Christmas week

Mama’s and my primary focus for early Christmas week was to meet with Chase, Makaila, Owen and Gailyn. Saturday, we had the Wycoffs, the Thomason’s and the Millers over for a Christmas party that had gone very well. Sunday, we rested up a bit and Monday morning we left for Amarillo. We were able to get with Makaila and the grandkids pretty soon after getting to Amarillo – about a five-hour drive – so we got to meet Gailyn right away. She took to us immediately which pleased Mama immensely.

Owen took an hour or so to warm up to us, but he finally did, and we had a great time with him. We had dinner with Makaila’s family Monday evening. That was fun while we got to know each other a little better. They are good people. One of their sons got a guitar for Christmas and the present was opened while we were there. I was able to tune the guitar for them so he could start to experiment with it right away.

When we got to our hotel it was pretty late, but as we were checking in, Mama remarked on the nails of the young lady who was checking us in and got a word in about Color Street. That was all it took. Once the paperwork was taken care of, Mama spent about twenty minutes with the young lady who wanted to see far more of Mama’s nail options. We had had to circle back to the house when we left that morning to get Mama’s nail case, but I thought it was worth the extra time to have it with her. Turned out to be the right move. The young lady bought two sets of nails, but she is going to start a party next week. She told Mama she knows a lot of people in Amarillo, so they are both excited.

On the way to Amarillo, Mama texted back and forth with Erin Echeveria’s boss who wanted to buy one of our goats for a Christmas present for her kids. That went on for a good part of the trip to Amarillo, while we were in Amarillo and on the way home Wednesday. But the outcome was a good one. She and her husband came over late Thursday evening and picked up the little yearling female they had contracted for but while they were there, we showed them the baby goats and they feel in love with one of the little bucklings. He went home with them as well. We provided a bag of food for them to get started caring for the little ones. They were very excited about the two little goats even thought it took us a few minutes to catch the female they were buying. For some reason, she refused to faint but instead gave us a run through the paddock until we were able to grab hold of her and get her to the cage in the back of their pickup.

I was completely worn out by the time we got the goats into the carrier. I had worked all day on the pig pen I was refitting. It had taken me all day to get to the point that all the panels, posts and barbed wire were in place. It was about 5 pm when I opened the access door to the new area and let the pig discover it. She ran into the new area like she was entering a brand new playland. She hopped, spun and squealed in excitement while I closed the door in the building that would keep her limited to that side of the pen. Having her on the new side allows me and Mama to feed her without having to deal with her at our feet the whole time. It will be especially nice when we get the rain that is forecast for Wednesday. Watering her is a challenge because she routinely takes her water pan and drags it into the pen requiring us to fetch it in order to fill it. Other than that, it is nice to have the pig in the larger, separated pen. Later this week, I will take down a portion of the fence for the smaller enclosure so that I can use the tractor to level out the mess she created in that area.

I got fussed at Christmas morning because I had already bought in the course of days leading up to Christmas all the items Mama and Victoria tried to buy for me as Christmas presents. Oops! But Victoria and I got Mama an apple watch – which she loves. Setting up that watch frustrated her but we finally got through it. Mama and I had bought Victoria some presents while we were at Christopher and Banks in Amarillo along with some stocking stuffers. It was a fun morning. Maggie called. Brittany called. Cori called. Becky called. So, we got to witness some of the activities of Christmas morning remotely. Mid-morning, I started the pellet grill to smoke a ham and warm up the half turkey we saved from the one we smoked for our Thanksgiving dinner with Andrew, Brittany and the girls. That afternoon we had the Echeveria’s over for dinner. We had a good time. It was relaxed, unhurried and very pleasant. We enjoyed each other’s company far past the time Luke was ready to go home.

Saturday I finally got the candy boards placed on the hives. Mama and I had to buy some more sugar to fill the third candy board. Each of them easily holds twenty pounds of sugar as well as a third pound of pollen. I was able to install them on the hives in the warm afternoon we had Saturday. Now we can relax a bit in our worries for the bees.

It was a full week.