Made Better by Kittens

 My car was easily fixed last week. We replaced the battery and it started right away. I took it over to the shop and had them run a parasitic draw test to make sure that something wasn't drawing battery power when it shouldn't be and it came back clean, so hopefully it will continue to start without issue.

I hopped on Phantom on Thursday night with my fingers crossed that she would feel sound after watching her on Sunday (she looked not so sound). She surprisingly didn't feel too bad! Unfortunately, despite having some Ventipulmin, she was coughing. She hasn't had a cough in over a year. I'm not sure what changed, but it has been windy so maybe some pollen was flying around? I did just enough trot to see how she felt and then we went for a walk outside. Watching the sun set was a nice way to end the evening.

The other bit of good news is that my groin injury is getting better. Very slowly, but it's definitely better. The bad news is that I gave myself a new injury by doing the stretches for my old injury. Somehow I've managed to do something to my left side and it hurts when I take a half deep breath. 

Yep, I'm getting old.

This will put an kink in my riding plans for a few days. It's feeling slightly better, not as much of a stabby pain. But a belch, hiccup or yawn definitely results in a wince. 

Thus I didn't ride on Saturday. The kids got to play in the arena together instead. Cisco showed some impressive airs above the ground - well, impressive to me. Not so impressive to Phantom, who was decidedly not impressed.

I finally got him a big boy nice halter. A barnmate was selling this practically new halter for a great price so I snapped it up!

I did ride on Sunday though. I hopped on Cisco with the plan of just walking, but I wanted him to walk with his head stretching down. Kind of a fake head down, not into a proper connection, but just reaching down. We've done this before, but it's been a while. 

He was pretty good. It helped that there were others riding with us so he was more relaxed than he would have been if we were by ourselves. He was so good at a walk that I thought I'd try it at a trot. 

It mostly continued at the trot. As we approached the scary end, his head would come up and I could feel him thinking of dropping his shoulder and diving to the inside to cut the end of the arena off early, so I had to shorten my reins and pick up the contact again. But in the rest of the arena he was good about dropping his head and staying relaxed. 

The trot brought out one issue that is usually masked by riding with contact - my horse is very wiggly. Apparently I need to do more work on a loose rein. 

This week was also made better by the barn kittens that have finally come out of their hiding spot. They were born at the beginning of August to a mom who is feral (she stays in the barn but won't let anyone touch her). There are five kittens, all different colours, and they are absolutely adorable. Everyone is working really hard to make sure that they are comfortable with humans.

And no, I have definitely not named my favourite one. Nope, I've definitely not named him Wembley, and no, he definitely did not seem to look at me when I definitely didn't say that name out loud.