Potluck Friday the 13th!

Today is our turn for potluck and it is also Friday the 13th. Should I be worried? Will the food turn out good enough to eat? Usually, without bragging, I'm a pretty good cook but one time for potluck I had the meal prepared, the meat was perfect, then one of the guests showed up 45 minutes late and by the time we sat down to eat our prime rib was overcooked. I'm not serving prime rib tonight and hopefully no one will be late so perhaps it will turn out fine. I am having 13 people at my table as one of our guests had to cancel. Good thing we are NOT superstitious! Although I did just about hit a deer on the way to the farm this morning. I saw something in the corner of my eye and slowed down or I would have hit it for sure. It came running out of the woods and right in front of my car, even slowing down I had to slam on my brakes. I missed it by inches, not feet!
I'm having 2 meats tonight. One is only because I'm hosting a dress-up dinner for the younger girl cousins, ages 19 down to 14 on Sunday and I want to try a recipe to see if it is good AND elegant. I want to make Sunday's dinner very special. We will use our good china with the place settings set for a full dinner with many courses and serve sparkling grape juice out of our goblets.
I need to get busy cleaning the house. That is the only problem with having company (which I LOVE to do). I really don't like to work inside the house. I like the outside work, but as I'm serving in the formal dining room, I need to have the house presentable and ready for company.
As I was up early this morning I got the water tank filled and the foals grained and looked for ANOTHER missing halter but no luck. Only one foal now has a halter on and that is Royal and he no longer needs a halter, he is coming right up. I now have 4 halters somewhere in that small paddock and can't find ANY of them. I was 15 minutes early getting to the farm this morning and it was good not to have to run to each paddock but leisurely walk carrying their grain. Everyone was checked and all is well there.

Veterans Day

This morning before our walk I was able to get all the nursing mares, foals, and Raven grained. Steven Marchal was already at the barn looking for that calico cat that had an appointed for spaying and shots today. Of course the cat cannot be found. On our first farm loop we saw a white tailed buck in the field. Heidi saw it and took off running. We watched for quite a while and surprisingly Heidi was actually gaining on the poor thing. Once the buck crossed into the bean field and was quite a distance off Heidi gave up and came back. The second farm loop, Steven was lunging Lily. It is time for Lily to start getting in shape.
Yesterday was Veterans Day, a lot of kids here at Bridlewood had the day off, the Lake kids still had school but were in the Veterans day parade.
This got me thinking of our Veterans but I didn't want to write about it yesterday, I needed a day to cool off without writing something too radical. Still, how dare our president apologize for America. Every time our soldiers have gone off to a foreign country to fight, it is never for America to expand her boarders it is to defend that country from some awful problem, the only land we ask for is to bury our dead those who have sacrificed for other lands. We have sent our American soldiers all over the world defending foreign countries from invasion or evil dictators. Our American soldiers have DIED defending these countries and our president thinks we should APOLOGIZE? My first thought yesterday was how can I write about this, I may get flagged by the government as a radical and this made me even madder that I would think like this. We live in AMERICA! We have the right to FREE SPEECH. There is no way I should ever begin to think I will get penalized by writing against our government and I have never ever worried about it before the Obama Administration. So if I suddenly disappear, all you readers know it would be because I have spoken out against the president. Still we are to pray for our leaders and I am praying for president Obama. I know that God allowed him to be president, I just hope it is not to usher in the last days, there are so many that still need to hear about Jesus and his sacrifice. I love America and would NEVER bad mouth my country but I am so afraid the America I knew and loved is dying.
Enough of the political and back to everyday life.
I'm blessed to be watching Addyson while my 5 girls (3 daughter-in-laws and 2 daughters) are walking to Avantis for lunch. Addyson has just woken up and is playing on my lap. She now has her first tooth. AT least her mom tells me she has one, she doesn't want to show me yet. She is so smart!

Email from Erin

Hi Judy-
I hope all is well with you and your family. I sent these pictures to you to maybe help people be more a ware of what is happing to horses. I have heard of people just letting their horses go, and now I have seen it first hand. We found her Monday morning about a mile down our road. Our neighbor came down to get me and my mom, we were able to halter her up and walk her down to our house. By chance I had the vet comming to due some floating on the other horses. She looked at her and said she has a long road a head of her but she will be fine. She is about 12 years old and about 17 hands, she is huge. I just thought I would share this story of our new resident and get the word out that people are just letting go of their horses. She was loved at one time, I just want horse owners to ask for help if they need anything. Then there wouldn't be such heart ache. Take care and bless you and those around you.
Thanks,
Erin
Below are the pictures of the horse. PLEASE don't TURN YOUR HORSE LOOSE. If you cannot take care of your horse, LET someone know. We understand the economy we understand the hay shortage but if help could have come sooner this mare would not be facing a TERRIBLE winter. Even with Erin's help, to go into the winter in this condition may be a death sentence for this mare. This is not just happening 'somewhere else' Erin lives in ILLINOIS up by Rockford.
THANK you ERIN for caring. I saw the pictures and read your email and started to weep.

Aragon

Out at the farm this morning I had my camera. I had just fed Izadora and was watching Aragon getting ready to nurse. He was bumping his mom kind of hard in the udder and all of a sudden he must have bit her because Izadora whipped her head around and nipped him in the rear end. I caught his jump of surprise in the first picture.

He is very sheepish, peeking around his mom trying to figure out where the bite came from in the second picture.

Izadora is a great mom, she does not tolerate any disobedience handing out discipline as soon as it is needed.
We had a good walk this morning. We are working on arranging transportation from Hanna City to O'Hare airport this coming Tuesday for the Reinhard family. We hate to see them go back to Haiti but Joan knows they must have time to grieve before the work teams start coming.

The Monday RACE

After work yesterday Karin got a group together to go racing. It was Karin Meister on Mika, Rebekah Davidovics on Anni, Anni Davidovics on Bunni, Bethany Reinhard on Knight, Hannah Reinhard on Paris, and Caleb Sauder on Walker Sally. Monica Fritzenmeier on Ylse and Sandy Fritzenmeier on Sangria took off for some schooling as they and those horses are not really into racing. Their first race was up the cabin hill and amazingly enough Bethany and Knight WON! Knight was kind of sneaky squeezing by all the big horses and shooting up the hill. Bethany got the prize for that race. When they got to the 50 foot strip the bean field next to it was being harvested and there was a truck parked kind of in the way. Karin talked to the farmer and told him they were going to race so he moved off to the side. This one was more competitive and the kids were out to WIN. Mika came in first with Bunni a close second. Karin said the adrenaline was flowing and the horses were kind of hard to stop so they ended up in the bean field. good thing that section was already harvested. We love the fact the kids had a great time, the horses had a great time and both didn't realize they were getting an education. Karin made the comment that what is really Amazing is there is enough tack for that many horses. We forget to be thankful for small things and having enough tack is actually a pretty big thing. We could always use more saddles and bridles so if anyone out there is getting out of horses and has good used equipment reasonable we would probably be interested.

Pictures of Karin's Youth Group

Duke with one of his riders.

I guess they were all favorites.

Double checking the girth.

Getting ready

A group going out on the trails.

I was sent these pictures tonight of the fun time Karin's youth group had at the lake. The horses were great, the weather was wonderful, the food tasted scrumptious and the company was the best.
In the lead is Duke, followed by Anni and bringing up the rear is Bunni.

The trampoline is a great place to wait for the horses to come back.

Duke was one of the favorites. He is a perfect size for just about any size child.

Karin's youth group at the Hanna City farm

One of the volleyball games while waiting for the horses.

Monday Morning

On our walk today Joan told us how she and Tim were so appreciative about the support that has come in for Haiti. Mike Rieker gave Tim an accounting of what has been donated and it is more than $14,000.00 They now have enough money to pay the Missionary Flight International trip expense. When Joan and Tim asked for a bill they were told donate what you can but the direct cost of that flight was $9000.00. They were so thankful there was a way to get home from Haiti to the United States and double thankful for all the donations that came in to help pay for these cost. The garage sale has now brought in more than $9000.00 which will go to feed the Haitian children at Gabriel's school along with paying for electricity there. She also told us that Robyn Feucht and some other ladies were coming today to help her write thank you notes.
Once home from the farm, Amy Koch drove her truck down to TSC where we picked up 3 bags of grain for the foals along with another 50 pound salt block and 2 stall mats for Nora's paddock. After unloading the grain, loading up my wrecked truck tailgate and throwing it in the dumpster I headed down for work to finish all the paper work for the Friesian Heritage Horse registry. That paper work took me 2 hours last night to put together and another half hour down at work making copies and getting it ready to mail. This was because I'm registering 7 more foals by Raven and adding Sanna's to FHHI along with her DNA work so all of her foals by Raven can be registered. 8 horses x 4 to 5 pieces of paper per horse make a very thick envelope to mail, it cost $2.75 to send it out first class.
Steven Marchal drove to the farm this morning to work on Clara. While he was cleaning her up, his cat, Cali caught a mouse right in the stall area. I'm so pleased we have a good mouser in the barn right now. I'd much rather have a cat than poison!

Karin's Youth Group

Mike had the horses all tied up at the Cabin when Karin arrived. She took out 7 horses each time. All went well, the only glitch was Anni not always following the group but that was easily fixed, Karin just ponied her. Horses used were Mika, Autumn, Anni, Paris, Duke, Walker Sally, and Bunni. Karin reported that Walker Sally is beginner safe. She hadn't been ridden since before she delivered her filly so it is great that she can be used. We will need to use Anni with a more experienced child until the mare learns to stay with the group. She is only 3 and we don't want her to pick up bad habits. The kids that were waiting their turn played volleyball, football and had a picnic by the campfire. Every one had a chance to go out at least once and some went multiple times.The weather was just perfect and the mud is drying up. If anyone took pictures and wants them posted, just email me and I'll put them up.

Our Sunday

Sunday is such a blessed day. We love going to church and seeing everyone, it's like a big family reunion every week. Today we also had baptisms following the afternoon services and church was packed. Mark and I didn't stay for the dinner afterwards, the sun is shining and the weather is PERFECT.
We drove out to the farm, I pulled hair from the last of the four foals to send in with their registrations, then started removing the burrs from Ribbon while Mark worked on the tree line.
We spent a little more than an hour there working. Jamie and Ralph brought Jamie's mom over to meet us so they stayed and visited while I worked on Ribbon. Once home from the farm, Mark went to Kroger to pick up hamburger and buns for dinner while I went out to work on the paddock until dark. It is now starting to get dark around 5:00pm and I didn't want to waste ANY of this wonderful warm daylight inside cooking.
Mark cooked the hamburgers which we ate with all the trimmings, we added raw carrots, broccoli and cauliflower with french onion dip and that was our meal. DELICIOUS!

Co-incidents ?

Last night at the testimonies we heard a couple of times about co-incidents that were just too unreal and it got me thinking about some strange ones that I went through.
One time Berean warehouse where I work got in skids of canned pumpkin. I had just been asked to make a dessert for something so I called up TEMCO to ask if I could have some pumpkin. Martha told me of course there is so much of it take what ever you want.
I brought out 2 boxes big boxes, one of the big cans of pumpkin and one of the small cans thinking I'll share it with family members. On the way home from work, I thought I may as well stop at Aldis and get the rest of the ingredients. I was standing in the checkout line, typical Aldis, only one line open, when a lady walked up behind me with just 2 cans of pumpkin in her hand. My first reaction was to let her go in front of me, then I looked closer to what she was carrying and asked her, "Is that all you are buying?" She looked kind of sheepish and told me, I don't know what got into me, I just had a craving for pumpkin. I'm really on my way to my kids school to make food baskets for the poor when I got this craving. I told her to put the cans back, gave her my car keys and told her there is 2 boxes of canned pumpkin in the back seat, take it ALL. I know when I've been set up by God! I had to call Martha back and ask her for more pumpkin and of course share the story. Some poor child was probably praying that her mom would make a pumpkin pie for Christmas.
The other story is about toilet paper. I never thought I would share this one, but it to was just too much of a co-incident. Berean got in a couple of skids of BIG boxes of toilet paper. I picked up a box and thought no I don't need this and put the box down. Got my Bibles and studies done, as I was leaving the warehouse I picked up the same box again, I knew it was the same box, it was kind of crumpled, and again put it down and told myself no, I have plenty of toilet paper. I turned to go out the door and something made me backtrack and pick up the box and walk out the door. As I was walking out the door I thought to my self, great I wonder what this is going to cost me? I stuffed it in the car and drove home, just as I pulled into the drive I looked out and saw a family at the barn working and in my head I heard so plainly, "now take the toilet paper out to the barn and give it to that family!" I argued, said no, it's too embarrassing, they won't understand why I'm trying to give them toilet paper. After about 15 minutes of arguing with God I finally very sheepishly walked out to the barn carrying just one of the packages of toilet paper out of the box. I couldn't even carry the box it was too big. I walked up to the mom and kind of embarrassed told her, "this is for you, I don't really know why but I have to give it to you." She looked at me and said, "I know exactly why and I'll tell you the whole story." Turns out she had been struggling financially and in her prayer told God, I can't even afford toilet paper for my family! I drove the car over to her big van and loaded up the rest of the box.

What Ever You Do, Don't Ask Down

Yesterday in the mail, Joan received a special book all the way from Haiti. One of her friends from Haiti, took pictures she had taken of Gabriel and made them into a book. Joan brought the book to the garage sale to show the rest of the family. The book is so touching that anyone that looks at it automatically starts tearing up. Beth was looking at the book during one of the very busy times when a man came up with some fishing equipment and asked Beth if she would take a $1.00 for it. There was 2 lines of people behind him waiting to check out. Beth showed him the book with the picture of Gabriel and told him that all the proceeds go to the school in Haiti that Gabriel attended and she would go down. All of a sudden Beth started sobbing, mom loudly lost it, Joan starts sobbing, then Karin seeing them all crying broke out sobbing. The man was so flustered he opened his wallet and told Beth, just take it ALL! The ladies at the front of the line all start to cry sympathy tears. Then one of the ladies in the back of the line asked "What Happened?" She was told "that man at the front of the line just asked down!" So the word went out, What ever you do, DON'T ask down!
Once we realized how that looked and sounded it was cause for laughter.
The garage sale is now over and yes, we would call it a success, over $8500.00 was raised for Gabriel's school but how we wish that the last 3 weeks could be erased.
Sarah Reinhard was in charge of making the cotton candy to sell. Bethany posed for a picture of 2 of Sarah's masterpieces.
Below is 2 of the happy customers.

Our weather today is beautiful, warm brilliant sunshine. Rhoda went trail riding with her boss, Dr. Lissa Calhoun and her three children. Rhoda drove the truck and trailer to the farm and picked up Bunni and Paris for the kids to ride as Dr. Lissa Calhoun doesn't have enough ponies and her children are all small. They should have a great day for it.
Karin has her youth group coming tomorrow, hope the weather holds for her.
Feeding the foals this morning I realize another halter is missing. That is now 3 halters somewhere in this small paddock. WHY can't I find ANY of them. This time it is Piper that lost his.

Garage Sale for Haiti

The garage sale started at 8:00am but most of the lake people got there before 7:00am and there were already buyers. By the time I got there with my cotton candy machine they had already sold (or had donated) $1600.00. AMAZING. What ever ends up being left they are hoping to ship down to Haiti in a container. Joan and Tim are SO THANKFUL for all the support. One of the barn ladies from Bridlewood (I won't say who but her first name is Susan) donated $200.00.
After putting Sarah Reinhard in charge of the cotton candy machine, I left to take care of the foals I have here at Bridlewood. The water tank needed to be filled and a new round bale moved in. Once that was done I pulled out first Classy, brought him to the front of the green barn, tied him and gave him a good groom. Then it was Pipers turn and finally Chloe. All three were pretty well behaved. I am most impressed with Piper's attitude. I expected Classy to be good, I've been working with Chloe but Piper, other than the day we brought him back has had NO contact with people since we put him out at Middle Grove. He let me lead him around, groom him all over and stood pretty good tied even though he had to call to the others quite a bit. I also was able to introduce him to grain today. The others weren't sharing and he didn't realize it was something he wanted. I put up bucket number 5 and now each foal has their own. Of course they are sure there is more grain in the other buckets so it is a continual rotation. Kind of funny to watch.

Piper

This morning Steven Marchal agreed to meet me at the farm to drive out to the Middle Grove farm to pick up the remaining 4 horses left there. After our walk we hooked up the trailer and headed out. We thought it might be a long day not knowing if the horses would be easily found but we saw them within 5 minutes and had them all haltered except Piper. He was showing off with this HUGE trot and I mean HUGE. After a couple of tries we figured out a way for him to want to get in the trailer. Ribbon was loaded and unloaded a few times, then in the trailer he jumped. We dropped off Ribbon, Velvet and Clara at the Hanna City farm and brought Piper to Bridlewood to get some pictures and a video made of him. Steven started working on the burrs and once he was cleaned up, we started the videos. We thought he would just automatically show off being in a new place but he was very low key and only quietly walked around. Steven had the idea of a plastic bag so once that was tied to the whip and shaken around him he started showing his awesome movement. My only mistake was taking his pictures in the shade, he is so black they didn't turn out as well as if he would have been in the sun.
As long as I had the video camera out, Steven suggested we take one of Royal. He didn't really show off as much as he can but still looked good.
We put the colts back and as I was heading in Steven asked me if I wanted to pull hair for the registrations papers. I went in to get the envelopes while Steven got them all ready. Now I only need to pull the 3 purebred Friesian foal's hair and I'll be ready to send them in.
While I was working on the 2 movies, my 3 daughter-in-laws came over so I got to watch Addyson while all 5 girls walked to Starbucks. They made it there but then called for a ride home. I had to drive Tauyna's car to pick them up because of Addyson's car seat so we had 7 people stuffed in that 5 passenger car. Above is Piper and below is Royal.

Wednesday Morning

Only time for one cup of coffee this morning, the horses were waiting. The foals heard me open the grain bin and started calling. Once they were fed it was off to the farm where Raven was waiting both for grain and a new hay bale. Mike locked all the mares off the middle paddock, now that the sun is shining it is starting to dry up. By the way October broke ALL rain records for our area, we KNEW it was bad!
After our walk, Mike was waiting with the skid steer and moved in 3 new bales, one to Raven and 2 into the back field to make the horses leave the paddocks and go where it is dryer. I just need to get the bale rings back to the bales. Tomorrow if it is dry enough, I'll see if the skid steer can carry the rings back, right now the mud is too deep to roll them back. Back home put up 3 new ads and even paid for a couple, hope we have some interest, we MUST reduce our numbers.
This picture of Raven was taken the first time we hired a REAL photographer, Rachel had just started her photography business and we were pretty thrilled with her results.

Choir

It is our turn to serve the lunch at choir tonight. I am making a big batch of Romanian Shepherds stew. I've been cutting up meat and vegetables since 1:30pm and have just filled the pot. I've got it cooking so by the time we leave the flavors should be well blended. I used the last of my Celtic sea salt, now I wish I'd gotten more when I had the chance. It is filled with minerals and really makes the foods taste wonderful.
Eva Jean and I had a very productive day at work. We whipped through the Bible studies and were done by 11:30am. I needed to get done early because of shopping and preparing the food for tonight.
We had a man stop in Mike's office to offer us a Dutch Warmblood mare for free. They used her for breeding, have kept her yearling colt and now want to find a home for her. She is a dark bay and has good bloodlines. I think she is almost 17 hands tall and has good movement. This is what we are breeding for but... we just plain have too many horses!
The babies here at Bridlewood are doing so well. They look forward to me coming out to grain them and all come up for loving now. I'll need to clean the water tank and fill it today so better get off the computer and out side. THE SUN IS SHINING!

Karin's Practice Ride

Karin's youth group is coming to the farm on Sunday for a trail ride and picnic. The horses have been in the mud and not ridden for a while so Karin thought that perhaps she should take a trial run yesterday with some of the horses that have not been used in months. She called around and got Anni Davidovics, and Hannah and Bethany Reinhard to ride with her. Anni rode Anni, Hannah rode Paris, Bethany rode Duke and Karin rode Sangria.
Anni crow hopped a bit but Anni was easily able to handle her, Duke was fast but Bethany LOVES fast and Paris was perfect but poor Hannah is sore today as Karin did a LOT of galloping.
The biggest problem was Sangria and this was ALL Karin's fault. She forgot to let the poor mare drop and roll. Everyone that takes Sangria out must remember about her NEEDING to roll before tacking and once the saddle is off. Karin took off her saddle but left her tied. She said Sangria kept pawing and was very impatient but still respectful to her. Once she untied her the poor mare dropped to the ground on the cabin drive and had her roll. Sangria would prefer to roll in the indoor arena or in the grass but she was so upset that Karin forgot she had to roll on the gravel.
The picture is Sangria before she delivered in May with her current best friend Big Sally.

Royal Masquerade

After work it was Royals turn for pictures and of course to be cleaned up. He tolerated it but was not as patient as Chloe. He is very ticklish on his front legs and they took the most work. Unfortunately the feathers he sports are pretty plastered with the ever present mud. Thank goodness he is photogenic, much easier to get a pleasing picture of him then Chloe. He was born KNOWING how to pose.

Rachel's Birthday

This morning there was absolutely no breeze and the lake was reflecting the houses as a mirror. The stillness of the morning was glorious. The only movement was a blue heron flying about 1 foot over the surface of the lake until mom let Heidi out. Then the quietness was broken by howling and barking. Finally mom and Joan came out and Heidi was content to RUN! Diane joined us, then Rachel. Just as we started back over the dam we broke into a very LOUD off key rendering of Happy Birthday to Rachel. She turns 38 today. Hard to believe my LITTLE sister is that old. We had a good talk on the walk, rehashing Rachel's party.
Steven pulled up at the farm to work on manes just after Izadora was moved into the small paddock. There is more hay there and she is now out of season. By the time the walk was over he had Sangria's tail done and was working on her mane. The cowboy magic was in the trailer so once that was applied it went a little faster and Steven had both Big Sally and Sangria finished by 9:00am. They were turned back out and both went galloping through the fields with their manes and tails flying. THANK YOU STEVEN.

Chloe

I didn't have time to video tape Chloe and only got a couple of pictures of her. First I had to get the burrs out of her mane and tail and the MUD off. She was well behaved for all of it. She had a burr in her ear and didn't fuss when I had to pull a bit to get it out. Rhoda had left so I ended up just tying her to the tree for the pictures. Of course she was always looking the wrong way when I went to snap the picture. It is now 9:30pm and feels LATE.

Khelly's Class Act

After church today, I pulled Classy out, cleaned him up and had Rhoda help me take some pictures and a video. He is a yearling, out of Chiquita Too and by our Friesian stallion RAVEN. Chiquita Too is by the Arabian stallion Khelly, a Western pleasure champion. Classy inherited the Arabian good looks with the Friesian bone. He really does have great movement. He is glossy black with a little brown around his muzzle. I guess technically that makes him a black bay but he sure looks black most of the year. We are asking $2500.00 for him. He is still a stallion but we would be willing to geld him if the new owner desires this. He is very well behaved.