This blog was scheduled to be published last Friday, but due to the urgent need to pull horses from the slaughter pipeline this blog was postponed.
Sunday we left the shelter and headed North. The shelter was bright and sunny but we knew it wasn’t going to stay that way for long. The news had been warning of heavy rain all week. The sky was beautiful with fluffy clouds over the large turnout.
We didn’t get too far down the road before we could see the storm clouds heading towards us. Our goal was to get to our 2 locations before the heavy rain started.
Our first stop was just outside of Gridley, CA at Wheeler Ranch and Feed. Kari Wheeler donated 45, 50 lb bags of feed to our shelter. We were able to get it all loaded into the trailer with just a few small rain drops here and there.
We gave Kari big hugs and headed to our next stop. It was only 20 minutes away but we knew we weren’t going to beat the rain. The skies got very dark and the sun had completely disappeared behind the clouds.
We arrived at our second stop and were greeted by Warren and his very large umbrella and a few young men ready to help. Angela and Warren had donated some very nice grass hay that they had used for seating at a wedding the day before. We were not able to get photos of the loading process due to the large volumes of water falling on us. Thankfully we were able to keep most of the hay from getting wet. We thanked Warren and Angela and headed back to the shelter. We couldn’t believe the mess we came back to.
When we left the shelter it was warm and sunny. When we arrived back at the shelter just 4 hours later the property looked like a lake and everything was wet.
The shelter had streams of water running everywhere. The flow of water went right through the pasture and through the round pen. We cleaned up what we could and made sure the horses were still standing in dry areas.
The once dry pasture was a muddy mess but the higher areas were still nice and dry. During a small break in the rain I gave Po some hugs and kisses. She was a little nervous with all the wind. Hugs make everything less scary.
The following morning I woke up to beautiful skies. This is a view of the mare motel from my front porch. It was still cloudy but the rain was over.
We spent the day grooming the horses. Gray was the first one to be groomed. Before we even had a chance to halter him he stuck his big head through the gate begging for treats. Gray got his carrot and then came out for a good grooming.
Ally isn’t as sure about us as Gray is but she did very well being groomed and even stood tied very patiently this time. Ally really seemed to enjoy her after rain grooming time. I couldn’t resist taking this photo of the sun shining down on such a beautiful mare.
Over the winter months we will not have our normal business hours, due to stormy weather, we will be available to visitors by appointment. After the rainy season is over we will return to our normal business hours again. Thanks for your understanding!
Melissa
CA Shelter Manager