So Sore, and its gonna get worse

Its been too many days to do this in proper chronological order so I'll organize things more thematically.

Robert has been on a mission lately to spruce up the barn. Tons of garbage (literally?) and wood and miscellaneous stuff is being hauled away to be burned or stored more neatly. He also fixed the big green training cart. Niki, Chuck's little pony, broke one of the shafts. I will say though, she had a lot of help from many many many horses pulling that cart around for who knows how many miles over all sorts of terrain. Still, she made the final break and she should be proud.

We've got barn kittens again! I'm guessing they're around 7 or 8 weeks now. Closer to 7 probably. So they are little and fluffy but they're able to toddle around under mamma's supervision. The new mamma is less feral and more careful about where she puts her babies. So the plan is to try to get them semi-tame through the use of canned cat food. First we get them hooked on the stuff. Then we sit closer and closer to it while they eat. We've decided to call the three kittens A, B, and C. 'A' is already eating the canned food, and 'B' has had some as well. 'C' is pretty reclusive. If we can get these guys sortof tame I think we might be able to get them into a container and have them all fixed.

Star is hoping to convince me that she doesn't really need to be doing any work. We cantered around and she was constantly on the verge of trotting. We had a lesson with Robert yesterday doing trot poles. She was displeased. Not that she has any problem with poles, she walks over them just fine, the problem is with work, I think. Maybe I should work her outside more, she is usually more energetic outside (for better or for worse.)

I've done another two rides with Colonel now. The first one I still didn't lunge him enough and he was sortof barely under control. Really liked throwing his shoulder out and his head down. I didn't have time or energy or confidence at that moment to deal with these things. The next ride I wanted to figure out if he was putting his head down in order to buck. I strapped a western saddle to him after a pretty vigorous round of lunging. I lunged him some more and then hopped on. You just cant tire this horse out, it seems. Anyway, it seems he likes to put his head down when he feels contact on the reins, but he's not trying to buck. He was rather surprised to be corrected on the shoulder thing. I gave him fair warning with my outside leg, he ignored it, he got smacked. Things got better pretty quickly.

As per my current plan, basically all the under saddle work has been done at a canter. Colonel's been cantering pretty fast, though not as fast as he sometimes does. Telling him "easy" gets me a slight, temporary reduction in speed. A half halt on the outside rein gets me either a lowered head or preparation to stop. These may be related, I'm not sure. Anyway, I guess I'm going to keep cantering him around and I'll start having him circle when I'm unhappy with the speed and I'll let him straighten out when I become happy again. I'm debating what to do about the head thing. I think I need to get more time on him before I decide on a course of action. Who knows? it may just go away on its own.

Alyssa is out of town for the week and I'd like to put some time in with Keno. If the footing works out maybe we'll go outside and run around some. I can work on my dependence on the western saddle. It makes me feel safe but it makes my riding less precise and I cant jump in it. (I ruined a brand new bra figuring that out.) Keno's a great horsey for this sort of thing, and just generally a fun ride.

I feel bad about not getting Papillon out lately, but I just haven't had much time. I see some practice dressage tests in her future. I turned Lady out in the arena. That was quite a thing to see. She has an even poorer estimate of her stopping distance than Papillon. Fortunately no boards, horses or people were broken during any of her stunts.

Tomorrow I'll be out early to clean stalls, we'll see how much I can get done.