Perfect Penny

 I knew today would be very busy and it was. The stalls were done early, the horses fed, Tessa's filly's leg checked all before 8:00 am. Breakfast was served, 2 loads of laundry done and by 9:00 am I was on the way to Sam's club to buy food for our family vacation. Checking out I couldn't find my Sam's credit card and had to use the Discover card which meant I could only get 2% instead of the usual 5% off and today was a big one. Just under $300.00. From Sam's I drove to Aldi to buy 14 pounds of bacon but I could only buy 13 as I emptied the box and the other box wouldn't slide down. I told the check out lady I really wanted 14 but could only get 13. She offered to send someone but it wasn't that important. I also bought 8 pounds of sausage and 7 pounds of hamburger along with jam, peanut butter and a few other items I was a little surprised when the bill came to $157.00 but didn't look at the receipt until after the groceries were put away and then found the check out lady had charged me for 18 pounds of bacon, not 13. I drove back to Aldi to get a refund of just over $20.00. I wasn't happy about losing the 40 minutes of my time. As soon as I got back the hamburger was browned and made into taco meat then once that was cool frozen with the rest of the meat. I also deboned 2 rotisserie chickens from Sam's and made a big batch of chicken salad for our lunches. Anna came at noon to put the volleyball net up as the guests coming in tomorrow asked for that. She wasn't able to tighten the net as the battery was missing from the drill. Mark knew where that was so figured out how to use the drill to tighten the net. I really needed a pat on the back for that.

First time for me, the poles and net are too heavy for me to do myself but not for Anna.

Sarah arrived with River on Penny, they were going to do the trails. Penny was awesome today. Five year old River asked her to mount the pedastal, then rode her in the big arena, walked over the jump in both directions then trotted all by herself in the round pen. They finished their fun with Sarah driving the golf cart while Penny followed. 

We decided Penny's name is now Perfect Penny! 

I started on the barn cleaning bathrooms and floors. When I got upstairs I realized the pitching machine was all tangled in the batting cage netting. Israel helped me get that untangled. I made sure it was working well before finishing the upstairs. Israel and his friend helped organize the balls. David and Stephanie brought friends over so I quit working and went home to fold towels and put away laundry. Israel and Elisabet stayed for supper while David and Stephanie went out to dinner. Braelyn arrived with some clean towels they had washed at their house for the barn. She joined us for supper. After supper we all went to feed the horses. Mike took the stock trailer to Middle Grove so Braelyn helped me hook up the 2 horse trailer as I need to leave by 7:30 am tomorrow morning with Tessa and her filly for the filly's vet appointment to get her bandage changed. 

Once that was hooked up, it was backed between the two buildings for easy loading.

Elisabet then showed me her vaulting moves she learned last week. The flag and the stand.

We have so many girls interested in vaulting, the team is going to be a big one this year. We went back to the house and started cleaning out Mark's Meister car. Every time I think I am done unloading and putting things away I find I am not. That car was LOADED with stuff from the Farm House. I was thankful Braelyn, Israel and Elisabet were here to help unload it. Now everything is sitting on the kitchen table and floor. More work for tomorrow! We spent the next half hour just telling stories of my grandfather, their great great grand father and how his family lived in a sod house and what that meant. Funny how we visited a lot of his old stomping grounds WITH him and he showed us one. It wasn't the one he grew up in but was just like it. After David and Stephanie took the kids home both Mark and I are ready to crash and will go straight to bed now that the blog is finished. I found the missing credit card in Mark's wallet. 

Mowing Day

 I sat down to read this morning, I'm in 1st Chronicles and sometimes Chronicles is hard. Chapter 22 was today's reading. but even before I opened the Bible I was praying that I would find exactly what I need out of today's reading even asking God, "I know the Word is a living Word, open my eyes to what YOU would want me to read. Chapter 22 is where David is laying up all the supplies for his son to build the temple. The commentary on this chapter was eye opening. 

It was SO clear So perfectly timely as we are leaving Saturday for our Sceggel vacation. I pray for my children and grandchildren but after reading this I should also tell them that not only do I pray for them but what I pray for them. Maybe on this trip I will have the opportunity to be with each one.

Ruth didn't walk this morning, she has been busy caring for sick grandchildren. When we reached Diane's house we needed to admire the Kubota she and Mike drove to pick up yesterday.

It is actually 32 years old but only has something like 400 hours on it. The owner was a barn lady, her husband was the one who would drive it to scoop poop, put it in the manure pile a maybe move snow each winter.  The owners were moving and also gave Mike about $500.00 worth of used tack, halters, bridles and other fun things. We can't wait to see all of that. We got to Joan's house, I was looking at the 2005 motorhome floor, turned and saw what I thought was a loose horse. Nope, it was only Penny, Berlica had her tied to the trampoline while she went to get something from the house. 

She was riding her bareback today.

Today was mowing day around here. Mackenson took the push mower over to the farm house and started mowing there, Berlica took the diesel grass hopper and started mowing the barn yards, Joan took the gas grass hopper and mowed the playground and all around here. When Berlica finished the barn area and the farm house yards I took that mower and mowed both pastures finishing around 4:00 pm. No pictures, I left the phone at home so it wouldn't fall out of my pocket and get run over.  The diesel mower was then given to Joan to finish up all the yards going down to the lake. My next job was to move bales in. Ribbon's old paddock (now Rosaleigh and her colt's) got a bale and Evan's paddock got a bale. It sounds like an easy job but first Evan needed to be moved into the pasture behind his paddock then locked out of his paddock so the gate to the shelter could be left open. Once that bale was in and the gate shut, Evan was called back in with grain and the gate between his paddock and pasture was locked. Next Rosaleigh and her colt were enticed into their pasture by some grain in a bucket so they could be locked out of their paddock. The gate to that paddock was left open and the tractor brought in first to move the old hay off of the feeder so the new bale could be placed on the feeder. Once the bale was in the back gate going to the pasture was opened up and both Rosaleigh and her colt came running back in. it was 5:00 pm by the time all of that was done. Just enough time to get showers and ready for church. Tonight church was held at the fellowship hall. The group that went to Jamaica all came in their trip T Shirts. They each talked about the highlights, sang us a couple songs, one completely in sign language,  then showed us a slide presentation. We didn't leave there until 8:30 pm and went straight home. Today was a good day!

A Good Tired

 I left the house at 6:30 am to take care of Tessa and her filly. They do not like being stalled. They spent the night in the stall across the aisle so moved them over to the stall I prepared for them last night. Tessa was given her grain but the filly went right over to the feeder to try to scratch an itch. She would love to get that bandage off. 

Once the other stall was cleaned and the manure dumped I went down to the farm house to check the rain gauge. We got 3/10ths of an inch. A little bit of a drink for the fields. Just as we were ready to walk the Farm House booked for TODAY. A couple are coming into town to visit family and wanted to stay for 4 nights. They leave Saturday morning and we leave for our Sceggel vacation on Saturday morning but now will need to leave once the farm house is clean and ready for the next guests coming in on Wednesday next week. I went right home and blocked off Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so I don't have to worry about someone booking it until after the next guests who have booked until August 2nd. Mark was shocked. I needed to leave for Berean but told him I would leave early from there to get back to finish the cleaning before the 3:00 pm check in. We had a good amount of mail today at Berean. We were missing Shirley and Ray. Shirley sent a message that she fell and knocked Ray down, both were sore but Ray broke a bone in his arm. Today is his 97th birthday. What an awful way to celebrate that birthday! At our prayer time Kathy read a letter to us.

Below are a few pictures from this morning at the Berean office.

Rhoda sent a Marco Polo explaining she was coming to work on landscaping and I told her about the guests coming today. She must have called Sarah in a panic as both Rhoda and Sarah arrived and did a deep clean on everything. Rhoda was trying to trim the bushes when she disturbed a wasp nest and got stung. I borrowed Joan's bee suit and that worked. Rhoda put that on was surrounded with angry wasps but no more stings. She was able to find and destroy the nests. Sarah used the hose and a bleach mixture to clean the outside of the house. The outside of the windows were also sprayed. By the time I arrived (about 11:00 pm) everyone was working hard. They stayed until 2:00 pm, Mark and I worked until after 3:00 pm but when we left we looked around and were amazed at how much those girls got done. This farm house would not have looked so nice without our daughters. We were both SO thankful. Our guests pulled up in a Tesla Cyber Truck. This was the first time I've ever seen one up close. The owner showed me how the back opens. The grand kids would love to see it. I asked if I could take pictures and a video of it. Pretty impressive.

They were thrilled that we had a Tesla charger and will use it for the next 4 days. I told Mark and he decided to leave the charger and just order a new one for mom's garage. I will update the ad on Airbnb to include a Tesla Charger. Meanwhile our car was down to 15 % charge and we won't be going anywhere tomorrow with that car is charged so Mark parked it over at the barn and hooked it up. We don't have a charger there but Spark put in an outlet that works for the car, just not as fast as the Tesla one. Good thing we have all evening and all night to charge it. Braelyn arrived to clean the apartment. Braelyn will be going with us to Branson on Saturday. She was told about the farm house renting and is willing to help me clean it Saturday morning. I'm thankful for hard working daughters AND hard working grand daughters. Couldn't do all of this without them. I drove back this evening to care for Tessa and the filly then checked on the outdoor arena. The ladies painting the outdoor arena were finished. There are still a couple boards and posts but they need to be replaced. Mike had the girls paint the extra boards and will get the rotted ones replaced later.

The black makes the arena look much nicer.

We are going to sleep well tonight, both of us are tired but it is a good tired. 

 

Vet Visit

 I went over early to feed and clean stalls. Tessa and her filly were moved across the aisle into a clean stall I prepared for them last night. On the way back stopped at the barn to get all the left over food from last night's dinner. Ruth arrived as I was on my way back to put the food away. Diane didn't come for the walk, instead she drove to the Peoria airport to get she and Mike's tickets for Gulf Shores. When we reached Joan's house Faline came running out of the woods and bounded up to Joan asking to be fed. 

Rachel was going to feed her this morning but was running a little late.

Rachel came out with the bottle and it didn't take Faline very long to hear the call and off she went happy as can be. Faline lives in the woods but comes 2 or 3 times a day for a bottle. I picked up Joan at 8:30 am and drove to church for Wayne Unsicker's funeral. Mike and Tim had the funeral and it was so personal and yet the truth was spoken. IF you would like to learn more of Wayne, just watch his funeral by clicking HERE, we heard he was a beast! We went to the cemetery for the burial then to the fellowship for the lunch. We didn't get back until 1:30 pm. After dropping off Joan, I quickly changed then took the golf cart over, hooked up the stock trailer to the truck, loaded Tessa and her filly and drove to Hoerr Vet Clinic reaching there by 2:30 pm. The clinic was swamped with customers but the cutest had to be the mini donkey foal who walked nicely on a leash right into the clinic office. 

We had a long wait, didn't get into the clinic until close to 4:00 pm. Tessa walked right into the stocks like a pro and her filly was tied to the front. 

While we were waiting for Dr. Pallen, Chris and LeeAnne were working on a critical pony foal. They had to bring it out of the stall as the pony mare was very protective and would try to bite to keep her foal safe from those people who were only trying to save the baby.

Dr. Pallen removed the bandage.

The wound is doing great, it was almost all the way filled in. Dr. Pallen decided to have Emma laser the wound and after that treatment the wound was bandaged back up.

Hopefully the bandage will stay on until Friday morning. At that time I will take her to have the wound checked and if needed Tessa and the filly will stay at Hoerr Vet clinic until either it is healed enough that she can be turned out or when we get home from vacation Aug 1st. Hopefully Mike will be able to pick her up Monday or Tuesday of next week. I finally got home after 5:00 pm. Mark was at the farm house and was willing to help move 3 bales in. The middle paddock got a bale, the paddock next to Valiant got a bale and the far paddock got a bale. 

We finally got home for supper around 6:00 pm. Sarah and Nolan had something awful happen at their new place. Sarah treated their pond and the upper pond and all of the fish died. They hired Mackenson to help get all the dead fish out of the pond. They had to bury them.

It was awful, lots of big bass in their pond and many bluegill in the upper pond. They are trying to find out what happened as they thought they followed the directions. What a shame. Hopefully they will be able to restock soon. The farm house rented today for the week we will be on vacation. Mark kind of panicked but I'm sure all will be well. 

Day of Rest

 Today really was a day of rest. I only did the chores necessary, such as feeding the horses. We left at 8:40 am as we needed to drive to Morton to pick up Nancy. Nancy was anxiously waiting. She loves going to church, she loves seeing Joan, Spark, Ruth, Rachel, Diane, Steven and especially Ryan. For some reason Ryan is her favorite. Must be the beard. Tim Roecker had the morning message. Gregg Rumbold pulled him out of retirement and asked him to have this as Craig was gone, David was gone, while Gabe, Dave, and Mike got back from Jamaica at 4:30 this morning. It really was the sermon I needed to hear. God IS Faithful and He will fight my battles, just as he did for David. Why I don't understand but I am so thankful. If you would like to watch this message click HERE. Bob and Myrna gave lunch today and that was just down right delicious. The afternoon message was the statement of faith Bible study. Gregg Rumbold had that. To watch that click HERE. Joan took Nancy home from church. The only real jobs done this afternoon was to fry up 4 pounds of bacon and make 32 hamburger patties. Mark did the grilling and others brought all kinds of goodies. We really had a feast at the barn and plenty of feasters to enjoy the feast. After supper we made our way to the deck to watch the kids swim but mostly we just visited. 

The girls all left for the barn, Rhoda brought Jewel out and the girls all got to practice vaulting. No pictures of that, I was one of the visiting people on the deck. When the girls left there was just Walter down on the beach. 

Everyone started packing up around 7:30 pm for home. Rhoda and Lee took Nancy home. Mark had Brian look at our electrcity in the garage and Brian figured out how to move the Tesla charger from the farm house over to this house. An easy relaxing day and I enjoyed it.

Cleaning Day

 Today was the day to finish cleaning and post the farm house on airbnb. I started work around 6:30 am going first to pick up the hand held battery vacuum to finish the camper going out today but the battery was dead. I took the battery from the air compressor and went over to Joan's to get that camper finished and from there up to the foaling apartment to get that ready for the guests coming in today. As soon as the foaling apartment was finished. I went to work on the stalls, first filling two water buckets and bringing a a wheelbarrow load of hay in. Once the grain was put in the bucket Tessa and her filly were just led across the hall into the clean stall. They are stuck inside all day today, tomorrow and then Monday I can take them to the vet for a bandage change. I was finished with those chores by 8:15 am and went home to make breakfast for Mark and I. After breakfast Spark and Elijah came to work on the plumbing, digging holes by hand and machine close to the house to find the leak but there was no wet ground there at all and no leaks. The leak is between mom's house and Spark's house. The man renting the camper arrived a few minutes after 9:00 am. This is his second time renting and was thrilled he ended up with the same one as the last time he rented. When he pulled away I went to the house to get the cleaning supplies and off I went to finish the Farm House and I did. It is now posted on airbnb. Some of the pictures will be updated. The patio is going to have ONE table and a few chairs, right now it has 2 tables and 1 chair. 

Above is the front of the house and below is the back of the house.

Nice LARGE grass yards. 

The door to the kitchen takes you right into the laundry area and then into the kitchen.

When you turn around you can see the bathroom door to the left and the laundry room door to the right which also has the door to go outside.

The bathroom has a jetted tub and a walk in shower.

Next to the bathroom is the downstairs bedroom

Through the kitchen is the dining room.

There are pocket doors between the rec room and the dining room. When we had the family eating Sunday dinners here we would have the kids in the rec room and shut those doors to keep the noise down so we could visit.

Those are cowboy boots on those shelves.

Looking the other direction is the living room.

The stairs are behind the black rocker recliner.

At the top of the stairs if you turn left you enter the horse bedroom.

If you turn right it is the other bedroom.

 At the end of the hall is the upstairs bathroom.

That bathroom has a walk in shower.

I finished after 3 pm but needed to go take care of Tessa and her filly before heading home. I was walking home with a laundry basket full of supplies when I saw Taunya and her 3 boys. They came to swim this afternoon but were just leaving so I only got to visit a bit with them. Sarah's family and David's family are camping, Anna and Braelyn were at a cross fit competition. We decided on hamburgers for Sunday supper so drove to Bartonville for groceries but stopped first at the diner. It was almost 5:00 pm and I had skipped lunch to finish. I ordered liver and onions and it was delicious.

Mark ordered a chef salad but it is called something else. That came with beef vegetable soup which he ate before his salad arrived. Since he doesn't like tomato or hard boiled egg, he put those on my plate.

After supper we went to Aldi which is just down the road from the diner and bought the ingredients for Sunday Supper.  I'm trying a new topping for the hamburgers Lee might like. It is a jalapeno cream cheese spread. In case he doesn't want to try it we also picked up pepper jack cheese. 4 pounds of bacon, potato salad, chips, salad stuff a watermelon and 2 containers of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. This evening I needed to move Tessa and the filly back into the cleaned stall. Before doing that though I went out back to see if any of those clouds might have some rain in them. I thought maybe they might but after moving the horses and finishing the stalls I went back out and what looked like rain had gone a different direction. The video below shows before the stalls and then after the stalls. There were fireflies flashing in the field. The camera didn't pick up the far ones but it did some of the close ones. 

Out With the Old and In With the New

 Diane spent the night at Middle Grove so did not walk with us this morning. Just Ruth and I as Joan is still in Jamaica. David, Rachel's husband took the creepy picture below. He was actually taking his 'girls' the pugs, for a walk as it was getting dark and saw those eyes glowing. He thought it looked like some kind of alien. 

Yesterday all 84 of the round bales we bought for this winter were delivered. Most were put in the winter pasture but later I heard he had some put in the summer pasture. It is a blessing to have our hay bought for the winter.

After the walk Mark and I worked on moving the broken washing machine out of the barn to make room for the new one coming today.

Mark got the hoses off then the 2 of us got it out of the closet and using a hand truck got it out of the barn. About then Sarah sent a message asking how tall Dahlia is, she shared the video of Rhoda working with Dahlia on a lot of facebook pages and one lady wanted to know how tall she is right now. I was very pleased that Dahlia stood still for sticking. Of course it helped that I had a bucket of grain on the back of the golf cart she could happily munch while I was sticking her.

She is right at 15 hands as a yearling. She really is going to be huge. Whoever buys her is going to need a ladder to get up on her. The new washer originally was supposed to arrive between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm however at 11:08 am they called and told us they were one hour away. I was busy hosing off Tessa's filly's leg and once that was done Tessa and the filly were put in a stall to wait for Dr. Pallen. She called at 11:40 am that she would be here in 20 minutes. As the horses were already in the stalls I ran back to the house to get a drink and a check and told Mark he would have to meet the HomeDepo truck as the vet was coming at the same time and guess what? They arrived within minutes of each other. Mark was able to show the delivery person where to take the washing machine. Later he sent a text with the picture below, the machine is installed and is running through a cycle AND they took the old machine away for FREE. That was a win for us.

So it doesn't match but a working machine is much more important than a matching useless one.

Tessa's filly needed some sedation before she would let Dr. Pallen scrub it out. 

Above she is getting sleepy while Dr. Pallen is getting all the supplies needed. Below she has survived all of the poking, prodding and needles. Dr. Pallen injected into the tendon sheath to make sure there were no tears or openings in that but that was fine.  She has no infection in the wound and the tendon is also fine but she has some proud flesh growing.

That meant she needed a special wrap that needs to stay on for 3 days.

 I will need to bring her back to the clinic on Monday for this bandage to come off and a new one put back on. It was terribly hot and by the time Dr. Pallen was done we were both sweating buckets. I was glad to go home to get a big drink of water and cool off in the air-conditioning. A camper came back and is going out again tomorrow. That was cleaned but I need to go back with a sweeper, there was either cat hair or dog hair on the cushions. If the sweeper won't get it all, I'll bring tape.  Sarah sent the picture below.

They have reached their campground and are all set up. The girls are loving having the bikes. There are many roads and drives just for bikes. 

I found 3 ripe tomatoes so tonight we had BLT's for our supper. I was out of bread but toasted some Hawaiian rolls and that worked. Spark came over for a while this evening then Mark went to work at the farm house. We are so close to being able to list it. I'm getting anxious and might just try to finish what I can tomorrow then get it listed.