Marika's Filly SOLD

Mark had to leave by 6:30 am to turn on the air conditioning at church, the remote wireless stuff he usually does at home was not working. He got it going then drove home to pick me up. Mom went with Ruth as she and Fede were serving lunch today. I didn't want to go in early as I had Hadassah and Twilight stalled. They needed to be fed and watered and the stalls cleaned.
David Obergfel had the morning service and Tim Funk had the afternoon. I had to leave church a bit early as we had someone coming at 2:00 pm to look at Marika's filly by Evan.

We got home about 1:45 pm and I just had enough time to change out of my Sunday clothes, head over to the cabin field and bring Marika and her filly over to the barn. Marika was a little muddy and both were hot so they were both sprayed off then stalled. The customers arrived 5 minutes early and it didn't take long before they decided to buy her. They wanted to see her sire so Evan was brought out and let loose in the outdoor arena where he promptly showed off a bit then did his tricks. After the paper work was done I was telling them they could bring the filly back at age 3 for a reduced stud fee to Valiant and that meant another trip over to Valiant's pasture so they could meet him. Not to brag or anything but he was SO impressive. He came galloping up to us, slammed on the breaks and stuck his head into my arms for petting.
Most of the family ended up down at the river front to hear the band OutHear play then our kids met at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner finishing up at Phil and Anna's for games. Rachel invited the young group to the lake for a cook out and Mark and I ended up over at the playground to watch the volley ball and visit with the adults. It was another long but good day.

IT's a Girl

Piper's owner called early this morning to report she had a beautiful filly by Evan. She was kind enough to email the picture below.

Piper is a 4 year old Raven daughter out of Sanna. Sanna was always our go to girl for parades, shows, and horse fairs. She was a big girl of 16.2 hands with extreme feather. The picture below is Sanna and Piper when she was about 2 months old and now Piper is a mother herself. My how time flies!

Piper lives in Alabama and is also a BIG girl, probably close to 17 hands now.
Jewel and Treasure were brought over from the cabin and given baths today. We had a couple ladies come to check out Treasure and of course we had to take her to the outdoor arena to show off her amazing movement. She was also given a tying lesson and hoof picking up. She is not just a gorgeous, she is also very smart, learning quickly to stand quietly when asked. While they were there admiring all the horses, Valiant was let into the pasture from his field. He ran and bucked and ran some more showing off for the company.
Karin arrived to work with Serenity, when she got her out of the paddock Hadassah and Twilight were taken out and stalled, then Hadassah covered by Evan. They will be left in the stall for the night then Hadassah covered tomorrow afternoon again if she is still in. Serenity did wonderful. Karin introduced the bridle. The mare had some bucking issues with bit pressure but learned to give with her neck which was exactly what Karin was wanting. She is very pleased with her progress. Serenity and Jenis were let out into the pond pasture to get out of the mud. We have had 3 and a half inches of rain in the last 4 days and everything is soaked.
Mark drove to Peoria and picked up Nick to help him for the afternoon. They worked on fencing and tearing the siding off the house. The house needs new siding and we need better insulation. Last winter was brutal. Later this evening mom called in a panic. She went downstairs to clean the bathroom and water was spraying out her storage room ceiling soaking everything. Luckily Fede was home and came to the rescue. David Sauder arrived to help fix the problem which was rusted out fittings. Thank goodness for family.

Trip Tours

Hadassah was covered this morning before the walk. We got just over an inch of rain last night and the paddocks are sloppy with mud. I was pleased not only was she easy to catch, I didn't have to get muddy bringing her out. After the walk Stacy and Ken, our Colorado company, were picked up for the Norris/GooseRanch tour. Mom decided to come with us and brought Miss Molly along for the ride. Our first stop was Norris were we took them across the lake to see the floating volcano man cave.

It is shocking how big the fish are in this lake in the sky. Stacy and Ken fed the fish first inside then outside on the deck. We left there taking the short cut arriving 15 minutes later at the Giant Goose Ranch. Beth arrived with the gator and gave us the grand tour of the property and a few of the cabins.

We ran into Nate installing a fish feeder on one of the new cabin docks and Stacy just had to go shake his hand. Both she and her husband Ken were amazed at the vision of these Herman boys.

After the grand tour they were given a choice, we could head back to the farm to take a riding lesson from Rhoda on Jenis OR head back to Norris and fish a bit. I cant believe they chose fishing over riding Jenis!! But Stacy rationalized it by Ken watched her yesterday ride Jenis so she should let him have some fun too. Well it wasn't just Ken that had a blast. Stacy threw the first line in and within 1 second was pulling up a decent sized bass.

We left mom and Molly at that dock and headed over to the floating man cave to try for some big ones.

Stacy again pulled in the first fish and this one was a fighter, she fought this fish for 10 or 15 minutes before it tired out enough for Ken to pull it out of the water.

That fish was about as round as it was long and seemed to be all muscle. Then it was Ken's turn. He got one huge one on deep, so deep we never did see what kind of fish it was, the line broke before Ken even got it up to the surface. He was able to land this huge striper fighting it for around 10 minutes. This one was jumping out of the water during the fight.

This fish was even bigger than the bass Stacy caught, it too was almost as fat and round as long. All the fish were released back but Stacy made the comment that fish would have fed 10 people! All good things must come to an end so poles were put away and off we drove for home making a stop at BEES for a late lunch. When we arrived back mom showed them the LakeLife television show of how the volcano man cave was built then they packed up their bags and left for St. Louis as they fly out tomorrow morning for home. 

Mark came home an hour early and went out to mow the second pasture but a storm rolled in right after he started and quickly dumped another quarter inch of rain causing Mark to come in dripping wet. Ralph and Jamie arrived for a short visit and when they left for home another storm is building with the rumble of thunder coming closer. 

Colorado Company

Right after the walk I left for Meisters to work with Eva Jean and Diane on Prison ministry work. We had a light day and was home before noon. Stacy and her husband Ken arrived last night and after spending the night at the cabin Stacy came over to the barn for a riding lesson from Rhoda on Jenis. By the time I arrived home from work we were ready to give Lola's colt (Magnum) a iodine bath but first he got his very first haltering and tying lesson. He did very well. He did reasonably well on his bath too, getting scrubbed down then rinsed off and healing salve applied to his itchy spots.
After lunch we drove out to Middle Grove to find the herd.

Whitney and Oksana were the first to greet us. Below Ken is just amazed at Whitney's hooves and is pointing them out to Stacy.

Oksana followed him around like a puppy dog so glad to see someone new for once. Below is Eliza, Zalena, Tryn and Indy all gathered together swishing flies off each other. Eliza will need to come back next week when I bring Ayanna and Violet home. Eliza has lost some weight and will need grain.

Below Violet and Ella's colt are playing together. She started walking away and he reached down to pull her tail. He is such a clown and has real personality. This boy is going to be a star someday.

Looks as if she is saying, "ha ha that didn't hurt at all."

Speaking of Violet she came right up for attention and let us handle her all over and pick up her hooves. Below she is meeting Stacy.

She is just a gorgeous filly and so friendly. She is going to be someone's dream come true. She has the Friesian feather, the Friesian neck, the Friesian movement and best of all the Friesian disposition. 

We hiked back to the car and drove over to the cottage then in to Peoria to visit the old home place and Bridlewood. Stacy and Ken were heading in to Peoria to go out for supper. Mark came home early and worked on stringing wire on the fenceline then mowing the pasture but had to quit as a storm came rolling in. We got around an inch of rain. Karin was out working the horses at Middle Grove when the storm started rumbling from the west. She only got a few mares worked it was a long walk back to get to the car before the rain came pounding down. We noticed when we were out there that Cheyenne was limping on a front leg. Karin checked it out and said it was more than likely a stone bruise as Cheyenne's hooves were pretty short. She felt it was nothing to worry about. Bonnie was one of the mares that she was able to work in her short amount of time and called very pleased with Bonnie. This pony is for sale and I can't believe someone hasn't snatched her up. She is flashy, smart, trick trained, rides and drives. 

She would make a teen a great project pony for resale. Check her out on the website then if at all interested make us an offer, we won't be insulted, we just don't need a pony!

Hadassah In

Today the weather moderated a little, perfect timing for getting the stalls cleaned, the barn swept, the cobwebs removed, the feed stall straightened and tack organized. Of course by the time that was done I was dripping wet. Emily was busy mowing and spraying weeds. She helped move in 2 bales, one in the cabin field and one in Killian's paddock. Evan will need one soon. Hadassah showed today and was covered by Evan.

We took a late lunch break and drove in to TSC picking up a 50 pound salt block and a couple bags of grain and unloaded the grain right into the metal garbage cans. The feed stall has been home to a mouse family, I think we may need to take Emily up on a cat or 2, it is that or bring out the poison and I hate dealing with poison. Just reinforces that all feed must be stored in mice proof containers. The salt block was taken over to the cabin field. I really wanted to buy a few of them but TSC only had 1 out. Evan's paddock also needs a new block.
Just before supper Lola and her colt were brought over for a bath then stalled. The colt's owner flew in this evening from Colorado to visit him. She will be staying in the cabin with her husband. Diane spent the morning cleaning the cabin and she even got all the smear marks off the windows from the horses looking in.  Wouldn't you know the colt is having a skin reaction to a weed. Actually we found out it is from  him rubbing on a pine tree. The sap can cause what looks like poison ivy on a horse. It is raised, bumpy and weepy.  He was good for his bath but tomorrow will need to be scrubbed down with an iodine shampoo.
Mark drove to church tonight and we arrived early. Tonight was great, the ICC/Bradley young group joined us. We are always thrilled when they come and fill all the front benches. Tim Roecker had the service.

Miss Molly Meets Her Husband

We had a great crew today working at Berean Prison Ministry. I took 148 Bibles down to the post office this morning and Diane took probably another 120 this afternoon. All of the lessons were processed and are now ready to take to church for grading. We even had time to get the postage on each of the envelopes so once they are graded they can just be dropped in the mail. Diane, Eva Jean and I were joined by Kathy and Dave Obergfel, Shirley Triplett, Emily and her sister Laura and Rhoda. By 11:30 we had finished all the studies and had all the letters read so were joined by Spark and Mark and took off for a lunch  break at Denny's. After lunch Diane and I stayed to finish entering all the Bible requests, print out the labels, and load the boxes into Diane's van. If we had another computer set up we would have been even more efficient so that's what Diane worked on after she dropped off the second load at the post office. She drove to Andrew's Neon Creation shop and picked up a flat screen monitor for the second computer. Now we need to get Philip to hook it up to our printer and link it to our study program.
Mom and Rachel took Miss Molly to Bloomington, IL and while they were there Miss Molly fell in love and got married. She and her just met very handsome husband, a purebred registered Shih Tzu, tied the knot. Hopefully in 63 days she will have adorable purebred Shih Tzu puppies.
It was another hot humid day, still to hot to work horses so after grocery shopping what was left of the afternoon was spent reading. Gail Hodel dropped off another sack full of books.
Emily's company from Friday sent these next few pictures taken when they were out visiting Middle Grove. Below is one of her friends riding Ella bareback and bridle-less.

 Above Sangria and her filly Promise come over to Emily for some attention and below is some of the herd lounging around in the sun at the gathering place.

Below is Zalena in front of Ayanna and her filly Violet.

They also rode while here in Hanna City. Below is one of them riding Jenis in the indoor.

Well I no longer own a snow cone machine. We have not used that machine for a couple of years, the Skyline home and the Roanoke home are the ones that borrow it the most so we decided we may as well donate it to Skyline and they can lend it out instead of us. I have a couple gallons of snow cone syrup I should send to them. Mark brought home the cotton candy machine last night after the Home board meeting. 

97 Degrees

Summer finally arrived these last few days, we awoke to all of our windows fogged up on the outside as the low was 78 degrees. The high today reached 96 degrees. It was much too hot to work horses, it isn't just the high temperatures it is also the extremely high humidity that makes stepping outside feel like one is stepping into a hot sauna. Joan was able to go on the walk then left for Haiti at 9:00 am but this time we know it won't be more than a couple weeks and she will be home with her youngest 3 children. All the lake people out here decided to have Funday Monday and spend the day floating around on the lake. There is no vaulting, Ribbon is having her vacation at Middle Grove.
I drove to TEMCO to pick up the Berean mail and cousin Ellen gave me a card with the names Chris and Judy with an address in North Carolina and 2 phone numbers. Ellen asked me if I knew anything about it. We thought maybe it was a chaplain as we send Bibles to different prisons there. When I got down to Meisters I called first the cell phone which was not accepting voice mail then the home phone and left a message if they were calling about Bibles to call me back with my number. Then it was time to get to work on the studies and Bibles. My car is now loaded with 148 Bibles all ready to be mailed first thing tomorrow. Emily and her sister Laura helped get them all stamped and loaded. Mark had a Skyline board meeting tonight so supper was an easy meal. This evening the phone rang and the person on the other end said, "this is Judy Meister from North Carolina, did you call here? Of course I responded, "I'm Judy Meister!" Turns out her husband is a second cousin.
I can't end this post without a horse picture or two.

 Above is Rhoda on a gelding named Dakota and below is Sarah on Patsy. Both of these horses are no longer alive. Patsy died of a rare blood disorder way before her time and Dakota was sent out to the east coast where he lived a good long life before dying of old age. Time sure does fly. 

Logan, Maddie, Shelby, Hannah, Jacob and Clayton

 We celebrated the baptism of Rachel's son Logan, Joan's daughter Hannah, Cheryl's son Clayton, Robin's son, Jacob, Lisa's daughter Maddie and Craig & Jackie's friend Shelby this afternoon.
The Peoria church was filled today. Tim's brother Fred had the morning service and the Bluffton Elder had the afternoon service. It seemed no one wanted to leave the wonderful fellowship of fellow believers. We finally made it home just after 4:00 pm. When we walked outside our very comfortable climate controlled church building we were hit with a blast of heat, the temperature was reading 95 degrees with high humidity.
The weekend was exhausting but such a blessing. We are a most blessed people.

Don't Rain on Hannah's Parade

Karin and I started bathing and combing the manes and tails of Ribbon, Eliza, Tryn, Indy, and, Jenis to prepare for the Hanna City parade. It was hot, very hot and humid with lots of mud from all the rain in the past few days. We were both pretty muddy by the time the horses were clean. There is just something wrong with this picture of clean horses and filthy owners. With Hannah's testimony tonight and baptism scheduled for tomorrow Joan had lots of company coming from all over including Haiti. Every house on the compound has company tonight, even Rachel's studio is packed with people, but this gave us incentive to get done and cleaned up quickly. Everything this morning went like clock work, Karin and her riders left the farm with a full trailer of horses and riders 2 minutes early, stopped at an abandoned gas station to unload and tack up the horses then arrived at the bank right at 9:30 am. The parade was a lot of fun, the vaulters and Friesians were the grand finale of the parade. After the parade was over, one of Joan's guest's sons said to his mom, "I can't believe they had a parade for Hannah's baptism." Yes this really is a small town but maybe not that small. Below are a few pictures of the fun.

I actually took more and more will be uploaded another day, this day is just about gone.
The man coming to pick up Zalena's colt was suppose to arrive at noon but at 9:00 am I was notified they were an hour and a half out. The parade didn't start until 10:00 am so as soon as the last fire engine was past Sarah gave me a ride to my car and off I drove to the farm. The men were already there admiring their colt. It was a good thing they showed up early a huge storm was coming in so they loaded and left. The horses that were used in the parade made it back before the storm hit. All went so smooth this morning. After the storm passed Eliza, her filly, Whitney, Ribbon and Indy were hauled out to Middle Grove. When I got back from there we went straight over to Joan and Tim's for Bethany's graduation party and from there we came home to get ready for the testimonies at church leaving the house here at 6:15 pm. There were 4 that gave their testimony and I cannot begin to say how wonderful it was to listen. Words are not enough sometimes. The 2 and a half hours listening just flew by, with the church weeping and chuckling along with the each convert as they told their story. What an awesome awesome evening, to hear over and over of the depths of despair to the wonder of salvation through the blood of Jesus.  The bed is going to feel good tonight!

Perfect?

A couple really nice emails came in, the first one from Jamie who is showing and winning with her Raven x Paris daughter Myrrhcedes. She writes: What a perfect Raven Daughter!!!!

and the second came from Dee who owns a Raven x Jenis daughter now 2 years old. Dee writes: Judy,

     Just thought you might like an Olympia update. She is doing awesome. CJ has done alot of work with her and I can't wait till we can start breaking her. She is just the nicest girl and so smart. I hope all is well with you. Have a great Friday! 

Dee

How wonderful for us not just to hear about them but to see pictures too. Thanks so much Jamie and Dee!

Both girls are lovely.

We woke up to a thunder crack so loud it was obvious something had been hit by lightning close by. Yep, Joan and Tim's transformer got hit by lightning and they lost all electricity. Joan arrived from Haiti around midnight. She is just here for Hannah's testimony and baptism then heading back to Haiti until the paper work is finished to bring her youngest 2 children home to the states.  It rained most of the morning giving us a little more than an inch. I drove in to Meister's and finished entering the letters and getting 10 boxes of Bibles out. By the time I got back Emily was just ready to load up Zalena, Ayanna and Violet for their trip to Middle Grove. Zalena's colt was left in a stall. He is getting picked up by his new owner on Saturday. 

Emily had 2 girls stay the night and she was going to let them ride Jenis and Ribbon. Karin brought Ribbon out for some of Joan's company. Emily brought back Indy, Marika and Marika's filly. It is so hot and humid outside that outside work has been suspended. Emily took her company down to Meister's and loaded up 30 boxes of Bibles into her truck. The young group from Forrest and Fairbury are going to prepare them for mailing as a work project. She said usually around 70-80 show up to help. 

Mark helped unhook the stock trailer and hook up the big trailer for the parade tomorrow. We noticed mom's car parked up at the barn but didn't see her, turned out she was picking tomatoes for the graduation party Joan is holding tomorrow afternoon for Bethany. Karin will be driving the truck and trailer to Hanna City for the parade and they are taking 5 horses. Ribbon, Eliza, Tryn, Indy and Jenis. The vaulting team will be performing on Ribbon and we have 3 riders for the Friesians. 

New Berean Worker

Hopefully we didn't run her off after today but we were thrilled to have Shirley Triplett join us today to process the Berean mail. We actually had a light day able to process the studies and most of the Bible requests. We still need to make copies, Diane worked on that until she had to leave at 10:30 am. Stephanie brought Israel down at 11:30 am and of course work stopped while we played with him a bit. We ended taking him, Spark, Eva Jean, Shirley and I to Denny's for lunch then Spark drove the ladies back to the shop while I took Israel home with me where he played with Emma until time to take his nap.

 Emma was gazing up at me as if to say, "really now, don't you think it is time to put him to bed?"

He soon found a shoe to try on.

David arrived to pick him up about the same time Phil arrived to pick up his girls. Emily had them over at mom's swimming. Braelyn was trying her hardest to catch a pet frog while Taegan just swims and swims.  I missed getting pictures of them since Israel was down for a nap. 

Emily got the mowers hooked up to both Kubota tractors, the big one was used to mow the trails around the fields while the small one will be used to mow down weeds in the paddocks. 

The owner of Zalena's colt is going to come now on Saturday to pick him up, Zalena will have to be moved to Middle Grove tomorrow and will have to miss the parade. Emily has 2 friends over and planned on taking them to see Middle Grove and is willing to drive the truck and trailer out to take Jewel and Ayanna with their fillies out and bring back Indy and Marika. Indy will be used for the parade instead of Zalena and I have someone coming to look at Marika's filly a week from Sunday.