Falling Stars

After work we needed to take 500 Berean business reply envelopes to Eva Jean along with a Spanish Bible study David wanted copied. Eva Jean has one of the copiers in her basement and makes thousands of copies for Berean Prison Ministry each week. We went back to HyVee for dinner since we were up that way. This time we got the grand buffet which cost us $7.99 each. Both of us enjoyed the salad bar, some bbq ribs, a small slice of pork roast and some wonderful soup. What a good deal although we found out later they charged us the senior price, I guess we really look OLD we ARE both seniors, Mark is 60 and I'm now 55 so qualify at some places that use 55 or older, I don't know HyVee's policy, guess I'll need to ask next time. We bought coffee, creamer, bread, and one box of cereal before leaving for home. Both girls were home by the time we arrived, nice to see them again.
At 11:00pm Mark and I went out to lay on the trampoline and stare at the sky. There was suppose to be a meteor shower. We each saw one huge one streak across the sky before turning in for bed, again sleeping on the living room floor. The news said most of the meteors would be between 3:00 and 4:00am so out I went at 3:00am first spraying OFF all over to discourage the mosquitoes. That was kind of a bust, only saw a few smaller streaks before heading in. The dew was so heavy that the tramp was pretty soaked. The mosquitoes, even with using the spray, were so aggressive that all but my head needed to be covered and they were still buzzing my ears and flying in front of my glasses. At least the sky was clear. Today is going to be another scorcher with temps again in the high 90s. This is our 19th day this year with 90 degrees or more. To put it in perspective, last year we only had four 90 degree days.

Ylse's Bath

Karin wanted to hose off the horses but instead let them play in the lake. Thanks Karin for trying to help keep these horses cool.

Noah's Ark

It is pretty awful outside very hot and humid with temps climbing well into the 90s and no breeze to speak of. The heat index is suppose to be between 107-110 degrees and even this early it feels we are already there.
Dakota needed a new round bale here at Bridlewood and just the little bit of labor it took, I'm dripping wet. Cathie has suspended all the rest of her lessons today, just too hard on all horses and people.
We have a group of boys coming out this evening for a trail ride, not sure how that's going to happen with this heat. Perhaps they should just go bareback and ride in the lake.
We made it home last night and had another night sleeping on the living room floor. A neighbor called, had no air and their house was miserable. We still have air on our first floor. Mark took the loaner unit over to them late last night and will install their new central unit today.
After the walk this morning none of the mares with foals by their sides were where they could be seen. I was so tempted to just assume they are all ok but my conscience just wouldn't let me. At least the hike into the back pasture wasn't too long and they were all grouped together. I was back on the road in plenty of time to reach home and clean up our bedding before Sasha's piano lesson started. Would have looked pretty silly for Sasha and her teacher to see a bed on the living room floor.
We have a group going to Branson, MO in September and we are all going to see Noah's Ark. Mark still needed a ticket as he didn't agree to go until much later and today that job was accomplished. We were able to get a ticket, not just in the same row but the very next seat. Still we had to pay for that privilege just to call it in cost an extra $5.00 on top of the regular price. His ticket has been emailed and all we have to do is print it out before leaving. NOTE TO SELF: REMEMBER THE TICKET!

The Hanna City Trails

Karin took this video of the kids on the trails at the farm and placed it on youtube which meant it could be placed here as well.
She called today to let us know the trails were worked on and now passable. If you watch the video you can get a good idea of how much fun it is to ride them. Thanks Karin, we are enjoying all of your videos lately!
Rider horse combination were: Sarah Sceggel on Jenis, Bethany Reinhard on Sophie, Sarah Reinhard on Duke, Jessica Sauder and Hannah Reinhard on Bunni and Karin on Wynne.

Studio Plus

Way after work, around 7:30pm we left for Earth City, MO for a training class that starts tomorrow morning at 8:00am. We thought of using priceline to find a cheap hotel but the cheapest place was $45.00 plus all the taxes and priceline fees added. The one good thing about priceline's website is it gave us different hotels in the area. We looked up phone numbers and started calling hotels directly and asking if they would meet pricelines prices. The Studio Plus gave us the room for $44.00 plus tax making the total price $52.70 so we booked and headed down. God put on an amazing show for us almost the entire drive down. Lightning flashes from the east to the west, just beautiful! Still the drive down seemed to take forever as we were both very tired from our interrupted sleep the night before. We pulled in at 10:30pm, it took over 15 minutes to check in as we were 3rd in line, then found out our room fee didn't include internet which cost $4.95 extra. Basically we just crashed once finally in the spacious room that has an attached kitchen with a full size fridge, stove and coffee maker. My only complaint was the room seemed kind of dingy (spoiled, spoiled, spoiled)any way the bed was comfortable.
This morning there was just one small package of coffee making ONLY 2 cups of coffee and I had to share one of the cups with Mark. Why is he here anyway if he's going to drink MY coffee? OH YES, we are here for HIS classes. Waffle House was less then 5 minutes away so I had my coffee for the day while we enjoyed breakfast at 6:30am.
While Mark is in class, I get to just relax so brought 3 books. I'm reading The Liberty Bell series by Gilbert Morris and thoroughly enjoying them. Amazing how much we can learn about our revolutionary war by reading fiction.

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!