Yesterday it was 100 degrees in the shade on the front porch at 2PM! I don't want to even guess what it was in the sun. Today is the same. Needless to say, the pasture potatoes are getting a break again! We're going to go out and hose them (and ourselves) down in a little while. I sure could use a thunderstorm about now! Those are rare around here. <--- guess this is the only one I'll see for a while! LOL!

Scout's Mom:

I sure could use a thunderstorm about now! Those are rare around here. <--- guess this is the only one I'll see for a while! LOL!

You should vacation up here in Eastern Washington or in Idaho-we've been getting thunderstorms like crazy! On Tuesday of this week we had thunderstorms from two in the afternoon to three in the afternoon the next day on Wensday. We're supposed to get some more this next week. Needless to say, don't think we're going to be getting much riding done this week! :)

 It's a mild 93 here today.  I went over to sponge the pasture potatoes down. Annapolis, naturally, took that as his cue to roll in the dust get filthy from head to toe.  Not once, but twice.

We had a pop up storm yesterday and it looked like they had rain at the barn during the week sometime.  Everything was looking pretty green.

just got in and took my rubber boots off and will be looking for a nice hot drink.

it's 60degrees and raining here in beautiful bc.  we are having the wettest june on record.  but, i think i do like that better than supreme heat.

 We're at least getting some rain, unlike last summer, but it's coming down at the rate of an inch and a half in an hour and accompanied by crashing thunder.  

Still, on the bright side, the pasture is green this year.  But it's still bloody hot.

My horses have had it easy with all this heat, I haven't had time to ride period, my dad's been waking me up at around 4 and I have to go out and grease all the haying equipment and then I've been on a tractor (with no cap or shade) until about 9am mowing fields, then I get on another tractor (also with no cap or shade) and ted all the hay that was mowed and all the hay that was mowed the day before (and sometimes the day before that), I finish that task around 2pm, and then it's onto another tractor to rake all the hay and right from there I'm on the back of a wagon working behind a kicker until about 7pm and then I get to go up into the barn and stack 400+ bales until about 10pm.  If I'm lucky I have time to grab some frozen water bottles while I'm passing the house and maybe a granola bar or something.

The horses have all day access to pasture plus their dry lot which has a run in shed, but right about now they're down in the lower end of the pasture near a natural stream haning out in the woods, plus the water tubs don't have time to get too hot since they're also sharing the pasture with the cows.

 Daily dose of electrolytes - made for horses and they expel the excess. Cheap, too.

Ride @ 7 a.m.  or 8 p.m.

Ride less and don't work too hard.  It's not worth it to me or to put my horse into possible heat stress. Hose him off after and make sure he's cooled down before returning to pasture.

It's interesting to go back and read last year's replies; especially my own as much has changed.

 This year our 22 acres looked like parchment paper until a few days ago.  We haven't had to bushhog since the end of April.

 The horse in my avatar is now coming 25.  He has Equine Metabolic Syndrome, hind gut ulcers and the vet is suspicious the reason he colicked four times in as many months is because he may have lipomas in his digestive tract.

I said all that to say, I was watching him up on the ridge on a day we hit over 100 with the "feels like" at 111.  He was acting funny in his stall that AM.  Sure enough down he went at 1:30. 

I went out on the 4-wheeler with Banamine and halter in-hand.  It took me a good four minutes to get him up and convince him to move the 1,000+ feet down that steep hill to the barn.

From that point, until we got a good rain two days ago, I locked everyone in the front three acres and hayed them like it was winter. 

He's been fine ever since and I theorize the reasons he has been fine are:

1.  I took his grazing muzzle off because he wasn't getting anything to eat in that parched pasture.

2.  He's the alpha horse and won't bring the herd up for water until his designated time of 2:30 PM.

 This horse and the other three doubled their water consumption once they were forced to say on the front three acres. 

Yes, they get electrolytes and salt added to their feed pans, eventhough there's salt blocks by both water stations.  I add water to their supplements, I feed this colicky horse well soaked tim/alfalfa cubes every day. 

But all that didn't do a bit of good because he stayed out in that blistering heat and would not come up for water.

They stayed locked in the front until we finally got enough rain to start the grass back green again.  Green grass equals moisture, but I still watch him and the others closely and I still put a bit of hay under the trees behind the barn every afternoon to force them to stay in the shade.

I have never handled the heat very well but that gets worse as I get older.  I wear a cooling vest and a kerchief full of ice cubes, around my neck, when I have to go outside.  If I didn't, Mr. WTW would've found me lying beside Duke when I went up on the ridge to get him the day he colicked. 

Hay -----------ack.  Hay's at a premium with all this drought.  That's a whole 'nuther subject that ought to have a separate thread for those that aren't paying attention and will start wondering why the price of everything they feed may soon be going up.

Last I looked at the drought map there are 20 states in some degree of drought.  Not good for hay, corn, soy, and other crops that feed not only livestock but humans.

It sounds like you got "that feeling" as you watched your horse up on the ridge and just knew something was going to happen. Must have been scary when he wouldn't get up.

We had 100 degrees plus in June of this year but we've been getting a lot of rain this week and it's brought the temperature down a bit - low 90's instead of high 90's.

And the pastures are green, unlike last year.  Ours looks like yours last year - parchment. Drought is a terrible thing, many of our local ranchers and farmers were badly affected last year, so I really feel for the ones stricken in this year's drought.

Everyone seems to be talking about drought all over. A co-worker said earlier this week that he read that human and animal food is expected to be much higher by Fall. He's originall from Wisconsin and his family says that it's really dry there. My internet home page today had a headline saying that the drought will bring higher fuel prices, too. I'm not sure how that works. Maybe just another excuse to raise them.