Winter, sickness, party, church

Saturday was spent winterizing the well house and the chicken coop. It turned out to be a good thing we took the time to do all of the insulating and wrapping of pipes and the well tank. The temperature dropped to 28 degrees over night and we had a dusting of snow on the ground when I went out this morning. It was in the forecast but we never know what parts of the forecast will actually happen. This time they were right. Tonight is predicted to be 17 degrees.


Grandpa and I finished all that work pretty early so we laid out an electric fence across the upper meadow in order to let the bigger calves graze on the alfalfa and coastal that managed to grow through the drought. I am not sure if the fence charger that Grandpa has is working but they are cheap to buy new and it will be a good use of what we have to offer the growing heard.

Only late in the day on Saturday did I build a wall for the shop. It is better in this area to have the wood in place than to have it lay around. The sun here is brutal enough but the wind accelerates the drying process in a maddening way. So rather than let the boards warp and bow, I nailed them together and stood them into a twelve foot high wall. It looked pretty good when I got it done. I had to build it to fit the bracing on the steel pipe structure of the building and it took two tries to get it in place, but it is there now and hopefully will remain in place for a long time to come.

Grandpa is stressing over the calves. We seem to be fighting a respiratory infection among the little ones and all the remedies we have tried have had little to no benefit. We have lost two baby calves so far (in total – not recently) and none seem near death at the moment, but the condition appears to bring them down pretty fast. Pray for him to have the wisdom to pull us through this bout of sickness and for his physical strength to keep up the vigil.

On Friday night Mama and I went to the office Christmas Party. It was okay until about 9 pm. Then the alcohol kicked in and the karaoke got a little out of hand. It started off with the oldies, Crocodile Rock, Peggy Sue, and the like. Then it migrated to Eminem. Mama and I left when that change took place. We did win a Kindle Fire in one of the drawings. We were able to trade it for a KitchenAid Mixer. It had been won by one of my direct reports but she had traded it for a tool set. Another of my direct reports had made the swap and when she learned that we were interested in getting it they made the offer to exchange gifts. They have a seven year old boy that will be very happy on Christmas morning.

Every Sunday God seems to reinforce the fact that we are in the right church. I was telling the Pastor yesterday that the pastor from one of the bigger churches in Bowie came to visit Grandma and Grandpa. While he and his wife were there he asked Mama if she had a good church. She told him we were going to Immanuel Baptist Church in Decatur. “Decatur”, he almost choked. “That’s a long way to go just for church. You passed up a lot of good churches on that drive.” Mama just smiled.