We're back to this state again. Wet and windy. Mud everywhere. Like December only slightly less cold. It's strikingly evident that we live on an island as storm after storm sweeps in from the wild grey Atlantic ocean.
Given the wind and rain Brena got her rug back. She got extra hay too. At least she seems to be using the field shelter.
A few days of rain have made the barn into a mess. Fields are awash and tracks swamps, all for want of a little basic drainage. The parking area by the fields is a wet slippery bog for want of some stone, which the landowner doesn't want to put down. Last year I towed out two stuck cars.
New paddocks have been built too close to the roadway leaving hardly anywhere to turn a car. That's why cars get stuck. People have to drive onto the mud because they have no choice.
The lack of basic premises management is enough to make a thoughtful person weep with frustration. Having run a barn quite effectively myself, the mistakes and lack of customer focus are especially frustrating.
In truth, though, the equestrian industry in Britain will exploit boarding customers since there is a shortage of barns. One cannot be too choosy. Besides, it is an industry that pays the legal minimum wage (or less) so most often it won't attract great staff. When a legal minimum wage was introduced (it's about $8 an hour in a country with high living costs - much higher than in the US) two industries squealed like pigs under the knife: equestrian and convenience stores. A muddy messy barn is bearable to most horse owners if the manager is trustworthy (most are not) and keeps a lookout for problems with the horses (again optional in this industry). In this case the manager is honest and takes concern in the welfare of the horses so most people lump the rest. But, overall, the market is failing.
I guess that, more than anything else, I'm frustrated because there is already a huge pile of crushed stone at the barn. Simply the farmer won't put it down to relieve the mud.
Just to depress, here's today's weather map. The forecasters were not wrong.

Oh, well, Saturday promises better. We won't get wet even if we do grope around in the fog.
