Jubilee Trail Ride & Water Fun at Amy's

While we were walking Karin and Shaeya worked with Valiant this morning. 

 He was very well behaved. 

 She then took the golf cart over to the cabin and got Sangria, Sally and Cookie, tacked them up then tacked up Brista and loaded all 4 into the stock trailer for the big trail ride today at Jubilee State Forest. Below they are just pulling out.

Today they rode all the way to Lover's Leap and didn't get lost.

She said the ride was fun, lots of galloping and all of the horses did well. This ride was just for the gaited horses, no clumpy Friesians to slow them down.
On Wednesday's Amy Beth invites everyone over to her lake for swimming. They have a wonderful water slide, plenty of paddle boats and the biggest draw of all is the rope tow for wake boarding or body surfing. The grand children had an absolutely wonderful time and came home exhausted.

 Baby Iris almost slept through the entire fun schedule. 

They were joined by lots of their second cousins. There are always lots of kids to play with in a big extended family. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from today and some from Funday Monday click HERE.   I left just before 2:00 pm as I was to meet Dan at that time and pulled in just before he arrived. We had to do some juggling of trailer hitches but got all the right hitches on both trucks and the van for the big camp-out happening tomorrow at Mark Twain lake. Dan is taking his boat and camping trailer so he needed 2 trucks, Rachel is taking her boat and camping trailer and she needed 2 trucks, Sarah and Nolan are taking our camper and van. They have a big group going and it should be a ball. Sarah picked up the big slabs of bacon at Rabers for their cookouts each night. It looks like the weather will be perfect.  We had a big group for dinner and just picked up turkey torpedoes from LaGondola for dinner and served that with chips and fruit.  The last of the company left around 7:00 pm so Mark and I listened on line to church tonight. Greg Rumbold had the message and started out by saying those that can't be here and are listening on-line are missing out on all the happy smiles.  

Coke

I had a short walk today in order to get to Berean before 9:00 am but even with stopping the walk early I was 2 minutes late. There already was group waiting for the mail and more than ready to work. If you would like to read about our morning there click HERE.
As soon as I got home I headed right up to the barn. Jack and Jace were busy playing with the whips again. Whips are so fascinating for little boys.  Ronnie, Taunya's dad was here so he put Abe down for a nap in the apartment while I took the boys over to great grandma's house to play with her toys.
When Taunya got home she offered to help get Coke covered by Valiant. She held the twitch and I handled the stallion and all went perfectly.  I may need to put her on payroll...that means buy her a shirt and give her ice cream. 
Later Ronnie picked up pizza from Casey's for our dinner then we went out to work. I mowed the yards while Mark worked on the camping trailer.

Goose Ranch Horses

Karin arrived at 6:00 am to take the truck and trailer to pick up the Goose Ranch mares for breeding. When she arrived both mares showed. We had Dr. Hoerr coming out this afternoon so made the decision to cover Brista and wait for Dr. Hoerr on Coke.  Lily was also on the schedule. After the walk Karin took out Valiant and had Shaeya work him then ride him.

 Valiant has such big movement

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures of Shaeya riding Valiant click HERE.  Next Evan was taken out. Below Shaeya is asking him to lay down. 

 Coke (one of the mares here to breed to Valiant) and her 2018 filly by Valiant were moved into the short shelter paddock as I was afraid Evan would break a board when they were in the paddock next to him.

 Brista was taken out to tack up for the trail ride. Brista is the other mare but she is here to breed to Evan. 

 Sarah arrived with Zion.

 Karin, Shaeya, Sadie and Hannah took Star, Brista, Sangria and Sally out on the trails. Below Brista is crossing the creek. 

 Hanna on Sally is next.

 Sadie and Sangria were third.

 Karin and Star went last. This was the first time Star was asked to go on the trails without her foal. 

 They had a good gallop in the field

 If you would like to see the rest of the trail ride pictures click HERE. We had to head over to the lake to cool off before vaulting started at 1:00 pm. David was here with Elisabet and Israel 

 Taunya had all of her children at the lake too. Below is Abe.

 Anna also came with her three girls. The lake is such a blessing and very well used in the summer. 

 At 1:00 pm we headed back to the barn to work on teaching Oksana it is ok to have triples. 

 She did very well until the trick below. We don't know if it was because of Faith's shadow but each time they got her up there Oksana would break into a trot. They finally just asked her to stand for this. 

 I took lots more vaulting pictures if you would like to see them click HERE. After vaulting we went back to the lake to swim while waiting for Dr. Hoerr to arrived.

 Dr. Hoerr arrived late afternoon. He sonagrammed Brista first. She has 2 follicles on her right ovary and both are at a 32 mm. She needs to be covered again Wednesday and maybe even Friday.  Coke had a 41 mm follicle so the decision was made to cover her today. That didn't go well. She will need to be covered tomorrow. Coke was kicking badly so we will need to twitch her, If we had not had her sonagrammed I would not have believed she was really in and that close to ovulation.  Lily was last and she was declared pregnant. Below is the nice big embryonic vesicle.

 She and her colt were put right in the stock trailer. Bunni was brought over from the cabin and also loaded then off I drove to Middle Grove to drop these 3 off and pick up Wicktoria. Karin beat me there and had both gates open when I arrived. We let the 3 horses out, then drove the truck and trailer up to the herd. We checked on all the mares and foals and discovered Galena and her colt were missing. Of course we thought the worst, as it is very unusual for ONE mare to be missing. Wicktoria was loaded into the trailer and we started driving. We got to the top and could see Galena but she was a long distance away so had to start hiking. When we got close we could see that she was in the wrong pasture and her colt was with her. What a relief. They came running to us, glad we were there to open the gate. They followed us all the way back to the herd. As we were trying to drive out I had to stop the truck and snap the next two pictures. We were surrounded by horses.

I didn't get home until 5:30 pm. Mark had the meat prepared and was just starting to grill it. We were joined by Taunya, her 4 children and her dad for supper. After supper we went for a golf cart ride over to the cabin to check the horses there. Mike had company and he took them all out riding. It is now late so I will finish the pictures tomorrow. Sure was a beautiful day, busy but beautiful.

Another Super Sunday

We had a cool morning and a cool day. What a refreshing break from the high temperatures last week.  We had a visitor in Peoria this morning.  Hazel Geyer isn't doing well and her grandson Ryan Kellenberger came from Fort Scott, Kansas so had the morning service. David Obergfel had the afternoon message. After church Karin took some guests out for a trail ride. Horses used were Sally, Cookie, Jenis, Sangria and Oksana. Below are just Jenis, Sangria and Oksana. These 3 were heading over to the cabin to pick up the other 2 riders and their horses Sally and Cookie.

All of the grand children came today except Zion who is running a low grade temperature.  They were playing in the sand in the round pen when a nice gentle rain started. They ended up in the indoor practicing on the new vaulting barrel.

The weather cleared up wonderfully by the time volley ball started at 5:30 pm.  Addyson took a load over to the playground where a big group had arrived for games.

 It was a little cool for swimming but swim some of them did including dogs. 

 The fish weren't biting very well this evening. It could have been the skimpy bait on the hooks. Jace found one very small worm they split in half. Jace really didn't want to see the worm die and was very upset when they let the fish eat it. 

 Spark arrived with another load of kids and these were his grandkids. 

 The kids had fun on the playground equipment.

 The adults had fun visiting and admiring Rhoda and Lee's new baby Iris. 

 The evening was cool enough Joan made a fire which felt great. Of course the fire was also used to cook marshmellows for that sweet treat somemores. 

 If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from this afternoon and evening click HERE. We stayed at the fire until dark. Another super Sunday.