Horse hoves and fingernail polish!

It was a long awaited and MUCH needed day for the ferrier(person whose occupation is trimming horses hooves) to come. We use an Amish man down the road. Now Amish you may know do not drive cars. It is a bit unreasonable for them to jump into their buggy to cut some hooves for $15 a piece. A decent price but not so decent for him if it took him 45 minutes to get here. Us with not mode of transportation for our four legged friends. How do you suppose we get this done? Well apparently it is only wrong to drive a car not ride in one. So Ryan has been a willing taxi on the many trips to take Jesse back and forth every couple months or so. Though not without a cost to Jesse. Ryan doesn't require money but he is relentless when it come to conversation(the salesman in him). So he has no problem questioning the mans morals in getting into a vehicle or where he came from or why they don't wear deorderant(ok he never actually asked this one but it would not surprise me). One time Jesse's dear wife decided to join him on a trip out to our farm. Much to Ryan's surprise this lady jumped into his car barefooted and ready to head to the barn for some hoof trimming. Her feet made my barn boots look clean!

Anyways I digress. You may wonder why the picture of a sleeping child on the kitchen floor? Like I said it was hoof trimming day! My job for this task holding the wild 4 foot tall beasts to be given their pedicure. It is about 5:30pm and though the day had been sunny with highs in the 30's as the sun started to set the temprature started to fall. I, standing there with my gloves fit for -20 could not help but be concerned for Jesse. Bare handed trimming away. He didn't seemed phased. "OK that'll do 'em" Jesse proclaimed as he finished up with Lily a very impatient participant. You would think that no female on earth would put up a fuss with someone pampering them but she is only a yearling and I have time to fill her in :).

"Thanks alot and have a nice night". "You too". Then Ryan and Jesse jumped back into our SUV and headed out. I put the horses up, fed and watered them and headed in to warm up. Walking into the house, ahhh the overwhelming warmth. 67 degrees feels like 90 when you have been standing in the blistering cold for 45 minutes. Along with the warmth came a faint smell of fingernail polish. I didn't think to hard about it. I went in to look for the girls to see what they were up to and to see if Elaina had finished her English school work I had left her to when I went outside. The good news is her work was done. On the down side I found 3 blissfully happy little girls with 5 open bottles of fingernail polish on my bathroom floor. Elaina with brush in hand looked up with a questioning face, as if to say, will she be proud of the fact that I am pampering my little sisters and the fact that I thought to put down a magazine before painting, OR be angry that I am doing this all together. Considering that it is a well known fact to not be into the nail polish without Mommy.

Well you may not be surprised to know I went with angry. I was very frustrated that they had been disobedient. Especially considering Daddy's Bible lesson just that morning on Proverbs 1 "My son if sinners entice thee, consent thou not". I, obviously upset, thought it better that they wait it out until Daddy got back to deal with it. So I sat the girls on the kitchen floor in there seperate places while I worked on dinner. While making dinner I couldn't help but chuckle though at the irony of it all. Me outside with the horses getting their mani/pedi's and the girls inside doing the same....hehe...under my breath of course. (You cannot show weakness when it comes to dicsipline, so all the parenting books say.) It was about 15 minutes later Ryan returned and I told him of the pedicure party our girls put on while we were outside. We went to look at Kelcie and couldn't help but noticing her motionless body in a seemingly uncomfortable position on the floor. Now I don't know if this was a tactic to get out of the inevitable spanking that was about to occur. Or that if you force a very busy 3 year old to be still for more than five minutes you risk the fact that she may give into her tired body.

Well the evening proceed. The two older girls recieved their punishment with a small amount of drama. Daddy giving them a lecture on not consenting to sinners ;). I finished dinner and Kelcie napped on the kitchen floor (that is in need of a good cleaning). We did wake her when dinner was done and we finished the evening with a nice match of connect four! Alls well that ends well!

If you look closely at the picture at the top of the page, under Kelcie's hair you can catch a glimpse of a hot pink fingernail!