Mama’s treatment, hay run, wins and losses

We were unsure if Mama could drive herself home from the doctor’s office after getting the shot in her knee, so I dropped her off and went to the office for a couple hours while she went through the process to get the treatment. In the visit she got to meet the orthopedist in that office, and she was impressed by him on multiple levels. We may go back to him when the time comes for her knee replacement – after we get her back on my insurance at work. The shot was relatively painless although she suffered some pain later that evening. We will know by the weekend how effective the shot was. I believe it was a shot of steroids versus a cock’s comb treatment. Regardless, we are holding onto the hope that it will give her some relief from the continual pain.

Meanwhile, the Lord is really blessing Mama’s business. She has had three or four ladies sign up to be stylist in her group and will make it to the Director level this month. She will squeeze into that spot on the last day of the month, but she will still get the recognition for the achievement – as well as the financial benefit. I have to admit that she has put the work into the business to get there although she still agonizes over Facebook challenges in setting up parties and making the required contacts to keep everyone involved. Having met her challenge this month, repeating the process next month should be somewhat more doable. At the very least, she knows the path forward and the process to accomplish her new goal for the month of April. Stirring participation has been her greatest struggle, but that comes with broadening the group where the ten percent participation normally achieved is significant enough to impress the algorithms Facebook uses to gauge the worth of any group.

As soon as I signed off from work, I drove to Muenster to get hay. The seller we usually meet is in the hospital with some ailment the doctors cannot identify. His son who helped me get the bales loaded told me that the doctors would get the cultures back today and hope to get a handle on the pathogen they are confronting. Mama and I are praying for him and we let his son know that we were doing so. When I asked, I got a non-committal answer from the son as to whether or not he was saved. That is the main focus of our prayers. His health is secondary, important but secondary.

Once back home, I ate a light meal and transferred the hay from the back of the truck to the loft of the goat barn. It was nearly dark by the time I had that done. One bale remains to be moved into the goat shelter on the east side of the shop where Julian is being kept by himself as Midas is visiting our nanny goats. When Victoria and I got Midas into the paddock with the girls he went crazy for a little while. Tongue hanging out, making those funny noises he does when he is excited and chasing each female in turn just in case any or the four needing to be bred were ready for him to perform his service on them. Lilly is definitely bred by Julian. Millie is questionable even though she spent a month with Midas a few weeks back. Now we have second shot at getting her bred. Hopefully, Midas will be successful this time if he was not the last time.

Saturday night Mama and I clipped the wings of our chickens in order to keep them from flying over the fence into the garden and it seems to be working. They can wreck a garden especially when the tender shoots are just pushing through the soil into the sunlight. We are keeping the hens closed up in the coop yard and only letting them out in the evenings when we go out to feed. That gives them a few hours out of the coop while limiting the time they have to seek and destroy our young plants. They protest the time being cooped up by limiting the number of eggs they lay, but we still get enough to have an ample supply for our faithful customers.

I am a little disappointed in the lack of life I am seeing in the fig trees I separated from the main fig tree. I am more disappointed that I am not seeing any sign of life in the root tree I cut all the other figs away from. Of the fourteen potential plants, I see leaves coming out on only four. I will give the others until the end of April to show life before I pull them up and discarding them. All the ones that are leafing out are in places where they can stay to hopefully produce figs for me and Mama. The grape vine is starting to leaf out so I will keep an eye on it and trim away all the non-viable vines as it shows me the vines it still provides life to. I am really hoping we get grapes this year.

I am going to talk to the pastor to see if I can get a cutting from his apricot tree to graft onto mine so that I can get some cross pollination. I am thinking that is what I am lacking to get fruit from the tree – now five years old. I will not waste many more years on the apricot tree is it remains fruitless.

Thank God He is more patient with us who are too often fruitless through the many years of our saved lives.