A good soaking, new wedding ring, bees, preparation

Over the past 24 hours we got a total of 3.5 inches of rain at the farm. That was greatly needed. As an added bonus, the temperatures dropped significantly. Our overnight temperature tonight is predicted to be 49 degrees. That is pretty cool for our area at this time. It is not a record low temperature, but it is chilly from our perspective. Overcast conditions, cooler temperatures and lighter winds than we have been dealing with recently all combined to make the last few days very enjoyable.

Our vegetable plants seemed to explode with growth overnight. They appear to like the stormy conditions. I suppose the lightening, which flashed off and on for the better part of six hours, helped with that growth. At one point, just after I had laid down, I saw the blast of a lightening flash through the heavy curtains in our bedroom. I thought to myself, “That was big!” and not three or four seconds later the percussion of the thunder accompanying that blast shook the house. I got up to check on Mama who was still on the sofa catching up on her online social attachments She excitedly asked if the rattling of the house had awakened me and even though I had not been fully asleep, I was certainly then fully awake. I am not sure how well our house would stand up to any direct assault from a really severe storm since the walls so tremble noticeably to the percussion of a close clap of thunder. We may never know, but it has been our safe refuge have so far.

Though the chilly temperature is a pleasant change for us, it is a life-threatening condition for the bees I separated out of a full hive into a much more challenging empty hive I am hoping they will quickly fill. For now, there may not be enough bees in the new hive to keep the brood warn through the cool nights. It is a lot of area to heat with the fewer occupants in the hive as it now sits. If they can make it for a few more days, they should manage, but there are no guarantees. When I made the split, the bees were very angry, very aggressive, and I got stung on my left hand several times. I do not know how the bees managed to sting me through my gloves but somehow, they did, and I have to admit to being a little hurried when I was making the split. So, in my haste, I probably exacerbated the survival issue they are dealing with. On the bright side, pulling out the frames necessary to make the split did not negatively affect to the original hive. Rather, it probably helped by adding some room to the full brood box. I will do a couple things to the new hive to help them conserve their heat and hope for the best.

Because of the stings I received, I had to cut off my wedding ring to allow for the swelling on that hand. That proved a difficult task to accomplish because the ring was tungsten and required me to use a hack saw to cut through the metal in order to split it open so it could be taken off. I have the flesh wounds to verify the story.

To replace the ring I cut off, I bought a pack of silicon rings. I do not know why I have not done that before. They are a great substitute for a metal ring and far safer. I can, for the first time in my married life, take my ring on and off at will since the flexible material easily slips over the huge knuckle on my ring finger. That’s kind of nice – and it is a lot safer and a lot cheaper. I got a pack of seven silicon rings in a variety of colors for less than seven dollars. Best of all, they are Mama approved! For lack of a better place to store the extra rings – I can only wear one at a time – Mama put them in her jewelry chest to ensure I could find them later. Probably a good idea.

I do not know if there is a real urgency, but Mama and I are beginning to set up a food bank for ourselves. I have looked online lately at freeze dried emergency food supplies, but the price is beyond our financial means and as I looked carefully at what type of food items the $850-$1000 cost for a three-month supply would provide us, many of the meals would not be something Mama or Victoria would eat. So, to meet the sense of angst I feel about accumulating an emergency supply, Mama and I have made a list of things that are readily available, easy to store and desirable enough that we would consume them in our standard diet. Having recently purchased a vacuum sealer we can secure the dry goods we are specifically accumulating and feel confident that we can set up our own emergency rations. We will save some money doing this ourselves, but we can be assured that all the food we have on hand will be eaten willingly.

As an added bonus, Mama and I are starting to dehydrate some of our fruits and vegetables to save them for future use. I wanted to avoid the thought of having everything frozen for later consumption. Freezing requires freezers and freezers require power. A I thought some of the issues through last night, as if on que, the power went out in the house. It was not out for long, but it was a good reminder that things may not always continue as they are.

Medications will be a challenging supply issue in an extended crisis, but, as much as is within my power to do so, I would like to be prepared where I can.

Conference, busy weekend, flooding, rain

Last week was a different week. I spent the first three days at a company conference. The first day was spent teaching a class of 29 participants followed by a reception with snacky foods and lots of alcohol. Not my typical environment, but I managed to find the non-drinkers in the large crowd and stayed for a couple hours chatting and snacking. Day two was a general gathering with panel discussions and a keynote speaker. For most of us the day started a 6 am helping vendors get set up and ended at 7 pm as we helped our clients find their way to the baseball stadium directly across from the hotel many of us stayed in for the conference. The game tickets had been purchased as part of the total conference package. I did not attend the game because of my schedule the next day. On day three I taught four short classes. Two were two hours long and two were only an hour long. Two hours of set up and prep, six hours of instruction, three hours of helping in other classes. Another eleven-hour day. As I inched my way home through Ft Worth traffic, I got a text from my supervisor letting me know that I could take the next two days off as comp time. That was a very nice gesture because with travel time included, many of us had put in more than forty hours in the three days of the conference.

Thursday and Friday were filled with lots of little chores around the farm and I was glad for that time off and the chance to rest up because Saturday was too busy to get much done at the farm. Saturday morning Mama and I attended a play put on by the drama department at the Alvord High School. One of the teenagers who rides our bus to church had invited Mama to the paly and it seemed very important to her to have Mama come. The play was short, it was cute, and it was well acted. Mama and I enjoyed ourselves but had to rush away when it was over to attend the BBTI graduation in Bowie. We made it to the graduation ceremony a few minutes before it started. That too was thoroughly enjoyable, but once again, we had to hurry away as soon as it was over to make another appointment.

Mama had agreed to take Aubrey to a birthday party in Rhome since neither of her parents would get away for long enough to make the party. It was scheduled from 2-5 pm. So, Mama dropped me off at the farm and headed out again. She did not stay for the entire time scheduled for the party but remarked that it was staged extremely well for the six-year-old little girl celebrating that birthday – the everything pink, Candyland theme was complete with the game having been painted on the lawn at the house. Mama got home just before 5 pm and we had a little time to relax before we needed to be at our church for another graduation. We had skipped the youth activity at the church that afternoon.

The one young lady graduating from our Christian School attends another church but she and Mama had become friends in Mama’s short time helping at the school several years ago and that young lady really wanted Mama to be there. So, we went. That graduation lasted until about 8:15 but it took Mama a few minutes to say her goodbyes to those she had not seen in some time. We got home a little after 9 pm. It was a long day for Mama, but we wanted to make the most of the relationships she has with these young ladies. In the busy, complicated, stressful times we share through this life, those are the moments that will count.

Cori contacted me and Mama Saturday afternoon and asked us to pray for the situation unfolding in Honduras. The country was being inundated with rain from a tropical depression and the heavy rainfall was finding its way under the doors at the church flooding the auditorium. Her family was there trying to remove the water, but it was a struggle and there was some concern that services would need to be cancelled due to the flooding. So, we began to pray and overnight the rain stopped. Early in the morning volunteers who lived near the church showed up to mop up the mess and get the chairs set up for the services. More cleanup needs to be done, but the service went off without a hitch. Praise the Lord! The busses, which fetch most of the members, were able to run the majority of their routes, so very few were not able to attend the service and those flooded in are safe.

We are expecting a lot of rain over the next two days – if the forecast holds true. We desperately need the rain, so we are praying that it does come. With the much cooler temperatures lately Mama and I have not been watering our garden, fruit trees and berry bushes every day for fear of overwatering, so we have had a couple shorter mornings in those duties. Plus, we knew the forecast for today and tomorrow was predicting heavy rainfall, so we were allowing the soil we typically water regularly to dry out a bit. Everywhere else around us is very dry and needs the rain badly.

All things considered, we had a great week and weekend. Now, to the week ahead!

Food planning, the weekend, conference

Mama and I began combing through our kitchen countertop appliances the other day to see what we could get rid of. The impetus for the reduction was twofold. First, to see if we could clear out some space in the chef’s pantry – which is far too cluttered and second, to make room for a potential purchase of a countertop grill we used at Granny’s house. We really loved the grill, and it is something Mama and Victoria will use far more than the pellet grill I alone seem to be able to man.

But, as we looked at what could be discarded and who we could potentially give the small appliances to, we began to think about the fruit and vegetables we will soon be harvesting from the garden as well as the seasonal fruits and vegetables we will have access to in stores this time of year. All the fruits and vegetables are highly perishable, and many do not lend themselves to being frozen as a means of preserving them. I am not necessarily interested in canning because it is a lot of work and Mama and I have had limited success with that method of preserving foods.

So, we looked at dehydrators to see if the price is something we could reasonably afford. We were surprised to find that there are many models we could choose from and had only to settle on size and price range. Also, with the greens Mama is clipping from our kale and spinach plants we needed a better way to clean and rinse the leaves than what we currently have access to. Between those two needs arose the question of purchasing a vacuum sealer. A good friend of ours told us recently that she will never be without one. She uses it in some clever ways that make it seem even more practical than Mama and I had imagined.

The bottom line is that we were able to divest ourselves of two small appliances but have managed to replace that downsized accumulation by buying two more small appliances to fill the emptied spots in our chef’s pantry. It appears beating back the clutter in our lives is a battle I am destined to lose, but I rest in the consolation that the two new appliances will be far more useful that the three we have rehomed. Time will tell.

In the same vein of reasoning, thought we rehomed four goats, we are vastly expanding our chicken population. Mama is purchasing chicks from a feed store in Bowie as well as buying hens and chicks from Nancy. Our total chicken population will increase today by more than two dozen. That will be easy enough to manage as far as accommodating a larger flock, however, the challenge comes in separating the much smaller chicks from the larger chicks which still need to be separated for several weeks from the mature hens and roosters. So far, we have made our three coop areas and the Banty house work, but it has taken some imaginative planning to pull off the initial integration of the various new chickens into our flock due to their different sizes. I am afraid that when the time comes that Mama will truly have to downsize, the exercise will be incredibly painful for her. We have not had to walk that road yet. Quite the opposite.

Dropping off goats to the stock sale, servicing and potentially splitting beehives, cleaning the coops, continuing cleaning up around our property will be the majority of the listed chores for tomorrow. I will also have to give some thought to making sure Mama is set up for the first part of next week since I will be working very long days Monday through Wednesday. I certainly will not be able to help with the feeding either morning or evening on any of those days because of travel required for work and will possibly be in a hotel room Sunday night through the duration of our conference which ends late Wednesday evening. Whether I make the commute every morning but Monday – I have a hotel room set aside for Sunday night – I will not be home for either of the feeding times for the first three days of next week.  

Through the end of May, we, as a company, will be working remotely. Due to our exposure potential in the three-day conference we will be hosting, and the increased number of reported COVID cases in our area, the office is being closed for the remainder of the month. That actually works out to be a little bit of a reward for the work that will have been put into the conference. Three days of very early starts and very late finishes will prove quite taxing to our employees.

My schedule will not be affected, but I will at least not have to report to the office in days when I do not have a class to teach.

Malaise, goat sales, chicken gathering, snakes

Neither Mama nor I were feeling well last night but went to church anyway and enjoyed both the service and the company. That is typically the case when we make the effort to go regardless of how we feel. Mama was hurting in a general way, and I was feeling exhausted. There was no reason I should have been feeling so, but I was. I was also dealing with some light headedness. Not actually dizzy to the point of having to sit still but unsteady enough that I was needing help to keep myself properly balanced. I have been feeling poorly since we left the beach Friday morning, but just attributed it to being overly tired.

Last night it struck me that perhaps I was overmedicated again. I am taking the same meds that have been prescribed for many months but every now and then they titrate up in my system to the point that the effects become debilitating. So, to test that theory, this morning I skipped one of the two blood pressure pills I take daily. That seems to have helped a lot – and my blood pressure has not been affected in any significant way. My plan is to go without that medication through the weekend and then take it only every other day for a while. At least until the malaise passes.

One of the things we were able to confirm last night at church was the pickup of our two little does. A young couple at church has been negotiation with Mama for the purchase of the two little ones and today they came to the farm to load them for transport. They would have come yesterday but since I was required to work from the office, Mama had them wait until I was working from home. That way I could help in the arrangement of the transfer, both in catching the goats and in stationing the truck where the cage was for hauling them to their new home. Using the techniques we have used in our goat handling activities, I had the daddy of the clan drive to the enclosure where we keep the does and back close enough to the fence that the goats could be put in the cage in the bed of their truck without having to hop the fence or carry them any distance. That worked out very well. In six months or so we will probably house the does again as we let one of our bucks breed them. It is a package deal.

Two of the three young boys we have separated in a small paddock will be taken to a livestock sale this weekend. The two we are parting with are horned because we did not get to them quickly enough as tiny ones and their horns had grown to the point that it was not safe to remove them other than surgically. That did not appeal to me because of the cost. So we left them horned.

Their horns are impressive and even though I would like to raise them for meat, I do not feel comfortable putting them with our bucks for fear that the horns will give them too much potential to injure our breeder bucks over the next few months it would be required to let them mature to a good processing weight. So, our herd will be reduced by four this week. That will be a help to me and Mama as we keep up with feeding and caring for our little herd.

Mama got to show off the hatchlings to the couple who picked up the goats. They do not have very much acreage, but they want goats and chickens. Tomorrow Mama is going to Bowie to negotiate with Nancy on some Banty hens, chicks and eggs. I will not know the outcome of those purchases until Mama gets home with the goods, but I expect to end up with eggs to hatch more than hens or chicks. We do not necessarily need the hens for egg production, but we are needing to replace some of our older hens who have quit laying. We like the Banty hens because, even though the eggs they lay are small, they are feisty and fun to have on the farm.

Mama and I have been dealing with an influx of snakes lately. I have killed two in the coop and one very large water snake in our front yard. The water snake was on the front porch a few days ago but I lost track of it when it got into some grass and bushes we have near the porch. It showed back up today, so I dispatched it. Sam is our snake monitor. He has a unique bark to alert us to the presence of a snake and Mama is quite in tune with the alarm he sounds to protect her. Mama was not afraid of the snake, but she was mad at it for eating the toads that used to live on our front porch. The toads, two of which were huge, were voracious eaters and kept our bug population in check. On a whim, Mama suggested we hang the snake in the nectarine tree in the garden to inhibit squirrels from damaging the tree but when I suggested that it may stink fairly quickly, we abandoned that idea. However, I relented later and did put the dead snake in the tree. We will see two things soon. First, how quickly it will stink and second, if it will deter squirrels and coons from stripping the fruit from the tree.

If the snakes we have already killed are any indication, we may be able to put a dead snake on every branch of the tree before the fruit ripens.

Hatchlings, the trip home, Summer

Prior to our leaving the farm in Trace’s capable hands, Mama and I had set up the incubator and placed eight eggs inside. Mama’s concern for the chicks potentially growing inside those eggs was that Trace would not be able to provide adequate care for the hatchlings should they emerge in our absence. However, Mama was not at all sure who to entrust the incubator to. After much discussion and several people not being available, it was finally decided that the Burns family would take the incubator home with them and monitor the progress of the eggs. It turns out that that was a very good decision. Alissa called us Saturday morning to tell Mama that they got up that morning to the sound of peeping inside the incubator and within an hour a chick had shed the egg and was moving around in the incubator.

I did not hear if Aliza got to witness the chick break free of the shell, but she was extremely excited about the hatchling. Over the next several days, two more chicks joined the first. Since Alisa had dealt with young chicks before, they were provided excellent care. We got the incubator and the chicks from the Burns Saturday afternoon and waited on the remaining four eggs. Sunday morning a fourth little one was peeping in the incubator. Yesterday I shone a light on the remaining eggs and found them undeveloped. Those were discarded but the incubator was left in service in anticipation of Mama retrieving eggs from Nancy tomorrow. I have no idea how many we will attempt to hatch this time but with the price of chicken right now we need to raise all we can. Fortunately, Mama is onboard with raising them for meat.

Nate, Cori, and the kids flew home yesterday. Although everything turned out well, it was a harrowing experience. Per Honduran requirements, all the family got tested for COVID, but the results had not been released as early as expected so, in faith, they began the check-in process at the airport in Pensacola, but as they did so, the results were published to them. Of the six tests, Grant’s showed positive. They quickly abandoned the airport and found the nearest rapid testing facility. Cori asked us to start praying and Mama and I began to do so in earnest. Fortunately, they knew the Pensacola area well and got to a facility in short order. All tests were done. All the results came back negative. They rushed back to the airport.

Since they were arriving less than an hour before the flight was scheduled to board the attendant at the check-in counter started to refuse to process them for the flight, but after some explanation and pleading, scanned their passports, checked their bags, issued their boarding passes, and sent them to the security area. Cori was a bit alarmed at the length of the line, but miraculously, they cleared security and got to the gate just after the flight had started the boarding process. Savanna, who had obviously picked up on the angst of her parents and then understanding that they had made it exclaimed, “God is so good!”. Yes, God is so good!

They are home now. They were excited to discover that they had power at the house when they arrived. Based on communication with their friends in Honduras they had not expected that to be the case. Again, Praise the Lord!

If the class I taught yesterday is any indication of the discussion that will be required for the in-person class we will be presenting on Monday of next week, it should be a very lively class. I had eight participants in the class Monday and at one point in the class the material we were covering generated a passionate discussion of the principle we were presenting. I expect the participants next week will be equally charged up about the topic that caused such a stir earlier this week. In fact, I am presenting in two different, shorter sessions a more focused examination of that sticking point. I have requested additional time for each of those two sessions to ensure we can take the time required to facilitate the expected discussions. It should be fun. I will spend the next couple days making sure I am prepared for those presentations.

Summer has definitely arrived in North Texas. Neither unexpected nor unwelcome, the season of sweating every time you go outside is here. It was kind of a brutal blow to me and Mama as we began to catch up on chores at the farm. We will acclimate, but there was a significant change in the ambient temperatures from the time we left to the time we returned. The morning we left the farm, we were debating taking jackets with us. It was quite cool. Saturday morning as we got up to start our routines around the farm, the low for the day had already exceeded the high forecast on the day we had left for Florida only a week prior. About a 20° shift in temperature in one week. That is not unusual for our area, it just caught us by surprise after such pleasant days at the beach.

Plants are growing, vegetables are getting large enough that we will be harvesting soon, and our blackberries and blueberries will be ripening by the end of next week. A wonderful time to be on the farm.

Fun, albeit hot, times ahead.

Granny, Perdido Key

 Mama, Victoria, and I left early Saturday morning to drive to Florida. Our destination was Baker, FL. Our objective was to meetup with Nate, Cori, and the kids Sunday evening at Granny Davis’ house. Granny (Gail) Davis has been an adopted grandmother to the kids for several years. Probably ten or more since she and her husband, now deceased, attended church with Nate and Cori for all of their time in Florida. We arrived a little after 7 pm Friday evening at our hotel in Crestview, FL. Having checked in, we just as quickly changed our reservation for the single night and moved the following night to a different hotel. Our original choice was less than acceptable. Our second choice was not much better, but enough so that we fulfilled or time there until we left for our condo in Perdido Key…which was amazing.

We went to church with Granny Sunday morning and waited for Nate and Cori to arrive at Granny’s house that evening. Her church did not have a service scheduled for that night because they were meeting that afternoon to baptize three new converts in the river at a nearby park. A practice they have been following for several ears. They told me and Mama that their baptismal services always cause a stir. Never an offence, but always a stir. When Nate and Cori arrived at Granny’s there was a very large Tom turkey in the road that was a little too interested in what was happening at Granny’s and since Blake and Grant had succeeded in challenging it, the turkey followed the car through the gate once it had been opened. The turkey adamantly refused to go out the way it had come in so, I was required to grab its tail feathers and drag it through the gate and out of the yard. All the while it was scratching the ground furiously with its feet and beating its winds in an all-out effort to overcome my grip on its backside. That made for an interesting entry for the weary travelers.

Once Nate, Cori and the kids began settling in, Mama, Victoria and I went to our hotel, returning to Granny’s early Monday morning. Most of us stayed at Granny’s through that day as Nate, Cori and Blake made multiple stops for pharmaceuticals prior to a late afternoon doctor’s appointment. They were not back until early in the evening. Mama and I took all that were with us to the Gator Cafe in Baker for lunch. That was a very pleasant experience – especially since the kids knew the place well. Good food. Great prices. Once back at the house, Mama got out the paints and the wood burning paste and Grant and Savanna got right to work. That craft lasted for several hours while I killed three hornets that somehow invaded Granny’s screened in back porch. Grant showed some noticeable talent with paints and some interesting creativity with the wood burning paste. Savanna loves painting and gave some of her creations to Grammy. Yes, for two days the grandkids had a Granny and a Grammy to address by those names in the same house. At times it got a little confusing, but it was continuously fun.

Tuesday afternoon we left Granny and headed to Perdido Key. That drive took about two hours. We were advised not to check in before 4 pm but we got curious and a bit anxious since we arrived at the building a little before 3 pm. Using the code to open the door we found the cleaning crew still at the condo just about to finish up. They were not the least upset at the interruption but begged another forty-five minutes to complete their work. Since we were parked in the spaced allotted to us, we walked from the building onto the beach. It was a beautiful setting. Our lodging on the 6^th floor of the building provided a wonderful view of the Gulf only a few yards from our balcony.

We had a relaxing, carefree time at the condo and on the beach. Mama and I took the canopy we recently bought to give us some shade at the beach even though we split our time in the sand and salt with time spent in the condo pool. None of us got seriously sunburned although I have a rash on my chest from overexposure to the sun. A condition promoted by the medications I take. Other than that, most of us were very lightly reddened by the sun. Far less than some of our beach fellows during the two days we got to enjoy the surf.

Grant was able to catch a Sargassum Frogfish in the accumulation of sargassum seaweed at the edge of the surf. That caused a stir since that creature looks very like Lionfish – which is poisonous. He also caught several small flounder and a sand shrimp. All of which were released as we put away the beach items each evening. we had a great time together.

Mama. Victoria and I started our drive home about 10 am Friday. Nate, Cori, and the kids were headed to a camp for diabetic children which was scheduled to begin that afternoon, so we said our goodbyes and headed west. We got home about just before midnight.

It was fun.