Home from the Hospital

Brother John was released today from the hospital making it home by 5:00 pm. This is hard to believe, he had a major heart attack and in the not so far distant past would have had to have open heart surgery if he survived the trip to the hospital. Instead he was flown to St. Francis and a few minutes later his blocked arteries were open and stents put in. The next couple days spent in ICU and then home!
Emily had therapy on her arm then spent the rest of the day finishing the paddocks and spreading the rest of the manure. Every paddock is done and looks great. A couple of Lisa Waibel's kids came over for a trail ride late this afternoon so Missy and Cookie were saddled up and ridden to Ruth's house but on the way Missy kind of tripped coming down a hill and now has a bowed tendon. She will be off for months and is our very best trail horse. Poor Missy.

Mountains of Lime

Mark had to shovel out the manure spreader and install a new chain but it is now fixed. Today was a cold damp drizzly day but a productive one all the way around. Phil, Anna, Rhoda and Anna's brother Austin worked on their new house removing all the tile from the basement and painting walls. Emily watched baby Kensley in the morning while Diane, I, Hannah Reinhard, Maddie and Terran Waibel worked at Meister's. We were very pleased with everything done today. It is amazing how much can be accomplished in 3 short hours with willing hard workers. I arrived home to take over watching the girls while Emily worked on putting our piles of lime into the paddocks. Below was the truck that delivered 2 loads. Emily worked until 4:00 pm finishing all of the paddocks then left to help Mike on fencing at Middle Grove. She is going to be one tired girl tonight.

 Meanwhile I got to play with these 3 little girls. Don't they just look like angels? They were really good today. All three took a nap at the same time!

Issues of the Heart

Today sure didn't go as planned. Just as I sat down for breakfast a text came in that my brother John had a heart attack and was life flighted to St. Francis. With no other news we made our way to St. Francis as quickly as possible arriving just as the life flight attendants were coming down the hall after dropping John off. They reassured us that John was rushed right to the cardiac room for an angioplasty to open a blocked artery. We had a long walk to the waiting room where Beth, John's wife told us what had happened. She was babysitting with her grandson Jackson and went down to the barn where John was. She said he looked terrible. She was going to take him to the hospital when he told her he wasn't going to make it. She called for an ambulance, when they arrived they were going to take him to Graham hospital then told Beth, "we are going to have to call life flight, he is not going to make it." Life flight arrived very quickly and it seemed within minutes he was getting the help he needed.
Later John told Spark he was throwing a bale of hay down for the cows when he felt a tremendous pain going from his chest to his back. At first he thought he threw his back out and tried to do a chin up to pop it back in place but quickly realized he was in big trouble. About that time Beth arrived and called for the ambulance.
The cardiac doctor was able to put 2 stents in the artery that was blocked. This artery is called the widow maker and just happens to be the same artery that Spark had blocked.
Beth has called with some updates, they know there is some muscle damage but do not know if it is permanent and are hopeful since help arrived very quickly that the heart muscle can heal. At one point John was given blood pressure medicine and his pressure dropped too low. He is sore but feeling much better. He will spend the next 3 days in St. Francis and is in room 529.
Life can be so fragile.

Broken Gift

While mom, Diane, Shirley, Eva Jean, Rhoda, Dave, and 2 of Lisa's boys and I were busy at work at Berean Emily was running the manure spreader. You know that nice shiny gift Mark gave me a couple of years ago for our anniversary, that real pretty one. Emily was cleaning out the paddocks with the skid steer, loading it directly into the manure spreader and spreading it as soon as it was filled to the brim. She worked all day and just as evening was approaching she filled it for the last run of the day started the drive and the chain broke. Mark is going to have to empty that spreader by hand. Hmmm  maybe we can hire Ruth or Rachel's boys for this job. By the way that gift is no longer shiny, but is still very appreciated. Hope it doesn't take too long to fix. At least we have a truck and flat bed trailer to haul it into a repair shop.
Ag lime was ordered today, 44 tons of it. Hopefully it will come this week. The paddocks will be lined with lime, the lime is also needed as the base for the new round pen that still needs to be set up.
We had a very busy day at Berean, lots of studies and lots of letters. We were able to get the labels printed for the studies but didn't even try to get the letters processed. Those will have to wait until Thursday. Diane called and ordered more Bibles.
Mark stayed home from choir so I drove Joan, Hannah, Sarah and Diane. Spark and Rhonda went early as they were serving. We had a good practice but now the Row song is stuck in my mind.
By the way we are almost at a million views on the video below. Want to help us reach that mile stone by clicking on this video.
Some of the comments people left after watching this were pretty funny. Some were just sure I was going to pull the legs of the foal right out of her sockets. The kids barefoot in the stall grossed just about everyone out.

Wedding Dress Shopping

Right after the walk Violet and Ayanna were let out into the big field with Killian, Cookie, Missy, Star, Larry and Paris. It was evident that Violet is now over the diarrhea and feeling fine. Just for fun she would take off at a gallop bringing the herd with her.

 I couldn't decide which picture was better above or below so both were posted. The lighting was just about perfect this morning.

Cookie is the odd horse out with her bright white color but she sure was popular last night. All the kids enjoyed riding her, the best about Cookie is she minds even the small children and they get a lot of  horse handling  riding confidence.

Even Star took off running. Star is in foal by Evan due Feb 25th, 2015 and quite plump but so photogenic this morning. If only she wasn't missing half her tail. It is growing back quicker than expected.

Violet settled down to graze with Cookie. It is amazing how tall this 4 month old filly is. 

Dakota was covered this morning by Valiant and was marked down. Sure hope she conceives for her owners Ralph and Jamie. Emily lost her phone yesterday while riding Killian in the field. She and Rhoda searched for it for a couple of hours before giving up. Tonight Emily borrowed my phone to try one more time driving the golf cart around the field in the dark. She ran into the electric fence but just then heard her phone go off and found it. She is one happy girl. Rhoda went wedding dress shopping today and came home with bones, BIG BONES. They cost a lot less and made the dogs happy. Maybe the wedding dress shop was next to a butcher shop, who knows how the mind of a bride to be works.

Lasagna Makes it Official

Where does the time go? How do the years disappear in a blink of an eye? It doesn't seem that long ago Mark and I got a big surprise believing we were delivering our 4th boy when out comes a red headed daughter. My best friend Amy Koch was not about to let me bring her home from the hospital in a generic yellow outfit, nope she brought the most beautiful little pink dresses we had ever seen to dress up our first daughter. For the first 2 years of her life Rhoda wore dresses everyday. After 3 boys what a joy to have a daughter to dress up. Of course with red hair she had a sun bonnet to go with every outfit to help keep the freckles at bay. By the time she reached those terrible twos her strong will determined the dresses would slow her down, and off they came. She needed to be strong willed with 3 brothers all determined to tease. When Rhoda was 4 years old we found out we were expecting another girl and again we were thrilled. Having 7 sisters myself made me thrilled our 2 girls would have each other. Flash forward 24 years later and today we invited the family for a lasagna dinner, making Lee and Rhoda's engagement official.

Below are a few pictures of the evening

After the dinner there was volley ball and horse back rides. The dinner was well attended. 

There was plenty of lasagna, salad, Avanti's bread, fruit, vegetables and dessert. Rhoda and Lee told their story for us. After dinner we took the golf cart back to our house to celebrate Taegan's 2nd birthday with cake and ice cream.

Rachel Sauder bought big slabs of bacon and the volley ball players all stayed around to cook that delicious salty snack over the fire.

Dinner at the Schwinds

What a gorgeous day for October 25th. bright enough sun to burn off the fog by 9:30 am and warm temperatures. Karin, Rhoda, Sarah R, Hannah R and Anni D loaded up Star, Missy, Cookie, Larry and Paris for a trail ride at Jubilee. They had a beautiful ride. Karin said it was like riding on paths of bright gold with a thick covering of gold and yellow leaves cushioning the trails while the thick woods were filled with beautiful red, purple, orange and gold colors.  Dakota came in season today and was covered by Valiant then removed from his pasture.  On Wednesday Ayanna was de-wormed with a double dose of Panacur and then her filly Violet was de-wormed with that also. When oh when am I going to learn that Panacur goes through the milk. Poor Violet got a double dose that way and came down with a bad case of diarrhea today. .She was given 30 cc of biosponge and watched. She is still grazing and nursing well so hopefully this is a mild case and she won't become dehydrated. The pictures below were taken this afternoon.

 Mark hooked up the forestry saw to the skid steer and worked on clearing trails and opening up places in the woods to plant pine trees. Funny he cuts down trees just to make room to plant other trees.

 Molly is such a diligent mom that she refuses to leave the box. Mom has to pick her up and carry her outside to make her relieve herself. The puppies are doing very well.

 Emily and Mike brought the Yanmar home to start cleaning out the shelters. The breeding shed shelter needed some repair work to replace one of the support posts. That Yanmar is so handy.

 Emily used the skid steer to finish up the paddocks. We were invited to Rebekah and Brian's house for dinner and they live in Eureka. Emily was still working when we left at 5:00 pm.

She missed out on a great meal but I bet she went to bed earlier than we are. It was a long drive home after working outside most of the day.

Put Them to Work

We start them young around here. Israel came to visit and got to 'help' Emily clean paddocks by helping with the skid steer controls.

His favorite part was when the bucket would raise way up and dump. He wasn't happy coming inside but he is just too young to drive the tractor. We left that part for Emily as she spread load after load of that black gold unto the fields.

The next few pictures are of when he was brought inside for lunch.

While he was up taking a nap the dogs discovered a bird in the wood burner. The door was opened and it took a bit to catch it as it was flying around the house. The dogs were let outside and the bird was placed outside on the patio table. I expected it to just take off but instead it sat there while the dogs checked it out closely. How Close? THIS CLOSE!

It hopped off the table onto the ground and still the dogs didn't try to kill it, they just kept sniffing it until the starling got smart and flew off. 

Molly just had the 3 puppies yesterday but all three are fat and healthy. Molly is taking very good care of them. These puppies will be for sale for only $300.00 and they are purebred Shih Tzu's but not registered. Both parents weigh about 12 pounds. They will stay small. A lady came out today to look at them and for sure wants a female so at this point there are only 2 left. 

David met me at Sam's, I shopped for 8 big pans of lasagna while he took Israel home. 96 servings of lasagna should be enough for our lasagna dinner Sunday, but if not we will cook up some hotdogs. 

Philip came over to help Mark with the broken pond overflow pipe after work today. After trying to pull it out with the skid steer and having it snap off, Mark determined the only way to get the broken pipe was to wade into the cold pond for it. Brrr

He was able to get a rope around the pipe then Philip and Emily pulled while Mark pushed.

 Success.

Mark had to take a shower after that. 

The Puppies Are Here

Molly had a restless night last night, then on the walk only did one round then stood at mom's door shivering waiting for mom to let her in. Rhoda came over and took Molly's temperature which was a good indication she would be delivering today. The first puppy came at 4:00 pm, a nice fat female. A half hour later she had another nicely marked fat female and at 5:00 pm came a big fat male. We waited around until after 6:00 pm but Molly seemed to be settled down nursing and not in labor any longer. Below are a few pictures of labor, delivery and her 3 pups. The first picture looks like some kind of monster but is 2 paws of a puppy as he is making his way into the world.

Above is the back end coming out first and below the puppy is just about to be delivered when Molly got up, her tail came down on top of the puppy as it was being delivered. The little face and tail are clearly seen. 

 Below Molly is nursing her 3 nicely marked purebred Shih Tzu puppies. 

Molly is a great mom. Mom will let us know if any more puppies arrive tomorrow.

The rest of the day was pretty busy. Diane, Eva Jean and I worked on the prison ministry stuff. We took 96 Bibles to the post office and got the studies all processed ready to take to church. By the time I got home Emily had the temporary electric fence strung and hooked up. Ayanna and Violet were turned out into the big field. But they didn't want to stay in the big field without the other mares to help keep the lions, tigers, and bears away. Ayanna is so funny wanting the safety of the herd. What she doesn't understand is unlike Middle Grove we don't have any predators here. Tomorrow we will move Missy, Cookie and Star in with her. Below are a few pictures of them this morning at feeding time. 

Ayanna is such a pretty mare. When Mark arrived home, he and Emily started on manure removal from the paddocks. They are making a mountain of manure in the circle drive again. Hopefully it won't stay too long there and the home owners association around here won't complain too bad. They quit at dark and by this time all of us were really hungry. Mark took Rhoda, Emily and me out to dinner at Gils Supper Club in Hanna City. As usual the food was good and filling.