Annual Work Day

 Mark went out early to start the fire over at mom's as there was no wind this morning. When he came back in breakfast was ready. Today he wanted an omelet so that is what he got. He needed a big breakfast as today was the annual Mother's Day work day for the family. 

The official start time was 8:30 am but a lot of family came early. Jay brought along at least 4 of his children to help.

Below Braelyn and Hannah are washing down walls.

Renee and Jane weeding.

Ellie and Elisabet also weeding.

Mackenson, Jay and Ezra carrying up the old couch which would be taken to the dump while Rachel weeds.

Jay hauled the couch to the dump.

Some of Ruth's family and David used glue on each stone before rebuilding the wall. 

Aunt Jinnie asked if David was building a Stonehenge with the blocks. Israel was also pulling weeds.  

Hannah, Karin and Berlica washing down the walls. The entire house got washed today.

Jacob drove the Kubota while the kids would load it with items found in the lake or on the ground that needed to be thrown away into the bucket.

Abram fixing a window while David repairs the overhang.

Dan fixed the leak in the washer then went over to Joan's and cleaned out the carburetor on the blue mower.

Mike was in charge of replacing the railroad ties foundation. 

To see the rest of the pictures from the work day click HERE. The video below was taken during this work day.

My airbnb barn guests left and I had about 2 hours to get it ready for the next group coming in at noon. I was very thankful that the lady that booked asked if she could do a lot of the cleaning and she did an amazing job. I still needed to finish the laundry and make the beds and sweep the floor of the game room. The furniture up there had been moved around as that was used for sleeping. It took about an hour to get everything looking good. The new guests actually arrived by 11:30 am and I was glad I could tell them the barn was ready.

Berlica, Braelyn and Israel took Mika, Missy and Cookie out on the trails just before lunch as their jobs were done. Below is the only picture I took of them.

Below is the video of that ride.

Diane ordered and picked up the pizza from Caseys for our lunch. 

The new guests for the barn today were hosting a graduation party.

There were a lot of families that came with quite a few younger kids. One of the grandma's and 7 of the kids came on a golf cart ride over to see the horses. They loved petting Lily and her colt. The colt was glad for the attention.

Mark and I were working on the second golf cart putting the back seat on when my other guests, the one from the foaling apartment came down to visit with their golden doodle. I showed them where the trails were and they enjoyed the hike. We have just a little bit to finish on the second golf cart. Mark is doing so well with these 2 that he ordered more lithium batteries for his really old cart and will start working on that when those come in.  He is getting good at these. 

Fun Friday

 I went over to the new barn at 7:00 am to get a few things done before the walk. When Ruth arrived Mark was explaining to her the best options for investing. Farkash was having fun checking for rabbits. 

We picked up Joan at her house and were on the way back with Diane joining us on speaker phone when we heard a loud machine coming from the main drive. None of us could guess what it was until Spark on the Yanmar turned the corner.

That machine is so slow we were wondering if he left yesterday to drive it home from Middle Grove.

Nope it turned out he was just bringing it from Mike's over to work on the logs at his house.

After the walk Mark came to the barn bringing the new ping pong net. He had ordered one that would fit this table and it came in today.

Of course we had to try it out. It isn't easy trying to video with the left hand while playing ping pong with the right hand.

At 10:00 am Rosaleigh was showing strongly.

She was taken out and covered by Evan and once that was done Evan was put out in the pasture. He couldn't decide if he wanted to check out the smells, graze, roll or explode. In the video below he does it all.

Irish, Rosalie and Rosaleigh were locked into the paddock before I let Evan out but their paddock needed a bale of hay. Since I can't put it in myself without those 3 running out of the gate I asked Mark to drive the bale in.

They were really happy with the bale.

At first it was just Rosalie and Irish eating on it as Rosaleigh was still over flirting with Evan but soon she joined them.

Mike and Diane are coming home tonight from Gulf Shores but they have airbnb guests coming in to both the Cowboy Cabin and their Waterview Walkout so needed a couple horses taken over. Mika and Dancer were moved over to the cabin field. 

I left at noon to go to Sam's club but when I started driving decided that was too far to drive so went instead to Aldi. I tried to call Mark so he didn't go to Aldi as he was going to pick up spinach, bananas, strawberries, bread, milk and eggs from there while I bought the rest at Sam's. For some reason my phone wouldn't call. I restarted the phone and called again but this time it went straight to the message that this person does not have voice mail. I tried two more times then just sent him a text telling him NOT to go to Aldi or buy anything I had it all.  When I arrived home, he was not here. He did not get any of the messages and went to Aldi so we doubled up on spinach, bananas, strawberries, bread, milk and eggs. Oh well I probably will need it for something and didn't know. I really splurged and bought $138.00 worth of food that filled all of 4 bags.  Joan was hosting the co-op picnic at the playground. After a lot of the families left Berlica came over with 3 of her friends and wanted to go on a trail ride with them. Both Joan and the mother of the other kids said it would be fine. Since we would need Mika on this ride that meant we needed to bring Sally over too so when we took Mika out of the cabin field Dancer wouldn't be left alone. We haltered Missy, Cookie and Sally and it wasn't fun getting them out of the paddock. With so much rain the mud is deep by the gates.

We decided to take Berlica home to get her boots so SHE could slop through the mud and get the horses. The flowers below are from the flower bed Sarah plants each year.

Below are Berlica and her 3 friends ready to head over to the farm to get the horses.

Just kidding. I drove and no one screamed or fell off. In the picture below we are getting ready to head to the trails.

Below is a video of the ride.

Below is after the trail ride and heading over to the barn to untack.

After the horses were put away we discovered the golf cart seats had arrived. Mark wanted to start installing the seat but didn't have the correct bolts so drove to Nena hardware to pick them up and when he got back we started working on the back.

That went on pretty easy but the seat Mark needs to find some thin boards. Since we both worked hard today I made a special supper. We had brisket, butter sautéed mushrooms, fried potatoes, steamed broccli with a butter sauce and some sliced peppers with ranch dip

For dessert Mark had butter pecan ice cream while I had a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. My sister-in-law Kim called to give us a health update. She had an inguinal hernia she has been dealing with for at least 20 years but just lately had been giving her trouble. She ended up having to have that surgically repaired on Monday and they found that she had 2 liters of undigested food wrapped up in that hernia. She feels better but is really tired. She has someone come every day from her church to help out and all is going well. Thankful for a good update on that.  IT was past our bedtime when our phone went off. It was Rachel letting us all know the Northern Lights were lighting up the sky above us.  I had to shut the outside barn lights off for us to be able to see them but it was so cool when we could. There were pink and purple streaks straight above. Beth sent the picture below.

That was worth getting up for.

More Rain

 Rain rain and more rain. It seems like it has been raining everyday or at least every 24 hours as sometimes the rain comes at night. Today it was misting on our walk. Ruth brought Farkash who was very interested in the logs at Spark and Rhonda's house. 

I spent the morning in the barn organizing the sheets and towels and of course cleaning. We have guests moving in tomorrow. They are a track team who are just staying the one night then another group moves in on Saturday at noon. I really needed an extra set of towels and sheets to help flip the barn. Joan's family went to Medieval times with the Co-op. She called at 1:15 pm to report the camper was fixed and ready to be picked up.  I needed to back the stock trailer in to where that belonged. Mark helped unhook it and we were on our way to Tri County RV to pick up the camper.

Joan took it in because the slide out wasn't working so I was not sure what the bill would be to fix that. Well it turned out the slideout wasn't working because the dust pan had fallen and jammed it. I sent Joan the picture below telling her the slide out broke our dustpan.

We were backing the trailer in at Joan's when Fedi called, he was at the barn ready to pick up batteries.  Mark was giving him all the old batteries from when he replaced them with the lithium. I asked Mark why Fedi wanted the batteries and Mark said, "for the lead inside."  Of course my first thought was "Oh NO, Fedi is making bullets." Fedi escaped Romania during the dictatorship of Ceausescu and NEVER wants to be subject to a corrupt government again so I wouldn't put it past him to melt his own ammo.

The rain just kept coming. This evening Mark was walking around outside checking things and came in to tell me 2 waterers were leaking, Valiant's and the middle paddock. That meant getting the boots back on and sloughing through the mud to see if I could adjust the float. I was able to stop both but will make sure tomorrow that they are still filling with water.  While out there Rosaleigh was given the shot to short cycle her. Of course this was all in the rain and I was drenched by the time I got back inside. It is only 60 degrees and that rain felt really cold. The horses all seem to be fine. The rain just rolls off their coats. They were all mostly standing in their shelters eating hay.

Busy Bees

 Before our walk Mark helped get the stock trailer hooked up to the truck and the 3 mares that were going to go to the vet clinic today for ultrasounds were taken out of their paddocks and put together in the breeding shed paddock. On the walk Joan and Ruth then helped me load these 3 mares into the stock trailer and I was off to the clinic by 7:55 am arriving at the clinic just before 8:30 am.  Sheena was the first mare to be sonagrammed. 

She had a CL but it was an old one then Dr. Hoerr found what he believes is an embryonic vesicle but only about 8-10 days old. 

We will need to watch her if she comes back in season we will rebreed her but according to Dr. Hoerr she looks like she is pregnant.  Rosaleigh was next.

She has 2 big follicles on one ovary, Dr. Hoerr suggested giving her a shot to short cycle then breed her in a couple days.

Irish was last.

She was declared pregnant and is due April 8th, 2025. They were loaded and on the way home by 9:15 am. I was due at mom's house and by the time I got back with the mares and put them away I only had 3 minutes to get my feet cleaned. The tennis shoes and socks were soaking wet and stunk. The only soap in the tub was a child's body wash watermelon scented but each foot was scrubbed with that as there was no time for a shower. I made it to mom's exactly at 10:00 am. Spark and Rhonda had the tree people come to take down 4 big trees that were threatening their new barn. One tree had a bee hive in it pretty far up. Joan got the man doing the cutting a bee outfit and she wore hers.

The guy doing the cutting radioed down that a big fat raccoon was holed up in the tree above the bee hive. That turned out to be a mean mama raccoon with 4 babies. Unfortunately the mama and one baby died. Faith rescued the other 3 and they will take them to Bluffton, IN for Bethany to raise.

The bottom of that part of the tree was also part of the bee hive. Joan got her smoker then started removing honeycomb. 

The comb coming from this part was put in a bucket and left out by her 2 hives. They will clean off all the honey and leave the debris.

As company was coming Mackenson and Berlica started mowing, Steven and Anni weeding,  Mark cutting up the old gutter and weed whacking. 

By the time Dan and Phil arrived the place was looking good. We got on the golf cart to go over to see the new kittens.

After a tour of the place we went back to mom's to visit. Karin had baked peanut butter cookies and served that with decaf coffee. We had a nice visit before they left for home. Phil and Dan are cousins to mom and Aunt Jinnie. We left for church a little early so we could get some gas in Mark's car. Gregg Rumbold had the message tonight. Click HERE to watch that. We went to Culvers after church and were glad for some supper as we didn't take time to eat before church. To see the rest of the pictures from today click HERE.