Crash Bang Boom

Lupines blooming in Santa Ynez

(since I am working off the old computer, I have access to old pictures, too!)

My HP Pavilion laptop drive has crashed... We think it is due to the ongoing overheating problem that has been "managed" for a year or more, but no doubt took its toll. I am temporarily using Bessie, the ancient desktop tower style computer, while Randall fixes up the HP. (hm, does she need a name too?) I hope to get the HP back in a day or two, with a brand new drive and an additional stick of RAM added for good measure.

We are in day 2 of an anticipated week of rain storms, then are supposed to have 2 days or so break before starting round 2. It started earlier than expected on sunday and I felt a little cheated out of my last rides before it began. Instead I cleaned and prepped the horse's paddock in a downpour. It felt good to get it done though! Today we headed out bravely to trim 8 horses. Even Mario, who sometimes pretends he may melt in the rain (sugar, ya know ;-)) was rallying big time and almost jolly as we head out. We met the first client, who had the day off, and trimmed her 2 horses. As the trims progressed, the winds outside the shelter increased. The next horses had less of a covered area to stand under, and the rain by then was blowing sideways due to the gusting. The horses started spooking, I got several face fulls of rain blowing off the guter tops, and we realized the horse whose small covered area we were in was NOT going to stand still without a halter - and there was none in sight. Mario ran back to the car (through a sloppy arena and across a slippery driveway) and grabbed our spare halter and the boots we were supposed to be fitting. As he was coming back at me, being blown sideways and obviously soaked, I decided I was going to call it. We threw the wet (and no doubt now rusty) tools in the back of the car and bailed out of that barn in favor of the next, which has a very nice covered barn to trim under. But checking my messages, I got a voicemail from the next client saying the bridge to her property was under several inches of water already. My SUV could have handled it, but Mario and I were both soaked and cold and decided to just head home.

By late afternoon the winds had died down and the sky was actually blue. We went back to the barn and re-raked and cleaned, excellent timing for the next storm! Very courteous of the weather system if I do say so.