Good-By Piper

The transporter for Piper got here around 6:30 this morning. When Emily came walking Piper out into the yard to load, the man was shocked! He said words something like WOW She's HUGE only he threw in a couple words we can't write here or mom would have a fit. It was a good thing he reserved the back 2 stalls for her. He was told she was big, he was told she was over 17 hands earlier but when she is seen in the flesh it really is shocking and even more so because little Emily was leading her.

She loaded perfectly, quietly stepped into the trailer then stood while Emily tied her. 

We decided to put 2 water tanks in the big field. Each morning the one tank would be completely empty. The mares have an automatic waterer but Valiant shares it with the field and obviously they don't want to share. We are selling our last years hay for $25.00 a bale and the man buying it takes only 3 bales at a time. We had 9 left this morning, he showed up at 8:00 am to pick up 3 bales and said he would be back to get the last 2 loads today so Emily had to stay home from Berean to wait as she was needed to run the skid steer. I left for Berean a little after 8:00 am to drive in to TEMCO to pick up the mail then to the Berean office and made it there by 8:50 am thinking I would beat the volunteers in and open the office. Not so, Chuck H was already there waiting. We had a good crew of hard workers. David S came and was put to work on the computer. Eva Jean, Shirley, Jeanette, and Chuck were put to work opening the mail, David O was reading letters, mom was sorting letters, and Jan was applying labels. Gary, Matthew, Timothy and Dakota got an entire skid load of Bibles unloaded from Wayne's garage then Maria, Matt, Tim and Dakota wrapped box after box of Bibles.  We had a tremendous amount of mail and broke at noon for lunch which Shirley provided. Today we had sloppy Joe's, chips, fresh veggies, dip and home made zucchini bars, all delicious. We went back to work and were able to get all the studies stuffed and ready to be graded or mailed by 2:30 pm. No pictures today, I had the camera but was so busy it was never taken out. Emily waited all day for the hay buyer to return but he never came back. Later he sent a text he will be here tomorrow. Chuck Altic brought out 2 more loads of hay which Emily put away. At least most of the mowing got done while she was here waiting.

This evening Mark is out power washing the skid steer. Shannon brought over her beautiful paint mare Jewely-Et for Evan to cover. Jewely-Et stood well but Shannon is going to bring her back tomorrow morning then skip a day. Marika is now in season. She was moved from the mare pasture into the breeding shed. We were going to use Evan on her but now that Evan is busy with a customer's mare and must be bred to Jewel when she comes in it looks like Valiant is going to be the lucky stallion.