HOT But Will be Hotter Tomorrow

The first job I did this morning was to walk across the pond dam in the slippery mud to check on Indy and Roxanne. We had a storm come through during the night and I was half way scared that one or the other had delivered but they were fine. They followed me back to the fence line just hoping for more attention. Left to right is Indy, Roxanne, Zalena and Flynn. Zalena and Flynn are still here as it is only 15 days since Zalena was covered last. I'll see if we can get her in for an ultrasound next week then they can be hauled out to Middle Grove to join the rest of the mares and foals.

Karin arrived at 7:15 am to start working horses before the heat of the day but by 8:00 am it was already almost unbearable. Elisabeth worked with Evan first then took him into the stall barn to redo his braids. Karin worked on weeding the arena while Elisabeth was working with Evan. Weeding is something that is hard to keep up with. Especially since we got another half inch of rain during the night. At least that made the weeds easy to pull out.
Next out was Coke and today Karin rode Coke in the round pen walk and trot in both directions. Coke didn't do anything wrong. We are so pleased with how quickly she is learning to carry a rider. Brista also surprised us with improving more quickly than Monday's session. She did so well that Karin decided to pony her on the trails.

She did perfect on the first creek crossing but balked at the second. Still she did end up going through and they finished the trails with success. All of the horses were hosed off and fly sprayed as the temperature was already close to 90 degrees by the time they got back.

This afternoon I worked on finishing the arena and got pretty much all of the weeds pulled except around the edge. It really got too hot to be out there. What is worse to hear is that this heat is just the start, tomorrow we are expecting heat indexes between 105 degrees and 110 degrees. 

The mares were teased and no one is showing yet. This evening church was held at the fellowship hall where Bill Schick and Marshall Heinold gave a talk on the Spanish outreach. It was interesting and very well supported. I believe we will start holding a service in Spanish at the Peoria church down in the old lunchroom soon. If you know any Spanish speaking people that are hungry for the Word please invite them to come. 

After church Karin had Indy and Roxanne in the stalls for testing. Indy is testing at 150 meaning we have some time and Roxanne's udder is not yet full so we did not pull any colostrum. Karin worked with her on touching her udder from both directions over and over. Each time Roxanne would try to kick she got in trouble and after a few minutes was finally allowing Karin to handle her udder. This is very important to do for a mare that has never had a foal before.