Kittehs!
So, I went to MediaWest, saw my fannish friends, had a great time. A lot of the folks I only see once a year at the con, so I always try to get there for a day or two at least. (Luckily I live pretty close--it's 104 miles from my house to the con hotel.)
After the holiday weekend, I went out to the stables last Friday to take my second lesson. It was awesome, Nan helped me work on my position in the saddle and getting my feel back. I have a tendency to lean to the right, so about 3/4 of the way through the lesson, Mocha and I were just walking along and I felt like I was really right-leaning. I looked down and the saddle itself was sliding off to the right. I tried to stand in the left stirrup to get the saddle back over to the center of the horse's back, but it was too late, the saddle slid sideways off Mocha, and we parted company. The worst part was it had rained for a few days prior, and when I got up my back was all muddy LOL. Mocha, God bless her, stood stock still as soon as she realized she was losing her rider and waited for Nan to come over and get her. Another reason she's an awesome horse. (Some horses would have freaked out and taken off bucking and kicking.) After I dusted myself off, I got back on and finished my lesson--I had a sore muscle in my back the next day but by Sunday I was fine. Shit happens.
While I was at the barn, Nan was getting ready to leave for a horse-buying trip down to Kentucky for one of her clients, and she was worried about her kittens in the tack room. Someone had dumped a pregnant cat at the farm >:( and Nan figured she'd have the mom spayed after the kittens were weaned, and several of the barn regulars have already said they want a kitten. Well, on Wed. or Thurs., mom cat disappeared, and the kitties are only about 3/4 weeks old, so they were having to be bottle fed. And Nan didn't have anyone lined up to take care of them while she went to Kentucky. So I said I would take them home and foster them--they are currently in the bottom 'apartment' of my giant rat cage, I only have 2 rats right now and they're in the upstairs unit. The little kitties are starting to eat, so I can leave a dish of soft food mixed with kitten formula in the cage between bottle feedings, and they're fine overnight that way. They're starting to get the hang of using the litter box, too, so they're doing pretty good. (And they're not pee-soaked so I don't have to wash them all the time.) I can foster them until the end of this month, but I'm getting my Cornish Rexes sometime in July, so I have to help rehome them before then. Nan says some barn clients are interested, but I'm going to try to talk her in to letting me take the ones who aren't spoken for to the local cat rescue, as I can't see them being able to survive in the barn until they're much older. They'd be easy pickings for a raccoon or coyote, or the barn dogs would play too rough with them, they'd get under the horse's feet, etc. They should be really adoptable, as they're beautiful for barn kittens--a blue-cream tortie and white, a blue tabby, a cream, and two light red and whites. They are a lot of work though, and have confirmed my desire to adopt mature cats, for sure!
After the holiday weekend, I went out to the stables last Friday to take my second lesson. It was awesome, Nan helped me work on my position in the saddle and getting my feel back. I have a tendency to lean to the right, so about 3/4 of the way through the lesson, Mocha and I were just walking along and I felt like I was really right-leaning. I looked down and the saddle itself was sliding off to the right. I tried to stand in the left stirrup to get the saddle back over to the center of the horse's back, but it was too late, the saddle slid sideways off Mocha, and we parted company. The worst part was it had rained for a few days prior, and when I got up my back was all muddy LOL. Mocha, God bless her, stood stock still as soon as she realized she was losing her rider and waited for Nan to come over and get her. Another reason she's an awesome horse. (Some horses would have freaked out and taken off bucking and kicking.) After I dusted myself off, I got back on and finished my lesson--I had a sore muscle in my back the next day but by Sunday I was fine. Shit happens.
While I was at the barn, Nan was getting ready to leave for a horse-buying trip down to Kentucky for one of her clients, and she was worried about her kittens in the tack room. Someone had dumped a pregnant cat at the farm >:( and Nan figured she'd have the mom spayed after the kittens were weaned, and several of the barn regulars have already said they want a kitten. Well, on Wed. or Thurs., mom cat disappeared, and the kitties are only about 3/4 weeks old, so they were having to be bottle fed. And Nan didn't have anyone lined up to take care of them while she went to Kentucky. So I said I would take them home and foster them--they are currently in the bottom 'apartment' of my giant rat cage, I only have 2 rats right now and they're in the upstairs unit. The little kitties are starting to eat, so I can leave a dish of soft food mixed with kitten formula in the cage between bottle feedings, and they're fine overnight that way. They're starting to get the hang of using the litter box, too, so they're doing pretty good. (And they're not pee-soaked so I don't have to wash them all the time.) I can foster them until the end of this month, but I'm getting my Cornish Rexes sometime in July, so I have to help rehome them before then. Nan says some barn clients are interested, but I'm going to try to talk her in to letting me take the ones who aren't spoken for to the local cat rescue, as I can't see them being able to survive in the barn until they're much older. They'd be easy pickings for a raccoon or coyote, or the barn dogs would play too rough with them, they'd get under the horse's feet, etc. They should be really adoptable, as they're beautiful for barn kittens--a blue-cream tortie and white, a blue tabby, a cream, and two light red and whites. They are a lot of work though, and have confirmed my desire to adopt mature cats, for sure!