Atmospheric River

Tuesday night through this morning, we had an insane storm come through. Another comes in next week but after it basically being summer all month, this was a shocker. 

First, it was a LOT of water, I've never seen so much at the barn, TC's paddock was mostly underwater and the entire barn was too. Driving down to see him took a long time because of all the accidents and also because we were driving at like 40mph to avoid accidents. 

Second, it was cold. Normally rainstorms are in the mid 50s or even into the 60s here, it does get cold (for here), but mostly when it's dry. This rainstorm was in the mid 40s where we are and wow I am not prepared to be both cold and wet. I have a lot of water proof gear and I have a lot of warm gear, but not a lot of my warm gear is water proof. 

Missing summer trail rides, jk this was in January

TC did not have a good time during the storm. He's a little skeptical of shelters in general, but he really doesn't like his current one. I didn't think much of it because he's willing to stand next to it for shade in the summer and he really doesn't need a shelter most of the time out here. The weather just isn't that bad. Except this time, I felt SO bad for him. 

Unfortunately the medium weight blanket he was wearing when I went down on Wednesday afternoon soaked through in a few places and when I brought him into the barn and took the blanket off, he started shivering a bit. I immediately put his cooler and rain sheet on him and let him hang out in the barn to relax. He seemed very happy in there and I wished that there was an opening in the barn for him to stay in during bad weather, but I know he'd turn himself inside out if he had to live in a box stall for any more than just a night or two. As much as it sucks to see him out in the cold rain, I'm sure if he could talk, he'd tell me he'd rather be outside than inside even in bad weather. 

When he seemed to be getting eager to go back outside, I put him back out in his cooler + sheet and zipped over to the ranch. All the ponies there are unclipped and smart enough to stay inside when it's pouring, so I snagged two of Rico's old waterproof medium blankets and also grabbed some extra grass hay. 

Such beautiful views

Back over to TC's barn and I saw that he'd been fed... outside. Okay, I know my horse is weird about shelter but he isn't so weird that he'll starve himself to death. I moved his hay inside and took him back into the barn. His cooler was rapidly getting soaked as the sheet didn't cover it completely, so I pulled that off and put one of Rico's mediums on him. I started worrying that it wasn't fully waterproof and so put his sheet on over that. Two layers of waterproof blankets should be good! 

We hung out in the barn as long as I could, but there were so many accidents on the road on the way down that I didn't want to be driving home in the dark. I grabbed two extra flakes of grass hay and his grain and put him back in his paddock. He stood in the stall eating for a while and then started to grab food and walk outside to chew. I put two of his flakes nearish to the door so he could reach in and grab food when he wanted to. 

When I got home, I ordered two more blankets from RW. One is going to be a bit big on him, which I think he'll appreciate. The other is his normal size, which I might return. I also snagged some rain gear for myself and another fleece quarter sheet because mine is... somewhere I can't find and having two doesn't seem like a bad idea. We'll be using the waterproof one that I have as well. 

It was so nice all month and then it
stopped being nice

Thursday was not nearly as bad! His blanket didn't soak through and it was clear he had spent some time in his shelter. So I did ride him and we actually had a break in the rain when I got on him, so we walked around the property a little bit. He was less miserable when I put him back with the two blankets again and he happily walked into the stall to get his grain without hesitation. 

Friday morning I came down and he was dry and hanging out in the sun eating his food outside. I'm glad he made it through the storm. Basically all my blankets are soaked except the medium I borrowed from Rico, so he is wearing that through the weekend as the other blankets dry and then on Sunday night, I'll start double blanketing him and swapping blankets out daily again. And hopefully one of the blankets I ordered fits him so that we have more to work with! 

I really miss normal weather, between the fires, the weird summer weather in December, the windstorm that caused fires in January, and this crazy storm (which caused a TON of mudslides where the fires were by the way), I'm over it. I'm glad to have an administration that doesn't treat climate change like it's a hoax, science is real!