A busy week, transit challenges, little things

I have had a busy week this week. Monday was a Team Building day which started with a three-hour meeting and ended with us all meeting for lunch. I debated going but relented in the end. I am not eating yet so I ordered a small appetizer and ate only a few bites of it. The rest I brought home to Mama. We got back to the office a little before 3 pm, so I did not get much accomplished that day. Tuesday was a teaching day. I was not presenting the class, but I was there to back up Red who was teaching. As happened the last time Red presented, I had to loan him my computer for the morning because we could not get logged into the class through his laptop. I was able to correct that just after he broke for lunch. I stayed at the office so I could be available for the testing portion of the class just to make sure. It was a good thing I was available. He had a student that was not able to submit the completed test and I was able to find a workaround for that issue. Wednesday, I taught a ½ day class but needed to stay after class because I had a student that was not able to open the test on his computer – that happens fairly frequently. I had him sign out and log back into the virtual class after everyone else had finished. I gave him the test orally. I got back home about 2:30 yesterday and finished out the day from home even though I am having issues with my laptop accessing the company server from home.

 

Monday and Tuesday evenings, I used Nate’s saw to make some random cuts just to dirty it up. It needs to look somewhat used when we transport it to Honduras next week. I was able to use a spare tote to package the saw for its flight but was concerned about the changing of planes in Houston. Mama will have her walker so she will not be able to handle very much luggage. The tote is not set up for easy transport through the airport and I needed to take responsibility for at least it and two other large pieces of luggage. To help with that I got out a dolly I have had sitting in the shop for many months. Our plan is to put the tote on the dolly and stack at least two suitcases on top to make our way from the flight taking us to Houston to the flight that will carry us to Honduras. If memory serves me correctly, that was a fairly long walk to make that connection.  It was a difficult walk due to the luggage we were required to drag along with us and Mama’s difficulty with walking distances. Having Mama with the walker often gets us preferential treatment, but even if not, we should be able to handle the multiple bags between Victoria and myself with the aid of the dolly. We will get to test that theory in a few days if we all test negative for COVID.

 

The weather here has been wet and cold for the last few days. With the winds blowing constantly it feels uncomfortable to be outside for long periods of time. With the necessity of travel in our very near future, I have been hesitant to spend a lot of time outside in the damp cold evenings. For that reason, I have not gotten much done in the shop or around the farm, however, it has not been time wasted. The time I have spent outside in the evenings has been focused and moderately productive, completing some needed small projects. One evening, Mama got the calf that was returned to us into the corral at the barn. There she will stay until we take her to be processed – many months from now. Or neighbor was offended that we had not spent a greater effort to separate her from his herd and get her back onto our property. The truth of the matter is that I did not want to attempt it by myself and Mama would not have been able to help me walk the one hundred acres to attract the attention of the herd, coax them into his corral and separate out our calf from that herd. So, he did it for us. In order to keep from further offence, she will live out her life in the corral. That is the only way we can keep her away from his herd. Mama does not like the idea, but we have few options to keep her home and maintain the peace. It adds to the scope of work required to feed – especially in our absence while in Honduras – but we want to be peaceable more than we want to make it easy on us.

 

It is always the little things that spoil the peace.