Terminal, back-up plans, rain, clocking time

The answer came back from the mechanic concerning the little truck and it was not the news I had hoped for. The head gasket is leaking; letting water from the cooling system into the cylinders. That water quenches the spark from the spark plug (in whatever cylinder/s it is leaking into) causing the engine to misfire. It makes for a rough ride. Speaking of the truck, in his words, “She’s used up.”

With body and frame rust and the engine leaking oil there is no need to attempt repairs. My little truck will die a slow death on the farm as we use it as a four wheeler and to pull the hay rake or trailer as we put up hay this season. It was fun and helpful while it lasted but that puts a serious damper on my plans of using what we had, vehicle wise, to make it through this year.

Mama is going this morning to look at a big pickup to trade the Flex against so we can have a truck on the farm that is equipped to haul the trailers we have ready for use. We have tried this before but we are so upside down on the Flex that it usually makes the deal untenable but we are past “it would be nice if we could” and have jumped straight into “we really need to” do something.

The pastor asked the question last night, “Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God?” He already knows because He is already at the end of time eternal looking back at today. He is still at the beginning of time eternal looking forward. He is present today seeing eternity in either direction. Every event that has happened or will happen is known to Him and He has provided the way through the trial if we will trust and follow His leading.  Since He really knows it would make sense to take His advice.

As we drove home from church last night we actually had to use the windshield wipers. It was a light rain and the ground did not even get thoroughly wet but it was moisture that made it all the way to the ground – and we were excited about it. That may not thrill many of you but for us it is a real blessing for us.

It may put a damper on the plans I had to work in the garden tonight, but we can find other thing to do to make use of the time this evening. It has been more than a week since I have been able to do more than the minimal required work on the farm; the evening feeding of our stock, filling water troughs or setting things up for Mama to do the same in the morning.

At least starting this weekend we will have more daylight in the evenings. We set our clocks forward this weekend. I would be fine with eliminating daylight savings time. I do not think it serves any real purpose or provides any real service to us as a nation, but it is one of those things that we have always done and no one wants to evaluate the value of the process.

One of the other guys that gets to the office about the same time I do was telling me that it took a week to get his young children on a workable schedule when we set the clocks back several months ago. They wanted to go to bed at their accustomed time and get up at their normal time not realizing that they were an hour early at both ends of that schedule. It was our fault – we are the ones that changed the way we set the time. So they fought to keep the boys up an hour past when they wanted to go to bed so they would not get up an hour earlier than their parents schedule was set for. We live by a clock that has not relevance to them.

Now they will have to do it all over again – in reverse.