Plans We Had Plans

Yesterday during the walk Emily and I went over the plans for the day. I was going to try to meet Karin at Middle Grove when she got off work to bring Whitney home and Emily was going to try to get off school a little early to get Valiant ready for pictures as long as the predicted snow would hold off. We were only suppose to get a light snow of 1 to 3 inches. Emily left for school with these plans in place.
Wednesday was the day we were going to let Anna and her colt out with Ribbon. That went pretty well in the beginning. The colt was very curious about this other huge body in the paddock which made Anna nervous. He took off at a run tried to turn to quick and wiped out. Notice all the snow on his side. The picture was taken after I saw him wipe out and ran to get the camera.

 He really is a beautiful colt. He will be registered and DNA'd with Friesian Heritage Horse as soon as he is named. He will be tall and stocky.

The stalls were cleaned then the camera was taken into the house to download the pictures of him running around. Even before they finished downloading the snow started up and it just kept on snowing. After we had about 4 inches on the ground I decided Anna and her colt would have to be brought back inside to a dry warm stall. I snapped the picture below after the shoveling job. I only got the patio a path to the car and behind the car finished before quitting, the rest could be done with the skid steer later. 

 The plan of getting Whitney had to be forgotten. The truck wouldn't start and the hood was frozen down so I couldn't even charge it. There was no way I wanted to drive to Middle Grove with so much new snow on the ground anyway. We were only bringing Whitney back as she needs a new coggins and Dr. Hoerr is coming on Friday to do all the horses here. We also have 2 people interested in purchasing her and both want to see a video of her riding. We will just have to wait until the weather warms up Saturday then try to get her. The snow stopped falling by the time Emily made it home from school so we could go ahead with our plan of getting pictures of Valiant for the IL Horse Fair Facebook page. Below Emily is putting on his halter to take him to the outdoor arena. His tail is all brushed out clean.

 Valiant had a fun time galloping around in the snow. I placed the rest of the pictures on the Horsemeister Inc Facebook page. When he was done he followed Emily to the middle of the arena where she asked him to perform a few tricks. Notice this is no halter, no lead rope, no whips.

When she released him from the sit she told him, "come on, let's go" and took off running. He tossed his head and galloped back with her.

Church was called off again. Emily reported on her drive back from school the roads were terrible so that was another wise decision. Emily plowed until it was just too dark to see then went over to Sauders to sit in the hot tub to warm up. This morning it is currently 6 below zero that is NEGATIVE 6 degrees and just too cold for me to want to go on the walk, sure hope the rest think the same as me.

Too Many Requests

Yesterday Diane drove Rhonda, Emily, Rhoda and me in to the shop for our Berean job. Hind sight we should have driven 2 cars...later on that.  We were getting ready to leave so started calling for Emma to come and she came home carrying her treasure, a dish that had frozen food just begging to be licked clean. The perfect doggy popsicle.

 It was too cold to leave her out all day but she was perfectly content to lay around inside licking her popsicle.  We had another huge mail day at Berean, Rhonda, Rhoda and Diane got straight to work on labeling the Bibles from Thursday's mail (we cruisers weren't here to process that).

 While Emily, Eva Jean and Shirley went to work on opening the Tuesday's mail

 Below they have almost emptied the mail tub, they have the studies to be processed on one side of the tub while the letters to be read are on the other side of the tub.

 Emily and Eva Jean worked on opening the studies while Shirley and Diane read letters.

 When Joyce arrived we all started cheering. We were so short of workers today and there was just so much to do. Rhoda and Joyce spent hours labeling the Bibles, then Rhoda would haul them out to Diane's van. We went through all the wrapped Bibles just from the labels printed out yesterday.

 After the studies were finished it was well past noon. I was more than ready to quit for the day but Diane felt we should put in a few more hours. Below are the letters all read and sorted by city to be entered. I sat down again at the computer and started entering and printing out the labels as fast as possible while the rest stuffed and wrapped more Bibles.

 By late afternoon we were all getting tired and cranky. Below Shirley is loading more boxes while Rhoda, Diane and Eva Jean are cleaning up the office. Emily is out loading more Bibles into Diane's van.

 Below Eva Jean is leaving for the day while Rhoda and Emily are trying to stuff the last few boxes into the van.

 So the reason we should have driven 2 vehicles is Diane's van was way overloaded with almost a ton of Bibles. It really was close to 2000 pounds! Diane mentioned, "if my tires pop Berean is going to have to buy me new tires."

 I brought some of the letters home which will be posted on the Berean blog later today. Joan and Tim's family needed to drive early to choir as the Tuesday's group Philippians Bible study has started so Diane and I drove separate. We had a great group and a good practice.

 Joan came up with a practical joke to play on Bob. She brought the maracas we got in Mexico handed them out to our group and had it all arranged that when Bob, our leader, would start the practice we would pull them out and shake them. The joke went great, Bob was a bit late so Wayne started the practice and had us all practice with them. Bob walked in, gave us his excuse for being late then started the song. The first time we hit the part that goes, Rock that rock we shook them, he kind of looked confused but didn't say anything but the second time Rock that rock came up and we started shaking them, he stopped the song, and retorts, "all right, you cruisers come back and go all Pentecostle on me!" We had a good laugh before settling down for the rest of the practice. Below is our youngest member of the choir, little Gwendolyn, our piano player's baby. Her aunt Katy is always more than willing to hold her if she fusses. Katy is one of our star sopranos.

 After choir we always have lunch. Last night it was Jeanette and Roma's turn and I must say all was delicious.

Jam Packed Snow Day

The weather was frigid for our walk this morning. We needed to take a break to warm up inside Joan's igloo.

Above Karin is heading inside while Faith, mom and I wait to squeeze inside to warm up in this 2 room igloo built by the Reinhards. Below Diane is coming out.

 Mom and Molly's turn to head out and below that Joan and Diane are peeking out of the second room.

 The second room is large enough to easily get 4 adults in. Diane, Joan and I were very comfortable inside with room for more. Below we are heading into the second room. Diane is inside taking the picture and mom is on the outside looking in.

 Faith posing in the entrance. Can you tell she is pretty proud of this house?

After the walk I had to head down to work on the Berean letters. On Thursday Emily, Eva Jean, Shirley and Rachel got all the studies processed and the letters read but the letters still needed to be entered and the labels printed for the Bibles. There were 254 request that came in last week. Hopefully those will get mailed out tomorrow with what ever request came in since Thursday.
Meanwhile Rachel was hosting a taffy pull for all the snow bound kids at the compound. Below is Joan pulling with Mackenson and Diane pulling taffy with Faith.

I didn't get to go pull but enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Since we labeled the taffy as fruit we could all feel good about enjoying the sweet treat.  Anna and her colt were put outside so I could clean the stall. This was the first time they had been out since the snow fell. The colt was hilarious, he went bounding around the paddock then bent down and blew the snow up into his face. He popped his head up quickly as if to ask, "what in the world IS this cold stuff?"

Killian's reaction to the colt was even more funny. It looks like he is having a big laugh at the antics.

Both Anna and the colt had a good time running in the snow. 

Killian's waterer was frozen. Emily found the problem, the breaker had popped. He didn't seem very thirsty so hopefully it had just happened. Emily and Karin headed to John's tonight to castrate his 5 month old bull calf. Tomorrow we will get to hear how that went. I got the car stuck in a snow drift this afternoon so the first thing Mark and Rhoda had to do when they got home was help push it out. Winter sure does make things hard. On a good note, David Sauder came over and fixed our leaking hot water pipe. We can have hot water again, just in time to do more laundry. 

Funday Sunday

The schedule around here when church is unexpectedly cancelled is exhausting. Mark plowed from 7:00 am to 9:00 am.

I plowed from 9:30 am to 10:30 am and Mike plowed this afternoon and all the while the snow kept falling. Oh my are we missing our day of rest.

Karin sent through a text that she had 5 riders for a snow trail ride at 11:00 am. Karin rode Ribbon, Hannah rode Zalena, Jessica rode Jenis, Anni rode Larry and Ruth rode Paris.

 Above is Hannah, Karin and Jessica, below is Anni.

 Above is the group of 5 horses and below is Ruth riding Paris back to the barn. 

They took the back fields over to Phil and Anna's new house, put the horses in his barn, checked out the house then galloped back. Joan invited us all to brunch at 12:30 pm, when we arrived Sarah and Hannah were finishing up the igloo Joan and her children made.

 Braelyn was pretty impressed with it. Below she is peeking out the door way. 

Brunch was delicious Joan made a roast with all the fixins. 

 Below is Tim's plate, funny but I thought his plate was full, after I sat back down Hannah pointed out he was putting the next layer on top of that full plate.

 Below is a picture of the igloo complete with lights. It is big enough to easily hold Joan and 4 kids.

Rachel invited everyone over for a super bowl party at 5:00 pm which barely gave us enough time to digest our brunch before checking out her spread and what a spread that was. All kinds of appetizers and desserts. The boys were more interested in the game, the girls were doing each others hair.

Mark and I walked home at half time. The wind has picked up and the temperature is dropping. Emily made it back from Forrest and hopefully will get plowing done if school is called off. When walking back up to the barn tonight to care for Anna and her colt I noticed the barn drive had already drifted shut. I'm thankful for a working wood burner and a warm house and especially thankful to be living out here surrounded by a loving, that is fun loving family.

Winter Storm

We are in the midst of a winter storm. The picture below was taken as soon as it was light enough before heading out to feed.

The snow is still coming down and will for the rest of the day. We got probably 5-6 inches overnight of heavy wet snow. Mark is out snow plowing and will have to do it again but he decided after shoveling off our little patio he'd better get out there as soon as it was light enough to see. The snow is extremely heavy and we are expecting another 3 to 4 inches before it stops tonight.
Yesterday late afternoon our Peoria church was cancelled for today by accident but it probably is a good thing it was. It was raining outside when all the cell phones in the house rang at the same time. The message was from Tim Roecker stating that Tim Funk was out of town but due to the weather church tomorrow would be cancelled. Of course the next call was from mom wondering why it would be cancelled so soon. Well Molly and Gabe got the real story. They were suppose to give lunch today and were getting everything ready yesterday afternoon when Tim Roecker called to tell Gabe he was setting up the cancellation notice just in case and accidentally pushed send. He wanted Gabe to know they might still be on. After discussing it with the rest of the ministers and listening to the weather report they decided to let the notice stand.
A few neat pictures came in by email that must be shared. The first one is pretty funny. It is of a picture of the dam Jasmine standing between her 2 Raven offspring. Left to right is Raven Jr, Jasmine and Black Pearl, Jasmine's last foal by Raven not quite 2 years old.

Anna the owner had some fun with this picture!

There is also another full sibling out there somewhere that was sold to someone else. The next picture came from Heather. These are 2 full siblings out of her bay roan mare and both by Raven.

What beautiful color on these 2 blue roans. Heather is training them and very pleased with both. The 3rd picture came all the way from Louisiana from Lisa the owner of Lily's colt by Valiant born Feb 2014. She writes: Zulu is so lovable. Always comes to me. Are all Friesians on the lovey side like him? So sweet! So full of spunk, but not spooky. Next month, he will make a year. Last night I watched his birth video. I am so glad that you filmed on that frigid night. Remember when we walked over the obstacle? This time I lunged him over it & he jumped it. No worries about his knees, we do not do this on a normal basis to be hard on him. First time. He loves barn cats. He does not mind dogs. He finally likes carrots (he would nod his head back & forth as if he was not sure). He is going through a growth spurt. All his feed is going to his legs. He goes through moments of looking really filled out to looking leggier. Reminds me of my nephews (they seem to do the very same thing). I am going to increase his feed again & see how he does. He is so gorgeous. My furry therapist that helps heal my heart when I carry nursing home with me from the hospital. I love him sooooooo much.

Hope all is well with you & your family.

~Lisa

Anna and her colt were left stalled last night and both very glad to see me this morning. They were just moved into the stall across the aisle which was prepared for them last night. They will be left in for today. After feeding and cleaning the stall they were both groomed a bit then left. The apartment is empty, all three girls spent the night with others. Emily with her family in Forrest, Rhoda with Ben and Taunya in Bloomington and Sarah with Phil and Anna in East Peoria. 
Remember the picture taken of the tree bending below the weight of the snow? The pictures below were taken after feeding and before I shook the snow off to prevent the top from breaking off.

 Mark went by with the skid steer plowing our drive. Check out that pile in the bucket. He is surely going to be ready for some hot breakfast when he finishes the driveways out here.