Windswept Stable

I think that is going to be our new name if this crazy windy weather keeps up. Today was about as bad as it has ever been, and this was by far the most damaging storm.

It was pretty breezy when I headed to the barn this afternoon, but there were a few moments in the arena when it sounded like a train driving by...still I wasn't prepared for what was going on outside. Clare opened the door to go get Sunny, and then turned right back to look at me; "oh no, big problems". So I went to look and the BIG gelding shelter North of the barn entrance was completely smashed, with the roof impaled on the fence...so the fence between the two big paddocks was torn. All that was left standing was two of support poles buried in the ground...the other two were snapped in half.

So I called Rob to come out, and he Clare and I moved the horses to other pens...but when we went to put horses out front, we discovered the Twister shelter was...well...twisted. AHHH! So we got the horses safely moved to different pens and set about cleaning some of the carnage, but the wind kept coming. It was insane as we were pummelled with wind and sand. It was so windy there were times I could hardly stand up and hardly see. I was ready to curl up in a ball and give up as I felt overwhelmed by the unrelenting wind that was continuing to do damage. Fortunately Rob is a take charge kind of guy and was able to prioritize and keep us focused. (I think I was one panic attack from calling the boarders and telling them to take their horses home...)

So then I went to the barn to lock the south doors down, and as I left the barn there was a whoosh and a cloud of dust...and another shelter went down. At this point it seemed prudent to cancel lessons and focus on making sure the horses were looked after and the barn kept locked down. I was also fully expecting the power to be knocked out, but so far so good (knock wood!)

But, Rob got the busted shelter cleaned up, and we used panels to fix the fence (two posts were taken out by the shelter when it fell, so we use the panels so we could get the horses back in the one paddock at least. We decided to bring a couple extra horses (Magnus and Beamer) in for the night, and some horses are spending the evening on the grass pastures (it was cute when I put Tango out with the babies on the grass...she rushed over to protect them from the wind).

None of the horses were hurt, and were all surprisingly unfazed by the wind and sand. They weren't keen to watch their hay blow away though...so I did feed some pellets to the horses that were in the windier pens.

In total, two shelters flipped, one was demolished, and one is twisted....so four shelters in total knocked out by the wind. We also have a destroyed garden shed, some fencing to fix, and a whole lot of stuff blown about. And it isn't over yet as the wind continues to blow like crazy. We will have to wait until the wind dies down to right the shelters, but we had enough empty pens that all the horses have shelter for the night.

Forget thunder & lightening...I hate wind.

Karen