So yesterday was Hurricane Helene here. It hit Florida and then moved inland and we were expected to get hit with 70 mph wind gusts and lots of rain and potentially lightning. And we haven't had any rain in 2 weeks, so... potential flooding. And more worrisome really was the likelihood of being without power, and thus, water. So... I filled all the water troughs and filled jugs with water for the toilet and... rolled down the barn aisle doors and prayed. I put shavings in the stalls but left the horses out because... that just seemed smartest. And we got super lucky. God protected us! We got lots of rain and some wind but really nothing more than that. We never lost power. Even in the morning when the rain slacked off and the wind picked up, we still had no issues. Thank you God! Unfortunately, others weren't so lucky. Tennesse and North Carolina got hit pretty hard.
Normally Friday is a work day but since the storm warnings were so bad and I was scheduled to go to Tiger, GA and then the highlands, we cancelled. Which I'm grateful for because I did not sleep much at all the last two nights and I don't know how the roads were going to NC. But that meant that I got to study today. Thank goodness. I finished my quiz and actually passed! With a 90% even!! Thank you God! I still "cheated" and had to use my notes so... I'm still doubtful that I will pass the final exam next weekend, but... oh well.
But after I spent the morning studying and finishing the quiz, my brain was fried! And it was 3 pm. So I decided to go ride a pony. I figured I could hop on Dan and walk the fencelines to make sure there was no damage and then check out the arena. Or go for a hack in the neighborhood. As I was getting tacked up Jean headed by on her horse, so... I opted to go check fencelines first. She would have been just enough ahead of me that it would have been annoying to both horses and Dan doesn't really do well with her anyways because he likes to lead. So we headed to the pasture and walked the fencelines. Luckily no damage! Although we did have to pull the electric line off the trees in a few places. But no worries because for some reason my charger isn't charging anymore. He was a bit frisky because the wind was blowing and threatened to bounce and bolt once but it was only half hearted. Good boy.
Then we looked at the arena and it looked awesome! Only a few puddles. Nice. So we headed in and did some walk work. Then we trotted and the footing was holding up so... we worked! He felt very sloppy and neurologic even in the field and was lazy and just not paying attention. In the arena he still felt a little sloppy in the walk but once we started trotting he felt pretty darn good. We did our walk trot transitions... 15 each way. Then we did some cantering. I did a walk to canter each way and a trot to canter each way. It didn't feel terrible. Not the best canter but honestly, pretty decent. Then we played with some shallow canter serpentines and some trot half pass. Just once each go. And he was so good so... we headed back home. We went through the pasture again and headed home. He got a rinse because he got sweaty again with the haircoat. And then he rolled and got filthy again!
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