Pictures

The camera cord has been found and pictures from Ruth's big family dinner will be added after church. The wind has been howling around the buildings during the night and this morning. The noise, even in this very insulated cozy cabin was enough to wake us numerous times. We went to bed last night by 8:30pm but with the restless night it's hard to get moving this morning. At 2:30am I made Emma go outside, she usually wakes me up but this time I made her get up and go out. Would have thrown more logs in the wood burner but that would have meant going out in the stall area to get them, there were none left in the apartment. Instead of going out into the cold, I checked email before heading back to bed. We got an email from the Horse Fair lady in charge of the evening performance asking how our team was doing and do we have a script. It looks like Horsemeister Friesians are going to be performing in the Friday evening Horsecapades, Saturday breed demo, Saturday evening Horsecapades and Sunday breed demo. The rest of the night was spent dreaming about everything going wrong during the preparing and while they were performing. Talk about nightmares, I was glad to wake up. Today is Sunday the best day of the week, a day of rest for most of us but not for the Hermans! Beth and Greg are serving lunch today, mom is going in early with Mike and Diane to help them. They always have a great lunch, so consider this an invite, come to Peoria today for something special.

Sunday School Pancake Supper

As the temperatures have moderated into the 20s and the sun was shining, Mike, Diane, Karin and Rhoda took off for Middle Grove after the funeral with the trailer loaded with Mika and Bunni. Mike rode Mika, Diane was on Bunni, Karin rode Sally while Rhoda was on Sangria. They spent hours exploring on horseback the 200 acres for sale that adjoins the Middle Grove farm. The owner told them even if they don't end up purchasing the acreage they are still welcome to ride in it. Rhoda reported it is beautiful, lots of large grass pastures, lakes, hills, and wooded areas where there is abundant wildlife. Karin took pictures, hopefully she will email some over to be posted here. They finished up at the gingerbred house now called the cottage and warmed up their frozen feet by the roaring hot fire in the fireplace. The horses left to right are Sally, Mika, Bunni and Sangria, all patiently waiting for the next trip out.

Notice the solar panel on the left hand side attached to the chimney of the cottage. This was installed today to recharge the batteries. The cottage is all fixed up with lights, a microwave, propane heat and cook stove, those along with the fireplace make it very usable in the coldest weather.

They stayed all afternoon, then for dinner stopped at the Farmington Pizza Company. They brought back Mika, Bunni, Sally and Sangria leaving Lily, Ayanna, Cindy and Lilypony out for another week as the next few days we are suppose to get a warm up enough to melt the snow and ice. Lily will easily take care of her dwindling herd.
Steven was out today to work the boys, he has a great idea for the demo with these young stallions. I won't spoil his surprise but it should be an excellent show.
Mom, Nancy, Mark and I took off for the annual Sunday School Pancake Supper. This event was started by my dad years and years ago. It is always well attended with literally thousands of pancakes served. Ruth and Rachel's boys were busy working at the dinner, Ryan passing out pancakes, Logan & Steven taking coats and Fede flipping pancakes. The dinner was rounded out by sausage and applesauce, all really delicious.
We took Nancy to her home in Morton before coming back to the farm.

Friday Company

Well my company ended up at Ruth's. Last winter was long and cold so the people living out here decided to have game night once a month. Ruth and Fede's house was a school before they bought it and turned it into their house. It is big with an open floor plan and can accommodate lots of squirmy house bound anxious to move about kids so hers was perfect for last night. About 60 - 70 of the family showed up and what a great time we all had partying late into the night. It was really funny, she set the dinner time as 6:00pm but most of us showed up by 5:45pm with some stragglers coming after dinner to join in the fun. People came from Peoria, Hanna City, Bloomington, Norris, Maquan, Chillicothe, and Morton. It's really wonderful and not just for mom's sake but all of our sakes that most of our siblings settled right here in central, IL with only Joan & Tim temporarily working in Haiti. Many pictures were taken but they will have to be uploaded later, the camera cord can't be found, perhaps it was left at the shop in Peoria.
We have a funeral to attend today. Lillian Koehl passed away, we celebrated her 100th birthday October 29th. Her husband was Adolph, and when we were young we thought he was the boss of the church. He preceded her in death in 1979. Lillian never knew a stranger and loved visiting with new and old friends.

Amazing video

This guy and his horses are amazing.
Instead of walking this morning Diane had us over for breakfast, then they went down and did an exercise video while I headed back. Mike got the chains on the golf cart, now there is no excuse for not joining the walkers. The cart works fantastic even on ice.
The cable is now installed in the farm house but we have no computer over there to try it out. Mark left the laptop cord down at the shop and the battery is dead so no trying out our new cable internet.

Cold

This is the coldest day this season, the thermometer is suppose to be hovering at 5 degree with wind chills below zero. But... there are only 11 days left of January, February is a short month and we almost always get some nice days in March. The dreaded dark frozen days have been few and far between this winter. We still have horses out at Middle Grove, unheard of in years past. Mike drove out to Middle Grove yesterday to move in another bale and to make sure the creek is still open.
Today the cable will be installed between 1:00pm and 5:00pm. A trip in to Peoria must be made today, we are having a lot of company for dinner tonight and supplies in the fridge and cupboards are running short. When we lived in Peoria we never worried about running out of groceries, Madison Park shopping center was just blocks away. Living here takes just a little bit of planning, it's either that or borrow from the neighbors.
Pleased to announce the coffee was wonderful this morning, hot strong and delicious with none on the floor.

Email from Sue

Hi Judy.
I read your blog and wanted to say you make me laugh with the oh so subtle hints about the horse show. The vet told me he would xray her at 2 1/2 --this month! but weather and finances will put it off until April, then if she is ready, off to the trainer so I am saving madly because I sooooooo want to ride her this summer. I sure would have liked to go and thank you for the invite. Here are a couple pics from last month. She makes me look short! She is such a sweetheart and I couldn't be happier with her. She definitely is a favorite at the barn. I do have to laugh because I have never seen her run or do the show off trot but my friends all say they have. One day while standing in the pasture talking to them she would run and when I turned around she would stop. The brat did this a few times all when she apparently knew I wasn't looking. I don't think she wants me to know what she is capable of doing or just thinks it's funny to fool me.
Sue

THANKS SUE: Well I guess that means Piper is out for the show but it was sure worth a try. Just look at the picture above of her taken last month. Sue is a tall lady and Piper towers over her and she is not even 2 and a half in the picture. I think she will easily top 16.3 hands when full grown, Sue you are going to need a step ladder to get on her.
Braelyn was dropped off a little after 8:00am, she was a busy girl today. First playing with the truck & trailer along with a couple Breyer horses (that's my girl!)

Then cruising from the fridge, stopping and playing with the knobs on the drawers, then over to the dishwasher.

Making her way to the cupboards under the sink and learning how to open them and get the garbage out until Grandma tied them shut.

Then crawling over to the table and trying to pull things down.

She is just such a busy little girl and so much fun.

Steven showed up late afternoon and moved a bale into the middle paddock and one for Ribbon & Eliza. He also gave Raven a square bale, Indy & Killian hay and grained all the horses. That was a huge gift, today was just so cold, the horses thank him and so do I.
Thanks Steven for all your hard work!

Phil and Anna met at the farm house after work and started removing old insulation from the attic. Once finished they came in for dinner looking like this:

Talk about an awful job. Mark is going to have new insulation blown in and the old had to come out. It was full of debris, making it not at all efficient. Thank You PHIL & ANNA, we really appreciate all you are doing to help us get this old house ready to move in.

Coffee Makers

Someone needs to design a coffee maker that will not work if the pot is not in place. Today is one of those mornings that if it can go wrong it will. Bleary eyed and obviously not thinking well the gallon jug of water from walmart was poured into the coffee maker only spilling about 6 ounces. Hey it is hard to pour into that little area when ones eyes aren't quite open. Then go to fill the fragrant dry coffee grounds into the filter and realize we are almost out of coffee but there is enough for today, pushing the buttons to start the pot and walk away. Anxiously waiting for those two tiny little beeps that herald the finishing of the pot, finally hear them and off I go stumbling over the dogs to get to this magic brew. A huge puddle is on the floor under the counter. My brain can't process that it is coffee on the floor and not in the pot which was standing on the counter next to the maker. Quickly the pot was placed in the correct spot and one measly cup of coffee was dripped into the pot with plenty of grounds coming out with it. Shuffle the few feet over to the cupboard for a clean coffee mug and there are none, they are all in the dishwasher that had not been run. Grabbing a mug, washing it out and trying to fill it without getting many grounds in it wasn't as difficult as trying to walk on the floor with paper towels stuck to my feet. It is hard to bend down with a bum hip so I've learned to wipe the floor with my feet. The rags used got most of the puddle up but to finish the job paper towels are dropped on the floor and stepped on with both feet. This I learned from Taunya's mom and it works! The problem comes when it gets stuck between ones toes. It just kind of looks funny. Today I must go to Sams for more coffee plus the dogs are now out of food. Not sure what is more important but isn't it great that the coffee ran out the same time as the dog food.
I'm not going on the walk today, we had a fresh layer of snow and it's cold. The golf cart cannot make it up the hills without being pushed by the other walkers and somehow I just don't think that is fair to them. Mike ordered chains for the tires but they came too big and he needs to take a few links out to make them fit. Once they are on I'll have no excuse but today I'm glad for the excuse.
The bright spot today is Braelyn coming over. Today is Joan's birthday, the walkers came in with Joan on the phone so she could be wished blessings for the day. Someone needs to wish that on this place today.
At least when the walkers left they took Emma with them, she loves to go on the walk.

The snow has started back up and the temperature is dropping, today is not going to be a warm and fuzzy type day.

Cable Installation

The cable guy just left, the installation of cable internet is scheduled for Friday between 1:00pm and 5:00pm. This is amazing, after hearing it can't be done by everyone from family to the Mediacom company, it is finally going to happen. In this life it really is who one knows and in our case we knew Sue Martin one of the supervisors of the company. She bought Sanna's daughter Piper from us and found a way for this to happen.
Our other big news is we are now entered in the breed and sport demo at the IL Horse Fair March 2nd, 3rd, and 4th down at the IL state fairgrounds in Springfield, IL. We have reserved and paid for 10 stalls this year. The cost for extra stalls went up from $90.00 a stall to $95.00 a stall but we won't let a measly $5.00 each stop us. At this point the horses going are: Ribbon & Bow, Ylse, Jenis, Zalena, Valiant, Evan and Monica Fritzenmeier's filly Eisis. We needed one feed stall and one tack stall, for our last stall we can choose to take Ciera, or make it into a dressing room. If we take Ciera we will have 4 horses the same age for the judging, if we don't take her we just will not be able to be in the judging this year. Actually we should try to talk Sue into bring Piper for that but then if she did, Piper would probably take first over the other 3, Piper is just so tall and impressive.

Karin has a lady professionally making sparkly blue or silver capes for the riders and sparkly leg wraps for each of the horses. This year we are all going to match and going in style!
Karin and I spent hours yesterday online trying to find a decent hotel with a hot tub and by 8:30pm Karin gave up and told me to reserve rooms at the Ramada on Sangamon. No hot tub but they have an indoor pool and near the fairgrounds. Today the reservations will be made.

Big News

Cable internet will be hooked up at the farm house tomorrow. We still need to buy a modem but how exciting is this, no more driving into Peoria to upload horse videos. We will be able to just walk over to the farm house to get reliable, fast speed internet.
The repairs on the farm house are moving along very well. Phil and Anna worked last night on moving the dirt from the crawl space out of the basement. There is still more to finish before we want to move in but we can now see the progress.
It is just plain cold today. Steven showed up for a bit after working next door, grained a few horses and moved Ciera over into the middle paddock with Jenis, Ylse, Airiah, Zalena and Izadora. Ribbon, Bow and Eliza are now in the first paddock making it easier at feeding time. Neither Ribbon, nor Eliza need any grain but when they were in the middle paddock of course they were the horses that would find a way to steal it.
Izadora is the only non Friesian mare in the middle paddock but she is so tall and black it takes a second look to pick her out.
This is Izadora before she delivered her 2010 colt:

and this is right after she delivered her colt by Raven:

Izadora is a true 16.2 hands and a true black. Her foals by Raven can't help but be tall, black and Oh So Elegant, and that's not even mentioning the fantastic movement from that set of parents. We are only asking $3500.00 for her including her unborn Raven baby, why the foal alone is worth twice as much as soon as it hits the ground. OK, I've just about talked myself into keeping her in hopes she will have filly this time around. So if interested in her and don't care if she has a colt or filly better act soon. She has had 2 colts by Raven and both are being kept intact as stallion prospects they truly are that nice.

Braelyn

Yesterday the day was spent with one of my favorite grand daughters. There are only 2 so far of these very precious little girls and what a blessing to spend time with them. Hint, hint Taunya.

This morning is dark and gray, so dark that the arena lights needed to be turned on to find the golf cart for the morning walk. What a surprise when the lights were on. Steven cleaned up the arena moving 60 bales over to the breeding shed and getting the arena ready for Karin's vaulting practice tomorrow. We thank him but Karin really needs to thank him. To Horsemeister's benefit, Steven has been hired on at the barn across the street. They have 16 horses that they would like to sell, the owner has asked Steven to put training on them and get them ready to sell. Now instead of driving all the way from Metamora, IL he just drives across the street.
Work waits, must leave now if I'm to beat Eva Jean in except Emma just vomited on the rug. She has been obviously eating something with hair while we were on the walk, perhaps another deer carcass, so gross. The rug has been treated with woolite but that needs to sit 5 minutes before it can be blotted up. Today Eva Jean will win!

The Greats

Mom and her 29 great grandchildren all loaded up last fall into the rowboat and took off fishing. What was she thinking? Doesn't she know how dangerous it is to take 29 little kids out onto the lake?
Actually the rowboat was on the beach, a little bit of amateur photoshop was done to place the boat in the water. Mom hired Rachel to take her Christmas picture and when all 29 kids were in the boat with mom you should have seen the adults up on land trying to get all of their attention. Rachel's picture turned out way better than this one taken with my little camera.
Speaking of Rachel, she took the picture below of one of the Dashchaund puppies for sale in Edwards, IL.

These puppies are adorable and ready to go by Valentines day. The mom of these pups is one of the nicest Dashchaund (wiener) dogs I've ever known of. She is not yappy, likes kids, and acts more like a gentle lab around children than a Dashchaund. There are only 6 available so if one is in your future better call 309-676-5850 and ask for Rita quickly. They are purebred Dashchaunds but do not have papers so instead of the megabucks a papered pup would be these are only priced at $300.00.
And speaking of dogs, Rhoda spent some time on the internet looking for stud service from a male standard poodle. She loves the Mastiff breed but wants something that doesn't shed for her next dog. She got what she thought was a great idea, breed Emma to a poodle and end up with a large hairy non shedding dog. Actually she found some pictures of a Mastipoo or Pooymastiff what ever one would call that mix and they are cute. Of course if she did do that for her one dog who would want the others, Emma isn't about to only have 1 puppy. The only standard Poodle we knew was Donna Grig's dog Kate. Kate was a lady through and through and so elegant, something a Mastiff is not, probably not the best of Rhoda's ideas.

Karin's Arena

Church was such a blessing today, 2 great sermons, the first by Ken Hoerr and the second by Tim Funk. The lunch between the 2 was amazing. Ron and Carol Christ served and the tables were full of goodies such as chicken salad with dried cherry on croissants, turkey subs, ham and cheese subs, along with lots of home made cakes and cookies. After church Mark and Mike helped Rhoda and I clear the arena, at least as clear as it can be with the hay, hay rack, grain wagon, tractor, skid steer attachments and the skid steer stuffed inside. The work we go through for Karin's vaulting team! Steven Marchal came over in time to help move the hay rack out, then grained the mares. Next on Mike's list was to work on 2 of the automatic waterers that are leaking a bit. He was only able to fix the one in the breeding shed, the other he needs to buy a part for. Braelyn is also coming tomorrow morning. We had warm enough weather to help with the melting but by 4:00pm the wind started up making it seem just plain cold. Rhoda and Sarah are spending the night then leaving around 4:00am for a snow boarding trip to Sundown with a bunch of the cousins. Rhoda will drive Ruth's motor home to Maquon, pick up Karin and let her drive the rest of the way. Hope they have good weather.

Middle Grove

Mike, Diane and Karin spent the day at the Middle Grove farm yesterday. Mike emailed these pictures of the horses left there. They are all down by the cottage.


That place is truly a horse paradise. The horses do not have to deal with the frozen mud we were dealing with here. They have 80 acres to roam around on. Once they are back to the Hanna City farm they must stay in paddocks, off of the pastures as we don't want to ruin the pastures here.
Mike reported he and Karin went riding and had a blast. Karin rode Sangria and he rode Sally. Mike took the trailer out and brought back Ciera, Bonnie and Ella. Our horses are so funny, if the trailer shows up they come running to see who is here, then if the trailer door is left open they jump in just hoping to go for a ride. Now that is self load! We have 6 horses left out there.
Mark had to fix a downed board this morning. Once the horses were fed and the board repaired it was time to fix breakfast and get ready for church. Such a nice morning, the sun is shining and the wind is not blowing. It was almost a privilege to work outside.

Dream

Dare to Dream, then Dream Big!
Dreams are important, not the nightly kind but one's dream for the future. What's weird is from the time Rhoda was 9 years old together She and I knew there would be a Friesian in our future what we didn't understand is sometimes our dreams are not big enough. Who would think the dream to own just one of these magnificent horses would turn into a huge dream maker not just for us but many others. We know without a shadow of a doubt Raven was our gift from God,

what we couldn't know was by the gift of Raven this small dream of owning one Friesian stallion turned into hundreds of happy customers and many purebred Friesians.
I still remember the excitement when we found our first mare Jenis.

She was only 2 years old and beautiful, the next year we purchased Sanna & Samantha.

These three were bred with Samantha losing her colt 2 months before her due date, and both Jenis and Sanna giving us the beautiful fillies Abby & TC.


In the fall we were able to acquire Ylse.

The next year Jenis gave us Valiant,

We purchased Evan to be his companion,

Ylse gave us Tiera,

while Sanna gave us Wanda

and Samantha gave us a colt.

All 4 were bred back to Raven, Jenis had a filly that died of heat exhaustion,

Ylse gave birth on the 4th of July to Indy,

Sanna was sent to live with Sue where she lost a filly, and Samantha had a filly.

We were then able to purchase Wynne and bred her to Raven.

Samantha was bred back and sold as a three in one package. We took Sanna back, bred her to Raven and bred Jenis back to Raven. In 2011 Wynne had a filly,

was bred back and sold as a 3/1 package, Jenis had a colt,

and Sanna had a filly, she was bred back to Raven and sold as a 3/1 package.

We were then able to purchase Eliza,

Airiah,

Zalena

and Killian.

In 2011 Jenis, Airiah, Ylse, Eliza were bred to Raven while Zalena was bred to Valiant. So in 2012 we have 4 purebred Friesian foals expected and one 7/8ths expected. So take one Friesian stallion with a bad knee and end up with how many purebred Friesians?

Good Neighbors

The snow makes everything quiet, no big parties, no volleyball games taking place at the playground and almost no company. Our neighbor from the east, Mr. Schmider, came over on his fantastic four-wheeler bearing a very special gift.

He claimed his chickens are laying more than he needs right now and asked if we could use some fresh eggs. Just look at this!

He has only 6 hens left, butchered most of them before winter hit but the ones he kept are doing very well. Mr. Schmider also cleared a path up to the apartment with his sweet machine. That made it easy to walk outside for me and the dogs.
Once daylight hits this morning we need to start moving in round bales. The middle paddock needs 2, the breeding shed 1 and we may as well put one in the 4th paddock for what ever horses Mike brings home.

Snow

The picture above was taken right outside our door and the picture below taken of the wheelbarrow, the drift next to that was actually taller than the wheelbarrow.

The wind and snow stopped sometime during the night. We awoke to quietness, the snow has muffled all sounds. Sarah arrived late evening and parked her car near the door, her car tires were completely buried in a drift and her car stuck. After working about 15 minutes it was ready to drive out. The snow is light and fluffy and her car is the only one that has good snow tires on so her's was the one taken over to mom's this morning and the car used to check on all the horses. The other vehicles are still parked in the arena, good thing Karin canceled vaulting for today, it would take some shoveling to get them all out. This snow is not suppose to last long, by Monday we are expecting a warm up and rain.
The horses were checked, the middle paddock will need 2 round bales tomorrow but have enough to get by today. The rest of the paddocks are fine. There was no sign of Raven this morning and he is one horse that gets checked on every day. That boy is smart, he was deep inside his shelter eating.
Now is time to write about a touchy subject, the square bales everybody worked so hard putting into the barn.

We have had people emailing and calling about buying some off of us and none of them like the answer I give them. We spent more than we wanted per bale, we had to pay for the shipping extra and with the labor involved both in arranging the hay and unloading it, we are not real willing to sell it. The hay is 3rd cutting and nice green bales. Below is a picture of an open bale, notice how there is an abundance of green alfalfa leaves.

For some reason horse people think we should sell it for last summer's rates and be willing to load it into their truck (because their horse is starving). We have had people tell us, last year they got some for $4.50 a bale and it was just as nice as this so we should let them have 200 bales for that price. After thinking about this we needed to decide first of all should we let any go and if so what price. Good Alfalfa hay at the Arthur sale barn last week went for $10.00 a bale, grass hay went for $6.50-$7.50 a bale. Doubet's last month was charging $8.00 a bale, don't know if they still have hay. We probably have more than we need but if we let it go what are we going to have to spend if we do need more. So our answer was try to find another source, if you cannot find another hay source, we would be willing to sell some of ours for $9.00 a bale. One person that asked did not like that answer, they called me greedy and thought I was a terrible person for trying to rip off a fellow horse owner. My answer was "I'm terribly sorry but you don't have to buy this hay." After some choice words they hung up.

First

Today is the first winter day for us living here on the farm. Mark made this apartment well insulated, snug and a warm 78 degrees inside with the wood burner glowing. The only way to realize how awful it is outside is to look out the window or step out the back door into the stall area. The window shows the blowing snow, out the back door one hears the wind, and the snow slamming into the building. The first time more wood was needed and the back door into the stall area was opened I thought a truck or car was pulling up. Wondering who could be visiting in this weather, a trip was immediately taken back into the living quarters and over to the window. Imagine my surprise to find nothing out there but blowing snow. Back out to the stalls for wood and only then realizing then how the howling and sometimes whispering sound of the wind and snow hitting the building sounds like the arrival of vehicles. Darcy and Emma both asked to go outside then hesitated once the door was opened. They needed encouragement to step over the half a foot snow drift in front of the door. Emma was very quick to decide she wanted back in beating Darcy to the door. Darcy saw her going in and came running at the opened door, slipped on the wood floor as she jumped inside falling flat. She is just not use to wet paws on a slippery wet floor. It is after 4:00pm, the snow is still falling, swirling around the horse shelters as each violent wind gust picks up more snow added to what is coming down from the gray sky and uses that combination to build drifts in front of the barns.

Winter has Finally Arrived

We woke up to snow, a fine lightweight blowing snow that is quickly covering the roads, cars, horses and dogs. Thank goodness Mark put all the vehicles inside last night. Instead of walking mom invited us to breakfast where she served her special sausage recipe, farm fresh eggs, cinnamon toast, blueberry preserves, fried potatoes, coffee and orange juice not from concentrate.

Emma was outside on mom's balcony asking to be let in. Mom felt sorry for her and let her in, it was either she felt sorry for her or didn't want dog slobber all over her door.




Probably didn't want her entire window covered with a Mastiff tongue.
By the time breakfast was over this is what my previously snow free car looked like.

The fire is burning in the wood stove, the dogs are laying as close as possible to that wonderful heat source and I'm about to break open a new book. Could life get any better?