Pax - 4 weeks old!

If you've been paying attention to the news lately, you'll know that Texas appears to be being biblically flooded out. I guess the deities saw that Greg Abbot got voted in as governor, and they decided to drown us and start Texas over again from scratch (not a terrible idea really). Unfortunately, so far our literal 40 days and 40 nights of rain has basically put a huge damper on not only the show season, but the thought of working the horses at all. Not to mention the fact that trying to move while it is raining EVERY SINGLE DAY is just awful. Everything is covered in mud, everything is dirty, and everything is wet. And it sucks.

May's show season was supposed to be thick and full - three shows right in a row. Then it started raining right after Sunrise Ridge, and hasn't stopped since. After Sunrise Ridge, I didn't work O for two weeks, then loaded up and headed right to the Games Day, where she did super well as you know. Then I couldn't do literally anything else, because it started raining even more, and every day. Even during the sporadic breaks in the rain, everything is bogged down in massive mud - there's no decent footing ANYWHERE you go, and even if you did try you'd either ruin the ground or ruin your horse's legs. There has been nothing that anyone can do really (at least not with the move. When the move is complete, I can trailer out again). 

The Carriage Classic at the beginning of the month got cancelled due to the weather. Then the Games Day, slated for the following weekend, also got rescheduled due to the weather. It was supposed to be held today, but once again, it had to be cancelled because of the weather. The last show I was supposed to do was Pine Hill, which is in fact running, but is also this weekend - and this is the weekend my parents came down to help us with the move and setting up things in the new house. Seeing as I literally haven't hooked my horse once in nearly a month - and have only been able to lunge her twice - it's not like we were remotely ready anyway. But, it sucks, there's no way around that.

I have no idea when or if it is ever going to stop raining. Tentatively we are going to the Cowboy Country HDT in mid-June, and hopefully the ADT in late June, but we'll just have to see how the weather holds! When I get my cart over to the new house, I will at least be able to drive up and down the roads, if nothing else. O is acting crazy possessive and protective over the baby though, so it might be kind of a rodeo to start.

In much better news, Pax turned 4 weeks old on Thursday! With my parents coming in and the move going on, I haven't really had much time to sit down and write about it. (Technically I should be up and showering right now, but oh well, I wanted to blog so I'm gonna do it!) I can't believe she is already a month old. She is growing like a weed and is just gorgeous.

When it was warm and sunny for 10 minutes, a million flies and mosquitos came out. Everyone got their flymasks, even Pax:

If that doesn't make you feel all warm and squishy inside, you might be a dead person, because baby horses in baby horse flymasks are adorable.

She also does many 'adult' things now, such as:

Grooming: 

Oh yea that's the spot

Picking up her little feet (and she'll get her first trim in a few days!):

Standing 'tied' (meaning, the lead rope has one turn around the fence and she can easily pull free if something happens - but she understands pressure now and she stops if the rope tightens. Don't actually tie your baby horse, their necks are SO fragile at this stage - teach them about pressure first, and then everything goes from there!):

She is too wiggly to stand well for conformation pictures... this is about the best one I managed to get:

She also learned about blankies for the first time (although I did stick one on her as a neonate for a new minutes). The other day I pulled in to feed them breakfast, and Pax was absolutely soaked and shivering hard. P is a feral beast, and doesn't like to go in her shed when it rains, so she makes Pax and O stand out in the rain with her. Pax obviously isn't going to leave her mother, and O isn't going to leave either one of them, so they just stand there and shiver miserable next to P while she, blissfully unaware of the rain, eats or naps.

No, she's not massively roachbacked - just had the MAJOR butt squinches due to the cold rain! I conned them into the shed for some alfalfa.

So, we learned about wearing a baby blanket:

It's kind of like a mini skirt, but it works

As you can see in the pictures, O is always super concerned about her tiny friend, and P kind of doesn't care. O and Pax go off and do their own thing all the time, and P ignores them to eat. 

I did get to lunge O for about 15 minutes the other day, inbetween rainstorms... it wasn't much but it was something!

 And now it's pouring again.... sigh!!