Classes, safe travel, homecoming

This has been an unusual and busy week. I typically teach two classes per week however, this week I was scheduled to teach three classes as well as participate in a team building activity at the HQ house. That required me to be at the HQ house for the first three days of this week. Not a bad thing, just unusual. So, today, when I would normally be required to be in the office, I am working from home for the only day this week – and that for only a half day. I will be heading to a dental office this afternoon to have a problematic tooth pulled. Tomorrow I will be teaching the third class of the week. It will be a small class, but sometimes that is better because there is no ability on the part of the few participants to avoid participating during the class. Hopefully, the extraction will not interfere with my ability to talk as I present the 8-hour class.

To keep things going on the farm I have been going out to open up the chickens and ensure waterers and feeders were full before I left for the office each morning. The chickens are a little put off by the change in routine, but they adapt. During the current time arrangement, it is getting light as I am getting ready to go to work, so there is enough light in the early hours as I have been ensuring the chickens are set for the day. This morning, I was a little later than the 6:15 time I had opened the coop doors on the previous three mornings and the chickens were upset with me for the late arrival. As for the goats, I have only been feeding them in the evening versus trying to get that done in the limited time I have before leaving for work. It not only stretches out the feed, but it saves me a good bit of time. They are no worse off for the single feeding since they tend to not eat as heavily during the hot days. But that does not stop them from fussing at me as I open up the chickens each morning. So far, we have no kids born to our nanny goats, but it cannot be very much longer before we see out little ones arrive.

Mama and company arrived in New Jersey safely on Tuesday evening. Yesterday Brittany and Andrew were able to close on the house and because of the expense and disappointments with the hotels in the area, they may stay the next several nights in the empty house. It would definitely save Brittany and Andrew a lot of money, but it will be very difficult for Mama without a proper bed to sleep in and nowhere to sit through the hours not spent in errands and sleeping. Mama is obviously distraught with the decision, but it is probably the right one for the situation. At any rate, Mama will be flying home Saturday evening. So, the inconvenience of staying in an empty house will only last a couple days. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. The great news is that all the miles that were covered in the days of travel from Kansas to New Jersey did not present any problems to our travelers while providing Mama with an unusual opportunity to spend a lot of time with the girls.

Mama was able to go to Somerset Bible Baptist Church last night. She was warmly received. Especially by the now grown-up children in the church that we taught in Children’s Church through their three- to five-year-old years. To see some of them now, almost twenty years later is a blessing for us. To know we had a part in their Spiritual development as young children and to see where they are now is a great reminder of the how the Lord can use us to influence the next generation. It makes me miss having those opportunities in our present church to work with the children, but others have taken on that ministry and are doing a fantastic job in doing so.

I am looking froward to a long weekend. We are off on the 5^th, and I am hoping the extra times allows me to get to the work I need to accomplish with the bees. I have not been able to look into the hives to check the progress of the honey production because of daily rain showers. I can assume from the activity at each hive that things are okay, but I am very curious. I have bought an extractor and the buckets to collect and strain the honey I am expecting to process. So, I feel like w are ready to collect our first crop of honey.

All my coworkers are ready to but as much as Mama and I are willing to sell.