I know that the USA is experiencing dramatic weather right now.
We, in California, had ours Tues/Wed/Thurs of last week. Our town of San Miguel received 13″ of rain in 48 hours! It was incredible – for us. And, the winds were epic. Since we live on a hill, the winds were even more epic than most. Very dramatic. Mother Nature was in a mood.
This is Finn, covered in mud after the epic rains. You can see the soil in his paddock… Clay and sand with water = sticky mud.
This is my biggest feeding wheelbarrow. Overnight, this much rain was in it. Wow!
I also think that I told you that rain doesn’t do will with our soil. You can see it in the photos. That is also why I only put one or two horses per paddock in wet weather. The ground cannot take more horses.
Anyway, I’m sure you have your troubles wherever you live…
You can see Mo’s displeasure. And you can see the mud…on him and on the ground.
This part of the pony pasture is not in the sun, so it still has deep, wet donkey hoof holes.
BUT TODAY…
But today… a week after the first day of the epic rains, Mother Nature was happy again. Mood change. I even saw grass coming up! Grass is sprouting where the horses don’t have access (smooth ground) and where the sun shines.
I saw grass appearing outside the paddocks – where the sun shines! (That’s Gwen)
Mo saw it, too!
And roses… I saw a rose bloom today! I cut all the bushes back last month, and today, a little Charlie Brown rose bush pushed out leaves and a bloom!
Amazing. This all just cements my mantra that every day is a do-over. If something is awful, go to sleep and see what the new day brings. Eventually, no matter how tragic, the grass will grow and a rose will bloom (I know this to be true).
And this spindly rose bush that I had cut back last month… grew leaves and BLOOMED!
This pony has no eyeball anymore… but we will seal his lids, once he is totally workable. Right now, he is very new here and not excited about people.
Several years ago I had a Shetland pony who developed recurrent uveitis and became blind in his left eye. My vet removed the eye because he said that even though the pony was blind he was still having attacks of uveitis that were painful. The vet sewed the eye socket shut to keep dirt and insects out of it. It healed quickly and no longer caused my pony any pain.
Same here!
I think we must have caught the spin-off from the California rainmageddon up here in the PNW because last night wind gusts to 60, sustained at 35, over 2 inches of rain in a 12-hour period. The barn gutters were not up to the task and as a result when I went to feed horses this morning…..one stall, the empty spare stall, had about 4 inches of standing water which ruined about fifty bucks worth of shavings, it’s less about the money than the backbreaker of swamping THAT out of there. The double stall only had water at the very back in the low spot, that might take a couple of days to drain out but the foundation made a 5 inch deep pond back there. I informed my pony that, well, he’d told me a while back he wanted lakefront property so he’d better be careful what he wishes for next time. Turnout paddocks are basically under water. BUT we now have a LOT of very, very happy frogs – must be happy, they were “singing” happily in the predawn hours.