Mother's Day Work Day

 Early this morning I took the golf cart over to mom's to brush her hair. There was a red headed woodpecker at her feeder.  The picture below was taken from inside and through the glass. The red head was so bright. Mom said yesterday she had 2 plus a Baltimore Oriel all at the same time.

At 9:00 am the family that bought Jury's colt arrived to see him in person. I brought him into a stall so they could handle him but couldn't stay as our work day started at 8:30 am. They were told they could stay as long as they wanted then I headed back to mom's.

The tradition in this family is the Saturday before Mother's Day all who can meet at mom's in the morning and we work mostly on the outside but some inside too. Each year we take turns being in charge and this year it was Diane's turn. She had quite a list for us and we got it all done before lunch. Many hands really do make light work. The garage got cleaned out, the debris on the dam was moved to the other side, the shed got two new barn doors, the blocks around the beach and going up the stairs got reset and glued down, the weed whacking, mowing, weeding, planting, the deck swept, the brick side walk reclaimed, the playground equipment scraped and repainted, the swings fixed, a new teetertoter board put up and so on and so on. I'm sure I'm missing lots. Below are a few pictures of the morning.

Above are the youngest workers, Eden is 2 years old Zion is 3 years old and Iris is also 3 years old. Below are the oldest two workers, Spark on the excavator and Mark on the skid steer. 

Mom was put to work holding the babies. Below is baby River was born April 23rd, 2021.

The video below shows just some of the big heavy slabs of concrete moved.

 At noon mom bought us all stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut. Diane tried to order Casey's and they wouldn't answer the phone, then she tried Sam's club and they too wouldn't answer, finally she called Pizza Hut in Bartonville. We finished pretty much everything on the list by noon. IF you would like to see the pictures from the work day click HERE. After lunch the wind died down a bit so the fire was started to burn all the old boards from the shed and the playground.

This was taken after it had burned down a bit. Karin took out a group of riders at 12:30 and 2 more groups at 3:30 pm. A bale was moved into Cookie and Sangria's paddock. The rain started just as the first of the 3:30 group started but they chose to go anyway. The oldest rider of the first group was 84 years old. She had ridden in her youth a lot and loved horses. She was so happy to be able to ride. We gave her Missy as Missy is very smooth. 

Notice the BIG smile, we saw that a lot on this ride. 

We followed on the golf cart but the rain was coming down pretty hard by the time we got back to the barn so did not follow with the second group. There were 8 riders with the second group so 2 had to go double. Sangria and Missy. 

Everyone was soaked when they got back to the barn but all had a good time. The horses were put away and I went down to the house. On the way down I noticed Irish's colt playing with Lily's filly. If you look closely you can see the rain drops.

I was glad to get inside to dry off and work on pictures. Around 7:00 pm our airbnb guests called that there were 2 horses out in the yard. Ripper and Oksana were both out grazing and the gate was wide open. I should have made sure the gates were latched before heading back inside. They came out in the rain to help move them back inside. It was such a cold rain that is going to continue most of the night that I decided the 3 youngest foals would need to be moved inside the indoor arena with their dams. All three mares had a good roll in the sand when brought in. The water tank was filled and there is plenty of hay. The hot shower felt wonderful and we are both heading to bed in a few minutes. Thankful for so many good willing helpers and really thankful so much got done.