The Reason Why

The walk was not cancelled this morning but mom was only able to make it down the first hill before giving up. The ice was just too dangerous. Ruth walked her back to her house. The ice on the driveways here is thick, hard and very slippery. Any cars coming from Joan's or Spark's house had to get a run at it going fast down the hill to make it up the hill to the dumpster. Hope we get some melting going on soon. Today was below freezing all day so not much melting happened.  This morning the Berean office was filled with laughter first thing but ended quite sober. If you would like to read about our morning there click HERE.
It was too icy to bring any of the horses in and work them today. Braelyn, my grand daughter is going to be taking riding lessons this spring and of course the first thing she asked was if she was going to get to vault.  I had to tell her, "No, we aren't going to be vaulting anymore, we just don't have a vaulting horse."  She wanted to know why we just don't use Galena. Well Galena just doesn't have the disposition needed for a vaulting horse, nor the steady gaits. Karin tried hard with her going slow, introducing everything at the stand then moving to the walk but Galena just wasn't happy with it. We were still able to use her in a the plays. Below is Hannah showing off some vaulting moves.

 Galena worked out well with Nolan as Santa and is such a beautiful mare that  throws beautiful foals by Valiant! She isn't due until July 1st, 2020. 

We don't know if the foal will be spotted or solid but we do know it will be VERY hairy, big, stocky and of course friendly as Valiant is the sire.

Mike went to Middle Grove this morning and called to report the horses were all up on the hillside but when they saw him they all came down and surrounded him thrilled he was there to pet them.  He said it was so neat that it reminded him why we have horses. 

Puppy Pictures

It was so icy today that we cancelled the walk. Instead I went to Sam's club early for groceries. They had fresh chicken breasts for $1.60 a pound so that is what we will have for dinner tonight and Berean tomorrow. When I got home I made recipe of chicken Cordon Bleu. That turned out really delicious.  Karin and Shaeya came today and worked with both of the stallions and with Hadassah. I watched for a while but no pictures. Mike had picked up 10 salt blocks and I wanted each paddock to get a block, 2 were put in the barn for later and Mike will take 2 out to Middle Grove.
Rhoda, Lee, and Iris drove to Nolan and Sarah's house so Rhoda could give Nikki's puppies a well puppy check up as Sarah is in Texas helping Ben and Taunya this week. I drove over to help Rhoda with the check up and take pictures of the pups.  Nikki had 7 male puppies and 1 female puppy. The female weighed in the largest at 10 ounces, she had 2 males weighing 9.5 ounces, 2 at 9 ounces a couple at 8.5 and then one smaller pup at 6.5 but all are nursing well and latch on quickly.  Below are a few pictures of the only female pup.

 Below are her white markings on her neck and chest. 

 Below are all 8 of the puppies all piled up.

 Below are a couple pictures of male puppies.

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from these day old purebred AKC registered Moyen Poodle pups click HERE. 

Rhoda brought along Ruby and her 4 Cavapoo puppies. Ruby had 2 female pups and those are already sold. She had 2 male puppies and 1 of those are also sold. There is just 1 Cavapoo puppy available out of Ruby's litter. He is pictured below at 4 days of age. This puppy is for sale for $1400.00.

If you would like to see more pictures of this pup click HERE. These puppies really do look like fluffy little teddy bears when they grow a little older. Each puppy will be well socialized and have a start on potty training. Check out our puppy page on our website for pictures of past litters. They are all ADORABLE! 

Nikki had 8 Puppies!

Brrr it was cold this morning, dropping down to 3 degrees. At least the wind had died down. We left for church and were glad to see the roads were cleared. The drive wasn't bad.  Mike Kaisner had the morning service and Craig Stickling had the afternoon. After church Mark got the small Kubota out to start spreading sand on the very icy drives while I went up to start a fire in the wood burner for the guests coming in this evening.  Rhoda and Lee picked up Nancy and dropped her off at Joan's house then came here for supper. Rhoda took this video of them singing together on the way to Joan's 

house:

  

They dropped her off and came just in time to help Mark and I push the golf cart back into the garage.   David and Stephanie's family along with Anna and the girls also joined us for a soup supper. The older kids had fun going through the hat and glove drawer so they could go outside slip sliding down the drives that didn't get sand on them.

The younger ones stayed inside where it was warm.

Mike was hosting a football party at his house. Joan was hosting the big Gingerbread decorating contest this evening after supper. Both were VERY well attended. I joined the decoration party. There were two teams, one downstairs and one upstairs.

The younger children, those not on the competition teams all had their own to decorate.

Below Joan, Diane and mom are putting together a gingerbread kit for Nancy to decorate.

The upstairs table was quite crowded.

Below Taegan has finished her house.

Nancy was busy putting the finishing touches on her house.

Israel was pretty proud of his house. Those black things on the roof he told us was solar panels. 

Elisabet's creation, she did this all by herself.

Braelyn had a very interesting yard for her house.

Kensley went with simple yet elegant.

Nancy was still hard at work making sure the entire roof was covered with colorful shingles made of m&ms.

Berlica's house had a fenced in yard with lots of decorations on the roof.

Nancy was moving her house when an earthquake hit and the entire house collapsed.

She laughed, grabbed a piece and started eating.

The upstairs team decided that their house was in a tornado and the decorated it sideways. Notice the legs sticking out underneath the house and the upside down snow man. 

The downstairs team brought their creation upstairs for the judging.

They were pretty proud of their's and it was practically perfect in every way.

They had a snowman roasting marshmallows over a fire, minions from outer-space and beautiful candy lane and their roof patterns were beautiful. They also had smoke coming out of the chimney.

As today is Joan's birthday and yesterday was Ruth's birthday we decided to celebrate them together at Joan's house except Ruth forgot to come. When Joan called, she reported she was baby sitting with her 3 grandchildren and they were playing nicely plus she didn't have car seats for the mile drive here.  We sang to her anyway on some kind of facetime. Sarah was told she had to pretend to be Ruth.

After the decorating mess was kind of cleaned up we started with games. It really was a fun night.

Nolan and Sarah's purebred Moyen Poodle Nikki was busy delivering puppies and ended up with 8 puppies. 7 male pups and 1 female pup. These are AKC registered Moyen Poodles. Hopefully I can get some pictures tomorrow.  

The Deep Freeze

We didn't get the 40 degree weather predicted over night. It pretty much stayed at 33 degrees which meant the ice and snow did not melt. It was a slushy mess while feeding this morning. Even my water proof boots weren't water proof enough.  Mark tried to clean off our patio, drive and mom's drive next to the garage.  By 11:00 am the wind shifted coming down straight from the north causing the temperatures to start falling drastically. By this evening we are at 9 degrees with sustained winds at 22 mph gusting to 33 mph giving us a wind chill of below zero.
Breakfast was colorful this morning.  We had avocados that were ripe and ready to be eaten, fresh strawberries, raisin toast with cream cheese, farm fresh eggs and sausage.

Today was a good day to stay inside so while the laundry was running I decided to try to make gingerbread houses for the kids tomorrow to decorate. Sarah made them out of grand crackers so that is what I tried. No gingerbread was baked.  I found out that I am NOT a craft person. I do not have the fine motor skills needed nor the talent to put these together. The first one I tried was a double decker and big but it fell apart, I scraped off the icing and tried some small designs and got them to hold together.  Below are the finished houses, all 9 of them. They look like shacks that even the very poor wouldn't want to live in. 

We have lots of candy sprinkles, 3 kinds of chocolate chips, and pretzels to make fences around each house. Of course I'll make lots of icing to cover them. Maybe by the time the kids are done they won't look quite so bad. This afternoon a booking came in for the barn apartment. They are coming in tomorrow and staying for 3 days. They want to use the wood burner so Mark and I hauled wood up to the apartment using the golf cart and stacked it by the wood burner. Then on the way back to put the golf cart in my garage I tapped the brake and the golf cart quit. It had to be left outside but now I know it is the brake that is causing the problem. Maybe tomorrow it will run enough to put it back in the garage. 

Lots of Ice

We had someone ask about the Liberty class after seeing Evan perform and wanted to know more about how it is judged. Our very first time we ever did that was in 2015 at the IL Horse Fair. This was the first time the fair ever offered this class. We had no idea what this was about but read the rules then Emily practiced with Killian. He was only 3 years old and not yet mature but was going to the fair anyway so we spent the money and entered him.  The rules were you had to bring the horse into the arena and take off the halter leaving the horse loose. You were not allowed to touch the horse either with a whip or hand. You had 2 minutes and the horse was judged on how much of the arena he used, did the horse show off all 3 gaits both ways and how long did it take to catch him.  You were allowed 2 minutes to catch the horse but if you took that much time points were deducted.  If it took longer than 2 minutes the horse was disqualified.  Below is our first try.

Emily and Killian ended up winning the class.  He was such a clown here and at the fair and loved to show off.  We were so hoping Killian would be our next Horsemeister stallion but when we tested his semen at 3 years of age it just wasn't good enough quality to keep him a stud.  He had the very best pedigree, out of a star mare and an approved stallion who just happened to have the best pedigree of ALL Friesian stallions even the FHANA approved stallions and yet he just didn't produce the quality and quantity of sperm needed. Well a stud farm cannot use a gelding so even though Killian was much loved we decided to place him for sale. There are no guarantees in this business.  We decided at that point to not look for another stallion and just be content with the 2 proven stallions we already had.   At the 2019 fair we took Valiant since Evan had gone in 2018.  He was in both the liberty and the riding but the liberty ended up being cancelled on Sunday the day we took the video so we just have him in the riding class with Rebekah Martin.

Both Evan and Valiant have the semen quality and quantity to remain stallions and their hundreds of foals on the ground prove this out. We really didn't know how blessed we were to have them until we had Killian tested.

This morning after the walk I moved another bale in for Hadassah then went to Diane's office to help her balance the Horsemeister check book.  From there I met Kensley's bus today and after going to the house to change we loaded back up to go in to Peoria to do some grocery shopping and had lunch at Culvers.  She had the chicken tenders and I had the fish. Both were excellent!  This evening Mark and I went to mom's for games. Rhonda and Spark played too. Diane and Mike showed up too late to play. We had been having snow but by the time they got there they told us it was raining.  It was and turning on ice as soon as it landed. By the time we got out of mom's our car was covered with thick ice. Mark went to work scraping then when we tried to put the car in the garage it kept sliding backwards. Mark ended up driving it down the hill and going around again for a better angle and got it in. Thankful for that success. The rain is supposed to keep up all night and the temperature rise so hopefully this ice will be melted by morning.

Ruby's Puppies are HERE

Anna and her family left for Kansas to attend the visitation and funeral of her uncle. That meant I had the girls today and this evening. As soon as they were off the bus and changed we were on our way to Rhoda and Lee's house to see Ruby's brand new puppies just born today. 

Ruby had 2 male puppies and 2 female puppies. They are all healthy and nursing well.  These are Cavapoos and end up darling fluffy friendly puppies.  As there are only 4 of them if you are interested in one you'd better call or text Rhoda pretty quickly. She is already getting messages from people wanting this kind of puppy.  Rhoda's number is 309-208-3840. 

Ruby and Duece the parents are pictured below.

From there we went to a trampoline park where Nolan, Sarah, Zion and Eden were waiting for us. We all had such a fun time jumping, swinging, fighting and rock climbing.

Below is a short video of Braelyn and Taegan rock climbing.

 By 6:20 pm Zion was getting hungry and didn't want to sit for the picture below. Sarah told her if she did we would go get dinner, she turned around quickly and said, "Cheese!"

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

We drove to Denny's which wasn't far from the park and had a nice sit down meal.

From there we left for home arriving back at 8:00 pm just in time for bedtime.  Mark and Eric got one of the stall fans replaced today with an industrial fan. It works so well he is going to order two more to replace those that aren't working very well. He kept the wood burner going all afternoon and evening. It is very cold today.