Cheyenne Pregnant

Mark helped load Cheyenne up at 6:15 am. Our appointment was at 7:00 am and we arrived a few minutes early. Dr. Hoerr was waiting and ready. Cheyenne surprised us with how good she led into the exam room and into the stocks and then surprised us again with how still she stood when Dr. Hoerr drew blood for her coggins test. The ultrasound took just a few moments, probably not even a minute for Dr. Hoerr to find the embryo.

Valiant is the sire, she is due June 25th,2015. As soon as I got back to the farm 3 more were loaded into the trailer with her, Bonnie, Jenis and Sheena and they all got dropped off at Middle Grove. We have 32 horses out there and 11 here. Mike and Diane went out this evening to check on them.
I dropped off the trailer, jumped in the car and drove down to Meisters where Diane was working on Berean work. We took a short break for lunch, Mark brought in Chinese takeout from New China Kitchen at Madison Park Shopping Center then back to work finishing around 2:00 pm. The Bibles were dropped off at the post office and only then was it time for a short rest. Beth hosted mom, and a bunch of the church ladies at Norris today. Rhonda went to help with the lunch. Hope someone posts pictures of that event.
After supper Whitney was teased then stalled, Ribbon turned out in the field and 2 bales moved into that paddock.

Practice Makes Perfect

Karin holds vaulting practice each Monday and Wednesday at 10:00 am. Usually I have to work but today I decided to go in right after the practice so got to watch. A neighbor man also came to learn more about Friesians and stayed to watch. He was very impressed with both the vaulters and Ribbon. Below are a few pictures.

A few more of this practice were placed on the Horsemeister Inc Facebook page. Diane kept the younger children busy with golf cart rides.

After the practice they all went to Diane's pond to cool off. 

David and Stephanie arrived to join in the fun with Israel.

Karin decided to quit swimming and go work with the new mare Whitney. Of course the camera had to be taken over for that event.

We were both impressed with how well she did. She is not educated but it won't take long. She figured out quickly if she stands next to Karin she won't have to work. After the training session she was hosed off and fly sprayed down then put back in with Ribbon. Karin got Cheyenne out next for some round pen reasoning.

Cheyenne is a very athletic reining bred paint mare. She turns on a dime and will do sliding stops. She remembered her last session pretty quickly and Karin got a good response from her. Cheyenne goes in to the vet early tomorrow morning for her ultrasound. If she is pregnant she will be hauled out to Middle Grove along with Bonnie, Jenis and Sheena. If she is not pregnant she will stay for Mike to tease and cover while we are gone. At 6:00 pm Karin held the Friesian practice for the August 16th performance at Weaver Farms. She said Eliza and Zalena were good, Jenis is of course perfect but we will need to do some modifying with Ribbon and Noah. 

Mark, Fede, and Mike all drove to church tonight from out here. There was just too many to car-pool. Tim Funk had the service. He was still riding the wave from the wonderful weekend. (those were his words).

Meet Whitney

Rhoda pulled Whitney out this morning right after the walk so I could get a few pictures of this gorgeous mare before heading to work.

She is so impressive, standing 17.2 hands and weighing in well over a ton. She actually makes Ribbon look small.  She has a few quirks Karin can fix, such as not paying attention to the leader. We are very pleased with how athletic she is, her canter is uphill and light. No clumping around for her. She also is very fit, after running around for over 15 minutes having a ball in the outdoor arena she wasn't even breathing hard. 

Diane brought mom and Molly to work, I went to TEMCO to pick up the mail. Eva Jean had already arrived at Meisters before I made it in with the mail. Kathy and David Obgerfel brought their grandson Dakota and between all of us we finished up by 1:00 pm. After dropping off the Bibles at the post office I drove mom home, let the dogs out, then went to work. Not that I'm bragging or anything but today I drove 150 miles delivering 16 horses to Middle Grove all by myself. The first load was the easy load, Indy, Anna, Missy and Cookie. They were dropped off and all took off running. The next load I was worried about but shouldn't have. Ayanna and Marika were asked to get in the front of the trailer and believe it or not their foals didn't even hesitate, they just jumped right in. Yesterday it took both Karin and I to convince them to load. These Friesians are so smart it only took ONE day to train them to load, today they were experts. They were locked in the front of the trailer while Emma and Sally were put in the back and off I drove to Middle Grove. Emma and Sally took off at a gallop to find the herd once they were dropped off while Ayanna and Marika just ran to the top of the hill and then watched me take the trailer away. The last load I parked the trailer between the 2 barns, led the mares up to the trailer, and again was pleasantly surprised at how easy those babies loaded. When I arrived at Middle Grove  trailer was taken right into the field, the door opened, halters removed and they unload all by themselves. I was back on the road and made it home by 5:30 pm. 

Rhonda had Mark come over this evening to show him some plants she will donate to the cause, the cause of making the landscape around here beautiful. Mark took the golf cart over then came walking back. The golf cart died on the way home. Diane brought her 4 wheeler over and pulled it home. I worked on the wiring and may have fixed it, we will see in the morning. While Diane and I were discussing the cart we heard a gun shot come from the barn, at least it sounded like a gun shot, echo and all. No one is home at the apartment, Rhoda, Sarah and Emily went to Kansas City today so of course we had to go check it out but couldn't see any suspicious activity. We even checked all the trailer tires in case one of them had blown out. wierd

On the Road Again

The big news today was the golf cart miraculously WORKED! Dan is not taking any credit for fixing it, in fact he was sure it was not fixed when he left. Well I guess sometimes miracles happen. This morning Karin and I quit after the first round of the walk so we could load Ayanna, her filly, Marika, her filly and Emma. They had a 9:00 am appointment with Dr. Hoerr for sonagrams. ALL 3 of these mares are now confirmed in foal! Ayanna was bred to Evan and is due June 22nd, 2015, Marika was bred to Valiant and is due June 23rd, 2015 and Emma was bred to Evan and is due May 26th, 2015.

As soon as I arrived back with the horses and they were unloaded Mark showed up to start moving bales off the neighbor's field. He had me drive in front of him for safety sake. I needed to be on the road by 12:30 pm to take the truck and trailer to Bloomington for Rhoda and Emily who so kindly are driving up to Chicago to pick up a new mare so Sarah took my place helping her dad with the bales.  I just heard from them their estimated time of arrival is around midnight. They said the mare is really nice. She is a 17.2 hand gray 7 year old  Percheron. She should be a great cross with Valiant.

I arrived home from Bloomington at 2:40 pm, Karin was already out on the 'death trails' with a couple of volunteers from Rainbow Riders. While I was waiting for them to make it back I snapped the pictures below of the 5 foals in the pond pasture.

 Above is Ella's colt by Evan and below is Jewel's filly by Evan 

 Above is Lola's colt by Valiant and below is Marika's filly by Evan

Below is Ayanna's filly by Evan

Tomorrow after work we will start hauling the mares and foals out to Middle Grove. 

Below are a few pictures of Kelsey, Kierston and Karin.

Jewel was over teasing Evan so when Karin, Kelsey and Kierston finished the trails they helped get her covered by Evan. Next Karin pulled Ribbon out to give them a vaulting lesson. Can you tell they were having a great time? 

After the company left I started moving the new round bales into the barn. One was taken over to the cabin field, one was given to the short shelter paddock and Evan's paddock got one. These bales are 2nd cutting alfalfa and will help put the weight on the nursing mares and the hard working stallions. I finished up around 8:30 pm, fed the horses and came inside for the evening. I'm ready to crash and will not be able to stay up waiting for Emily and Rhoda to make it home. 

Just one more thing to write about. Emily came over this weekend and opened her mail. Just look what she got from ICC!

She is the 3rd red head from this neighborhood to be on the presidents deans list. Rhoda and Jessica also received one.

Blessed Wonderful Sunday

What a wonderful day we had at church today, lots of visitors and visiting ministers. Mark and I went early to help mom and Spark & Rhonda as they were serving lunch today in Peoria. It was my turn for Nancy so Spark's daughter Molly brought her to church for us.  The church was full and the singing today was just beautiful. The morning service was by a visitor from Morris North and the afternoon was by a visitor from Morton. During the baptism service I actually got shivers, feeling the Holy Spirit was descending covering the sanctuary with holiness. Surely God was pleased to see over 800 people worshiping and praising our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Mom took Nancy home with her for a few hours. I picked her up at 4:30 and brought her to our house for supper then drove her home. Mark and I worked on the golf cart tonight and actually got it to take a charge so hopefully tomorrow it will run, wouldn't that be a miracle!
Diane and mom arrived on Diane's golf cart as I was feeding and gave me a ride back to the barn with the buckets then over to mom's where we sat on her deck rehashing the wonderful day.

Wonderful Day

We had a wonderful ending to our wonderful day. The day started overcast and warm and stayed overcast for most of today which helped keep the high temperatures cooler than predicted. Karin's youth group were up early, Mark and I walked over when Karin was cooking bacon over the fire for breakfast and helped ourselves to a couple of Krispy Creme donuts someone had so generously donated.
Emily and her company came for breakfast here and while we were eating we saw Karin taking a group out trail riding. Karin ended up taking 2 more groups out today then leaving some of the horses tacked up for Emily's company. Emily took her company, Leigha from Burn, KS and Risa from Morris, MN to see the foals. The mares were so glad to see Emily they all came up for attention.

Jewel was especially glad to have Emily home.

 When Karin's youth group got back, Leigha, and Risa took Sally and Missy out on the trails.

Mark picked Nic up and those 2 went out to string wire along the back of the big field.

When Leigha and Risa got back they switched horses, Leigha got on Jenis while Risa had Emily give her a lesson on Indy.

After that fun they took the horses swimming across the lake to help cool them off.

Brother Dan and Greg showed up to work on the golf cart.

But to my disappointment they were not able to diagnose the problem, oh how I miss that machine. 

Rhoda picked up Emily and took her for the night, Leigha and Risa swam for a bit in Diane's pond. Diane's company and Karin's company both left at the same time.

We left for church at 6:20 pm and walked in to noise, lots of happy voices all talking. Peoria had testimonies tonight and all 4 were so good to listen to. Each one talked and talked. They had us laughing and weeping. It was so good to be there. We just got home and are more than ready for bed.

Rain! A Wonderful Rain

No walk today it was just starting to sprinkle and then for the next few hours we got a softly falling ground soaking 4 tenths of an inch of so needed rain. The pastures will bounce back quickly now.
This morning Karin and I worked on the script for the August 16th show. Hope it will work, we will only be able to hold one practice before that day.
Today was a good day to drive to Pekin to visit  Big R and Aldi. I filled the car with beet pulp for horses and people groceries but when I arrived home it was raining enough that only the groceries were unloaded. When the rain stopped a few hours later the rest was unloaded and taken to the feed stall. With Emily out of commission with a broken wrist Karin stepped in to help get Jewel and Lola covered. Lola may be going out, she kicked at Valiant after the deed was done. When Mark got home from work we put the road grader on the Kubota and off he went grooming the miles of driveways.

The Methodist youth group from Mcquon was scheduled to arrive this evening for a camp out. Below are a few pictures of the evening.

Karin took 7 horses at a time and had to take numerous trips. I only got pictures of the first group out as it got too dark to get good pictures. They just finished up with the last group a little bit ago, we could see Cookie's white markings, the rest of the group faded into the darkness. She had a big group of over 20 people who came to camp and enjoy the facilities here. They enjoyed swimming, boating, horse back riding, hiking and cooking over the fire.