Preparing to Leave

 Ruth, Joan, Diane and I walked this cold morning and were glad the wind wasn't blowing. We ended up at mom's house so Joan could grab mom's mail and some white dishes. Joan leaves in the morning for Gulf Shores, Alabama to join mom and Anni. Mom and Anni are working hard getting all of her old furniture sold before the new furniture arrives. They sold the table a little too early, the new table isn't suppose to be delivered until the 29th. Thankfully the weather has been so beautiful that they have been having their meals out on the balcony. I left at 8:20 am for the Berean office. We were a little short handed today but were still able to get everything done before noon. IF you would like to read about our morning there click HERE. I received a Facebook message while there on my phone but didn't open it until I got home to find this: This brick mansion of a home off S. Baer St is a horse boarding farm. It's still in use & the horses are well fed & groomed. I imagine inner cityfolk might wonder why a horse stable in Peoria. I thought the same for awhile until I remembered Peoria is a country city. Although it's mainly metropolitan it's easy to forget it's surrounded by country communities, towns, villages, & farms. There's always going to be someone in need of good old fashion horsepower.

This was posted on a Facebook group called Peoria Houses & More.  My great grandfather Henry Baer and his 2nd wife Emma Sommer built the house to hold their 10 children  (his first wife was Emma's sister who died leaving 7 children that needed to be cared for and Emma was a widow with 2 children one of whom was my grandma Zeug, my mom's mom. They had one son together.) Henry and Emma named the house Pleasant Home and the house really lived up to that name. They started building the house in 1917 and finished it in 1918. My parents bought the house when dad got out of the army in 1953.  My parents raised all 11 of us kids in the house. We bought the house from my parents in 1991 and lived there until all of our kids moved out.                                                              After eating some lunch I went out to finish moving the bales and putting one more in for Evan. All of the horses now have 2 bales except Irish. If Irish finishes her bale before we get home I have 2 empty paddocks with new bales in them. She can just be moved over. Once the bales were finished the arena was raked to smooth out the sand where the skid steer digs up. That had to be done by hand as the arena rake is now broken. I really really need to find another so if anyone knows of one for sale close by please let me know. That sand is heavy to rake by hand. The water tank in the arena was also emptied of water. I don't think it got above freezing today and the water tank was starting to freeze. One year I forgot to empty it, it froze solid then was so heavy it couldn't be moved until spring. We certainly don't want that happening again. Mark got home as I was finishing up.