Sunday School Picnic

 Since I was horsein around yesterday there was a few things that needed to be cleaned and yes I worked on Sunday. It wasn't real work, just things that should have been done yesterday.  The dishes, starting the laundry, and taking the garbage over. I still had plenty of time for reading as I was up before 5:00 am. We left for church a few minutes after 9:00 am. David had the morning message about the transfiguration. I learn so much when listening to him. He really is a gifted teacher. Click HERE to watch that message. Today was the last day of Sunday school before the summer break. Nancy was pretty excited about her paper. Joan left at noon for Morton as they were having baptisms. Diane took Nancy for the afternoon and took her home after church so she could try on shoes. Craig Stickling had the afternoon message on John 15 abiding in the vine. click HERE to watch that.  This afternoon was the Sunday school picnic so as soon as Joan got home from Morton she picked up Nancy and took her there. Nancy won second place in the watermelon eating contest. 

Sarah, Joan's daughter took the pictures. I did not make it to the picnic. At the end of the picnic they give everyone water balloons and have a water balloon fight. Nancy and Joan had quite a contest. 

Nancy laughed and laughed. She is going to sleep good tonight.

Stephanie sent the video and pictures below of some of the after supper activities. 

A fun time was had by all. 

 Sarah and Nolan came here after church, Sarah took Izzy into the round pen. She really did very well, we are hoping to make a perfect child's trail pony out of her. There is a big group at the playground and beach this afternoon and evening. I've been sitting around reading while waiting for the machines to finish then getting the next one started. I really can't call it work as there is very little labor involved. It was a big group that stayed at the barn Friday and Saturday so have lots of sheets and towels. Tomorrow that will be cleaned. Braelyn came for dinner tonight and after dinner helped get the beds made at the barn. I was very thankful for her help. 

Exceptional Saturday

 I slept in until 6:00 am as today is Saturday and there were no pressing jobs. After breakfast I went back to work on the upstairs, cleaning out closets. I found this cross stich Evie Stoller gave to us for our wedding. It is under glass so is in perfect condition. That brought so many memories we had with Evie's family.

I quit around 10:00 am, cleaned up, went up to the truck to grab a couple chairs then asked Mark if he wanted to go with me to the Christian Center to watch Zion, Iris, and Eden play in a softball game. He decided not to go but I left at 10:15 and made it there before the game started. 

Eden was up at bat.

She got a hit and ran to first base.

Iris was up at bat and she also got a hit and ran to first.

Zion also got a hit and ran to first. Everytime these girls were up to bat they got a hit.

Below is a short video of just a bit of the game I didn't get a video of Eden hitting the ball so she is not in this video.

I went to Aldi on the way home and bought over $100 worth of groceries. We were out of a lot of needed food. Ruth had ridden Grace over early this morning and put her in with our mares. When I got back from Aldi she had Grace in the lake cooling off.

Diane and Joan were busy filling up rafts for the lake. We used the golf cart to fill them at Diane's then run them over to mom's.

Rebekah and her children are camping this weekend at mom's so Mike took them all out on a trail ride. Rebekah rode double with Blair. Riley rode Grace, Jordan rode Jewel, Berlica rode Rosalie and Mike rode Sally. Below they are getting tacked up.

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures of the ride click HERE.

Below is a short video of just some of their ride going down to the trails. 

Ruth and I followed on the golf cart with Walter and Micah, her dog and the dog Rebekah brought. We thought we were taking a short cut going up the hill but ran over a log and got the golf cart hung up on the log. We had to walk the rest of the way up the hill. By the time we got to the top the horses were long gone. They rode over to the fields, ended up at the outdoor arena and enjoyed some canter time in that before coming back. Mike and Diane took the 4 wheeler down to the stuck golf cart and pulled it out. Just in time as I was supposed to give my airbnb guests a tour and introduce them to the horses. On my way up, Spark and Rhonda showed up with Barb and 2 cousins. I'm pretty sure they have at least 200 first cousins all over America. I think I heard Jude, was from California.

They were introduced to the horses first and once they left the guests got their tour. We ended up at the cabin field where they both fell in love with Rosalie.

As soon as I took them back Mark and I drove to Gils Supper Club for dinner. We split a cobb salad.

After supper we went to the playground where Ruth had a nice fire going. We really had an exceptional Saturday!

She had her camper all set up for Rebekah's family tonight.

I had a lot of pictures to go through, Mark is already in bed and I'll be joining him momentarily. 

Empty Trailer

 I was up at 5:00 am and went over to do last minute cleaning at the barn. I had just come back when Mark came in from feeding the cat to let me know Sarah and the girls were already here. The girls were so excited about going to look for a pony that they came early. We left with the truck and trailer, picked up Rhoda and Iris at Busy Corner in Goodfield and drove to Arcola, IL to attend the big horse auction. That place was packed. We arrived a couple hours early so watched the horses warm up in the big outdoor arena. We made our way to the indoor around 11:20 am and found seats on the risers. The mini ponies went first. We were not looking for a mini but were shocked at the prices. Some of them sold for $3500.00, a lot of them were more than $2000.00. We were hoping to buy a bigger pony for the girls. Rhoda picked out one she thought might go too much but was exactly what we wanted. We were just shocked when it brought $22,000.00. The next one brought $23,000.00. The highest was $32,000.00. ALL of them were much higher than we would pay. We must be living in the past. 

It was really hot in the arena and we decided to go buy some ice cream. They were offering root beer floats for $4.00.

That hit the spot. The soda was ice cold and poured onto the cold ice cream it was creamy delicious and satisfying and helped cool us down. There was one Friesian mare listed that didn't have any information. I wanted to stay to see what she would go for. She was way down the list and when they brought her out announced she was a Friesian cross and had no papers. She was not well trained but I bid $6000.00 for her. Only one other lady was bidding against me. When she bid $6500.00 I let her have her. She was SO happy, she went running to follow the mare.  It was fun to see how excited she was to get her very first Friesian. The Gypsy geldings brought big bucks.

They also sold 3 or 4 Gypsy stallions. Those sold well. We didn't stay to watch the last 30 horses as it was getting late and we had a 2.5 hour trip to get home. We left there at 5:30 pm, stopped for gas and ate some dinner at the fast food restaurant located at the gas station. We dropped off Rhoda and Iris around 7:30 pm at Busy Corner then finally headed home making it here about 8:45 pm. We are all tired and a little sad to come home with an empty trailer. 

Beautiful Hay

 I over slept this morning not getting up until 6:30 am. I really was just too tired from working yesterday then had a late night. I left for the walk early to have time to check out our bales. 

They are beautiful. Large, nice and green, put up dry and fine stemmed. I think this is the very best hay we have ever had for a first cutting. 

On our walk I pretended I wanted to take a picture of the ladies but really wanted to get one of those gorgeous bales in the shot.

we stopped and talked to Spark for a while then stopped when David came by and he told us about his awful day yesterday trying to get to Galesburg and back. I was a little late getting back to the house to make breakfast. Right after breakfast I went to the barn to start cleaning. Mark picked up Mackenson. They got the forks off and put the spear on so he could start moving bales. Mark loaded diesel fuel in the tractor and started moving bales. Mackenson weed wacked the round pen and outdoor arena. Mark used the tractor to just move the bales close to the barn. I was almost finished when Sarah asked if the dumpster had been emptied. It gets emptied on Friday so today was a good day to clean out the tack stall. I took the golf cart over to help Sarah. When I walked in the 3 girls were busy cleaning tack.

We found a sparkly pony halter in one of the tubs. 

The perfect size for a pony and tomorrow we are going pony shopping so the girls will take the halter along. Hopefully we will come back with something WEARING the halter.

I went back to work to finish but stopped when I saw Mike burning scrap lumber.

I don't really need scrap lumber this winter. We won't have wood burners this winter so decided to just let it burn. Crew and Jackson were busy helping unload the trailer in Mike's barn, hauling boxes up to the second level. Crew and Jackson are 2nd cousins and work well together.

I finished the barn at 1:30 pm and went over to mom's as Sarah was letting the girls swim after all that stall work. David had Elisabet there too.

I didn't stay, the bales needed to be stacked in the barn. There were 3 older bales that needed to be moved to the other side. Once those were moved I started moving the bales from Joan's field over to ours. I had finished and was bringing one back to stack when Mark arrived with the tractor to help. First though we needed to move the broken golf cart out of the way. Mark had it up on stilts well it was lifted so he could work on taking the tires apart. We finished putting the last bale in the barn at 5:30 pm. Valiant was given a bale then I quit working.  I was covered with dust and bits of hay. The shower helped get rid of most of it but I still feel like there is more in my hair. I made a pizza for supper. Mike and Diane came over and we went for a short walk so I could show them the hay all nicely stacked in the barn. It really is beautiful!

Emotional

 On our walk this morning David and Rachel were heading somewhere with their truck and trailer. David had a tail light out. This tail light went out years ago and he fixed it then. This is how he fixed it. 

In case you can't see how he fixed it, below is a little better picture of the non working light.

He didn't even use a 'real' tupperware, just one of those cheap knock offs. He told Rachel he needs a new bulb and a new container. Hmmm I wonder if that makes him a redneck? After breakfast I spent some time cleaning out our closet before going over to mom's house. There I worked on cleaning out the coat closet. That took about an hour. I found lots of medical equipment from the last 4 years and 8 months. 

All of the puzzles and games were taken downstairs where we are laying everything out for family to go through. I found a huge mother's day card we gave to mom and everyone signed.

We didn't just sign, we all wrote something and my eyes started watering as I read them. 

No wonder mom kept this card. I left then and want to my house to start cleaning out the 2 upstairs bedroom closets. Diane was cleaning out mom's desk and found letters and cards mom kept written by her children and she too got emotional. She found a note from mom giving her quilt to Hannah as Hannah was with her when she bought it. We all knew she wanted Hannah to have it but didn't realize she actually wrote that out in 2019. Mark had all of his financial papers probably for the 49 years we have been married stored in tubs in those upstairs closets. Those were hauled downstairs. I have a lot of show equipment, Ribbon's vaulting surcingle, the swords, the fancy capes. Lots of Christmas decorations, extra towels, bedding and pillows for the 2 airbnbs and more. A lot of it was hauled down stairs until I ran out of room in our small living room. How could 2 closets hold so much? I was glad to quit and take a long shower to get ready for church.  David Beutel had the message tonight and I felt it was just for me. God really IS in charge. To watch that click HERE. After church we went to Culvers for a late supper. I sat next to Teresa and asked at our table if anyone knew someone who needed a hospital bed. Teresa immediately replied, "I DO!" Her 19 year old son Brandon really does need one so we have found a home for that. Joan is going to be looking for a new to her used washing machine and if she can find one in Peoria she will borrow the truck, drop off the bed and hopefully pick up a washer soon. On the way home from church an airplane flew right in front of us. The picture is fuzzy as the plane was moving pretty fast. The top light is the moon and the other lights are the plane as it was coming toward us.

Mark and Mackenson got lots of weed spraying done today. We are both tired. I found out when I turned my phone back on after church that Bryan, the farmer who does our hay, raked and baled today. He said we got 40 bales. Mark is going to help tomorrow by putting the bale spear on the tractor to get them close for me to stack with the skid steer.