Coke-a-Cola

Right after the walk, Karin and I took the truck and trailer to the Giant Goose Ranch in Canton, IL to pick up Coke-a-Cola, a 12 year old registered Appaloosa mare that is coming here to be bred to Valiant. That isn't the only reason why she is coming though. This mare was born on a farm and never trained. The Goose Ranch was given the mare so the Herman grandkids have been taming her and were able to halter her. Karin went yesterday and worked with her and felt that she would be able to get the mare in the trailer today. So we arrived at 9:30 am, Karin walked the mare up to the trailer, Coke, smelled the trailer then stepped in. We were all impressed. She was taken out of the trailer and put right into the round pen for training. Below are a few pictures of her.

 She is a beautiful example of a blanket Appy and actually has very good bloodlines. 

 As she is black based, hopefully a foal out of her by Valiant will end up black with a blanket. 

Karin worked with her almost an hour. The mare didn't give in as much as Karin had hoped but they ended the session on a good note. She was taken right over to Evan and teased but she is not in.
Noah, Shaeya and Natalie came to the farm with us to learn how to round pen but because Coke wasn't ready for a trainee to train her, Karin had them work with the stallions. Valiant was taken out first. Noah was the first in the round pen.

 Below is Shaeya's turn to work with Valiant. She asked him to move and he did. 

next she asked him to bow and lay down. 

Natalie was last to work with Valiant. 

As soon as all three of them felt comfortable that Valiant would do what they wanted him to, Karin took Valiant back and brought out Evan. Not to brag or anything but what great horses. Noah asked him to move, then lay down, let him roll then asked him to sit.

 Shaeya also asked him to canter both directions but this time after she asked him to lay down she told him to stay and was able to scratch and pet him while he waited for the next command. 

 She asked  him to hold the sit and he did. 

 Natalie also asked him to canter both directions, lay down, stay and then sit. 

Evan was put away and then the mares were taken out for teasing. Coke was first, she was not in, Zalena was next and she is now out. I got her covered yesterday so the timing should have been perfect. Dakota is still not showing, she has been here for 11 days so hopefully will come into season soon. Karin tacked up Zalena, Bunni, Missy and Lola for the trail ride the kids were hoping for. Shaeya rode Zalena, Natalie rode Bunni, Noah rode Missy and Karin rode Lola. This was the first time Lola has been ridden on the trails since she had Easter Bonnet. We were well pleased with her behavior and how well Easter Bonnet followed on these trails easily crossing the creeks and climbing the hills.

This filly kept up and caused no problem at all. The kids had a wonderful ride. After the horses were hosed down, fly sprayed and put back in the paddocks they came in for lunch. After lunch Karin took them over to mom's to go swimming.
Mark got home and we were discussing about scraping the 3rd and 4th paddock when Diane sent a text asking if we would give her a ride to church. Both Mark and I were shocked, with the holiday yesterday we completely forgot it was Wednesday. We had to rush to get ready for church but actually got over to mom's a minute early. David Obergfel had the message. So good to be there. Mark and I went to Wendy's for supper afterwards and both got a half taco salad. It was delicious, either that or we were really hungry.

Our 4th

We stayed out entirely too late last night watching the Independence day celebration in Chillicothe. The fire works went on a long time and we didn't get home until almost 11:00 pm heading straight to bed.

Our day yesterday started early with getting lots of chores done outside before it got too hot. Bonnet's wound was cared for, the 2 mares, Zalena and Dakota teased, Zalena covered, horses fed, garden weeded and watered,  trees trimmed that were over hanging branches and repairing a downed wire on the fenceline between Valiant pasture and the mare pasture. It was so hot and humid we were hopeful that we would get some rain in the afternoon. We heard lots of thunder in the distance and could see the clouds but they all went the wrong direction and we only got a few sprinkles.

At 4:30 we left for Farmington to pick up the chicken for the dinner and could see big storms dumping rain off to the east then when we left for David and Stephanie's house drove though the evidence of a lot of rain dumped in a short period of time. Too bad it didn't water any of our fields. 

The kids all met at the pool in Chillicothe, played and swam until 6:30 pm ate a quick dinner, walked to a park 2 blocks from David's house and played until 8:00 pm. Most of us (we had a 6 decide to walk) loaded up into the 12 passenger van and left for Three Sister's Park at 8:20 pm arriving in time to get a decent parking place and staking out a good size area. The walkers joined us about 15 minutes later. David and Stephanie's house is less than 2 miles from Three Sister's Park. The children had a ball being with cousins. Sarah kept them busy lighting sparklers.

Israel just wanted to watch.

The mayor of Chillicothe started the show with a speech, the national anthem was sung and then came the show. Below Jasper was all ready for the fireworks.

 At the grand finale the sirens and lights on all of the police vehicles and fire trucks were turned on making the ending filled with big booms, the wailing of sirens, lots of pretty lights in the air and on the ground. 

This was well worth going to but of course we were kept up way past our bed time. This morning Karin and I are heading to the Goose Ranch with the truck and trailer in hopes we will be able to load a mare and bring it back here for breeding and training. 

Easter Bonnet's Injury

Karin and Elisabeth went to Middle Grove this morning to bring home Indy, Bunni and Missy. Indy is due in less than a month, Bunni and Missy are here to provide a couple of riding horses at this farm. The horses were all up by the gate when they arrived which really helped as it was miserably hot. Each time Karin goes out, thankfully she checks over all the horses. Easter Bonnet (Lola x Valiant) has a cut on her neck that needs to be treated. We are not sure how this happened but it almost looks like she got impaled on a deer antler. It will heal just fine but needed to be cleaned out and treated. Karin had a full trailer bringing 5 horses home in the 4 horse stock. Easter Bonnet got her first bath. She wasn't very happy about it at first but it was so hot outside and the cool water was refreshing so it didn't take long for her to stand quietly. Once she was bathed and treated the other horses hosed down, Zalena was brought out and teased. She is still in and covered by Valiant. Dakota was teased with both  Evan and Valiant in hopes she would start to show but still no go on her.
Karin and Elisabeth hosed off Bunni and Missy, tacked them up and took them for a fast ride on the 'death trails'.

As they had no little kids on this trip they let the horses gallop. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures of that ride click HERE. This afternoon I worked on the pictures from our Sunday afternoon trip to Wildlife Prairie Park.

If you would like to see the rest of those pictures click HERE. We rented a wagon for the afternoon so the grandkids wouldn't get too tired. Braelyn found a new use for that when we stopped to play on the playground.

Mark spent the evening scraping paddocks and spreading manure. He tried to order lime to put down on the paddocks but the place we order from must have taken the day off. We will try again in a few days.
Our other news is we got a working television. Well actually we had one but never had an antenna to make it work. Mark ordered the antenna on Amazon, it came today, he hooked it up and it works. We were able to watch news over the television. The antenna picks up 13 channels.

So Tired

Yesterday (Sunday) I WAY overslept. We had a terrible night with Emma and fireworks. She is petrified of the booms and kept trying to climb up into our bed panting excessively and when a Mastiff pants drool comes out. I ended up in the family room on the couch and finally got to sleep at 4:30 am. Mark and I skipped church and just listened on line. I wish we had gone, it just didn't feel like a Sunday. In the afternoon we met David, Stef, Israel, Elisabet, Phil, Anna, Braelyen, Taegen, Kensley, Sarah and Nolan at Wildlife Prairie park. It was hot but the kids thoroughly enjoyed the park. Lots of pictures were taken but none downloaded.
The kids and grandkids came here for dinner. Volley ball was called off as most of the players are gone. The kids and grandkids had fun swimming and swimming was the perfect activity since it was hot and sunny.
Mark and I did not go, instead I stayed at the computer and finished downloading all the pictures taken during the pony rides at the goose ranch. There were so many that I split them into two separate albums. If you were there early and want to check out the first album click HERE.
If you came a bit later and want to see if your child is in the second album click HERE.
We ended up playing games in the evening.

Long Lines

WE had such a productive day. Mark worked on scraping paddocks and spreading manure on the fields. He also got rid of a big stump at the playground. Then power washed the tractor and skid steer.
Karin came to work horses working first with Evan.Check out those braids on this boy in the picture below. Not  sure if they will stay in but hopefully they will. He will be much cooler having that thick long mane tied up and off his neck.

 Karin had him lay down flat and stay that way while she scratched his belly. Evan enjoyed every minute of that exercise. 

 Cookie was brought out next to the round pen while Evan was working and he was quiet and respectful most of the time, just showing interest when Karin worked him close by where she was tied. I took that opportunity to remove the knots in Cookies mane. Evan and Cookie were put away and Valiant brought out. This time it was Missy who was brought out and tied at the round pen. Valiant was almost perfect too. Below Karin is asking him to lay down. 

 Then sit. When he was sitting she was scratching him up on his neck. That felt so good to him, he stretched out his nose begging for more. 

Missy's tail was combed out while Valiant was being worked. As soon as she was done with him we teased Dakota but she is not showing and not in. Zalena was also teased and in so covered by Valiant.  By this time we were both hot, Karin went over to jump in the lake while I went inside to work on cleaning the kitchen and finishing laundry before we needed to leave for the big party at the Giant Goose Ranch. We needed to have Missy, Cookie, Bunni and Jenis hosed down, tacked up and loaded by 3:00 pm for that drive. We stopped in Farmington to pick up our helper, Elisabeth then made it to the Goose Ranch by 4:00 pm. We had lots of helpers to set up the temporary round pen (not so round) and warm up the horses before the party started.

 Below are just a few of the pictures downloaded of the afternoon and evening. 

 The horses were a huge hit, the line stretched almost as far as they eye could see. Well that might be a slight exaggeration, but there were more than 2000 people there. 

We never stopped for a break the entire time we were there. Those horses worked  from 4:00 pm until almost 8:00 pm. We needed to be out of the Goose Ranch before the fireworks started up and were pleased that it happened. No one set off any fireworks until after we pulled away. We drove straight to Middle Grove to drop off the horses, tack and trailer as they will be used there for the company coming Sunday and Monday there. Elisabeth and Karin were dropped off in Farmington and by the time I finally arrived back here it was dark and there were lots of fireworks going off in the area. The horses are fine with that, but Emma sure isn't. She tried to climb up on our bed, the silly dog.

What a busy day!