Senior Pictures

It was so still and oppressive this morning on our walk it was actually hard to walk fast. Rachel gave me Emily Rickett's CD of her senior pictures to mail out but of course they had to be view first. They are so good Emily gave me permission to place them on the website. This one is a preview if you want to see more go to www.horsemeister.com click on the for sale page, then click on Jenis' picture.
Rachel can arrange for any horse lover to have their picture taken on one of our Friesians. This is a fantastic opportunity to have a precious keepsake, just ask her about her picture packages. Her sitting fees are very reasonable and her pictures are excellent!
Philip came up with a great idea at lunch. I was complaining about having to sleep downstairs due to the extreme heat and he suggested borrowing Meister Brothers loaner window unit. It is back at the shop and as long as no one needs it we can surely use it in our bedroom. He even drove it up to the house and put it in the window. What service. I'm tempted to take a nap right now.

LOOONG Night

After dinner, I was the slave driver and kept after Mark to work on his mess of papers that needed to be moved off the dining room table into the study. Didn't quite finish but got a lot closer. It was 88 degrees upstairs even though we had turned the air conditioner on at 3:00pm. Just too hot to sleep up there so the hide-a-bed couch mattress was taken out of the couch and placed on the floor for what we hoped would be a good nights sleep. Didn't turn out that way, a huge storm moved in with continues lightning producing huge strikes nearby. Both dogs decided as long as we were on the floor, they should join us. Darcy climbed on the couch cushions that had been placed up against the mattress, fell asleep, rolled off right onto ME. Claustrophobia set in with Darcy on the right and Mark on the left. It was to the couch for me for about 10 minutes until I just couldn't take the confined area. The floor actually felt pretty good around 2:00am. Around 4:00am I hear a man talking and realize Mark is on the internet watching a news program, I grabbed his spot and fell asleep until 5:20. Rhoda needed a wake-up call at 5:30am time to be up for the day. Two cups of day old coffee were all there was left in the pot. Decisions decisions, should one cup be shared with Mark?

Slave Driver

OK, My 20 year old daughter is a slave driver. After the Bibles, supplies, and machines were dropped off at our Skyline home, it was back to my house where Sarah put me to work. She is having a singing here while we are at the Northern IL Horse Fest and wants everything ready. So today we have emptied closets, moved out furniture, hauled bags and bags of garbage over, and scrubbed and cleaned room after room.
Finally she had to leave for volleyball and I was so relieved. I though I would just finish up sweeping the hallway then sit down and rest when mom calls. She wants to come see what we've accomplished. So of course I had to keep working until she got here. Then she had the NERVE to suggest we work on the kitchen, she wants to help!!!! AAAARRRRHHHHH. My back is sore from slinging 32 pound boxes of Bibles from the warehouse into the truck, then unloading, shoveling tons of sand that have washed into the basement playroom from the root cellar and moving furniture from the second floor down a flight of stairs and then hauling them outside and moving other furniture from the dining room into the basement furnace room. I had the excuse that Mark would be home for soon and I needed to start dinner.
The man from Georgia buying Ylse's filly emailed that he can no longer buy her. We will place her back for sale. Alicia Cooksey came to Bridlewood, cleaned out the green barn and moved in Mikayla's horse for some lessons. She was very glad to take some of the furniture Sarah wanted to put out on the front lawn.
They put the couch out last week and it is still there. Pretty sad, we live on the south side of Peoria and no one wants our old couch. What's that say about the state of our old stuff.

Blessed Sunday

Morning church was so emotional, David Obergfel talked about the vessels of oil the widow lady poured. How when she was asked what she had in the house she at first said nothing... except a little oil so she was told to borrow vessels and not a few. Then David told us how he preached on the story in Prescott AZ on Sunday then lived it that next week. His wife Kathy got terribly sick and had to go into the hospital and at first he thought he had nothing, then he pulled out his cell phone and said, this is all I had. He made calls for prayers and how there were prayers that went out and not a few. It was a sermon not many will forget. Many tears from the congregation and David.
After church we invited ourselves to mom's for a potluck. Each was to bring something to grill and by the time everyone got to mom's the amount of food was phenomenal. We finished up with ice cream cones. Most of us went swimming across the lake while Rhoda and Monica saddled up Jenis and Ylse and took off for a trail ride. They came up the hill to the lake so Rhoda asked Jenis to go in and Ylse's filly followed her and jumped in the lake and went swimming. Only then did Ylse go in. It was funny to see them swimming in the big lake. The filly is a good little swimmer.
Mark and I got ready to take Nancy home when the next group of horses went through.

WORK DAY

We are having a work day at the farm on Saturday starting at 8:00am. We really could use lots of help. Work to be done is mowing, weed whacking, fence repair, power washing the barn, and general clean up. Karin and Mike started clearing trails for the big hog roast but there is more to do to make this hog roast a fun safe day.
I know there are at least 40 people coming from the Skyline home and they kept their farms immaculate! We think there will be around 200 - 300 people altogether so please think about donating a couple of hours of labor. Lunch will be served!

Sophie & Emily's Senior Pictures

This is a post from Karin: I rode Sophie today and she did Great! perfect on the trails, even when we were chainsawing to clear them.
Sophie turned 3 on April 21st and was with Emily Rickitts all summer for training. She is a registered TN WAlker with just about PERFECT conformation, beautiful buttermilk buckskin color and right now around 15.2 hands. She will probably top out at 15.3-16 hands. Sophie is confirmed in foal to RAVEN due March 26th, 2011. Emily, YOU did a FANTASTIC job with her, Karin now tells us Sophie is BEGINNER SAFE! THANK YOU EMILY.

Last night the transport company was coming to pick up Fox for his new home in Virginia. Amy Koch was going to meet them and help load but the call came in that they were going to be coming in later than expected, around 10:30pm. Amy got Fox and his equipment all ready then called to tell me that Fox would be in the outdoor arena. WE both laughed at that, I know she was afraid I was going to send the wrong horse. I was so paranoid about getting the correct horse, the transporter and I went over him with a fine toothed comb just to make sure the horse that was leaving matched the paper work. I sure didn't want to send the wrong horse like Moon or Chance or any other Bridlewood horse.
The funny thing about this company's pickup was she called at 10:27pm to say she would be here in 15 minutes, I waited 3 minutes then headed outside at exactly 10:30pm and there was the truck and trailer parked in front of the house with the loading ramp down. Perhaps they use the Star Trek transporter.

Also if you want to see some BEAUTIFUL pictures of Jenis and Emily Ricketts go to www.momentscapturedbyrachel.com click on online ordering, go to the second page and click on Emily's album. These are absolutely the best senior pictures I've EVER seen.

Shooting Times Cover

This magazine is coming out in a couple of weeks and RAVEN made the cover. The cabin is in the lower half with Mike tacking up Raven in the lower right hand corner. We are pretty thrilled for Raven to make the cover of a national magazine!
Raven was given a bath and fly sprayed down today after his water tank was cleaned and filled. Had to feel good to him, cool water, clean coat and as soon as he is done a good roll in the dust! Ylse's filly also got a bath today with iodine shampoo. She had a couple of spots on her rump that were itchy. Mike drove out to Middle Grove and picked up Autumn, Jewel, Mika and Paris. They are now in the cabin field with Jenis, Wynne and Sophie. With the hog roast coming up we need to be bringing back our horses to get them ready for lots of company.
We are leaving in a few minutes for David and Stephanie's house for dinner. All of the kids are coming.

RockBand

All 4 of Ylse's water buckets were empty this morning, not only empty, knocked onto the stall floor. Her filly is having fun spilling the water then playing with the water buckets. She is bored and needs to be let out. We will keep her in one more day but it probably isn't necessary. Hopefully Rhoda will come home soon and ride Ylse for a video of this fantastic filly. She is really something!
Once all was done at the farm, it was time to come home to watch Addyson while the kids walk to Starbucks. The kids had the WII stuff out and Addyson is enthralled with the guitar.
Once the kids left Addyson had fun bossing Emma around telling her to "go away" and Emma would move off. This little girl is getting quite bossy. She loves purses and had the best time wandering around the house like this:
The walkers made it back by noon and took off for the pool taking our grand daughter with them. They at least made plans with us for dinner tonight.

Cool Breezes

What a relief to wake up to cool weather after the last few days and nights extreme heat. Driving out to the farm the thermometer was reading 64 degrees. The barn chores this morning were actually pleasant. No walk, mom had to be at St. Francis for her cataract surgery but we did get in a little visiting before we left at 7:45am.
The hardest part about this surgery for mom is that she is not allowed to wear ANY eye makeup for the week. When mom told us about that we had a good laugh. The surgery went very quickly and she will go back again in 2 weeks for the next eye.
Karin helped with the bandage change on the filly. Then it was down to the office for work. Spark and Dan joined me for lunch at Denny's.
By the time I arrived home there were 2 couches, 2 chairs, all of the end tables and bags of fake plants sitting out on our front yard with FREE signs on them. The first people that stopped looked over the couch and said, this smells like DOG! I think they just saw dog hair on it, surely it didn't smell? Sarah, David Jacob, and Caleb headed to Diane's to pick up our new (old) furniture. I think it looks great, we'll see what Diane says about it once we have it all fixed up.
Mark needed to head to the church to work on thermostats and after working there over an hour we headed to HyVee's for Chinese. For our Friday night entertainment we ended up spending some time looking over the store and buying some liquid smoke and bananas.
As we drove into our driveway the first thing we notice is almost all the furniture is gone and there is Emma carrying a 3 foot sections of our Toyota in her mouth. I noticed something not sounding right driving the car earlier, saw we had another front end section coming loose so pulled it off and placed it by the tree where Emma claimed it for a chew toy. We love our Toyota but they sure aren't put together very strong.

Trashed

The day before yesterday Sarah decided to start cleaning up the living room, getting rid of all the outdated fake plants, clearing out both book cases, throwing away old video tapes, half empty games, and her old pony club records. There were 2 huge garbage bags sitting on the living room floor. Well it is never a good thing to leave a Mastiff Puppy alone ALL day with 2 bags of garbage on the floor just waiting to see what kind of treasures are in them for chewing. Last night when I got home from Forrest, IL, I walked in the living room and could not see the floor for the chewed up garbage. I really should have taken a picture but instead started crawling, dragging a garbage bag along filling it as fast as possible. I was crawling because as Mike would say, "we only have so many of those bendovers" and they would have ALL be used up by the time this mess was cleaned.
Mom is having cataract surgery on the first eye this morning so we will miss the walk. I'm taking a book, it will be like a vacation just sitting while waiting for her.

Wynne

After the trail ride, Karin let Wynne play in the swimming pond. This mare LOVES water! Thanks Karin for all your videos.

Senior Pictures

Karin made this video yesterday with Sarah Reinhard on Jenis, Jessica on Bunni and Karin riding Wynne. She also posted the one below with Emily on Sophie, Steven on Bunni and Karin on Jenis. She was taping during the riding so it was pretty bouncy.

We packed so much in the car this morning that the entire back seat was full. Emily helped with Ylse's stall and we were just in time for the walk. Mom made us a wonderful breakfast afterward, then it was time to get to work. Emily was dropped off at Rachel's for her some of her senior pictures while I went to the cabin to get Jenis ready. They made a beautiful pair and Rachel feels she got some lovely pictures. Once Jenis was put away it was time for the boy's baths. Valiant was first getting all 4 legs scrubbed down with iodine shampoo. Valiant also had some spots of creepy crud on his belly which needed treatment. Evan was pulled out next and we were so impressed with how good he stood for his bath. Evan had a few small spots that needed treating. After they were put away it was time to change the boot on Ylse's filly. It is healing well and she was very well behaved this morning. Standing tied quietly while the boot was changed. They were both hosed off before stalling again. Velvet and her colt were then taken out so we could get a few pictures for his new owner.


After the pictures they were also both hosed down, the colt's incision lines checked before taking them back to their paddock.
Emily and the Reinhard girls played and swam in Diane's pond until it was time to leave to take Emily home. It was a GOOD day.

Monica's Danika

We heard the sad news late last night that the vets at UofI are going to put Danika down today. We can all sympathize with Monica on how hard this decision was on her. Please continue to pray for Monica that she will see God is GOOD and we don't know how and may not see it for a while, but God has promised good will come from this.
Yesterday I was to meet Emily's brother at our house right at 8:30am for the trip to Forrest, IL to pick up Sophie. After the walk I check my phone to see how we were doing on time, I thought it was only 8:05 so I stayed and visited with the ladies for what I thought was just a short time, get in the car and it is 8:27am. At 8:30 the call came they were waiting for me and did I leave without them? Kind of embarrassing to explain I just lost track of time.
We made it to Forrest, IL around 10:00am, dropped off Matthew, Picked up Emily and Sophie and headed back to the farm. When we drive up to the farm there is Evan lying down with Steven sitting next to him. Steven started working on teaching him to bow, and thought why not work see if he will lie down. We were impressed!
Ylse and her filly were hosed down, then while Karin took Steven and Emily on a trail ride, the filly's bandage was taken off and her foot soaked, then reapplied.
I was impressed with how good she stood but by the time we were ready for home my clothes were dripping wet with sweat. The heat these last 2 days were extreme with heat indexes in the 100s. Karin took some video of Emily riding Sophie and Wynne playing in the lake and has offered to make a couple of movies for the website. Can't wait to see them and once done they will be posted.
Mark told us he was taking us out to eat before church and drove up to the HyVee grocery store for the dinner. He had been told they had a very nice buffet and that was correct. We all three just had the salad bar but that was fantastic. Sometime when we have more time we will have to try some of their other foods. The place is huge and the selections were in the thousands.

Email from Vicki

Hi Judy, I subscribed to your you tube video's.. and I watched the recent one of Steven and the two yearlings.  DRIVING them down a neighborhood street.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I would have been impressed just have taken them somewhere and them be quiet and well mannered.. but he hooked them up together with a little thing between their heads and to long lines and WENT DOWN THE STREET.  oh, my goodness.  I as SO impressed!!!  And what nice horses.. and they are both young stallions.  Again.. I'm so looking forward to him working with mine.
Vicki

Of course I need to post the video again. GOOD JOB STEVEN! Vicki is the lady buying Velvet's colt, she has arranged for Steven to train him for a month before he leaves for his new home. For Horsemeister Client's information; Steven charges $200.00 a month for this service and this is such a great price for what he accomplishes. We recommend he be hired for the last 30 days before the foal is transported to his or her new home. This will give you a baby that has a great start teaching them to be very respectful and mannerly.

Busy Busy Day

Rush to the farm, feed and water Ylse, check her filly (doing GREAT) check Velvet's colt, (also doing GREAT) help Mike move out a bale from Raven's and into Big Sally's paddock. Mike used the skid steer to hold up the horse trailer, got the 2 trailer tires, both the destroyed blowout one and the flat one taken off the trailer and put into the car when I took off for the walk. Saw Rachel's new additions to her menagerie, her Daisy duck hatched out 12 adorable little ducklings. The walk was cut a little short, drove to the bank, deposited 2 checks, down to Rocket Tire to drop off the load, stopped at TEMCO to pick up the mail, look down at the gas gauge realize the car is out of gas so a stop to the gas station was also necessary all before showing up at work this morning before 9:00am.
Work went so well with Eva Jean back that we had lunch by 11:45 attended by Spark, Dan, Philip, Mark and us girls. The call came from Dr. Pallen that she would be at the farm around 1:45pm today to collect the stallion so that was next on the list. She also checked both foals and gave permission for Velvet's colt to now be turned out. Ylse's filly is doing so well she was acting like a little spitfire today. Did not want her halter on, did not want to lead and no way did she want to be hosed off. Except it is so beastly hot today that ALL the horses needed to be hosed off. She finally did learn to like it and stood well at the end.
Steven showed up to work Wynne and Jenis just in time to help with the collection. Talk about perfect timing! Once finished it was off to the bank to deposit 2 more checks and then off to the grocery store for much needed supplies.
Rachel Sauder of momentscapturedbyrachel came to Bridlewood to take pictures of Nora, Amy Koch's mare. Somehow between Amy bathing Nora and Rachel's talents they had this mare GLEAMING so white she GLOWED.

There are even better ones on Rachel's website on the online ordering page. Notice Amy's saddle, what kind of a rider jumps in a dressage saddle? answer ONLY a very GOOD rider! Anyone wanting horse pictures done, Rachel always makes every horse except Sangria look LOVELY!

Karin & Rhoda's Trail Ride

Video made by Karin Meister of their trail ride on Saturday. Sure looks like FUN!!

Mark's Knee

Mark hurt his knee last week and by Sunday evening it was hurting pretty bad. He asked what he should take for it and Aleve was recommended so he grabs the bottle, pulls one capsule out, swallows it and goes to bed. The next morning it is not any better at all. He comes hobbling home for lunch around 11:30 complaining that the Aleve pill didn't work at all. Once I saw what bottle he had taken the pill out of I knew he really didn't have Aleve at all, he had accidentally taken an antibiotic pill for the DOG! He was given 2 REAL Aleve pills and back down to work he went. Hopefully these pills will work MUCH better than the DOG pills.
Dropped off 2 dozen eggs at mom's before the walk today and had to stop in and ask for a band-aid for a blister forming from wearing old shoes.
Checking over all the horses while feeding them, I see Ylse's filly limping. We had an appointment at 10:00am with a couple coming to see the Friesians so I figured I'd head home, eat some breakfast and wait until 8:30am to call the Vet Clinic to see about bringing in the filly. The surprise waiting for me was the couple came early and were already waiting for me to get home from the farm so back we went.
They are a very nice couple on their anniversary trip so we gave them the grand tour here at the farm, swinging by the Old School Center, visiting the horses at Middle Grove, and gawking at the huge fish swimming in the Herman Lake in Norris IL. They were dropped off at the farm and the Vet clinic was finally called where I was given the choice of coming today at 2:15pm or waiting until Wednesday. No waiting for this filly, back out to the farm with the truck this time, hook up the stock trailer, start to pull it away and realize it has a flat tire. This is the 3rd flat on this trailer out of 4 tires. The trailer was pushed back, unhooked and the living quarter trailer hooked up. Diane came from work to help load which really helped. Turns out it is an abscess, we have NEVER had a baby get an abscess so this is unusual but actually is an ok prognoses rather than something serious like a broken bone. Speaking of broken bones, we got terrible news from the Fritzenmeier's. Monica's purebred Friesian filly, Danake has a broken ulna and radius and a piece of the radius is knocked 4 inches from where it should be. The vets at Kewanee told her to take it to UofI for evaluation to see if they can do surgery to save her or put her down. Please pray for Monica.
Once FINALLY home for the day it is time to start dinner.

Monster in the House

Our house is an old farmhouse that we know is inhabited by strange creatures. One we know of is who we call John the ghost. Everytime our keys are missing or something is broken that nobody knows anything about we say, hmmm, must have been John the ghost. He lives either in our basement under the front porch in the dirt room or up in the attic depending on what is missing or broken. Today after church we discovered along with John the ghost we have a monster also AND we NOW have PROOF!
I was able to sneak up on it and take these pictures. Just look at those evil eyes, and huge mouth, shiver shiver.

This is a ferocious looking monster, with huge teeth although none of the large teeth were showing. It growls, grumbles, chews up shoes, leaves some of its horrendous hair all over the carpet and clothes, and sometimes smells terrible. It must have just eaten something, perhaps a small child, just look at the smirk on it's mouth. We will have to see if any of the Pony Clubbers are missing out at the barn.

It has a huge long body, all stretched out, wait I think I recognize this monstrous thing.

It's just Emma taking her afternoon nap. Once the flash hits she jumps up to see what's going on.

She looks a lot nicer when she is not upside down. Amy Koch's shock collar worked so well yesterday, Emma would not chase the car as Mark was leaving today. In fact she didn't even want to go NEAR the road.

Wynne

Mike and Diane took Wynne and Bunni to Lake Shelbyville for a weekend camping trip. A text came in that Wynne is a SUPER horse. Of course a phone call was needed for clarification on that.
He said she is smart, balanced, quiet, leads when asked, and very sturdy. Now Wynne is only 3 years old and she is going to be one of our BEST trail, camp horses. Rebekah Davidovics had been telling me how great she is and wonderful she is riding but when it comes from Mike it is PRAISE indeed. When I reminded Mike that Wynne is in foal to Raven and due March 23rd, 2011 Mike groans and states, "it figures." He feels we lose all of our best riding horses because they have foals by their sides.
Steven Marchal has been training Wynne to bow and Rebekah will be showing her at the Northern IL Horse Fest August 28th and 29th. Anyone interested in a REALLY FUN horse show, we like this one the best. It is being held at Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles, IL this year instead of Boone County Fairgrounds in Belvidere, IL. We are also bringing up Jenis, Ylse and her filly, Valiant, Evan and of course Karin is bringing up her BEST vaulting team along with the vaulting horse Ribbon. The Northern IL Horse Fest is one a true horse lover doesn't want to miss. The clinicians are always first class and the demos are entertaining.
Below is a short video of Wynne playing in the cabin field with Evan.

Duurke

Our very first Friesian was an 18 year old star mare named Duurke purchased over 10 years ago. We found her in Sulphur, LA at a Saddlebred training facility. Mark and I borrowed Amy Koch's trailer drove 14 hours down to pick her up then another 14 hours back. It was an exhausting trip but I was so thrilled to own her. Duurke was extremely well trained in dressage, all of her lateral work was fantastic and she had a wonderful attitude and beautiful gaits. We started her in vaulting and showed her with the vaulting team at the IL Horse Fair that first March. Now these were in the days I couldn't afford to buy a Friesian so all of my savings went into buying her, I borrowed from my dad and took a loan out at CEFCU for the balance with a 2 year payback. To pay back the loans I started cleaning stalls. We decided to breed Duurke, as we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to replace her. We talked to Dr. Monfort the Bridlewood vet, about which was the best option and at her age he recommended live cover so I got on the internet and found the nearest FHANA registered stallion standing in Rockford, IA. After talking to his owner, Rhoda, Sarah and I drove up to see the stallion and her place. We sent Duurke up to him in April and June 10th we got a phone call from the stallion owner that Duurke was colicking and what did we want done. Duurke was taken to Aimes IA Vet School for surgery where she died. I called and talked to the attending Vet and asked him to describe her, he told me he spent more time looking at the inside of her than the outside, then described her as a 16 hand big bay mare. Duurke was only 15.2 and black but I thought perhaps she looked bigger and probably faded if she was left out in the sun. One doesn't think very clearly when there has been the death of a valuable horse that I still owed money on. We did ask for an autopsy and got the report but again the mare was just listed as Bay Mare. We were left with huge vet bills and a loan on a dead horse that still needed to be paid. Just to relieve our minds we should have driven the 300 miles and checked to make sure it was our mare but everything was just too overwhelming right then. Grasping at straws Rhoda and I spent some time on the internet looking for Duurke hoping against hope it had been a mistake and Duurke was really alive somewhere. Years went by and we heard that the stallion passed away from colic and I felt bad for his owner, remembering the devastation I felt when Duurke died.
Last night an email came from his owner asking if Sanna was still for sale so just for fun I googled her name and was very disturbed at what came up. The very first write-up listed was from someone that claimed she had scammed them.
Now we really do wonder if it really was Duurke that colicked and died. Could she have sent a colicking mare that she could claim was a Friesian so Duurke could be sold to someone else? I guess we will never know.
I will say God is Good, if Duurke hadn't died we would NEVER have purchased Raven and Raven is FAR, FAR better than ANYTHING that would have come from breeding Duurke to any stallion.