In which we are still waiting for Spring

March came in like a lion and seems to be going out like a raft of sea lions.  My Aiken season wound down with no more notable accomplishments.  Keegan spent some time grumy about his tummy and then managed to slightly wrench his back.  In between, Sally did ride him around at Sporting Days, which was fabulous.  We're both back in the North now and waiting for Spring.  I've gotten a bit of spring while volunteering.  I enjoyed the weekend at Red Hills as I haven't been back since 2008.  It remains an impressive event, although the new xc course took a toll http://eventingnation.com/home/red-hills-cic3-live-cross-country-updates/.  Still, it was reasonably warm and sunny all weekend.  Last weekend, I volunteered Saturday at Poplar where it started out quite chilly, but warmed up nicely and was sunny through the day.  A lot of the Florida riders were there, although many others were at the Carolina International.  It is pretty cool that there can be two CIC competitions running on the same weekend, with both of them full.  Poplar certainly was.  We ran xc straight through from 8:00 (if I remember correctly) until 5:45 and that was only the preliminary, training, novice and BN horses as the CIC, intermediate and advanced were to run Sunday.

I was not at Poplar for Sunday as I headed into Atlanta to run the Publix Georgia half marathon.  I had originally planned to do the full, but the weather report reported dropping temperatures and rain starting as the day went on, so I decided to go half.  I was glad of the decision as the temperature dropped from 60 degrees and cloudy to 44 and rainy as I moved from start line to finish.  The free cup of tea offered by the Omni was the best thing ever.  I also really liked that the Omni was right at the start/finish line.

Saturday Brigitte, Carli and I spent some time filling in the Blue Hill schedule for dressage shows (schooling and recognized), CTs, schooling jumper shows and recognized and unrecognized events and xc schooling. The board filled up when we got to June (the advantage of SE PA).  I rode Keegan who was wonderful and then hit the Expo for Sunday's half marathon and then Chris' Bachlorette party at the Valley Forge Casino.  It was good fun, although I ducked out early to get some sleep before the run.  It was raining and cold and cold and raining.  I thought, the weather guessers forecast say it will be better tomorrow.

In the morning, I got up and looked at clothes.  It seemed not totally freezing so I put on a short sleeved tech shirt, a long sleeved capilene and my Patagonia Houdini.  Decided I didn't need gloves (major error), but did put a rain hat on under my houdini hood - yes, I looked ridiculous, but my head was dry.  Nothing else stayed that way.  It was barely drizzling at the start and off we went. I tucked my hands into my sleeves, but they never got particularly warm.  My feet got warm somewhere around mile 5 as we went up an unexpected (to me) hill from mile 5 to 6.  Then the rain really picked up and by mile 7, everything was soaked (except my head - combination of hat and hood still working).  By mile 10, I could no longer feel my feet and I have no idea why they though have the last .2 miles be the steepest uphill of the run was a good idea, but there you go.  I finished successfully (2 minutes faster than last weekend) and headed quickly through the finish chutes to walk home.  I was really cold.  And then, thank heaven on the corner about halfway home was a 7-11.  I went in and got a hot chocolate which I clutched between my hands the rest of the way home (I didn't really drink much of it).  Once home, I peeled off all the soggy stuff and slid into a hot bathtub (no need for icing - that was kindly done by mother nature).  I do feel good today, no soreness at all, which I find is true of the colder runs.  Now starting the less than two week countdown to http://mainlymarathons.com/home/riverboat and hopefully the even shorter countdown to some nice spring weather.

In which I stay home, but Keebler and Jordan rock!

The snowpacolypse contines!  I booked three flights, one on Wednesday (SW - fully refundable), one on Thurday (the original plan, regular non-refundable) and one on Friday (using miles).  All three were cancelled, so I got refunds on two and moved the Thursday one (without charges because of the storm) to my final Aiken trip in March.

Eventers being the intrepid lot they are, Paradise Horse Trials went on, despite no power across most of Aiken.  Eventers kept the horses watered and fed (and sometimes themselves as well).  There are still spots of no power.  The house that I rent had no power or water, so maybe it is just as well the weekend was cancelled.  At home, we drank some good wine, ate some yummy food, saw Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (excellent) and exercised a fair bit.

Further south, Rocking Horse took place without drama (why I usually do the winter thing in Florida).  Peter and Henny won wire to wire in the advanced with helmet cam, of course.  And, I was incredibly proud, that Jordan and Keebler won wire to wire in the novice, with a dressage score of 30.5 (which I might have told you was impossible had you asked even 6 months ago).  We're hoping for a guest blog with details of their outing, but meanwhile, Go Jordan!  Go Eventing! and Go far, far away Winter!!

in which Keegan rocks as we tackle the training

Another weekend, another trip to Aiken.  This weekend for the Pine Top Winter event.  Thank goodness, it was much less wintery, with warm and sunny for both Saturday and Sunday. I won't say more about the weather as I feel badly for those trapped in the north, many in our area still without power since Wednesday (power at Chadds Ford went off Wednesday and came back sometime between noon Saturday and noon Sunday).

After an easy flight down to Columbia [sidebar - the tank of gas seemed a decent deal, but with tax it would have added $72 to the rental - filling the tank myself $44 and 2 minutes in the cold and dark Monday morning] and slightly less easy (due to a couple of road closures) drive to Aiken, I arrived at the farm to hear from Sally that their truck had broken down at Pine Top where Sally was running the Intermediate with Wes and Taz.  She didn't get back until after dark, so I prepared as best I could, mostly doing flat work, but adding in just 3 jumps working on the things she has been helping me with. Friday at Pine Top saw many top horses and riders getting their pipe openers. Eventing Nation provided some coverage  They didn't mention that Jan Bynny and Inmidair won a division or that Sarah Dunkerton came 1st and 4th in the intermediate rider division.  Becky Holder was 2nd in the division that Peter Barry won and Boyd was 2nd on Peter Barry's Sir Donovan in the division Jan won, so nice Friday for Peter.  Caitlin and Hoku finished 5th.  Unfortunately, Remi ended up with boots on in the dressage so they had a TE, but were able to jump and had a good day.  Sally and Wes ended up 5th.  Taz did the dressage and sj to see where he was, but Sally decided to save xc for the big event in two weeks. The Full set of scores are provided by xentry.

Saturday morning, Nat Cousins was kind enough to meet me at the farm at 4:30 to take Keegan to Kate Chadderton's place.  Because Sally was not competing over the weekend, Kate was kind enough to offer us a ride.  It was still a bit chilly in the morning at Pine Top when I headed out to check out the cross country course.  It seemed tough enough, but doable to me, although at a speed of 470 m/m, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make time.  The course was open and galloping with some biggish and a few fairly technical questions.  1. very inviting log 2. odd choice I thought as it was a bright yellow and green hay wagon with a big round bale on the left side 3. nice table 4. a. up bank, across to slight down hill to b. big rolltop then a long gallop to  5. another hay wagon, this one with round bales on both sides - straight away to 6. an ascending timber jump in the fence line followed by a 90 degree left turn to 7. the trakehner (in between two water jumps) and then through another gate to 8. the yellow and green corner (a bit more cornerish than some at training, but still a table in reality) then 9. a. filled in box and a 3 stride bending line to b. a rolltop another bit of a gallop to 10. a biggish table (no tables look big after Rocking Horse) and the combination at 11 a. bank up one stride to b. hanging log and 4 strides to c. coop then slight downhill on right turn to the 12. log drop and across the bridge to 13. a. cabin 1 and 4 strides to b. cabin 2 then a gallop through the woods to 14. the bench and 15 a. over a log into the water b. bank out of the water with one stride to c. table with the alligator on it and finishing up over 16. a "hanging log" oxer.  Important to turn 90 degrees right to finish, but everyone got that.  But I'm getting ahead of myself as cross country was not until Sunday.  I took a look at the SJ and then did this and that until it was time to get ready for dressage.  Meanwhile the preliminary was going on.  Check those scores above, but I especially noticed Erin Sylvester's ridiculously cute Paddy the Caddy (who ended up 2nd) and Boyd riding VS McCuan Civil Liberty as Kate was spending her last 72 hours with her jaw wired shut.  I chatted a bit with Lindsey Taylor about the talk she is preparing for an area IV meeting and let Benita Strini know I had bought June from Andria Pooley as they know each other from when Benita bought Cody from Andria.  Got on and headed for warm-up in good time.  Gone was all silliness from last week.  Keegan stood on the trailer quietly (other Bucky and his finding it necessary to grump at each other about sharing a hay net) and was quiet and focused as we headed to warm-up.  I was very pleased with our test, it felt a huge performance improvement over last weekend.  In the way of dressage, my subjective opinion and the judge's did not match and I got the same score as last weekend.  Her overall comment "Talented horse and determined rider...have the potential to be competitive with more understanding of dressage basics."  Well then, dressage boot camp will wait until April, but it will be happening.  Unaware of this, I got ready for SJ and headed over.  Thanks to Molly Rosin for watching my warm-up and making sure I didn't ride backwards.  SJ was great.  There was the moment when I made the turn from fence 2 to fence 3 completely wrong.  Keegan would have been well within his rights to stop and possibly dump me in protest, but being Keegan, he just did his best, barely taking a rail.  The rest of the course, I did a better job of staying out of his way and he was great.  Saturday evening Curran Simpson hosted a barbeque.  I didn't stay long, but enjoyed meeting some more eventers and having a yummy dinner.

Sunday morning was a couple of hours later.  Kate picked us up at 6:30 and we headed back to Pine Top.  I walked the course again with Rhiannon Bosma, Kate's working student who rode Buckhard (owned by Beth Sokhol).  Then a bit later, Kate walked the course with both of us.  It all seemed doable, but I was very nervous about it.  I kept reminding myself that we had several successful training outings under our belt girth  whatever and this one shouldn't be any different.  My goals were to ride forward and stay balanced.  Mostly this worked out well.  Keegan didn't look at anything, except in a "I've got this, let me at it way"  The "scary" green and yellow #2 was completely ho - hummm.  He did go more slowly than might have been optimal to the big rolltop following the bank (I'm pretty sure there were a couple of trot steps in there), but the scope button made it a non-issue.  Then super to 5, 6, 7, 8.  9 was surprisingly easy as several people (Kate included) said it was the toughest thing on course.  10 and 11 (picture) super, 12 excellent jump, but enough of a drop that I was a bit unseated on landing - luckily the balance kicked in.  Keegan was suspicious of the bridge, so there were more trotting steps, then on to easily tackle 13, 14, the water and the finish.  I had been a bit concerned about having enough power through and out of the water, but Keegan was a champ, totally on his game.  I'm hoping there will be pictures of those.  Pictures aren't fully posted yet, but should end up here.  And amazingly, while we had time faults, we only had 5.6 or 14 seconds slow.  My prior time faults at training were 43, 34, 19.6 and 16 so while I had been getting faster, this was a big jump in speed, especially realizing that this course was running a 470 while all the others were at 450.  In fact, doing a bit of math said our average speed was right on 450 m/m, so I was really pleased.  Thanks to Sally for her help in getting us to this point halfway through our winter training. Sunday evening was pizza at the Juvonen's lovely place in Aiken.  Densey and Ron throw a great party and it was great to hear other stories of the weekend at Pine Top and of other horses, plans and adventures. Eventers rock and event horses even more so.

in which my eventing season gets underway

Back to Aiken.  As I arrive I get a text from Sally. "The footing seems to be thawing here, can you jump around 5:30?"  Sure, no problem on the scheduling, but waiting for the footing to thaw - in Aiken?!  There is something wrong with this picture.  Still, I got there, lunged a bit, but Keegan was very quiet.  Sally said there had been much silly behavior, but the two OTTBs, Finn (Folk Hero) and Keegan got the good behavior stars for the day. We had a great jumping lesson, continuing to focus on quicker reactions times on landing, keeping control of the shoulder (especially when turning to the left) and finding the right pace.  Keegan was jumping fantastically, and I was starting to feel more in sync.  Friday, I did flat work on my own, which went well and then jumped a little more with Sally.  We didn't want to overdo, although to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever seen Keegan tired. Saturday was Sporting Days.  An early start as Sally's first ride was around 8:00.  The weather was not terribly cooperative.  Forecasts had suggested clouds, with relatively warm weather and then rain late in the afternoon.  Instead, the rain started almost immediately.  I went off to walk the last fence of my course.  I had walked on Friday afternoon, but peeled off after fence 16 (of 17) to take a look at the training course and never walked to the final fence, so I did that and checked a couple of other lines (don't want a repeat of Radnor).  There was still snow on the shady side of a couple of the ramps and houses, rather surprising. A little soggy, I headed back.  Keegan decided that Wizard was his very bestest friend and that he couldn't possibly stand on the trailer without Wizard.  Never mind that Stash was standing on the trailer with him perfectly well behaved.  So, I took him off, walked him a while, lunged him a while and then when Wizard got back from dressage, put him back on.  Then when Wizard went to jump we repeated, but this time, I went ahead and got on after a brief lunge and started warming up for dressage.  Keegan wasn't hot, but he seemed pretty distracted the whole time.  He was responsive, but tight.  This showed up in our test even after an hour (and he wasn't tired at all, in fact kept getting better).  The judge said that we had lovely moments (and we did), but they were marred by moments of screaming and staring back at the trailer during the downward transition to walk and other moments of distraction.  We ended up with our worst score to date, but were not in last place as the scoring was fairly tough in the division.   Mary Coldren was kind enough to move my jumping time up so that I could be available to volunteer late in the day in case anyone was getting too cold or just had to leave.  Jumping was perfect!  My position, especially in the SJ stills leaves a fair bit to be desired, but Keegan jumped everything easily and happily (several people commented on how happy he looked).  Ditto on the xc.  The fences all seemed pretty trivial and I was able to concentrate on trying to go on the faster side and steer.  I got a little tired around fence 13 and backed off a little, but we still finished 35 seconds under the optimum time, so I was pleased.  The clear jumping moved us up from 10th to 6th, so I even got to bring home a ribbon.  Keegan was neither blowing nor particularly sweating when I got him back to the trailer.  I'm pretty sure he was ready to go another three or four times.  I'm still deciding about pictures, but you can see them here at the GRC Photo site.   Thanks Gary and team for being out in that undesirable weather all day.  Once Keegan was back on the trailer, I headed over to see if they needed me to volunteer and finished up the day as the stadium steward for the beginner novice.  I had the fun of watching Amanda complete a picture perfect round on a very cute pony along with several other nice rounds and lots of smiles across the board.  The Cairn O'Mount team had a great day and it was fun to see them.  Sally finished up with Hannah's Stash in the BN (since poor Hannah is out of the saddle for a bit after a fluke accident). We headed back to the farm and I headed for a hot shower and dinner, very pleased with our first outing of the year.

Birthday Blog

Being in Aiken instead of Florida this year meant no birthday weekend competition.  Actually, that was mostly the result of being a cold weenie as Full Gallop did run this weekend.  Sally had two novice horses, her own Tommy and Hannah Ong's handsome Stash.  My Aiken weekend was great.  Friday was much colder than it is supposed to be in a southern state. I believe the high was in the neighborhood of 33 degrees.  The horses did notice this and there was quite a bit of leaping about on the part of many, including Keegan.  Once we started jumping, he settled right down and we had a great lesson focusing on reacting quickly after the jump to be well set up for the next.  Using both hands and legs to steer around corners and continuing to remember to go forward to the jumps.  Sally is very impressed by how well Keegan does the figure 8 over the jump exercise landing smoothly on either lead.  Thanks to Hilda for working with us on that exercise from the start of Keegan's jumping career.  After the lesson I headed downtown to Aiken Yoga.  It is great having a real yoga studio in Aiken.  Sydney Hayday and Amy Borun were both there as well, so in addition to the cold, that made Aiken feel more like Pennsylvania.

Saturday was more yoga, some work and then cross country schooling at Sandy Hills.  It had warmed up a bit, but the gale force significant wind made for the coldest version of 50 degrees.  Sally brought Wizard along for his first school of the new year.  Interestingly, there was almost no jumpiness despite the wind.  I think it was bothering us (the riders) more than the horses. Apparently, the wind knocked the rust right off as the school went super well for both horses.  Keegan jumped everything without a second glance and all from great distances.  I even got myself going forward after the first couple.  It was a lot of fun.  Sally paid Keegan a huge compliment (she had taken him schooling a couple weeks ago), saying that by her (very high) standards, he qualified as a really fun cross country horse.  I can't disagree at all and while he would be a great horse for anyone, I think he fits my needs incredibly well having all the attributes of being quiet, able to take a joke, think for himself and bail me out without holding a grudge - and being good enough at it that Sally said she didn't really see any fences where he had to take a joke...

Sunday, Sally was at Full Gallop, so after a couple of hours of work while I waited for it to warm up a little, I met Caitlin for a dressage lesson.  It was quite pleasantly warm and the wind had headed for some alternate venue (possibly Chicago from what I heard later). We had a great dressage lesson, with much use of the half step approach to get Keegan's trot more correct.  His canter transitions were quite good.  Caitlin said she thought that his trot was going to be quite good once he figured out what to do with his front legs when he was actively pushing from behind. So that was a great success.  We also had lunch and time for more horse gossip.

After another relatively uneventful trip home (the flight was about 30 minutes late), I watched a little of the Pro Bowl. Nick Foles ended up being the MVP which is pretty good for a 2nd year, third round pick. I totally missed the Grammys somehow, but heard about it through friends and facebook.  I was glad to hear Macklemore won best new artist and heard the singing might not have been the best, but the thought behind having same-sex marriages serended by Same Love definitely was. I also liked seeing Darius Rucker win best country solo and the Skyfall soundtrack win.

Yesterday was my birthday.  I started the day with a spin class at Body Cycle Studio.  I miss getting there regularly so it was nice to be in the city for Russell's class on a Monday morning.  Then Henry and I had breakfast at the Four Seasons.  Perfect way to start the day. Work was pretty usual and then dinner at a new BYOB in Philly called Entree.  It was fairly good and the bottle of Laurent-Perrier Cuvee Rose was fabulous as always.

As I kicked off my new year (fairly coincident with the Chinese New Year of the Horse) on my yoga mat, it was easy to feel thankful for the blessings of wonderful friends and family, engaging work, rewarding hobbies (that bring more friends) and hopeful that the year to come will bring more of the same and excellent adventures to report in this space.

'Tis the season

I know, I know - the holidays are pretty much over.  Although the Year of the Horse will get underway in the next couple of weeks.  But, it is football playoff seasons.  I enjoyed watching the Broncos win and the amazing game despite the 49ers loss in the championship games.  I'm looking forward to seeing some of my favorite players at the ProBowl next weekend and then the Super Bowl, always a highlight for me.

It is also winter riding season. I enjoyed my first Aiken weekend although it failed a bit on the "go south to be warm" front.  I got in Friday evening and it was quite pleasant, still around 50 degrees at 9:00 p.m., but that didn't last long.  I woke up to below freezing temperatures and a nasty wind.  Knowing that this can happen in Aiken, I came equipped for the arctic tundra with plenty of fleece, handwarmers, and toe warmers and stayed pretty comfortable.  Thursday Sally had texted to ask when I arrived on Friday.  My text response, "Late. Why yes, I do trust that I can just get on him Saturday at the show." And he completely justified my trust.  Dressage was a little tense, especially his first test, but he got much better and jumped like a total superstar.  Sally's horses were all good as well, as was Pooh Hoblitzell's adorable Irish youngster.  It never got particularly warm, but as always in Sally's program, all 9 horses were ready to go on time and looked great.  I definitely felt I was knocking the rust off, but there is really something to be said for a horse you can get on after 2 weeks of no riding and have no trouble clocking around the course (Novice).  The new dressage tests are OK.  I still don't like the canter, lengthen canter, stretchy circle, lengthen trot, turn up centerline to end Training Test B, but Keegan was quite good about everything.  His canter work is continuing to improve.

After getting Keegan settled back at the farm, I headed back and did some work. I can report that the document editing apps available for my Nexus 7 are far superior to those I had on the iPad so that was great. Caitlin and I met for dinner.  Ryan was off clinicing so we had girl time.  We did discuss the sadness with what seems an unreasonable number of serious horse injuries and fatalities, particular Santa's Keeper and Lionheart, but also Waitangi Notebook, Astro, and Seahawk.  Hug your ponies. But, we also had lots of fun with plans for the upcoming year, trying to sell horses (please, let 2014 be the Year of Horse Sales), and general updates.

Sunday, I went over to Boyd's and saw Hoku go.  She looks like a million bucks. Caitlin said she is doing really well although the cold winter weather means keeping on top of her skin. Caitlin is using a human aloe vera, vitamin E lotion that seems to be doing a great job keeping the skin supple and helping any minor blanket rubs grow in.  I also got to give Remi a kiss and check out the way too cute dogs at Windurra South.

After a farm tour of the very impressive Bridle Creek layout, I headed back to Sally's for my lesson. The focus was to be riding forward to the fences (both needed and alliterative). The lesson went really well and I was a bit surprised that I didn't have too much trouble even with reasonably big fences. We really focused on two things: 1) getting the right, sufficiently forward canter to the fences, and 2) quicker reactions times on the landing.  Sally also says she is very focused on straightness.  The quote, "good jumper riders can control and adjust their horses back to front - great jumper riders can do that laterally." Keegan was jumping fabulously and the lesson was a lot of fun.  Following my lesson, I watched Sally ride a couple, including Hannah Ong's handsome Stash.

Sally was very complimentary of the excellent start that Hannah has given this guy. It warmed up in the afternoon and many horses took advantage by napping, including Sue - appearing a bit different than the usual cross-country machine look.  Wall-E also had a nice nap and Kelsey had to wake him to be shown to a student of Melissa Hunsberger's. It was good to catch up with Melissa.  Wall-E was a superstar.  I might point out that Sally has not traditionally sold her horses, but she has some of her personal mounts for sale right now and they are all ridiculously nice horses - in case you are in the market and want a going event horse (as opposed to my h/j horse, jumper horse or greener OTTB .) Then it was get things tidied up at the barn and the room, head for the airport and finish up the weekend with football.  Altogether excellent!

Excellent Keebler visit, good half marathon, up and down football results

It snowed again over Thursday night into Friday morning.  Apparently, the almanac forecasts of a severe winter were not completely delusional this year. We hadn't quite gotten our plowing plan sorted, so in addition to working from home Friday morning, I spent an hour shoveling the driveway so I could get to the airport.  I needn't have been in a hurry.  My original flight was cancelled and the replacement flight late, but I did end up on a plane, warmlands bound only about an hour late.  I stayed Friday and Saturday night with Ed and Cyndi north of my usual Florida stomping grounds, but close to both Keebler and the half marathon. Cyndi and Ed were fabulous hosts all weekend, providing a room, meals and chauffering.  Their dog, who loves me when we are at Rocking Horse took a while and much food bribery to decide I was acceptable in her house.

Saturday was Keebler day!  I hadn't realized that Lynn was visiting Florida, so she also joined us to watch Jordan have a lesson.  Emily also had a lesson on Shelby.  Both of them looked great and Lynn and I really enjoyed seeing the Keebler.  Lynn got on and had a canter and a crossrail and I hacked him back to the barn.  Cyndi said Jordan was nervous, but she looked great and did a great job with him and Emily and Shelby have really progressed since I saw them last year.

 Seema and Emily hacking back to the barn (thanks to Jen, Emily's mom for the picture)

 Keebler with his ladies

 Lynn riding Keebler

We topped off the day with tack shopping in Ocala and dinner at Bites in Deland, netting leftover rabbit to complete dog bribery.  Sunday was half marathon morning.  The picture is Ed and me before the run (thanks Cyndi!).  The first 5 miles were great.  I was able to run all of it at a 12 minute pace, which is respectable these days.  Ed stayed with me and we had a great opportunity to talk about all sorts of things.  Unfortunately after about mile 7, my lungs became very unhappy.  This actually felt more like asthma than the more recent stuff, but we ended up walking the second half.  Ed stuck with me and it was enjoyable, if a little frustrating.  Jordan and Billie came to watch us finish which was great of them and we headed to the Track Kitchen at Spring Garden for brunch.  Very yummy and then back to the house for some football viewing prior to the final phase of the weekend. 

The football this weekend had its ups and downs.  Amazing come from behind victory for the Colts engineered by Andrew Luck UP.  Two point loss for the Eagles against the Saints DOWN. Big Chargers win over the Bengals - actually, I'm not sure which way to point the arrow on this one. 23-20 win for the 49ers, hmm another toss up on the rooting front.  But lots of excellent football regardless of outcome.

I finished off the Florida weekend with a visit with Hilda.  She cooked us an amazing dinner as usual and it was great to have a chance to catch up and visit.  I even have leftovers for lunch today. Hilda is as gracious a hostess as she is wonderful as a trainer.  I will miss Florida, but am looking forward to Aiken this winter, although I'm worried that it may not be very warm given the general arctic trends so far.