Shoeeet!

Well, It Is Wet--Very Wet

And I suppose I should have kept Tucker in, but the first downpours kind of caught me off guard.

Still. I had to abide a lecture by my farrier, Scott, about turning the Boy out in the muck.  Or shall I say the lakes.  To say that we had rain is an understatement.  We had torrential rain, and it's not over yet.

The weather information is that locally we had over 7 inches of rain. 7.45 measured in East Brunswick which is about a mile from here. I don't have a rain gauge out right now, so I cannot verify that, but from the looks of things, I'd suspect that's pretty close to what we had. And the forecast calls for more to come.

Once more, I bless my little hill and the good drainage of the sandy loam soil and the aquifer below. But there is enough mud to pull shoes, and, of course, that's what Tucker did. The combination of wet hoofs, mud, and his short backed conformation/slight clubfoot make for a difficult situation.

So, for now, he is in his stall, awaiting Scott, who is not too happy about it.  Nor am I.

Every time it rains I have to watch Tucker's feet. And long time readers of my blog know that I tried the shoeless option with no success. We ended up with long term unsoundness from either bruises or abscesses.

Fortunately, Tucker does not fuss too much about being in his stall. Right now the weather is still unsettled with more storms coming in. And, in the summer, all three Boys tend to hang out more in the barn than out. I hate keeping any horse in, but in this case, there is no choice. Once the shoe is back on and it dries up he will be able to go out.

I guess I will be going back to restricting his turnout again. That will mean keeping him in the riding arena when it's wet out.  The footing in there still gets soggy, but it is sand, not mud, so there's less chance of shoes off.

The other Boys don't care much. Toby is perfectly happy because he is out and doesn't have to contend with Tucker's trying to steal his grain when he's not looking.  Chance is so laid back about things, he doesn't have an opinion one way or another, except that is just means more apples for him.  I did see Tucker out under the apple tree the other day, so I suspect there was some competition for the fallen fruit.  Now, unless Toby decides to join in, Chance gets the bulk of the spoils.

I hate to think that the kind of rain we've been getting is the norm in precipitation. It is, unfortunately, the same pattern we had through the winter months last year.  And here's the worry--in inch of rain can mean as much as 10 inches of dry snow and 5 inches of wet snow. Even if you average that out at a 1:7 ratio, we'd be under a blanket of  nearly 50 inches of snow from the last few days' precipitation.

This will be the last time I complain about the summer temperatures. (Yeah, sure.....)

No swimming today. I didn't need a pool anyhow. I could've swum in the air.