Halted preparations, slow moving, more antiques?

When I got to the farm yesterday afternoon Grandpa was disking the meadow for the second time in hopes of putting seed in the ground today. Last night I work up to the sound of thunder and its accompanying downpours. Obviously, I have not been to the farm today but if the water on the ground at the rental home is any indication of how much could be in the fields there, we are on hold yet again.


After years of drought conditions in the state it is nice to see the rains come but at this point we are well above the normal rainfall for the area. It would be nothing but an unquestioned blessing was it not for the fact that we are trying to get some seed in the ground. As it stands, it is still a blessing, just an inconvenience in the timing. We know God is still working things out for our good; it is just a little difficult to see at the moment.

I did manage to get the full cover over the log kit yesterday so less rain got on it than normally would have. I did most of the work on Sunday afternoon but I ran out of roofing nails. The supply I needed was locked up in the shop on the farm and the keys always reside with Grandpa. It was unlocked yesterday so I put up the last small pieces of tin roofing I had already cut to size. I hope it lasts until we get to assemble the logs into our home: sometimes that dream looks very far away.

Grandma is in full swing with the move to the farm. We will not be able to complete the move until all the utilities are hooked up but she is packing and carting to the mobile home things that will need to go with her but are not necessary for living in either space – books, pictures, knick knacks, etc. At least some of her stuff will already be in place when the move is fully underway.

She was most excited about a large picture we found in the farm house. It is a fall scene of a creek in a wooded hollow. It is a copy of a picture she had on her farm when the house was all but destroyed in a flood – sometime when Mama was in High School. She lost that picture in the flood. Now she has it back. It is not necessarily a great picture. It is pleasant enough, but for her it is a little miracle. Who am I to argue?

The electric company is supposed to meet us at the farm tomorrow afternoon to access our needs for service. Grandpa and I were going to tie into the meter already in service to the farm house but it is not sized properly for the wire we purchased for the mobile home, besides, it would have not been up to code. So we are expecting a new meter base to be installed – hopefully on the existing pole. I hope they do not set another pole. Anywhere they choose to put it will be inconvenient for us.

Our neighbor came over yesterday evening to check in with us and in the lengthy conversation with Grandma offered us some old metal chairs she had behind one of her buildings, so we drove over to get them. They were the old bent metal lawn chairs that take up more space to store than they are worth, but, once again, Grandma was ecstatic to get them – and for free. After loading the six of them into the truck bed I understood how great an invention folding chairs must have seemed to owners of the heavy, bulky outdoor furniture. There is already talk of having them sandblasted and repainted but I do not know how far that will go.

There is also a glider in the set that will need some repair and Grandma somehow busted her finger trying to carry it from the truck to the sitting area we are getting ready for summer. All in all, it could be a fun project to restore the antiques. They would look good on the porch of the farm house once we have it ready for such things.

Maggie and I talked yesterday and she told me she was helping Grand get ready for church on Easter Sunday morning. After he had on his coat and tie he told Maggie “you know who I look like? I look like Papi.”

Quite a complement.