Updates

I took Friday off so I could fix the truck and the hot water heater and I did try to do both but I only managed to get the truck moderately repaired. I did replace the part that seemed to be causing the issue but it did not seem to completely fix the problem. I still have some more trouble shooting to do but at least it is drivable.

On the hot water heater, I got everything ready and I even bought a socket to remove the bad heating element but I did not know that what I needed was deep well socket. I took the heater out of service anyway to look things over and discovered a leak at the well where the lower socket is inserted into the tank. That is the reason the breaker keeps tripping out. We have decided to get a new hot water heater and repurpose this one into feeding troughs by removing the steel tank and cutting it lengthwise in two pieces.

Later on Friday afternoon Mama noticed that one of the steers was limping pretty badly. When we got the chance to look closely it was clear that his lower leg was pretty swollen. He was able to walk but he obviously did not want to put his full weight on it. We had to separate him from the others in order to keep him moderately contained. The last thing we want is for him to end up out in the field, unable to get up. He would become coyote feed before too long in that situation.

We ended up having to re-separate him late Saturday night from the others after I left a gate open when I came back through the gate with the tractor late Saturday afternoon. I had finished brush hogging the upper field and I forgot to close the gate behind me. Mama and I noticed it when we were getting ready to head out to have dinner with the seniors of the church so there was no time to redo what I had undone in my distraction.

We went to a café called “Shinola’s” in Springtown for our group dinner. Mama and I will probably go back sometime. It was good food at a great price and the atmosphere was uniquely Texas. Mama really enjoyed it. She asked one person for their leftover potato so she would have it to give to the big dogs and she ended with two to-go boxes loaded with leftovers. Everyone had a great time overloading her and teasing her in the process. I told them we could make some great potato soup out of what we had gathered.

Sunday we went to the house of some friends at church; the Wycoff family. They are recently returned from Mexico having left the area where they had started a church due to the drug gang activity in that area. By reports from the local authorities, there are four to six murders per day in the city where they were serving. It is a sad time for Mexico. They recently bought a place just a few miles outside of Rhome, TX and we stayed the afternoon at their house eating lunch and visiting.

We had a good time getting to know them.

 

Family, work ahead, relief

Last night was a good night. Of course we did not get to do anything at the farm since it was a church night but just the fact that we made it to church with our missionaries in tow – and with Victoria also – made it a pretty good night to begin with. We had a great service. As tired as I usually am on Wednesday night it is always good to be with family. Last night was no exception.

I am taking tomorrow off so that I can make the repairs I have waiting on me at the farm. I have to replace the heating elements in the hot water heater in the mobile home. Victoria has been without hot water for most of the week now. I am hoping it is only a matter of replacing the element and not the entire water heater. Either is a bother but the element is far less expensive that the entire heater.

The repair Mama is most anxious about is the repair I have to make to the little truck. It has been idle for about two weeks now which leaves her without a vehicle; not that she has any desire to go anywhere most days, it just feels better to have the option to go if she wanted to. I have ordered the part and expect it to be arriving today or tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting back to driving the little truck. As old and ratty as it is it still gives me the ability to shop for items I would never try to carry in the Flex.

Mama’s eyes were a little red last night, not to the point that they had been recently but red enough that I am glad to be doing the feeding of the hay to the horses and cattle for the next several days. She has been on the tractor brush hogging the last of the pastures also and we are not sure if that contributed to the new puffiness, but I can take over that as well – after the repairs are done.

We are starting to see some life in the fields and in the yard near the house and shop; enough so that I will have to buy a lawn mower to get us started this spring. Mama and Grandpa are still hoping we can get a zero turn mower as our primary lawn care machine but we will always need a smaller mower to do some areas – unless I want to do them all with a weed eater. That is something else I need to buy since all the weed eaters were taken to West Virginia. The “needs” list is growing ever longer as spring approaches.

I did get some good news on the financial front. When I checked my bank account I saw a deduction for the income tax debt we have been paying on for almost two years that was not the typical amount. It was smaller by about twenty dollars which led me to believe that it could have been the final payment for that debt. I called and after almost forty minutes on hold I was assured that it had indeed been the final payment.

Hallelujah!

Looking things over, looking ahead

Yesterday was beautiful and the evening after I got home was a continuation of that beautiful day. When I got home I changed and went out to the garden to spread out the manure we had put there last Saturday and Mama got back on the tractor and brush hogged more of the pasture Grandpa had left for her to do. What she had already done looked very good. What I did looked like a wreck but there is not a good way that I know of to make spread manure look nice.

When she was finishing up for the evening I had her drive us down by the big pond so I could see how much water was in it. It is probably as low as I have ever seen it, but there is still water in it. I guess it is about six feet deep at its deepest channel but what water is there is barely sufficient to provide space for many fish; although the turtles seem to like it very much.

We then drove through the meadow to see how the winter wheat was faring. It looks like it will finally be taking off. There is a lot of green starting to show in the areas where Grandpa over seeded the wheat. It will be several more weeks before the coastal will start to show signs of life. That grass requires a ground temperature of 70®F or more before it will come out of its dormancy. Right now the ground has retained some water below the surface but it will not be many more weeks before it will be as dry as the surface.

We really need more rain but there is not much promise of it according to all the predictive models the weather people are putting forth. The Lord is still in control but I have talked to Mama about holding off for another year before I try to get an orchard started again. Losing every fruit tree we planted in the last two year has not been the most encouraging experiment I have ever participated in.

Anticipating the spring and hoping for the best, I pruned back the grape vines we have nurtured for the past three years. I have no idea if they are dormant or dead but I can at least give them the best chance to succeed if there is still some life in the roots. The two peach trees I pruned back last night are probably lost causes but it did not take much time to get them ready in case there is still life in them also.

Fortunately, all the animals (Mama’s babies) are doing well. She has her chicken order almost ready and it looks like we are going to get about twenty new little ones. I did have the conversation with her that I do not want to feed and house forty chickens so at least twenty of the forty will have to get repurposed. She will have to decide who gets put in the freezer and who stays in the coop.

She is not looking forward to those decisions but it will have to be done.

Chickens, light work, interviews

When I got home yesterday evening I got Mama and we went back to Bowie to get feed. It is amazing how much the chickens consume based on their body size. I realize we feed the cows mostly hay so I do not have to purchase feed too often for them. Mama uses it as a treat for them, but the chickens eat about six bags of feed per month. It would be cheaper to buy eggs – but that would be no fun at all.

While we were in the feed store Mama got with the store manager who has become a friend and they talked about the chickens Mama wants to order. Mama has been looking at a catalogue from a hatchery but the feed store can order the same chicks for us at about the same price any time we are ready. That would facilitate the delivery of the chicks to us so I am guessing that is the way the two of them worked it out. It is becoming a spring time tradition on the farm to get a new brood of chickens.

Buying the chicks is cheaper than buying an incubator but I think hatching our own would be fun. The problem with hatching your own is that you have no choice in the sex of the birds. When they are purchased from a hatchery you can be fairly certain that the birds have been sexed so that the males and females can be sold separately. In the batch we bought last year only one of the 18 we bought as pullets turned out to be a rooster. He is now top cock in the coop.

It is perfect timing to get the little ones now since the brunt of the cold is passed. If we do get the chicks – or rather, when – it will delay my timing of removing the windows I have on the coop for winter. Those windows keep the coop very warm in the late mornings through the afternoon; maybe too warm for the adult birds but perfect for the baby ones.

I did not do much of anything when I got home after our stop at the feed store. It was pretty late – daylight wise – to start anything outside so I sat down and worked the song list for next week’s services. I like to get it to the instrumentalists by Tuesday so they can look it over and catch any problems with the selections. There are some songs I have chosen that they have not known and there are several I have picked that the congregation has not known, but we work it out. I am enjoying leading the singing.

At the office yesterday I interviewed another candidate for the open position I have within my group. She was definitely the top candidate for the position. I have one more interview to conduct – next Monday and after that interview we will make a selection. But as far as a good fit for the position and a good fit within my group this last one was the best fit by far. It is always a good thing to have to choose between better and best, but that has not usually been the case in the interviews I have done while in this position.

One particular candidate last week, although she was a very strong candidate and interviewed well, left me feeling uneasy should she be the one that turned out to be the best choice when all the interviews were concluded. I could not quite put my finger on the problem but having another strong candidate was a relief.

One of the joys of being a supervisor.

The weekend

This was a great weekend. The weather could not have been better. I spent the morning changing the oil in the Flex. Even though I do not particularly enjoy that type of work it was at least made tolerable because of the weather. Mama, Victoria and I took a couple hours to clean out the barn area where we give hay and grain to our little herd. Even that was enjoyable.

What was hard to believe was that we still got six bucket loads of manure from the area. The last time we cleaned the feeding area it had been over six months since we had tackled the chore. This time it was only three weeks later – and we still got the same amount of waste. My hope is that this time it will be more easily spread out over the garden area since it is less compacted. That remains to be seen. The south wind that picked up later that morning carrying that wonderful aroma from the garden reminding us of our time in Amarillo.

Saturday evening Mama and I got to go to the Valentine’s Dinner at church. Besides the pastor and his wife we were the oldest couple there. The cut off age for attending the dinner was 54 years old. If one of the spouses was under that age the couple could attend. It works out perfectly that my age qualifies us for the senior citizens functions and Mama’s age qualifies us to the not so senior group.

Victoria was there as a server along with several other singles and the teens but after the dinner was served she got to hold an infant for the remainder of the time. She enjoyed the evening thoroughly and the parents of the little one did also. The mother was worried about taking advantage of Victoria but I assured her that was not the case.

Sunday afternoon the parents of Mama’s friend Mindy Skills, who we meet every month at Trade Days, brought us a sofa they were giving away. They showed up just as we were finishing dinner – perfect timing. The sofa was in very good shape and it will make a great addition to the seating we have needed in the mobile home. It was pretty easy to get into the mobile home; much easier than the couple delivering it had thought it would be.

For the age of the sofa it was pristine. I had a strong suspicion it would be so because Mindy has told us about her childhood; of evenings and weekends spent cleaning the house to the point of taking a toothbrush to the baseboards hidden behind the furniture in the various rooms of the house.  I have no illusions that it will remain as nice looking, but it looks almost new at this moment. Mama and Victoria have it set up for the moment but I know that it will be rearranged as time goes on. It was very nice that they went so far out of their way to deliver the sofa to us.

After talking with Grandpa on Saturday I think we have diagnosed the problem with the little truck. Just for confirmation I talked with a mechanic at church and he came to the same conclusion. Some months ago the car his wife drives had the same problem. I hope to purchase the part today and get it replaced this evening. If it has to be ordered it will be late in the week before I get it done but at least we have a plan.

Some great things have been happening at our church lately. Yesterday we had four baptized and one saved.

Repair attempts, coordination of efforts, reading

On the way home yesterday I stopped at the auto parts store and got a few items for the little Ranger and the Flex. I was hoping changing out the fuel filter on the Ranger would help with the problem I had coming home last week. It took some time to get the new filter on the truck but all in all it was not too bad a job. Laying in the cold, moist gravel was a bit uncomfortable.

After I got everything buttoned up I took the truck got a test drive. I was pretty encouraged when I drove the three miles to Montague so I turned around and headed from there to Bowie. I was only a few miles from the farm when the same problem began to happen. At least I know it is not the fuel filter. It will be the end of the month before I will have the money to take it to a shop to see what is really wrong.

I worked a while in the garden spreading out the manure we had put there several weeks ago but held off getting the tiller out since it was a little too wet to do any of that kind of work. We are planning on cleaning the calf lot again this Saturday so I wanted to get ahead of the effort by spreading out what we had already put there. By the time I got the piles spread out it was pretty close to dark so I closed up the chickens and went inside to clean up.

Mama left the farm about the time I got started replacing the fuel filter and was gone until I was ready to go to bed. She and Victoria met up at Walmart so they could team up on grocery shopping. We are still at the stage that requires us to share certain cooking items. It is not worth outfitting both kitchens to be completely self-sufficient but we like to limit the number of trips from one residence to the other when preparing a meal.

Since we have been on the farm we have always had more than one place to store items; a refrigerator and freezer in the farm house, a freezer in the shop, canned goods in plastic totes in the farm house, etc. Now, with two homes and two kitchens it has become more complicated to just do normal meal preparations; not to mention where we will entertain guests when was have them. It has become a standard question for Sunday afternoons; do we have dinner at Victoria’s home or ours? When Grandma and Grandpa come back that will no longer be an issue. We will eat at her table.

Victoria got me started on one or the rewrites of the Star Wars sagas: Allegiance, by Timothy Zahn. It is a well written story but it is difficult to backtrack to a prequel having watched the movie series. Besides that, I am not a cultish type of fan of Star Wars so when he brings characters into the story and begins commenting on their dress, their voice or their culture I am at a complete loss. Not that it interrupts the story much, but I will not take the time to look up the descriptions in order to get a visual – because there is a complete catalogue of such information available on the internet.

I am enjoying the story but that kind of research is outside the scope of reading for fun.

Special speaker, looking ahead

Last night at church we had a man present his work and testimony. His name is Sam Ward. He is in Croatia helping a veteran missionary. He has been there for four years but the most remarkable part of the presentation of the work he gave was the way the Lord got him there. Since childhood he had suffered from a rare form of multiple sclerosis. It went for years undiagnosed; worsening as he got into his late thirties.

He testified that even in his broken body he had a desperate desire to win souls. For years he could not reconcile the two until one day as he was on his way to a day of witnessing at a prison with people from his church he met the missionary he now works with. As the two of them talked, he asked who was in Croatia with the missionary and the answer broke his heart; no one.

For nine years he had labored alone. Without thinking Sam volunteered, “I need to come soul winning with you.” The next day he talked to a friend at work about the “chance” encounter. Two days later that friend gave him a check to cover the plane ticket to Croatia. He knew then that God was in it. He spent his first vacation over there in 2008. He went back in 2009.

Later in 2009 his boss, who was selling the company, offered to give him two years of support money if he wanted to go fulltime to Croatia; this from an unsaved man who saw that the restructured company would more than likely not find a place for an invalid worker. Since that time God has gotten him the medical help he needs to the point that it is now difficult to tell he was ever in a wheelchair. It was a great service and for the first time in many weeks Victoria was able to go.

Tonight will be our first night above freezing in about two weeks. Although the east coast is getting slammed with the remnants of the winter storm that hit us early this week, we will be warm and dry for the next ten days or so. As bad as it can get here there is always the expectation that it will not last long – at least for cold weather.

I am starting to wonder what the summer might be like this year. According to the Farmer’s Almanac it will be a repeat of last year with only slightly more moisture. I was planning on replanting a few fruit and nut trees this year but I have not decided for sure. I suppose it is one of those things that you just go ahead and do and hope for the best. I can always follow by brother-in-law Fabian’s recipe for successful planting.

His formula: Buy a fifty dollar tree, dig a hundred dollar hole and put a thousand dollars’ worth of water on it. That should get you started – no guarantees.

My stupid alarm clock, weather, rabbit stew

In all the years I have been getting up at the very early hours that have become normal for me there are only a handful of times I have slept until the alarm went off. It is even less frequent that I have not turned off the alarm before I leave the bedroom to get dressed. Well, this morning was one of those rare mornings that I forgot to turn off the alarm and it woke Mama at 5 a.m. She called me just a few minutes ago to tell me how much she hates my alarm.

The problem with that is that she has never learned how to silence the alarm after it is activated. Even I have to remind myself on those rare instances when I wake to the alarm. I reminded her that the big button on the side will turn the alarm off once it has gone off, but that information should not be required again for many months to come. If I am remembering right it has been over a year since this last happened. All in all, that’s a pretty good track record. It just does not feel that way at 5 a.m. (I will have to spend a few minutes tonight resetting the clock after she punched all over it trying to make it stop.)

We are finally going to get some warm weather this week. Today is supposed to be near fifty degrees and by Sunday the high temperature is supposed to be above seventy degrees. That will be a very welcome change for all of us. My compatriots in the panhandle are looking forward to a morning free of ice and snow; the first in about ten days. No one is sure how long the warmth will last before the next cold snap, but we will enjoy it this weekend.

The large water trough where I put the heater to keep the water from freezing so the cattle would have fresh water every morning was so low last night that I had to unplug the heater for fear it could melt a hole in the bottom of the trough. I was not able to refill it because the hose we have set up for that was still frozen solid. In the interim we use a much smaller container that Mama has to refill several times a day. I love life on the farm.

It is good at times like these to remember that summer is getting close and we will once again be struggling with very hot temperatures. I think all of us, animals included, would rather have the cold – as long as we have plenty of hay to feed them. As it warms I hope to see the grass start growing once again. I am especially watching to see if the grape vines survived through last summer’s dormancy or if I will have to pull them up and replace them.

This should be a very full Saturday coming at me. Last weekend I was looking for things to do. It will not be that way this weekend. Of course when I say “weekend” I mean Saturday. Last Saturday was a dreary wet and cold day so it is a good thing Mama got to go to a baby shower. Before she left however we met the Skills at Trade Days and exchanged some beef for a couple rabbits and some lamb. We have not gotten the lamb yet but it is coming.

As for the rabbits, I fixed one into a soup that very day. I really wanted to see if Mama and Victoria would like the meat. They did; at least enough to let me pursue my plans to raise them for meat. Hopefully, I can get started on that pretty soon.

Processing them is much easier than processing chickens.

Weather related, our poor animals, Mama and Allie

When I walked out of the apartment to get into the car yesterday morning at 5 a.m. everything was frozen over with a half inch of ice so I went back into the apartment to wait until daylight to leave for work. At daylight things did not look much better so I stayed home and worked from there. Mama got a taste of what I deal with through my days in the office as she overheard conversations I had with those who called me to get help with various issues.

I have to admit that I did not get as much done working from home as I would normally get done in the office. One problem was the internet connection. Every time I got logged onto the company server the connection would fail within a few minutes. So I would have to download or upload a file and hope the connection lasted long enough to get that done. I lost count of the number of times I had to log in.

The weather was particularly bad yesterday. It never rained per se, but there was a heavy mist or drizzle throughout the entire day and the temperatures never got above freezing. The wind was steady at about fifteen miles per hour so there was a layer of ice on every exposed surface. The cattle did not venture out of the shelter of the calf barn all day and the horse stayed beside her shelter through the day as well. It was a very dull, cold day. Ourpoor animals.

Today is predicted to be more of the same but conditions will improve dramatically over the next couple days with the daytime highs reaching seventy degrees by Sunday. All the moisture will move away from our area and we will see “abundant sunshine” back in the forecast by tomorrow afternoon. People are talking like they have never seen weather like this but we are repeating weather patterns that were not unusual several decades past.

All in all, we have gotten over an inch of precipitation over the past week. That was the last time I emptied the rain gauge and yesterday it had a little over an inch of water in it that had been slowly gathering over this past week. That was little startling to me. I never expected the accumulation would be that high from several days of continual drizzle.

The only good part of the ground being frozen is that the dogs do not get muddy while they are outside doing what they need to get done outside of the house. Today will end that little reprieve. As things thaw it will be messy for a day of two then we will revert to the normally dry and dusty conditions we are used to. The dogs are terrible confused. Some days they are caught, wiped down and generally assaulted at the door while on other days they can come right in and hop into their spot in the chair or couch without any attention. Poor dears!

Allie, Mama’s little rescue Dachshund, has taken on a hunter spirit. She will run down to the calf barn where the hay is stored and scoot under the entire stack, wiggly among the pallets the hay is sitting on a to hunt the rabbits that have unwisely taken up residence there. One morning Mama thought she was stuck so she started unstacking the hay above where she could hear Allie’s muffled cry.

About the time she had thrown aside her tenth bale of hay, she heard a yelp behind her. She almost hit Allie with the last bale thrown aside. She was not a happy camper. She promised she will never go to that much trouble again, but I do not expect that to be a promise she will keep if ever there is a perceived danger in the future.

What we do for these dogs always amazes me.

Nothing to do, new farm toys

The weekend is upon us already. January is gone and the first week of February has evaporated before our very eyes. I was telling Mama yesterday afternoon that I could not think of any projects for this weekend but when I got home I realized the door to the shop is not aligned properly. We have been having trouble closing it for a couple days. I will get that fixed. Then I realized the Flex is long overdue for an oil change. I will fix that. Trade Days will be going on tomorrow. I could spend a few hours there.

Then I realized it will be warm enough to till some manure into the garden. I can do that too. Then I thought about the calf lot needing cleaning again. I should add that to the list. There is still stuff in the farm house that needs to be sorted through, animals to feed and clean up after, etc., etc., etc. As you can tell, once I got away from my tunnel vision, I will have a full weekend just doing what it takes to keep up with a farm and a home. I love it.

Tomorrow afternoon Mama and Victoria will be going to Ft. Worth for a baby shower. She is meeting one of the ladies from the church and they will ride together. I do not expect them back until late in the evening. I should be worn out by then.

Last night Mama and I went and bought a stock tank heater. I should have had one long ago but I have put it off for no good reason. I had to do some rearranging of the lights in the barn to get a place to plug in an extension cord to power the device but that did not take too long. I had plenty of extension cords on hand to make the run to the large tank in the calf lot. Having to work around five curious cows was a little challenging in the small space where we feed them, but all in all, it did not take very long.

I am anxious to see the outcome. We set the heater on top of the ice in the tank. It was thick enough that neither mama nor Victoria could break it up. I am not surprised. It did not ever get near freezing yesterday, warming up to only 24®F from the morning low of 13®F. Everything was frozen hard and thick. Mama will give me an update this morning on how the heater performed.

It may be a moot point at this time. The daytime temperatures are expected to be above freezing for the next ten days or so and the nighttime temperatures will be at or near freezing so the water troughs should not freeze hard. Whatever does freeze will melt by mid-day.  Still it seemed like a good time to try this idea out. We will have it available next winter even if it is used in a limited manner this winter.

Mama will be cooking for our RU meeting today. I think she really enjoys it. I know it is a blessing to the leader and his wife. We are still small in numbers but we will grow through faithfulness and prayer. Right now there are two couples that come regularly. It is exciting to see them grow spiritually. There is one young mother that has come but is struggling to stay faithful.

Mama and I are slowly setting up to run the children’s program but for now we have four little ones under five to entertain during the meeting. It is difficult to follow a program designed for children eight years old and older when the oldest we have is five years old and the youngest two are only two years old. We have a good time but I am ready to have the children’s program up and running.

Patience. Like things on the farm, I do not want to grow faster than our ability to keep up.

Running late, furnace problems, more snow

The meetings I was a part of yesterday kept me at work until just before 5 p.m. I took off as soon as I could get out of the room we were meeting in and called Mama to tell her I was heading her way. I knew if I hurried I might have ten minutes at home before we had to head right back to Decatur for church. On the way home, about twelve miles out of Bowie, something started happening to the truck.

At first I thought it was a transmission problem because there was a sudden loss of speed. However, when I pressed on the accelerator the transmission down shifted and I would get back up to speed but once I was back up to highway speed the truck would buck and lurch. I had to pull onto the shoulder and slow down to about fifty miles per hour to keep the truck from bucking. I realized it must be the fuel pump going out.

I got off onto a side road as soon as I could and slowed to right at forty five miles per hour, creeping the rest of the way home. But I did make it home. When I get a little money I will get the truck looked at to see if it is the fuel pump or something more serious. So much for the extra ten minutes I thought I would have at home. We did make it to church on time even after we made the stop at BBTI to get our normal Wednesday night passengers.

Earlier that day, before Brittany and Andrew left the farm, Mama called to tell me the furnace was making a horrible sound. She held the phone up to the furnace and I could hear that the problem was in the blower. I told her to call the repair company we used to replace the A- coil and see what they had to say.

When they got there they pulled the blower and motor. They told Mama they did not know whether to charge a pest control fee or a furnace call fee. They found a mouse in the fan blades of the blower. Once they got the dead mouse out and put everything back in place, it worked fine. Good thing it was an easy fix because last night was one of the coldest nights of the year. It was nine degrees Fahrenheit this morning with winds at twenty five miles per hour. Not the coldest night of the winter so far but the coldest night in 2014.

The brunt of this most recent storm was due to hit us at 5 a.m. this morning so my normal time to leave for work worked in my favor today. It was blowing light snow as I left the farm but there was no accumulation yet.  We are forecast to get between one and two inches of snow accumulation. As I got closer to Decatur I could tell that the snow was freezing on the road where the heat from the tires of the vehicles passing along the road had warmed the surface enough to melt the snow and enable it refreeze into a covering of ice.

It could be an interesting ride home.

Winter, travel, the wedding

Winter returned last night. It is not so cold that you would think it unbearable, only 25®F, but the wind is blowing at twenty five miles per hour. It will be very uncomfortable for Mama this morning as she is out doing the morning feeding.

My off site meeting was cancelled due the weather so we are having the meeting over the phone and internet. It will not be as productive or tolerable as it would have been were we in a meeting room at a hotel but I will muddle through. My part is only supposed to be fifteen minutes tacked on to the final hour of the meeting agenda. I cannot figure out which is worse, having the first fifteen minute presentation or the last one.

Brittany and Andrew will be leaving today. They had a good visit with Brittany Pena yesterday evening. She drove up from Austin to meet Brittany and Andrew in Dallas – a little over three hours for her. There are very few friends we have that are willing to go to that much effort to get together. They figured out it had been eight years since they had seen each other so they had plenty of catching up to do.

As we were talking about Chase and Makaila’s wedding Mama called Chase to ask a couple questions. What she found out was not inspiring. They have paid for a venue that is inclusive – including the wedding set and reception as well as a minister to conduct the ceremony; they have no idea who that will be. Mama was not impressed. They are not having a rehearsal dinner. We are all meeting at the Plaza Mexican restaurant – Dutch treat.

Neither Mama nor Makaila’s mother have any part in the ceremony. Until a few weeks ago there were not going to be any attendants to the bride or groom. Makaila was afraid of offending one of her sisters but Chase has asked Joshua to be his best man and Mama insisted there be at least one counterpart for the ceremony. I am afraid if Mama and Makaila talk too many times she will call off the wedding and just show up at the Justice of the Peace. We still have until May 3 to see how that works out.

One thing is for certain, the two of them need help planning this wedding. It is starting to remind me of little Norman and Samantha’s wedding. They had no idea what to do so their preacher had to insist on the order of service, who would be participating, what they would wear,   and how they would each carry out their parts. There was no photographer, no real plan on the reception (Mama and I put that together the morning of the wedding.) and no clue on the part of Samantha’s parents what to do.

The major difference is that Samantha wanted a wedding. Makaila does not. I have always said that a couple is no more married if they spend $50 at the county court house or spend $10,000 entertaining two hundred guests. The issue here is the divide between Chase and Makaila in their plans.

I believe Chase is having the wedding to honor Mama. Makaila has little or no interest in it. In her mind they have spent all they are going to spend and every additional dollar from here on out will be not be relinquished without a protracted discussion.

This could get pretty interesting as we approach the date.

Temperature, slush hazards, meetings, soon

Last night the temperature hovered at the freezing mark. When I got up it was one degree above freezing. I still marvel at the dynamics of the laws God has put in place. One degree above freezing and we have slush. At 32® exactly the slush turns to ice. The effect is dramatic! One little degree of temperature and what was an inconvenience becomes a hazard; mush turns to rock and wet pavement turns to black ice.

Things should melt away a little today. I am praying that the slush is gone by tonight when the temperatures will once again plunge well below freezing. It is predicted to stay below freezing for several days followed by another warm couple of days. So goes the temperature roller coaster of north Texas winters.

Probably the worst part of the slush and the mud it creates having to wipe off the dogs feet every time they want back into the house. They are like a bunch of little children. They go out for fifteen minutes to see what is going on outside. Then they want back in – and have to be cleaned to be allowed to do so since we cannot make them take off their shoes.

Once back inside they look through the windows and think about what it would be like to be back outside. So, off they go and the process repeats itself over and over throughout the day. When the ground is frozen it is much easier to keep things clean, but that is a short-lived reprieve. We have to stay thankful through the frustrating cycle since we need the moisture; this too shall pass.

I was supposed to be in offsite meetings tomorrow and Thursday but it is looking like the weather will force us to cancel those meetings as they had been scheduled and settle for doing the two day meeting via the net. That makes for a very long day when you have to do twelve hours of meetings by phone; unfortunately it is something we cannot put off. All of us have deadlines to meet and this meeting is necessary to get our goals finalized as a business unit.

Mama’s eyes are doing much better. In fact, she was feeling so much better that she fed the calves yesterday evening. If she is allergic to something in the hay it should show up in the next couple days. I would rather she continue to allow me to do the feeding so we can avoid any complications but that is not Mama’s way; besides, I probably do not do things the way she likes for them to be done for her little herd.

January is now behind us and February is flying by. Soon the farm will be waking from its winter sleep. We will be cutting hay and worrying over the lack of rain. We will be planting trees and hauling water to them to give them the energy to combat the blistering sun. We will be planting and the garden will take up a lot of our time and attention, very soon.

I am looking forward to that.

Winter again, Brittany and Andrew

Mama and I did not make it to church yesterday. The sleet started in the early a .m. and continued until about 9 o’clock. Then everything changed to snow. All in all, we got a little over two inches with about a half inch if ice. It will be great when all of it finally melts and soaks in because we really need the moisture. I did not leave for work this morning until almost 10 a.m. and what I found on the roads from the snow yesterday confirmed our decision to stay home.

We could have possibly made it to church in the morning but our bigger concern was making it home after the morning service. Ice still covered major portions of the road to and through Bowie today. There was only one lane open on the highway to Decatur for about fifteen miles south of Bowie. After that it was clear travel in both lanes. It took about fifteen minutes extra to make it to work this morning so I am pretty certain coming home from Decatur yesterday afternoon would have been traumatic for Mama. The pastor cancelled church that evening.

Saturday afternoon we had all gone to Wichita Falls so we could do a little shopping with Brittany and Andrew. They got in Friday night a little after Mama and I got home from RU. We ate at the Genghis Grill for lunch. Brittany and Andrew had never been there. They enjoyed it. Then we went to Natural Grocers. They just opened a store in Wichita Falls, then on to Sam’s’ and home from there.

When we got home I fired up the grill and cooked a lot of meat for the next several days. Then evening was supposed to be the warmest one for many to come so we lit a fire and grilled some ribs, chicken, steak and shrimp. It was fun even though it was pretty chilly.

I put the grill in the open shed nearest the apartment so I could shield it from the north winds. As the grill got really warmed up it heated the little building to a tolerable level so we all stood around and talked. So it would be more comfortable I started a little fire in a portable pit we have on the farm. By the time I had finished cooking I was on my own, but we made a pretty fun evening of it.

Brittany and Andrew are driving over to Dallas this afternoon to visit with Brittany Pena. I do not know what they are planning but I hope they have a good visit. “Black Brittany” as the twins called her because of her black hair has not had a happy childhood or adolescence. I hope she and our Brittany can reconnect so she can see that there is hope beyond a rocky start in life.

We got some bad news yesterday. One of my great nieces, Honi, a four month old daughter of my niece Angela dies in a horrible accident. Angela, her husband and the baby were in a hotel in Austin for the night. After she finished feeding the baby they all went to sleep. When they woke, the baby had a pillow over its face. It was not breathing and unresponsive. They could not revive it.

The father became so angry and combative that the police had to taze him and eventually arrest him. He blamed Angela for the death of the baby. My mom, who was relating the story to me said my sister Cathy was devastated. She drove to Chappell Hill to tell the story to Mom and spent several hours crying on her shoulder. Mama and I have no idea what that feels like, but the Lord does.

The family needs our prayers.