No Floodplain Means No Flooding

I mentioned in one of my last blogs that we'd had a lot of rain in February. I don't remember the final February tally but it was a crazy number, something like 12 or 13 inches of rain. March has started off in the footsteps of February and we had at least an inch, probably more like two inches, of rain last night and today. Schools were closed today in our county since several roads were closed due to flooding. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were warm, sunny days. Their purpose was to fake us out and trick us into thinking we were done accumulating rain in February. The ground was drying up nicely and the grass is starting to really pop with green color in some areas of the farm. Then the rain moved back in Tuesday evening and hung around until mid-day on Thursday. We've had a LOT of rain.

Some of our very long time readers might remember our lengthy search for land. If you can believe it we bought this farm EIGHT years ago in January 2010. One of the reasons we spent almost three years searching for land to buy was because Jason was insistent that we have no floodplain areas on our farm. He was serious when he meant none. Even 2 acres out of 200 was more floodplain than Jason was willing to own.

At the time I thought Jason was making an already tough land search even harder. Over the years I've come to realize he was a genius in his insistence on no floodplain areas. Since we've purchased this farm middle Tennessee has had a 1,000 year flood (remember that time when Nashville and surrounding areas had 12 inches of rain in 36 hours) and now we've seen a month like February.  We have predictable spots on the farm that form what I like to call "water features" when we have really heavy rain, basically little ponds where there shouldn't be a pond. But our water features are gone within a day of the rain clearing out, and most of them are gone within an hour or two of the rain stopping.

Other farms in the area have not been so lucky when it comes to standing water and flooding. More than one farm in our area has pastures that are completely, 100% submerged under water right now. Some even have water in their barns. I'm thankful that we have none of those worries on our farm thanks to Jason's meticulous due diligence when it came to our land search. Our creek even stayed within its banks while others within a half mile of us were out of their banks and flooding areas up to a half mile wide.

When it comes to running a farm it is easy to overlook some of the knowledge that Jason brings to the table. We have no worries at all about our barns or pastures flooding right now. After the extreme drought our area had in the second half of 2016 Jason spent a fortune in seed and fertilizer and countless hours on the tractor bringing them back to their usual excellent shape in 2017. He re-seeded four times and fertilized three times to undo all of the drought damage. Thanks to his large animal nutrition background we feed a custom feed designed by him with a vitamin/mineral profile balanced specifically to our soil, grass and hay tests. It takes a lot more than just hands-on horse knowledge to run a really top notch horse farm. Let me repeat that. It takes a LOT more than a good horse background to run a good horse farm. When I look around at the flooded farms around us I realize just how critical that knowledge can be at times, and how I have no stress at all while I watch neighboring farms trying to get horses and other livestock to high ground.

Thank you Jason for the lack of stress in my life right now.

Rubrico and Ewen on the run

Rocky and Toledo

Sushi, Squirrel and Gus

Cino, Remmy and Bruno

Cocomo and Asterik

Rip and Grand

the warm rain is making the grass start to green up in some places

Homer and Hemi

Baby, Apollo and Elfin

Chance and Trigger

Convey, Trigger and King

Roho and Wilson

Cisco and King

Norman

Maisie

Mina Has the Final Say

As you saw in a previous post Jason started construction on new housing for the World's Cutest Fainting Goats a couple of weeks ago.  Jason made sure the engineering was top notch and proudly told me as he was showing me the finished product that it could stand up to a hurricane. I told him that was great. What I didn't say was that we don't get hurricanes in Tennessee but I figured why ruin the moment.

You may remember this conversation from that previous post as I attempted to discuss with Jason the aesthetics of the goat condo. Our chat went like this:  

Me: You bought black shingles?

Jason:  Yes. So?

Me: This won't match the other run-ins and barns. They all have red roofs, now this one is going to have a black roof. Shouldn't we take these back and get red shingles?

Jason:  silence

Me:  Is there going to be a cupola on the roof like the other run-in sheds?

Jason:  silence

Me:  But all of the horse run-in sheds have cupolas.

Jason:  silence

Me:  We'll at least put a weathervane on the roof, right?

Jason:  silence

Me:  We're going to paint it white, right? Because all of the horse run-in sheds are white.

Jason:  silence

Me:  I feel like I'm talking to myself.

Jason:  silence

Me:  Well, this conversation has been very productive. I feel like we settled a lot of things. 

Jason:  silence

As you can see in the picture below our goat shed is some kind of light brownish/beige color, the shingles are black, and there is no cupola or weathervane. So I guess was, indeed, talking to myself.  So much for making sure the goat run-in fell into the same general color scheme as the horse run-ins. 

the goat run-in shed ready for use

You might recall that Jason was hastening to build the goats their new run-in shed because Mina absolutely did not approve of the fact that her new paddock had only a couple of dogloos for shelter. Mina was not interested in taking shelter in a dogloo. Mina the Czarina definitely felt she was above using a dogloo.  

The morning after Jason completed the non-white, black-shingled, non cupola bearing goat run-in shed he called me. He was feeding horses by the goat paddock and I was feeding horses at the front of the farm. I answered the phone and Jason said "guess where Mina is right now."

I replied "in her brand new run-in shed??"

There was silence for a moment and then Jason said in a very not-amused voice "she's in the dogloo."

I will admit I almost died laughing at that point. There were so many different ways I could say I told you so that I couldn't even pick one. I simply couldn't get one out because I was laughing so hard at the image of Jason standing there, proudly looking at his hurricane-proof goat shed, only to realize that Mina was in the dogloo. The very dogloo she had been refusing to use for the last couple of weeks.  I never said that she was in the dogloo and not the hurricane-proof shed because it wasn't white, the shingles were the wrong color or because there was no cupola. I never said any of that. I didn't have to because Mina did all the talking for me. Actions speak louder than words. 

Since that day Mina has lowered herself to use the aesthetically mis-matched goat run-in shed. However I am sure it wears on her pride every day that the horses have prettier sheds than she does. Undoubtedly she is counting down the days until Jason decides to do renovate and remodel. I haven't had the heart to tell her that she will probably be waiting for a long, long time.

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Dolly, Lily and Cinnamon

Kennedy and Donovan

some of the horses having a relaxing afternoon. I could tell it was Baby on the far right but I needed to zoom in to see the rest . . . 

. . . it was Grand . . . 

. . . and Moe and Tony

Noble and Lucky

Thomas

Hemi

MyLight and Silky

Cuffie, Norman and Calimba

you can barely see her but that is Lily grazing in the morning sun

Walon lifted his head to look at me as I took this picure but Kennedy, Toledo and Johnny couldn't be bothered

watching the sun make its entrance this morning

It Has Been Awhile

It has been awhile since I posted any pictures of Jason looking miserable while dealing with a plumbing problem. Those pictures are always so charming, usually involving Jason standing in muddy water looking distinctly unhappy.  A few days ago I had an opportunity to update my folder of pictures where Jason is standing in muddy water while repairing a plumbing issue. 

This picture is so deja vue - Jason in his rubber boots standing in muddy water

Jason was most unhappy when I pointed out to him that he had shoveled the dirt into his work boots as he dug up the line. 

You probably don't need me to tell you what Jason was saying as I took his picture. You should be able to get the general idea just from looking at his expression.

As always Jason came to the water line rescue (gotta put that university degree to work). He doesn't exactly look happy in this picture, but he at least looks a lot less unhappy.

This time around we were dealing with a mess we did not create. We had never had great water pressure at the very back barn which is no surprise given that it is at the end of 3,000 feet of water line. We had a contractor in who installed several pressure regulators at various points along the line and maybe some other stuff that I don't really understand. The only thing I did understand was that after all of it was done our water pressure at the back was even worse, which was pretty much the opposite effect that we were expecting.

Jason was completely perplexed by this and traipsed all over the farm digging the lines up where these pressure regulators had been installed. He couldn't find anything wrong and did not find any leaks. There was a lot of talking to himself and screaming at no one, mostly along the lines of  "WHY did this not work? WHY is the water pressure even worse?"

After two days of digging, talking to himself and screaming at no one, he finally decided to remove one of the pressure regulators and put a new one in at a different point along the water line. This of course involved multiple trips to Home Depot. The first trip to get the parts he needed, and the rest of the trips to get the parts he did not realize he needed.  You know how that goes.  

After he got all of that done we turned on the water at the last spigot with a lot of trepidation. Over the last couple of days we had turned that spigot on over and over hoping for good results and always getting bad results. Jason was already talking to himself and screaming at no one, "WHY won't this work" when the water came gushing out with a lot of pressure, more water pressure than we had ever had at the last spigot. We left the water running for awhile to make sure the pressure did not fall off. It didn't. Jason was victorious at last. 

Jason had desperately hoped to avoid digging up water lines, standing in muddy water, and dealing with disassembling and reassembling water lines. Instead he got to pay someone to do with the mess, then deal with it all himself on top of that. The best laid plans . . .  never quite seem to work out as planned.

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the sun was struggling to make an appearance through the fog this morning

Thomas borrowing Jason's phone to check his email

Flyer, Faune and Silver coming on the run through the fog for breakfast

Lotus and Romeo 

MyLight and Calimba

Apollo, Moe and Levendi

Possibly our newest resident on the farm. He/she watched me feeding horses for quite awhile yesterday morning.

A picture full of pony 'tude; Cuff Links, Norman and Traveller

Noble

George

What Our Goats Think

I'm not sure if I even want to know what our goats think of these days. To say that we have had some interesting interactions with them would be an understatement. More accurately I should say that Jason has had some interesting interactions with the goats. 

In the last several weeks we have more rain than I ever remember us having in the months of July and August. Some days we only had a couple of light rain showers. Other days we had rain showers that would best be described as periods of torrential, heavy rain. It was strange when we had am off day where it did not rain at all. To say that is not a normal weather pattern in the south in the summer is putting it mildly. 

Jason playing with Jo on the teeter totter

Mina peeking around the barn door

Last week we were having one of the days with heavy downpours.  When Jason and I pulled up to the barn I mentioned that neither of us had visited the fainting goats that day, nor had we let them out of their paddock for their daily wander around the farm.  Neither of us was thrilled with the idea of venturing out into the pouring rain to check on the goats. Just as I thought we were going to have to play a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who would have to go get drenched Jason volunteered. 

He then proceeded to remove his shirt, and naked from the waist up ran out to the goat paddock to check on the goats. When he came back I asked him what Lyle thought about him standing there shirtless in the rain, looking at her. He said he didn't know exactly what she thought, but was he was sure it was something along the lines of how stupid he was. 

Lyle getting some air time

Lyle standing on one of the goat houses

Last night Jason provided the fainters with even more fodder for discussion. We were just getting ready to go to bed when Jason suddenly sprinted to the front door and yanked it open. Of course I asked what was wrong in an alarmed voice. Jason announced he heard something suspicious around the goat paddock. A minute later he bolted out of the house looking like quite a spectacle wearing boxer shorts, a t-shirt, and boots without socks while holding a rifle in one hand and a flashlight in the other.  As he ran toward the goat paddock he was screaming something that sounded like "HEY" in a really loud voice. I'll be honest, I did not ever ask what it was he was screaming.  In this getup Jason proceeded to go on  patrol all around the goat paddock.  The World's Cutest Fainting Goats watched as Jason patrolled their paddock in his boxers while toting his rifle. 

After Jason returned to the house I asked him what the goats must think of him now. He told me that they must surely think he had progressed from being stupid to being stupid and crazy.  What do you think?

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Johnny and Murphy

Africa and Sam

Lighty

Maisie and Silky

MyLight and Cinnamon

Elfin and Grand

Gus and Faune

Calimba, Cinnamon and Lily