Delivery Available

 Diane came dressed for winter for the walk this morning, while Ruth came in shorts. Diane is use to Gulf Shores warmth. We had a good walk with so much laughter. Mark needed to take the trencher back this morning using my truck and his trailer. The first job of the morning was to drive down to the Peoria post office to pick up the Berean mail and since Sam's Club is right on the way picked up a pecan pie from there then dropped the mail and the pie off at the Berean office. Chip has been very busy, all the corn that was surrounding the Berean office has now been picked. The combine was sitting idle across the road from the office.

Just lots of finished fields for acres. 

Traffic was awful on the way home on 474 and about a half a mile from the exit came to a dead stop. Thankfully for only about 5 minutes. Mark had the truck back and up by the horse trailer when I finally reached home around 10:15 am.  The horse trailer was hooked up and Indy loaded and then it came time to be REALLY patient. Her colt was not sure about getting into the trailer and ran around the trailer 3 or 4 times before finally checking out the door.

They were taken out to Middle Grove. We decided to just wait to breed Indy until her colt is weaned then Indy can come spend the winter with Evan. No horses were in sight when we got to Middle Grove.

They unloaded and checked  out the grass before heading up the hill to find the herd.

Indy neighed a few time and soon a mare in the herd answered and then a few came running up to greet her.

After squealing they all took off going back down the other side of the hill and out of sight.

Below is a video of loading the colt then them running up the hill to find the herd.

Once home the next job on my list was to call Zane's and arrange to drop the Prius off Tuesday night to get the head light fixed on Wednesday and next week they will look at the truck. It is louder when it is started then it used to be. Hopefully it isn't a big fix. At 3:30 pm we met with the insulator for the new barn. He is going to draw up a contract and hopefully we can get a start on that soon. Mark got home just in time to meet with him so I walked over to mom's and played a couple games of Carbols with Karin, Rachel and Joan. Supper tonight was left overs but they were delicious.

There is a need for camping trailers in Florida from the devastation Ian caused. We had just been considering selling the Wolf Pup and the Keystone so those were posted for sale on Facebook AND I will be willing to DELIVER either or both of them for the price of fuel.

We bought the 2018 Wolf Pup 16 BH new and have stored it inside every winter.  

This family friendly trailer sleeps 5, has USB ports by each bunk, a large kitchen with a nice sink, a two burner propane stove, microwave, ample counter space and a refrigerator with a freezing compartment. There is storage throughout the trailer with a large exterior pack and play door to access storage under the bottom bunk. The power awning is a very nice feature. The dry weight is just 3097 pounds, the trailer is 21 feet long and 11 feet high.

The Wolf Pup is for sale for $15,000.00 

The Keystone is a 2011 model Summerland by Springdale

We bought this trailer from the original owner and have stored it inside the barns each winter. We replaced all of the tires, even the spare, in 2021. This trailer sleeps 6 with a twin bunk above a full bed, the dinette folds down to make a full bed and the jack knife sofa makes a twin bed. This family friendly trailer has abundant storage throughout. It has a power awning, a large kitchen with a nice big double sink a 3 burner stove with an oven, a brand new microwave, a large 6 cubic ft fridge with a large separate freezer, a large bathroom with tub, shower and sink. It also has an outdoor hot and cold outdoor shower and 2 large propane tanks. All of the appliances work. 

The Keystone is for sale for $12,000.00 and I will be glad to deliver it for the price of fuel.

Family Time

 Saturday evening I took an Aleve and then this morning another one determined to enjoy Sunday. It worked. That really is a miracle drug. We had an easy morning, the 8 pounds of hamburger were browned and the fat drained off last night so this morning it was just put in the crock pot with taco seasoning and extra water and put on low before heading over to Joan's to pick up Faith, Mackenson and Berlica. Joan went to Iowa. It was good to be in church. Ruth brought mom and Diane picked up Nancy and brought her. We all sat together for lunch. Gregg Rumbold had the morning message and Tim Roecker had the afternoon message. After church, Phil and Anna arrived with the girls. All 3 girls came in to help cut up the vegetables for tonight's meal of haystacks.  Below the colorful peppers are being sautéed in olive oil.

Anna used the trencher to go back over the road so they could lay another pipe and then since

the weather was so nice that Phil, Anna and the girls started covering back up the water trench from yesterday.

Supper was chaotic but delicious. After supper we celebrated Taegan's 10th birthday, Kensley's 8th birthday and Zion's 5th birthday. We could only find 7 candles but made do.

Everyone enjoyed the ice cream and cookie cake.

After the party Ron, Taunya's dad, came into the kitchen and mentioned, "you must have nerves of steel." I think it was either the noise or the active children in such a small area. Once the tables were cleaned off we all headed over to the playground for the games. Below are just 3 pictures, the only three taken, we were too busy visiting with each other.

Below is a short video of the chaotic birthday party and a tiny bit of volleyball.

We are so very blessed to be able to spend our Sunday's first with our wonderful church family and then after church our family then after dinner our extended family. There were many first and second cousins running around playing with each other.

Saturday Crew

I had some beef in the crock pot last night getting tender so this morning started on a big pot of soup. Phil and Anna brought their girls so they were put to work chopping vegetables to add to the soup. Phil arrived before 7:00 am to get started on the digging project today. Our goal was to get the 600 feet of trenching done, run water pipe all the way from our house to the new barn. We did it even though the rented trencher broke. It really was quite a day. Below Mark is trenching while Anna WAS running the excavator.

Phil had some work to finish up on the barn.

David was digging out the water line when Tommy arrived.

Mark was running the trencher for hours.

David brought Elisabet and Israel. Elisabet and Kensley went up to the 'bakery' to start baking mud pies.

Tommy brought Heath and Luke which thrilled Israel. These 3 boys went dumpster diving and found all kinds of treasures.

Joan was harvesting honey today so the kids all headed over to her house to help with that. Below are the 4 of the frames Joan took from her hives. She left the rest for the bees for the winter.

Patty the parrot was interested in everything going on with all those kids zooming around on hover boards and playing air hocky.

The video below is just some of the kids activities today.

Ruth and mom went on the Spoon River Drive and Ruth was thrilled with a couple of her finds.

Lee was running the trencher while I ran to pick up lunch at the warehouse.

Phil and Tom were working on a vent while Anna worked on organizing the tools.

Lunch wasn't served until 1:00 pm and by then everyone was really hungry. After lunch the trencher broke. They loaded it on the trailer and Mark drove it back to American Rental and picked up the other. As we had about 3 hours of wait time until the new trencher arrived. I headed over to clean up the 5th wheel and get it ready for the next guest coming in. all bedding was taken down to the house to wash.  Once it was clean I took a few more pictures to post on the airbnb site.

Above is the bedroom and below is the living area.

I should have had the television turned on for the picture below but I didn't think about that.

The last job with that was to fill the fresh water tank and empty the other tanks. The gauges were all checked once done and they are all reading correctly. So far this 5th wheel seems to be worry free and I'm very thankful. Mark arrived with the new trencher around 4:30 pm as I was heading over to mom's to take Ruth's place.  Mom was tired from all the activity today so after supper she wanted to relax in the hot tub. Karin took over then so I headed back to the barn where Phil and Anna were finishing up the trenching.

Above is looking toward the house which is about 300 feet away and below is looking toward the barn, another 300 feet away.

Tom arrived with all 4 of his kids and Beth to help watch them. Heath was having a ball jumping over and in the trench.

Luke, Anni and Leo all came with Beth and me to the old barn to play on the hay.

Below is a video of the work done today from early this morning until we all quit around 6:30 pm.

That was a LONG 12 hour day! 

What a Year

 I overslept not getting up until 5:30 am but since there is no walk on Friday's it was easy to get everything done. Mark took the truck and trailer to American Rental and picked up a trencher as this weekend we are getting ready to dig the water lines. All 600 feet of water lines. Rachel was with mom this morning so I got to watch and listen to AC central, Kaleb Beyer in Goodfield, IL speaking about marriage enrichment  while doing laundry.  At 1:00 pm I headed over to mom's. The weather was perfect for sitting out on the deck. We got to watch the egret fish right off the beach. 

I took the video below hoping he would catch a fish but he never did.

Mark came over at 5:30 to start grilling the salmon.

That turned out delicious. We had a simple yet tasty meal of salmon, mashed potatoes, green beans and for dessert cheese cake.

We were in no hurry to leave the table and ended up sitting and visiting until almost 7:00 pm.  A year ago mom was brought home from the hospital and given at the most two weeks to live. At that time we weren't sure if or how we would be able to care for her and yet here we are.  Lots of what mom would call inexperienced help has now turned experienced. What a year this has been.

Lots of Laughter

Shirley L sent me the picture below of mom at the Berean office. 

They were talking about Chris's grand daughter marrying a Baer boy but mom heard it as a bare boy. It really struck her funny bone.  The dessert for supper tonight was put in the oven at 7:00 am and then I told the walkers I needed to be back in the house by 8:00 am to turn off the oven. It wasn't as cold this morning at 41 degrees .Diane joined us on the walk via phone. Later today she did a video call with Joan's phone and walked through Lani Kai so mom could see the new decorating job.  Diane helped get the new couch in, bought new end tables, lamps and moved the paintings around. Mom liked it. Later this morning a bunch of Ameren trucks came up the drive and some had big backhoes on trailers.

I thought just for a moment that Phil had rented something HUGE to work on the barn but nope, they were just a little lost and needed to head to Rachel's house. In the picture below you can see the last of the trucks leaving dust as they head to Rachel's.

Today was an easy day, the only outside chores needed to be done was filling the fresh water tank on the 5th wheel, making sure the apartment was ready with the lights turned on and the thermostat set on 68 for the guests coming in today. Indy was teased again and today she squealed and struck out at the stallions. I think she is kind of depressed as she is the only mare on the property. I had supper ready and took that over at 4:00 pm even though we weren't eating until later. There was a carbols game going on so I joined in and we didn't finish until 5:30 pm. Joan's family joined us for supper and everyone enjoyed it. Tonight we had chicken pot pie, salad, rolls with butter and for dessert pumpkin pecan crunch cake. After supper Karin had us watch Water World. Mackenson enjoyed all the inventions and even mom was laughing at some of the scenes.  We really do a lot of laughing when together. The news of hurricane Ian was not good. It slammed Fort Myers up to a whopping category 4 with wind speeds of  150 mph. The storm surge was close to 18 feet. Before the storm hit  the hurricane sucked a lot of water out of Tampa bay as it traveled closer. That came rushing back with a vengeance and contributed to the massive destruction. The images coming out of the area are pretty devastating. 

For Such a Time As This

 It was only 39 degrees outside when I went out to feed. I turned right around and put a sweat shirt on before heading up to the barn. Ruth came to the walk in a winter coat.  She took the day off work to be with mom this morning so we walked two full rounds heading to Rachel's first so Joan could drop off a bag of tomatoes as Rachel was making salsa today. After the walk Karin and I loaded the truck with the left over supplies from the library. She and Jackie are going to have a sale for the Spoon River Drive and the Library is right on the main road in Farmington so they should have plenty of customers. Once that was done I headed to the Berean office to pick up mom's phone. It was exactly where she had left it, on the table she was working at. Since that office is close to Sam's club I stopped there and picked up coffee and a cheese cake for mom's house and a rotisserie chicken for here. I signed up to take a meal over to Matt and Anni's house so made a chicken casserole to take over. Beth Meister sent home a new little boy outfit for Dexter with Karin so that was taken over at the same time. Dexter was sound asleep when I arrived. 

Mark came home a little early and helped move a bale in for Evan.

Indy was teased and still no sign of her coming in. I'm going to have to take her to Dr. Hoerr's for an ultrasound soon to find out where she is in her cycle. It was a beautiful day outside and I enjoyed working with Indy and her colt before heading back in to clean. While cleaning up the kitchen I turned on AC Central, Fred Witzig was speaking in Morton on a Christian's call in a polarized world. It was thought provoking and very interesting. That was downloaded and made into a video so it could be shared. It is WELL worth listening to.

The Bible studies were taken to church tonight, hopefully people will take them for grading. Tim Funk had the message on Esther, For such a time as this. To think we are living here and now during these weird times where some people question if they are even human. We can still share the gospel and it really needs to be shared for such a time as this. 

Megan's Shower

 Ruth, Joan and I walked this morning. I quit a little early as I needed to pick up mom for Berean and we wanted to leave by 8:15 am. We were really busy today and had to work late to finish everything but I am very thankful for what we got done. If you would like to read about our morning there click HERE. We had a late lunch and then rested once home as tonight was a wedding shower for Megan and Drew at Joan's house. I noticed the egret fishing across the lake by the dam and tried to zoom in enough to get a picture but my phone doesn't do as well at zooming as the real camera.

We had left over steak for supper tonight. Mark and Braelyn joined Karin,  mom and me. Phil was working on the barn. After supper Ruth came over to help take mom over to Joan's house. She wanted to be there as Anni was going to be there with Dexter. Of course she had to hold him pretty quickly. 

The shower was fun. Crystal went around asking each person there to give her one word answers to her different questions. After the meal she read the story with the words given.

We all had to laugh at the story. That was a cute idea. We left there just before 8:00 pm. It was a long day.