Food and Fellowship

 This morning was the start of Kensley's basketball tournament at Illini Bluffs School at 11:00 am. We arrived about 10 minutes early paid our $3.00 each then asked where we should go. We were given directions and started walking into a gym when the lady behind us asked, "are you here for Kensley?" We were in the wrong gym and she showed us where to go. Phil and Anna were already there. I sat toward the middle to video when Kensley's was playing. Gertie joined me while Dennis joined Mark. It was another run-a-way game. Kensley made 6 or 7 baskets in the first few minutes. This was a good game for the other players on her team and they all had plenty of chances to shoot. The  final score was 32 to 3 with 25 coming from Kensley early in the game before she was taken out so as not to run the score up. 

After the game Gertie and Dennis invited us to the Bartonville Diner for lunch. We had fun rehashing the game and listening to Taegan tell us about her volley ball game she was playing at the same time as Kensley but at the Farmington School. This evening was potluck at Tim and Diane's house in Morton. I took the picture below of the moon on the drive to Morton. 

We had such a nice time we stayed much to late. 

The food was good but the fellowship even better. 

There were 10 of us but I didn't take any pictures of the men. 

Basketball Fun

 I remembered to turn the heat on in the barn early this morning. Another frigid below zero morning but it warmed up today to 17 degrees currently it is 13. Above zero so not awful. Mike and Tate got more bales moved in at Middle Grove and ended up paying for 33 bales yesterday. This morning Joan and Mike both left for Gulf Shores and Ruth is on her way home now. She and Fedi flew into Belleville and are driving Mike and Diane's Prius home. I went to Sam's club and picked up some of the food for Sunday's meal, plus picked up 2 rotisserie chickens to make soup for today, then to Kroger to order and pay for the chicken for Wednesday's family night meal and finally to Aldi to buy baking supplies to make a bunch of desserts and the ingredients to make a roaster full of party potatoes. Mark was helping bring in the groceries and almost fainted. He got real light headed and had to sit down. I tried to take his blood pressure but the machine wouldn't work on him. I think his blood pressure was just too low to register on this machine. It worked fine on me. His heart rate was almost 120 beats per minute. He got a flu shot yesterday and I think he was having a bad reaction. While he was resting I got busy chopping vegetables and de-boning the chicken for the soup. That was finished and we both had some for lunch. I currently have 8 quarts outside and by morning they should be frozen solid. By 4:00 pm Mark was feeling a little better and this time his blood pressure registered 85 over 64 with a heart beat of 89. Still low on the blood pressure but improved and the heart rate was also improved. At 5:30 pm we left to pick up Philip then drove to Farmington School where Kensley's 5th grade basketball team was playing an undefeated team. Dennis and Gertie joined us. It was fun to watch but ended up being a runaway win.  This was supposed to be a hard game with talented players. Kensley made 20 of the 32 points her team scored. When she was playing only allowed the other team 4 points. The coach kept her out at least half of the game and the score at the end was 32 to 10.

Good Times

 Another frigid day, it has been an entire week of very cold temperatures. We hit as a high 16 degrees today but it is going back down to zero or below zero again tonight. The wood burner has been kept burning day and night and still we feel cold. Right after breakfast we went to the barn to get it ready for the company coming tomorrow. The batting machine was not working well. Last weekend one of the boys told me it had fallen over (I'm sure it was an accident) and wires were pulled out. Dan helped put those back but the inner tire needed to have more air put in. Mark brought his tools while I brought cleaning supplies. He went right up to the game room to work on the machine. 

At least this was an easy fix.

I refilled supplies then went to work organizing the gym. Once that was finished the kitchen/dining room and living room were given a good cleaning. The floor needed to be swept and scrubbed. Tomorrow morning I will need to turn the heat on and warm it up before the guests arrive. We have it set on 55 degrees. Joan leaves tomorrow for Gulf Shores while Ruth and Fedi will be coming home tomorrow night late. Joan left us a list of when and where her kids need to be while she is gone. With all this frigid air I wanted to remember some of the fun times we had in the summer with horse camping.

Above is Rebekah on her Welsh Cob section C Cindy. Rebekah had Cindy well trained. She was born on their property and Rebekah did all the training on her. Below left to right are Bethany riding Duke, Jessica riding Paris, Rebekah riding Cindy and Anni riding Larry.

Above is Anni on the Arabian gelding and Below is Rhoda riding Sunny. We bought Sunny at an Amish auction, he was a year old and a stallion but we were told he was 2 years old. On the way back from the auction we dropped him off at Hoerr Vet clinic to be gelded. We could not bring a stallion home to Bridlewood. (We lived at Pleasant Home on Baer then) As we thought he was 2 years old Rhoda when right to work training him. Only when I was able to contact his previous owner did we find out he was only a yearling. Sunny was always known as, 'the pretty one!" He ended up being Jessica's horse.

Below is a trip we took to Norris, that place is now known as The Uplands and is a wedding venue. We had so much fun camping there with the horses.

Below we are on a trail ride at Jubilee. Sarah is riding Bunnie, Rachal is riding Sunny, Caleb is riding Larry and Rebekah is riding Cindy. We also had Sally, Mika and Jenis on that trip.

We took a horse camping trip to Farmington, Iowa. We took 10 horses on that trip and each horse was a different breed. We had a Isadora a purebred Trakehner mare, Sangria a purebred Andalusian mare, Bunni a purebred Tennessee Walker mare, Larry a purebred Arabian gelding, Sunny a purebred Halflinger gelding, Duke an American Shetland, Mika, an Appendix (half Quarter half Thoroughbred) Jenis Purebred Friesian mare Sandy a purebred Quarter mare and Jewel Friesian sporthorse (half Friesian half Thoroughbred mare.

Horse camping is so much fun when camping with family. Good times good times!

Broken Spear

 I was up until midnight finishing a book I picked up at the Berean office yesterday. It was so good that I recommended it to Mark and he started it this morning. 

I've read later series by Bodie Thoene but did not know about the Zion Covenant. Now I need to find book 2 of that series. This was in a box of books someone donated so will be taken back to the Berean office once Mark is finished reading it. If anyone else would like to read it I am glad to pass it on. Because of staying up so late I didn't wake up until 6:30 this morning I thought Mark must already be up drinking MY coffee but he wasn't in the kitchen or living room. I was surprised to find him still in bed. I guess we both slept in.  It was pretty cold in the house and Mark wanted to get the fire going. He pulled out a fire starter then mentioned we were almost out of them.  I still had some old candles from Diane (today is her 69th birthday) so pulled those out and started melting them.

While those were melting I started rolling up napkins. We had a bunch of old smaller Christmas napkins that I wanted to use up and those were first.

By the time I finshed rolling about 100 napkins the wax was melted. I used my two jellyroll pans and put 2 layers of paper towels on those. Once the napkin was dipped in the hot wax it was put on those paper towels.  The paper towels caught any wax that dripped off.  Once they were all dipped, cooled and hardened they were bagged. The paper towel was also rolled up and bagged. I ended up with a little more than a hundred fire starters and it took under an hour. They were put up on the shelf.

The total cost of the supplies was about 60 cents. If anyone has any old thick candles they want to get rid of I will be glad to take them but also if anyone sees any at garage sales in the free boxes grab them for me and I'll share some fire starters with you! They do a wonderful job starting a hot fire. Below is the one Mark started this morning.

Ruth sent a picture of mom and Aunt Jinnie totally getting spoiled by Diane and Beth.

Today we needed to move a new bale in for Valiant but wanted to wait until the temperature was a little warmer so went up to the apartment first to work on the closet door. On the way up of course had to stop and pet Evan.

The closet door at the apartment kept coming off earlier then once it got fixed the other side wouldn't slide well. Mark had some supplies so went to work removing the upper part.

I was able to pull the old part out and Mark installed the new. Next was to move the bale but the skid steer was a little low of oil. Mark found the oil we needed and put in about a quart.

I moved the truck out so he could get to the bales while he finished up with the skid steer. 

Below he is bringing the bale over.

After putting it in, he tipped the spear down, it hit the ground and broke off. The weather is so cold it just snapped.

Hard to believe the metal would break but with this cold it was just brittle.

We may have an extra spear around will look when it warms up a bit. By the time I went inside my feet were frozen. I'm not a fan of this cold.

Mark asked for a hair cut before church. He decided it was time to go back to his old way and had me chop it off.

Tonight was the prayer meeting instead of a sermon. It was very good to be there. We went to Culvers for a late dinner.  Mike went to Middle Grove and checked on the herd. They heard his car and came down to greet him. 

So Disgusting

 The dessert made yesterday was put in the crock pot and turned on low at 6:00 am. I left for Berean at 8:00 am and brought that with me. It was 20 degrees warmer this morning than yesterday morning as then it was -6 and today 14 degrees. The wind at the Unsicker farm was fierce. The car was backed to the Berean office so I could unload but when I opened the passenger door it flew open then I could hardly push it shut. I was the first there so turned on the heat, the lights and the computers. the monitor on my computer wouldn't open so I left that and started using Skip's computer. Skip arrived a few minutes later with the mail. We were surprised at how much mail there was to open. Shirley, Kathy and Shirl were busy opening the mail, reading the mail and getting the Bible studies ready for computer. We had a visitor today. The new director of Berean Prison Ministry, David Zimmerman stopped in to check out our office and to see what we actually do. Skip welcomed him.

I was the only one working on the computer so not a lot of pictures, below Kathy is applying postage to the letters she was sending out while Shirly, Shirl and Skip get the Bibles going out today were stuffed, labeled and stamped.

We finished around 11:00 am and took a break to try that dessert. It was MUCH better than last night. The gritty texture was now smooth as it had some extra hours cooking in the crock pot. The apples added helped also. I won't make it again but it really wasn't bad plus it was nice to have a warm sugary dessert on such a cold day. The mail was dropped off at the Hanna City post office before going home. Mark wanted some help with the lights in the apartment. We discovered after taking off the shower light fixture that the square one he bought would not work. There was no way to remove the base of the shower light.

The round one was put back up. After he had the ladder and tools out I went to work cleaning the apartment. The guest had used my beautiful thick white bath towels to clean off the floor and her dog. I think she tried to wash them but ended up turning them gray with lots of ground in and now set in stains. Those were taken to the house to soak in bleach water. The master bedroom quilt had been moved to the living room futon and her dog must have been jumping up and down on it and it was torn in 3 different places. That was taken down to the house to mend. The worst was one of the throw blankets was in the basket in the second bedroom all wadded up. I picked it up to fold it and a big chunk of dog manure fell out on the floor. So disgusting! Both throws were taken down to the house to wash. The comforter that goes on the futon was folded up and I wasn't taking any chance that it might not be clean. That was also hauled down to the house. The rest of the afternoon I mended and did laundry. I am still doing laundry, the last of the sheets are in the washer now and the comforter is in the dryer. Tomorrow the clean laundry will be taken up to the apartment and the beds made. The towels still look dingy so I will need to replace them. On Friday I purchased 3 rotisserie chickens. Two were used for the soup served to the out of town guests, the third was de-boned today and made into chicken salad for our dinner. Soup was also taken out of the freezer and heated up so we had soup and salad for dinner.  Mark wants a hair cut tonight but I still have some mending to do. My 2nd best jean skirt (I have 2 jean skirts) has a tear from catching it on one of the bunk beds in the barn and that is the last thing I need to finish before going to bed. 

Winter Fun

 Even though it is winter there is still many ways to have fun out on the farm. At least we USED to have fun. Now the riders are all grown up with grown up jobs.  They would go on winter fun rides, pulling sleighs on horseback, galloping through the snow and the horses had just as much fun as the riders. The riders below left to right are Emily, Karin, Sarah, Rebekah and Rhoda.

Above and below is Emily on Killian. He was her favorite stallion.

Above and below is Jessica riding Jenis.

Above and Below is Rhoda riding Lily.

Below is Karin and Caleb riding Ribbon.

Below is Rebekah riding Ribbon.

In the picture below left to right is Jessica, Karin, Anni and Rebekah.

No riding today it was below zero again this morning and 6 degrees now. I worked at the barn this morning cleaning up after Sunday dinner. Mark installed more bright light bulbs in the foaling apartment. Dan came over for a couple hours. He has some ideas for Sophia's wedding. We checked all of the waterers and all are working. This evening I tried a recipe I saw on Facebook made with rolled oats. It smelled good while baking but didn't look as nice as the video. I'm going to serve it in the crock pot with warm apples and icing for the Berean volunteers tomorrow but if it doesn't look any better I will probaby not take it and just buy some donuts. While on Facebook FOBBY announced that the bald eagle Jackie has laid her second egg.

Last year she laid 3 eggs and all 3 hatched but one chick died. The year before the eggs didn't hatch. It will be interesting to see if these hatch. Jackie and Shadow are a very famous couple. Over 20,000 people were on line when it was announced that the second egg was laid. 

Safe Travels

 Braelyn needed to be at Louisville Slugger at 7:15 am but the roads were snow covered so we didn't get there until 7:17 am. We were about the only car on the road at that hour. I am so thankful for snow tires. I really had no problem. I was back home in plenty of time to make breakfast and get ready for church. Below is a picture of Interstate 474 on the way to church. Just one lane was plowed. 

We didn't get a lot of snow but the wind was blowing the snow over the roads as quick as the plows could clean it off.  Darrin Plattner from the Champaign church was visiting today and had the morning message on building on the rock and not on sinking sand. It was a good message. Click HERE if you would like to watch it. Dean and Teresa served lunch and it was a perfect lunch for such a cold snowy morning. They served chili plus hotdogs and lots of other goodies. 

Nancy was pretty pleased with her Sunday school paper today and was showing everyone. Below she is showing it to Bill.

The afternoon was a special message introducing the babies and their families born in 2025. Click HERE if you would like to watch that. Marshall and Jan Heinold were there as they are the great grand parents of Caleb and Kristin's children. As soon as I got home from church I started chopping vegetables for the stir fry planed for supper tonight. Once the vegetables were chopped it was time to chop chicken. The egg rolls were placed in the oven, the rice was simmering on the stove and by 4:00 pm all was done. Mark helped load it into his car, then walked over to the barn while I took the car over to pick up Braelyn. She helped with the unloading. Gail had given us a package of fun craft supplies and as soon as Sarah's girls walked in they were hooked. They started right in building things.

They had to quit while we ate.

Supper was just a few minutes late. Brett had the prayer tonight so his family got to go first.

The food was well received.

After supper the girls including Elisabet went right back to crafts.

I told her it was Eliana's grandma that gave them to us and she knew right away it was Gail. The boys went out to the gym to play basketball and soon the girls joined in. Sarah was watching Jack and the little girls had so much fun pulling Jack and Micah around on the 2 ponies.

We finally heard from Phil and Anna. Kensley's team won the entire tournament. They were 14 wins and 0 losses.

Kensley was given an award for being top player.

The video below was taken by the organizers of the tournament and was of one of the games yesterday. They were impressed with the teamwork on the Farmer's team.

Thankful for a warm church, for a warm barn, and thankful for safe travels to and from both.