Susanna J. Sturgis   Martha's Vineyard writer and editor
writer editor born-again horse girl

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Raining

May 13, 2006

The dire weather forecasts have finally come true: it's been pouring half the night. Maybe two years into my career as a born-again horsegirl, after one too many days doing barn chores in sodden jeans, I finally sprang for a pair of Gore-tex rain pants. Up to that moment $99 had seemed too extravagant. Ever since they're been worth their weight in -- well, in Gore-tex. I wear them maybe six or eight times a year, but on mornings like this $99 looks cheap.

My three horse-sit charges were all in their stalls: drizzle and snow and pretty high winds they don't mind, but this was too much. I fed and hayed them all inside, cleaned their stalls with them inside -- I don't like mucking out occupied stalls, and with certain occupants I won't even try, but these guys are all easy to work around, and they don't make much of a mess anyway.

Rhodry had to keep an eye out, of course, though why he chose to lie in the pelting rain instead of the tack/grain room only a malamutt could explain. I asked him to shake before he jumped into the truck. No dice: the look said "Are you going to let me in or not?" I asked him to shake before I opened the front door, where a curtain of water was pouring off the roof. No dice again; same look, a little more sodden. He shook just inside the door and again at the top of the stairs.

Do they make Gore-tex raincoats in malamutt sizes?

 

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