Remembering Fun Practices

 Mark wanted to stock up on wood as we will be getting another cold spell Tuesday night.  Below he is bringing a load from the wood shed to the door where he hands it off to me for stacking.

It is a good system and we work well together.

Another warm day and now most of the snow is gone but the mud is back. The drives are getting very muddy and pot holes are showing up. The cars are now splattered with mud as we go back and forth from our house to mom's house.  Three of the paddocks will need a bale tomorrow.  With that cold spell we went through more hay they usual. Karin sent a list of needed items at mom's. I went to 2 different stores to get the groceries as Aldi had some of the items needed and Sam's had the rest. I could not get the Berean mail, it is Presidents day which is a holiday and the post office was closed. Will have to leave early tomorrow morning to get the mail and get it to the Berean office by 9:00 am. When I got back from shopping I made a batch of peanut butter cookies. While making them I remembered why I don't like to bake. As I was moving one batch from the top shelf to the middle shelf, it tipped and half of the cookies fell onto the floor of the oven with some going into the bottom crack of the oven door. What a mess, I had to finish baking the cookies still on the sheet but couldn't get some of the smashed off the floor of the oven so of course those burnt and stunk up the house. Next week I BUY the Berean treat. After all the cookies were baked the oven needed a cleaning before heading over to mom's at 5:00 pm. While they were cooking I listened then downloaded Jeff Waibel's message Sunday morning in the Bloomington church.  It is WELL worth listening to.

Six years ago today we were holding a dress rehearsal here at the Horsemeister farm for the IL Horse Fair.  I remember Rebekah telling the pirates there should be no smiling, just angry pirate faces during the fight scenes but we were all laughing both at the riders and the fight scenes.

If you would like to see the rest of those pictures from that day click HERE. Mom was really tired today. Sunday's are always exhausting. Right after supper she wanted a whirlpool and stayed in there for an hour and went from that straight to bed.  

Sunday's Sun Catchers

 It was warm when we awoke, already 30 degrees.  Joan needed us to take Mackenson to church today as she had a full car load. That full car load got much fuller on the way home. I was driving and had just started up the hill on Smithville after turning off Cameron when the car started making noise. Mark was sure we had a flat but I needed to get up to the top of the hill before pulling over. Sure enough the back snow tire was really flat. I called Joan who had left church after us and asked her which way she was coming home from church and it turned out she was less than a minute behind us. We crammed 7 people and mom's big wheel chair in mom's little car. We were about 3 miles from home so once Joan dropped us off we changed out of our Sunday clothes, Mark picked up one of our regular tires, his power tools and we headed back to change the tire.

Having the right tool for the job makes for an easy quick change and I was back on the road within 10 minutes. The snow tire is loaded in my car. I'll drop it off at Riekers on Tuesday and see if it can be fixed. We were missing a few people for our Sunday dinner. David and Stephanie's family are out of town, Ben was on call and Addyson and Jack stayed with him. We still had a house full. After dinner the crafts were taken out. Today we worked on sun catchers.

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from this evening click HERE. Below is a short video of their work.

Amy stopped in tonight to drop off food for mom's house and a gift for Baby Zeke. He is a month old and gets lots of love when he is with his cousins.

Once all the kids left it didn't take long for Mark to head to bed and I will be following shortly. 

 

Praise HIM In EVERY Breath

 It was really cold this morning and never made it out of the teens today.  Not much snow melt, thankful for all the shoveling done yesterday.  The horses enjoyed the snow.  

Ruth took the morning shift, Sarah Reinhard took the afternoon and I took the evening. As I was on for the evening the meal was mine to make. We started with Anna's special dip and chips. The dip is made with an entire avocado, queso cheese, salsa and sour cream. Our next course was oxtail soup. The left over baked potatoes were fried up with some bacon, the bacon was added to the salad and the left over steak was heated up then cut into bite size portions. We all had plenty to eat. Mom was tired today. She did some walking but more resting. She seemed a little more confused but is always agreeable and funny. We did a lot of laughing. The pork loin for tomorrow's meal was taken out of the freezer this morning. We will serve that will mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, salad and for dessert brownie bites and ice cream. Rhoda posted new pictures of Zeke. He is a month old now and so cute.

In closing I read something of worth, believe it or not on Facebook. We really DO praise HIM with each and every breath.

There was a moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH.

Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels.

But scholars and Rabi’s have noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds, or aspirated consonants. When pronounced without intervening vowels, it actually sounds like breathing.

YH (inhale): WH (exhale).

So a baby’s first cry, his first breath, speaks the name of God.

A deep sigh calls His name – or a groan or gasp that is too heavy for mere words.

Even an atheist would speak His name, unaware that their very breathe is giving constant acknowledgment to God.

Likewise, a person leaves this earth with their last breath, when God’s name is no longer filing their lungs.

So when I can’t utter anything else, is my cry calling out His name?

Being alive means I speak His name constantly.

So, is it heard the loudest when I’m the quietest?

In sadness, we breathe heavy sighs.

In joy, our lungs feel almost like they will burst.

In fear we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly to help us calm down.

When we’re about to do something hard, we take a deep breath to find our courage.

When I think about it, breathing is giving him praise. Even in the hardest moments!

This is so beautiful and fills me with emotion every time I grasp the thought. God chose to give himself a name that we can’t help but speak every moment we’re alive.

All of us, always, everywhere.

Waking, sleeping, breathing, with the name of God on our lips.

written by - Sandra Thurman Caporale from the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston.

Oh Canada

 Today was my day to stay with mom. Karin let me know when mom was awake. We had a quiet day with  sunshine glaring off the bright white snow. Aunt Jinnie worked on her needle point while I read to mom. She told me a story today of taking her doberman to the bank in New York and the tellers and bank employees took out their phones and took pictures of her dog.  The next week she took Uncle Peter into the bank. She exclaimed to them, "Last week I bring my dog and everyone takes pictures, this week I bring my husband and no one at all took out their phone and took a picture." If you knew uncle Peter you would really find this funny. 

Joan spent the day on snow removal. She sent Mackenson and Berlica over to shovel then cleared drives with mom's Kubota. 

We had a special meal tonight. Mark brought over chilled shrimp and crab with cocktail sauce, air fried fries and asparagus. Karin grilled steaks and I sautéed onions, mushrooms, baked potatoes, made a salad to finish out the meal. All really was delicious. Ruth came for the evening. I made it home by 6:30 pm. Rhoda, Taunya, Anna and Sarah are spending the evening at the apartment. I watched a little of the news from Canada, what is happening in Ottawa and was so disturbed. The dictator Trudeau wants to CRUSH these peaceful protesters, they have not set a single building on fire, they have not looted a single store. They are peacefully asking to be heard. Trudeau doesn't agree with that last statement. How dare they disobey his rules. He and his party of liberals are treating them as if they are animals, setting the mounted police on them, knocking then to the ground and trampling some of the people, jailing hundreds. (easily can be proved by watching some of the videos coming out of Ottawa)

A video of the actual trampling was posted but for some reason removed by our liberal big tech companies by restricting free speech.

 The lady trampled was a grandmother in a walker who arrived to stand for freedom. These are not violent criminals, they have only asked for the end of all Covid mandates. The emergency act that Trudeau has called for will allow the these crooked politician to freeze their bank accounts and not just truckers bank accounts, anyone that donates to them also, impound their trucks, take their licenses away, take their dogs and euthanize them, take their children and put them in foster care and to think this is all because they are asking to end the overreach of government with these mandates! What is going on in CANADA! If this can happen to them we here in America are not much safer. Please watch the video below of what happened to this shop owner. I love her message at the end. 

The Snow

 No snow yet this morning it was supposed to start around 11:00 am and sure enough it did. The snow was coming down fast about an inch or 2 each hour and by the time it stopped we had 8 or 9 inches on the ground. The driving conditions were terrible which caused many accidents on the interstates. 74 and 39 were both shut down due to accidents and blizzard conditions. There was a huge pile up on 39. Below are a few pictures posted from people in or near the accidents.

Mark went in to work this morning but was home by 11:30 am and by that time the snow was in full force.  He decided to start plowing about 4:30 pm and did a little shoveling first.  I went out at the same time to start shoveling the patio and in front of the garage but stopped to take a couple pictures. The snow was so beautiful. 

I took a quick video then went back to work shoveling.

Mike got his tractor out and got mom's Joan's and Spark's drive done. Spark and Rhonda are due home tomorrow from Gulf  Shores. I think they are going to have a little bit of a shock to their systems facing this weather.

I finished shoveling when it got too dark to see well. I had done the patio first and when I finished the other job came back to find I needed to shovel the patio off again.  The picture below was taken with a flash as it was already dark.

Mark also quit about that time and made it into the house at 6:20 pm. For dinner tonight we had crockpot pot roast, potatoes and carrots. Mark calls that comfort food, I call it easy and that was the best part about the meal. 

 

Aunt Jinnie Arrives

 It was another warm morning, when we awoke it was already 40 degrees and by this afternoon had hit 50. Lots of melting of those huge piles of snow was happening pretty much all day. By this evening the rain moved in. The snow is supposed to arrive early morning.  I drove to Pekin, IL to pick up some groceries at Aldi. Dr. Hoerr called while I was shopping and tentatively made arrangements to stop by in a couple of hours with some visitors.  As soon as I got home and the groceries were put away I started bringing in the horses to try to dry them off. Thankfully none of them were very muddy. Before the first was brought inside, Dr. Hoerr sent a text that he was going to have to cancel.  I was VERY glad that I didn't have to slop through the melting ice to bring the horses in. Below is Evan.  

Valiant was keeping a close eye on me to make sure I didn't take Evan out. He really does not like Evan and to think they used to be best friends. 

Rockaway was up begging for attention.

Below is Sally. I had asked Dr. Hoerr to bring his ultrasound machine if he was going to come.  We would like to find out if Sally conceived in December when she broke out of the cabin field to come flirt with Valiant.  We will just have to wait now to find out. Sally has beautiful foals when bred to Valiant. They are tall, well built and all black. If she did conceive she would be due in December of this year.

Below is Dancer (out of Jewel by Evan) She will be 2 years old in a couple months and when Dr. Hoerr comes to ultrasound Sally we will have her wolf teeth pulled.  Dancer inherited Evan's mega hair and is already over 16 hands and not yet 2 years old. Behind Dancer is Sheena. 

At 4:00 pm I left for the Peoria airport to pick up Aunt Jinnie.  We are thrilled to have her back. Sarah Reinhard brought over lobster and ribeye steaks for the special welcoming dinner. Karin cooked the steaks.

The dinner was amazing. They also had buttered sautéed mushrooms and onions, and a delicious salad. Ruth took the evening shift tonight and turned Church on Facebook live for mom and Aunt Jinnie. Mark and I went to church and got to sit with David and Elisabet. Tim Funk had the message. After church a bunch went out to Culvers for a late supper but we drove home. It was raining quite hard.  As soon as we got home Mark put his car in the indoor arena. I followed him up with my car and took him down to the house so he didn't have to tromp through the mud and rain. Thankful we have plenty of room to keep the vehicles inside tonight.

Winter Storm Watch

 We had a beautiful day today with sunshine and highs in the 40s. Lots of melting happening around here revealing mud.  While it was still frozen this morning Mark and I brought in 10 loads of wood. We are expecting a winter storm to hit starting with rain on Wednesday then snow on Thursday followed by strong winds and 0 degrees. We will need lots of dry wood when that happens. Right now the storm watch is predicting rain on Wednesday changing to ice early Thursday morning then 5 to 7 inches of snow. We shall see. I left at 7:15 to head over to mom's to relieve Joan. Once mom was up and dressed though I left as I wanted to hit Sam's club  before going to the Berean office.  Karin cooked their breakfast.  We had a very good day at the Berean office.  If you would like to read about that click HERE. At Sam's club I planned on buying a rotissari chicken for our dinner tonight but there wasn't any so on the way home after dropping off the Bibles at the Bartonville post office I stopped at Kroger to pick up a chicken but they didn't have any nor did they have any fried chicken. Thankfully there is a Kentucky Fried chicken in Bartonville so I picked up a 12 piece bucket. As I took the 5:00 pm shift that meant we were providing dinner.  When I got home the sweet potatoes were prepared and stuck in the oven to bake. While that was baking the horses were checked, all waterers are working well and all have plenty of hay but I will need to pick up some new salt blocks soon.

These are 50 pounds each and a few years ago cost $2.99 but now cost $7.00 each. I can't believe how bad this inflation is with no end in sight. At 5:00 pm I headed over with the fried chicken, sweet potatoes, salad with ALL the fixins, deviled eggs and an apple cake for dessert. Mom ate well tonight, pretty much finishing everything on her plate.  She wanted a whirlpool tonight so Karin and I made that happen. 

No Doors

 Mark got up around 4:30 am to get the fire started as it was another really cold morning. All of the horses have enough hay to munch on to keep plenty warm, even on these cold snowy mornings.

I headed over to mom's at 7:20 am to find mom up and Joan already at work. After giving me the update of the night Joan left for home.  Mom wanted eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast. She really enjoys those farm fresh eggs from Tina Davidovics. Joan brought the school books and the kids back by 8:30 am so I left for home to get a few things done here before heading down to the Peoria post office to pick up the Berean mail. We had a lot of mail waiting for us, more than double from last week. From the post office I drove to Sarah's house to drop off Stephanie's birthday card. David has it pretty nice with a wife that has a birthday ON Valentine's day.  I was due back at mom's at 1:00 pm but the company coming to finish the garage doors on the new barn almost made it up to the top of the hill before sliding all they way back down. They had a 2 wheel truck pulling a trailer with a lift and could not make it up the hill with the ice and snow. The picture below is after they were able to stop sliding. 

Our lanes are really difficult in the winter. Snow tires or 4 wheel drive are almost a must when living out here. I thought the tractor was going to be needed and had Joan offer to bring it down with straps but they made it out onto the road without our assistance in time for her to take Faith to the dentist. The garage doors will not be finished until the lanes are passable. 

SuperBowl Sunday

 I was so tired on Sunday that I wrote but forgot to actually post this last night. We had another wonderful Sunday. I was praying for the ministers this morning on my special chair, looked out the window and saw a herd of deer making their way down to the creek in single file. I counted 15 but there were some before I started counting.  I start each week by praying for who ever will be speaking. We don't know who will be speaking but I really believe prayer from the pews power the pulpit. I didn't take a picture of the deer this morning but did of the bird that arrived in our yard yesterday afternoon. 

I slowly and quietly stepped outside and they all took off.

David had the morning message at church today on Psalm 18. 

  Today was the Valentine lunch, all the men served the ladies today a very special lunch with amazing food plus flowers and chocolate candies. Tim Roecker had the afternoon message. After church Mark got busy to prepare the shrimp for tonight while I made deviled eggs and finished the pot roast, potatoes and carrots.  Tonight the Sceggels met at Phil and Anna's for the supper and the superbowl. Everyone brought food and that was all really tasty. Check out just some of that delicious food.

Above is the pot roast which was cooked yesterday and put outside so the fat could rise and be skimmed off easily. Below are the potatoes and carrots, which were put in the crock pot and cooked in the pot roast liquid while we were at church.

Above are the chicken tenders Nolan made. He made 3 different kinds, one was coated in coconut, another a special kind of bread crumbs and the 3rd kind I don't remember but all were great. Sarah made a healthy but tasty coconut cake for dessert. Stephanie brought taco dips, chips, stuffed mushrooms, and her special sugar cookies. Taunya brought salads and fruits along with special sandwiches for kids. Phil made corn dogs, fried mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers.

Anna made a delicious pulled pork. 

Rhoda brought ripe honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon and pineapple and a cookie dessert.

Not all the food is pictured. We all had a good time.

Ben and  Taunya's family left first at half time. Sarah and Nolan's family left next and Mark and I were pretty quick to follow. We aren't that interested in football and I still needed to clean up the kitchen from the cooking this afternoon. 

Do We?

It was really cold on the way to mom's this morning at 7:15 am. Any meltdown we had is now frozen solid again.  Mom woke at 4:00 am restless and couldn't seem to get comfortable but when she finally did go back to sleep slept until 7:30 am and woke up with a smile. Ruth came at 1:00 pm as mom was eating a late lunch. With the 2 of us there we asked mom if she would like to practice walking and she was more than willing. 

I left for home after that.  Mark had brought in wood and had the fire burning brightly in the wood burner.  It is such a luxury to have warmth on a cold winter day and I am thankful. I put a couple roasts in the crock pot. These will be cooked today then put outside and the fat skimmed tomorrow morning then served for the Sunday dinner at Phil and Anna's tomorrow. Chuck went out to Middle Grove to visit the horses and sent back the question, "Do you have 2 new brown horses out there?" I'm pretty sure we don't have any new horses out there unless Mike slipped a couple in. The two bays we have out there are Jewel and Madiera and he knows about those. Maybe a couple of the blacks had a roll in the mud and now look brown. 

Checking the convoy news there wasn't much on the Windsor bridge but check out the video below of the Ottawa demo.

We are going to have an early night as both of us are tired today. 

Cancelled

 We had so much ice this morning I could not get up the hill to the apartment.  Trying to get to mom's was almost impossible but not quite. The car ended up slipping backward all the way down the drive. It took 2 tries to even back it enough to get a run at the hill going towards mom's. At 9:00 am, once mom was settled in her chair I asked Karin to stay with mom and headed back to my place to try to get some of the ice off the drive using 2 full buckets of salt and a shovel. After working a half an hour finally gave up and sent a message to the airbnb guest and told them if they didn't have 4 wheel drive they would need to cancel the booking. They did not have 4 wheel drive so I had to call airbnb to make sure they could get their full refund back. The sun came out later in the day and it was warm enough to sit out on the deck for about 10 minutes.

Mom enjoyed the sunshine but as soon as a cloud came it was cold. This evening I was blessed to be able to head to Goodfield to stay with Jack, Jace and Abe. Addyson was at her volleyball game until after 8:00 pm but the boys and I had fun. I found some wind up butterflies and gave them to the boys. They would place them in books then open the book.

That kept them busy for a couple hours. When it got dark outside the light up balloons were brought out and blown up.

When Addyson got home they had to show her the balloons.

At 8:30 pm we went upstairs to start getting ready for bed but first Abe and Jace had to show me their amazing race track.

Abe needed to show me how it worked.

It was a fun evening.