Cuba Rod and Gun Club

Nate Herman asked Horsemeister if we would provide some horses for the morning today at the Cuba Rod and Gun Club. We were given directions but used the GPS which took us to the middle of nowhere. Both Mike driving the stock trailer and I driving the living quarter trailer tried calling and texting Karin Meister and Nate Herman but they didn't have cell service out there. We drove back to Dollar General and asked a man coming out if he knew where this was, he didn't but said he knows someone that works there and has his contact number on his phone. He brings the phone over to me, gets the name and number up and shows me Nate's phone number. I had to explain Nate is my nephew and I'd already called him. Mike was able to get the directions, we were only about a mile away. The pictures are of the trail riders, trial rides and the swim rides. There are a lot as Nate was busy cleaning fish for the fishermen instead of taking pictures.



























The cotton candy machine was hauled out for this party. The guests had fun making it while waiting turns for the horses.


After the trail rides were over there were a few of the ladies that wanted to swim with the horses. Below are those pictures.











By 12:30pm it was almost unbearably hot. Mike took his load to Middle Grove while I took the three in my trailer to the Herman Lake at Norris, IL. The truck and trailer were left along with the horses for the thousands of kids there. Mark picked me up, we drove to the farm to hose down Sanna before leaving for the next thing on the list, Sam's Club to pick up food for the big lunch. We spent $215.00 on strawberries, croissants, brownies, and lettuce, then headed to church to start cutting up fruit. By the time we finished cutting the melons and strawberries it was dinner time, we drove through McDonalds right behind Kathy Huthmann.
This was a long hot day!

Faith and the Puppies

Braelyn fell asleep around 9:00am and slept soundly even with all the vaulters coming in to play with the puppies. She stayed asleep until 12:30pm and woke up happy, she is such a beautiful baby girl and an easy baby to watch and I'm not at all prejudiced. Rhoda showed up to help replace the bedding in the whelping box but she couldn't stay too long she was picking up David and Stephanie from their month long visit to Mexico. We won't see them for a bit though, they are leaving for a short vacation with the Kiesers. Faith Reinhard came in while her sisters were practicing with the team and played with the puppies. We were able to snap a few pictures of her with them. I think they are all adorable. It is hard to pick which picture should be posted.




Phil showed up to pick up Braelyn and gave me a ride to the shop. The Horsemeister truck needed to be picked up along with the cotton candy machine and snow cone machine plus all the supplies for both. We are heading out with 7 horses to Cuba, IL for one of Nate Herman's customers. Karin and Mike will give guided trail rides on the private property while Anni and I help match the riders with the horses and mount them up. Once we leave from there we will head to Norris, IL where the family is camping at the Herman lake.
Mark and I need to pick up the croissants along with the strawberries, lettuce, and brownies from Sam's Club at 3:00pm on Saturday and take it all to the church. We plan on staying there and cutting up and arranging the fruit. The church has lots of refrigerator space so it won't hurt to do this job one day early.
Three more loads of round bales were dropped off, that is now 42 of the 175 ordered for the winter. We need 50 alfalfa and 125 grass to get us through the year. Sure hope we sell another horse! Mark stacked them in the arena tonight while I drove over to Ruth's to pick up Larry for the trail rides tomorrow. Steve their pet deer was tangled up and couldn't reach the water tank. So thankful I arrived when I did, he was thirsty and the Davidovics are all gone for the weekend. It is almost unbearably hot and humid.

Hot Heat Humidity

Today will be hot, very hot. The weather man is calling for heat indexes of 110 degrees. This is the first of July and the Hanna City farm first cutting of hay has STILL not been cut. We have had 5 days of no rain but the farmers are desperate to get their own fields done. The Middle Grove hay is finished so hopefully the weather will hold while the equipment is brought to Hanna City for the 9 acres by Rachel's and the 15 acres here. In the past I use to worry about getting it up quickly and dry, worry about how we were going to feed the horses through the year but God has ALWAYS provided. They are His horses anyway. Worrying just doesn't help, it can't even add one inch to my stature so why worry. Early this morning while drinking good strong coffee gazing out the window at the sun breaking the horizon, my heart is filled with thankfulness. We have such a nice place to live. I thought it would be hard moving from Pleasant Home in Peoria, leaving the big house with so many memories, where stores are only a few blocks away, TSC a couple of miles away. At first life was too busy to grieve and now that we are settled there is no reason to grieve. How wonderful it is to be here in Hanna City with family around. Why if this place looks like paradise in our eyes can we imagine what heaven will be?

Living in the Barn!

The picture below was snapped early this morning. This is the view right outside my door. Isn't it THE BEST! What actually happened when the door was opened, Sanna's filly was standing right there in front of the door looking at us. Both Emma and I jumped, I ran to get the camera but by the time it was turned on she was back by her mom in the aisle way. Emma ran out but quickly thought she probably should run right back inside.

Mattie the clyde mare was checked first thing this morning, she is OUT, we will make a vet appointment for sonagrams in 15 or 16 days.
Braelyn joined us on the walk today, falling asleep in her stroller. It is amazing how jostling around on gravel driveways with potholes can put a baby to sleep.
The chicken salad for church lunch ordered from a store in Dunlap came in and I received a call asking if I could pick it up today instead of tomorrow. After Braelyn was dropped off in East Peoria then on to Dunlap. Mark had some work he needed done at the church and came along, helping carry in the 70 pounds of chicken salad. Once he was done it was off to Sam's Club to buy fruit, $115.00 of fruit, melons, blueberries, pineapple, pears, and Kiwi. We made another trip to church dropping off the melons, blueberries and pineapple. We still need to buy strawberries but didn't think they would last until Sunday. They will be picked up on Saturday after 3:00pm.
Chuck Altic delivered 21 round bales of hay, Mark moved them in the barn while I went for more diesel fuel. Mike loaded up Eliza, Airiah and Dalia, hauled them to Middle Grove and brought back Ciera and Indy. Sanna's filly was wormed with panacure.
The puppies are doing great but are very noisy.

Sonagram Countdown

Mattie will be checked this morning, if she is not interested, we will start the sonagram countdown. Eliza, Kim's mares Bridgett and Mattie and Kay's mare Alfie.
Yesterday the feed stall was finally gone through. All the stuff, important stuff we thought we must have from the green barn at Bridlewood, was gone through and organized, tack taken into the big barn and placed with the saddles, buckets all need scrubbing to try to get the insulation off, they were taken to the hydrant. The grain and storage containers were taken to the hay stall which will no longer be a hay stall and lots of garbage cleaned out.
The grain will now be stored in the last stall on the end, if and when we get square bales we will stack them in a corner of the arena. The stall needs a bit of lime under a few of the mats and the mats need to be trimmed to fit better, then bedding added and it is ready to go.
Diane called to spread the news that anyone wanting to go to church was to meet at the playground at 6:20pm. Mark and I arrived first, the picture below was snapped as the cars started arriving.

Rebekah was driving, Ruth and Fedi left for Current River and left Rebekah the van. Church was wonderful as usual, one of the neatest things about our drive home (along with the McDonald's ice cream) is discussing what we learned. Tim Roecker had the very thought provoking sermon. Mark snapped the picture below, there was no way to get the driver, Rebekah in the picture.

Working outside is exhausting and the bed felt wonderful. Around 2:00am an alarm starts screaming. I asked Mark, "are you cooking NOW?" It turned off on it's own but he went around the apartment trying to find out what it was and why. He didn't find anything and came back to bed. Just about an hour later it went off again. This time we could hear sirens coming down Glasford road. When the trucks passed our drive and kept heading down the road we thought perhaps the detector is picking up smoke from a fire not too far away. Once up this morning Mark checked everything out and believes it may be our carbon monoxide detector going off, we can't smell any propane leaking, it may be high humidity, the detector is right below our window, but he will check things out with the testers.
We have a heat advisory, the heat and humidity is going to start climbing reaching almost 100 degrees tomorrow.

Topeka Jail

I just heard from the chaplains office at the Topeka jail that all Bible studies must be sent straight to the chaplains office. This is good but what was even better was I was talking to him IN the Apartment and he could hear me with no problem. Mark mounted an antenna last night on the outside of the building, actually two antennas one for television and one for the Wilson cell phone booster and both work.
Mike moved in 2 round bales, one for Kims mares and one for the cabin field yesterday. We decided to take Eliza out to Middle Grove when we take Airiah, we cannot schedule a sonogram for her for a couple of weeks anyway and Airiah will like being with her. Ciera and Indy need to come back, Indy for the farrier and Ciera for training.

Puppies Puppies Puppies

Well I've had people ask about the puppies. They will be AKC registered with FULL registration papers. They are for sale for $800.00 each and can be reserved now but cannot leave Emma until they are 6 weeks old. They will come with their first set of shots. English Mastiffs are very loyal to their family. They make great apartment dogs, they love spending time lying next to their masters, in fact most of their time is spent lying around. They are wonderful watch dogs, learning quickly what is their property and letting everyone know if there is something not right. Just hearing the bark on a Mastiff is to make a person shake if they are up to no good. They LOVE to eat and were known as the butchers dog. They were bred to hunt bear and their jaws are the strongest of any breed of dog. For all of their fierce looks they are most gentle with their masters children. The puppies below are considered pet quality, not that they can't be shown, both the stud dog and Emma have very good conformation. The stud is 6 years old and going strong. A show quality English Mastiff will sell for $2500.00 up to $7500.00. An English Mastiff's life span is around 10 years. Now for some cute puppy pictures just taken tonight.





They are getting fat and noisy.
On another note, Mattie the Clyde mare was covered today and no, Raven didn't need her to be in a hole. Mike was right, he has no problem covering tall fat mares. He has no problem covering short fat mares either, in fact he even likes the skinny ones. Raven hasn't met a mare he didn't like. We always say, Raven has only one job to do and he does it so well.

Bridlewood's Roof

Tim Reinhard wants to start working on the Bridlewood roof tomorrow. That meant after the Berean work, I had to make a trip out to Cood Fasser to buy 16 five gallon buckets of special fiber paint, rollers, frames for the rollers, and paint brushes. What didn't get picked up was the pan to pour the paint into and the long handles to screw into the frames. Surely we have these items somewhere. This morning the stop to pick up the mail from TEMCO lasted a bit longer than usual, a phone call to Meister Brothers was made to ask them to please tell Eva Jean I would be late. We have a situation at a jail in Topeka, KS and are not sure how to deal with it. The director of the jail does not want to give the prisoners their Bible studies, but the chaplain keeps calling and faxing for more Bibles. We think if the jail is not willing to give the studies, they probably need to find another source for Bibles. Once we actually started work, Eva Jean worked on studies while I stamped Bibles, lots of Bibles, then loaded them in the car. Spark and Dan joined us for lunch and shared a bit about boys camp. What a great service the Old School Center does for AC Boy's camp.
The chips and candy were picked up for the lunch on Sunday. They will be stored in my office at Meister's as the apartment is too small.
The puppies are all growing well, no runts in this litter. Emma is a very caring mother, if they start squealing she comes running. She wanted to go on the walk this morning but quit after the first round. We think she was starting to get cabin fever like all new mothers, needing to get out for just a bit.
Mattie needs to be covered today.