Well, the snow is melting very quickly and we admit, we were ready for the snow to GO! Farm chores are hard when you're pushing wheelbarrows across ice or through slush... it just makes everything slower. We got in enough blankets to keep everyone warm but we have new rescues (Kat, Risque, and Promise) who need weight and to improve their health, much harder in the cold cold weather. On the bright side, these horses are MUCH better off than when we picked them up, and they seem to know and appreciate us.
With the melting snow, and all this rain, the weather forecasters are warning of "urban flooding, small stream flooding... widespread flooding, no. But annoying flooding, yes! Almost all of Western Washington is under a flood advisory" (King 5 news 12/29/08
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What does that mean for the farm? Water and mud, the enemies of every horse facility. We've spoken with some local boarding facilities and other rescues and it sounds like everyone is dealing with the melting... some have it much worse than we do and we're keeping our hooves crossed that things improve for everyone.
At SERR, we made some improvements prior to this rainy season- we never had it too bad, but this fall we brought in loads of gravel for our front rescue paddocks. Also, in September a 75 person team from Microsoft on the Day of Caring (photos at right) did a beautiful job of creating a ditch along our driveway and rock stream through our lower pasture so we have great runoff for normal rain.
But this excessive water has already proven challenging in our barn, where we had a couple stalls flood and had to do some shuffling around to make space for everyone. All of our pastures have shelter, so the horses would have cover if left outside, but most rescues come in at night and our barn is the hub of activity at Serenity. Patricia was out in the rain working until 11 pm on Saturday to make sure everyone who needed one had a warm stall.
Some fabulous volunteers came in Sunday afternoon to work and help out, as always, and our visitors to the farm during our usual open house hours were wonderful.
As always, we continue to manage our farm in the cleanest, safest manner possible and offer Horses for Clean Water as a resource to anyone dealing with the rain and mud this season. http://www.horsesforcleanwater.com/
Want to help Serenity Equine Rescue? E-mail Darcy to join our volunteer force : volunteer@serenityequinerescue.com or donate a load of gravel to help us continue our water management improvements. To donate, contact patricia@serenityequinerescue.com or paypal your donation (just go to http://www.paypal.com/ and elect to send funds to paypal@serenityequinerescue.com).
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