Snakes, other projects, Mama’s recovery

As Mama went to gather eggs yesterday morning she found another snake in one of the nests. Fortunately she was not bitten, especially since this snake was a young copperhead. I was very surprised to hear that it had crawled up into the nesting boxes. I will have to see if there is any way we can prevent that in the future.

Mama is on high alert since the recent snake bite of one of our friends. The man is fully recovered but he went through a lot to get to the point of recovery: several days in ICU and an enormous amount of pain. He was bitten on the hand by a Water Moccasin.

Grandpa has now cut and raked the meadows. The upper meadow still looks pretty thin. It will take a lot of work and fertilizer to get it to produce. We will have to determine whether or not it is worth the expense. The big meadow looks much better than last time we cut but it is still pretty sparse. I expect we will get fifty to sixty bales total and we will praise the Lord for those because they are very high quality. But we will keep praying for more.

We should be picking the bales up tonight or tomorrow afternoon depending on how aggressive Grandpa is in getting it baled. Either way, it needs to be gathered before Saturday when we are forecast to have several thunderstorms. We do not want the little supply we have of hay to get wet. It is one of those pressing, unavoidable matters that will take me away from the construction for a half day; life on the farm.

Mid-recovery has Mama a little discouraged. Her knee is not giving her much pain – unless she moves wrong – so she feels like she should be able to more than she really can. She does not want to admit it but we are looking at the end of August before she is able to really begin using the knee fully and it will be year-end before all is back to what God originally intended. Her biggest disappointment is not being able to work outside. She is not a person who likes to be cooped up and she is running out of the emotional energy required to be cooped up in the present company. Soon I will have her painting the apartment, but not yet.

The garden is in need of tending and I have not been very attentive to it, neither has Grandpa. Both of us have had time consuming projects of late and Mama is watching from the couch as it slowly gets away from us. That really bothers her. I will have to spend some time this weekend getting the potatoes out of the ground and planting another several rows of corn. I will even try and put my heart into it.

I am taking off tomorrow. I have run out of materials in the apartment and have completed all the little projects I can without a fresh material supply. Tomorrow I get paid and will be able to move forward again. I do not need much to finish but it is at one of those obvious points in the completion where the lack of completion is painfully obvious.

At least it is to me.