Another Booking

We had a nice day today which really helped with the chores. Mike got 2 waterers fixed today. Both were leaking from that terrible cold spell we had earlier. The fatty paddock got a new bale and so did Evan's paddock. It was a good day to work on clean up now that this ice is melting.
I had a booking come in at 2:55 am for the barn apartment by a family from Germany. They will be coming July 8th leaving on July 10th and have a 7 year old daughter that is a horse lover so they were thrilled to book here. Hopefully there will be some beautiful foals on the ground when they arrive.
Anna is looking like she is going to pop soon. The 2 pictures below were actually taken December  15th, 2014 and she had her colt that year Jan 20th, 2015. It is amazing that there is still green grass in December that year.

Anna looks just as big now, the picture below was taken Jan 18th of this year. Anna is due April 2nd.

The other mare that just looks huge is Galena. She isn't due until April 17th.

Hadassah is due April 5th and usually delivers early so she may beat both IF she is still pregnant. The pictures I took of her Jan 28th kind of look like she is pregnant. At least she is sticking out on both sides.

 But she just doesn't look that big in the picture taken on Jan 31st

We will be bringing her in to the Hanna City farm right after we get back from the fair and have her checked out. 

We had a quiet evening at home tonight. I cut up more crepe paper for confetti while listening to AC Central. I sure appreciate that website.

Balancing Act

Today was the dreaded checkbook reconciling day but Diane came through, took pity and did all the entering, figuring, adding and subtracting until it balanced. That isn't an easy job since I'm not the only person writing checks out of that account.
We are having a slow meltdown today. Mark has spread 160 pounds of salt on the driveways and that is working, turning the ice to slush. This morning the ice was so hard we ended up walking through the yard instead of the driveway.
The morning was spent on the phone calling first the cardiologists to see what happened to the prescription that was ordered on Feb 4th. They said they would do some research and call me back. The next phone call was to call the insurance company to find out why the bill never came for the 2003 truck. They said it was sent out on January 14th but it never arrived. I was able to pay that on-line. They were told from now on to send all of our mail to Meisters.  The mail out here is just not dependable and this is the second time we have had missing mail from an insurance company.
My job today was to drive Karin in to the shop to pick up her new car and I was suppose to meet her at mom's when she got off work. She sent me a text saying she would be there in a half an hour but 5 minutes before I was to leave for mom's the doctor's office called back to report that there was no record of my missing prescription. They needed to confirm a lot of numbers, needed to to give them our insurance company information, the rx number off the pill bottle and while I was trying to do all of that  Karin was calling to find out where I was. I wasn't able to answer her call.  I finally started driving over to mom's just a few minutes late only to see Karin driving here. She exclaimed, "When you weren't at mom's I sent a text, then when you didn't answer that I called and when you didn't answer the phone I thought maybe you had a heart attack and died, you are never late!" 
We were both impressed with her new car. By the way the color is white and it is a really nice looking Prius.  Mom invited us all over for some of her home made strawberry shortcake tonight. We had a good group show up and played games until just now. Mom won!

Fourteen!

Schools were called off again today.  This was the 14 snow day this year, almost unheard of. Because of that Karin was able to come in the morning. We got the arena watered and 6 mares worked. All of them did very well. We left at 11:15 am to drive to Sarah's house where we were suppose to help Rhoda baby sit with Zion and Iris except when we arrived there was only Rhoda and Iris. Sarah had taken Zion with her to her doctor appointment. Iris was happy playing with Zion's toys.

Sarah is technically due March 9th but she went early last year so Sarah is getting everything prepared for baby Eden. Zion needed a nap so Sarah stayed home with her while the rest of us went shopping at Sam's. We picked up groceries, baby wipes, pop corn, oil and a rotisserie chicken and salad for our lunch and took that back to Sarah's for lunch.
Spark found a car for Karin at the auction today. He told her the year (2014), the miles, the model (a Prius) and the cost. She was so happy about it that it was only later, on our way home that we realized she had forgotten to ask the color of the car. Tomorrow I'm taking her down to the shop to pick it up after work so we will find out that little detail then. She is selling her Honda to Hannah who crashed her car last week.
Diane drove us to church tonight. Craig Stickling had the message on my very favorite chapter of the Bible, John 14. 

Rosalie Turns 6

 6 years ago yesterday at 11:05 pm on Feb 18th, 2013 Lily delivered her last Raven daughter. We were so hoping for a filly as Raven died in 2012.  Below is Lily giving birth to Rosalie.
Today 6 years later this little filly is our tallest mare growing taller than her 17 hand mother.

Karin was working with the 3 fatties today of which Rosalie is now considered one and Rosalie was really feeling good. She took off at a gallop and exploded into a huge buck. I only caught it as those hind legs were coming down.

These 3 were the most reactive to the Wizard prop so Karin was working with them and by the time she finished they were fine with her walking around them, touching them and getting up close and personal.

 Below are Rosalie and Ayanna, the full sisters watching to see if Karin is going to ask them to move.

 Above is Indy in the blue halter and below is Ayanna in the red halter. Indy and Ayanna were both born in 2010 and are half sisters as Raven is the sire to both. They grew up together at Middle Grove with the herd and even though they are both Friesians their dispositions are very different. Indy is sweet, and very emphatic, knowing when another mare is worried, she will leave the herd or her food to comfort a mare in distress.  Ayanna is bossy and kind of a know it all. Her mom Lily is the boss mare out at Middle Grove so she comes by her bossiness honestly. 

 Below Rosalie was getting bored with the Wizard prop and let us know by her big yawns. Those big yawns help her relax around the scary object until she was no longer worried.

 She kind of looks like she is laughing at Karin for wearing such a funny costume as she sticks out her tongue as if to say, "you don't scare me!"

Karin only had time to work with these 3 today before she needed to leave. Mark arrived just as she was finishing up and helped move a bale in for the middle paddock mares.  

We are expecting snow tonight which is suppose to change to freezing rain by morning. Hopefully we can get some warmer air in to change that forecast to all rain as we are all tired of ice around here.

Trailer Cleanout

As today is Presidents day the schools, banks and post office have declared today a holiday. That meant Karin came early and together we worked on organizing the trailers for the horse fair. We counted halters, lead ropes saddle pad covers, buckets, chains to hang buckets, coolers and blankets for after bathing horses and spent some time searching for the horse bathing stuff. That was actually stored in the house but I had forgotten taking it in.  We decided we needed to buy more hoses and new nozzles for bathing along with more shampoo, conditioner, cowboy magic detangler and 4 more sparkly halters.  Karin took this opportunity to also start a throw away pile and went to work on the barn too. The dumpster is full right now but is suppose to be emptied tomorrow so that pile was left.
Karin left to go with Beth and Jackie who were taking John in to have his knee replacement but when they got to the hospital the surgery was delayed for another week. John has been sick and the surgeon wants him all the way well first.
I left for shopping stopping first at the shop to pick up the Berean mail at Meisters then drove to Suburban Gas Company on Farmington road to fill 2 propane tanks but they were closed for the holiday.  Next I stopped at Dollar Tree where I found a small blue bucket for the play. I wanted to find confetti but they didn't have any so instead I bought 6 rolls of crepe paper, 2 blue, 2 red and 2 yellow. The next store was Party Central but they didn't have what I was looking for. I stopped at Walmart and bought 3 cheap hoses each 25 foot long and 4 nozzles. Those can be used first for bathing the horses then put together and used to fill the 16 water buckets before taking them apart and draining them easily. The last store was Aldi where a few things were bought for the Berean meal. I still need to pick up ponchos. Once home I needed to move a bale in for the far weanling paddock. When I got back to the house I started making confetti by cutting up the rolls of crepe paper.
Three cases of cotton candy sugar  and a 1000 cones were ordered from Gold Medal Specialist in Galesburg, IL. Karin will pick that up on Thursday.  Mark brought my cotton candy machine home from Skyline today. I still need to pick up 100 pounds of popcorn and 4 gallons of popcorn oil along with popcorn bags. This year we will be offering both popcorn AND cotton candy at our stalls.  The schedule is now up for the 2019 IL Horse Fair and we know our times.  If interested in learning more about the fair, visit their website by clicking  HERE
If interested in the performance schedule click HERE.
Need to buy tickets for the fair? It is cheaper to buy them in advance so check that out by clicking HERE.
Today we heard that Zalena's 2016 filly by Valiant was sold to Cindy from Utah. Cindy has promised to keep us updated and to start that, below is Cindy and Adara.

We wish them a wonderful partnership. Adara is Cindy's first Friesian and if Cindy is like the rest of us, she won't stop at just ONE! These Friesians are addictive. 

The Scare

We awoke to snow but not enough to stop us from going to church. David Obergfel started reading in 1st Kings then sat down. When he got up to say the prayer, told the church he was going to ask all of us to pray. He explained his eyes weren't letting him see the words. He got up after the prayer and read about Jesus going to Gethsemane and sweating drops of blood as He prayed, "Father if Thou be willing remove this cup from me, yet not my will but Thine be done." Then Dave preached a powerful sermon, sat down and started sweating profusely. Crystal saw what was happening and sent a text to Tim Funk to tell  him not to let Dave pray and to help him off the pulpit. As soon as Tim got Dave off Crystal joined him and helped him out of the sanctuary. They called for an ambulance which arrived pretty quickly. They determined that his blood sugar was extremely low and gave him a donut and a glass of milk then took him to the hospital. The entire church spent time in prayer for Dave and Kathy. Sure hope what ever happened is not serious and Dave will be well.
After church I stopped at Aldi to pick up groceries. We didn't have much left in the house as we were gone for the last week and today was the first time in town since we got back from the cruise. Play practice was held at the barn and that went great. Dinner was taken over to mom's house. The pictures below were taken just before and during the play practice. The grandchildren got to warm up the horses for the riders.

 Above and below is Israel riding Anna.

 Above is Taegan on Anna and below is Braelyn on Indy.

 Above Kensley is getting a ride on Anna while Braelyn rides Indy. Below Berlica is leading Kensley around on Anna. 

 Below the munchkins are following the yellow brick road. 

 Below the horses are meeting the Wizard for the first time. They thought the wizard was very scary. 

 Karin started having the riders come up to the wizard one at a time. Below Rebekah had Karin working with Indy.

 Below Anni is calming Ayanna as she meets the wizard.

 Sarah as the witch has melted in the picture below.

 The kids had a ball playing on the hay as the horses were untacked.

 It was a successful practice but we need to work on desensitizing the mares to the wizard. Karin and I made that yesterday so today was the first time all of the mares were introduced to it.

Outside Play Practice

The sun was shining so we thought we may have a chance to practice outside today but when we walked into the arena a chair was right smack dab in the way.

 I went to move the chair, tried to lift it up and broke the top off. The chair was frozen so hard into the sand there was no way to remove it from the arena. 

 Needless to say Karin brought the mares inside while I tried to water the arena. That didn't go well, the hose would only reach half way. 

 Practice went well.

 It went so well we decided to head outside to at least try to run through the play in the bigger arena. By this time the sun had been beating down on the sand and it was all of 20 degrees. The arena was still frozen but not slippery.

 These 3 munchkins were excellent help today bringing the pedestal and the umbrella into the arena then back to the indoor once we finished. 

 I took the girls down to the house to reward them with some hot chocolate while Karin and Rebekah brought Valiant out. They were also able to work him in the outdoor arena. 

This afternoon Mark helped move in a couple bales. Valiant's paddock got one and the fatty paddock got the other. That paddock needs to be renamed if we use it for normal size horses. This was the paddock we used for Ribbon and somehow just continue using it for the fat mares.
At 4:15 we picked up mom, drove to Morton, IL, picked up Nancy then drove to the Morton Fellowship hall where the ICC Bradley young group was putting on a benefit dinner.  The meal was delicious. Pictured below is the second course. We had already had a salad and rolls.

We had a choice of 3 different pies for dessert and that was topped with ice cream. The young group sang for our entertainment. Below is just part of one song but the singing was truly beautiful. 

They stopped singing way too soon. We are expecting a snowstorm tonight starting after midnight. Mark worked on the driveways spreading 80 pounds of salt on the thick ice.  It is late now, almost 9:00 pm, Mark has already gone to bed and as soon as this post is done I too will be heading to bed. After working all day in the cold we are exhausted and need to digest that delicious meal.