Yeah I'm still here!

 I know it's been over a week- my bad- but I wasn't up to posting. 

First of all I have a big sad because my favourite kitten, little Badger, disappeared on the 9th. 

This was the last photo I took of her, the day before she disappeared. I had made great progress with her; she even let me pick her up and move her around on the feed table. Also, the other cats could see that she wasn't afraid, and that led to me being able to pet every one of them - at feeding time only, so far.  I miss her little cuteness! Pretty sure she was victim to an owl or coyote as she disappeared at night. 

Thumper sez: You still have me an' I eat coyotes and owls for breakfast!

Yes Thumper and you are very good at guarding the  hay piles from marauding rodents. But please stick close to home!

I got the seasonal flu Thursday night, I'm on the mend now but I had no energy for about 4 days. It really brightened  my day when Ted brought these home:

Yup, a dozen red roses for his mizzer'ble wife! What a sweetheart. 

All that being said, I have a few things to look forward to. Ted built me a shaping block for my bosal so it has been tied on to that for a week now, and with nice weather for the next few days I'm going to see how Ruby does in it. Ruby and I have a nice "friendship" going- it's food based for her but if that's the way to her heart I'm not complaining! She offers her itchy spots to me, and generally seems happy to hang out instead of just immediately leaving once her handful of grain is done. 

Got my fall deworming done too. Had to laugh at Velvet, she has such strong opinions. Once I squirted the ivermectin in her mouth, she was like. "I'm leaving. I hate you!" Hahaha poor girl. 

Then there's Misty, she is my next cat project. She was the most aloof of the kittens. But thanks to canned cat food, she's allowing as how I might not be such a monster after all. The biggest problem is that the grey cat, Smokey, is a bit of a bully at feeding time; he doesn't allow Smudge and Misty to come up until he has had his first dibs. Hisses and swats at them.  But I have gotten to touch  all the cats, even Smokey and Misty. Bandit is letting me pet him and even pick him up by the belly to move him over.  I will eventually get a system figured out that works for taming Misty. 

Just hoping that she doesn't get pregnant first! Hoping to get her spayed next year.

Also coming up in 2 weeks is the Canadian Finals Rodeo, just a half hour from us. There is a Ranch Horse Competition and sale there on Nov. 4th that I plan to attend. Back in 2000 I put on one of the first Ranch Horse Competition and Sale events in central Alberta- did that for 3 years until we moved more north.  I wanted a format to showcase horses' abilities in a competition before selling them so that the buyers could actually see what they were buying; as compared to just running them through a sale ring and talking a big talk about them. The horses were vet checked prior to the sale. Monies raised went to the prizes and all profits went to a charity.  It was a lot of fun! Nowadays this is a common format for selling horses (out here in the western ranch country). 

The catalogue on the right, of course, features the photo I use for my blog background, that is Coyote Belle's mama, Sundee. The other two are my artwork, with the middle one being a drawing of Beamer's half sister, Montana, who was Velvet's mama. The one on the left was done entirely out of my imagination and depicts the history of the foothills of Alberta- oilfields and ranching. 

So even though it was a bit of a downer week, it's all good now!