Plan B

Plan B was the plan that worked for Brian and Rebekah's wedding pictures. The first storm was before the schedule pictures and the next storm held off until the pictures were finished. None of the pictures will be placed on the blog until later. As we didn't end up at Middle Grove instead of hooking Ciera to the cart we hooked up Evan as he is here. Evan hasn't been driven for almost a year, Steven Marchal was called to ask if he could come and he was great about showing up in plenty of time to hose the mud off Evan, harness him up and give him a bit of a driving refresher.

Evan tolerated that well and for the next step Rhoda was asked to get in the cart.

Evan did well, he was driven behind the barn to wait for the bride and groom but as they were heading into the field Evan see's a loose horse walking around. Rhoda jumps out of the cart to hold Evan while Steven tries to figure out which horse this is. By the time I arrived with the golf cart the mare was all the way on the other side of the field but she stood quietly and allowed a lead rope to be attached to her halter. This was Mytross, she was moved out of the breeding shed so Eliza and her filly could be moved into that. Mytross was put in the 4th paddock but the gate in the back was not latched. I saw her with the herd but she wasn't content to stay with the herd and crashed through the back fence. She was taken over to the cabin field. When Rebekah and Brian arrived we were trying to keep Rebekah's dress from getting soiled and had Rebekah sit on the cart while I fluffed her wedding dress over the back. Evan heard the noise and suddenly all 4 feet went straight into the air. Rhoda and Steven got him under control quickly but we had Rebekah exit the cart and just stand in front. Why take a chance on messing up that beautiful dress before the wedding! Once the pictures were over, Rhoda helped move Clair and her filly over to the cabin. The storm clouds kept the temperatures from rising into the predicted 90s so both mares with foals could be left outside and the stall barn left open to air out. Steven stayed to help get Eliza covered by Raven then took off. Mark got the 4 holes dug and set the posts in the first paddock then as long as the auger was on the skid steer loaded up the golf cart with digging supplies and headed down to the road to put the addresses back up.

A 17 year old girl lost control of her car yesterday shattering the house numbers. Notice the green numbers on the ground to the left of the skid steer?

Too many people drive too fast around the curve taking down the address signs and mail boxes across the street. The stated miles per hour is 45 going around the curve but we are assuming kids think that is just a suggestion! Meanwhile Emily Ricketts and a friend met Karin at Middle Grove to start Lilypony under saddle. She was ponied today with Emily on her over the hills and through the lake doing wonderful. They quit when the second set of storms moved in and made their way here to dry off before their 2 hour trip home. Rhoda took Darcy's bandage off and hot packed the surgery wound. It is more swollen than she expected so Darcy was started on antibiotics.

Rain

We had a shower during the night, heard it pounding on the roof and fell back asleep with a smile on our faces. Once more toward morning another small shower came through. We were a little disappointed this morning to see how little standing water was left in the feed buckets so both showers were not long or hard enough to do much good, however we have an 84% chance of another shower by 10:00am and again at 2:00pm according to weather.com. Clair's filly is doing so well running and bucking in the stall, she and Clair were turned out and will stay out as long as these storm clouds are covering the heat of the sun. Eliza is still in season and moved to the breeding shed. Mytross was put in with the herd. If it is cool enough tonight and Eliza is still in we will bring Raven over for a visit. Now everybody in the area is praying for rain EXCEPT Rebekah and Brian. They scheduled Rachel of momentscapturedbyrachel.com for wedding pictures at Middle Grove. The photo shoot has now been moved to the farm but if the storms start up as predicted, plan C will need to be put into place. Mark is working on replacing the broken posts in paddock 1. We put the auger on the skid steer but that is low on fuel. Two 5 gallon containers were loaded in the car and taken in to Hanna City only to find that town has no electricity and none of the pumps are working. I didn't want to drive in to Peoria and headed back. We will just hope it doesn't run out for the 4 holes that need digging.

Mayaswellswim

Braelyn arrived right after Eliza was covered and the stalls cleaned. Actually everything was started before 6:00am but it was already 79 degrees with 90% humidity causing excessive sweating at the least bit of effort. Mytross is now out. The golf cart was used driving fast, just trying to cool off before heading over to the meeting place for the walk. As Tyler Joos our farrier was coming Joan was asked if any of her kids could come watch Braelyn when he arrived. Good thing Karin showed up early for vaulting. The heat is oppressive and Ribbon needed lots of breaks and a good hosing between classes. Even the vaulters were hosing down each other. Everyone headed to Diane's to cool off in the pond once that was done. Karin and Sarah Reinhard came over to help bring horses in for Tyler at noon. He started with Ribbon and for the very first time we were able to get all 4 feet trimmed!

Of course it took Sarah holding her head and Karin stopping her from falling over. She really was losing her balance. Tyler explained it was probably because she was used to stocks before we bought her. Indy was next followed by Jewel, Eliza, Jenis, Ylse and Raven. By then Tyler was out of time and will have to come back for the rest. Thank goodness the barn is air-conditioned. As he was working on Raven, Rhoda, Tauyna, Addyson, Jack and Anna pulled up all ready for swimming. A few pictures were taken during the afternoon. Addyson taking a break from swimming to go swinging.

Braelyn with her new purple cast playing in the water.

Bethany doing a back dive then a handspring dive:

Hannah doing a handstand on the diving board:

And my favorite shot of the day, Sarah Reinhard doing a cartwheel off the dive:

Bethany took the little ones out on the paddle boat.

Addyson became brave enough to start jumping off the diving board:

She was pretty thrilled once she was back on land:

Faith was telling me important facts as we were watching:

Around 4:00pm it was time to dry off and head over to the apartment for ice cream the perfect treat on a very hot day.

Farrier Today

Tyler Joos is coming today for our scheduled trimmings. The barn air-conditioner will be on but the horses will need to be brought in and out each time. The stalls are needed for the babies! It is to be another scorcher and is already 80 degrees at 6:15am. Braelyn is also coming today. This place looks a little like a hospital, Braelyn with her pretty purple cast, Darcy with her full leg bandage and Clair's filly with her 2 legs bandaged. Ah well this too shall pass.

Another Vet Visit

Mike hauled the trailer in to Butch at French's, not only did he drill out the sheared off lug bolt holders replacing them with new, he fixed my truck's 4 wheel drive. That had been stuck since the IL Horse Fair, somehow someway Butch was able to free it. Since I couldn't pick up the paint mare, Darcy was picked up early. Emma was so glad to see Darcy and Darcy was so glad to be home. She spent the day resting quietly in the bedroom. Clair's filly had an appointment with Dr. Hoerr for 1:00pm to get her back hock checked. Thank goodness Dr. Hoerr has air conditioning in his operating room, it was miserably hot topping out at 101 degrees Fahrenheit today in our area. Today she walked in quietly, stood for the sedation and seemed glad to lay down on the nice comfy couch. Dr. Pallen is preparing the flushing fluid while Dr. Hoerr is preparing the filly in the picture below.

Dr. Hoerr flushed the shoulder again and the back hock, then she was given an antibiotic shot directly into each joint. Her umbilicus was checked and thankfully has now closed up. In the picture below she is finished, just waiting to wake up for the ride home.

Diane and Ruth met over here at 5:30pm, we drove to the Fellowship hall for last minute preparations for Rebekah's big wedding reception. Rebekah and Ruth have the fellowship hall decorated very uniquely, I think the 500+ invited guests will be very pleasantly surprised. We were on our way home just pulling into Hanna City when Sarah Reinhard called. She needed us to head to Kristin's and pick up a car. That gave us a chance to check out Kristin and Rodney's new beautiful home. Once back the 2 stalls needed to be cleaned, water buckets filled and hay given to the stalled mares and foals. Even at 9:30pm it is miserably hot.

No Trip

Mark started checking the pressure on all the tires and found one of the trailer tires had 3 of the 6 lug nuts sheared off. The trailer is not safe to drive. Mike hauled it in to get it repaired but it won't be done today. Clair's filly was doing so well last night, she was actually trying to buck in the stall. This morning she is not wanting to use her back leg. The vet will need to be called and more than likely she will need to be hauled in for another joint flushing. No cover's this morning, just too hot for either stallion plus both mares in were covered yesterday.

Paint

This morning I'm driving to Joy, IL about 2 hours from here, to pick up a mare for Raven. She is a black and white registered paint, 4 years old, 15.1 hands tall. That should be a nice cross and just maybe Lord willing next year we will have a little painted Friesian by her side. Mark checked the fluids of the truck and all is well, the tires need to be checked just before pulling out. The extreme heat is suppose to start building and reach the 90s by 11:00am and 100s by 2:00pm. Darcy will be picked up after I get back. We saw Rhoda in church last night and she said Darcy is doing wonderful and ready to come home. We had a strange night, sound asleep when the smoke alarms start screeching. There was no smoke and no fire, the alarms are way up on a 12 foot ceiling and can't be turned off. What in the world is causing this? This noise even with hands held tightly over the ears, is so loud it just can't be ignored. Mark turned the fans on and eventually they stopped. This is the 3rd time they have gone off in the middle of the night.

Vaulting Practice

Lots of fun today at the vaulting practice. Bethany and Hannah Reinhard did the canter practice before the day started heating up. These are a few of the pictures the rest were posted on facebook.

The rest of the team arrived along with lots of siblings.

Once the practice was finished, Karin worked the 3 young ones a bit then everyone headed to Diane's lake for the afternoon.

Heating UP

We have a cool morning so all the stallion work was done by 6:30am before the day starts this dramatic rising of the predicted heat wave. Mytross was brought out first for Valiant. Without Steven there to correct Valiant, it was a little more complicated than yesterday but he did finally listen, mind and got the job done. Mytross was put in another paddock while Eliza was brought over for Raven. The picture below was taken of her cute stocky little 10 day old filly who was wondering why her mama stopped in front of that scary huge stallion.

Mark was asked to help with this cover. It just helps having a person on each side of the mare when she is this big and wide. Once all was done, Eliza and her filly moved to the paddock opposite the stall barn and Mytross put back in the breeding shed paddock. Eliza will be moved into the air-conditioned barn before the high today of 94 degrees hits. Clair and her filly are already inside. This is just the start of the predicted extreme heatwave, tomorrow's highs are suppose to be triple digit. Darcy comes home tomorrow and the apartment needs to be readied for her.

Darcy Update

Darcy made it through the surgery, Dr. Lissa Calhoun, pictured below

was able to repair the ligament thereby saving Darcy's life! Rhoda was inundated with phone calls from all over. Below is Rhoda checking on Darcy after surgery. She will stay overnight again in Dunlap Vet clinic II and be released Thursday afternoon. Dr. Calhoun gave us strict orders for Darcy once she is home. For the next 8 weeks, no exercise, (that will be the easy one) restricted food until she loses weight and each time she gets up to go out to the bathroom we are to have a towel sling under her to help support her weight. Methinks this is going to be a 2 person job. Once home there were horses to be moved and mares to be covered. Steven Marchal first helped get iodine on Clair's filly's umbilicus then headed to the cabin field to get Eliza. We thought she was in her foal heat and once she saw Raven it was obvious she was. Mytross was moved out of the breeding shed so Eliza's filly could be in that paddock safe during the breeding. Raven got the job done and those 2 were brought into a stall so that filly's umbilicus could be checked. Then it was Mytross turn, she is in season and Valiant was brought out for her. She will be covered every day she is in, it is good training for a 3 year old stallion, to learn to wait until the handler allows him to mount. Steven actually had to get after Valiant a couple of times, he was a little rough with his mouth, biting her neck to stay on but learned very quickly he wouldn't be able to work if he was ill behaved. Emma's husband is going to be delivered on Monday. That should be perfect timing if all goes well. We will keep him with us until she is done or we can't stand it. Last year the howling was so awful that even though we said we would keep the stud dog for a week we gave up and took him home after 4 days. This AKC English Mastiff stud is 220 pounds and comes from Indianapolis about twice as far away as last year.

Middle Grove Camping

Karin texted Diane after 10:00am yesterday that the camping went great, she is heading home for a nap and will be back later to clean up. When Karin was refreshed enough to talk she called to say the campers had a great time. They arrived Sunday afternoon, swam, fished, boated, caught enough fish for their dinner, cleaned and cooked fish then tacked up the horses and rode until dark. The horses were perfect, willingly accepting beginner riders without a fuss, walk, trot and cantering the trails, swimming through the lakes and bringing their riders back safely. The rest of the evening was a blast scary stories, funny stories, and goodies cooked over a roaring fire. Curfew was midnight and on the whole they were tired enough to honor that. The girls slept in the cottage with a chaperone while Karin had the boys all fixed up with tents. During the night the boys got up to scare the girls, banged on the door and scratched at the windows but the girls got them back. They snuck out early morning and removed the tent stakes. When the boys got up the tent collapsed in on them. They had a big cowboy breakfast cooked over the campfire of scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and toast, then saddled up the horses for a quick canter trail ride getting back in enough time to load up and arrive back at the church in Maquon to meet the parents. They show up tired, muddy, rough looking but SO HAPPY! Thank you Karin for being willing to give city kids a country experience! Yesterday while at Hoerr vet clinic another call came in for a trail ride. Dr. Schock knew Sally Herman is coming into town and wants to arrange something special for this very special flight nurse. He was given Karin's phone number. That will be an easy ride to arrange, Sally is a knowledgeable experienced rider. This morning the filly is putting weight on her shoulder and looking much better. She needs 2cc's of banimine soon, 2cc's tonight which I can do with no problem, the hard part will be trying to iodine inside her umbilicus. She is a big strong 2 week old filly not the usual newborn we are use to dealing with.

Clair's filly

After dropping Darcy off at the Dunlap Vet clinic there was time for a quick trip to Herman Pond Management to pay for a bag of fish food for the pond. Their office is decorated like the outdoors. The pictures below were taken right there in their office. Our daughter Sarah took the check. My niece Andi is at the desk, my nephew David Jacob and his mom Rachel painted the mural on the wall. The rest of the decorations are of different animals caught or hunted by the land management part of Herman Pond Management. Once I left Herman Pond Management there was only time to change before mom picked me up for Eldora Young's funeral. Dave Obergfel had the service, it was really nice for the family very personal. Diane went with us. After the funeral, even before changing out of the Sunday clothes, Clair's filly was checked. She could not put any weight on her left front leg. Steven helped put her in the golf cart and she was driven over and loaded into the trailer. Steven followed me over to Hoerr Vet clinic to help with the filly while I took Clair. At first Dr. Pallen thought she had a broken leg. Ex-rays were taken, below the filly is just as interested as the 2 vets. The ex-ray was interesting, the dark arrow shows her growth plate, the lighter arrow shows the problem site which is a pocket of pus. She was sedated, loaded on the table and given a ride into the operating theater where she was prepped for the joint flushing. Dr. Hoerr pumps a bag of lactate ringgers into the joint, then lets it squirt out. Below he actually had so much pressure the fluid came squirting all over Dr. Pallen. This gave us all some much needed levity for this long drawn out stress filled day. Dr. Hoerr finished up by injecting antibiotic directly into the joint. Then it was time to check the umbilicus. He needed to ultrasound the bladder to see if the hole in the umbilicus went all the way into the bladder and yes it did! I was feeling mighty bad about not catching this infection until Dr. Hoerr found that the umbilicus had not closed properly allowing small amounts of urine to dribble out of the cord when the filly urinated causing the cord to remain moist, perfect conditions for an infection! Finally around 6:30pm she was ready to be wheeled out to her mother. We waited a bit for her to wake up, then Steven helped load her into the trailer and off we drove for home. A van pulled along side the truck on 474, I look over and it was Joan driving home from Chicago. Weird to think we were both at the same place, the same time. Once home Clair and her very sore filly were unloaded and stalled. I'm really tired but Mark needs a hair cut before I can finally crash.