Goodbye drought, hullo floods!

evilbunnyfoofoo

My shoes are laced with irony
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Well the old saying goes when it rains, it pours. That isn't usually the case in Texas, where the drought has had us at the neck for about 7 years. Yesterday and today though, we had rain. Boy howdy have we had rain. So much so the place has flooded and about thirty small dogs had to be evacuated to another part of the farm. Luckily, I knew floods could happen here, so I'd built some dog pens on the high ground. We actually floated dogs in a raft, and the big dogs like the collies and such swam beside us as my son and I waded through. I should have taken pictures, but things were wild and there was no time. I was scared the smaller dogs would drown.

Photo heavy warning!

When we realised it was actually flooding and water was getting deep, we panicked because on of the barn cats had kittens under a pile of pallets and we knew two of the feral cats that had been dumped recently (people dump wild pregnant cats here all the time. Some I can catch and tame, some... forget it) had some under the house (we're hillbillies, we live in a big doublewide trailer, don't laugh! It's paid for. And falling apart already. Heh.) Anyway, I went to toss aside pallets to get the kittens, he crawled under and crawled on his hands and knees through the water and mud to rescue kittens. It was funny, he took a cooler and floated it in front of him to get to the kittens and used it as a little ark. They were under there clinging to the plumbing, poor babies! I might gripe about my son sometimes, but he will do anything to help an animal in need. It's just not usually our own animals.

Look at these drowned little rats we found.
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Lucky we got to them all in time! Here they are all dry. Some are running because they're afraid I'll blow dry them more.
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Here's one mom, Not a Cat Melvin (she honestly thinks she's a dog, she lives in a dog pen usually or in the barn). She's taking care of them all. By this posting one feral mom, has taken her three back, but this time to the barn where it's dry and safe.
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What I did get on film was the horse evacuation. The big herd of ponies and the goats were to be moved to higher ground, but when I got to their pasture they were gone. Seems my llama Beth saw the water rising and decided to take matters into her own two toes. She pulled the gate pin and ushered the ponies into the pasture leading to higher ground. My neighbour actually watched her do it. He was going to go help her, but she didn't need it. I knew she could open the gate because she's done it before, but this shows a keen intelligence to me. She knew the smaller animals were in danger and got them out of dodge. He said they all just marched through once she opened the gate and bellowed at them. Llamas can make a weird trumpety groan, I guess it means, "Move your butts!" Usually the goats try to ignore her, but Leroy said they all seemed to know what was happening and acted accordingly.

Here's the horses and their ponies. These pics are murky because it was dawn and raining.
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This is Stormy. She's on a small patch of un- submerged land, the water rushing by her.

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Stormy refuses to allow our pony Studmuffin on her little island, so he's heading to me.

Poor Candy, our 30 year old pony is knee deep. I had to lead her the long way through the creek, because she couldn't make it the way my son went.
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Follow me if you want to live! My son leads the horses through water that at one point is up to his waist (terrifying to watch as a mom!) to get to high ground). That big red butt belongs to our gelding Boss and you can barely make out Studmuffin and Candy. Candy couldn't make it that way in the end and had to go around.
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Lookit my driveway. This is why I can't get my mail or send out packages!
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Wanna go swimmin'?


Wow. My kid is a paleskin. You can tell his daddy was English. Heh. "Please, mom. Can't we go in?"
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So we did. And here we'll stay still the rain stops or we float away!
 
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cj beat me to "good grief!" but seriously... good grief!!!! :eek: really admirable that you and your son went the extra mile to make sure the kitties were safe, hope you got to get nice and comfortable afterwards. such wild pictures!
 
Oh no, that is awful there is so much water there, Im glad everyone is ok. You have done amazing things for those animals too. . Blankets and hot chocolate for sure, take care. :smile:
 
It only floods some places, I promise! This happens here every 10 years or so. We're safe for another decade now, surely!

It's definitely kick back in the house weather now. I'll have to wade to the other house later to check on my aunt (we have two houses on two pieces of land with a road between) but it's receded down to ankle deep now. We're good. By tomorrow, it will all have soaked it or flowed off.

Most of the kittens are still on the roofed porch, so I can play with 'em! YAYS! I love kitties. Gotta get them gentle so they can be adopted out. If I could catch the mamas I'd get them fixed.
 
Oh no, that is awful there is so much water there, Im glad everyone is ok. You have done amazing things for those animals too. . Blankets and hot chocolate for sure, take care. :smile:

It would be terrible for the poor animals to have gone through all they have just to drown here at the sanctuary where they thought they were safe! Poor critters. We had some very scared animals, but through all their fear, no one bit or scratched us. Good thing I have lots of safe buildings for them to get in. Just had to swim to get there!

And you guys thought I would melt in the rain. LOL!


PS My pot bellied pigs are happy as they can be! They lurve mud!
 
Oh my that is bad! I am glad that all the animals were safe and y'all too. Despite the rain your ponies and horse are so cute along with the kittens. I used to live a few miles from a llama farm ( still there to this day) and they do make interested sounds,
 
Oh gosh what a horrible storm!! It's wonderful you all were able to get the animals to safety and that no one got hurt! I can't believe how smart your llama is! I've only met a few llamas in my life and all were not exactly what I'd call intelligent. Maybe I should hang around them more often :lolpony: You really have a wonderful son. He worked so hard to make sure the animals were okay! I hope my kids will turn out as kind as he is!

Also I'm so jealous you get to play with adorable kittens! It's good it all worked out in the end!
 
I'm glad the kittens are all where I can get to them now. I can tame them up and get them homes. I don't like that the feral cats aren't fixed, but people dump them and the only way to catch them is by setting up the wire live traps. My ferals are too smart for them though, so they'll just be wild forever I guess. One of them, Wild Child Melvin, seems to at least acknowledge we saved her kittens and is following my son around now. He hopes to nab her and make her his cat.

Beth is fortunately super smart. She was found with her mom Steph starving in a field after her owner died. Poor man had been dead awhile before Beth and Steph broke out of their pasture trying to find food. It was then the neighbours went to check on their owner and found he had died and just laid there in his house unnoticed for almost two moths. Can you imagine how sad it would be for no one to have checked on you at all for so long? Poor man. Anyway, Beth and Steph ended up with us, and while Steph died of old age two years ago, Beth continues to be a good protector of the goats and ponies. She's an amazing gal.
We like to call her Beth Beth Death Breath. You haven't suffered until to get a whiff of llama halitosis. :lolpony:

Funny, the waters have soaked in and receded. You'd never know it was flooded just a short while ago.
 
Are you Wonder Woman? Or wonder bunny? What an adventure! You and your son are like super heroes for animal kind. I really wanna meet your llama.
 
Oh and send some of that water over here to California. We are in a serious drought.
 
Aw! We just do what we gotta do. My son grew up in the animal rescue biz, so he'[s a real pro. Everything from domestics to coons, skunks, snakes... you name! We love critters.

My Beth is one super llama, lemme tell ya. I love my gal. People always if she spits when they see her, but she's only spit at people once, and that was at my son. He was being surly and she took it poor and spitooey! Right in his hair. She spits at the ponies and goats all the time. They try to go for her food bowl and she is a hawkin' machine. It's hilarious and gross.

We're still in drought, but not like you poor guys in California. I don't know what it's going to take to get us all some rain. Real rain. This was great, but it came down too quick so it didn't soak in. It just ran off to the Red River a mile down.
 
Wow, that was a lot of water. This is a pretty amazing story, between you and your son rescuing the animals in the rain and Beth moving the horses to higher ground. Maybe you should start on your memoirs :)
 
Aw! We just do what we gotta do. My son grew up in the animal rescue biz, so he'[s a real pro. Everything from domestics to coons, skunks, snakes... you name! We love critters.

My Beth is one super llama, lemme tell ya. I love my gal. People always if she spits when they see her, but she's only spit at people once, and that was at my son. He was being surly and she took it poor and spitooey! Right in his hair. She spits at the ponies and goats all the time. They try to go for her food bowl and she is a hawkin' machine. It's hilarious and gross.

We're still in drought, but not like you poor guys in California. I don't know what it's going to take to get us all some rain. Real rain. This was great, but it came down too quick so it didn't soak in. It just ran off to the Red River a mile down.


Do yall have any snake now?? What Kind?? sorry Long time Snake Lover. I had to give my two Jack and Jill up when I moved back home with my parent. There all snake are the devil blah blah... they were balled Pythons. Jack slept with me a lot and we used to watch tv and he road around on my neck.

Jill was just a Diva.
 
No snakes here right now. Typically we get ones that have entered into peoples usually (usually rat and chicken snakes) and take them back into the wild where they belong. If they're injured we'll care for then them release. We do have a lot of turtles right now, most of them permanent residents due to injury.

I love snakes, but have been bit by a cooperhead once while saving some little bunnies from a warren, so I'm pretty wary of anything poisonous. Luckily it was a warning strike, so no venom was injected. Still hurt like a mutha though.

Never understood the whole snakes are evil thing.
 
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