Mama’s travels, rain, Kudos to Becky

Mama left Amarillo about 9:30 a.m. yesterday on her way to Newark, NJ. She made it as far as St. Louis, MO. The plane was delayed for several hours due to weather in Newark until finally the flight was cancelled altogether. After several frantic phone calls she opted for an overnight stay at a hotel near the airport. It was not at all in our financial plans to include that in her trip but what can you do? I will pull the money from somewhere to make it work. At least she does not have to worry about Chase coming in rush hour traffic to pick her up.


She and I talked early this morning and the flight is delayed until some time around 9 a.m. I have no idea if she will make it there today or not. The tropical storm southeast of the area seems to have stirred up some severe weather patterns and the multiple flight delays resulting from that has made Newark International overcrowded with flights. The pilot dispatching the bad news upon Mama’s arrival to St. Louis yesterday afternoon said that Newark was experiencing a traffic jam of their own. Hopefully she will get to New Jersey today – early; but at this point we have no promise of that.

After praying for rain at the farm I checked the weather report for the area and saw that over two inches of rain fell on Monday night and another ½ inch fell last night. I think it is safe to say that Grandpa will not have to water the garden for a couple days. The bad part of the forecast is the predicted winds. For the next couple days the sustained winds are supposed to be thirty miles per hour. That tends to dry things out pretty quickly.

It seems we go from dry to soaked but I guess that is the normal weather patterns for the area. If we can get the moisture to soak down deeply enough that the grasses we have planted in the meadow can sustain themselves through the dry periods we should have a good cash crop in the spring of next year. This year we will have to settle for one cutting late in the year, but it is better than nothing and significantly more than when we started our meadow projects. It will be some income from what has become a very demanding financial project.

Yesterday afternoon while Mama was waiting on delayed flights Becky took her final test to become certified as an EMT. The test yesterday was the National Certification Test. She got off to a rough start because as she and Charles were leaving to go to the test center she could not find her wallet. She needed her license as an ID for entry into the testing center. It must have worked out because she called me several hours later to report that at question 75 the electronic testing machine cut her off. She still had over an hour left of testing time so she is unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I think it was a good thing, but we will know tomorrow or Friday.

She already has two job offers from different ambulance services, so she is excited and nervous about the test result. In the brief moment Charles and I spoke he tried to take credit for her success by explaining that he made sure she studied hard, but I think the lion’s share of the credit must go to Becky – even if Charles did help some. After all, she is the one who while working two part time jobs completed the course of study with a high enough composite GPA to make the dean’ list. Kudos to you, Becky.

I am planning on going to Bowie tomorrow afternoon. That remains to be seen. I have things I really need to do in the office there, but I have a few things to finalize here also.

I have always thought that as I slowed down, life would also. It is not working out that way but maybe I am not really at a slow part yet.