New Coffee Maker

Mark and I brought a quite a few loads of wood in this morning before I left for mom's.  When I arrived mom was already awake but not yet wanting to get out of bed. Joan reported she had a good night sleep but they cut WAY back on the muscle relaxer and have just been pushing liquids. Karin picked up some pedialyte to help regulate her electrolytes. Those muscle relaxers were doing way more than just relaxing her muscles. It was really messing with her mind. I told her it is like smoking marijuana but she heard, "she was smoking marijuana" and she wanted to know, "Who TOLD you THAT!"  Of course we all laughed.  We have to make sure she eats and drinks. The other good news is she walked twice today, to the table and back to her chair and hasn't complained of pain.  Joan got back at 8:30 am with the kids. They started school while I left for the Peoria post office to pick up the Berean mail. From there to TSC in East Peoria to pick up a 40 pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds for mom's bird feeder.  I checked out grain prices while there. The prices really have doubled for the same 50 pound bag. I didn't need any on this trip.  Since Cosco is only a few minutes from TSC I planned on going there for groceries but got there too early. They don't open until 10:00 am so decided to go to Sam's club for groceries instead.  I was glad I did. They had pork chops for $1.22 a pound and I also found some marked down chuck roasts and bought all that were reduced. Those were wrapped well and frozen for later. From Sam's I drove to Berean to drop off the mail and a fruit covered cheese cake. Only then did I realized I had forgotten to buy a coffee maker.  The one there quit working.  I'll just have to bring mine from home in the morning.  I ordered one this evening from Amazon and had to get an off brand (well a brand I've never heard of) as the rest were all more expensive. The coffee maker only gets used 1 time a week and this one had ok reviews.

It is suppose to arrive Feb 4th.  It was my turn to make dinner and spend the evening with mom and Karin.  Mark and Mackenson were working on the mowers in mom's garage so Mark joined us for dinner there. After dinner he asked, "do you always have such a good time eating over there?"  The answer really is yes. There is a lot of laughter in mom's house. Ruth came over after work and was thrilled to see mom up and eating.  She gave us an update on Fedi. He is able to handle the 3 hours of intensive therapy at Methodist and frankly is bored. With covid restrictions there are only 12 patients on his floor. So many empty rooms and Fedi loves visiting with people. Tonight I have to do an update on the convoy.  This is from a lady named Jennifer Loewen. She writes about it under the picture.  

Many people still don’t know what’s happening because the main media outlets are telling their own story.

"Last night in a private family chat, my Uncle Len shared this message, and I took a screen shot (I’m sharing with permission from him).

He owns a trucking company in Canada and has 4 of his trucks running in the convoy... the red truck in the photo is one of them.

These are the stories of the revolution that’s begun. I’ve never see anything like it.

In fact, I grew up in a trucking family in Canada, and my dad, father-in-law, and most of my extended family are all in the trucking industry, so what’s happening right now hits home for me!!! Who knew it would be the truckers to lead the way?"

~ Jennifer Loewen 

A Full House

 We had another super Sunday although mom struggled. This new muscle reliever she is messing with her mind. She was super slow at responding this morning.  Joan got her ready for church. I stayed with her for the first service while Joan stayed with her for the second. Ruth took the later afternoon shift.  Everyone of the family came today plus Ron, Taunya's dad so we had 27 for dinner, a full house and somehow everyone found a place to sit and eat.

It helped that 3 of the kids were still out sledding when we started the meal. 

 After the meal the volley ball players left and the kids all got to take turns holding baby Zeke, the youngest grand child. 

We even got in some snuggles with a few of the older kids.

When we got tired of playing with the babies the crafts were taken out. 

We had 4 trucks that needed to be decorated, a perfect amount for Jack, Jace, Israel and Abe.

The boys were pretty thrilled that the girls didn't get a truck, only the boys.  The girls worked on making Frozen bracelets then coloring and decorating some little wooden dogs and cats.  If you would like to see the rest of the pictures of today click HERE. After that they all worked on making paddles out of popsicle sticks and dessert plates and made balls by crumpling up a piece of paper then using tape to keep it in place. We had quite a hockey game on the kitchen floor. Below is the video, first of making the crafts then of the games. 

Freedom Convoy

The big news today doesn't seem to be big news on ANY of the usual networks. That is strange as the Freedom Convoy in Canada started days ago with big trucks and all kinds of other vehicles joining in from one end of Cananda to the other all heading to Ottawa the Canada's capital.

PHOTO  ABOVE:  Big rigs and their supporters descend on Parliament Hill on January 29, 2022. PHOTO BY LARS HAGBERG/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Below are some drone shots of the crowd as the trucks made their way into the city.

Watching drone videos hovering over the thousands of trucks as they make their way into the capital and the crowds cheering them in 30-40 below wind chills was something. The video below was taken today as they were arriving.

The world is watching Canada!  Everywhere we heard End the mandates, let Freedom RING!  

We had a quiet day here far from Canada. We awoke to another cold morning but by this afternoon our thermometer was reading 34 degrees which felt like a real heat spell. Mark spent the afternoon sharpening mower blades in his back shop. He has 4 mowers and did duplicates of each blade so ended up shopping 20 blades. He still has 5 or 6 to sharpen but that would take him all the way through the mowing season of 2022. He is using the brand All America Sharpener and is very impressed with it. This does a wonderful job sharpening mower blades. We don't usually indorse companies on this blog but Mark was so impressed he wants to let others know. If interested click HERE for a link to their website. I spent the afternoon with mom. Joan reported this morning that mom had a good night and today mom was without pain. We are so pleased the new drug is working.  Amy Koch came over so while she was here I ran to dollar General to pick up some craft items for tomorrow. Amy just came back from Florida where she spent 3 weeks working on her house there. She and Kathy were screening in their Lanai and were able to finish the job while there.  We got to see pictures and admire all the work they did. This evening we played Carbols at mom's. Karin and I were partners while Joan and Berlica were partners. That game is a lot of fun.  Mom was able to sit at the table and watch. 

 

Sweet Updates

 Mark is thrilled with the hedge logs he picked up from Gary yesterday. They are 2 years old and burn very hot.  He just puts one or two in the woodburner then puts that wood from this year that isn't quite dry and it all burns great.  I headed over to mom's at 7:15 am. Mom had the 3rd bad night in a row.  She even asked for morphine for pain as the muscle relaxer and the Aleve wasn't working but Joan was able to reposition her and she finally fell asleep around midnight and was up at 5:00 am. She fell back asleep and at 9:00 am she finally awoke and wanted breakfast in bed. Once she was dressed was in a lot of pain so was given the muscle relaxer which put her sound asleep until 1:00 pm.  Meanwhile Sarah brought the girls over.

They were put to work coloring their night lights and made some beautiful pictures.  Danny arrived a bit later and then Jessica came bringing some delicious banana muffins. She also came to work with mom's arm.

We determined the pain from her arm was not coming from her arm but her rib.

We knew we needed to try something different so Joan called the Palliative care nurse who told her she had to call the doctor to change her muscle relaxer to one that lasts longer. The prescription was sent in to Kroger but they only had 15 pills of the 90 prescribed so we will need to go back for more in 3 or 4 days to get the rest. Mark picked that up and brought it here with some fried chicken for our dinner around 5:00 pm. By this time mom's leg was contracting causing pain again so we gave her one of the new pills during dinner. By 6:30 pm she was feeling very relaxed and sleepy. Unfortunately that was exactly when Aunt Jinnie called. By 7:30 pm we just could not keep her awake. Some gorgeous pictures were posted today but first check out the one below. 

Zalena is his dam and Evan is his sire. His owner also posted the picture below.

She named him Floyd and he is quite a character.  The lady that bought Ella Skye also sent a picture. She calls her Reign and she is now 5 years old. She will be bringing her back in April to be bred to Evan.

The last picture sent today was of Apollo, a Lily x Valiant colt/now a gelding.

It really is wonderful when owners send updates, and the pictures make those updates even more special. 

Volley Ball in Eureka

Last night I started reading the book Brought This Far by Sharon Lee Meisenheimer. Joan N. one of our graders at Berean Prison Minstry brought it to the Berean office for us to share and in chapter 20 it talks about an AC Work team coming down to help with construction of some buildings in Ecuador in 1981.  Imagine my surprise when some of the work team were named.  On that team were 14 people including Nick Knobloch, Kent and Jan Heimer.  I confess to over sleeping then quick trying to finish the book this morning so got a late start on chores. When I went out Dancer was very glad to see me.  I was trying to get the net wrap out of her shelter so we could put a new one in this afternoon but she wouldn't leave me alone. When I stopped to take a picture of Sheena she stuck her nose in the picture. 

I turned the camera around to get her picture and got me in it too but most of it was of HER nose.

She really is a loving horse.

We got word from Ruth that Fedi started his therapy today at Methodist. She included this picture of him in his scrubs.

It is really good to see him smiling. He sure has had a rough time.  When Mark got home I needed help moving in 2 bales. Dancer's paddock needed a bale as did Valiant.

While working out there I checked all the waterers and the far paddock one must have been over flowing. Check out the ice around that one.

The rest of the waterers are fine. At 4:00 pm I left for Sarah and Nolan's house to go with them to Eureka to watch Addyson play volley ball. I was amazed at how many girl players there are. They had team after team play.

The games were fun to watch. Rhoda brought Zeke and Sarah's three girls were enamored with him.

Addyson's teams won every game.  After the games we drove to Busy Corner for a late dinner.

That was fun too. It was late when I finally got home only to find my keyboard wasn't working. I took Mark's from his computer. He has ordered a new one for mine. Hopefully it will come soon. 

Sticker Shock

 Mom had a bad night last night. She just couldn't get comfortable no matter what Joan did. Because of that she slept most of the morning. She had a decent afternoon but no walking. We don't really know what are causing the leg spasms. Karin gave me a list of things to buy at Aldi and again I got sticker shock. Each time I walk into that store the prices are higher than the last time. At least this time they had food on the shelves.  Rhoda posted a few pictures of Zeke's guests. Below are Elisabet and Israel meeting their new cousin.

The second youngest grandchild River Gracelynn turned 9 months old. She learned to wave and crawl.

Most of today was spent working on a new Facebook page for on-site camper rentals.  If you would like to see the new page (and hopefully push that like button) click HERE.  This is something new I'd like to try. We will still be using RV Share to rent out 3 or 4 of the trailers but if the trailers are available and someone wants to try camping out here on the farm we could accommodate them. WE have 5 different campers available so if someone wanted to camp with a group or 5 different families we can do that. The Jayco 301 RLS Eagle with it's 2 slides sleeps 6. One king bed, a pull out couch sleeps 2 and a dinette that folds down to a bed that sleeps 2.

The Forest River FSX Wildwood with it's one slide sleeps 8 with two queen beds (The dinette makes into a very comfortable queen), plus 2 double bunks for the children. 

The Forest River FSX Salem  sleeps 7 with 1 queen bed 2 double bunks and the dinette is a large single.

The Forrest River Wolf Pup sleeps 5 with a queen bed, 2 single bunks and the dinette makes a single.

The final camper is the Keystone Summerdale sleeps 6 with a full bed, a single bunk bed above the full bed, a jackknife sofa that sleeps 1 adult and the dinette sleeps 2.

I also updated the website with the on-site camping. If you would like to check that out click HERE then click on camper rental. I relieved Joan at 5:00 pm and stayed until 8:45 pm. Joan will again spend the night but Karin is there now and will listen for her bell until Joan gets home from church. We watched church on Facebook live.  Tomorrow we need to move a new bale in for Sheena and Dancer. Sheena is for sure looking pregnant. 

Thankfully the weather is supposed to start warming up and should be around 30 degrees tomorrow afternoon. It was 3 below this morning.