Auri got spayed recently, which I think means she's a grown up cat and not my little baby kitten anymore, technically. But don't worry, she's still my little baby kitten! We took her home the same day as her procedure, so she was still under the influence.
And ANGRY
Everything went well, and husband picked her up because I got stuck at work. When I came home he was sitting on the living room floor doing his schoolwork, so he could be close to Auri and keep an eye on her. It made my heart melt a little a lot.
She has the cutest little cone of shame! It says "under construction" and has cute little sayings like "spoil me" and "Hug me" and for some reason "I"ll be back". Ummmm...one of these things is not like the other.
Anyway.
Auri has adjusted quite well to her cone, and even kinda likes it. It's fun watching her move around the house. If she gets stuck or caught up on something, she works out how to handle it, and thinks she's quite clever and is rather proud of herself. It's adorable.
But the first night...she figured out how to eat her dinner without problem, but not how to drink. This led to some hilarity at her drugged little kitten expense. First, we tried a little pie tin. Something she could easily reach without knocking the e-collar against.
Next, we tried the heavy ceramic cooking pot.
And finally, supervised without the e-collar
She's figured out the whole drinking thing now. But it was pretty funny watching her. Poor kitty, drugs are bad, m'kay?
Her nickname is Murder Kitten for reasons
Auri is recovering well and should be out of her cone in a few more days.
It's been a busy week as I get ready for vacation. It's my first time to Mexico, ever, and my second time travelling out of the country. My family went to Canada when I was maybe 10 years old, so it's kinda hard to count that.
In the rush of working, running errands, and loving Trubys, I've given up on blogging until I get back. I had good intentions to get caught up on our recent adventures and then stay on top of it, but alas, life.
I like to think they were waiting for me to visit, but I have my doubts
Don't worry, they assured me they were totally NOT up to
any shenanigans. Nope. Not even a little.
Don't worry, Truby is still the prettiest princess!
I'm a bit behind in sharing our little adventures. Fall has come to Tucson, and it's gorgeous! Chilly at night, comfortable during the day. Finally *not* *hot*! We've even had rain. It's been great!
We started enjoying the change in weather a few weeks ago, by taking a walk on the Loop. I thought it would be a good experience to go counter clockwise, since we've always gone the other way. No difference in the trail, just going in reverse. Of course, that means the first corner of the Loop goes by a large stable. Truby did pretty well with this, and then we almost tripped over a pair of coyotes that were chilling like, just off the trail. Right outside the large, bustling stable. They glared at us and huffed off a dozen feet, and then threw themselves back down in the shade of a mesquite tree. Clearly annoyed we had disturbed their nap.
Truby was NOT okay with the coyotes. Which is probably good. I don't want her to be blase about predators when we're out and about. Of course, I also don't want her freaking out and acting like a prey animal, instigating an attack response. (Oh shit! Coyotes! Look! I'm tasty and fun to chase! EEEeeee!!!!) Cautious awareness is good, panic is bad. We continued past the coyotes, Truby antsy and very aware of them, and then approached the riding arena, where someone was getting a lesson and cantering jumps. This is about 30 feet away from where the coyotes were chilling. This gave Tru something new to focus on, and she threw her head up in the air with the distinct "I can spook at this!" look nervous horses have when they just really want an excuse to set off their drama.
I reminded her that no, this was no big deal. She's been around plenty of riding horses and jumping horses and she wasn't afraid of that. She immediately dropped her head and sighed, like, 'oh yeah, that's right. This isn't scary.' It was super cute! Of course, she then flicked her ears back and decided to return to Coyote Alert.
She eventually settled, and the rest of the walk was no big deal. For some reason, I can't find any of the pictures from this trip. Booooo!
She hates those adobe planters
Last week I took her for another handwalk, this time all the way down the cul de sac the barn is at the end of. Not a long trip, barely a quarter mile, but a new trip. She was very alert, and that gave us a chance to school some things. Like, not trying to crawl on top of me just because a cactus gave you side eye. We also worked on trash cans not being scary, and these stupid adobe planters that she absolutely hated.
I don't like it
Silly mare didn't mind the barrel cactus, not even when they poked her in the nose. Just the stupid planters. Horses!
The idea with this walk was to start getting comfortable walking down to the big wash. And just the general idea of getting used to going new places. As it turns out, the path from the road to the wash is really overgrown right now, so we won't be trying that any time soon. But still, it's good to practice going new places, even if it is just down the road.
Pausing to stress eat
She was much more relaxed heading back home, and I was pleased with her. She wasn't super scared, and was still well in my control the entire time. I was able to get to to approach scary things, and even though she never really accepted the planters, she could tolerate walking past them. Good enough! When we got back, I turned her out to see if she needed to run off any nervous energy. She didn't, but she did want to roll.
Our last adventure I'm going to save for another day. I just realized how late in the morning it's gotten, and I need to go run some errands. Stay tuned for a walk with Cinco!
Monsoon season came to an end Sunday. The remnants of Hurricane Rosa gave us our last little bit of rain for the season. While Tucson missed out on most of the fun, we did get a few overcast days and light showers. It was a nice way to end the season, especially if you like things to be balanced and tidy (which I do, very much!) since monsoon season started off the the leftovers of Hurricane Bud.
The horses stay in their stalls on Sundays, and they stayed in again on Monday because the forecast was calling for rain, thunderstorms, sharknados, flooding, and rains of frogs. All that stayed much farther west (booo), and we just got a bit of light rain. I made a beeline for the barn as soon as work was over so I could let Truby and Cinco out to play.
Being a little wild, having some fun
I have permission from Cinco's owner to turn him out whenever I'm there, and Cinco's owner has my permission to turn Truby out, which is perfect. Both of them really enjoy their turnout time, and Tucson people tend to be a bit unconcerned with turnout. It's a desert thing, I guess. But we want our ponies out. Truby and Cinco are perfect turnout buddies. They get along, are respectful of each other, Cinco encourages Truby to move, but Truby doesn't wind him up. And neither one is attached or buddy sour. You can pull one out of the "pasture" and the other doesn't care. It's wonderful.
When I first put them out, they moseyed around a bit, then Cinco decided it was time to stretch his legs and gallop around. Truby didn't join him at first, but she didn't mind him running around, even when he ran right up behind her. She seemed calm and content, and recognized her friend was just having fun. It didn't bother her at all.
Of course, after he'd been playing for awhile, Truby became less indulgent. She decided he'd had enough time to be crazy, and it was time to Mind His Manners. Cinco is very respectful of other horses, but especially mares, so a couple mare glares and a kick or two, and he made sure his frolicking stayed away from Truby.
#mareglare
They did run around together quite a bit though. It's so good to have them out together. Cinco will gallop just for fun, but Truby would rather watch Netflix and eat chips, if she could. When they're out together he can usually entice her for a bit of playtime though, and she enjoys it, once she gets going.
After they settled down, I grabbed the Hay Play, and stuffed some hay in it. It's been a long time since I used it, in fact, I just pulled it out of under some mesquite trees and cleaned it out the day before. So it was a bit new and exciting. Truby had some fun, while Cinco watched enviously. I'm not sure if he's gotten to try it out or not, but he LOVED it! But he had to wait his turn, poor baby horse.
They took turns with the Hay Play. When one played with it, the other moseyed around the turnout area, browsing on weeds and munching on mesquite leaves. Then they'd switch. After awhile, both of them abandoned the Hay Play and just wandered around, stretching their legs, enjoying the day, and being horses.
I pulled up a chair and ate my lunch. At this point, it was almost 5 o'clock, which more dinner time than lunch time, but I hadn't gotten a chance to eat during the day. It was really nice. Just overcast enough to be pleasant, a good breeze, and nice scenery. Since my lunch was just leftover hummus, baby carrots, and breadsticks, I ended up sharing the carrots with the ponies. Of course.
My pretty princess
After lunch, I did a little barnwork. Tidying Truby's stall, getting her pysillium dosed out and stuffing her net with hay. I saw one of our regular coyotes. I love her. She's beautiful, alert, and whenever she sees me she gets a look like "I do not have time to deal with this". I'm obviously an inconvenience to her, and it amuses me. Someday I'll get a really nice picture of her.
After annoying the coyote, I checked in on the horses. Just to see what they were up to. Oh, nothing. Just being ADORABLE.
They were enjoying a good grooming session. At one point, they switched sides, Cinco closer to me and Truby on his other side. But apparently that was weird because about a minute later they switched back. Seriously, if these two get any cuter they're just going to turn into cotton candy or something.
Frands
And that's basically Truby and Cinco's best afternoon out. They had so much fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them! A perfect way to spend an afternoon.
