Mama’s weekend, other happenings

Mama had a great time at her conference. She got some very practical ideas to work with in growing her business. She made some interesting contacts and caught up with some good friends. She came back fired up and ready to keep moving forward with her Color Street business. Her drive home Saturday night was a harrowing experience for her because she does not see well at night, but she made it home before 9 pm, a bundle of energy and excitement. Tired to the core and excited to the max. It took some time for her to wind down, but once she did, she was instantly exhausted and fell asleep as soon as her head touched her pillow. I am sure I have not heard the last of all her experiences, but from what I have heard, and the discernable outcomes evidenced today, I am very glad she attended the conference.

Mama is out today on a commissioned errand to stock our empty pantry. Actually, the pantry is not really empty, but we are out of many of the staples we like to keep on hand. She has a couple items to return, and a couple predetermined stops to make outside of the grocery line to purchase items we will need for the cold snap we are forecast to have mid-week. With the prediction of several inches of snow and temperatures in the single digits for later this week, Mama is making her shopping run today. Tomorrow she will get feed we need for the coming weeks and meet with Kim Cantrell for a catch-up visit. I do not plan on having her travel after the snow and ice descend upon our roadways. That travel threat will extend into next weekend since the highs for a couple days will not get above freezing. If our electric stays on, the cold should be a minimal inconvenience for us, effecting mainly our ability to get fresh water to our flock and herd.

The very cold temperatures are forecast to last only two days, but the ambient temperatures are predicted to stay at or below freezing overnight for a couple weeks. As long as the days get above freezing, our animals do well enough through the cold. When the temperatures do not get above freezing, it tends to be a little hard on our goats. I will be making some minor changes to their shelters to help them endure the next couple cold weeks but especially for this week’s single digit nights. As for the bees, I am planning on wrapping the hives with insulation to help them cope with the temperatures. I have not done that in the past, but I feel it would be a benefit now – if I can get the materials to wrap the hives.  At least we have today and tomorrow to prepare. Those two days will be in the seventies by the afternoons. I am thankful we have a warning about the coming cold. I cannot imagine what a shock it would be to deal with that change in temperature without some forewarning.

Saturday, I cut a frost-proof spigot into the wellhouse at the house. That project took about as long as I had predicted, but I like the outcome. I tried one more time to work on the well tank to keep the pump from running so often but got no better results than the last time I tried. I have one more idea in mind to see if I can remedy the issue and if that does not work, I will seek outside help. I also cleaned out the goat barn removing five tractor front loader bucket loads from the floor of the barn. I could have done at least two more full loads, but I stopped to avoid injuring my back. Also, the dust that kind of cleanup produces is something I have to limit my exposure to. It was good to get done what I did, but I am glad I limited myself as I did. Even still, I was hurting very badly in my back Sunday. That pain has largely passed now, for which I am thankful.

Today Trace will turn in the keys to the house he and his family rented in Decatur. That ends a month-long project of sorting through, storing or trashing all the contents of the house, cleaning the bathrooms, the refrigerator, the stove, the microwave, etc,, sweeping clean all the floors in the house as well as cleaning up the patio and yard of the house. From the pictures he took, he did a great job. I do not know how many trips he made to the storage units, but I do know we took three trailer loads of junk and trash to the dump and three truckloads of the same over the month it took for him to complete the cleanup project. With that behind him now, we will see what his forward plans will be. There is a lot to consider on his part. Please continue to pray for him.

I will be teaching a class tomorrow. I am looking froward to that.

Aaron update, Mama, Trace

After having spent his time in isolation, Aaron is possibly returning home today. He had to endure only five days in his room, but that was enough for him to miss the entirety of the class he traveled to take. He will need to reschedule that class in the future. As for his travel home, that all depends on the flight he is booked on. Whether or not the flight will actually take off this evening is the million-dollar question. With the amazing number of flights being cancelled recently, it is up in the air – no pun intended – as to whether or not his will actually take off as scheduled. He is now asymptomatic and should have no issue health wise. It is only a question of whether a flight will be available. He is anxious to get home and Maggie and the kids are anxious to have him home.

Mama got to her destination easily and had a lot of fun with the ladies that were in attendance for the conference last night. They played some type of game of chance with their two-sies as the chance items to be gained or lost. Mama really enjoyed the game and may use it for a live party. She is fairly idle through the day today with events happening largely in the evening, but there is plenty of company to enjoy until this evening. I am happy she elected to go. It is always an encouragement to be around like-minded people. It is a benefit for Mama to get their ideas, their contact strategies, and their marketing or recruiting ideas. How she applies that information once back on her own will be up to her, but she has been putting into practice many of the ideas that have been shared with her lately - with noticeable results.

Mama took with her some gifts for her upline and some crafts she has recently made to be given out as she determines through the weekend. She had some cute items in her basket. Most were small and a large portion were wood burned crafts. Encouraging sayings, funny expressions and clever puns adorned many of the plaques. She is getting quite creative with her crafting. Mostly, her creations are simple, homey, and tasteful but she has done some elaborate little placards as well. One specific gift was for a Canadian friend whose last name is Hello. Mama found a wooden cutout of that word and did a makeover of the cutout to be given specifically to her new friend. It is fun to see her achieving a balance between Color Street – where I am encouraging her to focus – and her craft enterprise. Between the two, she is filling her days productively even as the house bulges with the materials for making her craft items.

We are on our third vacuum cleaner is as many weeks with the arrival yesterday of the newest purchase. It is still not the one I was looking for, but Mama and Victoria seem well pleased with this model, so we will probably keep it for a while. One of our errant purchases has been returned and the second will be returned early next week so I have not lost money on the experiment. It is just a bit frustrating to me to repeat the purchasing and returning cycle. Fortunately, Mama and Victoria are not as bother by making the required returns. I think Mama sees it as earning the money back, but in most cases, it is a break-even proposition for me because the reimbursement is generally spent right away on something else. More often that not, something more expensive than the amount received in the refund.

As for Trace, he will have the rental house completely emptied by Saturday evening. It has been a huge task to sort through a houseful of items and decide what warranted keeping and what needed to be junked. He has made three trips to the local dump to empty a trailer load of discarded items in each trip. His car is being repaired after being towed to a shop late Wednesday night. That part of the upset in his life will be completed soon. A renewed focus on the future will take the forefront of his attention as he moves past what has been an enormous challenge in getting the rental house ready for surrender to the landlord in a clean, vacant state. If you could have seen the condition of the property before he stared, you would be as impressed as I am with the amount of work he has put into this chore.

For the weekend, I will be stabbing a frost-proof spigot into the wellhouse at the house. The yard hydrant we have been using at that location is leaking so badly at the faucet packing that I am loathe to use it and we will need access to water in a big way in the coming months as we plant and tend to our garden. That single chore will take several hours, and I will make repairs to the well tank in the process. Assuming I am successful, I will dig up and remove the hydrant in the Spring. Other than that, normal cores will occupy most of my time.

We love living on our little constantly-in-need-of-attention farm.

 

Altering plans, adapting, planning

Mama is now having to debate the travel she had planned for the remainder of this week. The conference she wants to attend is already in progress, but she was planning on attending tomorrow through Saturday. Those plans are now on hold because she has been unable to shake the lingering effects of this virus. Most noticeable is a persistent cough. I am not sure if she is infectious, but it is difficult to disguise the cough from those around her. Another lingering effect of her illness is the lack of energy it engenders. Last night we were getting ready to go to Lowe’s and Tractor Supply for a few needed items but when Mama had finished her shower and dressed for the outing, she was completely spent. We abandoned the excursion. Nothing we were planning to purchase was urgent and we have limited our outings due to the symptoms we have been dealing with, but at some point, we need to start reengaging society. Mama, however, may not be ready just yet.

These conferences are good for Mama. They are very encouraging to her personally. They keep her well informed, well connected within Color Street, and well-motivated to keep moving forward in developing her business. Recently Color Street changed their compensation structure so that stylists could more easily advance in rank and more easily maintain the rank earned from month to month. I remain convinced that this is one of the most thoughtful multi-level marketing companies I have ever dealt with – and Mama and I have experience with a few other such companies. My hope and prayer is that she will be able to go and enjoy the conference, but I will leave that decision entirely to her.

I am debating going to church this evening. I am relatively asymptomatic at this point although I am still dealing with a persistent cough as well. It is not a bad cough, but it is still there. When I begin talking, the cough becomes evident. If I sit quietly, as I do for the work I do, I can almost forget that the cough is still simmering just below the surface. I am afraid that even that extent of symptomatic display will be enough to trouble many at church, so I am leaning toward watching from home again this evening. Perhaps by Sunday both Mama and I will be well enough to present ourselves in person for the services. I am praying to be well enough to lead the singing by Sunday. That remains to be seen.

We are currently in that part of our normal Winter cycle where the nights are below freezing but the days warm up significantly. Some of our afternoons are warming into the seventies but typically the highs are in the forties. Not bad, but it is still cold enough to affect my respiratory system. Therefore, I have to take precautions to protect myself from what to us seems cold. That cool air has enabled the cough to persist and the tickle in my chest to continue. Soon enough we will be past this. Meanwhile, we dress warmly, we drink plenty of hot liquids, and we deal with whatever we must to adapt to ambient conditions while being truly thankful that we have it relatively easy as far as cold weather is concerned. Mama is certainly not ready to relocate to Honduras, for example. At least, not yet. While we are in the forties, Cori and her crew are in the high eighties. We will mirror those temperatures soon enough, but I have noticed that as Mama and I age we enjoy the warmth far more than the cold – at least to a point. Neither of us like to sweat and in Honduras, that is a given.

My isolation from work will end next Monday. I will be able to teach the two classes scheduled for that week from the remote office location. The two classes for this week have been taught by my peers in order to give me time to recover my voice. I am very thankful to my management and my peers for the recovery time, but I am ready to get back to doing my real job. There is a huge urgency on the part of my management to get as much information out of me as possible as I work through this last year or full-time employment. That is being accomplished in part by having me do the videos that have been recorded over the past few months. I sat for a few minutes yesterday and did two short videos, but I was not at all satisfied with one of the two. It will need to be redone at some point.

The videos yesterday were done via Zoom so I am not at all sure how they will turn out. We have a person who is very gifted in the production of such content, so I am looking froward to seeing the final product. I am planning on continuing with the videos Friday. There is one part of the course – a certain application of practices - that I feel needs to be presented in a very particular way and having me cover that content is the best way to accomplish that. I would do that tomorrow, but I will be watching the class presentation tomorrow to back up our newer instructor. Hopefully, we still have plenty of time to get all this information recorded and produced.

That is the plan. We will see how that works out.

Good outcomes take time, Victoria, Mama’s conference

A couple months ago, I got billing statements from our primary care doctor that were exorbitant. Mine reflected a balance of over $1500. Mama’s statement was a bit lower at $1350. I had Mama check with the doctor’s office, and we were sent to the company compiling the statements. A couple weeks later I got drastically reduced summaries for both me and Mama, but the combined total was still over $1500. Yesterday I called the company sending out the statements to see if what I had in my hands was the final amount I needed to pay our doctor. The last thing I want is to have the bill referred out for collection.

As I conversed with the accountant at that office, I found out that the issue – as is typically the case – had to do more with the billing practices of the doctor’s office than with the accounting agency compiling the bill.  As it turned out, the accountant was in the final stage of accruing the payments from insurance, tallying the markdowns that insurance required for certain procedures, and the final amounts were to be forthcoming. So, after a few minutes of manipulating the numbers, I will owe the doctor $25 for my portion of the bill that spans the entire calendar year 2021. Mama has no balance due for last year. That was great news even though it was a long time in coming.

I suppose the longer look ahead is a practice we have used in many areas here on our little farm. Calculating breeding times based on five to six months delay in the outcomes of those contacts. Setting up for Winter in the Fall and starting seeds growing in the sunroom mid-Winter that will grow into plants to be transplanted into the garden a couple months from now. Pruning the fruit trees in the Winter to promote higher yields of fruit many months later. Feeding the bees in the late Winter to ensure they have the energy and supplied foods to encourage laying eggs as early in the Spring as possible with the hope that that will give us a good honey crop in the early Summer. Months away from the anticipated outcomes we lay plans to enhance those outcomes. I like that way of living, of thinking ahead, of anticipating as much as possible how to enhance those outcomes we can manipulate albeit ever so slightly. God is in charge of the results, but He has given us wisdom to do our part to amplify those results within the course He has set in place:

Summer and winter and Springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon, and stars in their course above,

Join with all Nature in manifold witness,

To Thy great Faithfulness, Mercy and Love.

We just have a better view of that constancy here at our little farm than is available to most of our friends or family.

 

Victoria, though she is not much better, is going to work today. She was given several days off with pay due to her positive COVID test result, but that time has expired. She squeezed one more day out of the absence but is required to be at work today. Just pray she is able to quiet her cough and that she will have the strength to make it through the day. Over the past several days she has not been out of her bed very much so this will be a true test of her progress in the recovery process.

Mama is planning on attending a conference for Color Street Thursday through Saturday. It is fairly local but far enough afield for her to stay over at a hotel near the conference center. Her Color Street management team will be in attendance with her. She has been looking forward to this get together for months and feels she is strong enough, recovered enough to attend. She will be driving herself to the conference so that she does not have to stay over through Sunday afternoon. At this conference the new compensation plan will be explained so that that information can be shared downline to all stylists. I am very hopeful that this will be a game changer for some of Mama’s prospects that have been enamored by seemingly larger payouts by other multi-level marketers. I still am very impressed with Color Street. I am impressed with the leader of the company setting up all operations, and all suppliers within the United States.

The other online sales companies competing with Mama’s prospects cannot offer made-in-America products. That counts for something with me and Mama.

 

Aaron, ending poorly, some better

One of the reasons I am avoiding travel out of the country this year is the because of the fluke of testing for COVID. There have been so many multiples of stories of testing disparities that I am very hesitant to trust the arbitrary outcomes of testing to determine my status for travel. Not that it would be a hardship to be stuck in Honduras for an additional two weeks should that happen, but it would be extremely inconvenient. One story of testing disparity I know personally is of a gentleman in our church, who recently lost his wife to COVID. When I asked him at the funeral if he had been able to say goodbye to his wife he answered me through teary eyes. He told me that he had avoided contact with her prior to her death because he had tested positive for the virus while she had tested negative. (Thought she was clearly sick with something.) That seemed a proper decision, however, the very next day after his self-imposed isolation, his wife was taken to the hospital where she died alone. Because a more specific test for the virus had come back positive, he was not allowed to be with her as she quickly faded and died. That false negative kept him from getting to say goodbye to his wife of over sixty years. A regret he still aches from.

Just so is the case the with Aaron. Because the test he took for COVID prior to traveling to a class he had been assigned – a class that required his reporting to a site away from home – he made the trip to the testing location. He had received a negative result for that test. Once onsite, he was tested again, and the test came back positive for the virus. Because of that test he is now quarantined in a hotel room, under orders not to leave the room for any reason. It makes me very curious to test a hypothesis. If he were tested again, today, what is the chance the test would come back negative. After all, a negative test can be repeated because we are not sure of the truth of the results, but a positive test is treated as unquestionable. The isolation is imposed without recourse.

What would happen, I wonder, if he were allowed to repeat the test? Would a negative result release him from isolation? I think not. One positive test is enough to sentence a person to a set of penalties whether it can be trusted or not.  In Aaron’s case, he does have some of the symptoms of a viral infection, so it is a moot point. But it shows just how untrustworthy a negative test really is since Aaron could have been negative at the moment of the test and been exposed to the virus while he was being tested. Assuming the negative results was indeed accurate. Talk about magnifying insecurity. This whole COVID mentality is really messed up.

On the bright side, some elected officials are starting to smell a rat. Great Britain has ended all COVID restrictions. No isolation. No required vaccine updates. No vaccine passport required. A full stop. Everyone must go back to work like before the pandemonium. Just like that the “pandemic” is over. France and Ireland will follow suit with other European countries training along. Meanwhile, here in the United Stated, the definition of “fully vaccinated” has been changed to “up to date” to allow for the imposition of mandates for booster shots. There is speculation of a fourth shot in the works and serious talk of a yearly shot – just like so many do for the flu. Imagine that. Treating COVID like the flu. Who could have seen that coming?

The fear mongering and panic will continue for a time. How could it not? We have been told that humanity was on the verge of extinction and now the talking heads are saying, “Never mind. Our bad.” Those who are genuinely afraid are going to be very hesitant to surrender to the new narrative. Those who have profited from the panic will be reluctant to move along as they lose the power to control the masses through the fear they manufactured. Teachers unions will be the last holdouts. They have exposed themselves to the world and their loathing for our children has been laid bare. The outcomes from that attitude will be horrific and long-lasting. I pity those in the teaching profession who genuinely love their job as the backlash against the establishment who claims to “represent” them evidences itself in the sphere of public education.

So much for depressing thoughts. Here at the farm, Mama is feeling significantly better, and I am pretty much recovered. I do not know if I would have had the voice to teach classes tomorrow and Thursday, but I am being backfilled for those classes because of my quarantine period which extends through this week. Victoria is still a bit more symptomatic than either Mama or me. Why she is slower to recover is a question I cannot find an answer for, but she will soon be better as well. Mama and I are not sure if we will be back at church Wednesday night or if we will wait until Sunday just to be sure, but I am leaning to attending the service Wednesday evening.

I have missed enough church these past two weeks.  

Recovery, adapting

As Mama, Victoria, and I recover, we are all a bit lethargic. My symptoms have reduced to an occasional cough, but not the loud, bone shaking cough I have with a bronchial infection. Mama is still feeling flu-ish and seems to have a low-grade fever with the associated body aches, but she is more active and lucid than she was Wednesday. Victoria’s cough has subsided but not disappeared, and her voice is returning to normal. She still keeps to her bed for most of the day, but it is clear she is better. With all three of us in or current stated of recovery the biggest challenge is figuring out what to eat. Nothing particular “sounds good” to Mama and what does spark an interest for either Mama or Victoria is not the healthiest fare available, but at least there is a genuine interest in eating. That is a good sign. The problem is that when either of them starts to eat, they are quickly nauseated – regardless of the fare. So, in meal preparation, I just fix what is available to us from our supplies, try to keep it healthy and hope whatever is prepared will meet their needs. Soups and stir-fry mostly.

Things have been quite busy at work the past few days. I am not sure where the uptick in activity has come from, but my mornings have been engaged in a multitude of little queries that take time to answer as each involves solving a mini mystery. I have fun for the most part getting to the bottom of those searches, even if the outcome shows that I have overlooked or neglected to fulfill something I was assigned to do. When the records for over one thousand people are entered over the year, there are bound to be a few mistakes, but thankfully, those mistakes are easily found, easily corrected, and easily forgiven. In large part, all the issues of late have not been a part of my direct involvement in the entry or processing of records. Mostly we have been challenged by clients not fulfilling their obligation to us, but we always double check to ensure the fault is not on our part. That takes time., but it makes us all feel needed. Not being in proximity to one another adds to the time required for those searches, but it still gets done fairly quickly. Once resolved, we all go back to our mundane tasks and wait for the next crisis.

I am getting reports from different beekeeping sites that are a bit alarming. Most of the beekeepers are reporting that their bees are requiring far more feeding over this Winter that in years past. That is both good news and bad news. Good news in that the colonies are large and thriving. Bad news in that more feed has to be gotten into the hives in spite of the cold ambient temperatures. My concern is in cooling the hive as I tend to my bees, but I have to trust the bees to rewarm the hive after they are given the resources needed to survive the Winter and enter the Spring with enough pollen – supplied in pollen patties – to reproduce. Next month in our region, the queens will start to lay again, and the hives must have sufficient pollen to feed on as they attempt to raise brood. No pollen. No brood. No brood. No honey. Fortunately, I got my recent order of pollen patties yesterday and the afternoon temperature on Sunday is forecast to be 65°. That should give me the opportunity to insert the pollen patties into the sugar boards on the two hives without overly cooling the hives.

The temperature this morning was 16°, so all the water troughs were frozen solid. Because of that, I had to help Mama haul water to the coops and all the goat area to make sure they could have a drink with their breakfast. A very cold drink. I had limited the water in each container last night in anticipation of the hard freeze. Keeping the dishes almost empty overnight gives us more space to add fresh water in the morning. We will get into the forties by late afternoon, so some of the ice in the troughs will thaw, but what is left when I close the coops for the night will be poured out since the overnight temperatures will be in the twenties. This routine will pretty much continue through the middle of March. Not a hardship, just our way of adapting.

With Mama and Victoria still displaying obvious symptoms of our current illness, we will not be going to church Sunday. Pastor Horton and I were talking Tuesday and he told me there are at least ten families in the church that are sick with the same virus and knowing the level of fear in some people, Mama, Victoria, and I will limit our contact until we are much better.

Hopefully that will be very soon.

Staying ready, looking for solutions, hanging in there

It’s Winter again here – at least for a few mornings. The changes in temperature are so dramatic at times that it is a constant challenge to keep up with the preparations needed when we get these overnight freezes. So, for the most part, I leave the freeze protections in place and powered up and just let the faucets and well houses get really warm during the days when those protections are not required. That is the only way I can keep up. I do have to keep a close watch on the new hydrant at the barn because it is being used by the neighbors as they fill water containers for the three heifers they are keeping on that part of our property. They are not overly careful about disconnecting the hose from the hydrant when it is not in use. Leaving the hose connected keeps the hydrant from draining properly so I have to monitor that pretty closely. Otherwise, Mama and I pretty much stay the course through the warm days just to ensure we are prepared for the freezing nights. That is especially true right now when I do not have an abundance of extra energy or focus.

Mama was feeling good enough to help with the feeding today. That is a significant improvement over yesterday. But for the most part, the three of us are lazing around coasting through the day in low-energy mode. Mama has taken up residence on the sectional which provides three ample areas to lounge in while Victoria is confining herself to her bed. She has enough of a fever that the living room furniture sparks shivering when she tries to lay there. I am “working” at my desk in the bedroom. Yesterday I spent the day working from the kitchen table while Mama spent the majority of the day in our bed. Trace is still working even though he has felt a little off for the past couple of days. Though he has made some poor decisions in the past, he has a lot of character.

Mama and I are still getting things placed in the living room. I measured and tried to figure out placement of the sectional in a variety of positions in the living room, but finally came to the conclusion that how we have it sitting is the best use of the space. Mama is against blocking the windows to the left of the fireplace and I am in agreement with that. The one thing that bothers me is a small thing, but we have a corner that looks unplanned, vacant, kind of accidental. I would like to find a way to make that small area look purposeful, but I have not stumbled across anything that strikes my interest so far. I want to avoid creating a new hidey hole for the mice we are battling in the house, so whatever I find will need to be off the floor. That creates a challenging limitation to solutions that seem most obvious. Mama and I will come up with something eventually. We like a challenge.

With the placement of the rolltop desk in the living room, I was forced to abandon the extra monitor I had hooked up to the Mac on that desk. I was loathe to put it into service on the desk I use primarily for work – the antique desk I inherited from my father – but after failing to find a place to store the monitor, I started looking at ways to use in in my work-desk setting. It took several iterations to find the right solution, but I now have two monitors for work – which makes far more practical sense in putting the extra screen to use. When I finally got the monitor placed and in service, Mama came into the bedroom to ask me a question and did not even notice the monitor on the desktop. That was exactly what I was hoping for, something inconspicuous but functional. Additionally, I discovered today that the new glasses I have refused to wear because the middle focal section of the trifocals was not useful for a single monitor, works very well for the dual monitors. In fact, it is perfect to see the extra screen clearly. No moving in closer to focus. That seemed like a double bonus for me.

I am not sure if Mama did the swab of her nose properly when we used the home test for COVD. Mama is not much on discomfort, especially causing herself discomfort, so she did not probe too deeply with the swab. Anyway, the test came back negative. Victoria had had the symptoms for several days when she tested herself while Mama has only been symptomatic for a day. Maybe that makes a difference. At any rate, we can tell people that Mama was negative. Though the symptoms and Victoria’s positive may indicate otherwise, we have only the test results to go by. Regardless, I am still quarantined for the rest of the month “out of an abundance of caution.” That’s as it should be. It would not be wise for me to be around anyone with the cough I still have in this current health over-conscience culture.

New immunity, delivery, our fat goats

Mama started getting sick through the day yesterday and progressively worsened so that by that night, she was feeling horrible. So, Victoria, in order to analyze what we were dealing with, got some COVID rapid tests. This morning, Victoria tested positive per the rapid test so she will get several days off with pay. Good for her. I am saving the second of the two test strips in the pack for Mama to test herself since I am almost recovered. Armed with that information, I let my employer know what I had determined because they are very conscientious about tracking COVID cases and potential related exposures.

I am quarantined for fourteen days per company guideline, but the office is closed so the quarantine is almost moot; however, I am feeling much better after having taken a dose of Ivermectin and loading up on Zinc, Vitamin D and Vitamin C. I am encouraging Mama to do the same, but she is not keen on the idea yet. She will consider it when she feels just a tad better. On the bright side, we now have proven immunity to COVID. Not that that means much to the powers that be, but I am relieved to be past the infection and have my immune system programmed to respond to the virus on its own – without the ineffective chemical enhancements now being touted.

 With Mama sick in bed, I am glad I was home this morning as our sectional was delivered and set up. About 7:30 I got a call from Rooms To Go that the truck was about twenty minutes out. True to their word the delivery truck pulled into the driveway a little before 8 am. The three guys in the truck unpackaged, setup and tested the function on the power recliner and chaise before leaving at 8:35.  It took me far longer to rearrange the pieces in the living room to accommodate the large sectional. Mama, when she roused from bed and slogged into the living room was pleased to see the sectional in place but very surprised at just how big it was.

I was prepared for the size, but it still took some moving to get it set in place as they were assembling the pieces. I was slightly off in my calculations. Not far off. Only about twelve inches, but it was enough that I had to pull my recliner out and slide Mama’s red recliner down to make the adjustment. I am very glad we pared down my desk space to allow for the extra room needed but even with that, something will have to go. We are still deciding what that will be – one end table (perhaps both), or my older power recliner, which is Mama’s preference. Regardless, our huge sectional is here now, and we will make it work. Mama has always been able to stuff things to overflowing, including a house.

I had to rush out to the coop to let the chickens out so they could get to water before the delivery crew arrived. Once the delivery was done, I had to go back out to feed the goats. They were very ready for their food by the time I was able to get to them, but I was not worried about them. The girl goats are all so fat they jiggle as they run. I have been trying to get Mama to feed them less but that has not been an idea she has welcomed.

To Mama’s way of looking at thinking, they always seem starved to death every time we feed them, and she hates to think that she is underfeeding them. The body fat in their roly-poly bodies strongly contradicts the thinking that we are underfeeding the herd. So, the feed troughs are filled twice daily and emptied almost as fast as the feed falls into those troughs. It is fun to watch the goats run from one trough to the next to see if there are any Animal Cracker treats hidden in the feed. Something Mama often does. Something I rarely do, but they check each feeding just in case. Meanwhile, I get my knees almost knocked out from under me as I hurry from one trough to the next as the goats try to beat each other to the trough being filled. They are fun animals to raise.

We will not be going to church tonight because of our current illnesses. That is perhaps the saddest outcome, but it is for the best.

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Desk success, replacements, accumulating junk

After Trace and I made an errant run to look at a rolltop desk Sunday between services, Mama made contact with the seller of another such desk for me and her to look at Monday evening. The desk was at a location about an hour away but that seems to be the norm in most of our recent searches. To the best of our understanding, there was a gentleman at the house where we were sent to view the desk but that his availability would be limited. So, Mama and I left immediately after I signed out from work and made the drive to locate the house and the desk. It was not difficult to locate the house and the neighborhood we ended up driving through was one of the most picturesque we had seen in a long time.

When we arrived at the house, we found the desk sitting in the garage of a house that was being remodeled. It was pretty dusty, but everything seemed to be in good shape. It was a little difficult to determine if all the small drawers that fit into the cubby holes in the inside of the top of the desk were in place, because there were some open spaces that could once have been fitted with drawers, but there is no way of telling for sure. Having looked it over with some scrutiny, Mama and I determined that this desk was good enough to meet our needs. It is not an antique, but it is a solid desk. Plus, we had the help I needed to load the desk into the truck. That done, we paid the man helping us, tied the desk down in the bed of the truck and set out to find a Bed, Bath and Beyond to replace the brand-new vacuum I had sent back to the Amazon seller.

That vacuum had a broken latch on the cover of the brush head that allowed the second brush to slip out when the vacuum was in use and Mama felt that Bed, Bath and Beyond was the best place to find a replacement, although that turned out to be disappointing overall. We were able to get a replacement but not what I was particularly looking for. It will do, but I was disappointed to have to abandon the duo-clean model I was shopping for. What we bought will do, but it is not much of an improvement over the vacuum we originally set out to replace. One more stop to return some rugs Mama had recently purchased and we headed home.

Once at the farm, Trace and Victoria helped offload the desk – which is quite heavy – and I began the process of moving all the paraphernalia from the table I have used for several years into the new desk. To allow for cords to be fed through the back of the desk, I had to enlarge the hole cut through the back of the desk and set up power strip on the wall to accommodate all the items needing access to an outlet. I did not finish last night. I was feeling far too badly to stick with the project through completion, but that will be finished up soon enough so that when Mama’s furniture arrives tomorrow, we will have given as much room as possible for the new sectional with two additional advantages. All the desktop items can be covered by the rolltop between uses and the desk looks so much better than a cluttered tabletop.

As I paced through the process of relocating all the sundry items on the table to the desk, I was stunned at just how much of the clutter was useless. Outdated papers, things that have no current value, cords that are of an unknown function, things I forgot were even there and a trash bag full of magazines, catalogs, and flyers that were far past their publishing dates. As things turned out, the desk has several cubbies and three larger drawers had nothing in them as I wiped the tabletop and folded it for placement in the garage. Seems like a win-win to me, but it remains to be seen just how much I will accumulate to fill the desk with useless items. The good part of using the rolltop desk is that it has very little space to accumulate things on either the working surface of the desk or on top of the desk. That will greatly reduce the desire to just simply set things down for convenience sake. Time will tell.

I am feeling better today. After a fairly good night of rest, I feel like the bronchitis is abating and the cough is quieting. Praise the Lord! Meanwhile, Mama had a dental appointment today to have a tooth removed but that turned out to be a miscommunication. The dentist we go to does not pull teeth. He refers that to an oral surgeon. Somehow Mama had been scheduled for the extraction in the dentist’s office by mistake. I can only assume that the extraction will be properly rescheduled for a future date. Mama is a little disappointed at the setback since she had prepared herself for the discomfort of the removal and recovery process that would have followed, but not today.

We will enjoy the respite and take what comes.

Rough weekend

Friday after participating in a funeral for one of our church family, Mama and I drove to Cleburne, TX to look at a car Victoria had found online. It was a Toyota Rav 4; very clean, fairly new. Mama and I test drove the car after making the hour plus drive to look it over and were mostly impressed by the vehicle, but the sunroof was not working when I tested it. That put me on edge. The price of the car was a little high for Victoria’s budget and even though she needs to seriously shop for a newer car, she does not need to go into debt to get one right away. Mama was a bit more concerned about the smell of the car. It had the odor of being smoked in.

The cleaning it had been given to overcome that odor and the fragrance put in the car to give it a “clean” smell were both a little obvious. Victoria is very sensitive to smoke, to the point that she cannot tolerate even the aftereffects of someone smoking in a car. With two minor strikes against the purchase, we advised Victoria to hold off for the moment even though the dealer made us a great offer on the price. Plus, the car had been advertised as having heated seats and it did not have heated seats. A sticking point for Victoria. Mama was called by the dealer yesterday to let her know that the operation of the sunroof had been restored by replacing a fuse. Perhaps an easy fix, but we are experiencing an ongoing fuse issue with our Sequoia. Again, it is an easy fix, but it forbodes a larger problem when fuses need to be replaced often. So, we spent almost three hours on the road Friday evening with nothing much to show for it other than some baking we took care of on the way.

Saturday was brutally windy. The ambient temperature was just above freezing but the wind made the air very frigid. The wind kicked up enough dust and whatever other allergens were being blasted about that by Saturday afternoon I was feeling the tickle in my bronchioles that alerts me to a pending bronchitis. By Saturday evening the cough had begun in earnest and I had a miserable night Saturday night. With the very noisy cough such an infection gives me I was unable to attend services at church yesterday. So, this was not a fun weekend for me. I was not out in the wind any more than absolutely necessary, but it was enough. I was troubled all day Saturday because I knew I could not expose myself to the weather conditions without getting sick and we were leaving a lot of chores undone to shield me from the potential for getting sick. Yet it gripped me anyway. So, here I am, coughing my way through the days and nights hoping and praying it will pass quickly. It never does but hope springs eternal.

Meanwhile, as Mama and I are anticipating the arrival of her new furniture Wednesday, I began looking for a desk to replace the six-foot table I now have set up as a desk on the living room. I found several that would do on Facebook Marketplace, so Mama began making the contacts. In our searches, Mama settled on a rolltop desk and began to focus her searches for that item. In doing so, she found someone that needed the desk they had advertised removed from the house ASAP. The price was good, and the pictures looked good as well so, yesterday afternoon while I was feeling really rough, Mama arranged for us to go look at and potentially purchase the desk. Whereupon Trace and I headed out to make the hour-long drive to look at the desk.

We were only a few minutes from our destination when Mama called to let me know the desk we were going to inspect was not the one she had thought it was. She had gotten cross wired on her multiple communications and sent us after the wrong item. When we arrived at the house, we were shown a worn, low end rolltop desk sitting in an upstairs bedroom. We passed on the acquisition. The owners were a bit shocked since, as we found out from Mama later, the desk was being given away. They needed it moved out of the house and were not willing to do that themselves. We apologized to the sellers and left the house to make the drive back home. Another two-plus hours of unproductive windshield time.

Meanwhile, the desk Mama would like to get is still waiting on us. The owner will not be able to get us the dimensions until next week. I am not sure why. However, that desk, judging from the pictures is much higher quality that the one we elected not to move from its upstairs station. Time will tell. Mama’s furniture will arrive Wednesday, and we will then know how much room we have to allow for a desk.

Eventually this will all come together but last weekend was not the weekend I had planned.

Well repairs and follow-up, Mama’s new chair, a new vacuum, and more

I have been teaching classes for the past three days, so I have not updated any of you on the progress made and the blessings that have come in those three days. Monday, the well repair company got to the farm fairly early. Within a few minutes they had our well working and water restored to the house. It turned out that the repair is something I could have easily done had I been able to diagnose the issue. It was an electrical problem in the control box that powers the well pump. Everything looked good to me in my limited troubleshooting, but a more experienced eye was able to see the problem and quickly and easily correct it.

Mama and I were greatly relieved to have the well back in service. Victoria’s comment was that we had had a fun weekend hauling water and flushing toilets with five-gallon buckets, but she really liked running water. It made Mama and I think of the character in the movie Baby boom who at one point, had lost water to the house. When the repairman was explaining what needed to be done to get water to the house and how much that would cost her response was, “I don’t want to know where the water comes from. I just want to turn the faucet and see water coming out.” That is pretty much where Mama and Victoria stood in the issue.

Since the well has been back in operation we have been seeing a rapid cycling of pressure in the water at the house. After some study I know what the problem is and will correct that this afternoon. The reset will take some time so I have to pick an hour when we are not using the water to make the repair, but once that is done, we should be good to go for a while. Since the serviceman told me that the problem is generally a control box issue – specifically the capacitor in the control box – I bought a couple spare capacitors to repair the box taken out of service. It is only two years old and is in great shape other than that one part. I will have it as a backup for the next time we run into this issue.

On Wednesday, as promised, Mama’s new chair was delivered to the house. It is a leather power recliner. It was bought because Mama needed someplace to sit that would not continue to hurt her back and legs. The couch we have had for several decades was no longer able to provide that comfort. Since the sectional we were wanting was not available for several months, we defaulted to purchasing the one recliner.

I originally thought that it would be several more months before we could look at purchasing the sectional but as it turned out, the salesman from the furniture store called late yesterday and told me that the delivery date for that sectional had moved forward to mid-February. Armed with that information, Mama and I went to Denton last night to meet with him and potentially order the furniture.

As we worked through the arrangement we wanted for the five pieces of sectional furniture, the salesman found out that the price had been reduced by over $500 and that all five pieces we wanted of the six offered were currently available for delivery. So, we ordered the sectional and have been scheduled to have it delivered and set up for us next Wednesday. So much better than the three months originally set for delivery. With that, our furniture shopping is done. Now we move on to home repair projects. Just as an aside, Mama’s Color Street business is doing very well, and she enjoys using the new computer we purchased for that business.  

Another little blessing is the vacuum we ordered. Mama, Victoria and I all spent time looking at different vacuums and finally settled on a Shark Dual Action Lift Away. I was set on a particular model because of the review of that model from a person that cleans houses for a living. That particular model was only available online. When the order was placed the expected arrival date was set for the 18^th of January, but the vacuum arrived yesterday afternoon. Mama and Victoria were thrilled. So far, the only issue they have with the vacuum is the small canister – we did not want a vacuum that required bags. The reality is that we used a vacuum that was so pitiful for so long that it did not quickly fill the canister. This one does and though that canister is smaller, the ability of this unit to actually clean is far superior to what we have used in the past. Now, I can put my shop vac back in the shop. It sufficed for a temporary vacuum, but it was not a long-term solution.

Lots of little blessings to celebrate.

Running water, Victoria’s birthday, hauling water

When I was listing some of the little blessings we too often take for granted in my Friday update, I forgot to mention running water. It is certainly one of those things we overlook to the point of expecting that it is a given in our daily lives. However, Friday afternoon, sometime between 1 pm and 3 pm the pump in our well stopped working and we were left without water in the house. It was not hard for me to determine that the pump, or some other problem down in the well was the issue so I had Mama call the company that had installed that pump for us just a couple years ago. They had all gone home for the weekend. So much for getting it fixed then. Those repairs would have to wait until today, Monday, at the earliest. So, I had Mama call very early this morning to contact the company and see if they would be available to help us out. They will be coming out late this morning and we will get to see what needs to be done to start the water flowing to the house again. Hopefully, it will not cost us $2,000 as it did two years ago but we will pay the price regardless of the cost. We are left with few options at the moment.

Meanwhile, we have been filling five-gallon buckets from the hydrant at the chicken coop which is supplied by the second well on our property. Those buckets of water have been used for flushing the toilets and washing dishes as needed to make it through the weekend. If things get really bad and the well is not repaired quickly, I can rig a hose from that hydrant to back feed through a hose bib at the house to supply water to the house. It has not come to that yet, but there are always options if you are willing to think out of the box a little. So far, Victoria and Mama have been great sports about using the buckets for our toilet needs and since we could not take showers, Mama and Victoria went to a salon Saturday afternoon and got their hair washed there to be ready for church yesterday. Victoria was long overdue for a haircut, so that was part of the trip as well.

Saturday morning, since we could not prepare food at the house, we went to the Longhorn Café in Bowie for their breakfast buffet. It was good, but not outstanding. After we ate, we walked around Trade Days for an hour or so. It was a cold windy morning, so we did not stay long. Fortunately, we had all dressed appropriately for the outdoor activity, but there were very few vendors braving the cold to hawk their wares and there were far fewer than normal shoppers to buy those wares. Once we were back in the vehicle, we headed to Walmart to buy Victoria’s birthday present.

While Victoria was recently I Honduras with Cori, Nate and the kids, Cori noticed how much Victoria liked riding bikes with the kids, so we thought that would make a great birthday present this year. Cori wanted me and Mama to buy a bike and surprise Victoria but that did not work out, so we went to let her pick out a bike. Initially, Mama was disappointed because the one we spotted a week ago was gone, but after careful consideration, we found one that was perfect for Victoria. She took it out for a spin that afternoon and loved it. I will be making some minor adjustments to fit the bike to her, but she was well pleased with the gift. Grandma and Grandpa, who wanted in on the purchase were thrilled, as were Cori and Nate, who contributed as well.

While we were in the store, Mama was wrestling with the shopping cart as we aimed ourselves to the bikes. Somehow, as she yanked around on the cart trying to get past something it had struck on the floor, she pulled the shopping cart back towards her and her hand slipped off the handle whereupon she hit me in the gut with her elbow. I almost went to my knees. It was not a hard blow, but it left me in severe pain for the rest of the day and well into the night. I suppose that is how tender that area is right now. Because of that pain and the continued cold temperatures, I got very little done at the farm Saturday other than constantly hauling water from the chicken coop to the house. We required eight or more five-gallon buckets of water per day mostly for the toilets, but we at least have that option.

All in all, it was a challenging weekend for all of us.

Birthday lunch, little blessings

Yesterday after teaching a half-day class, I met Mama and Victoria at church so we could leave from there to take Victoria out for her birthday lunch. The luncheon date with Mama and Victoria was an afterthought to the banking Mama and I had scheduled to do with her to get her help in opening a Navy Federal Credit Union account. Those accounts require a certain attachment to an existing member or having a member of immediate family in the armed services. Mama and I qualify on all counts but having Victoria there at the branch location to vouch for us in person was the easiest way to initiate the account, or accounts, as things turned out.

I have to admit that they were as gracious and easy to work with as Happy State Bank which is not common among banks. Mama and I were each required to join individually by starting separate savings accounts. The initial deposit requirement was $5. For that rich sum, we were able to set up the savings accounts, attach a free checking account to the savings accounts and be issued a debit card to access the individual savings accounts which are both linked to the checking account shared by me and Mama. It took a bit of time, but it was amazingly easy.  Our accounts are in limbo for the moment from the online perspective. We were told the initiation of online access may require a couple business days but everything else is in the system and active.

For Victoria’s birthday lunch we went to a Thai restaurant Victoria located near the Navy Fed branch we were planning to go to. The restaurant was named Thai Thip. The owners, the cooks and everyone else associated with the restaurant were all of Thai origins. Based on that we are assuming, the food was about as authentic as we could have gotten in our area. At any rate, it was amazing. We each ordered something different, and we each thoroughly enjoyed what we got. Plus, we got some appetizers and a dessert.

It was not cheap, but it was not overly costly either. Victoria has the site pinned in her phone because we are sure we will go back for more. It is a trip we will have to plan for because it is about an hour away from where we live, but so are many other places we frequent.

Mama and I were taking time one evening to recount the little blessings the Lord has continued to give us. None would be of great consequence when viewed separately but taken as a whole they serve to remind us of how intimately the Lord is involved in our daily lives. Things like the heat tracing wire we use on our spigots to prevent freezing. Those are made from wire I acquired during my time working at the Pilot Plant in South Charleston, WV. I relocated for that employer from West Virginia to Texas in 1999 and am now seeing why I kept that material. A simple expandable hose gotten as a White Elephant gift several years ago allows us to use a waterline in the well house to fill containers to transfer water to our thirsty animals when their dishes are frozen, and the outside spigots are not available because of the cold. A warm house to live in during these cold Winter days. Vehicles that start and run well. Though we may hurt in the exercise of fulfilling our daily chore and obligations to our animals, we are not hindered completely by the pain. Etc, etc, etc. God is good.

Last night I was waked by the pain in my gut. I could not get comfortable in bed, so I went to the living room, pulled a blanket over my back, and knelt at the couch and prayed for forty minutes or so. After which I crawled into my recliner and slept for the remainder of the night. It ended up being a good night. Just so it is said, I have found that any time we give to the Lord, especially in prayer, He repays us in kind and with His blessings attached as a bonus. So, while I may have “lost” forty minutes of sleep, I gained in my rest as the Lord made the time I had left to sleep more refreshing than it would have been had I not spent that time with Him.

Truly, God is good.

Feeling dull, little things

Today is one of those days were everything seems to be an exasperation. My mind is still dull from the illness I have been struggling with over the past few days and every thought and action requires more effort than normal. This too shall pass, and I will endeavor to muddle through with grace, but right now, it is a struggle. Poor pitiful me. Do not waste any sympathy on me. I do not deserve it. There are many far less fortunate than I who need your emotional investment, but sometimes speaking the truth has a way of providing the remedy needed to move on in a positive manner. Perhaps that will be forthcoming and while I sit here this morning feeling sorry for myself, life continues to move on around me. I can either engage or get left behind. I do not like being left behind, so I will engage.

For some reason, Mama’s new MacBook required her to enter her password for her to restart touch ID. She could not remember her password and so the next hours were spent trying to find out how to either recover her password or reset her password. Neither proved an easy path forward but fortunately, Apple built a backdoor for just such an eventuality and between Cori and myself we found a way to reset the password. The issue when following an online tutorial is that they do not generally match up to what is being seen on the device I have in front of me. Such was the case today and I was forced to make a guess on how to satisfy the requirement of the steps I was being asked to accomplish versus what the tutorial was showing me needed to be done, but we made it and Mama is now able to use her computer. It is not a problem I wanted to deal with today, but it is over and done for now.

The weather today is comfortable. The night temperatures stayed above freezing so feeding this morning was far easier to accomplish than the previous several mornings. However, temperatures for the next several nights will be below freezing so fresh water will have to be provided for the animals by carting containers from the sunroom or wellhouse to fill their water pans. It is not a big deal; it just adds a bit of work and time to the preparations each evening and the delivery of water in the mornings. When I am not available to help, it is a strain on Mama to transport the water out to the feeding areas. This month and next will be much the same, but by late February or very early March, we should be past the worst of our freezes. Time will tell.

It is forecast to be warm enough this Saturday for me to peek into the hives. I am anxious to see how the bees are faring through the cold snaps we have been experiencing. I need to make a couple minor changes to the hives that I overlooked previously, but the look into the hives should not take long. I certainly do not want to cool down the hives too much as I service them so I will not dally in what I need to be changed and/or checked in the inspections. My hope for next year is to grow my apiary back to four hives by doing splits of my healthy hives, but that depends entirely on how the hives do through the winter. Having done all I can, I pray and wait.

Tomorrow I will be teaching a class. It is only a half day class, so Mama and Victoria want me to go with them to start a bank account at a bank common to Cori and Victoria. That will facilitate the moving of moneys between the three of us, which seems to be happening a lot lately. The catch is that Mama and I have to be at the bank in person with Victoria to be allowed to open the account. That being the case we will try to get that done while Victoria and I share an afternoon off.

Lately Mama sold six hens to a friend, and we have noticed the loss of production of those chickens. We still get an average of fifteen eggs per day but that is down from averaging twenty per day. I can only hope the family that purchased the hens is seeing the immediate benefit of getting laying hens from Mama. She has enough mouths to feed in her home and a close extended family so I can be sure the eggs are not going to waste, but we sure miss the additional production as Mama seeks to keep er regular customers supplied.

In the little things of life, things seem to be looking up for Trace, but he is still feeling the loss and deep regret of his current situation. Please keep him in your prayers.

Our New Year

Mama and I were busy helping Krystal and the kids Friday, New Year’s Eve. It turned into a convoluted mess since the reason for her being at the house is because she is trying to get back to Florida and leave Trace here – for good. Not something Mama and I are going to participate in, but for the sake of the kids we housed them overnight. Supposedly she was too frightened to go home. Saturday, I took her to the house they are renting so she could be “protected” while she got a few things. Oddly enough, all she was focused on getting was electronic games and devices to make sure Trace did not limit her access to those items. I tried several times to head home but sue refused to be alone at the house with Trace so I left her at the house and brought Trace home with us. A more workable situation with the room we have to offer. I need to get back to the farm to complete the chore of preparing the water lines for the coming freeze and I had already been at the house with the both of them for two hours with little results to speak of and dreaded taking Krystal back to our farm for Mama to have to deal with. That is why Trace agreed to come home with us.

Mama took the kids that had remained at the farm to her later that evening since only Nathan was up when we had left for the house much earlier, me following her in her car. While Trace had been at work Friday, Krystal had stripped their bank account, run up the credit cards and left Trace without any way to pay rent this month. Last night, she asked if Mama would take the kids so she could concentrate on packing. Having a sick child and a toddler was not something she felt prepared to deal with as she packed – as if they were not her own children. I declined on Mama’s behalf. We’ll see how this plays out, but I do not want to participate in an activity I feel to be clearly wrong. God is still able to do exceedingly abundantly above what we can ask or imagine. He can bring a good outcome from this situation as well but both parties need to be ready to seek that solution and for the moment, both are totally intractable.

While New Years Day started out warmly, about 1 pm the wind sifted. It began to blow out of the North. It was a cold, strong wind. I had to abandon the waterline I was working on at the barn and get to the house to redress for the chill. Within several hours the temperature had fallen from 68° to 30°. Over night we hit a low of 16°. That was the reason for the urgency on prepping the waterlines around the farm. Our overnight temperatures are going to stay at or well-below freezing for many nights. Winter has come to our little Chico farm. It was not unexpected, but the delay was pleasant and gave me a few extra weeks to get ready.

Last night I got hit with some type of stomach bug. At least that is what I assume I am dealing with. When Krystal told Mama yesterday that Leo was sick with a stomach bug, we thought we had escaped the ailment. Not so. I made I through both services yesterday – and they were great services – but what I was feeling was inescapable. I am not horrible, but most will understand that the discomfort is sometimes difficult to deal with. I am managing. I needed to fast anyway, so a couple days without eating will only do me good. Fasting is my preferred way to start off the New Year. Generally speaking, the fast is a choice rather than a necessity.

Tomorrow, if I feel up to it, will be my first class of this year. Many more will follow. It has been a pleasant break for the past couple weeks to have only a single sporadic class on the weekly docket, but now we begin anew.

Please understand my briefness with this post.