Catching Up: Second Installment

At the end of the last post, we were praying for rain.  During the night before Labor Day, September 5, Tropical Storm Lee blew in.  By 10:00 a.m. we had 4".

The pigs and ducks were loving it.  This happy pig was munching on something she'd just rooted up from the nice, soft mud.

 Down in the back pasture the low area was filling with water.  The pond was full, but not overflowing yet.

The first order of business was to move the animals from the Lower Pasture which has flooded in the past with heavy rains.  Herb opened the electric fence, and Sara led the charge across the half of the pasture they'd already grazed.  The heavily falling rain blurred this photo as if there was fog.

Sara hesitated a bit at the pond in front of the open gate, then she charged on through with Siobhan and T-bone behind.  T-bone made me laugh as he literally reared and skipped for joy.

Angel and Brandy dithered around the electric fence until they figured out that it was open.  Then they flew down the pasture with Hero hot in pursuit . . .

. . . and maybe even gaining a bit!

Who can resist running through a puddle?  Why jump when you can make a big splash?

Brandy and Hero kept things stirred up, racing several times around the cabin, until they roused the calves enough to stop grazing and follow along in their wake with Angel.

This picture makes me think of Job 39:19-25:

19“Do you give the horse his strength
or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?

20Do you make him leap like a locust,
striking terror with his proud snorting?

21He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray.
22He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;

 he does not shy away from the sword.

23The quiver rattles against his side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.

24In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground;
he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.

25At the blast of the trumpet he snorts, ‘Aha!’
He catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

Misty joined in the excitement, too.  This is her first time out in a big rain, and she came racing across the pasture, at a safe distance behind the thundering heard, heading straight for a giant puddle.  Unnatural mother that I am, I just kept taking pictures as she ran through it and came out on the other side with a grimace as the water splashed her face.

Once the animals were settled, we went to check the pond.  There is white water at the far end where a stream dumps all the water that pours down the hill from the woods.  Down at this end where the run-off stream is, the water was almost high enough to start draining, but not quite.

Concerned about a low place in the dam, Herb went back to the barn to get a shovel and shore it up.  I enjoyed a leisurely slog back to the house.  This view, blurred by raindrops on my lens, is from the pond looking across the bottom of the Back Pasture towards Kara's house (with the barn invisible to the right and the hay barn a pale silver spot to the far right).

Back on top of the hill below Kara's house, I looked across Kara's Pasture (what I call the new pasture) to the Back Pasture.  It's clear that despite standing water near the gate, the animals have plenty of high ground to keep them safe and sound.

When Herb came home soaking wet and chilled to the bone, he brought a starving Misty with him.  No, he did not pick up a disreputable stray, no matter what this looks like!

"Guess what?"  Herb said.  "Misty swims!"  He might have thought she'd fallen in the pond if he hadn't seen her jump in and start swimming--twice!  I think someone tricked us and gave us a Labrador Retriever instead of a Great Pyrenees!

Once she had some food in her tummy, Misty seemed quite pleased with her adventure.

Zephyr, on the other hand, had only one thing to say:  "Get away from me, you dirty, wet dog!"

By 9:30 that night we had 10.05" of rain, and the wind started to kick up.

We had long ago stopped praying for rain and started saying "Thank You."

During the night, the power went out.

By the end of the next day, we'd had a total of 12.05" of rain in about 30 hours.

I think this will give us some "Lee-way" in needing to feed hay.  Not bad for catching up!