In which all good plans fail.

The first weekend in October is the last big show of the season.  I am actually in 2nd place for year end points so I am pretty excited and felt good that we should be able to secure our spot and even possibly move to first place!  That would be so cool, go out with a bang and all.  Alas, that didn't happen.  After shows, I always give the horses some time off.  Dressage shows equal about a day, going cross country warrants about 3 days off.  This gives them time to decompress, work out any stiffness and it is a reward for not being an ass.  I have done this for years.  Sunday was the show so I gave Mia a few, well earned days off.  Thursday the plan was to have the farrier appointment, do some cleaning and then ride and get ready for our show.  I had a XC lesson scheduled for the following Thursday (yesterday) at the venue the last show will be at, the timing was looking great.

Wednesday night when I brought the horses in for dinner, Mia was fine.  Thursday morning, I noticed she almost looked like she was standing more on her right leg than her left.  Could be coincidence, I let it go. When the farrier came out, he noticed it too.  Not that she was being bad, just that she wasn't standing squarely.  He put hoof testers on her and found nothing, no heat, no swelling, no reactions.  She didn't look lame.  Thursday night I went out to ride and Mia came in gimpy.  Damn.  She had no real heat but was definitely gimpy.  I gave her half of a gram of bute and slathered her hoof in ichthammol and kicked her back outside.  Friday she was 3 legged lame and her hoof was warm.  Damn it!  Entries to the last show were due on Tuesday, I put mailing that entry in off as long as possible.

I kept Mia's hoof slathered in ichthammol and kept her up with bute but to no avail, Tuesday morning, while much better, she was still a little gimpy and her hoof is still a little warm so I didn't send in my entry.  And canceled my XC lesson.  Damn it.  Last night she actually looked sound at the walk but I didn't have time to put her on the lunge to check her at the trot.  I think her abscess may have blown out of her frog, I can't really tell though.  Her hoof is still slightly warm on the inside wall.  Oh well, there is no reason she can't have a bunch of time off now anyway, so no rush.  I am disappointed we are missing our last show and our last chance to move up in points but it is what it is.  A sound horse is more important than a ribbon.  Horses, the only way to ensure a slow transition to insanity.

In other news, K and I were driving home from ice cream after Labor Day and as we turned onto my road, we saw eyes.  Lots of eyes.  Little bitty eyes on the side of the road.  Kittens.  One of the big downsides of living is the country is people just dropping off animals.  I had K stop and back up until the car headlights highlighted them and hopped out to grab them.  I can't in good conscience leave what looked like dumped kittens.  I saw 3 and was able to grab two.  I handed them off while I chased down the third through the ditch using the flashlight app on my phone.  (It was only 10p at night with heavy cloud cover and all.  Total darkness.)  I grabbed it and as I walked back to the road, one kitten escaped K's grasp and went running across the road into the corn field.  Well hell.  It was a black kitten too, of course.  I took my phone and went rummaging through the corn field for about 5 mins before I finally told K that I had to give up, I just could not catch it.  It was dark, it was a black cat, I am going through a corn field full of mature corn stalks, it simply runs faster than I can keep up and there was no ability to corner it.

Kittens the night we found them, after dinner and a bath

K started mewing as a last ditch effort to catch this last kitten and now and behold, the dang thing started going to her!  It didn't want her to touch it but I was able to come up behind the kitten and grab it as it was now in the ditch by the cornfield.  Success!  Except now there was a 4th kitten trotting in the road towards K's mewing.  Argh, more!  I grabbed the 3 kittens while K grabbed the 4th and we waited around to see if we found any others.  Thankfully there seemed to have been only the 4, no more mewing was heard.  We brought them home and they were tiny. And super skinny.  And covered in fleas.  As in well beyond "having fleas", more into the "more flea than cat" category.  Damn!  We gave them each a quarter can of cat food, trimmed nails, gave them baths and put them in the dog crate which then went in the garage to keep fleas away from my animals.

Danica, 6 weeks old

The kittens were about 6-7 weeks old and super hungry, they got 3 baths and rinsed in apple cider vinegar (which, actually, worked pretty well) before finally hitting the 2 pound mark.  Once they hit that mark, they got Capstar to kill the remaining fleas and came inside and were then named Terrorists.  OMG kittens.  Into EVERYTHING.  I kept them for almost 2 weeks before I found homes for 3 of them and ended up with one left.  And of course it goes that the one that is left is not the cuddliest one of all.  The one who sleeps under the covers with me at night.  The one who spends 90% of my workday on my lap and wants nothing more than attention.    So, I guess it is time to introduce a new anklebiter, Danica Catrick.  Now I am keeping her.

Danica, 7 weeks old

Danica, 8 weeks old