Oh Canada

 Today was my day to stay with mom. Karin let me know when mom was awake. We had a quiet day with  sunshine glaring off the bright white snow. Aunt Jinnie worked on her needle point while I read to mom. She told me a story today of taking her doberman to the bank in New York and the tellers and bank employees took out their phones and took pictures of her dog.  The next week she took Uncle Peter into the bank. She exclaimed to them, "Last week I bring my dog and everyone takes pictures, this week I bring my husband and no one at all took out their phone and took a picture." If you knew uncle Peter you would really find this funny. 

Joan spent the day on snow removal. She sent Mackenson and Berlica over to shovel then cleared drives with mom's Kubota. 

We had a special meal tonight. Mark brought over chilled shrimp and crab with cocktail sauce, air fried fries and asparagus. Karin grilled steaks and I sautéed onions, mushrooms, baked potatoes, made a salad to finish out the meal. All really was delicious. Ruth came for the evening. I made it home by 6:30 pm. Rhoda, Taunya, Anna and Sarah are spending the evening at the apartment. I watched a little of the news from Canada, what is happening in Ottawa and was so disturbed. The dictator Trudeau wants to CRUSH these peaceful protesters, they have not set a single building on fire, they have not looted a single store. They are peacefully asking to be heard. Trudeau doesn't agree with that last statement. How dare they disobey his rules. He and his party of liberals are treating them as if they are animals, setting the mounted police on them, knocking then to the ground and trampling some of the people, jailing hundreds. (easily can be proved by watching some of the videos coming out of Ottawa)

A video of the actual trampling was posted but for some reason removed by our liberal big tech companies by restricting free speech.

 The lady trampled was a grandmother in a walker who arrived to stand for freedom. These are not violent criminals, they have only asked for the end of all Covid mandates. The emergency act that Trudeau has called for will allow the these crooked politician to freeze their bank accounts and not just truckers bank accounts, anyone that donates to them also, impound their trucks, take their licenses away, take their dogs and euthanize them, take their children and put them in foster care and to think this is all because they are asking to end the overreach of government with these mandates! What is going on in CANADA! If this can happen to them we here in America are not much safer. Please watch the video below of what happened to this shop owner. I love her message at the end. 

The Snow

 No snow yet this morning it was supposed to start around 11:00 am and sure enough it did. The snow was coming down fast about an inch or 2 each hour and by the time it stopped we had 8 or 9 inches on the ground. The driving conditions were terrible which caused many accidents on the interstates. 74 and 39 were both shut down due to accidents and blizzard conditions. There was a huge pile up on 39. Below are a few pictures posted from people in or near the accidents.

Mark went in to work this morning but was home by 11:30 am and by that time the snow was in full force.  He decided to start plowing about 4:30 pm and did a little shoveling first.  I went out at the same time to start shoveling the patio and in front of the garage but stopped to take a couple pictures. The snow was so beautiful. 

I took a quick video then went back to work shoveling.

Mike got his tractor out and got mom's Joan's and Spark's drive done. Spark and Rhonda are due home tomorrow from Gulf  Shores. I think they are going to have a little bit of a shock to their systems facing this weather.

I finished shoveling when it got too dark to see well. I had done the patio first and when I finished the other job came back to find I needed to shovel the patio off again.  The picture below was taken with a flash as it was already dark.

Mark also quit about that time and made it into the house at 6:20 pm. For dinner tonight we had crockpot pot roast, potatoes and carrots. Mark calls that comfort food, I call it easy and that was the best part about the meal. 

 

Aunt Jinnie Arrives

 It was another warm morning, when we awoke it was already 40 degrees and by this afternoon had hit 50. Lots of melting of those huge piles of snow was happening pretty much all day. By this evening the rain moved in. The snow is supposed to arrive early morning.  I drove to Pekin, IL to pick up some groceries at Aldi. Dr. Hoerr called while I was shopping and tentatively made arrangements to stop by in a couple of hours with some visitors.  As soon as I got home and the groceries were put away I started bringing in the horses to try to dry them off. Thankfully none of them were very muddy. Before the first was brought inside, Dr. Hoerr sent a text that he was going to have to cancel.  I was VERY glad that I didn't have to slop through the melting ice to bring the horses in. Below is Evan.  

Valiant was keeping a close eye on me to make sure I didn't take Evan out. He really does not like Evan and to think they used to be best friends. 

Rockaway was up begging for attention.

Below is Sally. I had asked Dr. Hoerr to bring his ultrasound machine if he was going to come.  We would like to find out if Sally conceived in December when she broke out of the cabin field to come flirt with Valiant.  We will just have to wait now to find out. Sally has beautiful foals when bred to Valiant. They are tall, well built and all black. If she did conceive she would be due in December of this year.

Below is Dancer (out of Jewel by Evan) She will be 2 years old in a couple months and when Dr. Hoerr comes to ultrasound Sally we will have her wolf teeth pulled.  Dancer inherited Evan's mega hair and is already over 16 hands and not yet 2 years old. Behind Dancer is Sheena. 

At 4:00 pm I left for the Peoria airport to pick up Aunt Jinnie.  We are thrilled to have her back. Sarah Reinhard brought over lobster and ribeye steaks for the special welcoming dinner. Karin cooked the steaks.

The dinner was amazing. They also had buttered sautéed mushrooms and onions, and a delicious salad. Ruth took the evening shift tonight and turned Church on Facebook live for mom and Aunt Jinnie. Mark and I went to church and got to sit with David and Elisabet. Tim Funk had the message. After church a bunch went out to Culvers for a late supper but we drove home. It was raining quite hard.  As soon as we got home Mark put his car in the indoor arena. I followed him up with my car and took him down to the house so he didn't have to tromp through the mud and rain. Thankful we have plenty of room to keep the vehicles inside tonight.

Winter Storm Watch

 We had a beautiful day today with sunshine and highs in the 40s. Lots of melting happening around here revealing mud.  While it was still frozen this morning Mark and I brought in 10 loads of wood. We are expecting a winter storm to hit starting with rain on Wednesday then snow on Thursday followed by strong winds and 0 degrees. We will need lots of dry wood when that happens. Right now the storm watch is predicting rain on Wednesday changing to ice early Thursday morning then 5 to 7 inches of snow. We shall see. I left at 7:15 to head over to mom's to relieve Joan. Once mom was up and dressed though I left as I wanted to hit Sam's club  before going to the Berean office.  Karin cooked their breakfast.  We had a very good day at the Berean office.  If you would like to read about that click HERE. At Sam's club I planned on buying a rotissari chicken for our dinner tonight but there wasn't any so on the way home after dropping off the Bibles at the Bartonville post office I stopped at Kroger to pick up a chicken but they didn't have any nor did they have any fried chicken. Thankfully there is a Kentucky Fried chicken in Bartonville so I picked up a 12 piece bucket. As I took the 5:00 pm shift that meant we were providing dinner.  When I got home the sweet potatoes were prepared and stuck in the oven to bake. While that was baking the horses were checked, all waterers are working well and all have plenty of hay but I will need to pick up some new salt blocks soon.

These are 50 pounds each and a few years ago cost $2.99 but now cost $7.00 each. I can't believe how bad this inflation is with no end in sight. At 5:00 pm I headed over with the fried chicken, sweet potatoes, salad with ALL the fixins, deviled eggs and an apple cake for dessert. Mom ate well tonight, pretty much finishing everything on her plate.  She wanted a whirlpool tonight so Karin and I made that happen. 

No Doors

 Mark got up around 4:30 am to get the fire started as it was another really cold morning. All of the horses have enough hay to munch on to keep plenty warm, even on these cold snowy mornings.

I headed over to mom's at 7:20 am to find mom up and Joan already at work. After giving me the update of the night Joan left for home.  Mom wanted eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast. She really enjoys those farm fresh eggs from Tina Davidovics. Joan brought the school books and the kids back by 8:30 am so I left for home to get a few things done here before heading down to the Peoria post office to pick up the Berean mail. We had a lot of mail waiting for us, more than double from last week. From the post office I drove to Sarah's house to drop off Stephanie's birthday card. David has it pretty nice with a wife that has a birthday ON Valentine's day.  I was due back at mom's at 1:00 pm but the company coming to finish the garage doors on the new barn almost made it up to the top of the hill before sliding all they way back down. They had a 2 wheel truck pulling a trailer with a lift and could not make it up the hill with the ice and snow. The picture below is after they were able to stop sliding. 

Our lanes are really difficult in the winter. Snow tires or 4 wheel drive are almost a must when living out here. I thought the tractor was going to be needed and had Joan offer to bring it down with straps but they made it out onto the road without our assistance in time for her to take Faith to the dentist. The garage doors will not be finished until the lanes are passable. 

SuperBowl Sunday

 I was so tired on Sunday that I wrote but forgot to actually post this last night. We had another wonderful Sunday. I was praying for the ministers this morning on my special chair, looked out the window and saw a herd of deer making their way down to the creek in single file. I counted 15 but there were some before I started counting.  I start each week by praying for who ever will be speaking. We don't know who will be speaking but I really believe prayer from the pews power the pulpit. I didn't take a picture of the deer this morning but did of the bird that arrived in our yard yesterday afternoon. 

I slowly and quietly stepped outside and they all took off.

David had the morning message at church today on Psalm 18. 

  Today was the Valentine lunch, all the men served the ladies today a very special lunch with amazing food plus flowers and chocolate candies. Tim Roecker had the afternoon message. After church Mark got busy to prepare the shrimp for tonight while I made deviled eggs and finished the pot roast, potatoes and carrots.  Tonight the Sceggels met at Phil and Anna's for the supper and the superbowl. Everyone brought food and that was all really tasty. Check out just some of that delicious food.

Above is the pot roast which was cooked yesterday and put outside so the fat could rise and be skimmed off easily. Below are the potatoes and carrots, which were put in the crock pot and cooked in the pot roast liquid while we were at church.

Above are the chicken tenders Nolan made. He made 3 different kinds, one was coated in coconut, another a special kind of bread crumbs and the 3rd kind I don't remember but all were great. Sarah made a healthy but tasty coconut cake for dessert. Stephanie brought taco dips, chips, stuffed mushrooms, and her special sugar cookies. Taunya brought salads and fruits along with special sandwiches for kids. Phil made corn dogs, fried mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers.

Anna made a delicious pulled pork. 

Rhoda brought ripe honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon and pineapple and a cookie dessert.

Not all the food is pictured. We all had a good time.

Ben and  Taunya's family left first at half time. Sarah and Nolan's family left next and Mark and I were pretty quick to follow. We aren't that interested in football and I still needed to clean up the kitchen from the cooking this afternoon. 

Do We?

It was really cold on the way to mom's this morning at 7:15 am. Any meltdown we had is now frozen solid again.  Mom woke at 4:00 am restless and couldn't seem to get comfortable but when she finally did go back to sleep slept until 7:30 am and woke up with a smile. Ruth came at 1:00 pm as mom was eating a late lunch. With the 2 of us there we asked mom if she would like to practice walking and she was more than willing. 

I left for home after that.  Mark had brought in wood and had the fire burning brightly in the wood burner.  It is such a luxury to have warmth on a cold winter day and I am thankful. I put a couple roasts in the crock pot. These will be cooked today then put outside and the fat skimmed tomorrow morning then served for the Sunday dinner at Phil and Anna's tomorrow. Chuck went out to Middle Grove to visit the horses and sent back the question, "Do you have 2 new brown horses out there?" I'm pretty sure we don't have any new horses out there unless Mike slipped a couple in. The two bays we have out there are Jewel and Madiera and he knows about those. Maybe a couple of the blacks had a roll in the mud and now look brown. 

Checking the convoy news there wasn't much on the Windsor bridge but check out the video below of the Ottawa demo.

We are going to have an early night as both of us are tired today. 

Cancelled

 We had so much ice this morning I could not get up the hill to the apartment.  Trying to get to mom's was almost impossible but not quite. The car ended up slipping backward all the way down the drive. It took 2 tries to even back it enough to get a run at the hill going towards mom's. At 9:00 am, once mom was settled in her chair I asked Karin to stay with mom and headed back to my place to try to get some of the ice off the drive using 2 full buckets of salt and a shovel. After working a half an hour finally gave up and sent a message to the airbnb guest and told them if they didn't have 4 wheel drive they would need to cancel the booking. They did not have 4 wheel drive so I had to call airbnb to make sure they could get their full refund back. The sun came out later in the day and it was warm enough to sit out on the deck for about 10 minutes.

Mom enjoyed the sunshine but as soon as a cloud came it was cold. This evening I was blessed to be able to head to Goodfield to stay with Jack, Jace and Abe. Addyson was at her volleyball game until after 8:00 pm but the boys and I had fun. I found some wind up butterflies and gave them to the boys. They would place them in books then open the book.

That kept them busy for a couple hours. When it got dark outside the light up balloons were brought out and blown up.

When Addyson got home they had to show her the balloons.

At 8:30 pm we went upstairs to start getting ready for bed but first Abe and Jace had to show me their amazing race track.

Abe needed to show me how it worked.

It was a fun evening.

Sense and Sensibility

 We have SO much ice on the drives that as I was turning into the drive to head up the hill I see Mark going backward down the hill. It took him 3 tries before he was able to get into a dry part, get some traction and make it to the other drive. Sure hope we get a big melt down by tomorrow noon. I have guests arriving for the apartment and I'm going to have to try to get some of the ice off. We have a good chance of rain starting tonight and raising temperatures so hopefully a lot will melt off before they arrive.  I shopped at Aldi for mom's house and when I dropped off the groceries Joan was helping mom with walking. 

The next exercise was to use the barn Rachel and David installed in the bathroom to pull herself up 3 times. 

We are pretty proud of how hard she is trying. This afternoon Diane and I reconciled the Horsemeister check book then finished the year end report for our tax man.  That is a big job and I'm thrilled it is done.  Mark tried air frying asparagus tonight for our dinner. It didn't turn out too bad. We had that was our ribs, salad and chips. I tried an easy recipe from the internet for cookies but they didn't turn out near as good as Becky's Butter Cookies. That is the recipe we use to make Christmas cookies but the recipe makes 200 cookies.  I decided next time I'll just make sure I have the to make the 'real' recipe and forget all these supposed good but easy recipes that don't  taste near as good. This evening I went over to mom's to play games with Diane, Karin and Joan except Joan hadn't arrived yet. Karin was playing for Joan and herself and just as Joan walked in she won the game. We exclaimed, "we started without you and you just won the game!"  Joan replied, "it just wasn't a very satisfying win."  Joan brought the kids over to watch Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility which was playing tonight for free with ads. 

The movie has lots of horses including those gorgeous Friesian horses. 

We all enjoyed the movie.

 

Feels Like Spring

 It was 30 degrees this morning and we made it all the way up to 40 today.  Sure feels like spring is in the air.  I was able to work up at the barn. We had lots of snow melt today and even some mud show up. Rachel needs an electric water bucket and I thought I had one, got it all cleaned up and brought it down to the  house only to find the electric cord had been cut off.  I'm not sure I can find another but will look tomorrow, there is still  some barn cleaning to do before my next airbnb guests arrive on Friday.  Mike sent a picture of Rosalie (Lily's daughter) and I think she may have lost her pregnancy. She is supposed to be due March 24th but in the picture Mike sent she doesn't look pregnant. It could be the angle of the picture but she just doesn't look pregnant to me.

She has such gorgeous foals with amazing movement. Pictured below is her 2021 filly by Evan.

If she did lose the expected 2022 foal it be a loss for me.   It is too sloppy wet to head out to check on her and I wouldn't want to breed her back this early anyway so will just wait until March to bring her in. The next mare due is Irish who is pictured above with Rosalie. She is due April 6th and I'm pretty sure she is still pregnant. Irish delivered a couple weeks early last year so I will need to bring her  in when Rosalie is brought in. Irish is a purebred Gypsy. She was bred to Valiant and if she has a filly we are considering keeping the filly. Of course if the foal is a colt he would be for sale. We just can't have any other stallions on the property.  Irish's first foal was a beautiful black and white filly, exactly what we should have kept 2 years ago. She had beautiful markings. Here's hoping for another just like her.

News from home is mom had a good night last night falling asleep early and sleeping until 7:00 am. The nurse came today and hadn't seen her for a month. Last month was pretty rough with the leg spasms and the reaction to the muscle relaxers but today was good.

Power Hungry

 Joan spent the night with mom who didn't have the best night.  Joan and her family left early this morning for a ski trip. They had perfect weather for this trip. Sarah posted the pictures below and wrote this: We had another successful ski trip with the PCA group. Faith got more confident on a snowboard, Ivan Carlson carved it up, (especially for only being his second time skiing) Mackenson and Berlica loved racing their friends down, Mom showed off a few tricks, and I wiped out spectacularly. Everyone had a blast, and best of all, no serious injuries. Great trip, with lots of memories made!

I had to leave early for the Berean office as I needed to stop at Sam's Club to pick up a few things for mom's house and wanted to get the snow shoveled before the volunteers arrived. Skip pulled in right behind me so he grabbed the snow shovel to open up the drive.

We had a good morning working there. If you would like to read about our morning there click HERE.

After leaving there I drove straight to the Hanna City post office to drop off the Bibles then to mom's to take Anna's place. Anna was busy cleaning mom's house when I arrived and had it looking fantastic. Diane relieved me at 5:00 pm.  I just heated up some frozen creamy chicken and wild rice soup I had made earlier for dinner tonight.  Mark got a fire going in the rec room wood burner. This is the room the computers are in and the fire makes the room very comfortable.  I was able to catch up on some news and most seemed to be pretty positive news. Saskatchewan will end its vaccine passport policy on Monday, Feb. 14 and mask mandates by the end of February. 

WILL the rest of Canada and Ottawa follow suit? Unfortunately Justin Trudeau returned to parliament with a hard stance against the protesters. This guy is either really out of touch with the Canadian people OR just plain power hungry.  The truckers seem to be in this for the long haul. Check out the picture below of this violent uprising.

Wonderful Day

 Mom had a wonderful day today. She felt well but wanted a whirlpool bath and Karin made that happen. She had a great day.  The other really wonderful thing that happened today is Fedi coming home from the hospital. 

His family was so happy the kids made a big meal and all came over to celebrate with him. It really was a wonderful day.  After leaving mom's this morning I headed down to the Peoria post office to pick up the Berean mail then to D & H to check on the status of the motorhome and the Wildwood trailer.  They weren't able to find the paper work but said they would call by the end of the day with the answer. That didn't happen. Hopefully they will call tomorrow. It is really sad that the materials are in short supply as are workers.  I had a family moving from upper Michigan to Florida with a moving truck pulling a trailer plus their truck pulling a car, 5 people and 2 pets asking if they could stay at the barn apartment. The problem with that is the drives are still snow covered and they didn't have 4 wheel drive on the big truck. I took pictures of the hill they would need to climb and sent it to them so they could see why I was hesitate. 

I stood near the top and took the picture above and below to give them an idea of the state of the roads.

They will keep looking for something else.  When Mark got home we moved two bales in, one for each mare paddock.  It was a cold 8 degrees this morning but warmed up to 24 by this afternoon. Mom really wanted her deck cleared of snow but the snow is falling off her roof and is so heavy and icy it is just too hard to get that done until the weather warms up.  The news from Ottawa was the police raided the truckers camp and took their fuel.  Ottawa police tried to intimidate the people supporting the truckers by claiming they would arrest and fine anyone bringing gas to the convoy and the next day... Jerry Cans EVERYWHERE!! I love Canadians!

This peaceful protest is happening now all over Canada and not a single burnt down building, no fighting, no garbage thrown around, free food for anyone, the snow is shoveled by these protestors,  no has been hurt. There are just too many good honest hard working Canadians that support the truckers. What's a corrupt government to do? There are too many people constantly videoing the protests and even the news can't figure out how to put a spin on it. I am praying for a peaceful end but one in which all mandates are stopped and while praying that am praying for the Canadian people. They really are showing the world how to fight corruption!