More travel, bye to Kai, an addition

This week is the final week I have to get prepared for the classes I will be teaching next week in Alabama. I have had the presentations ready for review for more than a month but they finally got reviewed last week. The changes my boss made to one of the presentations was significant – so much so, that I will have to spend a good deal of time getting ready to use it in the class coming up on Monday. The biggest problem is that the book I will be teaching from will not be handed to me until the morning of the class. I am trying to figure out a way to have the material ready without the actual manual. Surprise, surprise. One of the reasons for the major change to the presentation, which now is void of talking points with only graphics displayed, was that last year the presenter read the slides verbatim and it caused some embarrassment to our company. What I have now is what I will be stuck with for the class so I will have to make it work, but it is not the way I had envisioned it. Although, I am finding out that that is the way things are done in my department.

I will be leaving for Alabama Sunday afternoon; not returning until Saturday afternoon. Neither Mama nor I are looking forward to it. I have three classes to teach starting on Monday morning. One class is the one I have presented about a dozen times and the third is one that I have reformatted and updated for this set of classes. I will be able to review all the changes to that presentation on Tuesday, so I am not as concerned about that class. Nate, Cori and the kids will be leaving for Victoria, TX today and not returning until Saturday. That leaves Mama without the help in the morning and evening feedings that she has been getting used to. It could be a long week for her.

Mama and Nate took Kai to the meat market yesterday morning. Blake went along just because. Mama called me that morning to tell me that she was reporting to school as soon as she could make it in because Zach’s parents are in town and he wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. She called so I would know to meet her for lunch at the school – with the caveat that I would bring her something to eat because she would not be taking the time to pack her a lunch. Blake came along. Again, just because. He had a fun school day with the kids at the church school. I am certain he got several special treats in return for his time with Grammy.

As for Kai, our Chinese friends wanted all kinds of parts of the goat that the butcher shop was not allowed by law to give them, but we will still end up with more internal organs than Mama and I would have normally requested. The brain, stomach and intestines were not allowed to be processed for human consumption even though Lin said the stomach would sell for lots of money because the Chinese love stomach soup. The fact that we were talking about parts of the body that make Mama nauseous only added to the fact that we were butchering a pet. Kai was having problems walking so it was best to do something with him rather than watch him suffer and slowly die.

On the cattle side, Mama and the kids found out yesterday that Daisy – our pet cow – had a little heifer calf with her when she came for feed. It was the first time Mama had seen Daisy since we put her over with the bulls. So, we ended up with three calves this year. One bull ( now a steer) and one heifer that I know of. Mama thinks Daisy’s calf is a heifer but I have not seen it and Mama’s track record of sexing cattle is a bit spotty.

The temperature was 57° this morning. What a change.