Travel and visiting, help and more help

Last week I attended a conference in Houston. It was a good conference and I hope I got enough out of it to justify the expense on my employer’s part. I made some good contacts in the training sessions and was also able to visit with family over the course of the week. On the way down I stopped by to see my sister Sarah. While I was in Houston, I made the trip over to see Joshua and on the way back home, I stopped by to see Martha – and pick up a few things she has been holding for us. It was a good trip even though I spent a week away from Mama and the farm. Actually, it gave me the time to rest my back; whether I wanted to or not.

Friday evening, when I got home, Mama and I spent time together getting the animals fed and watered, checking the cattle and picking some produce from the garden. Saturday was the busy day. Daniel and James Wycoff came over and helped me put in the new front door. Before they had gotten there I had already gotten the old door ready for removal – pulling of the inside and exterior trim and cutting the door free of the brick mold. Mama, being Mama, decided that since we had the door off and since we had help we should rearrange the fridges in the house. So, we took the fridge that is in the kitchen to the garage and moved the fridge from the garage to the kitchen. That done, we installed the new door and I put the trim back on the exterior of the door. By the time we finished all the labor on the door, the fridges and they had assembled a rabbit hutch, lunch was ready. By the way, I had been tending to the grill during all of this so we could feed Daniel and James – a small token of thanks. When we sat down to eat Mama mentioned that we had done all that work in a little over two hours. That was big encouragement to me and Mama.

Monday, I resituated the frame on the door to allow for better closure and I set the catch plates for the deadbolt and the latch. I also mixed concrete to back fill under the threshold since we had to chip out the old concrete to set the door in place. Later this week I will get the interior trim put up and we will be able to call it good. Then I can start on the interior doors. It was a pleasure to have the help we had for that job – the solid oak door we put up is very heavy. I would have had to have help no matter the condition of my back.

Also on Monday afternoon, I took the time to tear down the Styrofoam insulation panels from one area in the coop ceiling. A rat had made his home in the void between the panel and the metal roof and had accumulated enough sundries that the panels were sagging under the weight. When I took the panels down, I swept up over twenty pounds of chicken feed that had been stored in the ceiling. There were sticks and twigs and even a few cattle cubes, but mostly it was just pellets stolen from the feeders. It looked like we had poured a bag of feed into the rafters. I had to admire the work it took to carry all that feed from the floor of the coop, piece by piece, up the wall, through the tunnels provided by the shape of the metal roof and into each area for storage.

Later Monday evening, Norman met me and Mama at Rick’s so we could get twenty bales of hay. Norman loaded it all. Mama gave me a very mean look when I tried to help. It is still sitting on the trailer because I will need help to unload it and put it in the goat barn loft; hopefully this evening.

I have an appointment with the medical doctor this afternoon after work. We will see what path forward she recommends. At least Mama knows that while I am at work I will not be doing anything that will hurt my back…beside sitting all day.

She is planning on enjoying her first week off for the summer.