Sunday, December 18, 2011

More rain

When I thought it couldn't rain anymore, it did.  Here is a picture of the field next to our former "grazing place", now also knows as "the lake".  There is so much water everywhere, it is unbelievable.  Normally there is a narrow ditch that runs across this field, but as you can see, it is slightly overflowing!
Despite the rain, Melissa and I took Little Love and Vicki for the long 7.5 km loop.  Vicki's owner is on vacation (in the sun) and she needed some help with her horse, so we volunteered.  We tacked the horses up with saddles, but ended up walking most of the way.  Vicky has been finally giving some signs of coming out of her shell, but riding definitely puts her into one of her "checked out" places, so apart from the long trot through the forest Melissa felt it was best to just walk her in hand.  Even though Vicky is definitely paying more attention to her surroundings and the people around her, she still has a long way to go to become "normal".  Often when the going gets tough she just disappears into her own world, and becomes nonreactive to her environment.  So, when Lilo is walking side by side with me, scanning her surroundings with her ears forward, Vicky is walking behind Melissa with her eyes glazed over.  But, like I said, she becomes more "present" every week.

Here is a picture of Melissa and Vicky (and a bit of Lilo) on our walk, at this point we were already heading home.  Now that I look at the picture, I realize how dark it was even thought it was almost noon.  At this time of the year we get about 6 hours of solid daylight in a day, but with the cloud cover being so thick, it doesn't really get that light.  This is why we are wearing all this reflective gear, just to make sure we can be seen when on the road.

Here is another picture of us after our ride.  We were soaking wet, but luckily only on the surface since all of use were wearing rain gear (the horse blankets are not only reflective but waterproof as well).  Phew, it took us almost two hours (Vicky walks slow:-), but it was totally worth it!
 PS. We were trying to find something positive about this weather and the only thing we could think of was that at least all this water is not coming down as snow.  As much as we are wishing to have snow, it would be impossible to handle great volumes of it at once.  Hopefully it will snow soon, but when it does, the snowfall isn't excessive!

3 comments:

  1. Wow, it is REALLY wet there. Y'all certainly are adventurous to go on a 7.5 km hike in that sort of downpour!

    I am curious where you got those great reflective horse blankets? This time of year I end up riding in the dark on the road a lot, and although I have a reflective vest on, the horses don't have any reflective gear. I have seen reflective quarter sheets before, but never an entire blanket.

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  2. Hi jenj! They sell these blanket in Finland everywhere. I'm pretty sure you could probably order one from Finland if you wanted. Here is a link to one online store that sells them. Of course, ordering might be challenging in Finnish... hm, maybe you could call them? Pretty much everyone in Finland speaks English. But here's the link:http://www.horze.fi/Horze-ReflectRider-ProTrek-ratsastusloimi/29322,fi_FI,pd.html?dwvar_29322_color=YE&start=5&q=ratsastusloimi

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  3. Here's their phonenumber, you can order over the phone, too: +358 3 872 0667 Company is called Horze

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