The air quality has been borderline recently. We've been spending a lot of time in the 40 to 80 AQI range with it being really bad on occasion. Not enough to warrant the recommended six weeks off to recover lungs, but enough where I won't ride that day and I do a light day or another day off the day after.
Honestly, nothing has made me want to leave this area more. The traffic sucks but with the SO's job, we are stuck near a large city anyway so the traffic will always suck. The boarding situation in the bay area blows but the ranch has been working out really well so far and I'm exploring other options that are closer as well. Living here without working in tech is annoying at best, but I'm interviewing and should move into tech soon.
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| Highly recommend getting an air quality monitor, I'm going to order one specifically for the ranch so I can obsess over TC's air quality |
But now, with *fire season* fucking up my fall every year??? I immediately was like fuck this place. I up and told the SO the other day that I was ready to move to Canada (we are planning to move to Vancouver at some point in our lives, at least by retirement age, no rush) because of fire season. But then I found out that Vancouver was on fire too. Great.
I normally have winter be our lightest season. It's not that shows stop or anything, the only month you can't show up here is December actually. Our last shows of the year are in mid November and they start again in January.
But I don't love riding in the winter, our barns are really not all that well set up for it. We don't have indoor arenas, just covered arenas, or not covered arenas like at the ranch. Paddocks get super muddy (and omg don't get me started on the pastures in the area, they are not set up for rain!), it rains but it's not horribly cold so figuring out blanketing is tricky, bleh. I like staying at home in the winter. I do ride through the winter but I like taking the pressure off. If there's a bad storm or if I'm like "ew no," I'll let him have extra time off.
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| Things have been so good, I am so eager to continue |
But it works out that the horses get kind of a break over the winter and then we come back into more serious work in March and then start showing in May and we show through the fall. May to November is a good amount of showing that we can do without the weather being terrible (although I tend to try to show on the coast if we are showing in June or July due to the heat).
The first year we had really bad air that took us out of riding was 2018. That didn't start until the end of October and then it went away in the first storm in late November. So a month. I was moving TC then so I gave him extra time off and all was well. We didn't lose any months in 2019 so that was nice.
2020 though, wow what a shit year! For everyone, not just fire-wise. Everything was shit. But the fires started in AUGUST. TC was not back in full work until December due to the fires! First because the fires were much closer and much worse, but also because it didn't rain until November again. It just doesn't rain here from like April through November.
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| See the lightest colored mountains behind me? Those are my air quality mountains, if I can't see them, I have to check the AQI stat! |
This year, the fires are further away (so far, everything is so dry it's just kindling out there) but we are still starting to see the effects. It's raining ash, although as I've said before, thus far the air quality has been okay because the smoke is so high up in the air. But we are facing what at best will be a stop in riding for the fall. And then with TC being at the ranch, I won't be able to ride when it's raining or at least a few days afterwards. So we might be looking at being off of real work until March. And that's what sucks. I can handle on season off, either fall or winter, but not two!
So I guess I have to be a winter rider and TC and I might need to find a place to go for the winter where we can keep training. Luckily there are three barns that are options (one being local trainer's barn, which would honestly be amazing but they'd have to have a paddock available and there aren't a ton) so if I find that I can't ride much this fall, I will move him for a few months. But if I can ride through the fall, I might just take a light winter and leave him at the ranch!
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| He's doing so well right now, fingers crossed that the air stays good! |
Selflessly, but also selfishly, I hope that the fires die down immediately and don't return. I want to stop seeing people have to evacuate from their homes at the very least. And I also want to be able to ride my horse!
Either way, the nebulizer is at the barn now and I've ordered his breathing supplement that he'll be on for probably the rest of this year. Ugh.
