Sometimes you have a great ride, other nights you rot in traffic on your way to the barn...

For those of you familiar with MA, I live just two miles from downtown Boston.  It's a cute neighborhood, close to tons of great shops, restaurants, bars, and the like.  We have an itty bitty back yard, but it's perfect for our two dogs (the Sheltie wonder twins), and it's a short commute for me into work every day (I think new biotech companies sprout on street corners weekly).  T has the reverse commute every morning, ie he drives into suburbia and for the most part misses the majority of traffic.

Now of course this setup was ideal BP - before pony.  Now, I find myself driving 70-ish miles round trip 3-4 times a week to see said pony.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining - Marv is living in a gorgeous barn on the north shore (Groveland, MA, to be exact) and it's worth every second I spend in the car.  Yes, I do wish I lived closer to the barn some nights, but I know he's well taken care of on nights I can't be there myself.

On weekends, I can just pop on 93 and head straight up to the barn...total commute time is about 35 minutes one way.  If I leave from work during the week, that drive takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes.  If I'm lucky.  But I have audiobooks to help pass the time and it usually doesn't seem hat bad.

Tonight, however, it took me over two hours.  Part of it was my fault - I left work later than I wanted to, so I knew I was going to sit in some traffic.  But there were lots of accidents along the highway, and that always leads to traffic backing up into infinity...so I finally got to the barn around 8 pm.

It was cold, I was tired, and the pony looked so darned cozy in his stall, I didn't have the heart to tack him up and ride (he's also fuzzy as a yak so it he started to sweat, I'd be at barn till midnight cooling him off properly).  I did give him a good grooming and knocked about ten inches of mud of him, and he seemed to appreciate the lovin'.  He DEFINATELY appreciated the apples.

Somedays, you go to the barn and ride.  Other days, you go to the barn and get sloppy Apple-kisses from your pony and you couldn't be happier 😄