Delicious Hot Pizza

Valiant and Galena's waterer was frozen this morning. The hair dryer was brought out and placed inside then a couple buckets of water were taken to them while waiting for it to thaw. They each only drank about a half of a bucket so it must not have been frozen too long.  The element seems to be burned up.  They were turned out into the field then the rest of the horses fed.
We left for church a little late around 9:20 am but still made it in time. Mike Reiker had the morning message and Craig Stickling had the afternoon message.
After church Mark helped move a round bale in for Valant and Galena and they were locked back into their paddock and off the field. The waterer had stayed open but the temperature was in the low 40s with the sun shining. It will probably be frozen again by morning.
Rhoda, Lee and Iris arrived while we were putting in the bale.

For dinner tonight we ordered 3 Casey's pizzas but when I got there to pick it up one of them had been over cooked and was half burned. I asked if they could just cut off the burned part and charge me for half of the pizza and instead she told me we could just have that one for free.  What a deal, it was hot and delicious and even the burned part wasn't terrible. Ron, Taunya's dad, came over this evening to drop off a stroller Taunya had borrowed when they went to the Ark Encounter last weekend.

 He said it was well worth going to that and the Creation museum. The cost was around $50.00 to do them both. After dinner we played a game called something like banana peel. It is a game a little like scrabble.  Anna won some of the games and Lee won some, Rhoda won once and Braelyn and I didn't win at all. After we finished, Braelyn Taegan and Kensley decided to play.

 Even Iris joined in. The girls thought it was fun making words out of the letters. 

 Iris was such a happy baby tonight. She feels very secure with both of her parents keeping her safe. 

A very nice review came in from our Airbnb guest. She also posted a picture of herself with one of the weanlings. She wrote: “This is our second time staying at Judy’s place and we will be sure to be returning! The location is in a beautiful country setting about 15 minutes from Peoria. It is so quiet and peaceful. The stars are gorgeous and we love waking up to the horses each morning. Judy is so sweet and responsive. We love that we are greeted with homemade, delicious cookies. Someday, we hope to take her up on her invitation to explore the nearby hiking trails! The beds are so comfortable and the place is super clean. It is the perfect place for us to stay when visiting family in the area. We can’t wait to return!”

Another WONDERFUL update came in from the man that bought Sheena's 2016 colt by Valiant. He is 2 and a half years old and just gorgeous! 

We were so impressed with this cross we kept Sheena's 2017 filly by Valiant. The owner is very pleased with this colt. He also sent the video clip below.

Sheena was bred back to Valiant and due May 27th, 2019. It is ALWAYS amazing to us how gorgeous these foals end up.

More Soup

We had a cold night and another cold windy day with 25 degrees most of the day.
I left for Sam's Club right after breakfast and the most important item purchased was dog food.  There was just enough left in the last bag to make it through breakfast and no one around here wants to live with a hungry dog much less 2 hungry dogs.  The other items needed were 2 chickens, an 8 pack of cream cheese (not that I needed 8 but that's how Sam's sell it) and the rest of the vegetables for a big pot of creamy chicken and wild rice soup.  As soon as I got home the chickens were put in my biggest pot filled with water and set to boil. While the chickens were cooking the finishing touches were done on the apartment for the guests coming in today from Ohio.
The pressure washer was dragged down to the house and put in the kitchen. Hopefully one of the kids will come tomorrow to help get that down the basement.
Mark took his car to the back garage and changed the oil along with the windshield wipers and when that was finished worked on our living room ceiling.
Valiant and Galena's hay was checked and their paddock is going to need a new bale tomorrow.
The soup was finished by noon and some was taken over to Ruth and Fedi's for their lunch. Fedi was not feeling well. He vomited this morning. Ruth said the home health nurse was coming in to check him out. Mark and I each had a bowl for lunch then 6 quarts put outside to cool down before putting them in the freezer.
Mark made a fire in the family room fireplace this morning and kept that burning all day. I tried out the camera again on this fire. The first picture was taken with the automatic focus and the second without.

I really need to try it out on grandkids, puppies or horses but none of the grandchildren have been over, no puppies and it's too cold outside to take pictures of horses. Oh well maybe some will come tomorrow.
We have been waiting for an update from Laura about her farm. There has not been anything else posted. I'm sure she is broken hearted.

Laura's Tragedy

Laura posted this last night:

i have lived any horse persons worst fear last night and there was nothing i could do about it i will never stall any horse ever again i dont care how sick they are cause the reason them horses died was because i locked them in a stall cause they was sick and getting meds 2x a day thinking i was doing the right thing.... i will never get over this

everyone i have no phone or a way to contact yall . if you need to reach me the only phone we have is my dads 931-638-0604 if no answer send a text with your name

last night we lost everything in fire inculding our beloved horses april, oliver,fancy oh, redman , amera, dean and rich.
our beloved dogs athena and josey
our goat romeo and all 5 of our cats, we barely made it out i ran into the barn and tried to get the horses out of the stalls but the smoke had already took them from me. yall dont know how bad this hurts my family and myself and i hope this dont ever happen to anyone there is no words for it......i will not be on face book so if you need me please call...

Not too long ago I posted about Laura and her red Friesian stallion Redman.  Below are a couple  pictures of him.  

All of us are in shock over this and have been praying for Laura.  I can't imagine such a loss.

It's COLD Outside

Those 50 mile and hour wind gusts took down another tree, this time snapping one in half in the pond pasture.  We had low 30s today with brisk winds. I had a couple wanting an updated picture of Zalena's colt last night so right after Mark left for work the colt was taken to the outdoor arena for a couple pictures.

Unfortunately they are from Wisconsin. I say unfortunately because Wisconsin the Coggins test is only good for the calendar year. Which means if we had the Coggins done a day ago we would need to do it again by Jan 1 2019 as they can't pick him up until after the new year. I'll have to run him to Dr. Hoerr's after the first of the year.  By the time I came back inside my fingers were frozen.  A fire was built in the living room wood burner and that was kept burning all day which warmed the house up nicely.  A picture came in today from someone that obviously has a pasture problem and it reminded me of the days when we had the horses in the original pasture at Middle Grove.

Karin would call for a burr removing party before moving the herd as we certainly didn't want to spread seeds. We NEVER  had it THIS BAD! The poor owner. That poor horse is covered. Those burrs are actually why we have velcro. The inventor of velcro was a Swiss engineer and amateur mountaineer named George de Mestral. In 1948 he was hiking in the woods with his dog. He and his dog ended up with burrs sticking everywhere. When he got home he was brushing the burrs out of his dog's fur, picking it off his clothes and decided to look at the burrs  under a microscope only to discover that they were covered in tiny hooks which allowed the burrs to grab onto clothes and fur that brushed up against the weed. He was sure there would be a commercial application and he was right!
Mark got home from work tonight with my present to myself.  I bought a new camera on ebay and was anxious to try it out. This camera is a quite a step up from my old one and even though it is used was verified to only have 1600 shutter clicks, practically brand new! Of course I wanted to try it out right away but by this time it was dark outside. The fire in the wood burner was chosen to be the first of hopefully many pictures.

I'm well pleased with the camera.

A Book About Bridlewood by Aleana Stiverson

Bridlewood stable is going to be famous. There is now a book about this very very special stable by a very special student.  Check this book out by clicking on the link below:

Aleana's Book
She writes about some of the very special and very beautiful animals of Bridlewood.

A Horsemeister Friesian

The lady that bought Jewel's 2018 filly by Evan emailed and the email was a little unusual as it just isn't about her filly. 

Hello Judy I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
 Inez totally surprised me yesterday by jumping over a 3 1/2 foot barrier!! So I guess she has jumping in her future if I can screw up my courage in my old age. 
 I truly love this baby horse she is quite a wonderful creature. All the best,

Oh and one other thing I keep forgetting to tell you. There is this absolutely gorgeous four-year-old gelding who is a colt of Lily and Valiant at the barn where my vet has his office. I’ve met the owner a few times. His (the horse) name is Zulu and he is truly magnificent! I saw him out of his stall for the first time today. I should’ve taken a picture for you but I’ll be back over there again sometime and I’ll remember to snap a photo and send it to you. Owner's name is Lisa. Makes me want to get one from that pair too. But I’m nuts and I absolutely cannot.🤓 Unless I get my future little horse farm.

Amazing to think 2 of Horsemeister's foals end up in the same area of New Orleans, when you think how big this country is. I hope we get an updated picture of Zulu. His owner sent the picture below when he turned 2 years old:

 He looks magnificent as a 2 year old, I would love to see him at 4. This is him when before he left for his new home. 

and below was the morning of his birth

We were sent this video of him taken as a long yearling.

Lily and Valiant's foals are gorgeous, all the hair, the height, the movement. We couldn't be prouder and now to think they are being recognized by others as, "oh that is a Horsemeister Friesian!"

If a Horsemeister Friesian is in your future you may want to consider one soon. They just fly off the shelves (JOKE) but we just happen to have a few left from last year.  We have 2 Warlanders, a stud colt and a filly AND we have 3 purebred Friesian foals, 2 stud colts and 1 filly.  The Warlanders are priced at $5000.00 and the Purebred Friesian foals are priced at $8000.00 but we are consider raising our prices for 2019.  We have kept our prices consistent for years but the cost of raising horses has continued to climb. Our horses are truly special. Our stallions are amazing but it isn't just about the stallion, the mare is just as important. We have purchased or grown the very best brood mares we can afford and each one is quality. IF interested take a look at our foals still available for 2018 or the ones coming in 2019 by checking out our website www.horsemeister.com 

ps I know the website is old fashioned, I'm old and have doing it myself since 2002.  Hopefully in 2019 I'll have a brand new website but will keep the same name. 

Tree Trimming

My morning started early getting the feeding done then heading to Pekin for a visit at Big R arriving around 8:30 am to pick up 14 bags of grain then over to Aldi for eggs, bread, milk and salad mix.  I was very proud of myself for at each store there was a lot of Christmas candy and toys marked down and I walked right past it all. We don't need any toys nor candy around here.  The grain was unloaded as soon as I got home.  The Airbnb guests left this afternoon so the bedding was washed and the futon put down for the next guests coming here in 3 days. There is a little more to do there before the apartment will be ready for them but most of it was finished today. Mark came home from work early to start working here.  We had a perfect day for clean up, not too cold with the temps in the 40s and the mud drying up enough we could get the machines in the fields. Mark decided today was the day to start taking down the big tree that fell into Valiant's field. Valiant and Galena were locked in their paddock so we could drive back and forth without worrying about them trying to escape while bringing in the machines.

 While Mark was cutting I would pull the branches out of the way. 

 He worked first on cutting up some of the big limbs holding the tree off the ground. 

 As soon as he felt it was safe a chain was hooked up to one of the limbs and the tractor used to pull the tree down. This made it easier and safer to cut the logs into firewood. 

The video below shows Mark cutting first some of the big branches then pulling the tree down with the tractor. 

The Puppies on Christmas.

Since I didn't want anything to take away from the real meaning of Christmas I decided to post yesterday's happenings this morning.  Christmas Eve night was interrupted by my phone going off at 4:09 am and dogs barking.  The dogs were let out then in then out then in until I went on strike and Mark took over. Something and we think it was coyotes were coming into the yard trying to steal Emma's old deer bone she dragged in a couple days ago. Because of the many interruptions in sleep I overslept not getting up until 6:45 am. When the phone was checked I shocked to find someone had rented the apartment for Christmas DAY. The bedding hadn't been changed, I had used the apartment to get hot water for cleaning up a foal, mud had been dragged in and the stall barn was a mess. Christmas morning was spent cleaning and by 9:00 am all was done giving me enough time to jump in the shower to get ready to leave for church at 9:15 am.
David Obergfel had the Christmas message at church. Of course this message was a special one and it was really nice to see so many families there to worship the One who came to give us life.
Mark and I took Nancy home straight after church then headed for home to get my house ready for company.  Sarah and Nolan brought the puppies over to get a new video and pictures to update the website. They were born Thanksgiving morning and we thought Christmas Day was a perfect time for pictures as they were just 3 days shy of being a month old.

We even let Zion hold a puppy. 

Below is the video taken before supper.

 Phil and Anna brought their 3 girls for Christmas dinner. After a delicious dinner of steak, salmon, wild rice, salad, sauteed buttered mushrooms, sauteed onions and Christmas goodies for dessert. The Girls also had fun with the puppies.

 Their dog Hux is the father of these puppies and Hux was hit by a car and killed right after siring this litter.  The puppy Braelyn is holding looks a lot like her father Hux. 

If interested in seeing more pictures of the female puppy we are calling Skittles click HERE. If interested in seeing the male puppy we are calling Willie Wonka click HERE. If interested in seeing more pictures of the male puppy we are calling Gummy Bear or Bear for short click HERE. 

We enjoyed spending our Christmas with 4 of our grand daughters. Yesterday was a good day! But then again we were breathing when we woke up, of course it was a good day.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Merry Christmas from the Sceggel family and the Horsemeister staff. We pray that all would come to know the reason this baby was sent here. He came to take away the sins of the world. He was born of a virgin, cruelly crucified, after 3 days dead in the grave arose alive, was seen by hundreds of eye witnesses and hundreds saw him ascending to heaven where He sits with the Father in heaven waiting to welcome His children home.

Christmas Eve 2018

We had a perfect day for working outside although it started pretty frosty with the thermometer reading 23 degrees.  Mark and Mackenson used the skid steer to fill pot holes in the drives.  Joan had Nancy, Hannah, Faith and Berlica helping with cleaning out the woods by the cabin.  I snapped the pictures below when coming back from watering mom's plants.

Faith isn't in the picture as she was driving the Kubota. No pictures of Mark and Mackenson, they were working in a different area.  Mom and Sarah met Rachel and Jessica on the beach this morning and sent a couple pictures but it was pretty early, cloudy and pretty dark. A bit later though Sarah sent a picture of Diane learning how to use this very dangerous toy that all the kids seem to like.

I say dangerous as Katie sent the video below:

Diane scraped her elbow and has some bruises but is fine.  It is nice to see they are having warm sunny weather in Gulf Shores. 

I got some house cleaning done, 2 loads of laundry and 2 stalls cleaned. Such and easy relaxing day. It was Christmas Eve which use to be the biggest day of the year when we were growing up. We always heard the Christmas story and opened our gifts on Christmas eve when we were children. Then on Christmas day got up early to get our stockings then go to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We followed this routine  when our kids were young but now all of our kids are grown and have families of their own. There are no presents to give to excited children and no stockings to fill tonight just a quiet evening and an early night. BUT there are still Christmas lights to share. LOTS of beautiful Christmas lights. This holiday light display in Pennsylvania has been awarded the best outdoor Christmas display in the world!

Sunday Before Christmas

We had a really wonderful Sunday that is until we got home just now at 8:30 pm. We had an easy morning not leaving for church until 9:15 am followed by  Rick Kaisner having the morning message, lunch and then Mike Rieker having the afternoon message. Joan made cupcakes to celebrate Jesus' birthday with her Sunday School class.

She made 2 dozen cupcakes and thought that would be plenty but ended up with 25 kids.  Thankfully 1 child didn't like cupcakes and didn't want one. After church Joan drove to Morton to pick up Nancy while we drove straight to Methodist to visit Fedi. He is looking better and feeling better but still most likely won't be released until Wednesday.  From there we came home to let the dogs out for the 45 minutes we were home before leaving for Avanti's and then the Festival of Lights this time taking Nancy, Joan, Faith, Mackenson and Berlica and we met Kathy at Avanti's. After a good dinner we started the drive to the Festival of Lights. Bad idea to go on the Sunday before Christmas. We were in line for well over an hour. Below is the line up of cars heading up the hill to the light show. The line behind us was just as long.

 The long wait gave us plenty of time to sing lots of Christmas carols and other songs. Nancy was in her glory. She knows most of the carols and loves singing. She also really loves Christmas lights exclaiming over and over at the displays. 

 The weather was perfect, not too cold and a full moon made for perfect viewing of almost a million lights. 

All of this was fun, even with the long wait, it wasn't until we reached home that we had the problem. We opened the door to let 2 very excited dogs out and the smell of a terrible accident hit us like a ton of bricks.  I started searching and couldn't find any problem but knew this smell was much too terrible to just be gas. After grabbing a flash light and searching the entire first floor and finding nothing I was starting to doubt but then started climbing the stairs. One of the dogs  had explosive diarrhea in the upstairs hall way splattering half way up the wall. I grabbed a gallon size zip lock bag and paper towels, Mark brought up bleach and within 10 minutes not only was everything scrubbed even the smell was gone. It was much too long of a time to leave the poor dogs inside but we had no idea it would take that long to eat and drive through the lights.  Not a very nice ending to a very nice rest of the day. The family down in Gulf Shores are having beautiful warm weather. Sarah sent the picture below of sunrise.

Rachel posted the short video below of her kids boogie boarding and what ever that wake boarding thing is called Logan is doing in the Gulf of Mexico December 23rd 2018.

Sunshine and Bucks

We had a cold start to our day with below freezing temperatures in the 20s but the sun came out and those cold temps started rising all the way into the 40s. Evan needed a new bale and there wasn't anyone around to help so he was taken into the round pen where he exploded into big bucks.

He must have bucked 10 times in a row while galloping around.  He was just so glad to get out of the mud. Mark arrived just as I was taking the bale over to his paddock. I was glad for his help in getting the new bale in. As soon as that was done Mark took the tractor over Joan's to finish splitting the logs Bill had started on Thursday.  Bill has been such a blessing for Joan and her family.  He and Bethany came for the Meister Christmas and brought Joan her Christmas gift. A brand new chain saw and a whole load of split wood for her downstairs wood burner. 

Anni came over for a short visit today. She brought Chewy, her dog and Zero David Jacob's dog with her. That sent Studly and Emma barking. We were glad she stopped in. 

Everyone at Gulf Shores had a wonderful time today in the warm sunshine. Rachel posted the picture below of her laying by the pool.

No one else posted any pictures but we know they were all relaxing in the sun. Ruth sent this update on Fedi: So people have asked for updates. It’s going ok now. There have been some ups and downs for Fedi. The worst was when his pain meds ran out and it took the pharmacy a long time to get the new ones delivered. That happened twice. The nurses though have all been great, responsive, nice, professional. He ran a fever yesterday evening which scared me but seems to be fine this morning. But he’s hungry. This is day 5 with no food. They will hopefully take out his stomach tube this morning and then he can eat. Speaking of that, it leaked out all over the floor this morning. Big mess. He also had to have it pushed back in twice after it slipped out some. 

He’s doing a lot of walking with his IV pole and 4 different tubes hanging from him. Yesterday I told him I have to tie my shoe but to go on and I will catch up to him. So he started to shuffle away as fast as he could. Cracked me up. His machines are always beeping with some error message to read. He went down to tell the nurse. She asked what it said and Fedi replied, beep, beep, beep.
Anyway, thank you for prayers. I think we’ll be able to go home Tues or Weds.

We are thankful he has kept his sense of humor.  Rhonda and Spark had their family Christmas and posted a couple pictures.

Tara is due the end of this month with she and Jay's 7th child and they won't know the sex until the baby is born. Kari and Brett are expecting their 3rd son in April. Big sister Noel is going to have her hands full with 3 little brothers. 

Mark worked on the living room ceiling this evening. Right now he is cleaning up the mess it makes. He is almost ready for drywall. 

They LEAVE US

Yesterday by the time we awoke the first of the group in Meisterville had left us. Mike and Diane took mom and Sarah down to Gulf Shores leaving at 5:30 am and arriving there at 7:30 pm. The drive consistently takes 14 hours although traveling at night one can make it in 13 and a half.
They are going to enjoy at least a few days of nice sunny weather with highs in the upper 60s and low 70s.  Beth and Greg, Rachel and David and their family, Bill and Bethany, along with Joan and Hannah will be joining them today or in a few days.  John, Beth, Jackie and Karin left for Florida for 2 weeks, Ruth and Fedi are still at Methodist and will be for a few more days. It will be very quiet around here. Mark and I are in charge this year of keeping the home fires burning (literally as we had a fire going all day yesterday) and taking care of all the animals.  Although Mike hired Matt Ricketts to handle the Middle Grove work. I only have 7 weanlings, 2 stallions and 1 mare left here, the rest of the herd is at Middle Grove.
Mark and I took a long walk in the morning, the wind was blowing hard, it was damp and 32 degrees. That sounds mild for this time of year but felt chilling.  He had a short day at work, everything slows way down just before Christmas and is almost nonexistence between Christmas and New Years although this year they are replacing furnaces at Light House which will take about 3 days. We are actually busier at Meister Heating this year because of incentives from Ameren. Some of these incentives will continue into 2019 so if you are needing a new heating and cooling system this might be a really good time to check into it by calling Meisters 309-697-5810.

The owner of Foxy and her filly sent a final payment to the law office. The mail has been so slow it probably won't arrive here for almost a week as it is coming from Kansas. I'll need to get Foxy home and reintroduce her to her filly so they can travel together. The filly has been weaned since October 6th.  She is quite bossy to the other weanlings, it will be interesting to see how she is with her mother and if Foxy will remember her.

The USPS has been really slow this year. Aunt Jinnie sent her Christmas card from New Jersey and it took 9 days to get here. I paid for priority 2 day shipping that took 4 days and when I complained the post office lady told me, "yes you paid for 2 day but there are no guarantees." Next time I'll choose UPS or FedX.

Meister Christmas

Yesterday was the annual big Meister Christmas. This year we were really missing Ruth and Fedi. Fedi is still in the hospital recovering from surgery and Ruth was needed to stay with him. He has been really struggling with a lot of pain.
During the day Thursday Kensley came over to help with some Christmas decorating. The party started at 5:30 pm Dan and Susan brought Nancy over to mom's first then we picked mom and Nancy up along with mom's home baked Christmas cookies and drove over to the Hanna City gym where Karin, who was in charge of the party this year had the tables all set for the big meal.

 The meal was delicious and everyone enjoyed the special treats such as deer appetizers, fried chicken, all the amazing sides and of course lots and lots of desserts. The next item on the program was games.  Karin bought hundreds of prizes. Below some of the kids are checking out all the prizes. 

 We played two games, both were a lot of fun. The first was Charades and the second game was Santa Says. 

If interested in the rest of the pictures click HERE. 

After everyone got a prize came the reading of the Christmas story by Spark.

After the reading and singing of carols Santa came to visit and the gifts were given out. Everyone got exactly what they wanted. Mom, who started this family with her marriage to dad and then having 11 children gave money to each of the mom's and had them pick out a gift that their child would enjoy. Smart grandma really smart great grandma. Next year will be even bigger there are 7 more great grandchildren on the way for 2019 bringing the total of mom's great grandchildren to 79.