Mama’s search, animal news, boy are we hot

As many of you know, Mama has been very reluctant to use the computer for anything. She will not type a word document, compose or read email, watch a movie online or search a question. Well, yesterday that began to change. She actually did a search all on her own. To beat it all, the subject of her search was political in nature. She wanted to know if a certain person running for local office had won their runoff race. She never did get the answer she was looking for but she did try. By the way, he did win.


I hope anyone who comes to visit us on the farm likes dogs. They at least, must be tolerant of them. Every morning as I am leaving and every evening as I arrive home, I walk the gauntlet of dogs. They are up all night barking at everything that catches their attention. Honestly, it does not bother me. For some reason I do not seem to hear it even though they may be right outside our window.

Samson is especially bad about having to make contact with the hands of anyone he approaches. It would not be so bad if the point of contact was not his wet nose, but he seems to need to plaster everyone’s palm with snot and slobbers before he is satisfied the recipient has passed muster. His height facilitates the entire exercise. I am not sure how the grandkids are going to react at first. By the time their visit is over, it will have become a welcome routine.

Speaking of their visit, I am being asked to travel to Denver for a training team meeting on the 28th and 29th of August. As much as I feel that I need to go, I will not be available. Nate, Cori and the kids will be at the farm that week. I can catch up to work some other time. I have to admit I did seriously consider making the meeting because I need the contact and the information exchange early on to get a good start on my new assignments, but I may be able to attend remotely. At any rate, I will get it all worked out. I have plenty of help.

Mama had a line on a person to come and take the two older horses but she and Victoria were out to lunch when he called so she missed the opportunity to have him come and look at the animals. I would like to have them off the farm sooner rather than later, but I will trust God’s timing. There is no danger in keeping them, nor is it particularly inconvenient. I just see a benefit in reducing our herd. I would rather be feeding the hay to some cattle, but it is a small matter.

Record heat has taken over the area but if you look at this week compared to last year, we are actually cooler by a few degrees. Cooler is probably not the right word, perhaps, not as hot would be more appropriate.

The heat we are experiencing here is not unique to the area. The oppressive heat is being felt by much of the nation. Grandpa and Norman are working in temperatures of over 100 degrees in West Virginia. We will be over 100 degrees through the remainder of this week and on through the weekend. I have some outside work planned but it will have to be done in the early morning and abandoned by noon. There is work I can do inside the house or the mobile home when the outside temperatures move past the 100 degree mark.

The poor dogs are suffering in the heat, but they dig in somewhere and lie still through the afternoon. The relative cool of the night is their only really active time. If anyone goes anywhere on the farm during the day they rouse themselves and go along, but they retreat to the shade as soon as that person gets back inside.

The donkeys seem unaffected by the heat. They may seek some shade at certain parts of the day, but for the most part they are out grazing through out the day – even in the heat of the afternoon. The horses do look for shade but it is their nature to eat constantly so they do not stay still for long. The poor chickens are enduring the heat and still laying eggs for us, but it is obvious that it is causing them in stress.

All in all, we wish we were at the beach, but the farm will have to do for now.