Thursday, August 12, 2010

Weather Related

Lately I've been asking myself-When did WEATHER become such an important part of my life? I've always been interested in weather patterns and how weather affects most everything we do. It can ruin the best laid plans. It can make a day feel wonderful. The answer, in my particular case, is six years ago. Yep. Six years ago when I bought these two horses of mine. 


These days, weather is at the top of my list of aggravations in my horse-life. Maybe I take things too seriously. Been trying to just roll with it. Some days are easier than others. Those days are when the sun is shining and the daytime temps are hovering around 70 degrees. Yeah, that's about perfect for me. Haven't seen many of those in quite some time. I think April was the last time this year. After April, seems like the weather conspired against me with storms, rain, more storms... Yeah, I think I take the weather a little too personally.


This week is our third week in a string of Heat Advisories and Warnings for our county. Heat index at 100-110, so they're reporting. In Southern Ohio, we don't just get hot, we get hot and humid. I am not a tropical kind of gal at all. I don't think I ever was but the older I get, the more I want my weather moderately pleasant as often as possible.


The horses are being annoyed by horseflies. Try as I might, there just isn't enough fly spray to do the job when they get hot and sweaty. I am an unbeliever of the label that says "lasts 7-14 days". I'm wondering if they're talking about stalled horses because that's the only way it would make sense to me. You can't stop your pastured pony from rolling in the dirt unless you keep him stalled and that's not how I keep my guys. I spread my Fly Predators once a month and that is a definite improvement on the black flies. But those big, fat, ugly, horseflies...Man, I HATE them!!!


I find myself these days monitoring the local weather radars when bad weather has been forecast. What's the deal with that? Not like I can change it. I guess part of me just thinks I can be more alert for the "what ifs". Right.


Well, the night the tree fell on the fence and Spirit ended up with a sliced leg, there was no wind, there was no rain, there was no weather at all. It was a quiet, hot evening. Trees have a way of just letting go sometimes.


I find having horses I am particularly attuned to what's happening with the weather, even more so than I was before I had horses. Then my thoughts go to the fact that 20 something years ago, we only had The Weather Channel, local news weather, and the radio for our weather news. 

Sometimes more information can become an obsession. Wonder if there's a support group for this? Seriously. Because I'm thinking I'm way too wrapped up in what the weather's going to be rather than just dealing with it as it comes every morning.


Sure am looking forward to next week...they say we're suppose to get down into the mid-80's.

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