Closing, looking, being missed, whales

It has been a bit of a challenge getting caught up on things at work but by the end of next week I should be close to pace. For the moment I am dealing with “emergencies” as needed because while I was away from the office things kind of fell apart. I will not be able to start a couple projects again until the first full week of October – so I have time to get that planned out.

On the home front, Mama and I drove to a title company in Gainesville, TX yesterday afternoon to sign the papers that confirm the sale of the farm in Bowie to Danny Benson. As of 4 pm yesterday, Mama and I no longer own the farm; we are caretakers for the new owner until we find a place to put all the stuff we have to get out of his way so he can take occupancy.

I regards to that, we may have actually found that place. We met the realtor in Decatur after leaving the Title Company so we could look at a place in Alvord, TX – about twelve miles outside of Decatur. It has twenty five acres, two ponds, a very nice horse barn and small shop, multiple dog kennels and lots of trees. The only drawback is that the living space is a double wide mobile home.

It is a nice mobile home but the banks are very reluctant to lend money on properties that have mobile homes sitting on the land. Mama is going to make some calls today to see if there will be an issue financing the property with the lenders we have been working with the past few months. We should have an answer this afternoon. I know when we find the place that God wants to lend to us for our remaining time here, all the incidental details will work out.

Maggie told Mama yesterday that Cathryn will go the door of the spare bedroom where Mama and I stayed while we were with them and slap her hand against the door to get her mommy to open it – only to discover that Grammy and Papa re not there. With each revelation of the empty room she will throw a fit in her disappointment. It is a sad thing to have to punish a child for throwing a temper tantrum over missing me and Mama, but such are the joys of parenthood.

I got the chance to run through the pictures from our trip to Alaska yesterday and pulled out a couple of the best photos from our time watching the whales. It is interesting to me that the pictures everyone really loves from those excursions are of the whale tail above the surface of the water as it makes its dive back underwater to feed.

We were not lucky enough to see one of the humpbacks break the surface any more than necessary but we did get to see them dive several times and we watched them clear their lungs and blow the wet air from their blow hole many times in the hour or more we were out there. (The enclosed pictures shows both.) We were told that the ones we were seeing were about forty five feet long and weighed on average a ton per foot.

Good thing they are not aggressive.