Two Trips

 I left the house at 6:00 am to fill Lily and Soul's water tank before letting them out for the day.  It is nice now that it is light enough to see and can start work earlier. The redbud tree is finally starting to bloom. Rosalie was teased and covered. 

On the way back to the house I stopped to work on the car. The back was falling off again, the gray tape was taken off, then the gorilla tape. I went in the house to find more but couldn't. Mark knew he had some in the barn and when he found it helped put the car back together.

After the car was fixed I left for the Peoria post office to pick up the Berean mail and arrived shortly after they opened with no line in front of me. We got a decent amount of mail for tomorrow.  As soon as I got home I changed then drove to Middle Grove in the Prius to check on Mares.  I parked at the far gate but when I found the herd today they were up at the back gate between the winter and summer pasture so it would have been much closer to park at the first gate.  Below is the first picture taken as I was walking up. They had just seen me.  There are a couple of them missing in this picture.

Jury was checked first as she is due May 11th but her udder is still pretty flat. Tatiana usually delivers 2 to 3 weeks early and sure enough her udder was quite full. She is due May 16th, exactly 3 weeks away. 

I knew at that point I would be hiking back to the car, driving home and coming back with the truck and trailer. I turned and snapped one more picture after starting the long hike back. Mika was behind the tree.

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures taken at Middle Grove this morning click HERE. As I was pulling into the drive I called Joan to see if she could spare Berlica for a couple hours. As long as I was taking the trailer to Middle Grove we wanted to take Dancer out. She has had a good start now needs to be with the herd and grow up. She will be brought in again next spring when she turns 3. When we arrived and let her out of the trailer she was pretty confused as there were no horses in sight. Berlica and I started hiking up the hill, got to the herd, put the halters on Tatiana and Missy and popped Berlica up on Missy for the ride down to the trailer.

Right about then Dancer came galloping up the hill saw the herd, the herd saw her and took off galloping toward her, she saw us and started running toward us with the herd following. Berlica said that was the first time she was charged by a bunch of horses. I stood in front waving a lead rope they all missed us parting and galloping around us.  Poor Dancer was too afraid by this time and followed us all the way back to the trailer.  She wanted to go home!  We only had room for Tatiana and Missy so she was sent off but wouldn't leave and tried to follow us out the gate. Berlica had to chase her away so I could get the truck and trailer out of the field and quickly close the gate. Facebook seems to have removed all of my videos from this blog but I posted a short video of Berlica chasing Dancer and if you want to see it just go to my facebook page.

We made it home and put Tatiana in the paddock next to Valiant while Missy went in with Sally and Rockaway. Once Rockaway leaves Cookie will be moved over with them. 

At 5:00 pm Mark and I picked up Anna, Taegan and Kensley and drove to Morton. We met Nolan and Sarah's family and David and Stephanie's family at LaFiesta for dinner.

Everyone enjoyed their dinner. From there we drove to the church for the ballet recital. This was supposed to have happened before Easter but some of the ballerinas got sick. It was very entertaining. 

Below is the entire performance.

 Below are a few pictures of the evening.

Israel lost a tooth while there.

There were cookies served after. I took a few other pictures, if interested click HERE. When we got home Tatiana was put in the indoor arena. She is not waxing but it is very cold outside with a freeze warning. Lily and Soul will spend the night in the far paddock with their 5 day old very healthy foals. The cold won't bother them as long as it doesn't rain.