Follow-up, selling goats, scheduling

Mama had a disappointing day at the conference she attended as both a participant and a vendor Tuesday. She did not make a single sale in the ten hours she was at the conference. Everyone seemed too busy keeping up with the very full agenda set for the conference. There was only a ten-to-fifteen-minute break between each presentation so most of that time was for bathroom runs and chatting among the attendees, not for shopping or looking over the offerings of the seven vendors staged at the center. There were a couple possible contacts generated from her interactions with the crowd, but even that was much more limited than hoped for. This weekend, Mama will participate in a craft fair trying to sell some of the items she has created. Maybe that will turn out better. Maybe not. Time will tell. I can tell you that she has put a good deal of effort into preparing for that sale.

I had a follow-up visit with the doctor this morning. I had already looked over the lab results from medical tests that were run Tuesday. All the outcomes were normal. I did not expect anything less. In reviewing those results with the doctor, she mentioned that what is reflected in those results is that there is no critical blockage indicated. Her advice going forward is to have get ultrasound that is scheduled for Tuesday of next week and to get an initial consult with a general surgeon to initiate that contact should we progress with removing my pained gallbladder. She is convinced that the gallbladder is the cause of my current malaise, but all the paperwork has to be in place to allow me the remedy of surgery. The issue is getting all the pieces in place in a more or less timely manner – such as that is. For instance, the surgeon cannot see me for a consultation until the 12^th of October. That is better than the 20^th, which was the first offering made by the surgeon’s scheduler. Meanwhile, I will continue to feel at least as poorly as I feel now for the next few weeks.

I am going to start a diet to specifically target my gallbladder, but I am not sure what the results will be. I am also going to try a gallbladder cleanse Friday night. Mama gags at the sight of the ingredients for the suspension I will have to drink before bed that night, but I have to try something. Fortunately, I am not as turned off by things like that, so I should be able to get the mixture down and keep it down. I have been warned that the exit of that solution from my system is dramatic. For that reason, I will make sure I keep near the bathroom Saturday. I do not know if that cleanse will produce enough of a remedy for me to postpone or avoid surgery, but I am hoping it will allow me to feel at least a little better. The diet I will follow will add bathroom requirements to my daily schedule, but not in an emergency fashion.

Mama and I have been praying for the sale of our recently born goats. To that end, Mama has made several contacts and we have a buyer coming to the farm today to look over both a girl and a boy and another waiting in the wing to buy at least one of our new little girls. We will keep our little runt, Dash, but that leaves us three other little boys to sell. One will sell quickly. He is, at three weeks old, a brute. Mama and I will advertise him separately. He is one that will clearly be a champion and we will market him to professional breeders. Paring down our herd is a necessity to lower our feed bill – or at least keep the price tag steady.

I teach a class tomorrow. It is a short class, but it is a very full class. Next week, I have classes scheduled for Monday and Friday. A coworker is taking the Wednesday class to allow me the time to complete a report I produce quarterly. Trying to squeeze the appointments into that schedule is challenging, but my company is very willing to work with me to make that happen. After the class is over tomorrow, I will probably spend the last part of my workday at the office. Since my laptop was reworked, I need to reconnect to the internet at the office and add back the printers available in the office. Those connections will take some time but it will be nice to have that done when we are called back to a regular work schedule in the office.

Thank you to all of you that contacted Mama on her birthday. The day was otherwise uneventful and perhaps a little disappointing. We will try to make next year a special birthday for her.

Mama’s big day, being miserable, not so simple

Mama has some big doin’ today in Keller. I am not aware of the name of the event, but she has stressed over being adequately prepared for it for several days now. She spent hours yesterday evening getting her Square set up to allow her to take credit cards for sales of her Color Street wares. Between her, Victoria and a friend in her upline, they were able to get her ready to use the device, but it was touch and go for a while. I set an alarm for 5:45 to make sure she was up in time to get out the door by 6:30 but she was up well before that and out the door by 6 am. Mama prefers face to face events versus doing things online so she has high hopes for sales today as well as making contact with potential stylists in the crowd she will share the day with. Mama’s friend and mentor set up the event for Mama because that friend is having cataract surgery today, so she was not able to attend herself. I look at this as kind of a birthday present for Mama. Her actual birthday is tomorrow. I am scheduled to teach a class and with church tomorrow evening, there will be precious little we can do to celebrate her birthday that day. I will make up for that.

I taught a class yesterday and struggled through the seven plus hours doing so. For the past couple weeks, I have felt miserable. Constant nausea, constant bloating, constant discomfort. Not in my belly, but just below my ribs, high in my abdomen. It was very bad Sunday morning a week ago and I missed church because of the nausea. I was better that night and got to go to church for the evening service, but the pain has been my constant companion throughout last week, growing steadily worse. Saturday morning as we were gathering for Bus calling the pastor and I were talking about the pain I was having, and he said it sounded like what he went through when he had issues with his gallbladder. There were enough people at the church for Bus calling, and I was feeling badly enough that I ended up coming home instead of going out with the pastor. With that little nugget of information I had been given, I did some research and found his diagnosis to be sound. So, at Mama’s doctor’s appointment yesterday – she went so she could get a referral for her knee but the timing was excellent – she told the doctor about what I was experiencing and I will see the doctor this morning. We will see what outcomes that generates, but I would not be surprised if I have to have my gall bladder removed. Hopefully, not today. I would not like to interfere with Mama’s day.

Saturday, I made up three candy boards to put on the hives. I was not satisfied with the syrup feeders. Although the bees consumed a gallon of syrup per hive, the in-hive trough-style syrup feeder was getting nasty. Once I had to take it and wash out some worms that had begun to grow in the fermented syrup and another time, I found hive beetles in the feeder. Neither was a good discovery. I had the candy boards built and had used them last winter. All I need to do was make get the sugar into the frames and place those on the hives. That was easily accomplished with the one issue of a top not fitting on one of the candy boards. To remedy that, I took one of my extra honey supers and repurposed it into a candy board. I will install that on the hive with the ill-fitting candy board later this week.

Yesterday, as I was teaching my class, we got the information from the title company in Lawton for the closing on the house we are selling there. What I needed to do was to print those papers, sign them in front of a notary, email the scanned copies to the closing company and FedEx the originals to the title company. No bit deal right? Wrong. I could not access the printer at the office, so I came home to print the forms out on our printer. After more than forty-five minutes of trying I could not get the printer to respond properly. (That printer will never print a document ever again.) Running against the clock of having access to a notary and getting the documents to the title company before they closed for the day, I was out of options.

I had Mama call the Pack-n-Mail to see I they could help us out. They could. In fact, they were going to have the notary stay around after 5 pm to wait on us. I forwarded the email to the store so we would have access to the documents when we arrived. We headed out and were at the Pack-n-Mail in Decatur just before 5 pm. Turns out, Mama had been talking with the store in Denton. There was no notary available in Decatur. Since we were in the Decatur store, I worked with the young lady running the store to get the email to her computer and got the documents printed and signed and packed in the overnight package which was picked up just as we sealed it. That was good timing. We were able to scan the signed document and get them to the title company a little after 5:30 pm. All that cost me less than $4. We will work on the notarization of the documents today.

How something as small as printing a document turned out to be such a fiasco is what makes life interesting…and terrible frustrating.

Unusual providence, Birthday coffee, open windows

Wednesday night at church we had a missionary present his work. He is going to Eastern Germany. He began deputation with the intent of going by himself as a missionary to that specific cultural group. According to studies done worldwide concerning the belief in God among disparate population groups, Eastern Germany shows a 70% adherence to the idea that there is no God. Significantly higher than any other cultural group around the world. The study further reported that for those less than 28 years of age, there was no one who believed in God. Zero. Nana. For those of us who do believe in God, that is a sad revelation. We generally assume a young child has an inherent concept of God. In this culture, that is not the case. No foundational hope. No unchanging good. No higher purpose to life. No divine inclination. Sadder still, no one to ask if there is such a question in a young heart.

To meet a couple willing to take the message of salvation to such a populous was humbling. The wife is from Crimea. She was in the United States getting a college degree when Russia invaded Crimea. Her desire to go back as a single missionary to evangelize her own people was abruptly halted in that military takeover, but by God’s unusual providence, she “ended up” at the church where a young man who was headed to Germany as a single missionary was serving as the pastor in their children’s ministry. Now the two of them and their infant son are on deputation to begin their ministry in what is statistically, the most Godless place on Earth. Not my definition. That is the conclusion of the study the missionary shared with us. May God bless them in their desire to take on this work.

Yesterday, I did not have a class, but I had an impromptu morning meeting. My birthday happened this week and since we are not able to work from the office, my workgroup wanted to meet for either coffee or for lunch. Most of my coworkers like meeting at a local coffee shop so, I suggested that as our rendezvous. We spent the morning visiting, catching up and talking a wide range of topics including work related topics. One coworker contacted me before the meeting and asked what he could buy as a gift. I assured him that was not necessary, but he insisted, so I suggested he buy me a coffee that morning.

One of the young ladies in our group loves metal signs. She bought a Bee Crossing sign that Mama and I really like. Another of the group bought a Korean marinated meat for me to fix for dinner. That was very thoughtful. Still another brought a Chocoflan cake to the celebration. My absolute favorite. It was a fun morning. It is easy to tell that they miss being together as a group. Most times I feel like the odd man out since the nearest my age is more than twenty years my junior, but they go out of their way to include me as the daddy of the group. A role to which I am best suited.

For the past couple days Mama and I have opened the windows to let the cool morning air into the house. The a/c has been turned off until late in the afternoon when the ambient temperature rises to the level that we feel the need to use the a/c. It has been very nice. As I walked last night, after Mama and I had made a Sam’s run, I did not break a sweat, in fact, I almost needed a vest or light jacket. This is our favorite time of the year. Mama and I love the Spring as plants and trees come back to life, but the Fall is our favorite. Mama is no fan of the cold of Winter, but the transition from the heat of summer to the cool temperatures of Fall is a welcome change, and in this area, we tend to have a long transitional period in which to enjoy those cool mornings and evening.

The open windows allow me to enjoy the sounds of the farm through the day. Rooster crowing, hens clucking or making the odd screech they make as they question something around them, birds singing out with the only song each of them knows to sing. There is a faint sound of the county road about a mile north of us, but mostly I hear farm sounds. It remind me of just how much Mama and I have been blessed.

Mama went to a luncheon yesterday with her immediate upline in Color Street. She had a wonderful time. In relating the day to me she told me that the luncheon was largely for the launch of a publication featuring women in various businesses. It was a well-done publication. The editor of the magazine also helps authors self-publish. That is a timely contact since I have been challenged by the Lord and several others to write – something I should be doing. We will see how all this plays out, but it is harder and harder to avoid the need to write out the stories circulating in my head.

Making the time to do so is the inhibiting issue I must conquer.

Birthday month, saying goodbye, life is fragile

Bridgette, Cathryn, Cori, me, Becky, Nate, Mama and Chase all have birthdays this month. Bridgette’s is past and Cathryn’s is today. Happy birthday Cathryn! Cori’s is tomorrow. Mine is Monday. Becky’s is on Tuesday. Nate’s is on Wednesday. Mama and Chase’s birthdays round out the month on the 29^th. Our typical September.

Yesterday evening, I started working on the leaking hydrant at the corral as soon as I fed the animals. The leak was in the ground, so I had to dig up the hydrant to expose the leak. With the ground softened by the water from the leak, it was easy enough to do. Once exposed, I saw that the fitting to the waterline had loosened and needed to be reinserted into the waterline and a new band clamp put on the line to tighten up to the fitting. Everything in the ground looked good, so I filled the hole I had dug to expose the line. I have a hose attached to the hydrant and there did not appear to be any leaks in the hydrant and the hose. However, this morning the area was thoroughly soaked. The current leak is at the top of the hydrant and the fitting that should be available to slow or stop that leak in tightened as far as it is able. To stop that leak, the hydrant will need to be replaced. Oh, well. All but one of the hydrants were secondhand when they were installed on the farm. So, I am not alarmed that this one has failed. Maybe a little disappointed, but not alarmed.

As I was working on repairing the leak on the hydrant, I was required to shut off the water to the line feeding the hydrant. When I went into the small wellhouse to shut off the water, I found a leak on that line in the wellhouse. That required me to go to Lowe’s to buy a replacement valve that had been damaged in the deep freeze we suffered through last winter. Once I had the valve in hand, it was an easy replacement to make. That line was leak-free this morning. At least, I was able to correct that leak. The other will take a bit more time, more effort and more money.

Since I had to go to town to get a replacement valve, I got cleaned up and went to the visitation for our church member. Her surviving husband is a good friend, and we know several of the children and grandchildren. I am glad I went. I got a chance to visit with the children and the grandchildren and catch up on what has been happening in their lives. I got to spend only a few minutes with Bro. Stallard, but I asked him if he had gotten to say goodbye to his wife. He teared up and told me he did not. He had tested positive for the virus while her test had showed that she was negative. Those results were with the quick test method. Because of that he had isolated himself from her. It was only after she had died – which happened very quickly – that the test that takes several days came back and revealed that she was positive for the virus. By that time, it was too late. She had gone home to Heaven the morning he received the results. Life is fragile and fleeting and with the rush I am making toward that expected end to my life, the more fragile it seems.

Mama and Victoria made it to Florida without incident. Norman met them at the airport to take them on to Grandma and Grandpa; however, since he was in town, Norman made multiple stops along the route home to get supplies for himself as well as Grandma and Grandpa. Though Mama and Victoria got to Tampa about 10:30 local time, it took until almost 3 pm to get to the RV park. Mama and Victoria will be staying in an RV next to Grandma and Grandpa so is will not cost us to house them during their visit. That is a blessing. I am praying that they have a good visit. It will have to suffice for quite some time. I do not anticipate sending Mama back anytime soon, but I did not anticipate her returning to Florida so quickly this time. Life seems to happen in spite of our best laid plans.

Grandma and Grandpa tell us that they do not play favorites, but that is clearly not the case. Victoria is special to them and having her there is a great encouragement to them both. There will be a lot of pressure put on Victoria to stay or to find a way to move near them. From Victoria’s point of view, they made their choice when they moved away. She feels no obligation to follow them, but Grandma is unrelenting in her attempts to guilt-trip Victoria into some obligation for their wellbeing. Mama is there to intervene if needed, but the burden will fall on Victoria. We will have to wait to see how that situation resolves itself.

It is entirely understandable from Grandma’s perspective. When a person is in need of constant care even to do such things as relieve themselves or to turn about in the bed, it is far preferable to receive that care from someone who is fond of you instead of that care coming from a kind stranger who is paid to provide that care.

From our perspective, it is a blessing that such care from a stranger is available when we are too worn out to continue providing that care. Again, we will have to wait to see how this resolves itself, because at some point in the very near future, that decision will be dictated by circumstances beyond the control of those required to make that decision.

Our health, like our life, is fragile and fleeting.  

Travel, solo, questions

I dropped Mama and Victoria off at the airport this morning at 5:40. I headed back to the farm after they successfully checked in – before they headed to security. So far, travel within the United States has not been difficult. There is no way to predict when more stringent impositions will be forced upon us, but for now, the requirements are harmless. Pointless and worthless, but harmless. Although, Mama really dislikes being masked, he has endured the mask while in the airport and on the plane. I needed to be back to start work as neat to 7 am as possible so I did not dally at the airport. I did not don a mask for the time I was in the terminal. Boy, did I get some strange looks. I guess a woman can have her entire backside exposed and feel perfectly comfortable with her nakedness while keeping my face naked is a social taboo. Weird! I made it to my computer with a few minutes to spare – even stopping at Buc-ee’s to get a breakfast taco and a coffee. Mama and Victoria will arrive in Tampa around 10:30 my time. Noman will be there to pick them up and take them back to Grandma and Grandpa. That is the plan and so far, it has worked out well.

I am not often in the position that I am maintaining the farm by myself. The only change to when Mama is traveling is that I am now responsible for keeping up with the inside dogs as well as all the outside animals. That typically falls to Victoria, but she is traveling as well. Mama and Victoria worry too much about the inside dogs, but I am sure I can keep them alive until Mama and Victoria return next week. Well. I’m pretty sure.

I will have precious little time to work around the farm while Mama and Victoria are gone. This evening I will be attending a viewing for an elderly lady from our church that died as a result of the recent round of Covid infections. Her husband, who is 84, is recovering well from his bout with the virus. That visitation is scheduled at 6 pm – no time to get sweaty before and no daylight to work outside afterwards. I should have Friday evening and Saturday afternoon to work around the farm, but that is all. Saturday morning will be given to bus calling and soul wining. Sunday is church and Monday I teach a class. Tuesday the travelers will return home. A short, but hopefully well-received and productive visit for them.

With the fallen tree mostly removed from the corral, I need to refocus on the yard hydrant at the corral so that our neighbor will have access to water for his weanlings. That will take several hours to repair sufficiently because of rerouting the waterline so that the hydrant is accessible in the barn lot. Right now, I have to go into the adjacent lot to open the hydrant. Since there is no particular need for the hydrant to be stationed on the opposite side of the fence from the corral, it makes sense to put it where I need it. That obvious choice was not a priority until now.

The recent vaccine mandate has shaken things up in the US workforce but not every employer is in favor if imposing health care requirements on their workforce. The real question is, what else will be required? No smoking or vaping. No BMI over 28. No cholesterol over 100. No more than one child. If any portion of our personal health – and thereby our personal choices - can be mandated “for our own safety” where does the oversight stop? And why are illegal aliens flooding into our country exempt? Where did the idea that we needed overt measures in place to “protect the vaccinated’? That sounds insane in its most basic premise. An oxymoron. If the vaccine will protect the unvaccinated once we are forced to get it, why are our leaders saying the vaccinated are not now protected because of the vaccine they have already received? What is really going on? Maybe we will never know but we should certainly ask. To allow our republic to die on the altar of forced vaccinations is a cowardly and senseless way to resign our basic liberties and eventually our sovereign nation.

I was telling Mama last night that it is a relief to have our little patch of isolation and peace in a world gone crazy. We hope to keep it, but that may not be the case. If I am forced to be vaccinated in order to continue my employment, I am not certain what my response to that requirement will be. I will have to pray about it. That moment may soon come, but it is not here yet, so there is no sense in wasting too much emotional energy on a decision I may or may not have to make. There are many other important things to spend that energy on.

Tree work, travel, computer woes

Yesterday evening I go the majority of the tree cut away from the corral and cleaned up most of the larger branches. To get the bulk of the tree moved, I cut the larger branches in about six-foot pieces and moved them with the tractor. I placed those large pieces on a pile of wood we have accumulated from trees we have had to cut down on the farm. That allowed me to get access to the barn opened up. I managed to lift one end and shove the stump - which is about ten feet long – away from where it had fallen but my tractor was not able to actually lift it. In fact, the tractor struggled with a couple of the large pieces of the tree I cut away from the upper part of the trunk. How we will get that stump to the mill is a question I have yet to solve, but that is not important at the moment. I plan to work on whittling the trunk down to manageable pieces over the next few days, but it is a challenge for the chainsaw I have which has only a twenty-four-inch bar. At least, the barn and corral are accessible for our neighbor should he need that access this weekend.

Working on the tree removal has left me with some seriously augmented aches and pains. A constant reminder that I am not as young as I used to be. Thankfully, with the tractor and the chainsaw, I am able to meet the challenge, albeit with less vigor than in the past. In ways, it has been fun to tackle the project especially when it looked so massive at the beginning. As I began to cut away the upper branches and expose the trunk of the tree, I had to make sure every cut was safe to make. That the tree would not roll onto me or that the branch being cut would not snap back into my face or body. There was a lot of stored kinetic energy to be released and I did not want to be the recipient of that release. So, it took me a while initially to get started and a while to clean up what I had cut away so that I did not stumble over the limbs with a running chainsaw in my hands. But it all worked out especially when I was able to use the tractor to roll the tree over and off the corral fence. Now, I have only an hour or so of cleanup to do and a large hole to fill where the tree uprooted itself.

Mama and Victoria are in the final phases of packing for their trip to visit Grandma. I believe Mama is going because Victoria did not want to go by herself, but that might not be the only reason. This time, they are planning a trip to the beach so Mama can get her sand, saltwater, and seashell fix for the year. Grandma seems to be doing better but the care she requires from Grandpa is getting to be a challenge. Since Grandma cannot even reposition herself in bed, much less get out of bed on her own, Grandpa is required to provide that help to her every couple hours or so in order to keep Grandma from getting bed sores. Grandpa, at 79, is willing but is limited in strength and eventually endurance.

At some point soon, Grandma will need to be placed where that care can be given by others on a fulltime basis. We are not at that juncture yet, but we are close. It is a subject that no one wants to discuss right now. If Grandma gets worse mentally, the decision will be a less emotional one. It will become one of necessity. Again, we are not there yet but we are close. I wish they had stayed close to us so we could help. It is a good reminder that all our decisions have consequences. Some of which we will not see before the decision is made and acted upon. However, with this decision to move, most of the outcomes were fairly evident before the move was ever made. We cannot undo what has been done and at this point there is no good way to get Grandma back here whare we could help Grandpa. God is still in control.

Yesterday afternoon, my computer decided that it would reject the password I have used for weeks and lock me out. When IT intervened to allow me to access my laptop, none of the passwords I have been using for any of the programs I have been accessing worked. Not one. So, I had to spend the rest of the day getting into programs I need to do my job. It is surprising just how frustrating that can be when you are used to those passwords being stored on the computer – mostly forgotten except by the computer. When the computer forgets, and there is no record of what the password is, it has to be reset. I hate resetting passwords because it always takes me a while to remember the password I chose for each specific site.

Anyway, that is how I spent the afternoon yesterday so working on cutting up a large tree was a good outlet for the frustration I was dealing with. 

Weekend surprise, Grandma

However, it does block access to the corral. That and a few large branches were spilling over into the corral, making it impractical to use as we were planning. So, while Mama began mowing, I went to the shop and got the chain saw to begin cutting away at the massive tree. So far, I have been able to whittle the deadfall down to the point that I can safely get to the trunk and major limbs to cut and clear them away from the corral, but it is not a small project. I need to have the removal completed this evening so we can be ready for our neighbor. Also, Mama does not like the idea of me working on the tree with the chain saw without her oversight. Just in case something happens.

We are hoping to leave the trunk which is about 30 inches in diameter and about nine feet tall in one piece so we can have it milled. There are two other pieces towards the base of the tree which are also large enough to mill into rough lumber for live-edge pieces of oak, but I have yet to get to them. Yesterday evening I was able to trim away enough of the branches to roll the tree off the corral fencing and lay it over in a way that I can get to the larger parts without putting myself in peril. I tried to do so with the tractor on Monday evening after I had trimmed off some of the branches but could not do so. It was just too heavy and awkwardly tilted onto the corral fence. My second attempt to do so was successful. Hopefully, I can finish the dismembering of the trunk this evening and move the large pieces out of the way of accessing the corral. It has been a challenging project to work on by myself, but I praise the Lord that I have all the required equipment to do so.

To be fully prepared for the calves, I need to rework the water to the barn, so our neighbor has easy access to water. That is not a big project, but it will take a bit of time. It is something I have been planning to do, but the urgency to get it done was not pressing. Now it is. The yard hydrant is usable as it is, but it leaks both at the nozzle and at the connection in the ground – both of which are unacceptable. As a remedy, I leave that line turned off in the well house. So, to use the hydrant, I would have to turn it on in the well house, get the water I needed for the day and turn it off in the well house when I was done. It needs to be simpler than that for our neighbor and it needs to be done right anyway. I will get that done this week, but the tree removal comes first. Mama and I are hoping the new calves do not find their way onto the neighbor that adjoins us. That is not something he enjoys having to deal with, but I have not spent any time on the fence other than to begin the process of clearing it so that I could inspect and repair it. Again, there was no urgency until now. That will be a longer project.

I was also able to meet with and talk to the gentleman leasing the quarry property. He is a nice enough fellow, but he is not going to allow me to fish in the quarry lakes while he is leasing the property. I can sympathize with his point of view. He is paying for the privilege of having exclusive rights to the property and I am sure it was not cheap. Therefore, he would like to enjoy those privileges without sharing with a freeloader – at least for now. He did not state it that way, but that is the way leases work. At least, that is settled between us. I assured him I would respect his “ownership” of the property. In Texas, that is a big deal.

Mama and Victoria are starting to pack for the trip to Florida to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma seems really excited about them – especially Victoria – coming. It is hard to say, but she seems to be improving steadily. Norman is talking about moving them into a bumper pull camper so that there will not be any stairs to navigate in the camper. That would definitely help. He is also looking at possible spaces for the RV nearer to Shaelyn and her crew in Bradenton. That would also help.

We will see how all that works out, but for now, things look like Grandma is recovering her strength and will, but Grandpa is barely able to care for her as she need. That is of some concern to Mama and Norman.

Crazy times, the farm

We sure live in a crazy mixed-up world. There have always been times where men called wrong right and sought to strip all power from truth, and we have survived those times. That survival was based every time on a truth-centered approach to our interpersonal communications. Now those in power have the means to tell their fiction as truth without any interference from a voice of truth and reason. The sad fact of our current culture is that a huge number of our own population actually believe the lies they are being told even though the truth is available to counter those lies. Whether it is the ongoing horror in Afghanistan, the flood of persons into our country illegally at the southern border (who are not required to be vaccinated), or the constant shaming about getting the vaccine which is proven to be questionable, rarely is the opposing view told. And many just nod their heads and click their tongues and go along with the lies.

There is coming an awakening of the majority. All it will take is one step over the threshold of what can be tolerated from those holding authority at the moment. Either that or we will see what the Bible talks about when it mentions the mark of the Beast. A measure, a mark, an identifier that will allow those marked to participate in the economy and those without to be kept from buying, selling, getting health care, etc. It is frightening to be so close to that moment. Can we recover? Yes. The choice is ours to make but I am not sure how to make an individual difference right now. That opportunity will come, but for now, I will continue walking in truth and let the Lord lead.

In times like these it is nice to have the farm; a constant reminder of the wonder of the world the Lord has allowed us to occupy. As Mama headed out to make her run to Costco yesterday morning, she noticed Dolly in the far of their enclosure farthest from the barn – and oddly close to the road. That is the spot where she has delivered her kids every time she has given birth. We knew to watch her but both of us were busy. As I returned from teaching the class I presented yesterday afternoon, I noticed a little one with her. When I got inside the house and told Mama, she had to run out to see and sure enough, she had delivered a little girl. The little one is beautifully marked. We were both surprised that she had only the one. She normally has twins. She did have twins. A little stillborn boy was tucked into the branches I have piled in that corner. I had to go back a little bit later and bury him. So, Dolly has only the one to raise this year.

Also yesterday at the evening feeding, Aspen did not get up to fight for her spot at the feeders. A telltale sign she was close to kidding as well. Sure enough, this morning Mama discovered that early this morning she had had triplets. That is normal for her. The sad part is that they are all three boys. That is only sad from the prospect of selling them. For this year’s crop of kids, we have three girls and five boys newly arrived on the farm. We also lost two boys as stillborn. In a few months, the girls will be separated for weaning and the boys will be separated permanently. Hopefully, we can find homes for them quickly.

Mama and Victoria are working on getting flights to Florida so they can spend some time with Grandma to try and encourage her to fight through to recovery. At the moment, it is a plan in the works, and nothing has been settled, but oddly enough, they are looking at the same days Mama and I had thought to take a few days away from the farm for a mini vacation. After the expense of having Mama in Florida for the week she spent helping Grandpa, we did not have the funds to make such a trip, so I cancelled that vacation from work. If Mama and Victoria do go to see Grandma, I hope they will take an evening and go to the beach for a few hours. Mama did not get to do so on her last trip. All that said, we are still waiting to see how Grandma does over the next week.

This weekend will be filled our typical weekend chores – cleaning coops, tending to the bees, and general farm duties. I will continue to dig up the grass burr (sticky burr) infestation in the garden that I started yesterday evening. I started with a box to accumulate the offending plants and had to quickly graduate to the wheelbarrow for the mass if plants and dirt I was removing from the garden. It has amounted to a lot more than I anticipated. If I am successful at getting the burrs removed, it will be a great improvement to our garden area.

Mostly, it feels like an exercise in futility but I know there will be at least a modest positive outcome albeit a temporary one. 

Grandma, life

The current prognosis for Grandma is not good. I am not there, so I have to rely on reports coming through Mama from Grandpa. The real issue is that the dementia has set in with crippling results. Grandpa has to care for Grandma as he would a convalescent patient. She is not totally incapacitated, but she is close. Unable to go to the bathroom on her own, she often will not seek help to get to the bathroom so the results must be cleaned up after the fact. She is not eating at all and drinking very little. The only nutrition she receives is from drinking one or two containers of Ensure. She is not able to carry on a conversation with any relevance. She has confined herself to the bed because of the pain she is in and the lack of desire she has to be anywhere else. Because of where they chose to move, the burden for her care falls completely o Grandpa. When he is too worn out to provide such care, Grandma will have to be committed to a nursing home for what time she has left with us.

Her downward progression reminds me of my dad. Late in his life, after he was placed in an extended care facility, his dementia steadily worsened but he had lucid times during my visits with him when conversation seemed normal. But just before he died, he was sick with the flu. Very sick. That one illness accelerated his decline in a frightening manner. Thought he recovered fully from the illness he never regained strength or experienced any clarity of mind after that episode. The last time I visited him, I was able to talk to him as I fed him his meal of blender softened mush. It seems close to what Grandpa is experiencing now. You have to admire Grandpa for his expression of love through all this. We will wait to see what happens and make plans after the fact.

Back at the farm, the evenings are starting to cool sufficiently that it is once again pleasant to do an evening walk. I try to make the walk to the beginning of our road and back to get the exercise. It is a mole walk when I make the round trip. I have found that it helps me sleep much better. When I do not have the opportunity to walk the extra distance, I have problems with pain in my legs as I try to lay down and sleep. With the cool evenings come very cool mornings. The smell of Fall is in the air even though the daytime temperatures are still in the low nineties. I like this shift in temperatures. It is always my favorite time of year as we move from Summer into Fall. It will still be some weeks before we see cold temperatures, but the promise of those days is reinforced each morning.

Yesterday, Mama separated the young does from their mama. We tried to do so the evening before but were not able to catch them. When we feed in the morning is a far better time to get hole of them because they are wholly focused on fighting for their place at the feeder. Since Mam had that chance, she made the most of it and now the little girls are in the area we cleaned and made ready for them the day before.

They are not happy about the relocation, nor are we confident that their brother will be allowed to nurse now that they are not taking all the milk offered by the mama goat, but we tried. I have a friend at work who is asking about the little ones. He and his family have a place where they could keep a few goats and he is doing the initial questioning to see if that is the right option. Mama is starting to seek buyers for the goats we have a s we wait to see what Dolly and Aspen will deliver in the seeks to come.

I have a half-day class to teach this afternoon. That is a rarity, but it at least allows me to have the morning to work from home. I am not only growing accustomed to working from home, but also having an extra hour to sleep in each morning I do work from home. Only the need to teach a class gets me up at what was a standard time prior to Covid. At some point, we will start reporting back to the office again on our two days per week schedule, but for now, I will take the extra time at home.

Life goes on and God’s blessings are ever with us.

Summer and Winter and Springtime and harvest, sun, moon and stars in their courses above,

Join with all nature in manifold witness, to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Cancelled, busy day, sad day

I was scheduled to teach a class this morning but eventually the class got cancelled. That was actually kind of a blessing. My morning started off with my bathroom sink completely clogged. Fortunately, I was able to shift over to Mama’s sink to shave before I showered. When I got to the HQ house, I was not able to log onto the internet. When our IT personnel had reset my computer to a new cloud server for access to work documents last week, that wiped out all the shortcuts for log in credentials I had relied upon to access the networks at the office and at HQ. During the time I was waiting on someone to come online to help me – their workday does not start until 8 am – one of the two remaining attendees for the class today called to cancel. I had the young lady who was watching over the class to contact the lone participant and ask if he could reschedule. He agreed. Meanwhile, I waited on IT to respond to my plea for help. Finally, at 8:50 I was able to access the internet at the HQ house. I needed to get that hurdle conquered this morning so that I will be able to present a class tomorrow afternoon. Once that issue was settled, I stopped by the office to pick up some paperwork for several classes that were presented by a colleague last week and headed home since the office is closed to non-essential workers.

Yesterday was an unusually busy day for me. I am not sure how that worked out but by the time I got the many small, urgent work assignments settled, it was time to break for lunch. That rarely happens, but it was a nice way to fly through the morning. After lunch, with all the small crises passed, I had a couple large projects that swallowed up the afternoon just about as quickly. Mama chewed up my evening with the cleaning of the pig building to prepare it to house the two girl goat babies in order to wean them. We will allow their little brother to remain with his mama for a few weeks to see if he will get the chance to nurse in the absence of his sisters. He has largely been denied access to her milk and that may continue but we wanted to try out this arrangement.

Mama and I are debating whether or not I should go to church this evening. The requested time apart post exposure is still 10 days, regardless of how I personally feel about the arbitrarily chosen cautionary measures. Mama is symptom free. I am symptom free. There is less than miniscule chance for us to be infectious. Plus, both of us are treating prophylactically with over-the-counter meds as well as herbal supplements and vitamin additions to our diet. We have done very well so far, especially with the volume of exposure Mama had during her time with Grandma, Grandpa and Norman. Those in our church that have gotten sick seem to all be recovering from that sickness without any medical intervention. When we realize as a society that this virus is easily treatable outside of a questionable shot commonly and erroneously referred to as a vaccine, we could all get on with our lives. But sadly, we are still not there yet. Maybe after the 2022 elections are over.

On the sad side, we received work that one of the elderly ladies in our church passes away this morning. I know that her husband has a light case of Covid, but the prayer request did not mention the cause of her death. We have three other elderly ladies about the same age who have not attended church since March of 2020 for fear of Covid. Living in fear is a sad way to live regardless of what drives that fear. I feel sad for them, but there is no comfort I can provide to them. As stated above perhaps we will move ahead with effective treatments for the virus and begin to live again sometime in the near future.

Cori is sick with a virus of some sort as well. She does not believe it is Covid. Now three of the kids are sick along with her. For Cori, this is a continuation on a long string of health issues that have challenged her immune system over the past three months. She is ready to feel well again. Several of the children and young adults at the home in El Progresso are sick or recovering. This has been a particularly pervasive bout of whatever is causing their illnesses. Our prayers continue for her, for her family and for their ministry. This is another situation where I wish we could provide more help or consolation, but we are limited in doing so. Instead, we pray that our God would do so in a way that more than makes up for our lack of ability to do so.

Regardless of our circumstance, we serve a wonderful God!

Grant, Grandma, resting and working

For the second Sunday in a row, Grand passed out during the church service Sunday morning. This time, Grant was seated next to Nate who was going to preach that morning. Grant was able to sit down before he passed out because he felt the episode coming on. He was immediately evaluated by the doctor assigned to the Medical Center on the premises and once again they were not able to identify any abnormality. Pulse, blood pressure, temperature, capillary refill, all normal. His blood sugar was normal as well. We talked at length with Cori after they were back home, and I made a couple suggestions but there was so little to go on. Based on an abundance of caution, Nate took Grant to a local hospital and had him evaluated but nothing showed up as out of bounds in any of the tests they ran. Vital signs, EKG and blood work were all perfectly normal. So, after Cori conferred with a nurse in their missionary network, they decided to have him evaluated by a pediatric neurologist as soon as that appointment can be made.

The local doctors all point to dehydration as the root cause. His mommy finds that hard to believe because Grant always has a bottle of water with him and is constantly refilling it as he constantly empties it. He has no indication of being dehydrated but the issue remains. We are not sure if there is a blood issue or an underlying neurologic issue, or if he has a bad habit of locking his knees while he is standing – which can lead to a vasovagal episode as seen the past two Sunday mornings. For now, we pray and wait on the results of further testing while suggesting to Grant that he relax a bit more when upright.  His parents are more than a bit concerned, and rightly so.

Grandma does not seem to be improving health wise. While Grandpa is up and going fairly well and Norman is back to work, Grandma does not do any more than is absolutely necessary in making any effort to get out of bed – even to use the bathroom. She has no fever but is suffering from hives which is showing up on various areas of her body. She is weak feeling but that is not uncommon for her. Even at peak physical condition for Grandma she was very weak in her legs and did not move about much. So, she has confined herself to the bed and seems resolved to not seek any remedy to gain her strength back. She also seems to be more confused because of the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s. That part of Grandpa’s current state is most problematic for Grandpa.

Mama will not be able to return to help and they understand that. This was our one shot at nursing Grandma back to health. On the flip side, they will not be able to return to Texas so we could better care for them. Their decision to move has put them in a particularly precarious situation. It has effectively isolated them from our help. That is truly sad. We will just have to wait and see what the outcome is for this current recovery and if Grandma decides to fight her way through this to some semblance of health. She is certainly capable of doing so if she will decide to do so. I can understand from her perspective that Heaven looks pretty good right now.

Mama, who got home Saturday evening, and I spent the weekend mostly on yard work. Mama spent a lot of time resting through Saturday night and Sunday. I flew Mama home a day early because she was starting to feel badly, and I did not want to run the risk of her being denied access to her flight home if we waited too long. I had my bag packed and was planning on driving to get her and bring her home if she got too sick to fly. But we were spared that 36 hours on the road. We did not go to church Sunday because of Mama’s time spent with her sick parents in Florida. Right now, we have about eleven of our church family members out with COVID. All are recovering, but it has alarmed our pastor.  Yesterday, we went to Sam’s for a pantry stocking run and then got busy catching up on the mowing, trimming and weed eating. I tended to the bees once again. For the first time I was able to identify the queen bee in one of the hives.

All three beehives are doing well. There is honey in a lot of cells of comb, but the bees are not capping off the honey they have stored so far. That means that either the cells of comb are not yet full or that the honey in those cells is too wet to cap. I am continuing to monitor the progress in the hopes of eventually harvesting some honey.

Sadly, it will not be nearly as much as I had originally hoped for.

Our coffee bar, patient news, weekend chores

A few months ago, I looked online for sugar free coffee flavors. I found Skinny Mixes. We tried a couple flavors, but they were too expensive to accumulate, and Mama and Victoria were not very impressed by the thought of flavoring their coffee. I, on the other hand, have enjoyed the flavors, especially the chocolate ones. When I got an email recently from Skinny Mixes that many of their flavors were on sale – more than 60% off – I decided to explore their offerings. After doing so, I ordered several.

Two that I thought I would like and two that Mama would perhaps like. One flavor is Slated Dark Chocolate Expresso. It is exactly the flavor I have been looking for. This morning I tried the Mocha syrup. Another amazing choice. In addition to those two flavors, I have Pumpkin spice and Caramel Pecan available. I thought Mama might like those. If not, it is no big loss. At least I have two that I know I will like. I cannot drink my coffee black, but I do not want to add any calories to the beverage. Using the flavorings keeps me from having to use Truvia to sweeten my coffee. It always left an unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth. These sugar-free flavorings have given me some great options.

Hopefully, Mama is coming home Sunday evening. She told me last night that she was feeling achy and nauseated. Beginning symptoms of a Delta variant illness? We are not sure. This morning she was feeling better but not 100%. Part of her malaise is from poor sleep and constant stress. She will have to get back home to get past those two contributing factors. If push comes to shove and she is restricted from getting on a plane due to her symptoms, I will have to drive down to get her. It is a little over eighteen hours’ drive time each way to make the trip. Challenging but not impossible. Our prayer is that she can fly back to DFW where I can pick her up. The next several days will tell whether or not that is possible. Complicating the trip to collect Mama, should I have to drive down to get her, is the damage to Southern Louisiana from the recent hurricane. I am hearing reports of extended travel times on I-10 across Louisiana and lack of gasoline at many stations. We will cross that bridge – literally – when and if we come to it.

As for Mama’s patients in Florida, all are certainly on the mend. She has accomplished what she set out to do. Now Mama has to try to coast through the next two days as she turns her heart toward home. Grandpa remains the most well of the trio with Norman not far behind. The pressures of having no income will eventually drag Norman out of the camper and back to work. Grandma is still the problematic patient and the most argumentative. Grandpa stands alone in his appreciation of the sacrifice Mama has made to be there. We are appreciative of all the financial help Mama has gotten that has made her extended stay with her parents possible as she helps them through this illness. Without that help, it would have been far more difficult for us to provide the help Mama has been able to give over the past week.

Back at the farm, I have debated whether or not to mow our yard before Mama comes home or let it go so she can do so when she gets back home. Two more days will not be a deal breaker and Mama enjoys the chore far more than I do, but I will do the trimming and weed eating that is my part of the yard work over this weekend. I have that on my very extensive list of things I need to get done this weekend. I have spent the last several evenings burning out the sticky burrs in the yard and along the fences. Burning the plants is the only way to get rid of them other than digging them up and discarding them. I am not an advocate of digging them up because of the problem that exercise is for my back, so I have resorted to burning them out. I do not know if we are making any headway against the spread of the weeds into our yard, but we are trying.

I will feed and check on the bees again tomorrow. They are a fascinating insect. We have a hydrant at the coop yard with a little concrete pad poured to facilitate cleaning and filling waterers for the chickens. At that water station, Mama set out a rubber dish to keep full of water for the chickens. The bees have taken over that dish. It probably holds two quarts of water. The bees empty the contents of that dish daily. Pretty amazing. So, Mama and I keep the dish as full as possible in spite of the dozens of bees constantly at the dish. When we are adding water to the dish or filling the water containers for the chickens, the bees do not bother us, although they get curious and check us out.

It has been Mama’s one point of contact with the bees and she loves that.

Morning feeding, dentist, patient updates

I went out early this morning to let the chickens out of the coop building so they could access their waterers as soon as I was available. As a part of that morning routine, Mama and I lower the perch boards on the front of the nesting boxes to give the hens access to the nesting boxes. We close the perch boards overnight because we want to discourage the hens from spending the night in the nesting boxes. This eliminates the need to clean out the mess they leave behind when they do stay overnight in the nesting boxes. As I went into the coop to take care of opening the nesting boxes, I found a young rat snake in one of the nesting boxes. I had anticipated getting a few eggs this morning since I had done the feeding and egg collecting early last night because of church. Our reptile visitor had eaten whatever may have been laid after I collected the eggs. Sadly, I had to kill the snake because I did not have time to try to relocate it. I always regret having to do that because the snakes also eat mice and rats – which Mama dislikes even more than the snakes. Hopefully there are more snakes around taking care of the varmints. This young one will not be eating any more rodents or eggs.

Because my class was cancelled this morning, I took an open appointment at the dentist. It is for a routine teeth cleaning so it should not take too long. I have not been to the dentist for several years because we could not find a dentist we liked; however, a chance visit to an oral surgeon put us in touch with the dentist I will be seeing this morning. Mama and I are both very impressed with him and his staff. We will be using him from now on. That is a bit of a relief since we have been to three other dentists in the area prior to this one. Mama and I need some work done to our teeth, but we were not interested in engaging the services of the dentists we had tried in the past. It is good to be getting those dental procedures scheduled.

Our patients in Florida are progressing well. Grandpa is doing the best out of the group. Mama tells me he is consciously drinking plenty and trying to eat a meal at least twice per day. What that meal consists of is questionable nutrition wise, but that is Grandpa’s normal practice. Norman is never a good patient but even he is starting to eat and drink without the nausea they had all been experiencing early on. Mama continues to challenge Norman to get outside and get his blood stirring. They have a nice outside area at the camper. Grandma remains the challenge for Mama because she requires so much physical help just to get into and out of her bed which is in the lofted area of the RV.

Three steps lead to the cramped bedroom and once Grandma safely gets up those steps, Mama has to try to help her ease into the bed with very limited space to do so. Mama has to provide this help while in a standing position from the side of the bed. Mama’s knee issues do not allow her to kneel on the bed thought that would make things easier. It is a huge challenge to Mama’s back but with Grandpa’s help, the three of them have managed to get Grandma situated comfortably.

Pray for Grandma to get significantly better because when Mama comes home, all this help with climbing the stairs and positioning Grandma in bed will fall on Grandpa who often does not have a lot of strength to offer Grandma. How much help and how often that will be available from in-home health care remains to be seen.

Mama called me pretty upset this morning – as predicted – because of her frustration with Grandma to do even the little things to support her health and recovery. The most troubling issue is her steadfast refusal to drink water. Often drinking less than one small bottle of water per day as her total fluid intake. Far less than needed, but when Mama suggests Grandma drink more fluids, Grandma gets very upset and uncooperative. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to change the situation. We can only help where we are allowed and as Grandma and Norman get better, that help will be less and less appreciated. My prayer is that Mama gets home before her being there is resented. That has always been the final outcome of such insertions into Grandma and Grandpa’s lives. My other prayer is that as home health workers come to help Grandma that she will listen to the advice they give which will certainly be the same as what Mama is currently offering. Oh, well.

We will continue to help where we can and Mama has nursed them all through the worst part of this illness. Go Mama!

Visiting, release, purging, power, running

Mama took a few hours to herself yesterday and drove an hour south of where she is staying during her vigil over Grandma, Grandpa and Norman to meet up with Jake and Melissa. We have not seen Jake for a couple years, so it was a great visit for all in attendance. It would have been a shame had Mama not taken the time to make the visit since she happened to be so close. They had sushi – which Jake loves even though for his entire childhood he refused to eat fish of any kind. In our time going to the restaurant owned by our Chinese family, Mama has come to appreciate different types of sushi. She had a Mexican sushi. Talk about cultural appropriation. I do not think Mama has had the opportunity to stand on a beach since she has been in Florida, but that may come during the next couple days as everyone continues to improve.

Mama had thought about making the drive to the beach after her visit with Jake, but Grandma was being released from the hospital and there was a deadline to signing her out of their care. So, Mama drove the two hours from her rendezvous with Jake to the hospital to retrieve Grandma then the hour back from the hospital to their RV park. Grandma was in her own bed by late afternoon yesterday. Clean sheets and pillowcases had been paced on the bed thanks to Mama. Home health care will start this week sometime. The focus of that care will be the administration of oxygen and breathing treatments to ensure Grandma is fully recovered from the COVID infection.

All in all, we have arrived at the expected outcome – all the patients are well on the road to a full recovery. Now the hard part comes as Mama has to spend the next five days with her family without the need for urgent intervention on their behalf or an overarching focus on their health. Things are returning to normal in their lives. These may turn out to be a long five days for Mama especially because of the very limited space Grandma and Grandpa have to offer in the camper. Mama tells me there is not even a place for her to sit other than in a chair at the “kitchen table.” Oh, well, perhaps there is a beach near enough for her to visit. She is, after all, in Florida.

I took care of the last of the six roosters that needed to be removed from the flock. Three I dressed out Monday evening and three I dispatched last night and put the carcasses in the creek bed for the local varmints to eat because they were too small to make the effort to clean and dress them. Mama and I do not like to have to do the killing often required to purge the roosters from the flock, but no one wanted the little roosters, and we could not keep them in the flock because of the way they cumulatively torment the hens as well as fighting with each other. I do not enjoy that part of raising chickens, but it is a requirement of the undertaking and a benefit to our food supply – if Mama and Victoria will actually eat the prepared birds.

My class of two participant yesterday was my only class for the week. I had to rush through the afternoon portion of the class because one of the participants was in Tennessee and over the lunch hour power was lost to the area of town where he was working. Remnants of Hurricane Ida were passing through his area so there was little hope that power would be quickly restored. Without power to keep his laptop charged, he was running through the battery at a pretty fast pace and since he had already gone through the morning portion of the class, I wanted to ensure he could complete the class and take the test to prove that completion. We made it with less than only 30 minutes of battery life remaining on his computer. Since the time the tests are completed is recorded in the record of the test, it will show a short duration to that class, but I have a valid reason for getting done early. Whether or not I remember that reason a few months from now if I am asked for an explanation remains a question.

I will need to use my lunch hour today to run to Muenster to get feed. I am completely out of chicken feed so, I cannot wait until tomorrow, which is when I had originally planned to make the run. Besides, I have a dental appointment tomorrow at 10 am so that limits my availability tomorrow even if I could wait that long.

It should be a full day today.