Tuesday, February 4, 2020

True Gifts

I started on the walk this morning and was telling mom and Ruth about how unhappy I was with the Berean lunch that was made yesterday. I made a turkey casserole using the left over turkey from Sunday's lunch, chicken broth, carrots, peas, celery, onion and rice. Last night it was good but by this morning the rice had thickened too much. While visiting with them we came up with an idea to maybe fix it by wrapping the rice mixture in a slice of turkey and that turned out good.  We had a fun morning at the Berean office getting lots of work done. If you would like to read about that click HERE.
This afternoon Anna dropped off Kensley while she went to Meister's to help Philip.  She was suppose to work there until around 6:00 pm but when we were waiting for Braelyn and Taegan's bus to come at 4:00 pm Anna sent a text that she was already leaving for home. She is a fast worker!
We have snow moving in tomorrow afternoon. Mike and Diane are on their way home from Gulf Shores and should be home by 1:30 am then Mike plans on heading out to Middle Grove to move bales in later tomorrow morning.  I'll need to move some bales in here tomorrow morning also before the snow starts. I want to do that in the morning while the ground is still frozen it makes things so much easier than trying to move bales in the mud.
This evening I'm going to tell you the story of 2 of our favorite mares, Missy and Cookie. These are actually rescues.  The story goes like this. I received a message from a lady on November 6th, 2012 who asked if we would be interested in buying her two horses. I sent a message back that we are not buying any horses. She then offered to give them to us and the horses were stabled about an hour from us.  I made arrangements to go on a Saturday to look at them which was 4 days later.  When I arrived the owner met us with this statement, "Oh thank goodness you came, we have been out of hay for them for 4 days."  At that point, no matter what they looked like or how they acted I knew we would be bringing them home.  They are both Tennessee Walkers.  Missy was 7 years old and Cookie was 8 years old. Both had been ridden on lots of trails at Sandridge State Forest. Rhoda worked with both of them and was very pleased with how well they behaved.  Below is her first time on Cookie Saturday Nov 10th 2012.
We sent them out to Middle Grove for the rest of the fall and winter. They loved being out there with the herd and both put on weight. 
We started using them for the camps and trail rides the summer of 2013 and they were both a big hit.


They were both a true gift from God.  We used them for pony rides for the Spoon River Drive and pony rides at the Giant Goose Ranch and both had quite a following. Both of these mares loved the foals and each year would hang around the mares and foals 'helping' to keep them safe. Below is Cookie with one of Lily's foals. Lily was no where in sight, she completely trusted Cookie to take care of her foal. 
Cookie is only 13.3 so we have never bred her and we considered Missy just too ugly to breed. Her head is pretty big and coarse compared to her body. BUT that said, who cares for how she looks when she is such a wonderful riding horse!
But Missy was SO in love with the babies we finally decided to let her have her own foal and bred her to Evan. We were happy with the results of that breeding. Her filly was gorgeous.
Our problem was that having a foal by her side meant we could not take Missy off the farm for trail rides. Missy is one of those mares that we use all spring, summer and fall so that meant no more foals for Missy.  We took these two mares thinking we were doing them a favor but they have returned the favor over and over.  Safe to say Missy and Cookie are lifers here as long as we are able.  One cannot put a price on such safe wonderful mares!
Puppy news today is now ALL 4 of Arrieta's puppies, the entire litter is now spoken for. There is just one Cavapoo puppy left. Rhoda is calling him Wyatt. Whatt's mom is Ruby an F1b Cockapoo bred to Duece the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Both Ruby and Duece have been health tested.  Wyatt should end up around 15 to 20 pounds when full grown.   He is available for $1400.00. He was born Jan 16th, 2020 and is pictured below today Feb 4th, 2020. 

If interested in him please contact Rhoda directly (309-208-3890)

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