Trip to the Farm with Clydesdales

Tina loves horses. She tends to attract people that love horses too. Her farrier (the guy that takes care of the horses feet/shoes) is a pretty cool man. He is extremely knowledgeable, hardworking and unique. I say unique because he owns big horses, and a lot of them. Todd the farrier, has the big Budweiser type of horse but bigger. He has a great set up where he drives the horses with carriages, huge trailers, and even sleighs in the winter.

These horses are part of the draft breed, called Pertron. Please forgive me horse lovers out there, I am not too knowledgable when it comes to horses. I think the big draft horses are called Petron, Clydesdales and Belgiums.

Every once in awhile, Todd the farrier has to take a break and get out of dodge. Well that is where my wife comes in. Tina is so sweet that she volunteers as a "barn hand" to go feed these things twice a day while Todd is out of town. I enjoy going out there and helping her. I have never been one to shy away from good old fashioned thing called work. These pictures are not great but are just a couple from one of the 10 visits to the barn.

Picture of Tina sitting on a hay bail in one of the two barns.

This horse is so cool. It is black with one brown eye and one blue eye. In this picture it only has two red eyes. Probably the sweetest horse in the barn.

This white horse was something. His/Her name is Spider. Spider was a little concerned that this stranger was taking its picture. The first picture I took (below) spooked him a little bit because of the flash. The second picture that I took ended my fun with the camera. The horse went from this position (gulping water) to all fours off the ground spooked out of its mind to sprinting down the aisle toward me. After I changed my pants, we finished feeding the horses and called it a memory.

To Everything There is a Season

I love FALL. The cool crisp air, the intense colors everywhere, the finally green plush grass that you wanted all summer long, the desire to eat a johnny gold, wear long sleeves, snuggle up with a warm cup of hot chocolate.
Today I worked from home. I realized that at 5:20 the day was over. I finally peeled myself out of my chair and looked outside. The first thing I saw when I looked outside was a brilliant fiery red maple tree with the sun shining down as if all of its remaining rays were focused on that tree alone. I grabbed the camera and took a few shots as I strolled down the driveway to grab the mail. These photos in this post are some of my afternoon fun. Interestingly enough the picture does no justice to the way it actually looked. Maybe it is the camera.


That is one great thing about living in the Midwest. I speak with people everyday that are not in my geographical setting. Whether it is California where you get the same old 85 and sunny for 12 months straight or North Carolina where you get hot and not hot. Here in OHIO we truly have 4 seasons. Summer, Spring and Fall are crammed into 5 or 6 months and the remaining 6 or 7 months is what we call in Ohio winter. Winter is right around the corner. Before I let out a big sigh and bundle up for the next several months and have to here people complain about the grey sky state I am going to sit back and enjoy my apple cider one last time. Another great thing in fall are the Clam Bakes. Chewy delights, baked potatoes, crab legs, smoked chicken oh so good. I hope that we can truly enjoy the season we have been given in our life.


Ecclesiastes 3: 1; To everything there is a SEASON, A time for every purpose under heaven:

The Grella Family

This is our first post of our new family blog. I have a blog that I started to experiment with and it has turned out to be pretty successful. Part of what I have to do is to separate my professional postings and information from my personal information. Experts say that is what I have to do in order to make myself more credible.

Our Pastor and his wife (Will & Maria Lohnes) are celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary today. Tina and I are looking at each other in amazement. 21 years? We barely thought we would make it through the first 21 months. We pray that our marriage will be as strong and we will remain as happy as they are after that amount of time. Speaking of being married a long time...my mom and dad have been married just under 40 years (38 actually). Not quite sure why this is our first big post on our personal blog. Moving along...

I wanted to create this blog for our family and personal friends that want to know what is going on in our lives (sorry, only the good stuff). Long lost friends that say, "what has been going on with you?" This blog answers that question. With the craze of social media I am seeing that a lot of conversation with the mouth is going away. More typing and texting. I have been a recruiter for about 6 years now and the industry has changed for sure. A couple of years ago I would pick up the phone, smile, then dial. Today I usually shoot an email off to "gauge the interest" and then through email, schedule a time in my outlook and then talk. That is also after we had connected through linked in, became friends on facebook and exchanged handles on twitter. Oh yeah, that's right, this is a personal not recruiting blog. Sorry.

Quick update: Tina and I have been trying to conceive children for about 2 years now. We just unsuccessfully completed a second round of IVF and two rounds of IUIs. We are stuck at a spot where we don't know where to turn. Another round of IVF? Is it adoption? How about a foster baby? Time will tell as God has his plans for us.

That is it for now. We will plan on "posting" the world frequently with pictures, updates, and funny stories. We will undoubtedly talk about our oversize animals (horse, 2 great danes and our cat), our kids and fun ventures.