Snot Nosed Trio

This morning's view at the barn

Ugh. I hate being sick. I've had an annoying cold since the 1st, but all of the sudden it evolved into this death sickness, complete with a lovely fever, hacking cough and total lack of desire to leave my bed.

I think I'm finally over the worst of it and ready to return to the world of the living!

During my almost two weeks of sickness, the ponies weren't that much different. Both girls got runny noses and coughs, which most of the horses in the barn seemed to have as well. They didn't seem too much worse for the wear though and recovered much more quickly than I did. It was almost kind of funny that we were all snuffling and coughing at the same time. Almost. But not really.

I had some great rides on both girls. I'm really enjoying getting back on Jetta. I just need to stick with it. It killed me a little to be at the barn ALL ALONE (which rarely happens) and to not ride because I felt like I was going to keel over at any second.

She got some well deserved treats after this ride!

Misty is so much fun, as always and hopefully I'll have a couple people come to see her in the next couple weeks. Still need to find the poor girl a new home :( She's been getting better and better at bridleless, but still not 100% trustworthy tackless. She absolutely knows when she doesn't have a halter on that she can't be made to follow any sort of rules, so we've retreated to the roundpen where I can take her halter off in a much more controlled environment. We're getting there.

My bruise from Jetta developed wonderfully and is now fading, though it has still left a bit of a knot. I'm kind of surprised with my spectacular bruising ability that it didn't get even more beautiful, but it was still pretty bad.

I think it looked worse in person

Both girls got their hooves trimmed today. I usually maintain their hooves with a rasp until they need actual trimming (still too timid to wield nippers or a hoof knife) and one of Misty's hooves started to flare and Jetta's bars were looking long so I decided it was time for the professional to come out. She hasn't been out in about four and half months but said both girls' hooves were looking good and I was doing a good job keeping their hooves balanced. Always nice to know I'm not ruining them!

I cleaned alllll of my tack too. It took me three straight hours. It was awful. You know you have way too much tack when it takes you that long. This is why I hate winter. MOLD. That stuff is nasty. I've been doing a good job of checking my tack that I keep in the trailer and wiping it down before it got too bad but then I got sidetracked.

Cats are really helpful when cleaning tack btw:

Mold loves really nice tack apparently. It barely grows on my not-so-nice tack but it loves the expensive stuff. So now all of my bridles, breastplates and anything else with a scrap of leather on it are living in my closet. It's a good thing I have a big closet.

Of course, all the roommates threw in their leather objects to be cleaned as well. I can be bribed pretty easily. ML had a really moldy bridle and she had the brilliant idea to soak it... in bleach water. I walked into my bathroom (of course it was my bathtub she chose to use instead of her own) to this monstrosity:

Bleach is a very, very bad idea

It is still to be decided if I can rescue this poor bridle.