Gotcha!

Mwahahahaha!!

Okay, yes, he *can* knock it off the gate. But so far he hasn't done it until some time after he's finished eating. Who knows how long it will last, though..

We're back to ridiculous weather.... 40s and RAIN. Driving me nuts! I'd like to ride at some point, but this mud is awful.

Last week I cleaned out my car and found one paddock boot. One. I have absolutely no idea where the other one could be. I rode in my muck boots a few times--I know, I know, bad idea! They're too wide for safety, but I really wanted to ride! The problem (besides the whole safety issue) is that I can't hold and use my leg and ankle correctly. Not that I ever ride correctly.. You know how you're supposed to sort of weight the inside of your stirrup and let your toe point out a bit, keeping your heel down and your leg on the horse? Yeah, that's not how I ride. I weight the outside of my stirrup... so it kind of looks like this from the front or the back: <()> . Sort of. The points being my ankles, the parenthesis the horse.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, mysterious paddock boot disappearance, muck boots, riding... Somehow the muck boots take any stability I have in my ankle so after 15 minutes I can't put any weight in my left stirrup. With the loss of motion from having been broken and the muck boots messing me up, it feels like any pressure on the stirrup will cause my ankle to just snap in half.

So I broke down and went to Tractor Supply for paddock boots. Which is basically the worst possible place to buy paddock boots. I ended up getting a rather ugly pair of endurance-y paddock boots. They're reddish-brown and look fabulous with black half chaps. But I can get my feet in the stirrups without having to wedge them in and I can ride without destroying my ankle.

You know what's going to happen now, right? Either I'll find the missing paddock boot (which I vastly prefer to the new ones), OR I'm going to lose one of the new ones and of course it will be the same foot I already lost. I'm really hoping for Option A.

And on a completely different note.... Before I rode River last week, I groomed him and he took offense to having his belly brushed. He managed to kick up and knock the brush out of my hand. Somehow he did something to my finger. It's been a week and it still hurts just as much. It's not a big deal because I can still use it pretty normally, but any motion that causes it to bend at the bottom knuckle is pretty painful. I guess maybe it's sprained? I don't know. But it's weird.