Rain, Rain, Go Away

Back in May, I commented on how it was the driest spring we've ever had. We barely had any rainfall in May.

Yeah, that's changed now. It feels like we've had rain every day since the beginning of June. Well, maybe not every day. I think there's been a couple of 2 or 3 day stints that we had no rain or minimal rain.

Rainfall in June and July spiked up. We've had twice as much rain this month than last year - and the month isn't over yet. 

I was off last week. Guess what? It rained most of the week. And not just a sprinkle, either.

There's been only 4 days in the last two weeks that it didn't rain.

Friday was one of the stormy days. I arrived at the barn at about 1pm. I took Cisco's rainsheet off and hung it over the hitching post to dry (it was on overnight since it was going to rain and I was hoping to keep them a bit clean for once). About 20 minutes later, it dumped rain. Thankfully, Phantom and I were in the barn, thus nice and dry.

Once it stopped dumping liquid on the ground, I had a quick ride on her - she was feeling rather silly after not being ridden for a week, so I ended up hopping off when the arena emptied and let her run around.

It was thundering the whole time that we were in the arena. I rushed to get her done and back out before the rain started again. I dressed for rain, and promised Phantom that I would handgraze her until it started raining again.

Which was about 4 minutes after we went outside.

So I put her into her paddock, went back into the barn, and within a couple of minutes the heavens opened up again. It was a little after 3pm.

Thus, when I grabbed Cisco, he was wet and dirty. That's when I decided to do the groundwork that I showed in last Friday's post.

I kept my eye on the sky, because it was getting black yet again when we came out of the arena. I got him turned out and put my stuff away, and the rain started once more. At this point I was just done with it, so I ran to the car while the running was good and headed for home at 4:30. On the highway everyone had dropped their speed down to about half of what the speed limit was and put their 4-ways on because the rain was coming down so hard.

Found on Facebook. Seems appropriate.

No one has managed to cut hay this year in this area. It's getting really scarce.

There are puddles everywhere out in the farmer's fields. Which are breeding grounds for mosquitos. And the onslaught of biting insects will likely start this week when the weather warms up.

Yay, it's summer.