Vile vile weather

I went up early to do the ponies today. We'd been expecting heavy rain all day but all we'd had was light rain so I thought I'll go up now, before it starts.
OH was going to do the poo picking and decided he had time for something else before darkness fell. I came back indoors as he was going out, and not a minute later it started. It was not normal rain, this was something else. The downpipe outside our kitchen was like a fountain, water spouting out at every join in the pipe, in all directions. My garden was underwater within minutes. At least it has washed some of the moss off the path...
Just as OH came back in, the rain slackened off 😂
 
Snowing heavily this morning so horse’s got out then swiftly brought back in. They must be going mad being stabled for so long. I just hope they can get out tomorrow but no doubt the fields will be too wet. It was a lovely day yesterday so managed to box up and get a little ride in. Everything is sodden though.
 
daydreamer said:
There are some interesting/depressing stats here .... https://www.met.reading.ac.uk/weatherdata/Reading_monthly_summaries.html It is for Reading but I would guess that is fairly representative of other parts of the country. It's no wonder we are all fed up.
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I've been looking for a page with good rainfall statistics for my area but don't seem to be able to find any, though the paper said we did have over 300% normal rainfall in July and it doesn't seem to have stopped since then 🤣
 
This year and last have really made me think hard about what I can realistically keep. As well as the horses I have a small flock of sheep and goats. Summer 2022 we had brown parched grass for a good 6 weeks. It really affected the weight of the lambs so I switched to mainly hill sheep. This summer and winter have been the wettest I can remember and I'm starting to be a bit concerned about lambing in March already. The Herdwicks are very fussy eaters and won't touch energy licks, ewe nuts or hay even when it snows. They'll only eat a molassed coarse mix with a few beet nuts, and even then just a few mouthfuls each before they get bored and walk off. The grass has been so wet for so long I'm worried about their nutrition. I could put them onto field 3 which I was saving for lambing but I'm not sure we will make it that far. My pregnant goats eat better so they're not such a worry but they're definitely staying in a lot more than usual. The horses are permanently hungry even though there is grass - it's just so sodden it's not filling them. I'm mixing good straw with their hay but I do wonder if we will make it through to spring grass without having to buy in more hay (which will be at £££ this time of year!).

Flipping weather! It's bad enough with horses but when you've a load of heavily pregnant ruminants to worry about as well...
 
This is the first year I've genuinely felt too old for the relentless misery of winter. I started with horses 40 years ago and there have been plenty of rubbish winters but this one really feels like a constant punishment. I have 5 horses who have never spent so much time either standing in a stable or standing in an increasingly muddy field looking fed up. Nobody is enjoying this! I'm keeping everything crossed for a dry, early spring.
 
I spent a part of yesterday afternoon, in the rain, on the stable block roof, re-attaching the solar panel for the yard light, to its frame. This frame came with the light set up and not been there six months yet. We have had horrendous wind for days and days, so I can understand the damage. I shall make a frame for it myself, as the frames I made for the other lights panels have held for 10 years.
 
My field is now very very boggy, I’ve opened up one side so my oldie has more room to move aorund and not completely poach it. I’ve put hay out for him this morning which I only do on a frosty day as the likely hood of him eating it is low, he’d rather try stick his head under the fence and get the ‘nicer’ bits of grass
 
The wind and rain was awful last night I went and got my horses in just before midnight, then as I sat down indoors all the power went off and its still off now, they have got temporary generators in to connect us but the power was meant to be back on by 6am, still not heard anything hopefully it will be back on soon.
 
I'm thinking about Lari my retired horse who is on a retirement yard. Doesn't help when its throwing it down with rain and my partner says every five minutes "poor Lari out in this".😬

I'm sure he is fine, he is a horse and horses cope in rain just fine! I last saw him Xmas morning when he was lying down with a number of others in the herd seemingly content and came over for some treats and a scratch.
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There's plenty of shelter in the form of hedges and trees in the 40 acres they have to roam and it's been fairly mild in the day with 8 -12c temperatures. He's with friends, no longer seems bullied and will happily walk through other horses if I bring him out of the herd.

Although he's still ribby he looks slightly better than he did which I'm relieved about. He's in a 200g rug 24/7 apart from when it's very cold at night when he goes up to 300g.

He's living his best life but it's a shame the rain has been as bad as it has been for his first winter.
 

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rabatsa said:
Fat chance, wind will not stop fireworks, heavy rain might.
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I know it's hell on earth with fireworks for most animal owners, we had a previous dog who was petrified of them. And for horse owners too.

However, Summer is weird and loves them and I'm kind of looking forward to sitting on the bed at midnight tonight watching some great displays out of the window with her - many miles away from horses I might add.
 

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Errin Paddywack said:
Our land has gone from being in really excellent condition to totally waterlogged. It is the wettest I have seen it since 2019 and it was grim then. Very glad we are understocked and have lots of grass.
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It's amazing grass. How it grows back and recovers, I mean.

I can remember seeing how Lari had literally wrecked his paddock the first winter and how frustrating it was and how amazing it looked the following spring.
 
I honestly wasn't expecting two 50g Swish rugs to stand up to last night's rain but both ponies are dry under them.

Also relieved to not be over stocked. They'll trash this field by March it's so wet but the track can go up around the summer fields - assuming they've dried because right now I have 3 acres of lake.
 
Our horses have been living out with a shelter since Spring 2020. Until this winter they only wore rugs on one occasion when they were standing outside shivering in the snow, because of the wind direction instead of standing in the shelter, so we rugged them. This winter, they've had rugs on more days than they haven't because they were wet and shivering in November. They are not clipped.
 
Been walking the ditch this morning and found two land drains, which we had suspected existed but never found before. Rodded out another three who seemed to be flowing slowly, now much improved, one going from a trickle to a full on force. There is a good build up of back water for that one. Mr R is going to walk the other side of the ditch on the neighbours land to see if he can spot anymore outfalls and take out a few tight spots where there are buildups of leaves ect slowing the flow.

The holes in the mud mats have also had a broddle to get the standing water in the loafing area flowing away again. At least the mud mats give a solid base so it is only paddling rather plodging through clarts.
 
PinkvSantaBoots said:
The wind and rain was awful last night I went and got my horses in just before midnight, then as I sat down indoors all the power went off and its still off now, they have got temporary generators in to connect us but the power was meant to be back on by 6am, still not heard anything hopefully it will be back on soon.
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The rain was so bad here last night I did the same at 10pm even though they were in rugs. I called them in the pitch black and they were both so desperate to come in I opened the gate to let one through and grabbed the other one. I noticed this morning all the hay I put out at 4pm had gone too so they would have been hungry and even more miserable by 7am this morning.

The gateway and beyond is the worse it’s been for 10 years and surprise surprise it’s raining again now. As much as I want them out at night they aren’t going back out until we get a decent spell of cold dry weather.
 
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