Day to day operation of a Friesian breeding farm standing 2 Friesian stallions. We have 6-10 foals each year out of Purebred Friesian mares, Andalusian mares, Thoroughbred mares and Friesian sport mares
by Judy Sceggel
309-208-3840
www.horsemeister.com
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.
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.
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.
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!"
About 15 minutes before our walk I went into the barn to just check things and realized I had forgotten to clean out the fridge and freezer. The fridge just needed to be wiped up but the freezer still had some ice cream in it. That was all taken home and then we walked. After the walk it was time to clean our house and get all of the laundry done. I listened to David in Wilcox on AC Central while cleaning. He sure had the gift of teaching. Mark worked on the old golf cart in the back garage. He is determined to get that done as Mackenson would like it. We both worked through lunch so decide to have a late lunch at the Bartonville diner then stop at Aldi for a few items for Sunday. We were getting ready to leave when I remembered I hadn't pulled hair from Harli and sent it in with the payment of $65.00. I don't remember doing that with Irish our other Gypsy but must have. They cannot get Merlin's registration papers back until Harli is dna'd. I took the golf cart over and pulled a bunch from her mane. That was folded in the identifying paper and mailed with the check on our way to the diner. I took a picture of the envelope and sent it to the lady that is working on the registry so she knows it is on the way. Mark and I shared a walleye dinner, we each got a salad and we both had enough. Aldi is just a few blocks from the diner and we only needed milk, bread, 2 cake mixes, 2 brownies mixes and 3 dozen eggs. We had just enough time to put the groceries away before heading to Farmington school to watch the 7th grade team and then the 8th grade team play. The teams they were playing were from Peoria Heights. That team had some talent but didn't play well as a team and both games ended up a blowout so both girls didn't get a lot of playing time. I think Kensley had 17 points but she played in both the 7th and 8th grade while Taegan had 23 points. Below is some of Kensley's game.
I overslept again and because of that I am back on coffee. Amazing how much brighter and nicer the morning is with that first cup. It really does wonders for my energy level and attitude. Mark is really glad to not have to live with a crabby cranky nothing is right kind of wife. We picked up Spark today on our way to Joan's house.
When we reached Spark's house we had to admire his pretty blue tractor and he told us all about it.
He bought it believing the engine was bad but the repair man he took it to saw within a few minutes that the engine was good it was the fuel injector. He had them change all the fluids and the bill was much less than he thought he was going to pay. We made the comment before mom died all of us out here were sharing her Kubota but now we there are 4 of that size tractor out here. Rachel and David bought mom's, Mike found one that even though it is old it is hardly used, and Mark has 2, his big one and his little one but of all of them Spark's is the prettiest as we like that color blue. This morning all of the arrangements were made for the jr Bible class coming Sunday afternoon. Rachel and David will use their tractor and hay rack to gives hay rack rides. Mark will be in charge of bringing over dry wood to get the campfire going then will grill the hamburgers, brats and hot dogs and I'll work on the rest of the meal. Diane and Joan will be in Gulf shores. Right after breakfast I went to work on the new barn and spent 5 hours cleaning making sure it is ready for the guests coming tomorrow. The farrier sent a text that he would be here around 2:15 pm. That gave me just enough time to finish the barn then head over to get the ponies out. they both had a full set of shoes on.
We don't want shoes on our horses and was glad Tyler could fit us in to get them pulled. Each of the grand daughters Zion, Iris, Eden and River want the shoes so this time they each get two.
I lined them all up on Mark's trailer so they could pick the ones they wanted.
Mark wanted to leave at 5:30 pm tonight as he wanted to stop at the hardware store before church. That didn't take an extra half hour so we were the only ones in the parking lot for a while. Caleb Plattner had the message tonight. If you would like to watch that click HERE. Our David gave greetings from Wilcox, AZ and only then did I find out where they were this weekend. We knew they were in Arizona but his name didn't come up on AC Central so thought they must be at a small church that doesn't have the AC Central. Well at Wilcox they didn't know how to spell his name so some guy named David Seigal spoke there both morning and afternoon. Tomorrow I'll have time to listen but Stephanie said the morning one is in Spanish and the afternoon one is in English. I'm posting them here. The morning message does have the English translation click HERE to watch that. Click HERE if you would like to watch the afternoon message.
I was so worried I wouldn't wake up in time this morning I awoke at 3:30 am then decided I'd better stay up as if I went back to sleep I just might over sleep. I needed to be at Sarah and Nolan's house by 6:20 am. I was there at 6:18 am. Sarah was in Ohio getting a dog bred and Nolan needed to leave for work by then. He had put all of the puppies outside at 5:00 am. When the girls awoke we needed to bring them all in. Those puppies are being crate trained.
Once they were all in their crates, fed and watered we left for our house where breakfast was made. I left then for the walk while they enjoyed breakfast. Beth surprised us and came on the walk and when we got to Sparks house he also joined us. We stood at Joan's visiting for a while as 6 of us siblings were together. After the walk the girls went with me to help move a round bale in for Harli. When we got there Tessa's filly was out and over by Harli and Merlin. At that point Tessa and her filly were moved in with them. Zion opened the gate and kept the horses from running out while I moved the bale in.
Then it came time to tease Gypsy but Gypsy had lost her halter and ran from me when she saw me carrying one into the paddock. We moved Stardust, formally named SnickerDoodle into the outdoor arena and then Gypsy stood well for the halter. She does not like to be alone. She was taken over to Valiant and teased. She is now out of season, we only got one cover on her so hope she settles. Meanhile Stardust (named for the galaxy of stars on her body) was having fun running around the arena.
She is such a nice pony she comes running for the gate when the children arrive.
I took a couple of pictures of Gypsy for the website.
As the mares are no longer using the mare pasture Evan was turned out to graze on his pasture but he was more concerned that the mares were no longer next to him and kept running back into his paddock and staring at them across the yard.
From there we went into the barn. I was putting away the new goblets and glasses Diane found while shopping on the Spoon River drive.
The girls had a lot of fun in the gym with the hula-hoops.
At 11:30 am we went back to Sarah and Nolan's house to put the puppies back outside. They are doing so well with their potty training. Everyone of them went once they were out in the yard. They were given food and water. Nolan arrived home around 1:00 pm so I left to go home. We had the water softener repair man coming and he showed up at 3:00 pm. He found the problem and has ordered the part. At 3:45 pm we left for Farmington school to watch Kensley and Taegan play. Tonight's games were against Dunlap, the 7th graders had no problem winning their game but the 8th grade game was a nail biter. They won the game 21 to 19. It was a defensive battle the whole game. I took video of the entire games. Below is the 7th grade game.
