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We started out this morning at 6:00am, stopped for gas twice and pulled in at the house right at 7:15pm. Wow what a great trip! We will need to take a few days off to rest up before going to work. I had a couple of emails waiting for me, plus 3 horse phone calls and have made an appointment to show our purebred Friesian fillies to one of our past customers next weekend.

Erin's Hope

Below is an email from Erin, who has a Raven baby now 2 years old. I guess you can tell by her email how much she loves her!

Hi Judy
I hope all is well with you and your family. I took some pictures of Hope, she is hard to take pictures of because she wants to take them her self. So I just took them before she saw me and came over to investigate the camera. She is a great girl and is a joy to ride, she acts like she has had me on her back for years. What a great cure she has become. You and your family are very special to me, I'm always thinking of how great you all are. Keep in touch hope all the horses are doing good.
Thanks again,
Erin Rittschof

Our Last Day

This morning was kind of bittersweet. I didn't go out to see the sunrise, instead started breakfast while the others went walking down the beach. We had a good, filling breakfast, then had such good devotions that breakfast lasted until 10:00am! After we finished we took off for a long walk down the beach. Once back from the walk, we sat on the beach and prayed for our churches. Just something that was laid on our heart today. Barbara, Becky, mom and Aunt Jinnie took off to pick up the rental car and do some last minute shopping while Diane, Beth and I went to cool off in the pool. Once the shoppers came back and joined us, Diane took the picture below.
Beth started feeding the sea gulls and taught the rest how to have them eat out of our hands.

While watching the seagulls sitting on the beach we saw the dolphins for the last time, and took one more walk.
Becky and Beth cooked our dinner tonight, we did not linger over the dinner table but started cleaning the condo in preparation of leaving early tomorrow morning. Once the condo was clean and the laundry all done we had a break and had to finish up the ice cream (what a hard job) and will try to finish taping mom and Aunt Jinnie's memoirs.

A Raven Grandson

This is a picture I received today from one of our past customers. Below is the email they sent.


Judy
I haven’t updated you for a while, but we are so VERY glad that we kept one of our Raven babies. I think I sent pictures of Cassi last year (tell me if not and I will), she’s one of the 4 Raven/TB cross babies we bred. When Emily (Keegan’s owner) was out last summer, she said she couldn’t tell the difference between Cassi and her full Friesian filly of the same age. She’s stunning to look at and so much fun to train and ride. For us though, the biggest thing is her personality. I swear, if she could climb up in my lap she would do it- it’s like having a very, very large dog! Cassi’s 16 hands now, and I think may add another inch before she’s done. Anyway she had a colt by our Welsh stallion and he is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. He’s 7 months old now and we are planning to keep him as a future stallion as long as he continues to develop nicely. He’ll be registered with the FSHR and the WPCSA (1/2 welsh). Welsh ponies have a lot of feathering, and he got his dad’s flashy coloring (a blaze and 4 socks). The most amazing part though, is he looks like a fresian colt! Other than the coloring, which he inherited from Foxy- everything else comes straight down from Raven. He’s huge and should end up well over 16 hands, and he just moves beautifully. I’m attaching some pictures and when we get around to a video I will send that too. We are as thrilled with our Raven grandbaby as we have been with our Raven Daughter!

Thursday

This morning Becky and Aunt Jinny made crepes for breakfast along with sausage, fresh pineapple and home made pumpkin bread. Becky, Barbara, mom and Aunt Jinny took off for Fort Morgan and bird watching while Diane, Beth and I walked over to the pool and spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon lazing around on a raft in a very refreshing pool. Once the bird watchers came back it was off to the beach for walking, swimming, fishing and of course reading on the beach. We had reservation to go out on the bay for a dolphin cruise at 5:00pm so needed to clean up and leave by 4:15pm. Pictured below is the boat with her captain and his wife Charlie and Cherrie Davis. Their boat was the Gray Ghost leaving from Zeke's Marina. To make reservations, the phone number is 251-942-7653, the cost was $15.00 each. We had a very nice time on the dolphin cruise. We took a lot of pictures but of course most didn't turn out very well. These 2 are the best I took.

We saw 2 different pods of dolphins both heading from the bay going out into the gulf. We also heard of a manatee out by the rocks that started heading to the Florida cost but didn't get close enough to see that. We saw this sail boat coming in from the gulf, I took the picture as it was going under the big bridge.
The captain's wife took our picture standing on the front of the boat as we were coming back into the harbor. The captain slowed the boat down so we could get some pictures of the sun as it was setting.
We had a good cruise and I highly recommend doing this if you are coming down to Gulf Shores. Our boat was good, our captain's wife was very informative and we really did have a good time.
Once back from the cruise we had BLT sandwiches, fruit and lots of left overs. Right after dinner Becky started video taping our mom's stories. She first ran out of battery, then video tape but got to the point of both of their weddings. We must finish this tomorrow, we could hardly stand to quit. Sure hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day!

After the Lagoon

After our lagoon experience we all took naps either out on the beach, balcony or in the beds. Barbara and Becky took off for a run while we got ready to go out to eat at Wolf Bay Lodge. We stopped at a Dollar store on our way and found a bunch of bargains all 90% off and came out to the van with bag loads. We arrived for dinner and were early enough to eat outside on the dock. We were watching 4 kittens playing by the water so Diane told us all that we came to dinner and a movie. We are eating, and then watching cats. Our meals were good, mom highly recommends Wolf Bay Lodge for eating. She says they have the best fried oysters. Diane said her shrimp Alfredo was the best she had ever tasted. We listened in to the Peoria Church service on our way home and finished the service in the condo. Once the service was over Barbara and Becky got out their instruments and they played and we sang. Mom and Aunt Jinny were enjoying the music, in fact if you look close, we think they are sleeping. Barbara and Becky take their music serious in the picture below. We enjoyed singing along and listening to them.

The Lagoon

We left for the lagoon shortly after breakfast. We were able to watch heron's fighting over fish, a heron snatching a fish from a little boy's fishing pole, an osprey diving and catching a fish. The only problem with the lagoon is the biting flies. The weather is perfect and the gulf is still very warm.
mom and Aunt Jinnie getting ready to fish at the Lagoon.

Barbara catching our bait.

Diane, Aunt Jinnie and Becky watching the osprey fishing.

An osprey diving for a fish. It caught one but I couldn't get the picture of the bird carrying the fish, it headed over the lagoon the wrong direction.
Had to take this picture of the heron in flight.
coming in for landing!
Another of the many herons on the lagoon waiting for someone to catch a fish.
The fish the heron is eating is a croaker. It was croaking like crazy trying to get away.
This is the heron taking off with the fish before the other heron could get near to grab it.

Tuesday Continued

Last night before dinner the fishing was better. Beth kept the ladies supplied with poles with fresh bait. She also had to untangle line for them, take the fish off the hook had been swallowed and generally kept everyone else having a good time. Only about a hundred yards out a huge fish kept jumping out of the water. The splashes were loud and the fish or fishes must have jumped 20 times. A couple of times it turned toward shore and belly flopped like a whale beaching. A little later we saw something big and dark circling around the area. It didn't breach the water like a dolphin so we think it must have been a shark. No one got any pictures we were just watching shocked at what was happening. There were 3 or 4 cameras on the beach, we just didn't take our eyes off the commotion. We caught plenty for dinner and of course Beth had to clean AND cook them. Thank goodness for a fisher wife, the rest of us would not have eaten dinner without her, there was not much food left in the condo and we ladies are all so tight we weren't about to go BUY some!:o) We actually had enough fish there was left overs. After dinner we decided to give the mom's (those over 77) the works. We massaged them, combed their hair, washed their feet and while they were all so relaxed and eyes closed we stuck bright pink lipstick on their lips and cheeks along with a big flower in their hair. We also got Aunt Jinnie's toenails painted pink before mom caught on what was happening and the laughing broke loose. We took some pictures of our painted floozy's then let them remove the makeup. Too bad there was 2 of them to see each other if just one they wouldn't have known and left it on until looking in a mirror, of course that would only have happened if we could have controlled the laughter. Then it was time for our coffee and ice cream. We sat around the table until bedtime telling stories and laughing so hard our stomachs were sore. What a GREAT DAY

Fishing

This morning we ran out to watch the sunrise, then back in to make breakfast. We had 5 cooks in the kitchen, I only was able to snap 4 of them, one ducked out of sight. This is a very small kitchen and I was impressed with how coordinated everything ran.
After breakfast Becky, Beth and Barb went out to fish for our dinner. We told them we can only eat if they catch something. All three caught fish for dinner. Mom caught a small flounder we threw back, it was just too small to clean.
Becky was so serious about fishing.
What we didn't tell was how all of us are losing things in the condo. Mom lost her beach towel yesterday and Becky lost her sweatshirt this morning. We found the sweatshirt just not the towel. Mom and I read on the beach while the fishing was going on.
The fish stopped biting so Diane, Becky, Barb and I took off for the pier. It is a good hike to the pier and back but we saw an osprey carrying a fish over the gulf, then another osprey fishing. We needed to take naps after the long walk. Beth and Diane headed over to the pool to cool off and the Bossert's all went shopping. We are meeting back at 4:00 to try to catch more fish for dinner. So far it is going to be kind of a light meal.

Internet

It seems we can only get online after 1:00am. Really a bother! I had 64 emails sent to me and most of them are people wanting to sell horses, not buy.
We finished the ENTIRE condo just before 10:00am actually we made mom put down the paint can. Just as we sat down in the living room, the Meyer lady is at the door. The condo was MORE than acceptable and they were glad to sign it up. Mom does not need to upgrade or buy anything, she had everything they required plus.
The Meyer representative left around 10:45am which gave mom and I 15 minutes to get ready to go to the Pensacola airport to pick up Aunt Jinnie, Becky and Barbara. We pulled up at noon to the airport, parked the car, walked into the airport when mom's phone rang, it was Becky and they had just arrived and were waiting outside. We all went back inside to eat lunch in the air conditioning, it was way to hot to eat outside. Barbara's plane arrived on time at 1:30pm and we were back to the condo by 3:00pm. Beth and Diane had been swimming at the pool and told us the water was actually cooler than the gulf and very refreshing. by this time it is 93 degrees and the new comers wanted to swim in the gulf. They also couldn't get over how warm the water was. The waves were choppy, lots of wind last night. They weren't good for boogie boarding but fun to bob up and down in. Took a nice walk, then started our shower rotation to get ready to go to Sea and Suds. We decided to eat there out on their deck and watch the sunset. Below is Becky and Barbara enjoying the meal. We weren't quite done eating when the sun set so had to snap a few shots.

Once back to the condo we watched Aunt Jinnie's video she made of the reunion, then had to watch mom's video of feeding the fish by her mouth. Barbara hadn't seen it yet and had a good laugh. We stayed up and visited until what we thought was pretty late, probably 9:00pm! I took a call from California, a man that wants Sangria's colt. I still need to give the routing number to the man from Nashville. Anyway if the Nashville man does not end up buying him, the California man wants to.
Steven Marchal emailed to tell me that Kesha's mare is now out of season as of Sunday and our Alfalfa hay has been delivered, and the field cut.

The Rest of the Day

I'm typing this at 1:44am, we have just now got internet back so I can update yesterday. Weird that I am up, I must not have worked hard enough. We really didn't work at all. We listened in at the Peoria church, then decided to go out on the beach. The internet repair man was suppose to call about 30 minutes before he got to the condo so we took Diane's phone out onto the beach with us. The weather was bright sunshine and hot around 93 degrees. The water is warm like bath water so we were enjoying being in the water or out sunning. Around 1:30pm Diane looks at her phone and realizes we missed a call, she listens to it and it was the repair man. I took off for the condo to wait but when I get close, I see a mediacom truck waiting with the repair man getting BACK inside the truck. Do you know how hard it is to run in the sand? Run I did and made it. Turns out mediacom is having all kinds of trouble, there must be a cut in the line somewhere which is causing major signal leakage. After he left mom and I decided we had enough sun so read our books inside. "We're not hungry" was the cry so no lunch just would plan on an early dinner. Diane and Beth FINALLY came in off the beach with an incredible story. While they were in the gulf, about 20 feet from them a huge and they said "huge" big black thing came jumping out of the water toward them. They said it looked like a sting ray without the long tail. It was about 3 foot wide and very thick. A plane was going overhead at the same time it jumped and Beth thought something fell out of the plane. They are telling us this and I asked them "did you swim as fast as you could to the shore?" No they stayed in the water.
We had dinner at DeSoto's and it was delicious. Our meals with tax and tip came to about $16.00 each. Back home to the condo, Diane, Beth and mom played a game while I read. We ended up on the balcony looking at the bright moon and stars shining on the water. Diane decided to take a sleeping pill as she hasn't been sleeping well and went to bed around 8:30pm. Not too long after, she started violently vomiting. We don't know if it was the pill or food poisoning but none of the rest of us are sick. Poor Diane, hope she feels better in the morning.

A New Raven Son

Today I received an email from the lady that owns Xena. Xena had a colt, and I'm not home to check the records but I think he was born about 3 weeks early. Chris, the owner told me he is running around driving his mother crazy. She was a little concerned as the colt was silver but she was very happy with how beautiful he was. She will REALLY be happy when she finds out that silver is good, once the foal coat sheds out the color is blue black. I've attached the only picture she emailed me but she has promised to email better ones later.

Sunrise

This was our most beautiful sunrise so far. Sometimes seeing how beautiful God paints the sky for us mortals is very humbling. Mom and Beth went out fishing while Diane was working on the remote for the second bedroom's TV. Lots of little fish were biting but no big ones so they came in for breakfast and we will walk before listening in for church. Our breakfast conversation was a lot of remembrance on our dad and what an example he was to us and our children. On our walk we saw many dolphin today, their were lots of fish jumping out of the water, and the dolphin were having a field day. So mom and Beth went out fishing again and had better luck. They caught 5 nice fish but only kept 2, both of which swallowed the hook so would die anyway. Beth cleaned them, we will eat them a later date if they catch more.

Saturday Cleaning Schedule

This morning during our walk Beth pointed out some small fish troubling the surface of the gulf, there must have been some larger fish forcing them up. A little farther Beth sees a lone dolphin diving for fish not too far out. We were able to watch it hunt for quite a while as by the time we turned around and headed back to the condo it was going the same direction. After our walk we had some of our farm fresh brown scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, coffee cake with blackberry jam, fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee. Diane, Beth and mom took off to go garage saleing while I got on the phone with mediacom to try to get the internet back up. The girl helping me finally told me that she is going to have to send the technician out to find out why the signal is sometimes good but most of the time terrible. It was hard to start our scheduled cleaning. The sun was shining and the weather was hot and humid. We started work around 9:30 and didn't stop until almost 1:00pm. Diane made a very tasty sandwich spread out of avocado, vine ripened tomatoes, and vegetable dip, we put shaved turkey and fresh vegetables on a piece of wheat bread and it was a wonderfully satisfying lunch. After lunch Beth blew up the rafts and she and I headed out to the beach. Diane was finishing up cleaning the lamps and mom was trying to paint but each can she opened was all dried out so she used primer and will head back to walmart for more paint. Diane made it out to the beach about 20 minutes before mom and just as mom laid down on her raft the rain started. We hauled everything back to the condo and decided to go back to walmart for the paint, gray tape and a few other missing items. Just as they were all changed and ready to head down to the car the sun came out. The picture was taken standing on the balcony after the storm.
For dinner we had pizza, they bought just cheese pizza and we added all the vegies. mmmmm
can you tell we were enjoying it!

After dinner it was back to working. This is Diane cleaning the light chain.

I caught mom touching up the walls.

Our First Day

What a frustrating day for Diane and mom. The keys were suppose to be here by 11:30am but of course this is Alabama. Diane called Meyer Reality about changing the condo over and they emailed us all the information but our internet stopped working. Philip was called, but after going through the entire trouble shooting, he told us to call Mediacom. After calling them and on hold for what seemed like hours, they told us they couldn't fix it on line and would need to come out on Sunday. Then we found out that mom had dropped the modem. We all worked until 10:30, then Beth and I stayed to keep working while Diane and mom left for Meyer Reality, then to Prudential Cooper to cancel with them then to walmart to buy another modem. The new modem worked but it took calling Mediacom again and bypassing the wireless internet, hooking up to the cable. By this time it was after noon so Diane called her office to track our keys down with UPS. Of course UPS told us they couldn't find the condo and it was rescheduled for Sept. 28th. Why they didn't call us we can't figure out, they had 2 phone numbers, This was NOT acceptable so Diane got on the phone with them to find out if we could meet the truck or drive to where it was going to be stopping. We finally got word that we could drive up to Robertsdale 35 miles away to pick them up at 7:30pm. Diane, mom and Beth decided to leave after our great time on the beach around 5:00pm to drive up to Robertsdale for dinner then to the UPS store. I really didn't want to get back in the car so stayed home to clean the oven and post the pictures below. When they got home from Robertsdale I heard the rest of the story. The GPS didn't work, they pulled off the road to figure out where to go when they saw a UPS truck, they followed the truck to the facility, then when they ask for the package the lady tells them they will have to come back tomorrow. As Diane was arguing with them, a truck driver comes up with the package and says, "is this what you are looking for?" Of course it was the keys. They brought back soft serve ice cream with hot fudge for dessert. We really did have a good time.
Diane scrubbing out the closet.

The cleaning crew. We were able to get a lot done even without the owner closet keys.

Diane, Beth and mom heading out to the waves.

Diane, I thought this was a good close up.

Diane and Judy riding the waves.

Beth and mom riding the waves.

We had a great time, the water was wonderfully warm and the waves were fantastic, some of the rides in would take us up to the very end of the beach.

The First Night

Last night mom started taking stock of the condo and we must say mom is very disappointed. The condo is not as clean as it should be, the vacuum cleaner is gone, and it was a 2 year old nice hoover, mom's CD player/radio is gone, we go to turn on the lights in the living room and 2 of the lamps don't have light bulbs and the 3rd is burnt out. There is hardly enough light to read. The main bathroom's night light is missing, mom bought that one special and it looks like someone helped themselves to it. The kitchen has lost a lot of the useful supplies. There is a broken magazine rack in the living room, a beach chair in one of the kitchen cupboards, filled with sand and a pillow in the kitchen garbage. Beth was getting her bed ready, she shook out the sheets and a chunk of something falls out, have no idea what it is, looks like an old dried up cow patty but we are sure there are no cows here so maybe it is really an old piece of drift wood. We all settled down to sleep and can hear that the upstairs air conditioning unit is not cycling correctly. I'm sure we will get used to the noise, it isn't loud and it will fade into the background. We got on the internet and started looking up rental companies, called each one and the only one that we could actually talk to a real person was Meyer Reality so we made an appointment to check into their rental policies. It is time for a change!
My morning is going GREAT, I brought coffee with me so even though we can't get into the owner's closet, I'm typing this with my first cup of fragrant, strong, coffee. It looks like we are going to have wonderful weather while we are down here, it is hot and humid right now but bright twinkling stars are out with only a few fluffy clouds obscuring the moonlight.

Made It

What an easy trip, we made it to mom's condo by 6:40pm and that included an extra stop to pick up a set of keys to get in. Mom realized around 1:00pm that she forgot to bring the condo keys. We called about everyone we could think of to try to get them overnighted to the condo so we can get into the owners closet. Without those keys we can't even clean the place and that was one of the reasons we are on this trip. We finally were able to reach Rhoda, she drove out to grandma's then to Mike and Diane's office to get them packaged and addressed, then to Bartonville to pop them in the overnight bin. We really can't count on getting them tomorrow even though they are guaranteed to arrive by 11:30am, after all, this is Alabama and Alabama time is not like ANY other time.
Once we unloaded the bags, we walked to Bahama Bob's for dinner. Beth & I shared a Bahama Bob burger and Mom & Diane shared a mahi mahi fish sandwich. Both were delicious and filling. This condo is such a great location.
Steven emailed that Kesha's mare was covered again and that Izadora is getting close to delivery. Hope she waits until we get home. All else seems to be going fine at home. Once back at the condo we worked on getting the internet hooked up, It does look like Royal is sold, another man from Nashville, TN is going to wire me the deposit tomorrow.

Alabama or Bust

We do not have a working alarm clock so I told my mind, must wake up by 4:00am this morning. At 3:55am my eyes pop open, look at the clock and jump out of bed. I'm very discreetly trying to get dressed in the dark when I hear Mark say, it's 4:00am, you need to get up. He had no idea I was already out of bed. Beside not having an alarm we have no radio and no television, but we do get the paper. Mark was working last night on something he ordered to help him get TV from the internet so by the time we get back from Gulf Shores, we should be able to watch the news. It's been kind of nice not knowing the state of the country, we hear by word of mouth that people are MAD!
Packing the cooler was the first on the list. We wanted to take down our farm fresh eggs, so the first carton I pull out of the fridge is one that holds 18 eggs and I promptly drop it and break 10 eggs. Darcy will be lucky this morning, I scooped them up and put them in her pan. Anyone that has tried to get slimy raw eggs off a tile floor realizes how slippery the tile gets and this spot is right in front of the fridge. Thought about leaving the mess for the girls (yeah right). Get the cooler packed and outside and I go to put my bag of books on the stoop and they drop off and spill out into the grass. I'm just all fumble fingers this morning. I realize I forgot to pack my hat but it is upstairs and I don't want to wake up Mark again so I'll just borrow one from down south. Mom has a few in her owners closet. I just looked in the mirror and I have to do something with my hair or they won't let me in the van. I washed it last night, combed it out but went to bed with it wet and now I look like a witch. The hair is sticking straight out. The good thing right now is that I'm on my second cup of coffee, soon I'll not be so clumsy so I'll try to run a brush through it and clip it back. OK Alabama, Ready or NOT, here we come!

Pregnancy?

Paris pictured above was covered on March 26th, 2009 and Bunni pictured below was only covered once on May 22nd 2009. We did not check either mare for pregnancy as both are used heavily for beginner riders. We actually hoped neither mare would be in foal. The day Bunni was bred, Raven had already covered 2 mares. Both mares are putting on weight and looking pregnant. When Mike looked at Bunni today he actually stated, "we have 30 horses and I can't keep enough riding horses because they keep having foals! Next year we are NOT breeding the walkers or Paris." I really didn't think either mare settled but they are both putting on weight. Below is Bunni with her first colt, Onyx who is now in Canada.

The Trip

This morning there is a board down in the front of the paddock by the office. Sanna, Samantha and Ylse are all in that paddock with their foals. Sanna and Samantha eating on the old bale with Ylse reaching over the fence to the new corner bale. Both fillies were lying down together. I don't think any of them will try to climb over so hopefully it can be left until this weekend when I'll ask Mark to put it back up, I just don't have time today. Jenis did not need to be taken out to grain, just put a feeder on the fence in front and fed her. Neither Izadora or Lily would dream of confronting Jenis for the grain. We are leaving at 5:00am tomorrow for Gulf Shores so I'll be out of touch for at least a day. Once in the condo we have internet and I will bring a laptop to check emails.
I'll ask Steven Marchal if he will keep an eye on things while we are gone. He put 3 new bales in yesterday. This morning Mike pulls up on his new motorcycle and asked who moved in the bales. Steven came out this morning, temporarily put up the downed rail, then checked Kesha's mare from Tennessee. She is showing today and Steven had Raven cover her. I've emailed her owner to let her know. Royal may be sold, a man from Seattle Washington called yesterday and told me he is sending the deposit. I'm not marking him sold until it comes, I've been promised deposits before and somehow they just get 'lost in the mail'. I dropped his price to $5000.00 and had 3 people contact me about him. As we are leaving for 10 days, I won't be able to mark him sold until I get back even if the deposit shows up.