Rainy Days and Mud Days always get me down…
Remember that Karen Carpenter song? Yeah, I found myself humming it today.
Rainy days and Mud Days alwaaaays get meeeeee dooown.
The rain and mud didn’t bother me too much in Grass Valley, because the mud was normal mud. You know, just …mud.
Here in Paso Robles, the mud is CLAY. Sticky, sloppy, scary Clay.
And, here it is again.
I guess I shouldn’t complain because California needs the rain… but I AM complaining just a bit. When I win the lottery, I am either going to bring in the biggest earth moving equipment available and change the entire lay of this land, or I will buy a different place – when I win the lottery.
But for now, I just have to make due. And the poor horses have to make it work, too. I find myself giving them lots of treats when the weather is muddy…
MUD DAYS.
This is Annie. She was tired of standing in her shelter, so she came out to eat in the uncovered eating area. She must have also taken a nap in the mud. See the hanging mudballs in her mane?! Argh. I had to cut them out. She had them in her tail, too. No where that I have lived did the horses get clay mud balls in their manes and tails. Huge, massive clay balls.
I swear she was asking me to make the mud go away. Her dry area is to her left side, by the wall.
This is what she was standing in… and this is why I cannot go into their paddocks when it gets like this. Instant header. I fall all the time when I am in there because the ground is uneven and sloppy slippery. Oh, and it is all treacherously downhill.
This is Wrigley. He has mud balls in his tail, but I cannot get to him – in this sloppy mud. Once he comes to the fenceline, I can cut out the big mud balls.
It is only really bad around their feeders. Both Gwen and Wrigley could spend more time in the higher and drier parts of their 2 acres. Or they could be in their shelter, which is at the uppermost point. But, they prefer to be by the fence and at the feeders, of course.
This is Wrigley’s neck. Luckily, he doesn’t grow much of a mane, so he doesn’t house mudballs. Look at the ground by his feet. UGH.
This is BG – she has a strand of hay in her hair and eye… She hasn’t been mud bathing. She is under her shelter, but there is runoff from the hill that pours into this paddock as well.
Finn has been napping in the mud.
This is my boy kitty. He is unhappy with all the wet.
As you can see, the area has greened up incredibly in just this week of total rain. All the hills and pastures are green.
These two are very smart. They stay in the dry part. Missy Miss and Mo. You can see how green the lower pasture is now and how the hill behind us is also greening.
Dodger and Norma Jean, being the elders of the ranch, have the most dry space and the most flat pasture. They stay dry unless they choose to roll around in the wet – which Dodger does occasionally. Again, you can see how green the pastures are behind them.
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Hi Pat! I wish that was true with Adobe Clay… but it hardens like, well, adobe. Like a brick.
Makes me crazy. Cutting is the last resort, when the clay balls are hitting them in the face or legs and I can’t stand in
the goop to work it out. But, you are right, cutting is my worst solution.
You can get mud balls out without cutting. Just use a pliers to smash them when they’re dry and they crumble. After that it doesn’t take much to comb them out of the hair.