Mixed up days, lots of rain, personal pain, patience

When I got home yesterday evening, I realized I had gotten my days mixed up. Or rather, Mama’s days mixed up. She and Kimberlyn spent the day at the farm yesterday making lip balm in five different flavors, hand and foot sugar scrubs and some all-natural hand sanitizer. All the lip balm was made from bees wax and mango butter along with some essential oils. It was quite a day for the two of them. I got to help in the cleanup when I got home. Fortunately, bees wax was easy to melt off the pans, double boilers and graders used to process the lip balm concoctions. Mama had me try the lip balm by putting in on her lips and then kissing me. That is the only way I apply lip balm. She had me try the hand sanitizer right away. Later I had to try the hand scrub. I liked it. She wanted to try the foot scrub on me, but I passed. I am not bothered by someone scrubbing my feet since I grew up in a denomination where foot washing was a church ordinance, but it is not something I like having done to me. I may eventually yield, but I did not do so last night.

This morning, Mama is taking Grandma and Grandpa to the doctor’s appointment in Denton. It will be a yucky morning to rush out and feed the animals. It rained heavily last night with light rain continuing this morning. We started getting thunder and lightning just before we went to bed, but the rain did not come until well after midnight. When it did come it must have come in buckets. I can only guess since I slept through it. The rain gauge showed over three inches of rain this morning. About three times what was forecast. We’ll take it. Along with the cooler weather, that might be enough to close up the deep cracks in the ground. We are about a month late getting these rains, but we are finally getting the fall rains we need to fill stock tanks and creeks and ponds for the winter and into the Spring.

I will have to check the goat shelter this evening to see if my roof work helped seal enough of the leaks to keep the building drier. I could not tell last night when I went out to feed because it was not raining heavy enough to really test the roof. I imagine, though I will not know until tonight, that with three inches of rain having fallen, there was some runoff into the shelter. Our farm sits at the lower end of a long gentle slope that runs towards us for almost a mile. That is a lot of terrain to accumulate and channel the runoff in our direction. Sealing against that runoff into the south facing opening in the shelter is one of my next projects for that little building. It is almost fun to have to keep plucking away at all these little projects – almost.

Mama and I did not go to church last night. She was hurting badly after being on her feet all day. I had a painful sore throat with an accompanying tooth ache. It felt miserable. I am a little relieved this morning, but still have the scratchy throat and my tooth still hurts. I found some leftover antibiotics in the cabinet last night and began taking them immediately. That should help over time, but the immediate relief from clove and Tea Tree oil in warm water was a real blessing. I managed to sleep well in spite of the tooth pain. I am praying the antibiotic will take care of the tooth infection, if I do indeed have one. I have known, suspected rather, for some time that I am developing some serious issues in my mouth, but I have held off getting anything done for lack of funds. I am waiting on one of the houses to sell to help finance the dental work needed. That has not happened yet. Soon, I hope. Until then, I will hold out as long as possible; until I cannot tolerate the discomfort any longer.

Mama and I have our monthly beekeepers meeting tonight. We will be putting a deposit on two nucs we are purchasing from the club president. We will not take delivery until next Spring, but we need to get the nucs reserved. A nuc is a partial hive, complete with a queen, her devoted bees and several – at least four – drawn out frames of honey and brood. A jump start on a hive. We are using ten frame hives for our apiary, so having two 40% of the way done at the very beginning is a good investment. We are looking forward to starting at least two hives in this manner. We may start a third by buying bees and a queen from a supplier. We are debating that at this point. So far, I have found many hives for sale on Craigslist, but we have held off buying any because we are not really ready to set up active hives. Plus, the active hives for sale are fairly expensive. Money we do not have to spend in that way. Patience is the order for our bee keeping, honey making business.

I am just a bit weary of being patient, but it always pays off in the long run.