The Good, the Not So Bad, and the Bad

"One woe doth tread upon another's heels...so fast they follow."  Hamlet Act IV, vii. 

Good news, bad news....

The Misty indoor kitty situation did not work, so I put her outside where she seems quite happy with Peppercorn. That's good. What's no so bad is that she and Peppercorn are a tag team duo and they follow me all around. But what's bad is that the "tag team" has apparently ganged up on my sweet Patchadoodle who somehow managed to push out the screen in the front window and get outside.

At least I think he's outside since I can't find him in the house and the screen was definitely pushed out.  Blessing is that none of the other indoor kitties followed him. Of the group, he is the only one who has had any experience surviving outdoors, so that is a minor plus.  The major negative is that Misty and Pepper are patrolling the property and twice now I have heard a cat battle out there. Since they do not fight each other, I can only presume that it's poor Patch being driven away.

I didn't discover the screen until late last night when it chilled off and I went to close the window, I thought Patches was in the back room curled up somewhere sleeping, but apparently he got out sometime during the day or perhaps even early morning before I got up. I feel foolish that I didn't notice that he was missing sooner, but my kitties do crash in closets and odd places to sleep, so I just rushed off to school--I subbed yesterday--and didn't think twice about it.

Well, I've been thinking about it now and I didn't sleep at all once I realized he was gone. And I was up at 6 AM to go out looking for him. I tried locking Misty and Pepper on the back porch, but they both managed to get out again, so every time I go out one or both of them are at my feet, discouraging Patches from making an appearance. This whole mess is one big worry!!

On the horse front, since I had no class at the end of the day, I had to make a decision--to wait for an hour until the swimming pool opened, or to come home to ride.

Guess what? I opted to ride!

It has been really dry and dusty here over the last week or so--although rain is supposed to some on the weekend--and when I lunged Chance and Tucker on Tuesday, I raised quite a cloud. So, I decided a trail ride would be the better option.

I took Chance out first on the longer trail, going all the way back to the far side of the woods, using all the little hills along the was for some "stifle trotting,"  I also trotted a fair stretch on the way back.  I guess we were out for around 25 minutes or so. Not a biggie, but enough to get some exercise. He was, as always, a good boy.

I trotted Tucker in the arena for perhaps 10 minutes, going over the raised cavaletti I had set up to make it a little more interesting. Since he seemed pretty quiet about all that, I headed out into the woods with him. This time, we took the new trail.  It's pretty winding at the end as I had to pick a path around both a fallen tree and a good stand of briars. I guess when Tuck hit the trail to come back home and realized where he was he thought--fortunately only thought--that a nice little buck of celebration was in order. I gave him a sharp correction the first instant I felt his intent and he settled quickly back into a nice walk for the rest of the way home.

So, Chance gets an A+ and Tucker gets a B+ this time. Frankly, it's why I don't take Tucker out more often. He does have a wicked buck and I'm afraid I can't sit it was well as Caroline sits Ace, so I am cautious when I ride him. It's kind of a double edged sword because I'm sure if we did more fun things he'd probably settle down and stop being silly, but we can't do the fun things as long as he's likely to be silly.  This threat to buck had no provocation whatsoever. It was just something to do, I guess.

It's not been the best of days, but riding is always a good thing.