Morning Fog Evening Rain

 It was very foggy this morning. I went out early to move the two foals being weaned in the stalls out to a paddock. They were very glad to get out but wanted to be with the other mares and foals. They were kept in the far paddock until this afternoon then let in with the others. They were very content to be in and are not calling at all for their mothers.  I kept their halters on but the halters are break a ways so if the halter gets stuck on anything it will just tear. Whiskey was teased and still in so covered this morning by Evan which made me a few minutes late for the walk. Everyone else was late too. The fog was just so thick it seemed much earlier than it really was. Below is standing on mom's deck looking over at Rachel's and Joan's houses.

We could not see their houses at all, just the spooky outline of trees. The fog also seemed to deaden the usual bird sounds. Mom was able to walk all the way to Joan's and back then the rest of us walked to the barn and back. Mom was picked up at 8:20 for our trip out to the Berean office. If you would like to read about our morning there click HERE. After we finished up there we stopped at the Hanna City post office to drop off the Bibles for the week. Rachel, the post office lady was sitting at her desk with her mask hanging off her ear. She reported that the new mandate was the workers there had to wear a mask AND she had already had Covid and had the vaccine. She also said they are not making the public wear them in that office...yet.. Just depends on if someone complains. We were suppose to have the hay fields cut this afternoon except what wasn't suppose to happen, happened and we had rain, LOTS of rain this afternoon. It was still raining when Mark got home and raining most of the evening.  After supper Rhonda, Berlica, mom and I played games. After the game was over mom served us her cooked chocolate pudding with whip cream. It was DELICIOUS! 

A Winning Day

 Before the walk Rosalie and her filly along with Irish and her colt were brought into the stall barn, both foals were haltered. I have to say I was dreading this job. Rosalie's filly hasn't been haltered or tied since she was 3 weeks old and she is just HUGE now at 5 months of age.  She surprised me by standing still, letting me put the lead rope around her neck and then the halter on.  Next was Irish's colt and of course he just stood there while the halter was put on. By the time both foals were haltered there was exactly 3 minutes to get to mom's in time for the walk.  Diane and Beth are now in Gulf Shores, they drove down on Friday just in time for the hurricane while Joan got home on Saturday from Gulf Shores.  We had a good walk. Right after the walk Rosalie and Irish were driven out to Middle Grove leaving their foals here for weaning. That went exceptionally smooth. They traveled without calling, the herd was all up by the gate, the mares were glad to get out there and started grazing. When I got back Mori and I tied up both of the foals and again I was impressed with Rosalie's filly. She remembered her tying lessons from when she was 3 weeks old and didn't pull back at all. Irish's colt did pull back, reared up, fell down, bumped his right eye and scrapped his right hind leg drawing a little blood. None of his injuries were serious so they were both left tied for a few more minutes. Of course a few pictures were taken.

They were both standing quietly when we untied them a few minutes later.  At 8:00 am Hoerr vet clinic was called to schedule Dr. Hoerr for 5 Coggins tests for these foals ready to be weaned and unbelievable but he could come this afternoon!   Mori and I cleaned out the 2 horse trailers and parked them. I needed to leave for the Peoria Post office to pick up the Berean mail.  I had to go to Diane's office to pick up more Horsemeister checks and was able to do that before Dr. Hoerr was scheduled to arrive.  Mom had a hearing aid appointment at Costco about the time Dr. Hoerr was supposed to come so Joan took her. Mom said that went very well. I needed to bring in Soul, her filly, Lola, her colt and Jury and her colt get those 3 foals haltered and tied before Dr. Hoerr arrived and even that went well. Below is Soul's filly watching me bringing the water bucket (her toy) to the stall. 

Rockaway, Lola's colt was hard to get pictures of, he kept trying to be with me the entire time. It isn't easy taking a picture when moving away quickly. Below is the blurry picture of him after haltering him. 

All of the mares were up in the paddocks and all the foals were easy to halter except Jury's colt. He took a few minutes of fighting the lead rope until he gave up and let me put the halter on. Below is Jury's colt. 

I left the lead rope on him so I could easily tie him before Dr. Hoerr arrived.

 I was taking pictures of Soul's filly when Dr. Hoerr walked in. She was playing with the water bucket having a ball pulling it away from the stall wall and splashing the water. She was entertaining herself with that bucket of water for at least 10 minutes.

All 5 of the foals stood well for the blood draw. What good babies. Another win for the day. After Dr. Hoerr left the halters were removed from the foals and the mares and foals put outside so the stalls could be cleaned.  The two being weaned were fed and watered then I came up to the house to make dinner. Mark was out working with Mackenson in the new barn and after supper they went back out to work. They are cutting the 4'x8' insulation board down the middle making 2'x8' to go up against the inside of the barn for when the concrete is poured.

Below is one 8 foot section done, there are 31 more to do.

Such a good way to spend the evening. I spent my time killing tomato worms on both of the tomato plants. I can't believe how quickly they strip the leaves off the plant. I think I killed 20 of them. I did NOT disturb the garden spider. She was busy wrapping a grasshopper up for her winter dinner.

It is always amazing how huge these spiders are, when she finished wrapping the grass hopper she rested on the pod of the yucca plant.

Another Blessed Day

 Mark and I drove separate to church again, he likes to go to the early morning singing and since I can't sing anymore I finish up stuff here. We had a blessed day in church and I'm so very glad God set aside one day a week to rest and worship. After church the kids and grandchildren came although we were missing a LOT with Ben and Taunya's family staying home because Ben was on call and Sarah staying home with her 3 daughters as Nolan is in Gulf Shores with his dad working on their condo. Nolan sent a marco polo of the Gulf during the big storm and the rain pouring down at his condo. I haven't figured out if those are possible to share yet, if so I'll post it here. We enjoyed visiting after supper until it was time to leave for the playground. The kids and grandkids left but I still needed to tease Whiskey. She stood well and Evan successfully covered her. Her owner was notified and only after washing up well did I go to the playground. It was really hot and humid but the games were going strong. Below are a few pictures and a couple videos taken directly off the new phone.

When the volley ball players quit the young ones took over the court and they made castles and the little older ones played volleyball.

As evening approached we could hear the rumble of thunder coming from the south and soon started seeing flashes of lightning. The games wrapped up, the players cooled off by jumping in the lake then everyone headed for home. Another blessed day.

Foal Pictures

Three of us left at 7:30 for Middle Grove. We drove back where the horses were last night but no horses were in sight. Rosalie was taken out of the trailer, she called a couple times but no one answered so she was loaded back up and Mike called. He had his truck so drove to the top of the hill and found them. We drove back to the gate, unloaded Rosalie, she called and again no one answered so we started hiking up the hill and had to go almost to the top before we saw her daughter galloping toward us. Mike helped take Rosalie down to the trailer and load her and then we waited for her foal to get in which took about 10 minutes. We made it home around 8:30, unloaded then I went in for breakfast. Right after breakfast the camera was taken out and our horse loving guest came out to help get pictures of the foals. First one done was Rockaway (Lola's colt by Valiant). He was born April 26th so not ready to wean just yet. He is very friendly and really likes kids.

 Mori the horse loving guest was shown how to ask them to move for a few action shots.  He surprised me with how big his trot was.

When it cools down we will get a video of his movement. Next out was Irish and her colt. This colt also loves people. He is registered and dna'd in the Gypsian book of Friesian Heritage Horse Registry. His name is Prince and he floats!

Check out how far off the ground he is with that ground covering trot. 

Prince is for sale $6500.00. He is the typical Gyspy Friesian , The next foal out was Morgana (Soul's filly by Evan). She was registered in the Warlander book of the Friesian Heritage Horse registry and is sold. 

Last out was Dahlia (Rosalie's filly by Evan). She is our oldest foal born April 2nd, and also by far the tallest and not to brag or anything the most impressive mover I've seen! 

huge extension in her trot,

Way off the ground. All of Lily's daughters and grand daughters are amazing. 

IF you would like to see the rest of the pictures taken today of the foals click HERE.

But because she has been at Middle Grove since Rosalie was bred back I have a lot of work to do before she leaves for her new home in September. She needs to learn how to stand quietly to be haltered, she needs to learn to lead, stand tied, and load. She is smart so hopefully she will remember the training done before she was taken out. By the time we finished with her it was really hot.  Evan was brought out, hosed down and taken into the round pen for just long enough to have a good roll.

Since it was too hot to work horses we drove over to mom's to pick her green beans but found she had already picked them. Instead we went inside and visited for a bit, me with mom and Mori with Molly.

Mark was working on the slab insulation on the barn so we went to help.

It was a lot of work, still really hot so we left him and went to move bales. A new bale was put in the middle paddock, the back gate opened to both the middle and the far paddock and all the mares and foals here are back together. Yesterday I had 3 mares and foals in the far paddock and 2 in the middle as there wasn't much hay left in the middle. They were really glad to be back together. Today I wanted to go to Stock and Field to pick up vaccines for the foals but decided to call them first and they had none. TSC was called and they had none, finally Farm and Fleet was called and they had 6. I drove to Morton and bought all 6 and 2 more salt blocks.  From there I stopped at Walmart which is right across the street to pick up a watermelon, cake, hamburger buns, orange juice and salad mix for tomorrow's meal. Mark needed the orange juice to cook the tuna steaks he bought. When I got back one of the salt blocks was put in the middle paddock and the other put Whiskey's paddock as her's was about gone. The groceries were put away then Mori was given a driving lesson on the golf cart. We picked up all the net wrap, he drove the golf cart to the dumpster and almost ran into his dad's car. They were coming back from the playground. On the way back we met Berlica and Rochelle. We let Berlica drive the golf cart to her house then Mori drove it back to the apartment. Mackenson and Faith were here mowing. They are now back from Gulf Shores and had quite a trip coming home. The trip took longer than 24 hours (according to Berlica) I haven't heard the story yet from Joan except to know she had a flat tire, they had to sleep in the van and then wait for over 3 hours to get the tire fixed at Walmart. 

4 Trips to Middle Grove

 When I stepped out of the house this was what laying on the driveway.  My dad would say, "what a dumb place to take a nap".

The poor frog wasn't smashed so not sure how he died. Not that I know the gender. Mom was wearing her new socks this morning.

Sarah Reinhard bought them for her. Can anyone guess why? I left right after the walk, in fact we quit a little early so I was on the road by 8:00 am for the first trip to Middle Grove. Not knowing where the herd was I hiked straight up the hill in hopes they would be hanging around there but they weren't. I had to walk the ridge for quite a ways. They were all drowsing under the trees.

Rosalie was haltered and I started the long hike back dragging her. She didn't want to leave the herd and her filly wasn't following well until Irish and her colt came following. We made it almost to the trailer when Irish stopped. That made both foals stop. I thought it best to tie Rosalie to a tree, walk up and halter Irish and start leading her down and that was going well until Rosalie pulled back and broke her halter, then took off running back up the herd taking both foals with her. I decided to keep Irish and just put her in the trailer then hike back up for Rosalie.  I grabbed another halter out of the truck but when I got all the way back to the herd Soul was there waiting so she was haltered and we started down the hill again. Her filly followed well until we got close then took off up the hill for the herd so Soul was also put in the trailer with Irish and back up the hill I went for the 3rd time. This time Jury was waiting so Jury was chosen. This worked well as Jury's foal, Irish's foal and Soul's foal followed all the way down to the trailer. The trailer door was opened and Soul's filly jumped right in. Irish's colt took a while to get in, probably more than a half an hour but I wasn't in a hurry so just stood back with Jury and waited. Once those foals were loaded Jury was loaded and for the next THREE HOURS I waited for her colt to get in. Instead he found the salt block. Jury was a basket case calling for her colt who was ignoring her..

It was just too hot to leave the mares in the trailer much longer so I closed it up and drove out onto the road but before I could shut the gate the colt came running out of the field onto the road calling for his mom. Again I opened up the trailer door and again he refused to go in and ran back into the field. The gate was shut I took this load home, unloaded the horses, put Soul and Irish and their foals in the far paddock then put Jury in the 2 horse trailer and headed back to Middle Grove to pick up her colt. The round trip takes and hour and I was pleased he was still hanging around the gate when we arrived. This time when I opened the trailer door he jumped in and I was on the way home. Thank goodness for air conditioning. It was 91 degrees and humid.  They were put in with Indy and her filly.  At 2:00 pm my guests arrived and by 4:15 pm we were on our way back to Middle Grove. Mike met us there with the 4 wheeler found the herd so we drove back and got reasonably close before needing to hike.

The horses were all glad to see us.

I put a new halter on Rosalie and Mike led Lola to the trailer. Both mares loaded up well but their foals would not. We tried for about a half hour then decided to just take the mares. When we got back to Hanna City those two mares were hosed down, Rosalie put in the middle paddock and Lola loaded back for for the last trip out to Middle Grove. I arrived there by 6:50 pm, her colt jumped right in the trailer and I was on the way home by 7:00 pm. I snapped the picture below just as I was leaving Middle Grove for the last time today. 

I'll leave early in the morning with Rosalie and hopefully her filly will be so glad to see her mom she also jumps right in. Once home they were put in with Soul and her filly. Whiskey still needed to be teased and I got her successfully covered by Evan just before dark.  It is still probably a little early as she didn't stand well.