Made It

We made it to Ben and Taunya's house in Allen Texas. They were all thrilled to meet Rosie. We enjoyed the hot tub and now are heading to bed. It was a long day which started at 4:00 am.

Red Little Rosie

Rhoda and Sarah brought their girls over this morning WITH a new member of Ben and Taunya's family. A little red miniature Poodle puppy named Rosie. What a tiny ball of fluff!

Mark and I are leaving in the morning driving this puff ball down to Texas where she will join her new anxiously awaiting family Addyson, Jack, Jace and Abe. Gertie was here visiting and brought Kensley with her so Kensley got to play with this adorable puppy too.

Iris introduced Rosie to Emma. Rosie LOVED meeting Emma but Emma wasn't thrilled with meeting Rosie.

We had a lot of fun watching Rosie interact with all of the grand daughters.

Rhoda pointed out a bald eagle in the field next to ours so I took a few pictures.

I wasn't close enough to get very good pictures.  Indy's udder is no bigger than yesterday so I am pretty sure it is safe to be gone for 3 days. I can't ask anyone to check her, Diane and Mike are in Key West, Joan and her family are in Bluffton, Spark and Rhonda are in Gulf Shores, Ruth is at a continuing education class out of town and mom had surgery a couple days ago and can't walk over here as she can't use her walking stick.  Crazy we all leave the same weekend. I'm not worried though, Indy will be left in the indoor arena, has plenty of hay and a water tank full of water.

She is an experienced mom and takes good care of her foals. 

Melting quickly

We officially got 3 and a half inches of snow yesterday, last night and this morning but I measured the snow on the chair and it was right at 4 inches.

Mom had a good night and is doing well although she almost fell today. Joan was able to finish the puzzle.

That wasn't an easy job when trying to put the borders together. 

I had an easy day here, most of the snow on the drives melted and there wasn't much shoveling. It was only 34 degrees but the sun was out for a bit which helped. Indy's udder is the same as yesterday so she was put in with Jenis. Tomorrow I'll try her with Hadassah as Jenis needs grain and Indy doesn't.  Mark and I went to church tonight. Craig Stickling had the message on Daniel 5, from where we get the saying "the hand writing on the wall."

Bringing Indy Home

I picked up mom this morning at 6:30 am and we headed to St. Francis for mom's carpal tunnel surgery.  She was checked in by 7:15 and taken back to change into those delightful top of the line designer hospital gowns.

 The nurse arrived to put in an IV.

 The surgeon arrived and drew pictures on mom's wrist and palm. Cute little hearts. 

The surgery went well and quick. Mom's surgeon was great. When I went out to get the car I got covered in snow from the short walk to where the car was parked and had to scrape off the windows.  The snow was coming down fast and hard with big fat wet flakes. We drove home through a blizzard. It was 34 degrees so not too much of the snow was sticking.  Mom's bird feeder was getting empty and she had a strange looking bird trying to get the last few seeds. This may be a different kind of bat because it seemed to spend more time upside down like bats live.

But when it sat up of course it wasn't a bat and not even a bird but a big fat squirrel.

The squirrel was chased off and the feeder taken down and filled.

Mom settled in for a nap and I left for Middle Grove to pick up Indy. Joan and her kids came over to keep mom company. The horses were up by the bales. Indy's udder was checked and it was much fuller than yesterday so for sure she needed to come home. She was loaded into the trailer and hauled home. It was still snowing and instead of putting her in a paddock or a stall I left her in the indoor arena and hauled a water tank in for her. As that was filling I took a few pictures of her with my phone. Check out that baby bump.

 I love how the tip of Indy's ears tip in toward each other.

 Indy is our tallest Friesian mare at 16.3 hands. She is bred to Evan and we can't wait to meet her foal. 

 She started looking for a good place to roll.

When the water tank was filled I went back to the house to start supper then went back to stay with mom while Joan went to choir. She is going to spend the night tonight with mom.  The snow is coming down hard now and sticking to everything. It is suppose to continue all night and into the morning but we are only expecting around 4 inches. Even though Indy isn't waxing I'm not taking any chances of a baby being born out in this storm.
On puppy news Sarah and Nolan sold THREE more puppies. Two of the Whoodles and 1 Poodle.

I think they only have 4 puppies left. Two Whoodle puppies from Maddie's litter of 10 and 2 Poodle puppies from Nikki's litter of 8.  All of Ruby's (Rhoda and Lee's dog) litter are sold and all of Arrieta's litter are sold. I'm always amazed at the demand there is for Cavapoo puppies. They are always snatched up quickly.

Winter Storm Warning AGAIN

There was much to do this morning before the rain moved in. As soon as the walk was over I took off for Pekin, IL to shop at Stock and Field for 600 pounds of grain. There was no way to park close to the breeding shed for unloading that grain, so all 12 of those 50 pound bags had to be carried from the car to the shed one by one in the slippery mud then dumped into the waiting garbage cans.  That was accomplished by 10:15 am and after changing from a skirt (because of shopping in public) and into my work pants and boots I left for Middle Grove to check Indy and Oksana. Just before Middle Grove road I saw a big bald eagle sitting in a field eating on something. There was a truck behind me so I couldn't stop to see what had died and of course my imagination starts questioning if there are any unsolved missing persons. Probably just a dead deer.  I drove to the second gate first as that is where the hay bales are but when I arrived there were no horses in sight. Mike had put 6 bales out for the herd on Friday and the bales were barely eaten on.

 I hiked to the top of the hill to search and saw them at the far end. Below the camera is zoomed in as far as possible, you can see the herd scattered way over to the north end of the property. 

I hiked back down to the car and drove to the first gate, parked and started walking up that hill.

The herd was all spread out either grazing or laying down napping.

Galena was the first to greet me followed by Tori.

I was looking for Indy as she is the mare due soon.  She was grazing near Lola and Mika.

Her udder is starting to fill. I'll have to come back on Thursday to check her and if it is bigger will need to bring her home.

Oksana's udder was still flat, no sign of filling. That is Oksana to the right in the picture below. The other two horses are Irish the Gypsy mare and Isla the Warlander. 

It started sprinkling while checking the mares. All those little white dots on Rosaleigh are rain drops. Her belly was bigger this week than last so I think she must be pregnant. 

I took quiet a few pictures of the horses, if you would like to see them click HERE. While walking around checking the horses a huge flock of geese flew right over probably heading to the Giant Goose Ranch. 

I came upon some big old dried up white bones on the way back down to the car. They were much to big to be human.

The rain started coming down much harder and rained all day. The weather report is not good, snow is moving in tomorrow afternoon and by the time it stops on Wednesday we are to have 4 to 6 inches. That will be 3 Wednesday's in a row with snow.  Thankful that Mark left the snow plow on the tractor. Mom's carpal tunnel surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. We didn't get much Berean mail so Berean was called off tomorrow leaving me free to drive mom to her surgery. We will need to leave at 6:30 am tomorrow for St Francis. Since there was no Berean meal to make, instead of making chicken stir fry, the two chickens were de-boned, the meat frozen, the carcasses boiled and a big pot of soup made for our supper.  

59 Degrees

Our Sunday morning was sunny but not yet warm but that promise of warm was in the air. At least it was above freezing.  Craig Stickling had our morning message on Isaiah 40 and 2nd Corinthians (both comfort chapters). Dave Obergfel had the afternoon message on Psalm 46 (our refuge).
When we walked out of church it was 59 degrees and Sunny. The first job when home was to get the food in the oven for our dinner then head out to start moving in bales with Mark.  Anna had the girls and Pax here and they went on a long hike on the death trails. Karin and Magda were working with Valiant while Mark and I were moving in 5 bales. They were able to use the outdoor arena and had finished with Valiant about the time we finished with the bales. The next horse they took to the outdoor was Evan. That nice clean horse was asked to roll.

 When we were taking Evan back to the paddock David Jacob arrived with Zero and suddenly there were 5 dogs milling around.

 Jenis and Hadassah were also brought to the outdoor arena where both had a good time galloping around.

 Dinner was served at 4:30 pm and right after dinner we went out to the barn, tacked up Jenis so Braelyn, Taegan, Israel, and Kensly could have time to practice with Jenis for the show. Each of them walked, trotted and asked Jenis to pose on the pedestal. 

IF you would like to see the rest of the pictures from this afternoon click HERE.  From there we went to mom's to work on the puzzle and play games. Amy and Ken came over with some delicious appetizers and mom served dessert. By the time everyone left it was well past bedtime. Today was such a wonderful warm sunny Sunday. Mike and Diane were hiking at Middle Grove when Andrew's trail camera caught them, then the very next day and the very same place took a picture of big bob cat.