Cold Friday

Yesterday was busy and cold. It felt like a cold November day with the drizzle of rain and temperatures hovering in the low 50s all day.
Anna dropped off Braelyn and Taegan early, they were loaded up on the golf cart with a blanket and over we drove to the Reinhards to meet Mackinson and Berlica, Those poor kids have never in their entire life been exposed to cold weather such as this and to think this is still summer.

After the girls were picked up it was moving time for horses. Emily convinced me to leave Promise and Rhiannon here instead of hauling them to Middle Grove. She wants to work with both girls. The first step was to move Evan out of the pond pasture and into a stall. Then Promise and Rhiannon out of Evan's paddock into the pond pasture. Evan could then be put back into his own paddock and Killian moved into the short paddock. The short paddock adjoins to the pond pasture and we didn't want the boys to learn to fight with each other. Hadassah and Twilight were then brought out and put into the pasture that adjoins Valiant's to get them some grass time. Twilight is getting picked up today for her new home and I wanted a few pictures of her before she leaves.

She is such a hairy thing and looks bedraggled from all the rain. We are so pleased she is going to a home where someone will lavish her with love. The rain started back up so Twilight was taken to a stall for the night and Hadassah put back in with Killian. Emily left to head to the dmv to get her new to her car licensed and I headed to Big R in Pekin to buy some grain. With the bumper crop now coming in grain has dropped to $6.99 for 50 pounds so I bought 450 pounds.  Mark arrived home as it was raining but that didn't stop him from working on the house, he measured the north side and started cutting holes in the siding and removing it. Nick is coming to help him today and he hopes to get another side finished today.

Brr, Another Record

We smashed another record today, the high was the coldest high on this date since record keeping over 150 years. That cold on top of the 5 inches of rain this last week means we are dealing with mud, lots and lots of cold wet slippery mud. Jenis was on the other side of the pond this morning and decided crossing the dam and getting her hooves muddy wasn't worth the few bites of grain she gets. Diane gave me a ride in to the office where we were joined by Shirley Triplett and Eva Jean. The 4 of us made a great team today easily finishing our work by noon. That happened because we had a light mail day. We still got over 100 Bibles sent out today, 5 boxes to Mobile Metro Jail and the rest to individuals all over North America.
The lady coming to pick up Twilight on Sunday wants an updated picture of her. Today was not a day for taking pictures, she is muddy and the temperature was a cold 54 degrees. Tomorrow isn't suppose to be much warmer.
Horsemeister will be providing ponies for the grand opening of tee pee village at the Giant Goose Ranch on Saturday Sept 20th. Ella and her colt, Lola and her colt, Missy and Cookie will be taken to that. An Indian village needs paint ponies.

After work Mark went right back to work on the next step of getting this house ready for winter. He already had torn off the siding and the old insulation, added a rigid foam insulation with an R value of 10, spray foam around that, put up plywood and tonight we wrapped it up with house wrap. The siding is suppose to come in next week. 

If this doesn't keep the cold winds out nothing will!  We had a loss yesterday during the storm but didn't discover it until today. Karin went out to check on the herd and found Cheyenne dead. She was laying by a tree with no obvious marks on her body, no scratches like she had been in a fight, no body rubs like she had been rolling around colicking, we believe she was hit by lightning during the storm. Nothing else makes sense. I'm just so thankful we didn't lose any of the other mares. At least she had a few months of horse paradise out there grazing on the lush green grass, cooling off in the refreshing lakes and lounging under the trees during the afternoons. 

Drenched

It rained pretty much all night by morning our rain gauge was showing 3 inches and it was still coming down. Mark's pond is full to the brim. Obviously there was no walk going to happen. Around 8:30 am we had a small, very small break and I quick jumped on the golf cart and got the horses fed.
Rhoda grabbed the golf cart next driving it over the cabin and bringing back Soul and her colt for training. Thank goodness we have an indoor arena, the rain started back up and poured for hours. When Rhoda was tacking up Soul, her colt grabbed a saddle blanket and started waving it around.

He is such a character. Everything must be tasted and if it moves, even better. Soul did very well today. Rhoda was able to trot her under saddle without Emily's help. Although she did need to carry a whip. In the picture below Soul is not bowing, she started crow hopping. Notice how Rhoda leans back so as not to get thrown over Soul's head.

Soul soon settled down and did not try to buck again.

Rhoda finished up with trick training, teaching her the bow.

Soul's mane had become tangled up a bit so Rhoda and Emily braided her forelock and mane before putting her back in the pasture.

Rhoda and Emily left for Rhoda's house sitting job this afternoon. Emily will be staying at the house tonight as Rhoda is needed to help Taunya tomorrow. 

Mark and I met Lee and Rhoda at Avanti's for dinner before church. Mom drove my car to church with Sarah and Hannah. Mom's car is still in the shop. Craig Stickling had the service. It was good to be there again. 

Between the Storms

We were awakened by the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder. Mark ran outside barefoot and only half dressed to pull a sheet of plywood out of the rain and under the cover of the eves of the house. The rain had stopped by 7:20 am so we decided to walk getting only 1 round in before the heavens opened and we got dumped on. Mom needed to take her car in to Frenches, yesterday she had a hose break, so my car was left at Mike's office for her and Diane gave me a ride in to Meisters to work on Berean mail. We had a huge amount of mail. The Bibles still had not been delivered yet. Dave Obgerfel called Bible Distribution and Tim Martin was kind enough to bring 30 boxes to us. We took a break just after noon for lunch then came back to finish up the studies, load the Bibles into Diane's van and head to the post office all before 2:00 pm. The sun actually came out for a few minutes so Rhoda and I decided to get a quick video of the 2 yearling fillies. By the time we got to the barn Emily already had Rhiannon in the outdoor round penning her but by the time we stepped into the arena we could see a storm building in the west heading our way. We knew there wasn't a lot of time, below is a short video of Rhiannon just to see her nice movement even though the arena was sloppy wet.

She was put away and Promise taken out. Promise is kind of prissy and didn't want to get her feet muddy but she still moved out just not as well as she would have if the arena would have been dry. Rhoda had her practice the bow. She did this for the first time yesterday and remembered. This filly is smart!

The rain started back up before we even got the fillies put away. Tonight a big storm came through taking out our electricity for a short time. My paper white kindle broke meaning I couldn't even read! I'm going to have to order another. They sure don't last long, this will be the 3rd and they all seem to break in the second or third year (after the warranty expires) bummer

A Waste of Gas

The new truck was taken to French's this morning for an oil change, a tire change and the radiator flushed. After dropping it off Emily and I drove in to TEMCO to pick up the Berean mail only to find there was  no mail. Ellen didn't get to the post office. No problem we drove to Meister's to UPS out the Bibles different chaplains have requested, and find the warehouse is still out of Bibles. That was a completely wasted trip to Peoria.  We drove back to the farm and took the truck and trailer to Middle Grove to pick up Rhiannon and Promise. These fillies have just turned a year old and both need updated pictures and videos. Emily took off for the cottage to grab a 4 wheeler while I started hiking. No horses were in sight and the original Middle Grove land is much more rough, hilly and wooded making it hard to find the horses. We found the horses up on the hill at the far end of the 80 acres, just as far as they possibly could be from the gate. The first job was to pull hair from Marika's filly, Jewel's filly, and Ella's colt. We need to get the registration paper work started on those plus Lola's colt. Promise was very easy to halter and lead all the way back to the trailer. We only had 2 halters so Jewel was the other horse that got a halter as Rhiannon and Treasure stick with her. They were loaded and we were on the way home around 1:00 pm which meant a stop at Bees for a peanut butter ice cream cone. Both fillies were unloaded and stalled so they could be groomed up for the pictures. Below is Promise out of Sangria by Valiant, check out how tall this filly is at just 1 year old. She is amazingly quiet and willing, Rhoda worked with her starting her on the bow and by the time she was done Promise was getting it.

Promise has a long thick mop of a mane and tail. Nice to know she inherited the mega hair. 

By the way this filly also has great movement moving more like an Andalusian than a Friesian, pushing off from behind. She is for sale for $5000.00 and Rhoda feels she is worth much more.

Emily brought Rhiannon out for a round pen session and that filly is so smart she remembered exactly what she was suppose to do. Rhiannon is 75% Friesian and 25% Thoroughbred and for sale for $4000.00.

Rhiannon also has really nice movement and is very athletic.

Below she was having fun, check out how she can balance on her back legs. This is harder than it looks. Most horses can go up but not hold it, that takes muscle and muscle is something this filly has.

Both fillies were stalled for the night, tomorrow if the weather is nice we will try to get a video. Mark came home early and worked on the house again. He is determined to finish before cold weather.
After supper Lola was brought over and teased. She didn't show at all so will be marked out. The moon tonight is full and so bright Mark and I decided to take a romantic stroll first up to the barn then over to the playground. We thought we would have some privacy but forgot about all the teenagers and 20 somethings around here. The traffic on the drives from Sauders to the apartment to mom's, to the Reinhards, back over to Sauders and finally ending up at the apartment made for actual traffic jams at one point. With each car we had to get off the drive. So funny for this country living!

Truth

 Today Tim Roecker had the morning service and Dave Obgerfel had the afternoon. As I sit here thinking about both sermons today my mind  is  reminding me how short life really is, how everything we strive for, everything we think we own, everything we try to accumulate will be passed along to the next generation and the next and the next. It was good to be there. We also learned of truth. It made me think, Is truth still true if exaggerated just a little?
One very encouraging thing for me happened while singing. I could sing, that is mostly could sing. Ever since the shingles struck months ago it didn't just give me pain and a rash, somehow my voice box was damaged. What came out when I would try to sing was so bad that if mom would sit on the bench next to me she would burst out laughing. I could no longer sing at funerals, trying to sing at choir was a joke but today most of the notes that were coming out were the correct notes.
After church we stopped at Sam's for a few groceries for the dinner tonight. Phil, Anna, Braelyn, Taegan and Sarah came for the afternoon. After supper Lola was brought out and teased.

She showed so was covered by Valiant then she and her colt were taken over to the cabin field. Jenis is also showing, she was covered by Evan then put in Evan's paddock. We have not been able to get her to conceive and are hoping for a miracle. Just maybe if she lives with Evan something good will happen. We have had her cultured, flushed, infused, cultured again, infused again, flushed and really don't know what else to try other than prayer and prayer is probably something I should have done FIRST. Jenis doesn't like being a mother anyway but her foals were always the best of the foals each year.
Karin helped bring Eliza and Tryn over for a short video for Tryn's owner then those two were left in the big field to graze. Eliza is such a wonderful mare, after supper I just took the golf cart to the edge of the field and called and she came running. She was glad to head back to the cabin field with Soul and Lola. Those 3 foals are cute playing together.
The volley ball court had some new players tonight mixed in with the usual. They were entertaining to watch. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather, bright sunshine, low humidity and cool temperatures.

Jenis at the Wedding

Soul and her son were moved to the cabin field this morning. That field needed a new bale, Emily helped move one in then Lola was brought out and covered by Valiant. Today was the day we took Jenis to a wedding. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool with a breeze. Jenis was almost perfect (more on that later). We arrived an hour early and parked behind the barn so no one knew a horse was going to be in the wedding. Emily tacked her up, stuck the round table cloth on her then rode her around up toward the orchard, walk, trot, and canter and even with the wind blowing the table cloth around she didn't put a foot wrong. 

The wedding photographer needed to get a some shots before the wedding started so a beautiful flowered garland was placed around Jenis' neck and the bride lifted into the saddle by her father and then came the pictures.

In the picture below Jenis has decided to smell the roses.

and then she takes a bite.

Below is the bride and the bride's father's reaction to Jenis snacking on the garland.

That was the worst she did. She was perfect on the long walk to the wedding ceremony, perfectly standing still posing when they reached the wedding aisle and standing perfectly still while the father of the bride helped his lovely daughter down.

Emily popped on Jenis to ride her back to the trailer.

While we were busy with the wedding Mark and his helper Nick were finishing up a big section of fence. They have almost finished fencing the entire field using 28,000 feet of wire and that is just at the Hanna City farm. I can't imagine how much wire was strung by Mike on the Middle Grove fields. We really should have stock in a wire company.  

Whitney Settled

Lola was brought over from the cabin field and teased. She showed so was left in the middle paddock and will be covered tomorrow. Whitney, Serenity and Soul were loaded and taken to Hoerr Vet clinic for ultrasounds. We were very pleased this morning during Whitney's ultrasound to see the embryo.

She was bred to Valiant and is due July 26th, 2015. Serenity was next, her uterus was flaccid but she has normal ovaries she is just not cycling.  The lady we got her from had put her on regumate and other supplements to stop her from cycling. We decided to send her to Middle Grove for the winter and plan on breeding her in the spring. The last mare we took with us this morning was SoulSing. We knew she was showing but wanted to see  how far along.

 Turned out she had a 53mm follicle and needed to be bred today. Chery the owner of a very beautiful tall purebred PRE Andalusian stallion was called and the arrangements were made to take her to them this evening. Below is the gorgeous stallion Neo de la Luz owned by Chery Thompson. I asked permission to post these pictures taken off her facebook page.  Isn't he the perfect example of an Andalusian stallion?

As soon as Emily and I made it home from Dr. Hoerr's office we unloaded the 3 mares, loaded up Jenis and drove to a wedding rehearsal. Yes Jenis is going to be in a wedding tomorrow. She was perfect at the rehearsal, tomorrow I"ll bring the camera for pictures of the beautiful bride on our beautiful mare.
We made it home in time for Rhoda and Emily to unload Jenis and load up Serenity and Whitney and about 30 de-wormers so they could head to Middle Grove to worm all the horses there then move them over to new pastures, leaving here at 1:30 pm. Yesterday's plan of moving the herd fell by the wayside when it took longer to get the fence finished.  They had quite a time. They had all the horses de-wormed but one and all moved over when the horses discovered an open gate and all promptly walked right back out and started heading back to the other pastures.They got home at 6:30pm and by 7:00 pm we were back on the road with SoulSing heading over to Chery's place to meet Neo. Soul was teased right before I loaded her in the trailer and she was showing but by 8:00 pm when she finally got to meet Neo she was no longer showing. Well we were not about to drive all that way for nothing and obviously she had just ovulated so she was twitched and covered. Neo was such a gentleman and very very well behaved. We are praying she settled with this one kind of late cover but if not Chery has agreed to let us come back in 3 weeks.

New Truck

Diane, Eva Jean, Shirley and I were the workers this morning working efficiently and quickly finishing all the mail by lunch. Spark was able to buy a 2011 Ford F250 Superduty truck with a 6.2 liter engine, cab and a half and a full bed at the auction yesterday. Exactly what our wish list was. Mark picked it up this morning then took it down to B & L to get the goose neck hitch installed. He brought it home after work and we hooked it up to the big trailer, tomorrow I'll be hauling 6 horses to the vet, so that was perfect timing.
Rhoda and Emily decided to train Soul and her colt today. Soul at 9 years old has never been trained to ride and has never had a rider on her back until today.

Not to brag or anything but Horsemeister has the very best trainers in the world! Uh I may be a bit prejudiced. Emily was working with her colt while Rhoda was working with Soul.

Soul doesn't have a good go button yet but she was more than willing to follow Emily. 

Today was a big success. What a cute colt. Mike has decided he is going to buy him for his next riding horse so he was marked sold. It will be fun to watch this boy grow up.

Lee came over tonight to play with Darcy and Emma.

Emily and Mike went to Middle Grove tonight to move the horses from the new land to the old land. This is always a fun job (not). Sometimes the round up goes like clock work and sometimes part of the herd goes the wrong direction. Emily was going to try to ride Lily in the lead while Mike on Mika brings up the rear. I'll be anxious to hear how it went. The grass at the old land is thick and long. They can stay there until the creek freezes up then must be moved back to the winter pasture as that has the only heated automatic waterer. 

Road Trip

Rhoda and I left before 7:00 am for a small town near the Missouri state line to pick up our new PRE Andalusian mare and her half Andalusian colt. The seller told us there is no phone service in the area and GPS won't work, and there is no way we would find her address, so a half hour before we got to the area we were to call her and she would come meet us and direct us to her home. Other than tiny roads, hilly roads and road construction all went like clock work. We arrived at the cemetery she asked us to meet her only 15 minutes later than estimated and only had to wait a few minutes before she arrived to lead us to her very very old farm. The farm has been in her family for over 200 years, her house was around 150 years old and the barn even older. We spent an hour there learning all about the three generations of Andalusians she raised. Meet SoulSing:

SoulSing is 9 years old and has only been a brood mare but Rhoda is determined to get her under saddle. This mare has wonderful movement. She is baroque and has a thick long mop of a mane and tail. But... that's not all, SoulSing came with an absolutely amazing fancy 3 and a half month old half Andalusian stud colt. I thought Soul's movement was great but when we saw the colt move, our jaws dropped. Check out this colt's reach with his back legs. He pushes off and reaches WAY under.

He will be registered has half Andalusian but we still need to get the sire information on him. The sire is a big appendix stallion that excels in dressage. I think we figured that out right away after seeing his offspring. Since we do not need a colt this boy will be for sale as soon as we get him registered and weaned.

They had a long trip home and were turned out to stretch their legs a bit before putting them in the middle paddock. Soul went right over to Killian and started to show. Rhoda and Emily really want us to breed her to an Andalusian stallion so that's what we are looking into. 

I barely had enough time to clean up before it was time to leave for church. Mark drove mom, Sarah, Hannah and me and we were blessed to listen to Dave Obgerfel speak on the Holy Spirit. It was convicting. 

Serenity Under Saddle

What a great crew we had working today, with so many willing hands we were able to open all the mail, process all the mail, stuff all the new lessons and mail out the Bibles. Today mom, Kathy, and Emily joined Diane, Eva Jean and I. We had a few problems the biggest was the copy machine wouldn't turn on and we ran out of some of our lessons. We were going to use the Meister companies copier but Rhonda came from the jail and was using that. Diane placed a call in for the repair man, sure hope that gets fixed quickly. The other problem is the warehouse is now completely out of Bibles AGAIN! If they don't get here by Thursday the jail ladies may as well stay home. We had 10 for lunch, Spark, Dan, Mark and Phil joined us ladies. After lunch Diane was able to use the business copier to make the few copies needed to stuff the last few envelopes. She and Emily stayed late to do that. I had to make a bank run then loaded up Jewel, her filly, Marika and her filly for a trip to Middle Grove. Rhoda was watching Braelyn and Taegan but Anna picked them up just as I was loading so she came along. Once we reached Middle Grove those 4 were unloaded, we walked to where the herd was hanging out and brought back Eliza, her filly Tryn and Whitney. Eliza must be grained as long as she is nursing her big filly as she is losing weight and Whitney has a vet appointment on Friday for an ultrasound to see if she settled.
When we got back Hadassah was teased and she is now out so put in the paddock with Whitney. As the afternoon was sunny and warm Rhoda decided to work Serenity and today put her under saddle. We were very pleased with how this mare behaved, acting like a typical Raven daughter wanting to please her rider.

Mark arrived home and decided to go out to weed whack the fence line to prepare for stringing the last part of the west fence when he was attacked by yellow jackets getting stung over 15 times. Those are nasty insects. He quit on that project and worked on the house. We are re-siding that and getting more insulation and house wrap up to help keep the coming bitter winter winds outside and the warmth from the wood burner inside. 

Labor Day

Rachel had a huge group of kids stay either very late or the entire night. A bunch of the boys were playing on the hay bales until the wee hours of the morning. Rachel is probably completely out of food about now. Labor Day at our house meant laboring most of the day. We started early, Mark weed whacking the fence line to prepare for stringing wire later and me cleaning stalls, feeding and getting Hadassah covered by Evan. Rhoda, Lee and Sarah joined us for breakfast at the Hog Trough then Mark drove in to Peoria to pick up Nick to help him with stringing wire and putting up plywood on the house. Rhoda took Lee riding at Middle Grove for the afternoon. She rode Cookie while Lee rode Missy. They rode for over 2 hours enjoying the scenery, lakes and trails. The weather prediction turned out to be wrong, it was suppose to rain most of the day and instead we had a beautiful 83 degree sunny day, perfect for swimming or laying around on a raft. The bees were sure busy trying to get as much pollen as possible now that it is September. Almost every flower had 2 or more bees laboring away busily on this labor day.

Shirley Triplett and Eva Jean Schaefer brought out chicken for dinner at mom's and enjoyed the evening on her deck. Mike got lots of fence posts installed at Middle Grove while Diane got the shed cleaned out then both enjoyed the lake with Spark and Rhonda. It sure felt like a Saturday, hard to remember tomorrow is a work day instead of Sunday.