Tuesday, July 17, 2012

No Riding

It poured last week.  Almost 14" of rain over the full week total.  I had lake-yard all over the place.  The pond is back to full again.  And the horses were standing in sloppy mud.  That means no rides.

Saturday morning, I took Harley and his halter, and we headed down the road.  I worked him in-hand through puddles, around culvert pipes, in and out of ditches, and he was a trooper.  One ditch with a culvert pipe and water streaming out of it was a bit of a discussion.  After finding myself frustrated, I sat on the edge of the pipe, and waited.  Harley gathered up some courage, and slowly took tiny steps towards the water.  Suddenly realizing what it was, he started taking steps into the water.  I stood up quickly, and encouraged him verbally to step all the way in.

Next thing I know, he's standing front feet in the deep water, splashing me by pawing hard at the water.  I was covered from the waist down in mud splashes.  *giggle*  A few more walks through, and he was splashing happily. 

Otherwise, I haven't done more than hose and scrub the sweat off them once, and fed.  With water like that comes mosquitoes.  Sunday they weren't bad.  Last night, they were swarming by the thousands.  That means I probably won't be riding for a few more days yet, provided it stays dry.  Dry hot weather will cook them out from rebreeding, and things will be back to normal.

Until then, I'm catching up on some good Kindle time, sleeping, playing inside with Allie and MacKenzie, and tackling a few new computer games.  I do miss the rides, but we really needed the rain.  Not much sense in complaining about it.

Had a personal disaster Sunday morning - snarly nasty migraine headache with some severe nausea.  Better living through chemistry, courtesey of the local hospital.  I'm working with my doctor to combat these rotten headaches, and I'm curious if any of you deal with them as well.  Email me and share your experiences. 

Also, if you deal with mosquitoes more often than I do, how do you cope?  Do you spray yourself thick with Deep Woods OFF, and go ride anyways?  How do you keep them off the horses as they graze? 

1 comment:

SunnySD said...

Wanna share some of that rain, please?

I can just picture Harley tippy-toeing ever so carefully into that puddle - lol!

No good advice for mosquitoes - I've had decent luck this year with Pyranha fly spray for the heel/face flies, and it has citronella oil in it which might make it a good option for mosquitoes, too. But we didn't have enough rain this year to make them much of a problem so I'm just speculating.