Double post!

Hi all,

I really wish I could have posted on St. Patrick's day, with it being Riley's birthday and everything, but well... the day got away from me. Instead, you get two posts in one!

Riley officially turned 5 on March 17th, so I made him a little cake and spelled out "5" in peppermints. Oh, and there was Guinness. 

I was helping out with stick removal around the barn and it was really cold and windy, so I thought I'd give him a day off from "work" and just bring him in and spoil him a little. When I was finished helping out around the barn I saw that he was right next to gate so I ran down and grabbed him (in a 20 acre field this was a blessing)! I stuffed him in a stall with a handful of grain and a flake of hay. I got his birthday treat ready and brought him out to investigate.

Om nom nom... he careful picked off all the peppermints first.

Don't look at his disgusting muddy legs, treats took priority.

Then I shared a Guinness with him, which he was unsure of:

Oooooh.

He slurped a little but was pretty suspicious.

We also got a new addition to the barn... a little calico named Petunia. She's a friend's cat who was having severe asthma issues with her so the owner of the farm graciously offered to let me bring her out to see if she'd make a good barn cat. Luckily, the owner is also very fond of white cats and despite being calico, she's mostly white with calico points. For now she's living in the tack room (which is heated, while she gets acclimated), soon we'll move her into a stall with the dog crate I've been using for her and her litter pan so the other cats can get to know her with any squabbles.

Petunia, relaxing in the sun under the window.

If you have any advice on transitioning a city cat to the country life please let me know!

Yesterday, I took the day off so I could hold Riley for the farrier. It's been a while since I've been there to hold him and I just wanted to see what he thought about his progress. Overall he said his feet look great, his soles are MUCH improved but his hooves grown painfully slow (at the least the fronts). We've been able to go 7 weeks between trims and we're going to reevaluate on April 24th to see if he'll need shoes once I want to start competing him. While is is very comfortable on asphalt, he still takes a ginger step here or there on gravel and I don't want to bruise him unnecessarily. We'll get road hacking to improve his tolerance in the meantime. Things have gone from super snowy to ridiculously muddy and there's no point in putting shoes on now if he's comfortable and the chances of him pulling a shoe are high.

After his trim, we did a little bit of pessoa work and again, only one major meltdown about tracking right. He's getting better and neither seems to lose our cool anymore (which helps). I can reset him rather easily now and get his brain back in order. Keep in mind, we don't have a "ring" yet, so our current riding area is hilly and makes lunging, interesting... though I think in the long run it will help him with balance on uneven terrain.

He definitely had his thinking cap on yesterday. Look at that booty! he's going to be so cute once he's fit.

Good boy. Not as forward as I would like, but moving freely and accepting the pessoa.

PS. Sorry that my photos of him lunging are always tracking left, it's much easier to take photos with the lunge line in my left hand! Not to mention we usually have discussions about tracking right and I have to keep my eye on him at all times.

*There's been some chatter about heading over to Boyd's place for a little schooling show at the end of April, they have an elementary level that would be perfect for us to get our feet wet!
**Also, Emily is going to hop on Riley Thursday to make him ride past the scary cows... yay!