Cute Colt Kisses

The horseback riders were chomping on the bit and finally had enough. They needed a  horse fix and rode in the rain. Karin took 2 groups out. The first group was Rebekah Schwind riding Jenis, Rhoda riding Ayanna and Karin on Marika. They were most pleased with Marika, she will soon be a beginner horse. Even Ayanna is doing well. Below they are coming up the lane in the rain.

I asked them to stay out in the rain just a little longer to pose for a picture.

Once the horses were put away Rebekah and Karin went in to play with Eliza's friendly colt.
He loves people and went from person to person for attention. Below he is giving out kisses.

 Even Studly got in on the attention although technically he is not getting kissed but tasted.

It rained on and off most of the day. After dinner the rain was lightly coming down instead of a downpour so Mark helped move in another round bale for the middle paddock. They now have 2 new bales. More rain is predicted tomorrow.

Record Breaking Spring Rain

It is official we have had record breaking rains this spring over 20 inches and much more is expected. What a morning, the horses needed another round bale but with the extreme mud from the rain during the night I went through 3 sets of socks and clothes. Slipping and sloshing through the deep puddles to remove the round bale feeder the mud splattered all the way up to the shirt and the shorts are now in the garbage. So is one of the hog panels used for a round bale. It should have been removed yesterday and refilled but that didn't get done and the horses ruined it. Next time in I'll buy 2 more. Rachel reported a tree down on the lane, Mark went to check it out and was absolutely incredulous when he got back from his walk. It was from our yard and a huge old mulberry tree. He had an 8:00 am appointment and had to just drive away. Below Emma is checking it out. Rachel posted that this is what it is like to live in a rain forest, and I'm starting to believe her.

Tim Reinhard came home from his appointment and got busy clearing. It is wonderful having a Haitian here. They are experienced at clearing and fixing roads especially Tim.

The picture below was taken from the yard, if you click on it you can see huge this tree is.

 This tree is massive but by the time Tim was done we at least could drive through.

 The golf cart was taken over to the indoor arena and parked to get it out of the rain.
I stopped to snap the pictures below of Holly just enduring the endless wet.

Unfortunately the walk down from the barn to the house had to be done quickly as the camera really shouldn't get wet.

Baby Sceggel Birth Announcement

Sometimes a volunteer will show up to work and somehow convinces every other volunteer that the office should be painted then finds a way to con the other volunteers into helping. Our new volunteer wasn't satisfied to just clean the office last week, nope she brought in paint and had Eva Jean bring in painting supplies and between them plus a little help from me the entire office, including the ceiling and bathroom was painted. The place really looks good, now Diane wants to ask someone to trim out the window and install baseboards. Is there no end to her plans?
It really is greatly improved!
David and Stephanie's baby was born today at 4:30pm. His name is Israel John Sceggel. He weighed in at 7 pounds and 8 ounces and is 19 inches long. David sent a text that mom, birth mom and baby are all doing well.

He looks pretty worried but will soon be content. What a wonderful addition to our family. His cousin, another boy is due in just a few short days.
We are having rain today, lots of rain. Eliza would love to take her 2 day old colt out and show him off but it is just too muddy. He hasn't stepped foot out of the barn yet. It is funny watching him try to gallop around the stall.

Moving Emily

Emily Ricketts, one of the Horsemeister trainers is moving in for the summer. I mentioned on the walk that she wants to use the truck and trailer for the move when Rachel asked, "why would she need a truck, the apartment is furnished?" The answer was,  " this is Emily, she is coming with 2 pregnant cows not furniture!" We all got a laugh at that. The good news on the truck is that it should be done Monday and only looks like it will be just a little over $1000.00 to fix it. This is the 1st time to repair the drive cable and the 3rd time I've had to fix the 4 wheel drive on that truck. Still it is better than buying another and having monthly payments. We try to buy everything with cash up front and I don't have enough saved up to purchase another truck.
Diane and Eva Jean are painting the Berean office this morning. I'm heading in to supervise (joke).

LOUD Fire Alarm

The work got done here, the laundry washed dried folded and put away, the little laundry room cleaned organized and scrubbed the kitchen cleaned and the floor scrubbed and finally finished with bathroom. A stiff bristled scrub brush was actually needed on the floors to get off the dried mud from this last wet weekend. By the time I was done it was time to start dinner. Tim Reinhard drove his van to church tonight, it is an 8 passenger and we fit very comfortably. Mike Rieker started the service and was really getting into it when all of a sudden the extremely loud fire alarm went off with lights flashing. Most of us had not heard or seen that before and weren't sure what it was. Tim got up and asked us to exit church to the front. The fire engines arrived in a few minutes.

 Mark wasn't very obedient as far as leaving the building, he went to the sensors to find out what set it off, discovered a defective smoke detector.

 The firemen are entering the church in the picture below.

 and once they checked out the defective detector exited the church and gave the all clear.

We all went back in and Tim finished the evening with a sermon on how when a sin alarm sounds find an exit.

One Month One Day

After our walk mom invited us all in for breakfast as a farewell for Joan. She is leaving for Haiti today. Her 2 and a half weeks here just didn't seem to be enough time although we know she is anxious to get home for her 2 youngest children. After breakfast Hannah and Faith came over to see Eliza's 1 day old colt. The pictures below were taken just a few minutes ago.

He loves to be groomed and as soon as one of these short human kids start scratching, he grooms them right back. From there we brought out the 1 month old, Ribbon's filly. She was muddy from the tremendous rains and got her first bath.

The difference between the 2 foals is really amazing. They are both by Raven. They are both going to be huge and both have an abundance of hair. Ribbon's filly should top 17 hands and with her black thick curly coat look like a Friesian on steroids, Eliza's colt will be at least 16.2, and have the slick shiny blue black coat. They are both very well behaved and friendly. While we had Ribbon out, Karin did some canter work with her while her filly got a tying lesson.

 Above Hannah and Faith are helping Karin out with Ribbon while her filly is safely taught to stand tied.

Inside chores need to be started. Laundry awaits.

Heavy Rains

It seemed most of the night the rain kept pounding down, then at 4:30am the dogs insisted on coming into our room, our tiny little room with hardly enough area to walk around the bed had 2 full size adults and 2 overfull size dogs crammed in together as the lightning flashed and thunder crashed.
We are again under a flood watch. The video below is only a minute long. It is  security footage of CSC flooding as flood waters break down the front door of CSC's Galesburg campus.

The power of out of control water is shocking. After 2 cups of strong coffee I'm ready to head out to the barn.

Truck Driving

No walk this morning it rained and rained. We had 4 inches in a 24 hour time period. It stopped this afternoon but started again this evening. Diane, Eva Jean and I really got a lot done today, having that 3rd person means I won't have to go in on Thursday. After work, the first stop was TSC where 10 bags of bedding and 4 bags of grain were purchased and thrown in the car, then a stop at Aldi for groceries. Rhoda was here cleaning out the trailer by the time I made it back to the farm. She checked out Eliza's colt and the first thing she told me was, "you can sure tell he is a Raven son!"  He is just so calm and curious. There really IS a difference. Karin arrived to admire him and offered to go with Rhoda to Bloomington to pick up Mark's dad's old table now that Ben and Taunya are done with it. Rhoda called just after she arrived to report the truck broke down. It would need to be towed. I had to drive down to Meister's to borrow the old truck which was hooked up to the dump trailer and parked in the middle of a huge puddle. The only way in without sinking up to my ankles was to climb in through the passenger side. The dump trailer was backed and unhooked then off I started for Bloomington but had to stop at a gas station right away. It was so empty that the cost hit $100.00 then the gas pump turned off. The tow truck driver had already arrived and had the truck loaded before I finally got to Ben and Taunya's.

It didn't take long to hook the Meister Heating truck up to the trailer and head home.

The trailer was unhooked and back to Meister's to pick up my car.  I felt like I was on the road all afternoon. Joan invited everyone over to celebrate Tim's 50th birthday. It is really on Thursday but Joan leaves tomorrow for Haiti.

Mark was really helpful by feeding and watering Eliza. Tomorrow I'll have to get some pictures of her colt for the website. The grumbling of distant thunder tonight is just a bit discouraging. Here it comes again.

Eliza's New Colt

We woke up to heavy rain. Eliza had a big boy this morning. At 6:00am I DROVE the car over to the barn hoping to stay clean and dry to feed and check on her. She had him in a nice dry warm foaling stall and by the time I arrived he was up and nursing. The picture below was just snapped with the phone camera better pictures will be taken later.

She was tested yesterday and had a bit better than a 50/50 chance of delivering but as she is an experienced mother I chose to stay up at the house.

Olivia Update

Cynthia sent her first day report on Olivia along with this picture:

Well, day #1 is drawing to a close, and Olivia has been a good girl-well pretty good J.  She’s a baby…I get it.  ha  She has seen a lot of new things today.  Tomorrow she is going to go out to pasture with Buddy.  Thank you so much for bringing her all the way over here to my place.  J  I’ll send you an update towards the end of this week to let you know how we both are doing. 
We are very grateful for Olivia's chance to learn how to behave at another farm. The pony is a 14 year old pony that needed a companion when Cynthia had to put her beloved horse down.

Lapse in Judgement

It was pouring when we awoke and poured with rain most of the day. We picked mom up for Pete Plattner's visitation and she mentioned her rain gauge showed 3 and a half inches. Every paddock, every field, every piece of ground here is saturated, soaked and slippery. Olivia was taken over to Cynthia's place in Washington, IL for a month of foal training. Eliza and Zalena were brought in for the night just to get them off the wet muddy fields. Ribbon is now showing but I won't try to get her covered until tomorrow. I think Jenis is also showing. Checking on the horses this afternoon, Hadassah and her colt could not be found. The rest of the horses were up eating off the round bale. It is a big concern when only 1 horse is missing. Thoughts of her colt slipping into the pond and drowning were flooding my mind. I took the golf cart into the back thinking that would be much faster for the search and got it stuck in the mud. That was the first lapse in judgment. Trying to hike over to search in a pair of crocks was the second lapse in judgement. They kept slip sliding around my wet muddy feet, getting stuck and falling off and I detest getting my feet muddy. Hadassah was found, she and Solomon were up at the top of the hill behind some trees grazing.  Holly came running over to join them. By the time I made it back to the farm house Mark was ready for supper. He was asked if he would bring the skid steer to pull the golf cart out and as long as he didn't have to get out of the skid steer he was willing. Even that about got stuck.

Memorial Sunday

Church was really a blessing, Craig spoke in the morning and Dave in the afternoon. Both sermons will be listened to again as soon as they are up on the AC website. After church Julie Watson brought out a lady to see Olivia and while here she ended up giving Olivia a very good leading lesson. By the time she was done Olivia was stopping when she stopped and walking when she walked. We thought she should look at a few more of the foals, may as well get some free training in on them.  Phil, Anna, Braelyn, Taegan, David, Stephanie, Rhoda and Sarah all came over for a chicken dinner from Gils Supper club. Then as the rain was holding off we all headed over to the playground where a group had already gathered. Below are a few pictures of the evening.

The lightning started flashing in the west getting closer, we made it home before the rain hit. It was nice the rain held off for the evening.

Cold Rainy Sunday

Another day of gloomy dark rainy weather. So glad we get to have Son-shine at church. The  horses were fed then Mark walked through the pastures in the pouring rain and decided the mares need to be locked off the pond field for a few weeks. The middle paddock which has the shelters does not have a working automatic waterer. We have a couple of tanks but both are missing the plugs. Mark was promised as soon as we get plugs for the tanks the horses can be locked off the field. They don't really need the shelter from rain, these black horses need shelter from the sun, although who knows when the sunshine will come back.
We have someone coming today to see Olivia. We will need to bring her inside as soon as we are home from church to dry off.

Olivia is on the left and her best friend Oksana is on the right. Check out Oksana's beard. This is a Friesian trait that not all Friesians have. Oksana is out of Eliza by Raven and will be going to her home in New Mexico soon. We are anxious to see Eliza's coming foal by Raven. This will be our last Raven foal ever born here.

Dinner with the Kids

We worked outside from 7:00am to 10:00 am which was when the rain started. Mark got the stallion paddock scraped and the weeds in that pasture mowed. I loaded up the cotton candy machine and all the supplies and headed over to Gray Horse Farm where the HIPC horse show was taking place. As this was Amy's birthday and she was already volunteering her time there Susan Ross brought in a cake and ice cream for a surprise party.

By this time the rain is pouring down, the jumping part of the show was moved inside. It was still raining when we were ready to leave for dinner with the kids at Logan's so the cotton candy machine was not cleaned up, just put in the apartment for later. Our meal was good, the kids were well behaved.

 Above is Addyson telling Sarah something and below is Braelyn reaching for more peanuts. She loved throwing the shells on the floor. Each time she threw one down she would clap.

 David and Stephanie have their car packed and ready for a trip to the hospital, their baby can come any day now. Below Jack is looking over at us very suspicious.

 Sarah sure had her hands full. Phil and Anna invited us over after dinner.

Below is David reading a story

It was fun to spend time with family on this cold rainy Saturday. The only one missing was Rhoda, she was at a birthday party.