Pleasant friends

Mama and I had a very pleasant evening yesterday. The Wycoff family came over and brought sandwich items with them for our dinner. The intent of the visit was for Bro. Daniel to help me roof the pig shelter but in addition to that we also went to get a couple round bales of hay from a nearby farm. He and I attached the trailer to the truck and I was in a big way of talking with him and forgot to retract the stand post. It got slightly bent on the return trip with the hay as it drug against the road; nothing major but I will have to straighten it before I feel better about it.

They are thrilled about the growth in the feeder pigs – one of which is theirs. All of them are putting on weight very well and they are very welcoming to Mama when she comes around. Mama, Mrs. Wycoff and Brittany stood around for most of the time Daniel and I worked on the roof just enjoying the antics of the pigs – both the potbelly and feeder herds. I will need to build a very strong loading chute for the feeder pigs when the time comes to haul them out. We are planning on raising them to about 600 pounds by next spring and it does not appear that that will be an issue.

Dinner was fun. They are a family very much like ours in their interactions and mannerisms, even in sharing drinks the way we do. They bought five or six different kinds of deli lunch meats for the sandwiches and used French bread for the bread. Mama told me later that she was wondering how they would make sandwiches with French bread because she could only imagine one way to slice it; like she would for garlic bread – in thin strips.

Instead they sliced the long loaf into four pieces about the length of a standard slice of bread, and then they cut through the center of each portion lengthwise to bisect it, top and bottom, so that we had a very nice sized French roll to make a sandwich on. It is something Mama and I will repeat in the future. The only drawback was that the sandwiches were almost too large – but we suffered through that pretty well.

After dinner we took them to Victoria’s house to show them around. We had looked on Google Earth at the property they are considering buying in relation to our property and then in relation to Victoria’s property. Their property is pretty isolated but is almost connected to the property owned by the people who live on the private road behind Victoria’s little house. All three properties are within only a couple miles of each other.

While we were at Victoria’s house the owner of the property behind her stopped to talk to Mama. They own several hundred acres and appear to be very well to do. The neighbor and her friend talked to Mam for about a half hour. They exchanged number and other information – you know Mama - while I talked with the Wycoffs sharing plans Victoria has for her two acres and little house. Meeting the neighbors is something that I have been praying for since we bought the place.

I finished out the evening watering the trees and berry bushes. It was a good evening.