Bring it on, Irene.

As most of you probably know, the East Coast is getting battered by Hurricane Irene, which formed down in the Bahamas early in the week. It's now looking like it is going to be a weak Catagory 1 hurricane or a strong Tropical Storm by the time it gets to Rhode Island, but earlier in the week the weather experts were predicting that it would be a lot stronger. I've been preparing for this storm at work, at home, and at the barn. Here's what we've been doing to "hurricane-proof" the barn:

We covered the windows with a heavy plastic and stapled the plastic down with
heavy-duty staples. This is to prevent the 6" of rain we're expecting
from coming into the barn.

I created tags with each horse's name, the farm name, the owner's name, and
a contact number. I had them laminated and then I braided them into the
horses' manes. If they got loose somehow, these tagswould help get them home.

One of the other horses sporting his name tag.

A near-by barn brought 15 horses to the farm because they did not have
enough stalls for all of them, and they were concerned about trees falling on
their barn and flooding. Good thing we still have lots of empty stalls at the
farm! Having 15 horses come in on short notice can be hectic but it seemed
to go fairly well.

During a break in the rain, Claire and I got a quick trail ride in. Lu was being
silly about a gate we had to walk through so I grabbed the closest branch I
could find. Even though clearly that wasn't going to be an effective "crop",
she didn't know that! I showed her I had a stick and she went right through
the gate. Mares...

The barn owner went out and purchased a bunch of these Home Depot buckets
and we filled them all up to the brim with water in case we lose electricity. The
water at the barn is well water, which is brought to the surface by an electric
pump. If the electricity goes out, there is no way to get water.

We also brought extra hay into the barn and made sure it was stacked on pallets off the ground, just in case the aisle floods.

I think we are as prepared as we can be so bring it on, Irene!