Relative Something

The day started mostly sunny but the forecast warned of a chance of rain in the afternoon. Sometime after Cyndie departed for a couple of days away with friends, I granted Asher a chance to walk through the woods wherever his nose led us, hoping to distract him from already missing her.

Before we set out, I opened a gate to allow the horses some time to graze grass. As far as we can tell, their bodies are adjusting to the gradual change in diet just fine.

While our neighbor to the south mowed grass along our property lines, Asher and I popped out of the woods and made our way between the horses in the field and the riding mower. It seemed like a perfect afternoon of spring sunshine.

The sky was partly cloudy, but it didn’t seem all that threatening. I hadn’t paid any attention to what the radar looked like. I’ve heard the phrase “popcorn showers” used for the dotted image of precipitation blobs that showed up when I finally checked.

Asher and I had made our way around our entire property and into the barn where I left him to kill time while I cleaned up manure and then prepared buckets of feed. I was planning to bring out the buckets as an enticement to get the horses to come in off the field. Before I made it out the door, they came racing in at top speed.

We couldn’t feel the wind at that point but the sound of the howling gusts that suddenly blew through the surrounding trees was downright spooky. Eerie enough to scare the horses back to the safety of the barn. I hung their buckets of feed as quickly as I could to get them focused on their evening meal while I scooted down to close the gate to the field.

I made it back just as rain started to fall. Then it started to pour out of the cloud with an ominous roar that rumbled the metal roof to maximum decibels. I looked out the half door at the horses and noticed why it was so loud on the roof. It looked to be equal parts rain and BB-sized hail.

Unfortunately, of the four spots the horses choose for feeding, Mia’s is outside the cover of the overhang. With enough warning, we can easily move her under but she was already out there when the deluge hit.

I could see the pellets of hail bouncing off of her. It didn’t seem to bother Mia a bit. Light turned around a couple of times to look out at the cloudburst but other than that, the dramatic precipitation didn’t disturb the horses from their feed.

The gusher ended as quickly as it arrived. Mia was wet but unfazed by it all.

Asher and I walked back up to the house under a fresh interval of sunshine and ate our respective dinners devoid of any further meteorologic theatrics.

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