Rainy Horse Friends

We got our first real rain in two months.....and it didn't know when to quit! We discovered that the barn really needs gutters, because a lake formed right outside the house-side, stall doors.

There were some leaks in the barn from nail pops and mistakes made during construction. Carrie called the electrician, Jason, for a quote on what it would take to fix (He's the one professional contractor we've met throughout everything).

Jason came by while Shane and I were at church. I talked to him when we got back and he'd already told Carrie he knew someone who did gutters.

Carrie and I divided and conquered the afternoon. She ran into town to get some supplies and take care of errands. I stayed at the house with Shane, so that Sam could come over and play!

Sam's dad dropped him off and went into town to work at the coffee shop while I kept an eye on the boys from 2:30-5 PM (basically, when the coffee shop closed!).

We stayed electronic free for the first two hours. I had the boys walk down with me to the barn to take care of chores.

The thirsty ground sucked up some of the water, but the lake was still there.

Shane's been a willing (if loud and hyper) participant in barn chores so far. He's more likely to be scolded to go back to the house than to get off his butt and help!

Sam hadn't been around horses before.

I gave some pointers. Horses are great and ours are very friendly. It's important to remember that they're large animals, though. No one wants a finger nipped when taking a bite of hay or a foot stepped on.

Carrie and I had brought the horses in early morning, because they were all soaked, shivering, and cold. We blanketed them and got them comfortable in their stalls to wait out the rain. She had me checking on them off and on while she was out. I decided to break out the slow feeder bags, because the pigs either porked down their hay too quickly (Nibs and Sam) or spilled it all over their stall (Maddy).

I put Sam to work with a small task. He dumped a water bucket.

Shane filled it back up and I hung it in the stall. It was a team effort.

The boys were fairly helpful and it was a novel experience, at least!

They said, "Goodbye" to Nibs and then I brought them inside. They played hide and go seek at one point. Shane told Sam to count and then locked him out of his room. I picked the lock to the guest room and Sam decided to hide rather than sneak up and scare Shane (I would have done the latter!)

A little while later, Sam came out and said that Shane was waiting for me to go find him. "He's going to be waiting a while!" I said. "I'm working. Would you like to play some Super Nintendo while we wait for him to come out?"

Shane did come out a little later and was very surprised! The boys played for the last half an hour before Sam's dad picked him up.

Carrie came home not too long after. She'd picked up a small pump. It was my job to wade out into the lake and set it up.

A couple of hours later, our lake was demoted to a pond but just barely. There was enough of a land bridge for the horses to walk back out into the fields without wading.

We survived the first big rain when it was all said and done. The ground should absorb more water over time and we'll be back to normal. Shane had a lot of fun with Sam and the grass will hopefully start to grow now that it's had a drink!