Safe!

 We lost electricity at 4:00 am  and I know this as I awoke, looked at my watch and thought it read 4:45 am so decided to get up early but when I walked into the kitchen it was only 3:45 am. I went back to bed and had not fallen asleep when everything went quiet, so quiet I knew we lost power. When Mark awoke around 5:00 am I explained we have no power. The rain gauge showed 2.1 inches of rain during the night. Mark actually was shocked when I brought him a hot cup of coffee. We had leftover coffee from yesterday I heated up on our propane powered stove. He waited until daylight to start the generator. I went out to take care of Tessa and her filly. They were moved into a clean stall and given grain. The filly was very curious abut what her mama was eating and stuck her head in the bucket to try it. 

She decided mama's milk was much better. She nursed a bit then came over to check out what I was doing. I gave her the grain scoop while I scooped poop.

When finished I picked up the grain scoop and she followed me over to check me out.

She is acting like a normal 2 day old filly so I think we are out of the woods with her. When I finished and was headed back had to laugh at Rosaleigh's colt playing king of the hill.

I needed to get a small table from the gym. Rhonda had 3 of her grandsons here and Mike had Crew and Jackson so those 5 went in the dark gym to play basketball. 

The electric company sent a message that the electricity would be out until tomorrow at noon. Rhoda and Iris arrived to work horses. Iris got to ride Cookie while Rhoda worked with Izzy.

Berlica came over mowing so Rhoda put her to work with Izzy.

She had Berlica mount from both sides then took a little walk keeping everything very relaxed.

Sarah arrived right after with Zion, Eden and River and about 30 seconds later Elisabet arrived.

Rhoda was working with Thalia, the 3 year old filly we bought as a weanling.

The girls watched for a while but then got bored

and went swimming. Mark and I got all 4 campers moved over to the barn for the big Kieser weekend.

We put 3 on the East side and one on the South side. The girls were up playing on the trampolines.

We were visiting when Mike called to say he and Diane were going to Middle Grove so they could have air conditioning and the 3 mares at the cabin field would need to come over here as their waterer is on a well and they would be turning off their generator. Crew helped Mike and I get them over.

Sarah watched the girls while Rhoda and I took a few more trips of things from my house over to mom's house. We left about 4:15 pm for supper at Gils as the power was still out. Ameren now predicted that it wouldn't be restored until 10:00 pm tomorrow. I let the Kieser's know to see if they would want to cancel or switch to another weekend but they decided to come anyway. We were just ordering our food when Joan sent the first message, "the power is ON!"  Followed quickly by Rhonda, Rachel and Diane.  I let Kathy and Pam know then the food arrived. We started with a large order of onion rings. Gils has the best!

Our meals came pretty quickly.

Above is Rhoda's and below is Mark's and mine. Rhoda took most of her meal home to share with Lee.

Iris ordered the kids chicken tenders which came with fries.

Gils also always serve fritters covered with powdered sugar.

After supper we left for TSC in East Peoria. Our phone went off with a tornado warning and take cover now. We were driving so just kept on driving. We got to TSC, picked up 6 bags of grain and 6 bags of bedding then started home and ended up what seemed like the middle of a tornado. The limbs and leaves were flying around the car, the rain was coming so fast we couldn't see anything. So much rain was falling that the roads filled up with water. We were able to pull into Limestone highschool parking lot to wait out the worst. The foaling apartment booked about then. When we got back I went up to take care of the horse and just then the power went out again. Hopefully it will be on soon. I took lanterns up for the guests in the foaling apartment and showed them where the storm shelter is. When I finished it was obvious the storms were over.

Spark sent a family text asking us to look at the sky, Rhonda sent the first picture.

The pictures and video's kept pouring it. What an unusual sight after such a violent storm.

We got another inch of rain so in 24 hours ended up with just over 3 inches. Thankful we are all safe. We were heading to bed and saw lights outside our front window. The power company is out searching for downed lines from the storm. Ours was still up and fine but we have no power.

Power was restored after we went to bed so don't really know when. 

Thankful for the Rain

Mike was using the John Deere tractor this morning while we were walking. The engine on that is too loud for visiting. We were glad when he scooped up a load of pea gravel then left.

The filly had some diarrhea this morning and that meant I needed to really keep an eye on her today making sure that would correct. She is nursing well, has plenty of energy and is urinating a lot so I know she is getting plenty of nutrition. When cleaning her stall this morning she was very curious about me and the wheel barrow. 

She finally left me and went to see what her mama was eating.

Sarah and her girls came to help with the moving process. We got a lot of stuff moved from this house to mom's house and from this house to the barn and from this house to the back garage behind the stall barn.  The dumpster is full so we have 6 big black bags of garbage stored in our garage. No food in them so those can just wait until the dumpster gets emptied. Elisabet came to help and we worked for 2 full hours. The girls are trying to make money for vbs so more than willing to work. It got much to hot in the afternoon so they went swimming to cool off.

Israel got there just before David was ready to leave for home so he was disappointed he didn't get to stay and swim. I left to go watch the filly then tease Basilea. She is now out of season but I saw something on Valiant that looks an awful lot like the cancer that poor Mika had. I took a picture of it and sent it to the vet clinic. Emma is going to show it to Dr. Hoerr tomorrow, he was not available today. The shower after supper was really needed. It was very hot and humid this afternoon. We left just before 6:00 pm to pick up Zion, Eden and River for VBS.

They are enjoying it and excited to go. The kids are downstairs while we were in church. Gabe Stickling had the message tonight on Paul and Silas going to Athens. That follows the VBS story. Click HERE to watch that. He told us if we get a chance we really should go downstairs as they have changed the Sunday school room into an Athen's market. We went down to pick up Sarah's girls and took the pictures below.

A big storm was moving in as we were ready to go out to the car. Mark brought the car close so we didn't have a long way to run. After we got home I had Mark drive up to the indoor arena so I could get a wheel barrow load of hay. That was taken into the stall I prepared earlier and Tessa and her filly were moved over. The filly seems to be doing great. She cantered up to her mom then back to the hay when moved into the new stall. It is now almost 10:00 pm and I am SO ready for bed. It is pouring down rain with lots of lightning and thunder. I'm very thankful for a dry stall barn and also for the rain. The fields are getting a wonderful drink and we should end up with a good second cutting.

Berean Day

 I needed to get up to the stall to check if Tessa had dropped the placenta and was pleased to see it was out and complete. I make sure Tessa had plenty of water and refilled her hay. While up there her stall was also cleaned. Just Diane and I walked at 7:30. Joan and Ruth joined at 8:05 am but at that time I needed to leave for the Berean office. Turns out I should have left before 8:00 am. The interstate 474 came to a dead stop at the 74 exit then crawled along going between 4 mph to around 10 mph all the way until the 150 exit. I didn't arrive at the Berean office until 9:03 am and was the last volunteer to arrive. Skip put me to work at the computer while he made copies. All of us kept busy today. Marvin is on a trip so we were a little short handed. 

I only stopped to take 2 pictures as I got a late start on entering names. We were done before 11:00 am and enjoyed a treat of key lime pie plus a small Chantilly cake with fruit on top. The Bibles and Bible studies going out today were taken to the Hanna City post office. Anna, Taegan and Kensley were here cleaning the foaling apartment. At 12:30 pm Ruth came to move her camper but we had a little problem getting the electronic jack to work. Thankfully Ruth discovered we could manually move it but we needed a tool. She drove home to find one while I took the golf cart over to find Spark to see if he had one. Ruth realized she had the exact tool HERE IN her camper. That went quickly then. I dropped it off at her place and came back to work on moving things over to mom's house. The curtain pole arrived so I worked on the closets upstairs. The hall closet was changed to these.

When the curtain is opened there is just two cots and one humidifier in the entire closet.

The new batteries were put in the lights in the East bedroom closet and this was the pole I was waiting on. That pole needed to be longer than 6 feet.  This closet is completely empty. 

I actually thinks it looks better open, makes the room much larger.

The West bedroom closet still has Christmas wrapping paper, Rhoda's candy machine and a few other supplies inside but there is still plenty of room for guests to hang clothes and store suitcases.

The goal for this house is for us to turn it into an airbnb. We really can't rent it out for a long term renter. There are too many utilities that come from this house that serve the apartment and the new barn. It is 3 bedrooms and 2 baths so maybe a family coming through would appreciate it. 

This evening I asked Mark to bring a saw to help get hay off the round bale. This bale is twisted so I can't just run the pitch fork down and pull off hay.

The saw didn't work well so Mark picked the bale up with the tractor and we were able to pull lots of hay off that way. He left then for mom's house. He ordered a dehumidifier for that house from Meisters. Nolan delivered it today and even carried it to the basement. This evening Mark installed it and got it running. I moved Tessa and her filly over to the other stall so her's could be stripped. 

They settled right in the new stall and the filly promptly decided to lay down and take a nap. She is just one day old but doing well.

I just have one more machine to change then a couple beds to make and I can quit for the day but am waiting for the dryer to finish first. 

Motorhome Back

 I didn't go out right away to check the mares as I was busy packing up Mark's mom's good china. Mark doesn't want to give it away so it is now packed and will go back into his back garage. When I left for the walk I left a few minutes early so I could go up and check on the horses and was shocked to see Tessa had a foal by her side. The foal was very new, had not yet nursed but was standing. I was going to move Tessa and the filly into the stall barn and got the stall all ready for her when Mike arrived. Tessa was extremely nervous AND protective of this foal. We decided it was better to just leave them be until I had extra time. I stayed in the paddock to watch. I could tell pretty quickly that this was a filly. She was rooting around at the wrong end for a while. 

After about 20 minutes the filly latched on and nursed well.

Each time I would go close Tessa would move away and I didn't want her stressing the filly by making her run so left them along and went with Ruth on the walk. After the walk Mark and I picked up Mackenson and took him to his appointment down town. That ended up being a very long appointment finishing close to 1:00 pm. We were all hungry and Mackenson wanted Asian food so we went to Golden Buffet in East Peoria. That was fast and delicious. 

From there we drove up 29 to pick up the motorhome. That was stored inside all winter and had a small repair done. It is very dusty, needs a good washing and I should have left it outside this afternoon but instead drove it right into the barn. Once I changed back into work clothes went back up to the paddocks to move Tessa and her filly. This time she was much more relaxed. The filly isn't following very well so it took a while to get them inside but I let Tessa graze each time the filly fell behind so Tessa at least was happy. Once they were safe in the stall, the 2 buckets of water were filled and hay brought in. The filly nursed then promptly laid down for a nap. By that time it was pouring down rain so I was really glad they were inside. I have them on the foaling monitor. Tessa still hasn't dropped her placenta. I really think she is just too worried about protecting her filly as this is her first. Now that she is inside she should relax and drop it. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the upstairs bedrooms. The closets and dressers are empty now and the floors swept. We have a big pile of give away another pile of throwaway in the living room. As it is still raining I'm leaving that until later. 

We have decided to sell the motorhome and use that for a down payment on mom's house. It is a 2017 with 34,000 miles on it. The generator works well a full body slide and sleeps 6. Sarah and Nolan are going to use it in July but when they are done I'll post it on Facebook market place. 

That full body slide makes it very roomy and comfortable. We took it to Naples Florida and I stayed very comfortable in the motorhome.

I'll need to get inside pictures before posting for sale as the two front seats are starting to peel. I guess this is a normal thing for this brand. Maybe we should invest in new seat covers. We shall see.

I went up to the barn this evening to clean Tessa's stall and check her water buckets. Still no placenta. If it hasn't dropped by tomorrow morning I'll be taking them to the vet. 

Tessa's Filly

 We had a surprise waiting for us this morning. I went out to check the mares and Tessa had delivered a filly. The filly was already standing but had not yet nursed. She did a lot of rooting around in the wrong area before figuring out where the milk bar was. 

Tessa is being a very good mother standing while the filly walks underneath her. She stood excellent when the filly latched on. I took some pictures of that but the filly was on the other side and I didn't want Tessa to move so didn't walk around for a better picture. 

She got a good drink then stuck her tongue out.

She laid down for a nap but within a few minutes was up and nursing again.  Tessa was given some grain. Right now she is being very protective so we are not trying to move them into a stall. Once she settles down, if it starts to rain we will get them inside. Tessa has not yet dropped the placenta so we are watching them both closely. Tessa was bred to Valiant and wasn't due until June 28th so this filly is 20 days early. She is petite but most likely won't stay that way. I checked Tessa's udder last night and there was no waxing so this birth really was a surprise.