Thank you all

[dancinghorse]

Thanks to all who posted messages of sympathy, eeks, offers of help, and advice. I have amazing friends. Even though at the moment I feel cursed--I certainly have an abundance of good people in my life. Which I deeply appreciate.

Tonight we got hammered again. Less wind, more rain. The hanging pieces of the icon are now on the ground except for one baroquely twisty and quite dangerous bit. The horses are closed off from there, but a good gust in the right direction will shred the tarp next to the wreckage. I truly do hope the barn crew comes tomorrow to take it down and remove the roof fragment from the arena.

The good news is, I am indeed insured. I got confoozled by a passage at arms some years ago when I had to pay for the roof myself, but this didn't cause the claims lady to bat an eyelash. I now have a claim number, an adjuster, and permission to carry on with debris removal and obtaining of estimate. The deductible isn't bad--I can do that.

Also Ember is insured by her owner, so her vet care and chiro will be covered. The vet has come and gone; she probably has whiplash. He took x-rays to rule out a fracture and will get the results to me tomorrow. The chiro will need them to do the neck work--she wants to wait a few days for the pain to go down before she starts in, so she'll be here Monday or Tuesday. Meanwhile Ember is on banamine (basically horse aspirin) and is better, though tonight's blow made her extremely unhappy.

Pandora is in the stallion barn tonight--baffled and not enjoying confinement, but I am not putting her next to the wreckage. Pook has the arena, and the breezeway so he has shelter. The main gang have no shelter they can use, which makes me a bit nuts but they seem OK. They can get out of the flooding and onto dry ground in the paddock. Tomorrow I hope to get a tarp back up on the shelter that went kersplooie. Help is coming for that, provided we don't get yet another evening microburst.

For them as had no idea Arizona gets weather like this, we do indeed. We're one of the lightning capitals of the world. Ever seen that picture of lightning on Kitt Peak? That's a one-minute time exposure. We have lightning of the finest grade here, and storms to go with. Tornadoes are rare, but downbursts and microbursts are common in our summer storms, which are sudden and violent and cause massive flooding in the desert. We get most of our annual rainfall in the summer monsoons--which are true monsoons, a seasonal shift in the wind that advects tropical air into a dry area. Just like in India.

The past few years, the monsoons have been weak and my place has had a pitifully small amount of rain. This year, although officially they haven't started yet--it's been fiercely hot and dry--we've had a whole lot of violent storms and a lot of rain. Go figure.

Personally I could use a break. The weekend is supposed to be wet--Emily is headed our way, meaning wind and rain. My wellies will get a workout.

Water in the desert is a blessing. Must remember that. Will remember it much more easily when I have horse shelter.

Comments

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

....on a crutch. I just got here after a few days doing other stuff. This was the first post of yours apres de flood. Very glad the insurance and friends came thru. Here is to getting the tarp up, the debris cleared and the ponies settled.

Any of those new homes in the wash get flooded out?