Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Rain, rain and more rain! - Australia

From The Making of an Endurance Horse

Monday, December 15, 2008

We have been in quite a severe drought for the past 4 years, with nothing but dust in the paddocks. All the dams in the area have been bone dry for at least 2 years, and all the stock have either been moved to other agistment paddocks, or (as in my case) been getting hand fed twice a day.

And now it has started to rain! In the past 4 weeks we have had over 10 inches of rain.... and all the dams are over-flowing, the weeds are starting to really get ahead now (bugger!), and the horses are starting to get mild laminitis from the fresh new sprouts of grass. Not that there is a lot of grass, mind you! The dust bowl that was my paddocks ensured that most of the grass roots had completely shrivelled up and died long ago, but there are a few hardy patches of grass coming back through.

Mostly we just have weeds. Some of them are horse-friendly, and some are not. The pests like Lantana, Privet and Prickly Pear are just having a field day!! But the place LOOKS green, and it really is refreshing to see.

Of course, this means that I've had to put the work on Flamenco on hold for the past couple of weeks, as the round yard has been just too wet and slippery to do any work in it.

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