floods

Early Saturday morning there was a heap of rainfall and at about 4am Missy and Silvi had to be evacuated from their paddocks. In the first photo below I've put in a red line to show where the water level was at the worst of it, and the second photo shows the creek still swollen, but in the early morning it was 20m wider. Poor Missy only had a few metres of grass left to stand on, and Silvi was less than half an hour from being stranded on the wrong side of the creek. Wendy and Stu got both horses and popped them into stables. I got out there later in the morning and mucked out stalls and got a few extra items from the local saddlery (feedbuckets - mine was hiding under floodwater!) and warehouse grain (shavings as we're now using both stalls).


The road was flooded (fto only barely made it through), but no big slips or anything between my house & the farm. Went out twice on Saturday to the horses, then again at about midnight - it was still looking quite soggy so I left Silvi in her stall (with what must have been her 5th feed for the day).


Got back early Sunday morning to put her out in her paddock (Missy was already out) and she was quite happy to stretch her legs. Looked like she had lost a bit of condition, I think she may have stressed a little being stabled alone (also hadn't had as much to drink as I would have liked). Then I headed home for a sleep and came back around lunchtime to muck out (I swear Silvi pissed more than she needed to!) and have a ride. The arena had drained perfectly, so I did some circlework (varying the size of the circles and loops, lots of changes of direction) and also a little bit of work at the trot - slowing down and speeding up, just getting her to listen carefully to my aids. She was really good, and also walked in and out of the alternate entrance to the arena (decorated with fake flowers) without spooking at all - very pleased with that.

Had intended to go to QE2 park for the XC training to see what she's like around other horses, but with the weather it just wasn't worth it. Might try for Waikanae next weekend.