Horses in the garage and cow fun

We brought the horses home for the night on Monday since we were planning on leaving very early on Tuesday to drive down to Smoke Rise for our clinic. We have a temporary corral that the horses hang out in since neither Brenda nor I have a barn or fence at this point. Since we have no shelter for them, we try to avoid bad weather days.

Around 2am, I woke up to flashes of lightning. It was like someone was flicking a light off and on outside of my window. The lightning was frequent and bright. I thought "hmm, maybe its just lightning in the distance, it will probably pass". As the minutes ticked by the lightning became more frequent and the thunder started to boom. I couldn't get back to sleep. I kept wondering if the horses were freaking out. I knew Brenda would be up and would have checked on them. I didn't want to leave Brenda on her own to have to deal with two horses if the weather really got bad and if the horses really got bothered. So, I got up and called.

The horses were fine. Just standing together in the corner apparently oblivious to the inclement weather. As I was downstairs, the wind picked up and the rain started to come down. I decided to go over to Brenda's to get the horses out of the weather. So, in my pajamas and looking quite glamorous, I drove over there to figure out how to get them into shelter.

Our only option for shelter was the garage. Brenda and I ran down to where the horses were. They looked at us like "what the heck are you crazy, hooded women doing here in the middle of the night? Leave us alone, we are sleeping". We grabbed the lead ropes and lead the horses up to the garage. Rio looked at the garage floor and mats rather suspiciously at first but then walked in quietly. Doc followed behind.

So picture two wet women in various sleeping fashions, a bedraggled, sleepy husband and two confused horses standing in a garage with a storm raging outside at 2:30 in the morning. It was quite surreal to say the least. We gave the horses some hay. They munched happily like they always hang out in a garage in the middle of the night. I have to say, I was very proud of them. They were not bothered in the least and really took it all in stride.

We hung out in the garage until the storm passed. When we thought it was safe, we put them back out in the corral. I drove home and went back to bed.

Bright and early the next day (as in 6:30am!), we got ready to leave for our two hour trip to Smoke Rise. Brenda's alarm didn't go off so she had to spend the whole day unshowered. She still looked glamorous and honestly, no worse for the wear. We were both certain that the night in the garage had been a dream.

Brenda and I joined our friend Sue and her pal Tracy, for a cow clinic at Smoke Rise Ranch in Glouster (near the Hocking Hills). It was Sue's birthday. Lynn from Smoke Rise ran our clinic. There were a couple of other Smoke Rise folks in our clinic as well. It rained the whole trip down. We were discouraged with the weather and hoped it would clear up. It ended up being somewhat cloudy most of the day. We spent the day in the indoor, which is huge has very nice footing.

We started in the morning by working on turning on the forehand, stopping, backing up and roll backs. After we were warmed up, the cows were brought in.