I will make it through, Uhg! 

Dang! Where do you guys live? I'm happy to see temps south of 80. I'm sick of sweating.

The PNW. It's around 50-60 during the day and 30-40 at night but the rains are coming next week. It's rains for months and every thing turns to mud so I have to pull the horses from pasture till it dries out again in late spring. People have knee deep mud if the leave the horses out. It's super gross and pulls your boots off haha It gets colder too.

I also have a circulation disorder so the cold really affects me. We don't get a lot of snow but we have damp, dark cold! 

I would move, or move for winter.. AZ would be my guess. I'm here in So cal and its usuaslly 80s yesr round really. 

We are on our 3rd day of cold rain.  We were lucky as the icy stuff was about 30 miles west of us but it is still super yucky!  My horse hasn't been excercised since I got home late Saturday night from the Sr. Worlds in Arkansas.  When it gets nasty like this I tend to just hybernate! 

I can't haha I have children in school and work for a state specific program... my husband in the state guard. My job doesn't exist in many states and he can't really just leave. Maybe when we retire and win the lottery we can become snow birds lol 

I rode outside in 50 mph winds yesterday. Because if I didn't, they'd miss a whole week of riding.

With the time change, I will no longer be able to ride after work. I don't have an indoor; I don't even have a barn yet.

You just do what you can. I don't exactly haul hard in the winter (live in North Dakota) but this is the first year I have them at home and my goal is to keep them ridden once or twice a week all winter.

We are in a muddy mess here,with snow falling now,the pony took on a new job today and will be pulling a wagon soon,LOL.

Going to have to post a picture of the pony and his new job of being a wagon pony when this happens..

Here we are SUPER DRY needing rain in a bad way.. 

She did great today:) im currently decorating for Christmas, thats how i survive winter

A lot of us live where it gets cold and most of live with Daylight Savings Time.  We all just have to deal with it.  The best thing is to make yourself go out and do something, even if it just to go out and clean stalls or brush your horse.  If there is an indoor arena close by, go and ride once or twice a week.  If you can rearrange your work hours sometimes, try riding outside.   It is hard to be motivated to go outside when it is cold and dark, but you will feel a lot better once you do it.

Make a sacrifice area.  I hotwire off a long, thin part of my pasture, put gravel down at one end where they stand and it works great.  They still get turned out at least four hours a day and my pastures stay in great shape for spring.  I do have pens off their stalls, too, so they are never just locked in a stall.  Winter is no fun but at least this way the horses are happy and healthy and not standing in mud.

I typically don't ride from after Thanksgiving-mid to end of Feb. But now I have a horse that has loose stifles and needs to be worked 5-6x a week and really can't be stalled. She also has KS so needs her regular strengthening for that. I have an indoor now, but they do lessons in the evenings in there so I have to use the outdoor. We have sand outside, it tends to freeze less than dirt does in winter and when it does get hard its pretty easy to break back up with the tractor. We have lights out there now too. Back at my old barn I just rode in the dark. You want to talk about a horse learning to wait until you tell it to turn that barrel. Probably played a big part in how I managed to only hit 7 barrels in 12 years running. What a great training tool the dark was. At times I also pulled out a construction light and it lit everything up enough to see what you were doing. They're reasonably priced, just run an extension cord to where you need it. Even if you just have a 30' spot to trot & lope circles at by the barn. I have a nice facility about 20 minutes away thats planning on doing a winter open arena/jackpot once or twice a month, so I will probbaly haul there to use the arena. Ours is only maybe 60X90 or so, the indoor is 50x70, so I get reallllllly sick of the small space on ahorse over 16h. So it's nice to just haul over there an long trot the big arena. They also will let you come ride for $25 any day you want to reserve which is nice too. They drag for you before you come and you're welcome to use the pop ups or poles. So thats how I plan on getting through the winter now that I can't leave one sit. My older one who retired from injury the start of this year is getting rehabbed through hip arthritis that set in after a fall on bad ground that also strained a ligament in there. So I have to do his daily exercising as well. I ordered extra fleece leggins for under my jeans and my trusty carhartt of 20+ years will keep me warm in any temp with just a tshirt on under, so I think I'm prepared. Its going to be in the 60/70s this week, so I will take full advantage of that 

Can we trade places please. I'm in ???? And detest winter and we got hit hard early. Blizzard on the weekend and it's knee deep in areas. And dang cold. We can usually fall graze our cattle till Christmas. Not this year we are feeding now and with it being so cold the cattle are eating a lot. I had hoped to at least jackpot till Christmas then take January/February and start back riding in March at a nearby in door arena. I through in the towel a month ago. We had way below frigid temps all of October and now all this snow. I struggle with SADD bad in winter and I at least usually have an escape to Mexico the end of January every year for a week to help me get through but with covid there will be no problem escaping anywhere. I'm stuck in cold crappy winter for the 6 months. ??????????

Same here. We had the hottest summer ever. There were like 80 plus days over 110. So anything below 90 feels great! But I’ll take our summers over cold wet winters any day. 

Honestly it is what made me start reading this board in the first place in 2004.  I worked with a barrel racer and had just bought a cutting horse I needed get back in the habit of riding in the cold.  Eastern Nationals were held in early March and I hate winter.  I used to read it at work and go home and ride.  I must thank you all for that, it worked very well.

It's the stories of how you people do it.  How can I fuss about my weather when people (like listed above) have it way worse than me but still do it.

When I read about what great lengths others have to go through it makes me realize how blessed I am.  Thanks again.