Busy Monday

A trip to Forrest, IL was planned right after the walk this morning to pick up Jewel from Emily Rickett's farm. Emily has beef cows she milks but in a few years she will be milking a Jersey! She was given a calf that was not expected to make it and Emily nursed it back to life. Too bad a picture was not taken of her Jersey calf, they are so adorable. Below are her prized beef cows.


The geese were quite bossy, not really wanting us to put Jewel in the trailer.

After showing off her well behaved cows, calves, geese, sheep and dog it was time to get Jewel. Emily walks around the barn and whistles. That usually brings Jewel at a gallop but this time she was more interested in the horse trailer.





Emily reports that Jewel is her favorite horse of all. Even Marie her mother came out to make sure we knew Jewel was Emily's favorite.
It was hard to load her up for home, not Jewel, she jumped right in the trailer but hard to see Emily now without a horse for the winter. We made it back to the farm a bit after noon, unloaded, grabbed a bite to eat and headed in to the shop to pay the already late first of the month bills, run a credit card payment for Mark, run to the bank to deposit checks, then off to Cook Fasser to pick up 15 gallons of aluminum paint for the shop roof. On the way home there was just enough time to make a quick stop at Aldi's for a few much needed groceries. Back at the farm, Karin was just taking Ribbon out to the arena so the video camera was taken out to film Ribbon's filly, registered name Lauralee barn name Bow, as in B long O, get it? Ribbon and Bow.

Dinner was almost on the table by the time Mark arrived then off to watch Karin work Jenis and Eliza. Mike jumped on Jewel bareback to see how she felt. Then as he was putting her away he realized she was in season and Evan was very interested. She was tied, Evan brought out and the job accomplished. His FIRST time and he was very well behaved. It was kind of funny though, he got a bit excited, tried to mount but both front legs were on one side of Jewel and he fell off! We just had to laugh.
On a serious note: "when I talk about the church, I must remember I am talking about my best friend's wife."
Rachel shared this with us this morning on the walk, it was too good not to post.