Crisp mornings, fresh horses, layers of clothes; winter is approaching. Gone are the seemingly endless hours of daylight, sleek summer coats, and hardened hooves. We exchange avoiding the heat for avoiding the cold, wet, wind, and snow. I love winter, but riding and horse keeping during these dark months is not for the faint at heart. As horse owners we have to figure out a way to winter-proof our horses, our barns, and ourselves.

Once the ground is soaked every task seems to take twice as long. I like to think of winter horse keeping as the test which separates the men from the boys; the boys being those who give up riding altogether when the weather turns foul.

If you have the good fortune of a winter routine which consists of taking your horse from his warm, clean box stall, to covered cross-ties, then walking twenty paces to enter an insulated indoor arena, then you might not have a full understanding of "true" winter horse keeping. By "true" winter horse keeping, I refer to those of us whose horses live out in the elements. We are those whose horses roll in the mud every day and every which way. Those who have what feels like a Tevis Cup ride to the covered arena, where once inside, even the faintest rain drops beat like a drum line on the corrugated metal roof. Those who, by mid-January, have forgot what color their horse really is because they only see mud brown. Those who when attempting to halter their horse, step into a mud bog which sucks a boot off, but without enough warning to avoid taking that next step into mud wearing only a sock. Those whose horse tears the fourth blanket purchased that year and the other three have yet to return from the blanket repair shop. Those who rush to the barn early in the morning to make sure their horses water is not iced over. And we cannot forget the battles with thrush, scratches, and rain rot. Yes, winter is tough.

My method is to attack winter before it attacks me. My first two years battling the elements as a horse owner were humbling. I made one amateur mistake after another. Ordering blankets prior to the first storm was a foreign concept to me. Dry stall - what is that and why would I need any? Waterproof riding boots - those are only for people who live in the snow, my leather paddock boots will be fine. Pay someone else to body clip - why when I can do it myself? It was shameful and my horse suffered for my ignorance.

Strangely enough, winter has become my favorite time of year to ride, but this has not always been the case. It was an unexpected storm which provided the catharsis I needed to learn to embrace winter. While walking my horse up the lengthy hill from his paddock to the cross-tie area, the sky opened and dumped what felt like the entire Pacific Ocean upon my horse and I. To say I was angry would be an understatement. But something changed in me that day - I realized getting mad at the weather was silly and a waste of my energy. I plodded on. This event marked the change in my attitude toward Old Man Winter.

Once I stopped fighting with the weather and learned how to prepare for it, I began to appreciate some perks the cooler season had to offer. I can get away with going straight to work from the barn without taking a shower first; at least until my coworkers tell me otherwise. I can stash $20 a week into savings instead of buying bottles of fly spray. At last, those pesky biting insects are put to rest until spring.