Where The Air Hurts My Face - Summer Edition

It's been a record breaking month in my area of the Canadian prairies, all due to El Nino.

Not because it's been hot. Oh no. We would so welcome a heat wave at this point. It would help dry everything up.

Because we are just a wee bit wet in this area.

Last Monday morning at the barn. That water isn't supposed to be there.

The main drainage ditch in the middle of the property was a raging river.

It's been the wettest June on record for my city. And we still have a couple of days left in the month to achieve wettest month ever. And yay - there's more rain in the forecast.

Spoiler alert - we set a new record. And as I was writing this a thunderstorm started.

Basements have been flooding. Wastewater systems have been backing up and localities have been putting restrictions on water use. Side roads washed out. Highways washed out. Farmers fields have giant lakes in them. 

About 1 km from the barn on the main route this morning, same place that it went across the road last weekend. There were also washouts on the roads to the east and west of the barn if you detoured north to the highway. Major highways in the area had closures through the weekend due to the amount of water across the roads.

Everything is saturated. 

The flooding came up overnight. The poor horse in this pen had a little island that wasn't under water on Monday morning. I missed getting the ducks swimming next to him in the picture. He, and a couple of other horses in another nearby pen, were moved to less soggy ones right away.

Last weekend there was some kind of inland cyclone that was said to have been dumping all the moisture on the prairies instead of the Pacific Ocean that it would normally be doing. Not sure what all the rain this weekend is being blamed on.

We like to say about living in the Canadian prairies that we don't often have tornados, we don't get hurricanes, and there aren't many bugs or snakes that will kill you, but the air hurts your face for half of the year because of the cold. Well, there were at least three tornados in the province a couple of weeks ago, apparently the prairies can get cyclones, and now things in the air will hurt your face and any other exposed body parts.

The benefit to all this moisture is that our wildfire risk is currently low.

But do you know what loves wet, muddy, warm conditions?

Mosquitoes.

They are abundant.  They are aggressive.  And they are relentless. Their population is up 10,000% in one month.

It is not fun to be outside. For humans or horses.

I've been wearing my mosquito jacket outside whenever I leave the barn. As soon as I get anywhere near grass there is a swarm all around me.

I've started a fashion trend at the barn. A few barn mates have started wearing them.

Stitch is wearing a fly sheet but the chances of him keeping a hood on it are slim. I broke down and put a fly mask on him last night - I doubt it will still be on tomorrow morning when I'm back out. Which means hunting through the grass for it, which means more time spent in mosquito-land.

Bug pants for horses are apparently a thing. Won't deny a part of me wants to push the buy now button! Also - Canterpants is a great name!

Even the sand ring is unbearable unless you are riding faster than a walk.

It's mostly been too wet to do much riding outside the last couple of weeks, but once it dries up these mosquitoes aren't going to disappear quickly.

This summer might not be as fun as hoped.

I bought some bug proof pants today that I can fit over shorts, so maybe there's a chance my legs might see the sun at some point for brief moments, provided I stay off the grass and that there is a strong enough breeze to keep the mosquitos away. The hood of my mosquito jacket can fit over my helmet, so I can cover myself for a ride outside. Somewhere I have an Amigo FlyRider blanket that I had bought for Phantom but never used . I doubt it will fit Stitch, but it might go for a premium on Marketplace!

The bug pants I picked up are not as exciting as Canterpants. Nor named as well.

I'm also really thankful that I found a couple of jugs of Absorbine fly spray that I didn't realize I had. That shit's expensive, and probably the best we can get in Canada.

So, expect any riding pictures I manage to get for the next couple of months to have the boring background of the inside arena. Which will only happen if I don't run out of memory or battery  when I use my Pivo and only get my walk warm up like the last two times I tried it!

Proof I actually rode my horse! No proof of canter as my phone died before that. Not sure I would have wanted to show it anyways - it was a rough night trying to pick it up.

A Week in Stitch's World

I keep writing an update post but Blogger is being a PITA about getting pictures added so I abandon it because it's inevitably late and I just want to go to bed.

The tldr version of the last couple months is that I'm fine, Stitch is fine, he keeps growing, and we're getting some rides in though not necessarily consistently.

We were managing a bit better the last few weeks about getting a few rides a week in, but I got sick last week with the head cold that apparently everyone is getting, which left me snotty and snorty and made doing much a bit difficult. I did one ride this week, and I figured if I trotted for 3 minutes and called it a day I'd be happy, but actually managed a decent ride - including canter!

But that was it. Next week should be better.

So I present to you how a part of Stitch's week went in mostly video format.

Early in the week - playing with his BFF Tyson, who is a year younger than Stitch.

A couple of days later, when I went out to do the morning check on the pastures, 7 out of the 8 geldings were snoozing, which happens pretty well every morning. Stitch was initially lying down, but got up while I was watching, walked over to Tyson, and tried to convince him that he should also get up.

Reminds me of a time when my brother's friend called for him, and when I said he was sleeping, he said to kick him and wake him up!

I only had a hour to spend with Stitch on Thursday, so I set up the pool noodle car wash that has been waiting to be used on an obstacle day. I did the whole start with it wide, and gradually move them closer together thing.

Stitch wasn't at all concerned. By which I mean he had one concern:

I didn't think that the training problem of the day was going to be how to stop my horse from scratching his ass on the obstacle. 

I couldn't let him get too into it - the brackets belong to someone else, and I worry that the pvc pipe could break and become sharp and poke him in the ass. Once he started knocking over the standard I had to pull him away.

But don't feel bad for him, Stitch got a good scrubbing between his hind legs with a hairbrush.