Rhiannon Sold

The deposit came today for Rhiannon. The lady that came on Saturday sent it by paypal. She has now been marked sold.

Rhiannon will be picked up in November. Her new owner is going to let her grow  up at a yearling barn then put into dressage training at 3 and combined training at 4 with the hopes of competing with her internationally. WOW!
Phil and Anna put in an offer for a house on 3 acres with a falling apart barn and 3 other outbuildings not in good repair but it is just down the road from us. The offer was accepted today. The house is small with only 1 bathroom. They will have to put in a pretty big addition  and pretty much tear down the barn but the location and land are great.
Sarah Reinhard rode with me last week to the goose ranch then rode home with Karin and wouldn't you know she shared with both of us her cold. The sneezing, coughing, achy feeling, can't breath cold. We have both been battling this for a few days. Last night was so bad Mark decided there was no way I should go to work today and pass this along. So Emily ran the crew today, when they left for lunch I drove in to start entering and printing the labels. When they got home from lunch Eva Jean took the studies and labels and will finish them at home. I worked the rest of the afternoon on processing the letters while Emily left to work on scraping paddocks and spreading manure.
When Mark came home from work tonight he worked on spreading manure. We would like to get the paddocks clean and manure spread before the predicted rain starts to fall tomorrow evening.
David brought Israel over for a couple hours tonight.

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

Rachel, Joan and Emily joined me for the walk today. I really need my mom!  Those ladies book it and by the second round I was so ready to quit and head down to work on the prisoner's studies. Once the studies were opened and entered I left to head home and start moving bales. Emily got her cast off today and now has a brace she must wear for 3 more weeks until the surgeon removes the pins.
So so thankful for this last week of no rain and enough heat and sunshine to dry the hay perfectly. We got 33 bales off the fields this cutting. These bales are high quality, fine stemmed grass/ alfalfa mix and our horses love it. Below Emily is driving the new truck hooked up to the new flat bed trailer loaded down with 8 bales heading back to the barn.

With each load I followed with the skid steer also bringing back a bale. We worked all afternoon but what a great feeling now that it is done. We have 128 big bales in the barn and 66 bales at Middle Grove. That should get us through the winter. Emily gave Eliza a bath today and braided up her mane and forelock. Eliza will be heading to Middle Grove on Wednesday and we want to try to keep the burrs out of her hair. Her filly Tryn, needs to be weaned as she is getting picked up on Saturday. Tryn got her mane, tail and leg feather brushed today as she was sporting burrs on each one of her legs. She tolerated the beauty treatment well. They were turned out with Jenis and Indy. The picture below is Valiant. It just looked so funny seeing him upside down. This should be titled, "I've fallen and can't get up".

Burglar

What seemed to happen in the middle of the night was this: We were sound asleep in our little bedroom off the kitchen. We hear the door open and someone step into the kitchen. Both dogs jumped up barking and started running for the kitchen. We hear steps going out and the door shuts. Mark mentions, those dogs are worth what we pay in dog food all the while wondering who on earth would come in for a few seconds then leave quickly. We weren't worried enough to get out of bed though. So this morning we find out the real story. Yes we had a burglar but the only thing missing was the ice cream in our freezer. Sarah (our daughter) admitted to coming in to borrow the ice cream at 9:30 pm, it just seemed like the middle of the night. We really were that tired.
What an absolutely wonderful day in our Peoria church. Craig Stickling had the morning service and Ken Hoerr had the afternoon. Words are not enough to explain what a huge blessing it is to be worshiping with our beloved fellow believers.
Phil, Anna,  Braelyn, Taegan, Sarah, Rhoda, Lee and Emily joined us for Sunday dinner arriving while we were out working on Valiant's pasture. The gate had come off the hinge and it had to be repaired before Valiant discovered the weak spot. He was put in the pasture so we could move a round bale.  I had the camera with me when he was put out. He always puts on a show.

After supper Mark moved in one of the new round bales in for Valiant. The farmer got one field baled when the baler broke down. He is going to come tomorrow to finish up the other field. The hay is excellent, there are 22 bales on the big field and we will probably get 5 or 6 off the other. No rain is predicted so we didn't spend our day of rest moving them inside. The middle paddock also got a bale but we gave those horses one of our first cutting. They are all fat riding mares, none of them pregnant so they don't need the better stuff.
Karin has been hired by the Giant Goose Ranch to provide horses for next Saturday. They want trail rides and pony rides. We will need to use both trucks and trailers to get them there. We will also need to pick up a few more horses from Middle Grove which means more burrs to remove. Good thing I ordered another case of cowboy magic!

Busy Saturday

Mark started the day early first grooming all the driveways out here. Working on those until breakfast.

 We took the scraper off and put the log splitter on the tractor after breakfast. Mark drove in to Pekin to pick up Nick his helper for the day. They worked on splitting and stacking the wood for over 5 hours.

The lady coming all the way from California was suppose to arrive around 10:00 am to see Rhiannon. The trail riders started showing up just after 8:00 am giving us plenty of time to groom the 5 horses that were going to be used.

They rode the 'death trails' successfully, no one fell off although at one point Tess riding Cookie was hanging off the side after she jumped a log. She was able to pull herself back up, then when Karin asked her if she was ok, she said, "of course I'm fine,  I wasn't going to fall off, I'm a vaulter!"

 Rebekah riding Jenis and Anni riding Indy had a race to the finish. Of course Jenis won.

While they were out riding, Rebecca, the lady arrived to see Rhiannon just about the same time the farmer arrived to start raking the field. Rhiannon was sure that big machine was a monster. She actually did ok, we took her out to the arena and let her run then brought Promise out with her to see if they would show off a bit. Rebecca said she wants her and said she would send the deposit on the 30th when she arrives at her new home in Maryland. I won't mark Rhiannon sold though until we actually do get a deposit down. Too many times I've held a horse on a promise and lived to regret it. 

Phil and Anna dropped off Braelyn and Taegan just as the trail riders finished up so of course those girls got pony rides. 

 Can you tell Braelyn is pretty thrilled to be up on Cookie? 

Taegan was pretty happy with the ride too.

After everyone left I loaded up Promise and Rhiannon and drove them to Middle Grove. The horses were glad to see them come back. Below is Promise greeting her mother Sangria with baby talk.

I spent some time removing burrs but it is a losing battle. Once the horses were moved to the old Middle Grove land within minutes had burrs in their manes and tails. Below are a few pictures of the evening. 

 Above is Soul's colt Mike is calling Ripper. Below is Hadassah

 Above is Ella's colt named Titan and below is Sheen and Sangria drowsing away the evening. 

The rest of the pictures were placed on the Horsemeister Inc Facebook page. Mark has already crashed and I'm looking forward to bed too. This was a long busy day. 

3 For 3 Pregnant

Emily and I hauled 3 mares in this morning for sonagrams and all three are pregnant. Hadassah was bred to Evan and is due Aug 11th, 2015,

Soul was bred to Chery Thompson's big PRE Andalusian stallion Neo and she is due Aug 16th, 2015

 while Lola was bred to Valiant due Aug 18th, 2015. Below Lola and Magnum are waiting patiently for Dr. Hoerr to do the ultrasound.

As soon as we got back to the farm we loaded up Soul's colt then Emily took those three mares and 2 colts to Middle Grove and picked up Missy for the scheduled trail ride tomorrow.

I headed in to Meister's to work on getting the Bibles out for the week. We had over 200 request and couldn't fill them on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as they came in too late on Thursday to get much done. By 2:00 pm I had over 200 wrapped, stamped and labeled Bibles loaded into the car for the trip to the post office. On the way home I stopped at the store to pick up the ingredients to make party potatoes for potluck tonight. We were invited to Harry and Loretta Eisenmann's for rotating potluck. 

The meal was delicious the fellowship was great and the evening flew by. 

Just Like Winning

Today was a win win day all around. Mark helped unload the new round pen from the stock trailer Eva Jean and I worked until 11:30 then went to lunch. Since there were still no Bibles to mail she was sent home. Right after she left the Skyline home found 10 boxes of Bibles that had been wrapped but not returned. Mark picked those up for us and not even 10 minutes after we had finished unloading and stacking them in the office, Tim Martin showed up with 28 more boxes. I stayed just a bit longer then had to leave to meet Karin at Honegger Law office, she was bringing Emma home on her way to the Bloomington Airport.  We will not know if Emma got pregnant or not from her visit with Rick James for 45 days, no one ever saw them tie but it may have happened during the night.  We are hoping for the best.
Emily spent the morning helping Tim Reinhard pick up heavy equipment from World Relief in Fairbury for the demolishing of the Old School Center. She drove Tim's car here but needed to drop it off at the Old School Center this afternoon. That worked out well with my plans of dropping off Ella and Titan and bringing home Rhiannon. We have a lady coming all the way from California to see her tomorrow.

By the time I got back with Emma, Emily had already loaded Ella and her colt Titan into the stock trailer. Emily drove Tim's car to the school and I followed her with the truck and trailer, it is on the way to Middle Grove. We never know when we head out there if we will be walking for hours looking for the herd. By the time I had the trailer backed up to the gate the entire herd had come running up to see who we brought back. Missy was the first to make it up, she loves the foals so much that we may consider breeding her this fall. She would love to be a mom. We always thought  Missy was too ugly to breed but maybe the foal would look more like the dad. What do you think? Missy is a blue roan in color and has that big unflattering blaze down her face. Think she could have a cute foal?

Cookie, Bunni, Rhiannon and Promise were all loaded into the trailer like clock work and off we went for home. Cookie and Bunni will be used for a trail ride here on Saturday. Those 2 were put in the Middle Paddock while Promise and Rhiannon were stalled so I could get the burrs out of their manes and tails again.Both stood well for grooming, Promise even lowered her head so I could work on her forelock. What good girls these yearlings are.
Mark worked late tonight at Meister's using the Kubota and scraper to level the lower parking lot. He came home frustrated that the Kubota gets such good gas mileage. He wanted to quit a lot sooner. That tractor is amazing.

Teasing

I was suppose to leave the house this morning at 5:55 am to pick up Israel and just as I was getting ready to get into the car a text came through that Israel was sick and Stephanie would be staying home with him. After the walk, the golf cart was used this morning to bring Soul and her colt over from the cabin field to the stallions for teasing.

She would not show for Valiant then she was taken over to visit Evan. It has been 19 days since she was covered by Neo de la Luz, Chery Thompson's big PRE Andalusian stallion, and thankfully she said no to both stallions. Her ultrasound is scheduled for Friday morning. Neo is pictured below:

Sure praying she settled, that foal will be amazing. It will for sure have a lot of hair. Both sire and dam have a tremendous amount of mane and tail.  As the day was free, I drove in to Meisters to process the letters and make copies. Eleven thousand copies were made today, 11,000 and we are still not done. The copy machine worked perfectly. Almost 160 Bible labels were printed, tomorrow we are suppose to get in a shipment of Bibles, if they come those will be mailed out.
Mom is at her Gulf Shores, Alabama condo on the beach but a little distressed. Her condo was robbed! Among the things taken were lampshades, the pictures off the walls, the clock radios and worst of all every one of her boogie boards. She is trying to make a lists of everything missing and is suppose to meet with the company that rents out her unit. Why the cleaners didn't report this after the renters left is a mystery.
Mark got home a bit late from work bringing the big truck and new trailer as they are going to haul the tractor and scraper in to the shop tomorrow. We had about 10 minutes to get ready for church after scarfing down a few bites of supper. Tim Funk had the service, opening to Genesis 6 where Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, the St. John 6, the feeding of the 5000.

Mail

It looks like our workers are wounded workers with their matching right arm problem. Check out the mail to Eva Jean's left, those were the studies and letters that came in today and for some reason Emily and Eva Jean have to come in handicapped. We had a good crew today and got all the studies done and the letters read but we have no Bibles to send out this week. They were ordered last month but just haven't come in. 

Karin called to report the training at Middle Grove went wonderful. Every horse responded very well. She is teaching Serenity to bow and even Whitney was just about perfect.  They are scheduling a trail ride this weekend at Jubilee and I need to bring Rhiannon in from Middle Grove as there is someone coming from California to see her on Saturday so I may as well take Ella and her colt back out and bring back Rhiannon, Bunni and Cookie on Friday. 

Mark came home and worked on scraping the driveways. He skipped choir since the weather was great for working outside he got all of the driveways here done and then drove over to the neighbors to work on his. 

We had a very good choir practice tonight working on 8 or 9 new songs. I'm heading to bed, I have to be on the road before 6:00 am tomorrow to pick up Israel for the day.

Emma & Rick James

Rhoda and I left early this morning driving the big new truck about 20 miles south of Indianapolis to pick up a big new flatbed trailer for Meister Electric and Meister Heating. We made good time both ways, just running into a bit of traffic around Indianapolis. We dropped off the truck and trailer at the shop, jumped in the car and drove to the farm with just enough time to put Emma in the car and drive to my nephew Tom and Tarah's house.

They have 2 of the cutest boys, both look just like Tom use to look when he was that age. 

Tom owns Rick James. Check out this big boy below. Rick James is a purebred English Mastiff.

He also happens to be Emma's intended. Hopefully this will be the second honeymoon for Rick and Emma. She said "no" tonight but we have hopes she will be receptive tomorrow. Notice how much bigger he is then Emma.

He pretty much towers over her and probably weighs 25 to 30 pounds more than her delicate 170 pounds. 

If all goes well we should  have puppies around November 26th, 2014. 

Church Vehicle

The picture below is Emily, Jessica Sauder and Anni Davidovics heading to church and not Peoria Church. They drove this rig to the Goodfield church. I'm sure everyone is wondering why those 3 gorgeous girls would show up to a young group invite in a truck and trailer. 

The answer is this, they were doing it as a favor to me. On the way home from the Goodfield church they pass the new Morton Farm and Fleet. The round pen we bought and paid for on Friday needed to be picked up today before 6:00 pm and those girls were more than willing to do this. The Goodfield church and fellowship hall share a big parking lot so they were sure it wouldn't be a problem and they took the new truck which doesn't have any Horsemeister stickers on it yet so no one would know who showed  up in it anyway. Mom is on her way to Gulf Shores, AL with Rachel and David. She called to say good-by and it was a good thing she did. I forgot they were leaving and would have wondered where she was at 9:10 am when it was time to leave for church.
We had a wonderful day in Peoria. Tim Roecker had the morning service, Bill  Schick was in town and had the afternoon service. After the second service the Bible class got up and sang for us. It was so beautiful all of us on our bench got goose bumps.I very sneakily snapped the picture below with my cell phone camera.  I'm asking forgiveness instead of permission at this point. Sorry if I've offended anyone but those beautiful children are our future church. Dean Ramseyer led the singing and we were amazed at the sound. The benches up in front are empty because that's where they were sitting during the service. They filled the entire front benches all the way the way to the song leaders bench.

After church David, Stephanie, Israel, Phil, Anna, Braelyn, Taegan, Sarah and Emily joined us for supper. Our dessert tonight came from Jenni Moser. She gave us the best brownies any of us have ever tasted. She said it was her secret recipe but it was so good I'm hoping she will share the secret. The weather was perfect for pony rides so I took the girls out to ride Ella. She was well behaved but her colt wasn't. He was having a ball galloping around the yard. The evening was spent visiting while the girls played quietly on Emma's bed. Israel isn't feeling well or he would have been right down there with them.

Diane and Mike went to Middle Grove after church and took a 3 hour trail ride. Mike rode Mika while Diane rode Bunni. What was interesting about this trail ride was they rode for 3 hours exploring the property and still didn't see everything. That place is so big they never went on the same trail twice. 

Horsemeister Provides the Horses for and episode of Lake Life on Television

Karin, Sarah Reinhard and I started bathing horses at 8:00 am scrubbing and cleaning Lola and Ella's white legs and white spots. After an hour using shampoo and baking soda we quit, loaded up the horses going which were Jenis, Indy, Lola, Ella and the 2 colts into the big trailer. We arrived at the Goose Ranch around 9:40 and headed straight to the Tee Pee Village. When we opened the back of the trailer we were disappointed to see someone had manured and Lola now had some new green spots on her very white legs.

 The horses were taken right to the newly built corral and it didn't take long for them to attract the Herman grand children. These horses make the best baby sitters. The girls were happy just to be sitting on them while the adults frantically worked cleaning up any construction mess and getting the village ready for the grand revealing.

 Below are Sarah and Hannah Reinhard getting into their Indian costumes. They were the riders for the Indian ponies, Lola and Ella.

 The couple below were the couple to be surprised with the grand Revealing. They rode the Friesians while their 2 children were to ride double with Sarah and Hannah on Lola and Ella.

Jenis and Indy were led down to the village by Nate and Justin. They were put in the corral after the couple dismounted and promptly walked right through the lead rope taking down part of the fence. Those 2 mares were brought back up to where the rest of the group were waiting giving the parents of the couple a perfect ride down to the village when we were finally called. 

The rest of the filming went well. Everyone was very impressed with the tee pees, the fire pits, the archery range. I'm not posting any pictures of the inside of the tee pees. If you want to see how amazing these were you will have to watch the show. It is suppose to be aired in the spring.
As soon as we got back from Canton Mark and I needed to move a round bale in for Killian and Hadassah and unhook the truck from the trailer. We were almost finished with that when Will and Jenni Moser arrived to pick up Isabella and her colt. They brought along Isabella's full brother and I regret not getting a picture of that boy, he is HUGE! He looks so much like his daddy, Raven. After they left Mark got the mower off the Kubota and the scraper attached and did a quick run through on the driveways. We had a little rain here so it was perfect timing.