Blast you, Mother Nature!

Mother Nature is a cruel woman, let me tell you.

Because of our topographical position, which happens to be downhill on a slope from the main barn, we get A LOT of runoff. At least one of the ten stalls floods during the spring; luckily, it's usually the one hay is stored in, and the hay is on pallets off the ground so no damage occurs...it's just annoying.

BUT...this is January, people. This is also January in Vermont. Which means the weather is incredibly unpredictable and subject to whatever kind of nasty tricks it feels like. Today, it was 45 degrees, pouring rain, and thick white fog. This would be fine and dandy...in late March. This is not January weather. People come to VT in January for skiing and mountains and SNOW...not nasty slush and mud and icy roads. But that's what they got today.

So, I got to the barn today to muck stalls, only to find one of the retired Standardbred racer's stalls to be COMPLETELY flooded. Like, ankle deep water and more coming in by the minute. The wind and rain was being driven right into his walk-out stall and the small mound of iced-over snow in front of the entrance was enough to keep it from draining. Yay.

Poor horse. So we pulled G.I (said ex-racer's name) and put him on the cross-ties. I proceeded to remove the water with a bucket, while two of my other barn compadres took blunt ended shovels and sledgehammers and began to hack at the mount of snow, hoping to create a pathway to allow the water to drain. In a moment of brilliance, we also thought to grab a couple bags of Woodypet (a bagged, pelleted bedding that you fluff up with water before putting it in a stall), dumping them in the stall, and allowing them to soak up the water and fluff while I stripped the rest of the nasty bedding. Whether we made a dent or not is kind of a moot point; all I know is we were soaking wet, tired, sweaty and really, really dirty by the end. But, G.I is now nice a dry and occupied with a pile of hay, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't care.