Evan's a DAD!

Jewel delivered a beautiful all black baby girl early this morning. She is a little over 3 weeks early. This is Evan's first foal and she's BLACK out of a bay mare, very unusual! Good job Evan

Below is Mike introducing Ebby to the new little one as she is busy nursing.

This foal has an unusual amount of hair for a newborn, her tail reaches almost to her hocks and is so thick and curly.

Below Mike is working on imprinting her.

Ylse Pregnant

Poor Ylse, she had no idea when she so willingly hopped in the trailer what was ahead for her. While waiting for Dr. Hoerr the camera was pulled out for some trial shots. This camera must have a scratch on the lens, there is always a blurry spot in the middle. Trying different angles to get some of the picture wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, below is her profile as she is in the stocks looking over at Dr. Hoerr's horses.

Looking up at her eye and seeing such a great reflection of Dr. Hoerr coming that shot had to be taken.

Dr. Hoerr pulled out his ultrasound machine and took all of 1 minute to find the embryo.

That measures out to be a 19 day old Friesian embryo. Hopefully late July 2013 another Raven baby will be born. Because she is safely in foal the next step was a caslick operation, one of the most barbaric things I've ever seen done to a mare. Below he is applying a local anesthetic.

The next step is to take a surgeon's knife and actually cut open the skin on either side.

And finally the 2 sides are sewn together.

The stitches used will absorb but she will need to be opened back up before delivery.

Clair In Paris & Avalon Out

Clair was covered by Valiant after the walk, Avalon is now out and so is Paris. Raven will be given the day off today. Mark needed to borrow the board out of the barn central air for one of his customers. Today should be fine for Sangria's colt, they can come inside and have a fan but tomorrow is suppose to be back in the 90s. I'll have to figure out a way to keep him from overheating. We will need to buy grain soon, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel literally. With Jenis & Eliza nursing they must have extra calories or will lose weight. Raven also needs grain to mix in his bute of which he is now on a daily dose for his poor knees. The truck was unloaded and cleaned out yesterday with most of the stuff brought into this tiny apartment. All that will need to be gone through cleaned and stored in the proper place TODAY. It has been 18 days since Ylse's last cover, she needs to be hauled in this afternoon to Hoerr Vet clinic, ultrasounded and if in foal a caslick put in.

A Quick Trip

After a delicious dinner of home made turkey soup compliments of Diane, Mark and I hooked up the trailer and hauled Cor out to Middle Grove. She will be brought back for her sonagram in 16 days. It is worth the gas to haul her out, she is a big mare and eats about a square bale a day plus grain. We have seen square bales advertised for $9.00 & $10.00 a bale and that's right here in central Illinois! We only had enough daylight to run there, drop her off and head back. The trailer running lights aren't working with my truck. We have brake lights and blinkers just no running lights so it was a must to be back before dark. These few pictures were snapped. The first is as we were driving up, we could see the horses in under the trees.

After Cor was unloaded they came at a run to meet her. Mytross was actually glad to see her, she is missing Clair and felt Cor would take her place nicely.

The other horses weren't too sure about her and stayed just far enough away that Cor was very curious.

Sangria's Shadow

Yesterday Braelyn was playing with an old icecream bucket. It was pretty funny watching her try to move while standing in the bucket. Just for all you parents who think that is dangerous... Braelyn is a thinker and figured out pretty quickly she wasn't going anywhere until at least one foot was out. After a very busy day down in the Berean warehouse it was time to continue the work at the farm that didn't get done in the morning. Not that we were slacking or anything but 4 new bales needed to be put in for the horses early, some of the paddocks were almost completely out of hay. The boys got one, the middle paddock 2 and Cor's paddock the last. Thankfully Mark drove the skid steer while I removed the net wrap. Clair was teased today and she is starting to show. She will be covered tomorrow as all three stallions were used today. Probably will use Valiant on her, he seems to have the most drive now that Raven is older. Avalon was covered by Evan, Prissy was covered by Valiant and Sangria was covered by Raven. Sangria wasn't going to be covered, I had her out grazing along with her colt. He was just like a shadow sticking right by her side matching stride for stride. she took off and ran over to flirt with Raven and basically refused to walk away until she was covered.

Yes I know she still looks pregnant but Sangria had colic surgery after giving birth to Orchata just ruining her girlish figure. She probably figures "why even try to lose weight, I'll always have a big belly anyway and besides Raven likes big girls." Her colt wasn't sure about meeting dad but dad was very curious about him.

He is such an elegant colt.

I just found my niece Anni Davidovic's blog and added it to my favorites. Check her blog out by clicking on the link to the right, such insight for a teenager.

3 Mares 3 Stallions

Hopefully all three of the mares covered today plus the 2 covered on Saturday will be like the picture above, conception! What a busy day the stallions had today. All work was done after Braelyn left. Jenis was teased and out, Cor was teased and out. Avalon is in and covered by Evan, Prissy is in and covered by Valiant, Paris is in and covered by Raven. Clair is also starting to show signs she is in and will be checked tomorrow. It is hot and sunny and with the a little over an inch of rain yesterday we can almost see the grass growing.

RAIN!!! YEAH

Dragged out of bed this morning around 5:00am not wanting to get up but knowing there was much to do before church. First on the list to do was to get the roast started for tonight's dinner. Carrots were peeled and 2 large onions added to the crock pot along with the roast and then it was full! Still needing to be added is potatoes and more carrots but that will be done after church. By 5:30am the dark before dawn was starting to give way to enough light to begin the outside chores. Of course Sangria needed to be fed first. She is so demanding! Once the horses were fed and checked over the show fancies were gathered up from the arena and apartment and put away. It is great that we have enough equipment and fancies on hand for plenty of horses. Rain was predicted to start falling by 7:00am and by 8:00am just a few sprinkles had fallen. We have been praying for rain and by the time we left for church we were getting a nice soft shower. By the time we got home from church we had probably received less than a quarter inch but still we were thankful. The rain started in earnest as we were hauling the dinner over to mom's house.

It rained through dinner but even rain doesn't stop the volley ball players from showing up. They played game after game in the rain.

Below is Rodney and Kristin's daughter Ava, just as she found out Braelyn & Addyson are her cousins. We thought her reaction was pretty funny.

Below is the cheering section:

In the picture above the ball is outlined, it was moving so fast it was a blur. It was hard to get pictures peeking out from under the umbrellas. The cheering section got rained out before the volley ball players quit. The picture below is one of the players trying to wring out the shirt.

And still they played. After the games were done Karin came over and helped test Jewel. She is not due for 3 more weeks but she had to be tested and if close brought in, there is just too much mud for the first time in MONTHS!!! Thank you GOD for the rain. Jewel had no calcium show up on the test. She will be left in any way only because I don't want to slop through the mud to put her out.

Heritage Days Parade & Pony Rides

The pictures will tell the story.

The emergency repair. Actually Karin rode Ribbon down to the start with baling twine holding her surcingle on, her girth broke at the practice last night.

Thankfully Crystal Baker ran it to Fred's shoe repair and got it fixed in time for the start of the parade.

Ribbon was a big hit in all ways. She was so impressive as she would side pass from one side of the road to the other. All eyes were on her instead of the beautiful Friesians!

The vaulting show after the parade was great, an audience that had not ever heard of vaulting and of course they were wow'd.

The rest of the vaulting pictures have been placed on facebook, feel free to share them. Then came the cotton candy and pony rides.

The ponies were taken home around 4:30pm, we felt they had worked hard enough in the heat. By 7:30pm the cotton candy machine started shorting out the electrical box. We thought that was probably a sign to quit. Karin, Mark and Rhoda helped load everything in the truck and the truck was parked in the arena, too tired to unload it tonight.