Owner of Tiverton Horse Farm Makes the Best of Flooded Fields

When life gives you flash flooding, you hop in a giant water trough and keep on floatin'.

That's exactly what one woman did earlier this week after the remnants of Hurricane Ida brought torrential downpours and flooding to her horse farm in Tiverton. Mary Charette owns Claddagh Farm Inc., a boutique-style equestrian facility on Main Road, where inches of rain poured down early Thursday morning, overflowing a neighboring pond over roads and into her fields. But the skies cleared, and before long, Charette took advantage of the circumstances to have a little fun.

"Of course, that's what farm girls do is you find an empty bucket and a shovel, and you can have a lot of fun games," Charette said. "What are you supposed to do, you know? A lot of people had it a lot worse, so I'm just thankful we didn't have any major damage besides the fields getting a little extra watered."

A video of Charette's waterborne adventure and positive attitude has now gone viral online, and it's still mind-blowing when you think of just how much water spilled over into her fields.

"When I was in the water trough, I was actually floating like above the grass in one of the fields, and we had never seen the water get that high before," Charette said. "I was honestly expecting to see all the turtles, fish and water snakes all over the place. But thank God I didn't see any of those."

Luckily, as the storm rolled through southern Rhode Island and as Charette was out enjoying her new lakefront property, the horses were safe and sound in their stables, set up with heavy bedding, shavings, hay, fans and wrapping to prevent any potential swelling. The only complaint coming from the horse stalls this week may be that their scheduled week off from showings will have to be postponed until the fields dry out. As of Friday afternoon, Charette said her paddocks were still underwater.

"We just kind of got done with our summer showing, so usually this is the time that they are just going to take a couple of weeks off and go out in the paddock," Charette said. "Unfortunately now, they're going to have to wait for another week to do that, but it's okay."