Internet, a small Christmas party, special services, Gemma

Last Thursday we had a representative from the internet company come to the farm. After doing a long inspection of the property and house, he made the suggestion that we place the antenna in the front yard versus on the roof. If we elected to place the antenna on the roof, we would need a twenty-foot tower to extend above the treetops around the house. If we placed the antenna in the front yard, we could get a perfect signal from the tower by sighting between the top of the fence and the lowest limbs of the trees in the direction of the tower. I elected for the lower point of view. With that in mind the technician suggested he come back Saturday morning to complete the install with the understanding that I have a trench ready for the cable to run to the house and the pole set in concrete at the determined site in the front yard.

I taught a class on Friday and rushed home to dig the trench to the house. I had already decided to hook up the potato plow to the tractor to get the ditch dug – and that idea saved me hours of digging. The plow was able to cut the dozens of roots that would have hindered my manual digging of the trench required. I used the posthole diggers to get down about 24 inches and then the post driver to get the post the antenna would be mounted on over 36 inches deep into the ground. I had to take a piece of pipe and drive it through the ground under the sidewalk to give us access under obstacle that to the house, but I got all that done before it got fully dark Friday evening.

Saturday morning the install went without a hitch. Aaron, the technician was a pleasure to work with. He was at the farm at 8:30 and got straight to work on the install. Hanging the antenna, running the cable, punching through the wall into the house and dressing up the entry of the cable through the wall on both sides of the hole. He took time to eat some biscuits and gravy with me and Mama. Who can pass up on biscuits and gravy? I took time to witness to him and invite him to church making sure he knew the website were he and his wife could watch online if they wanted. We were up and running by a little after 11 am. I had Aaron reset the password to something familiar to me and Mama as he set up the service. That made it easier to get all our device online. It is helpful to have the internet at the farm, especially for work and Mama’s business, but I still have mixed emptions about the connectivity. I really did not mind being without it, but it seemed the right time to get this done. Especially since work had determined to keep the office closed until the end of March 2021.

Saturday evening Mama and I attended a small Christmas party with my coworkers. There were only about ten of us there, but we had a great time. A small gift exchange to start the party, some great food catered from a local Mexican restaurant and a relaxing evening of rambling conversation like you have when friends get together. Mama and I enjoyed ourselves. It may be the only Christmas party we attend this year. Not that I mind that, but if we only ha one opportunity, it was encouraging to have such a good time.

We started special services at church yesterday. Church Harding, an evangelist/missionary to Washington, DC is preaching the services. He has been a great wealth of information as well as great Biblical truths relevant to our nation and its founding. He is a constitutional expert whose ministry is to the members of Congress, praying with them, encouraging them, challenging them. He attends a weekly Bible study with our Vice President and meets on a regular basis with many members of the House and Senate. He coordinates weekly tours in the halls of Congress and has a vision of having pastors from each state meet with their representatives in a designated week of 2021. He has reinforced many of the things I have been learning from Mark Levin and Dan Bongino over the past several years, emphasizing the need to pray fervently by name for our leaders and to actively get involved in our local, state and national governments. The services have been great. The education irreplaceable. The weblink fro his ministry is https://www.missiontoamerica.us/ There is a wealth of information available on his website.

Mama got stressed this morning because she had to take Gemma to the vet to be fixed, and just before she was required to leave Sam and Gemma took off after some phantom noise in the woods behind our house. I went out to feed as she tried to get Gemma to return.

She must have been successful because when I got through with the feeding she and Gemma were gone.