TCJpart49 Thundery Skies

MUD:

We sometimes complain about bad weather, the rain for example.  But these skies are often a wonderful kaleidoscope of watercolours.  And the light gives a moody effect to photos of horses.  And of course, if you can imagine lovely bays underneath, photos of the horses are actually quite beautiful.

The skies above our village are swirling and churning with weather, clouds of vapour rolling and changing colours from dove white to dark gunmetal.  Thundering in a palette too interesting to leave unnoticed.  The consequence of extreme weathers in particular lots of rain as we have had recently is mud, and of course horses like few things better than rolling about in it.

I use a rubber tipped hairbrush to remove the worst, and a secession of gradually softening bristles of a variety of brushes to get them sparkling again...or, more likely, to make a clean spot to be filled with a more recent application of the wet stuff - I expect it's good for the skin.

I almost had a bit of a tail-trimming disaster too. Stupidly I began a job in the raging wind I was unable to satisfactorily complete in one go since they wandered off in mid-chop...yes, both of them!!  Their tails looked hacked and uneven, and pure-bred Trakehners can only have perfectly Vidal'd tails in my book.  Getting them perfect took a second attempt, and their tails are a little shorter than I usually trim them, but at least they look like dressage stars now, not rocking horses!!

Now, no photo diary of Tom & Henry would be complete without lots of shots of their amazing bums!!  Tom's  bum is all dapples at the moment as you can see, and Henry's, well of course you must recognise it... so rounded and perfect...even covered in mud!!

They love this weather, they both roll a lot.  They pick a perfect spot and take it in turns to smother themselves in earth.

In the opposite camp, the cats stay indoors when it's raining, they have us light the fire, put their snugly blanket out and they curl up with Fergal, their sharky!!

And left here is Fergal, Mum bought him back from her holiday in South Africa.   They love it!