Rain and Rain

This weather just seems to keep getting crazier and crazier. We had one beautiful day, followed by three days of gale force winds, and now rain, turning into sleet and soon….snow. It’s the end of April. I think the spring storms are almost worse than winter storms. Winter storms mean that we’ll have the bad weather for a long time but the spring storms seem to be almost more violent and harder on the animals.

When I went out to pull Rain for drill team and throw a little hay to the mares, Rabbit was shivering. I hadn’t expected it to really rain. The weatherman had been wrong all weekend so I wasn’t expecting a lot of rain. The wind was still strong and the rain had soaked Rabbit so I threw a blanket on her. So much for being done with blanketing season.

I pulled the hard keepers into the barn for their daily grain. When the weather warmed up, I cut back on their grain ration. That was a mistake. The hard keepers started dropping weight really fast. Lesson learned. Until the hard keepers are on grass, do not change their grain ration even if the weather is nice.

Brego takes FOREVER to eat so I figured that I would let the hard keepers stay in the barn out of the wind and rain while I was at drill team practice. I’ll have to write about Rain in a little bit. I try not to brag up my horses but this time I have to.

When I got home, I decided that I better put blankets on a few. I was really hoping to be done with blanket season. But I’m sure glad that we have blankets to keep the harder keepers dry. I ended up only putting blankets on Rabbit, Rain, Brego, and Bo. Jim and Zeke probably should have had one on but they didn’t seem to really want to cooperate.

When I went to let them all out of the barn last night, I’d forgotten to close the stall door on Rain while I ran to the house for a minute. Luckily Rain was more interested in the little bit of hay left over. But they all went out but weren’t impressed with the weather.

This morning I looked at everyone to see who all was wet. Those that are drenched are the ones that get stuck out of the leanto. Bo was drenched so I was really glad that he had a blanket on. Dude and Chaos were a little wet but I didn’t see Zeke or Rain. Rain walked out and his blanket was completely dry. He must have been standing in the shed from the time he finished eating hay last night until this morning. He really HATES bad weather. The damp weather is really hard on him (as is the hot weather). It was nice to know that at least some of the horses had stayed out of the wet weather and were dry.

To the west and north, they are getting snow. I’m not sure I can deal with snow. We’ve had beautiful weather and the grass is really starting to grow The only upside is that it’ll be gone with 24 hours. But this weather makes life difficult for everyone. I feel bad for the horses. If it’s still bad today with wind, I’ll probably stall horses just to give them a break. I’m glad that I can give the horses the opportunity to get in out of the wind and that I can spoil them just a little. I feel so bad for those horses standing in a feedlot in the open. But I can’t worry about that right now. It’ll only upset me.

On a bright note, I try not to toot my horse’s horns but I have to for Rain. We’ve had Rain now for nine years. Hard to believe. Oh we’ve had our ups and downs and I debated my choice in making him a riding horse but last night proved that he’s a really good horse.  It’s taken Rain and I a number of years to be comfortable with each other but in the past year or so, after getting back into riding after pregnancy and major health issues, Rain and I are really meshing. I’m using him for one of the drill teams but I was worried that he’s not neck reined so there would be difficulty in holding a flag.  The last time I rode him was drill team practice. That’s about the only riding time I get. So I hopped on last night and started asking Rain to turn just using the reins. He actually responded. I have to admit that I’m not a good rider nor a good teacher so I put all of Rain’s abilities in his knowledge and understanding of what I’m trying to ask. So we worked on neck reining during the entire practice. We carry flags at one point and I didn’t think we could. But I figured there’s no time like the present. I wasn’t worried about Rain spooking. I was worried about the neck reining but after messing with him, I figured I’d give it a shot. Rain only spooked once when I brought the flag down next to his face and he wasn’t expecting it. I even waked his butt a couple of times with the pole (on accident) and he stood like nothing touched him.  I decided that I would see would he would do and took him through his paces. We even loped around the arena with the flag and he could care less. I was amazed. I’ve been flying high on that realization ever since. Now of course we’ll get to a performance and the loud speaker will start and he’ll freak out but that’s something else we’ll have to work on. But for now, we can do flags!!! It all goes to show that it just takes time and patience and you can do anything. Of course, trust is a HUGE factor.   Time, patience and trust. It’s a beautiful thing.

And because we need color on this blog, I thought I would post a few pictures from the crab apple tree from, oh my, four years ago. Sad that it's been that long but I don't have any other cheery pictures on this not so cheery day. Come on spring, I'm ready to see some color (although I'm happy to see green!)