A Clean Shelter

 Ruth and I walked this morning. It was another cool morning only 46 degrees, but warmed up into the 70s for a perfect day. Below she is leaving for home in her electric car. 

After breakfast Diane called while she was sitting on the beach in Gulf Shores so I went outside on the deck and looked at our beach while talking to her. I was grading Bible studies so as soon as we hung up I went back to that and finished just before noon. Mark ran them down to the mail box. My next job was to move Evan out of his paddock but when I arrived Tim Meister was here putting in our new yard hydrant. 

Evan was let into the mares pasture and had to walk around checking out any manure he could find.

About then I asked him to move as I wanted him in the paddock so I could lock him off the pasture. When I asked he just had to show off for the mares.

Mike brought over the yanmar to clean out Evan's shelter. That was finished but we didn't have time to move a bale in as we needed to leave for church. There was still hay in the mare paddock so he will be fine until we move a bale in tomorrow and put him where he belongs. Mike Kaisner had the message tonight. One of my favorite stories in 2 Kings 19. Click HERE to watch that. We did not go out for a late dinner tonight, instead just came home and had some ice cream.

Tuesday

Ruth is having some trouble with her knees so we did not walk today. I left for the Berean office at 8:00 am and parked over by Skip's car. Shirl had arrived earlier so there were only 3 cars parked when Shirley and Ray walked in and for some reason didn't see my car. They were sure it was not there. Both of them insisted there were only 2 cars parked and so convinced that my car was gone that I went to the window to look as did Ray. He came back and reported it WAS there. We all laughed but then got to work. There was a lot of mail. I wasn't able to take pictures until we were almost finished as I was on the computer. At prayer time Marvin told us about the accident he and Gail were in last week. We think Marvin needs one of those self driving Tesla's. Below Kathy is answering letters.

Shirl and Shirley are working on Bibles while Irv waits for a job.

Kathy brought the dessert in today, below Ray is getting ready to cut into it.

It was really delicious. Kathy made pumpkin dump cake and candied the pecans to go on top.

We didn't leave the office until noon and the post office closes at 12:30 PM So I had to speed a little to get the mail there on time and made it with 2 minutes to spare. We also needed more of the big white mail boxes. They gave me 4 which will be dropped off next Tuesday. Sarah and the girls had been to our house while I was gone and everything looked very nice when I walked in. That gave me time to organize all of the Michigan Bible studies that need to be graded. They were all spread out on the kitchen table. We really had a lot of mail and a lot of them were from Michigan. Those must be graded with black or blue ink so we don't give them out for others to grade. I had at least 2 hours of work with those. Mark was out power washing the skid steer as that is going to Hoerr's to get the fluids changed and some small repairs. He certainly needed a shower before we left for Farmington. Tonight the Farmington 7th and 8th grade teams were playing Lewistown. That is a small school with an awesome basketball team. Their players are very talented. Below is the last few minutes of the 7th grade team. They were trying to run out the clock as they were ahead.

The 8th grade team played really well but at the last the Lewistown team were up and they ran out the clock but both games were fun to watch. Below is just some of the first quarter. 

As the games started at 6:00 pm and both had lots of timeouts we didn't get home until 10:00 pm.

Thankful For AC Central

 No walk today although Ruth did send a message we would plan on walking on Wednesday. Mark went out to feed the cats. While Joan is gone he walks over to feed her's first. Today he also took care of Patty, Sarah's bird.  Once the animals are fed over there he walks over to our stall barn to feed our cat. The last cat fed today was the calico cat who looks to be pregnant again. She has moved into our garage as of yesterday. If we can make a place for her to have her kittens as soon as she has them she could be spayed. In the past she hides the kittens and if we cant find them they end up wild. Today was a working day for me as both the farm house and the barn had guests move out. At 10:00 am I stopped to get Dancer out and groom her. I was working on her tail when the truck and trailer arrived to pick her up. It was a nice 2 horse aluminum trailer with a ramp. I was explaining to the driver that Dancer had never been hauled by herself but as he was moving the divider to make more room for her she walked right up the ramp and into the trailer. That was easy. We visited a bit and I was so pleased she was not stomping around, just standing quietly. She made it safely to her new home in Elgin, IL.

Her new owner sent me the picture below stating she's here safe and sound. Traveled well and she is eating. Mark needed my help with hooking up the wood wagon. He and Israel almost filled it on Saturday but today he finished filling it.  It was so beautiful outside that I was glad to stop working inside. It really was a beautiful day.

Hooking it up really is a 2 person job. That was hauled to Joan's woodpile.

Joan has 2 huge piles of wood for this winter.

The wagon will just stay at Joan's until they get home to unload it.

Mark took the tractor back to the barn, I followed him in the golf cart then took him back over to get his golf cart before going back to work. I had 2 washers going and 3 dryers and was using the golf cart to drive loads over to the farm house, our house and the barn. While I was working I was listening to AC Central. I'm very thankful for that service. I used the golf cart to go get the load out of the dryer at our house, walked in and heard Mark listening to AC Central too. By 5:20 pm the last load was dry and all of the beds made. Dan came over and visited while I was waiting for the last load. Mark actually came upstairs at the barn to learn how to make a bed. Once all of the beds were made we came home for supper. Rhonda had dropped off some taco soup and home baked rolls so that is what was heated up for our supper. Sarah brought Lilly and Zion out to ride the new ponies this evening. I didn't realize they were there until she sent the pictures below.

Beautiful sunset pictures.

We are both tired from working outside so will have an early night.

Another Special

 We really needed to move a couple bales in before we left for church this morning but the tractor was left at the wood pile over by Joan's house. I took the bucket off of the skid steer and was putting the bale spear on when Mark walked in to help. He moved two bales into the middle paddock while I kept the horses from running out of the gate. Only after the horses were fed did I feed us. We have a rule that if they don't have hay, we don't eat. It is a good way to get good help. We picked up Rhonda for church. As Joan is gone Rachel was the teacher of the 3 year old class and Joan Schick took Nancy down for that. David had the message today. It really was one of those must listen again messages especially the last 5 minutes but truly you will want to hear the entire sermon. It was on 2 Samuel 24 and Luke 9 and 10. Click HERE if you would like to watch that. Gregg Rumbold had the second service on Micah 1 and 2. Click HERE if you would like to watch that. We are doing a study on the minor authors and I appreciate our ministers doing this. After church we took Israel and Gage home. We got stuck behind a train on Farmington Road.

Today the junior Bible class was coming for a hayrack ride and dinner. As soon as everyone arrived the hayrack ride was first.  David and Rachel used their new hayrack for this. I was heading over to get wood for the campfire and passed them on their way.

They stopped at the woods and hiked in to the campsite. There David gave a short devotion. He had brought a lot of props so the kids put on some skits. It went over very well and everyone had a good time. They came back to the campfire here and had s'mores before dinner. When I asked why it was because some of the kids were not staying for dinner.  Rhoda was at the round pen working with Gypsy.

About then Mike came with the 4 wheeler to work with Bulu. He put the pack saddle on filled with bags of 80 pounds of salt. She was perfect. Then he pulled out Jewel and used Jewel to pony her through the trails and even crossed the creek. Mike thinks Bulu is going to be another Grace!

That would be amazing as Grace was part of our starting line-up for years and years. Rhoda also worked with Stardust but I couldn't stay as I needed to get the hamburgers made.

Dinner was well attended.

After supper a lot of the adults went on a walk, the kids had fun on the golf carts. Spark got the fire going and we all ended up visiting around the fire.

It really was another special Sunday.

Saturday Work

 We weren't in a big hurry this morning to get moving. It was really cold. After breakfast we both wore coats when we drove the truck over to Joan's to move the camper over. This is the camper we are posting for sale. 

I have a couple coming tomorrow after church to check it out. I also made a short video of the inside for the ad posted on Facebook marketplace.

It is a great design, a small camper that fits a family and doesn't take a gas guzzling truck to pull. The dry weight is only 3740 pounds. Israel arrived to help with splitting firewood and then clearing an old campsite. I went to Sam's club to buy the food for Sunday supper. We will be having hamburgers, brats, all beef nitrate free hotdogs for the meats. When I got back I put both of the 50 pound bags of grain on my golf cart and drove that over to the stall barn to dump into the 2 garbage cans in the tack stall.

Went to throw the bags away and saw a broken halter in the garbage can.

Pulled out the halter, found a heavy duty zip tie in Mark's garage, took the halter home and fixed it.

We are always so short of large halters. Mark ended up working in the other barn so I went to help Israel. We cleared the path of thorn bushes and set up chairs for the devotion in the woods tomorrow.

Israel needed to be home by 3:00 pm so we quit working at 2:00 pm, brought everything back to the house and left for Chillicothe. After dropping him off I just drove straight home. I still needed to bake the 2 desserts for supper tomorrow. As soon as those were in the oven baking, I left for Sarah's to let puppies out.

Sarah and Nolan have a beautiful large yard. I stopped to admire what they have done and just had to take pictures. Below is their garden area.

Beyond the garden is the kids monkey bar climbing structure and trampoline. Their firepit looks well used with a beautiful view of the pond.

They put in a lighted fountain in the pond. They even have a cool water slide and beach.

Below is a close up of the fountain.  

Tonight the light was green. The last time I was there it was blue.

I got home before the cakes had finished baking. Once they were out of the oven and cooling I went back to put the puppies back inside the house. This evening after the cake and brownies had cooled the cake was iced.

The Gulf Shores group made it down safely. Diane found one of mom's paintings she painted when she was in her favorite place, made a plaque for it and hung it in her condo.

In case you can't read what the plaque says below is a closeup.

Pretty neat to have that as a remembrance. We all know where Rachel and Karin get their artistic ability. It sure didn't come from dad. Ruth, Joan and I got more of dad's genes, we don't know what matches. One of us is smart enough to compensate by only buying outfits that go together but the other two just don't seem to care. 

Go South

 We had a tree fall across the main drive last night.

Ruth arrived and had to park on Diane's drive.Mark went back to get his chain saw. Spark drove up just as Mark was finished cutting it up and he helped Diane, Ruth and Mark get it off the road. 

We stopped at Joan's, she and Diane made the arrangements for later today as they are driving down to Gulf Shores this evening, leaving around 7:00 pm and driving through the night. They will have a full car on the way down as Faith gets to go too. She will leave her car at the Belleville airport then drive down with them but fly home as the rest are staying for a couple weeks. My plan for the day was to move a camper over but that actually never happened. I drove over first to get the foaling apartment ready for guests coming in and saw that Rhoda and Sarah were here working with the 2 new ponies. As it was really cold and windy the grand children came over to our house to play but I went back to watch the girls work the horses. Rhoda was teaching Gypsy, the paint mare to bow. That took a while but she was making progress, they decided that they should try her out on the trails as she was advertised that she crossed water. She wasn't perfect but Rhoda took it slow and she did cross ok.

We stopped by the lake to take a few nice pictures for the website. Sarah took the two pictures below. Her phone camera is much better than mine.

Below is the trail ride.

When they finished the trail ride they asked Gypsy to step up onto the pedestal.

Below is a video of the pedestal.

She was a little sweaty as she was nervous going on the trails by herself but cooled down quickly.

I finished the apartment then went over to check on the grandchildren. They were having a blast in the basement.

Rhoda and Sarah worked with Stardust next.

Below is Stardust on the trails.

I brought the girls over before they put Stardust away so they could each ride her if they wanted.

Above is  Zeke and below is River.

Zion was riding her and Rhoda asked her if she wanted to try the bow with Stardust.

Iris wanted to try next.

Sarah took all of the kids to her house so they could let out the puppies and play with them. As Rhoda was going to work with Merlin and Lucy I ran back to the house to get the de-wormers. Dancer was de-wormed with Quest Plus. Tessa and Harli were de-wormed with Ivermectin as they are both pregnant and I split a Quest Plus between Lucy and Merlin.  We took Merlin and Harli out to graze in the outdoor. Merlin sure showed off, he was so glad to get out and run.

 We brought Tessa and Lucy out next.

Lucy is SO impressive!

Our guests in the barn asked if we had a fire pit. Mark went to get the wood and I got the firepit, hosed it down and took it with the golf cart over to the barn.

Mark and I left for TSC when I got back. He wanted to buy a watering can.

I just bought 2 more bags of grain. It was raining when we got out of TSC and I'm sure those guests will not be starting a fire but who knows, maybe tomorrow. They sent another message asking if they could ride the horses. No matter how many times I post on the airbnb ads that we do not allow horseback riding they still ask. On the way back we got stuck in traffic and ended up stopping at Taco Johns for supper. We each ordered a taco salad.

We did not take any home, it was good and we had skipped lunch. Maybe tomorrow I can move the camper over. It really was a long busy COLD day. As Diane said this morning, "it's the perfect time to go South!"