Max

Once the laundry was in the machines and the blueberry bars baking for tonight's picnic, the stalls were bedded with fresh soft pine flakes for the Friesian mare and foal coming in to breed to Raven. Jill and Dave arrived around 2:00pm and once the horses were unloaded and stalled took some time to see all the other horses on the property. Their Raven son, barn name Max is not just HUGE he is gorgeous!

This boy should end up well over 16 hands. He has the curly Friesian hair. If the weather holds we will get a video of him, he obviously inherited Raven's fantastic movement. He is only a month old and already his mane is longer than most 4-5 month old foals. Steven arrived in time to help tease his mom, Wynne SF. She let Raven know she is NOT interested today. Once they were put away Steven got on the orange tractor and started mowing the fields.

He was able to finish the pasture behind the boy's paddock and it looks great. So thankful to have such good help. Spark, Rhonda, Mark and I needed to be at Bob and Myrna Hoerr's house by 5:00pm for the annual choir picnic, the one we wouldn't want to miss, those choir ladies are absolutely the BEST cooks. Now I know this is a horse blog but the meal tonight was exceptional.

The plates were not near big enough, this is just a sampling of the colorful wonderful tasting meal.

The dessert table stretched all down the long side of the room. So many tasty goodies, even taking only a mouth full of each was too much.

Everyone enjoyed the meal and fellowship.

After dinner most of us headed outside for fresh air, comfortable chairs and more visiting.

Irma accidentally walked out with MaryAnn's purse and didn't realize it until she was ready to sit down. We had a lot of fun asking them to pose for the picture below.

Once the tables were cleared out and the chairs reset we ambled back inside for a good old fashioned singing. The numbers were requested sometimes before the last note of the previous song. The closing song so beautifully sung was Abide With Me Fast Falls the Eventide, the wonderful harmony was an absolute delight to the ears. As we were driving away the moon was so huge hung low in the sky, just above the tree line.

The moon won't appear so huge again until 2019 as tonight it is as close to the Earth as it is going to be until then.

CampFire

We had a visitor come today around noon to check out the boys for her 17 hand Trakehner mare. By the time she left she still could not make up her mind which boy to use. She thought they all were fantastic. Braelyn was over and taking a nap when she arrived so Diane stopped by to keep watch over her until we finished. It was after 2:00pm before she left. Diane invited me over for lunch as she had some left over taco soup which was really good and more like a thick taco dip, Delicious! Karin and Steven arrived both ready and to work and wow did they get a lot accomplished. The grain wagon was emptied and moved out of the arena. The boys got a new bale along with the middle paddock and the pony paddock. Rebekah, Brian and Anni arrived to go riding. They used Jenis for Anni, Zalena for Brian and Rebekah took Ciera and off they went on the death trails. Karin pulled out Valiant for a refresher course on the tarp.

What was amazing was the dogs were playing in the arena and Karin somehow kept Valiant's attention on her.

Once she was done she gave him to Steven for his under saddle work and brought out Evan for his tarp refresher. Below is Steven working Valiant.

Mike did a bit of bending exercise with him once they were done.

Mark came home from work and got the chain saw out to clean up the downed tree branches.

Mike mowed with the big tractor while Diane mowed with the little blue tractor and by the time they were done the yards were looking good. The skid steer was brought out to work on the fence line that needs to be cleared before the new fence can be installed. Mark has a tool for every job with this handy machine.

The trail riders were done about the time we headed over for the camp fire. Below is Rebekah with Ciera. She rode her bareback on the trails and reported Ciera did excellent.

Below are the riders bringing back the mares from the ride. Brian has Zalena in front, Rebekah and Ciera are in the middle and Anni with Jenis are bringing up the rear. We sure have beautiful horses.

The golf cart was taken over to mom's where she was just starting to build the fire.

We usually depend on the Davidovic boys to have a rip roaring fire going but they didn't show up tonight and the girls had to do it. Phil and Anna brought back mom's fixed computer and stayed a bit for the campfire. Below is Braelyn singing itsy bitsy spider with Rachel.

The kids played a game of football as they waited for dark.

By the time the fire was going well they all were ready to grab the forks and start cooking the big slabs of bacon Karin and Diane supplied.

Along with the bacon, cookies, popcorn, chips, marshmallows and all kinds of goodies were passed around. Finally Rachel cleaned off her greasy fingers and pulled out her guitar for some good old time singing. What a great day!

Rebekah's Shower

Both Karin and Steven showed up late afternoon yesterday. Steven to teach a lesson and Karin to work the boys. Karin pulled Evan out to introduce him to the dreaded tarp.

By the time she finished he was walking quietly dragging the tarp around with his tail. He was rewarded, put back, and Valiant brought out to see if he remembered anything. It took him a few minutes to accept Karin draping the tarp all over him but when Karin tied the tarp to his tail it was no big deal. He walked quietly on. We were both pleased with how he is progressing. Karin had to leave early to help Diane set up the fellowship hall for Rebekah and Brian's wedding shower. Rachel drove her van from here as we had too many people going from here plus gifts, no way to fit in a small car. We thought it would be small as Legacy 5 was giving a concert to benefit the Midwest Food bank at the same time, of which many from the Peoria congregation had tickets to, but over 70 people came and those that went to the concert sent gifts. Braelyn and Irelyn found each other right away in the crowd of people.

The tables were set in a horseshoe pattern so the gifts could be slid right down the middle. (see the word horse can be written even at a wedding shower)The shower hosts provided a very nice meal for everyone, it didn't just look pretty it tasted great.

Ruth, the mother of the bride was busy taking pictures while we were busy teasing her, just look at that smile below.

Rebekah & Brian were opening gifts so fast Anni was having a tough time writing everything down for them.

When Irelyn left Braelyn found a toy to keep herself occupied.

Once the gifts had gone through the gauntlet of ladies they were placed on the tables below.

It was late by the time they finished opening everything. Rebekah looked so cute as she and Brian stood up to thank everyone and of course invite all to the wedding. It was a long but fun day yesterday and as soon as we were home I went straight to bed. As it was warm outside the windows were opened and a storm came through waking us with the sound of rain and grumble of lightning. The rain continued through the night and it is still pouring outside. The ground was already saturated from the 4 days of rain earlier. Today we will be dealing with mud, lots of mud. The mares will need to be locked out of the fields.

New Raven Son

Rachel sent a text early this morning Sandy delivered an all black colt. Of course the golf cart had to be driven over for pictures of this gorgeous HUGE colt.

This colt will be for sale at weaning but can be reserved right now with a deposit. Sandy, the mom is a wonderful mare with the best disposition. This is her 4th, baby by Raven all pitch black, all end up beautiful. The mares were let into the back pasture before the walk as finally the rain has stopped and the weather is warm and sunny.

Before we could take off from mom's she had to show us her weed bed (really her wild flower garden). Above is looking over at Rachel's house and below is looking down from her deck.

We walked over the dam first, the ducks have taken back their nest, there are now 2 ducks sitting on eggs inside while Donald stays on guard outside keeping those pesky neighbors away.

A little farther up the walk and there are Rachel's lawn ornaments. Her 2 dogs stand guard so still that's what they look like.

On the first round the mares that were suppose to be in the back pasture are loose in the big field. Evidently when Justin drove the golf cart out of the back pasture after dumping the fish the gate was left wide open. Not only were they left loose, Lily was turned out with them. Lily now has a bell on and Helen had no trouble staying with her, below she is very curious about the other mares

She would walk close to them, then run back to her mom.

They were grazing by the outdoor arena, Jenis saw the gate opened and had to follow Lily in for a good roll in the sand.

She wandered around inside for a bit then out she comes.

Emma was sitting on the dirt pile of the big hole that was dug for the new water hydrant going in.

Lily went over to check her out and Helen fell in the hole.

The other mares were trying to figure out what to do, Once I realized why they were staring so intently, the camera was dropped and the baby rescued. She was fine, as soon as I arrived and started talking to her she calmed down and waited for help. OK, she really is blind she had to quick find her mom and get some comfort food!

Mark's Fish

The sun finally came out later this afternoon and instantly the day became hot. A knock came on the door late afternoon. Justin Herman from Herman pond management showed up with the hybrid bluegill Mark ordered.

The bluegill were bigger than we expected and very lively. Above Justin is counting them out. Mark ordered 250 for our pond and John Honegger ordered 100 for Mike & Diane's pond. Justin actually ended up giving us around 300 of these very healthy specimens.

Above Mark and Justin are carrying the fish down to the pond and below Justin has waded into the mud to let them go.

These hybrid bluegill are the fast growing kind and join the 50 small mouth bass and the 2 pounds of fathead minnows in our slowly filling up small pond. Mark has ordered an aerator also from Herman pond management and next winter will hire them to build a dock. Nate Herman told Mark winter is the time to build and install the dock. We had a quick dinner then picked up mom for church at 6:15pm.

More Rain

When the sun started rising out of the East it was unencumbered by any clouds. The day was suppose to be sunny and warm but by 7:15am the clouds started rolling in.

By 7:25am a light rain started to fall. This did not stop us dedicated walkers, even Ruth showed up in her work cloths determined to get in at least one round. Diane came out with a big umbrella and off we went. We had to admire mom's special composted manure pile, it was delivered from Alamar acres and is truly black gold.

Once the walk finished and we were all back where we needed to be the heaven's opened with a nice drenching shower that included some lightning and thunder. We will not complain of the 4th day in a row with rain. The fields that were so dry are just soaking in this very needed moisture. Today the stalls will be stripped with all new bedding put down. We have a purebred Friesian mare coming in for breeding this weekend with her amazing month old Raven son. Hopefully we have some nice weather once they are here to get pictures for the website. I'm having so much fun with the kindle, although I'm learning to check the amount of pages. Last night 5 books were ordered from Amazon, all listed as free. Right after dinner I settled down to read only to find they were SHORT stories. Today after searching for over an hour and checking out the amount of pages each book has, 5 more books were ordered and downloaded again the entire bill for them all is 0! This little device is even better than a library!

MayDay

May First, otherwise known as MayDay! This is the day as kids we were allowed to shed our shoes and run barefoot the rest of the summer only needing to put on shoes for school or church. This is the day we would pick flowers (mostly dandelions, lilacs and violets) make bouquets, knock on the neighborhood doors, leave the bouquets and take off running. Sure not going to happen today, the rain has been falling most of the morning sometimes lightly sometimes hard. Karin is putting on another vaulting camp July 28th, 2012. All the information has now been posted on the website. If your child is interested in learning how to vault, this is a great way to get started. Just go to www.horsemeister.com to find all the information. She is only charging $40.00 and limiting the attendance to 10. Fair warning those 10 spots fill up very quickly.