Goodbye Irene. Some rain started here on Saturday afternoon. We did make it to the benefit show at Aberdeen ( it went great, there was a fantastic turnout. ) We got sandbags set out, stuff tied down, horses put away and then we prayed. The rain really got going at about 3 Sunday morning, and tapered off around 12:30 that afternoon. The wind pretty much went on all day long. We watched the water rise, and then thankfully watched as it stalled and started to go down. All in all, we did not get hit badly at RO-NO.

Julie left early on Saturday morning with her horse Mambo for the Aberdeen Show. She was very pleased with how he behaved and performed for her. This was her first trip by herself with the horse to a show, and I'm so very pleased that she had a good time. Erin, Robbie, Nicole M, Hunter and myself set off for the show with 5 horses at around 11. We hit a little rain on the way, but it settled and we got started without a hitch. Erins Mom Peg was along as well ( thank goodness, as she watched Hunter a good bit for me) About halfway through the Western Show I noticed some pretty nasty looking black clouds rolling in. I hollered to my crew that we needed to scratch our horses and leave. We didn't even make it to the trailer when the rain hit. It poured! We loaded up as quickly as we could to bet out of there. They had us parked in a grass field and we were way at the bottom of a big hill. I knew it would be tough getting out of there. ( They had already had someone else get stuck in the driveway!) Off we went, me in the lead. I made it up to the road and went back on foot to see how Erin was making out ( she was driving Maribelle's truck and trailer) She was stuck, but after a little help from Glen ( the hubs hadn't locked in all the way- so he did that) she backed up and tried again and pulled out onto the road. Phew...

We got back to the ranch and started getting things settled for the storm. The rain started for real early the next morning, and all we could do was wait to see how bad it would get. The creeks started rising late in the morning, but fortunately never got really bad. The wind was pretty significant, but again, at the Ranch it didn't seem to do to much damage. We kept power the whole time ( lots of folks around us did not, so we were fortunate with that as well) and things are pretty much back to normal here.

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day on the road in NJ doing teeth. Lots of damage there, had to keep re-routing, as my GPS tried to get me where I needed to go. Trees down, rocks and debris across roads, or simply no road at all everywhere I turned. Today I'll be bringing a load of horses to Rose's to school, tomorrow doing teeth up in New Milford.

www.ro-noranch.com