Half done, patience, worms, moving delays, outcomes, mind tricks

 It is again hard to relate to the fact that this year is half done. In ways, that sobering thought is uplifting with the promise of the upcoming mid-term elections now only five months away. Will much change? Perhaps, perhaps not, but at least we as Americans will get to speak our mind in who we vote for to represent us. Hopefully, this time without concern for the results of those elections. Like Joe Biden said, “It all depends on who you have counting the votes.” Regardless, I am at this juncture only a single year away from retiring and I still have so many things to get properly set up. Fortunately, we are making headway toward all those goals – other than Mama’s Color Street business, which is doing less well than we had hoped. We are looking into ways to more efficiently capitalize on that business but are coming up short due to Mama’s steadfast reluctance to use any electronic device besides her cell phone. We are working on that as well.

Starting the project

I am hoping to finish the enclosure for the ducks this weekend and to that end, I am doing little things each evening, but I have used up all the materials lying around the farm that can be repurposed for that project. I am at the point of having to buy new and I am not looking forward to the cost of even the few items I require to make the additions to what I have currently in place. Without the new lumber purchases, I am at a standstill, so I will bite the bullet so to speak, but I will not overbuy – as I typically would. I will stick to my list and nothing else. Mama and I will be doing that this evening. The only challenge to having Mama with me at Lowe’s is that she does not necessarily feel constrained to holding purchases to a preset list. The little ducks we are nursing along will not be ready to go into the enclosure for a couple weeks yet, but it will take me that long to get all the final details completed – including their pond. I am hoping to have waterlilies and fish in the pond but that is still under consideration.

On the worm farm side of our farm, I contacted the company we hope to use to set up our business and was very impressed by the fact that the owner of the company returned my call and spent about twenty minutes conversing with me. Mama and I are almost certain that we will pursue this as a business, but it will take several months to get the finances together to purchase the initial package to start the business per their system. With several initial questions answered now, I have a better idea how to pray and possibly prepare to set up a space for the worm beds. It will just be a matter of patience on our part to scale up. Right now, we have the one worm bed doing very well and are looking to double that at the end of July. So, we are already worm farmers, just not on the business scale we are exploring.

Grandma and Grandpa’s relocation journey has been set back a few days. They are now planning on leaving Saturday and getting to their new parking spot late Sunday afternoon. All of them, including Norman, have been a little under the weather for a couple days. Now, they are better and can make all the necessary arrangements to drive over with their home in tow. While she was out getting feed, Mama checked with the RV park to make sure the delay was not an issue and that the spot we reserved was still available. It is and the delay is not a problem. That was good news. It is also good news that they will soon be parked close enough for us to help. Praise the Lord!

On the crafting side of our outputs, Mama has sold four and potentially six of the stands I have made to display the Color Street nail sets. She has sold several Tree of Life wreaths that she has made recently as well. I think it is one of her best creations – and obviously, other do as well. Sometimes it is just a matter of stumbling across the right product to capture an audience or produce a product that is demanded.

Tonight, Mama and I will check to see if our butt spraying has been effective. We are on the edge of a potentially fatal infection of our chickens. If we do not catch and reduce – if not eliminate – the infection, our weakest hens will not survive the coming stretches of intense heat. So, we have a vested interest in getting this taken care of as best we can. It would be nice to see some improvement from the application just to make sure we were headed the right direction. Tonight, we hope to see an improvement, but if not, we will continue the spraying every evening until we have the infestation in check. It is a small matter for us. One we can easily keep up with. We did get more eggs yesterday than we have had for several days, but that may be more coincidence than confirmation.

Bella is back with her family, but she had been here long enough that this morning when I let the dogs out for their morning run, I looked for Bella to join Kobe and Kira when I opened the door. It was only a thought that passed in my mind for a second, but it was there. It is like me asking Mama where I put my sunglasses when I am looking at her through those very sunglasses.

It is funny how our minds will play those tricks on us.

Wick and Waddle, Cori and Nate, shopping, worm studies, Bella

 Yesterday we started our duck flock by purchasing a pair of little ones. The two are from a local seller who was supposed to have three chicks available but sadly, they lost one to the heat. Now the babies are in Mama’s care. One, the yellow one, is a Pekin duck. The dark chick is a Cayuga mix. The sound the duck chicks make is so similar to the sound the chicken chicks make it is a little unnerving. Obviously, the grown-up sounds of either species are vastly different from the chicks, but to see those little duck beaks open up and produce a peep seems incongruous.

Nevertheless, they are here, and we are making a place for them, hopefully, we will build up to about six hens and a couple drakes, but we start with these – not knowing what we have at the moment because it is difficult to tell the sex of the little ones. If we end up with more males as we try to get the population in our enclosure right, I will simply process them for consumption. But it will take time, and multiple purchases, to get the number of hens and drakes we want to end up with. We already have several people requesting duck eggs when we have hens producing those eggs.

 Nate and Cori are serving this week as interpreters and soul winners for the medical team currently at the clinic in Honduras. The teams this week are opticians and general practice doctors and staff. We were told that on Monday, they sawn and treated six hundred persons and of those contacts sixty persons accepted Christ as Savior. An amazing approach to making contacts with the local population by meeting a need that they have little or no access to on their own. Mama and I have talked about helping on one of these medical teams but so far, we have not been able to do so. Constraints of either time or finances have limited our availability. But we certainly are thankful for the ministry that connects professionals who will sacrifice both their time and money to meet this need. For Cori and Nate these are difficult but rewarding weeks of activity – from 7 am to 9 pm - when these teams come to work at the medical center in El Progresso.

Mama is getting her long-awaited crown set today. She has been struggling for nearly a month with the temporary crown so it will be nice to have the permanent crown placed. It should be much smoother and far better fitting than the temporary.  After the appointment, which should not take too long, Mama and Victoria will travel to Denton to run some errands that require the stores they have access to there. Right now, we are trying to limit our travel as much as possible because of high gasoline prices, but some trips are unavoidable. Or at least they seem so. It is so easy to shop from home now that we would not have to go out much at all, but Mama and I are sort of old fashioned in that way. We like the outing as much as the ability to see what is available to us as we shop. We probably end up spending more that we would have otherwise, but we still like to do our shopping in person.

The past few days of cooler temperatures has been a blessing. By cooler I mean that the highs for several days have been in the mid-eighties. That beats by twenty degrees the highs we had for the week prior. Unfortunately, we will rise into the triple digits in a few days. So, the respite will be over. Our animals and plants have responded well to the cooler temperatures. Mama and I were given a reprieve in the daily watering of our struggling plants, but those ministrations will resume soon and linger for the next ten to twelve weeks. Not unexpected for us, but we will take any reprieve we get from the heat.

Lately I have been studying worms. I am happy to say that the initial bed we created for the red wiggler worms is doing well. We are keeping them fed with vegetable and paper products we would normally throw away. They seem to be content with the offerings because every week we are required to provide more feed to them. It is a win-win for us and them. I am also learning what it will take to improve the habitat in our garden to allow the worm population to grow there. Several of the routine practices we employ to prepare our garden for plants have contributed to the rapid decline in the soil and based on what I am reading it will take a couple years to restore the garden to productivity. Thankfully, we can start now to do so using simple, inexpensive techniques. I am looking forward to that.

Bella, who has been with us for a week will be picked up today by her family. I think she has lost a couple pounds in the time she has stayed with us. Victoria has taken her on walks with Kira and Kobe and Mama has been judicious in feeding her. For this week as I have worked from home, Bella will lay in the doorway of our bedroom and watch me between her short naps. It is fun having her around, but I am sure Gracie wants her roomie back.

Tonight, should be our last night of spraying chicken butts. Hopefully, it is helping.

Losing some, winning some, ducks

Although it seemed to happen a bit earlier this year, we are having to abandon a large part of the garden because the heat is burning up the plants at an alarming rate. Some of the plants were trying to produce fruit and with Mama’s daily watering, they appeared to be coping with the high temperatures, but we are losing that battle. The ripening fruit has been dropped by most of the vegetable plants. We are at the juncture where we need to conserve water versus trying to keep our vegetable plants alive. So, we will try for a couple more weeks to tend to the pumpkin plants – even though that might not help - but almost everything else is not going to get the daily morning watering. Our fruit trees and berry plants will be watered as normal, but to save time and water, all the beans, squash, watermelon, zucchini, cucumbers, and Brussel Sprouts are forfeit. It is a sad decision, but one we make every year.

This year we got a few potatoes, a few onions, a few squash, one or two cucumbers, a couple sunflowers, a few peppers, a few tomatoes, and a handful of strawberries. No watermelon, no green beans, no peas, no okra, no spinach, and no corn. A lot of effort went into the very minimal harvest, but we are not alone in that outcome. Local ranchers only got one cutting of hay this year versus the three cuttings gleaned last year. Local vegetable growers have pared down their “truck farms” to focus on only certain crops. Those that are heat tolerant. In all the years Mama and I have tried, we have yet to be successful in raising a productive garden. Oh, well, there is always next year.

Right now, Mama and I are battling a mite infection in our chickens. To try and control the mites that have made themselves at home on our poor chickens, Mama made a solution of oil, dish soap and water to spray on the birds. We did so last night and will repeat the procedure tonight as well. The suggestion that accompanied the recipe was that the application be repeated three times. That is to say, three nights in a row. What I do know is that I had to take a shower after holding each of the fifty or so chickens for Mama to spray their backsides and under each wing. I can honestly say she covered each bird well because the overspray from the application thoroughly soaked my shirt. Hopefully, this will help our birds.

In the winning column, I am going to harvest at least some honey from the hives this week. I am not sure how many panels I will pull to collect the honey, but the last time I looked, I had three full frames of honey. Removing those frames will necessitate feeding the bees through the remainder of the summer and into the Fall, but it is a good trade off for us. Hopefully, the bees will do well enough with a supplemental feed as we try to keep them supplied with both sugar water and pollen substitute. If I do not pull the panels this week, the bees will begin to eat the honey to survive the dearth we are now in. That is why they made the honey, but I will take at least part of their stores for our use – if I can – and feed them in return for robbing their stores.

Also in our potential wins, I ordered and received a promotional video and booklet that has introduced me and Mama to a company that has developed a system to produce worms, castings and cocoons in a measured, predictable way. One of the unknowns of making the worm beds we have already started is that the outcomes are very unpredictable. With the system I am investigating, the production of each of the three products can be calculated with high probability. That way, we can know how much product we are making and thereby, how much product we will have to sell. In other words, we will have the potential, in a reasonable manner, take and fill orders for our products versus trying to sell what we have produced after we see how much we have to offer.

I like the ability to plan and forecast outcomes especially since growing the worms has an initial cost associated with the setup of the beds required. With the system we are looking into, the start up cost is pretty high, but that is a one-time expense. Once the worms are reproducing, the operation is self-perpetuating. At least as far as I have been able to learn. This looks like a very workable income stream in my pending retirement. Something Mama and I can enjoy doing together here on the farm.

Today, we will start our duck flock. Mama will be picking up two or three hatchlings locally. I have made a good start on a pen for the ducks. Complete with a water trough for them to swim in. It will be a few days before that pen is complete, but that should be good timing for the little ones we are getting. The main concern is to make sure the ducks are protected from predators, mostly raccoons and opossums in our area.

Working that safety issue out has been my main challenge. The rest seems straightforward.

A new, old idea, a busy week ahead, farm fun

Late last week as Mama and Kimberlyn were talking, Kimberlyn mentioned starting a worm farm. That is something I thought about while Mama and I still lived in West Virginia. In fact, until a few years ago I still had the video I ordered from the company offering a special climate-controlled bed for raising worms. Since, at the time, I did not look much further – those were the pre-internet days – it was the cost and placement of the apparatus that kept me from getting started then. Now, Mama and I are discovering that it does not take any special equipment to raise worms. In fact, it is quite simple to get started and we are doing so as quickly as possible. Whether or not it is as simple to succeed will be evident soon enough.

Right now, we are almost perfectly located to start this project. The farm provides some, if not much of the compost and other materials required to have a pretty efficient set up. We have an abundance of manure from goats, chickens and cows to feed to the worms. We have the well house to get the operation started and allow room to expand if we do succeed. We have an enormous abundance of leaves each year that the worms can feast upon in measured doses. We have a generous supply of friends who will save papers for us to shred and feed to the worms. The key in getting going is to not fall behind on the “feed” we need for the worms to consume as they reproduce. We should be able to get started this week with our first bed. From there we can help Kimberlyn get her first bed set up. At least, that is the plan.

Raising worms takes time. Eight to twelve weeks are required before either the worms or the castings they have created can be harvested, depending on the size of containers used to raise the worms. So, getting started soon is important to me. I plan on retiring next year about mid-year. So, generating an income from worm farming will take many months to achieve. Now is the time to get going and see how large an operation will be required on our part to make this work. At the very least, we will produce our own worms and organic fertilizer with little out-of-pocket cost. Everything past that is a benefit, but we are investigating how to scale this up to a small commercial business over several years. Having a profitable farm will be a dream come true for me and Mama.

Along with starting the worm farm, Mama and I are looking into getting ducks. I mentioned this idea earlier but in the past few days Mama has made some interesting contacts that will facilitate incorporating those fowls into our flocks. The ducks it seems are more pet-like of a bird. Even to the point that they can be trained to answer to specific names and be individually called out of the flock to be hand-fed treats. That should prove fun. With the additional variety of meat and eggs, they seem a good idea to pursue. Maybe next year I can look into starting a hydroponic fish production set up. I have looked at that for years as well.

Saturday, I was struck by a newer idea. That of raising peacocks. I have opposed them in the past but am giving the idea further consideration. It will take a dedicated enclosure to do so, but they could provide some income opportunity as well since their eggs sell for as much as $39 each and the hatchlings can fetch upwards of $50 - $150 each. The shed plumage of the cocks can be sold to crafters as well. Since it is difficult to tell the hens from the cocks at hatching, it is a take-what-you-get for buyers. Problematic for me and Mama, but we will over buy and hope for the best. We have two lines of opportunity to get those birds as well. I was curious if peacocks or other peafowl are edible, and it seems that they are. Reports say that they taste like turkey. That would be an interesting Thanksgiving dinner entrée. Like Grandpa said years ago, the real benefit to owning a farm is that you can eat your mistakes.

I have a full week ahead. I am teaching classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday and Friday are taken up with company activities. On Friday, those activities will include Mama. The company has planned a tailgate party for the afternoon. A great idea since many of the persons hired in the past twelve months have not met those of us who have been with the company for longer periods of time. It will be a chance for all of us to meet and greet. The only issue is that the temperature is forecast to be 105 degrees that afternoon. So, it will be a very warm meet and greet.

Meanwhile, all our evenings are filled with farm related chores – picking up hay, setting up worm beds, starting on the peafowl and duck enclosures, fixing fence in the barn lot in preparation for getting two cows of our own, cleaning equipment to get ready to harvest honey, etc.

I don’t want to make everyone jealous, but this really is fun.

Chicken baths, heat, moving news

Of the eleven chicks still being kept in a tote in the sunroom, Mama is having to wash the butts of all eleven to keep the orifice open so that the chicks do not die from such pluggage. The one that did die from being backed up by the poop caked across the “vent” has Mama keeping a very cautious eye on the tiny ones. So far, so good, but one or two more are touch and go health wise. This extra care may be required for an additional week or so. By that time the chicks will have grown to the point that they will be past the need for the extra care.

Also, yesterday evening Mama as able to catch the chick whose brood mates are still in the Banty house. As she was tending to the oldest brood of chicks, the tiny one approached her to be picked up. I suppose she was hungry and tired from constantly being on the run for the past couple days. Now all four of the middle brood are back together, safely housed in the Banty house. What we will do to integrate all three broods of chicks of various ages when the time comes remains to be determined, but somehow it will all work out. There will be thirty-three to get mixed into our laying hens in a few months. That should be fun.

Mama has been faithful watering the vegetable plants in our garden for the past weeks, but we are at the point that we will be giving up on some of those plants. The hot and dry conditions are causing the plants to abandon their efforts to produce the edible parts we raised them for. The green beans are withering on the plants as are the Brussel Sprouts and squash. The zucchini and cucumbers seem to be able to handle the heat as do the watermelon and pumpkin plants. Our pumpkin plants look like some sort of invasive plants as they spread their thick vines and huge leaves over their areas of the garden. Mama and I even picked a watermelon last week. It looked and sounded ripe, but when I cut into it, it was nowhere near ripe. The chickens enjoyed it. Next year, Mama and I will concentrate on using tubs or planters to grow most of our vegetables since those containers seem to do far better in these very hot conditions, allowing us to prolong our growing season and produce a better harvest.

Though our grown chickens pant through these hot days, seeking every shady spot they can find, the chicks revel in the heat. In fact, they appear to be uncomfortably cold when the temperature drops below 85 degrees. At 100 degrees, they are finally sufficiently warmed up to be comfortable. So, the current conditions are perfect for them in their infant stages. Once they get their feathers and a little down, they will be less tolerant of the heat, but that is weeks away.

Meanwhile, our nanny goats are all doing well. They too love the heat. All six of them are showing signs of successful breeding. Several, mostly our older girls, are looking quite swollen already and Mama and I are anticipating another crop of twins with several triplets in the mix. We hope our first-time mommies have only single births, but we have little control over that. So far, we have had only one female give us a single kid. When that happens, that lone suckling far outpaces the twin and triplet groups in the early months of growth. They all catch up later, but it is interesting to watch the difference.

Brittany and Maggie respectively have gotten successfully placed in homes. There is still the issue of getting all their stuff relocated and set up, but that is in the works for both families. At least, the housing issue is settled for the moment. Praise the Lord! In each case, it was wonderful to see the Lord intervene to supply that need. In this current housing market, finding and securing a rental property is a very expensive challenge. Timing is everything. Instant cash is required. Competition is fierce. But now both families can settle into a residence and begin applying their emotional energies in more normal ways.

As for Grandma and Grandpa, Mama and I drove to an RV park in Sunset, TX to investigate potential spots to place their RV. It is a location of choice for Grandma and Grandpa. It is a good thing we went when we did because the same competitive rental issues apply to RV parks as well. Of the several spot available Mama and I chose one, conferred with Grandma and Grandpa, and put a deposit in that spot. Normally, the deposit would hold the spot for only one week, but the manager is working with us to hold the spot until July 1. Located on the back side of the park, as far away from the highway as possible and backed by woods, it seems perfect for Grandma and Grandpa. Time will tell. The park is about twelve miles from the farm. A ten-minute drive for Mama. Praise the Lord!

Please pray that Norman does not delay in getting them hauled over here.

Things set right, fowls

Things are slowly being set right in the repairs Mama and I needed regarding the recent breaks, and disruptions in our lives. Before I looked at ordering a new watch to replace the one I broke while trying to clean it, I looked to see if there was a way I could send the watch off to be repaired. It turns out that the manufacturer has set up a repair request site that was very easy to use. So, I have sent the watch off for repairs as needed by the company that assembles and sells those style of watches. The estimated repair cost is not clear at this point but the predicted cost for a small repair was $35. We will see how that turns out, but it makes sense to explore that course of action first.

Internet repairs were completed yesterday. Since I ripped up the cable coming from the dish to the house, I was a little concerned about the work involved in refitting that connection. However, the internet company is equipped with special fittings to easily affect those repairs and the technician was done – as Mama tells it – rather quickly. It took longer to reset the router than to affect the repairs to the cable. So, internet is restored. In fact, I had laid a four-foot piece of garden hose I had split lengthwise to be placed over the cable at the pole holding the dish to prevent such damage in the future. I was going to slide that hose over the cable after the repair was made but the technician, guessing the intent of the piece of split hose, placed it over the cable before he completed the repair. I was as impressed as I was thankful for his extra help.

The nail gun that had failed me in the course of all the minor disasters that plagued my weekend was disassembled and reassembled several times before I recognized the part that was malfunctioning. I actually had to refer to the exploded parts diagram that still resides with the nail gun to find the part I need to replace. One of those things that was not obvious until I was clued in on how to look at it. Once I knew what each part should look like, I was able to identify the one part that did not resemble the drawing on the parts diagram. It will cost about $14 to replace. Considering I have had that nail gun for almost thirty years, it is worth the money to repair it, but I have also order an upgraded replacement for that tool.  

As for the repair required to get Mama’s computer operational again, Mama called a local repair shop and got moderately good news from them. They are confident they can restore the factory settings and get the computer up and running again for an entry price of $45. The full cost will not be known until all the repairs are affected.  If our local technicians are successful, that beats trying to get the work done at an Apple Retail Store. We have such a store about an hour away, but the wait times at the retail store average more than an hour just to get in the repair que. We have high hopes the repairs will be accomplished locally.

On the farm front, Mama has become fascinated with the idea of raising ducks. So, I will more than likely be building a duck habitat in the very near future. I am okay with the idea; I just do not want too many of those fowl. Perhaps four to six total. I do not know if a male will service more than one female, like our roosters, but we do not need to add an influx of duck eggs into our accumulation of eggs, although it would be fun to sell the eggs to others who might want to hatch them. We are reading that certain varieties of ducks lay over 300 eggs per year. Plus, we would be able to raise ducks to eat. Provided Mama and Victoria like roasted duck. I do not remember if I like duck or not, but I am willing to experiment. I do know that we would be able to sell or trade the ducks we could raise, and the way things are looking, having a variety of animals to use for meat would be to our advantage.

On the sad side, one of the several days old chicks Mama recently purchased is not going to survive. Mama is deeply saddened by every one of those losses, but those losses are a part of farm life. That still leaves her eleven to raise, most of which are hens. The roosters we have in the bunches we are raising will eventually be processed for consumption, either by us or by our Chinese friends.

In kind of a funny mishap, as Mama was placing the four chicks we recently hatched, now a few weeks old, into the Banty house, one of the chicks escaped the confines of the Banty house and took off like a shot. I got to see that chick yesterday evening so it did not die or get pecked badly by the older chickens, but there is no way I could have caught it. As it was last sighted, it was scampering into the coop yard and taking up residence under the East side of the coop. If it stays alive, it will eventually roost inside the coop with the other chickens. If it survives. For now, it is our one wild chicken.   

Meanwhile, Mama’s older chicks, now a couple months old have been placed in the little coop.  After weeks of having access only to the inside of that coop, we opened the door allowing them to get out into the small yard attached to that coop. It is always a challenge to get the little ones out of the coop and into the yard. They eventually overcome their fear, but it takes several hours. They are, after all, chickens. It is a bigger challenge to get them to reenter the coop for the first several nights. So, to close them up in the coop overnight, I have had to wait until all the little ones at least get into the opening the door provides them and using a broom, gently push the mass of little bodies further into the coop so the door can be shut. Hopefully, that process will become easier as they begin to occupy spaces on the roost instead of settling on the floor of the coop, but we are not there yet.

For now, I have to plan on taking a half hour to get all the occupants shut into their coop. But it is a humorous challenge.

My really awful, terrible weekend, not all bad news

Every now and then any of us can have a problematic incident happen in our lives but rarely do we have such a confluence of events happen that we become hesitant to take on even menial tasks for fear of a horrible outcome. That was the kind of weekend I just had. It started Friday afternoon when I was making some sugar water for the bees. The ten-pound bag of sugar was nearly empty, so I elected to just pour the remining sugar through a rolled piece of paper serving as a funnel into a gallon jug. With the uneven curl at the mouth of the bag I had an issue channeling the sugar into the funnel and at one point, the sugar flowed – rather freely – onto the counter. I wasn’t intelligent enough to move the jug into the sink to finish emptying the bag after the first spill, so I repeated the process and polluted the counter with sugar. I cleaned up what I though was the mess, but Mama discovered a lot more sugar on the counter the next morning.

Later that evening as I was following a recipe Mama had found for making seedless blackberry jam. I did everything the recipe called for, but it was a complete failure. The thin syrup that was produced was not at all what the recipe had promised. So, that was set aside to be reworked at a later date. Supposedly, we were not required to add pectin to the mix if it was boiled for a sufficient time. The time we were told on the recipe was not sufficient. Not overly bad so far.

Fast forward to Saturday morning after I had worked for about an hour on the stands I am building for Mama to sell to her Color Street peers. I got out the wheeled string trimmer and after trimming the fence line around our circular drive, I was trimming the weeds near the pole that holds our internet dish. For some unaccountable reason I trimmed too close to that pole and pulled and split the internet cable to the house. I certainly should have known better, but I was focused on the grass and not the cable. That will cost us to repair, and that repair will not happen until tomorrow afternoon. I attempted a repair but there are nine small wires in the cable, and I could see no way to affect the repair with what I had on hand to make the connections. So, we are without internet for now. Needless to say, I was a very unhappy camper.

Moving on. When I got the proper nail gun out to attach the “heel” to the stands I had finished, the nail gun would not work. So, I spent an hour trying to fix it and having barely gotten it back together after disassembly, I abandoned that and glued to pieces together. Hoping for the best until I can replace the nail gun. I have had my air nailers for over twenty years, and they have never failed me until that moment. All this time I was working outside in 100 degree plus heat, soaking wet and miserable.

The coup de gras came Sunday morning as I was cleaning my Fossil Hybrid watch to charge it. Lately I have had issues making the connections between the charge touchpoints and the prongs on the charger. I have cleaned the back of the watch in the past with Q tips to remove the dirt accumulated on those tiny ports from wearing the watch while I sweated, but this time the cotton caught something on the watch and pulled a spring out of the body of the watch, destroying the contact point for the charger. That was really upsetting, and it was the culmination of many other little things that had gone spectacularly wrong in the last forty-eight hours. I really like that watch.

Add to that Kobe being bitten by a poisonous snake while sniffing in the weeds as Victoria walked the dogs Friday evening and Julian, one of our bucks, not wanting to get up or eat Sunday morning and you can get a feel for the kind of weekend I had. Mama was very worried about the animals but Kobe, despite the swelling on her face, is doing well and greeted us with her happy growl as we got home from church last night. Julian is still a concern for us. Mama and I will look him over thoroughly this evening to see if we can spot something obvious that may be wrong.

On the bright side, I was able to untangle the wire Mama had inadvertently run over from the blades of the mower – although that took me the better part of an hour. I was also able to get several of the display stands assembled and will finish several more today. Mama has promised those for delivery this week. I tilled in the garden to remove some of the weeds that have invaded that area without destroying any of the plants we need to maintain. That little bit of effort on my part helps Mama and I get the weeds removed more easily than having to cut them out with the hoe. Also, Mama was able to buy twelve Bantam chicks at Tractor Supply for $1 each. Now we have thirty chicks in various stages of growth to raise and eventually integrate into our flock.

Mama is going to the dentist today to have a tooth crowned. She has been holding off for months, but we thought that now was as good a time as any to get the work done. It will be good to have the tooth repaired. From what we are being told, she will walk out of the office with her new crown in place. They have the resources to make the crown in the office versus sending off a mold of the tooth to a manufacturer.

That saves a lot of time but is no less expensive than the old method.  

Timing, little things

It is often surprising that the 24 hours we are allotted per day seem insufficient to accomplish all that needs to be done on that particular day. In thinking back over yesterday, I cannot see any way I could have squeezed more activity into the hours I was given but I did not nearly get done all that I had intended to do. Over my lunch hour I worked on the stands I am making for Mama and her peers. As soon as I was allowed to clock out from work, I started working outside on the long list of little nagging chores – weeding the garden, trimming around the house,  planting some new plants Mama brought back from a visit to Kimberlyn’s parents, feeding and watering our animals, untangling the hose Mama had knotted up so it would be ready when needed, trimming the blackberry bushes to give us access to the ripening berries, cleaning the shop so I can have a clean work area to apply the finish to the stands I am making, and on and on.

None of those are big items but together they represent hours of work and even though I worked through the evening I was able to accomplish little toward closing out the chores on that list. I spent the evening completely soaked. Not because of the effort required in the work I was doing, but because of the hot, still, muggy weather. It is hard for me to admit that I am getting slower – much slower – and I was hoping to talk to the cardiologist about the possibility that the medications I am currently taking are contributing to that lack of vitality, but alas that did not happen.

When I showed up at the doctor’s office for my appointment Tuesday afternoon, so that I might possibly get some answers, I was told that my regular doctor had not sent the required authorization for the appointment. The cardiologist was willing to see me, but I would be responsible for the full cost of the appointment – and any tests done during that appointment. I walked away - very unhappy with my regular doctor’s office. Insurance requires a referral to any other doctor than my regular doctor. The last time I agreed to move ahead without that referral in place, insurance refused to pay. That visit cost me $1500 out of pocket. I was unwilling to take that risk regardless of the assurances of the office staff urging me to keep the appointment. So, I still do not have the answers I need because some little thing did not get done properly.

Now Mama tells me that as she was mowing, she must have run over something that caused the mower blades to lock up on her so she parked the mower by my shop so I could repair it. All that to my list of little things. Her advice to me was “Just run it up on some blocks so you can untangle whatever wrapped around the blades.” In her mind it should be an easy fix. It’s just a little thing.

Such is life. The Bible tells us that the “little foxes spoil the vines.” What that means is that the “little things” in our lives generally cause us the most problems. For instance, Mama is very proactive about filling up her vehicle at or near the half tank level. She does so immediately when she sees the set level being approached. She does not wait until tomorrow or a more convenient time, because tomorrow the price of the gas required to fill the tank will cost more that right now. A little thing but she will chide herself for if she does not get the less expensive gas right then because she will definitely pay more if she waits. This is the life we are living right now. Praise the Lord, we will make it through with His help!

Maggie let Mama know yesterday that they have secured a house. They will rent for a while so that they can explore at their leisure the areas near Aarons’ duty station and decide on the best location for a home purchase. The cost to secure the rental was rather large, but that is the market today. Essentially, the same thing is happening with Brittany and Andrew. I am sure things will work out well enough, but we have to work within the market as it operates today, as unfortunate as that might be for those of us are on the buying or renting side of the equation.

Blake, along with his mommy and daddy, continues to make the necessary adjustments to meet the demands of his diabetic condition. Cori tells us that there are times when he refrains from eating because he tires of the injections, translate that “shots”, needed to maintain a beneficial blood sugar level, but for the most part, he is managing as well as can be expected. I cannot know for sure, but I suspect that the constant monitoring and adjusting becomes exasperating for Blake. Couple that with the fact that his mom and dad think about his needs almost more than he does – and are therefore constantly reminding him of the necessary adjustments to be made – and you can start to see how irritating a little thing like insulin can become. When actions are required between six and ten times per day, that is a lot to handle for an eleven-year-old.

Cori and Nate are fully aware of this aspect of Blake’s condition (the emotional side of things) and I know they are gentle in their reminders, but constant ever so gentle reminders can still overwhelm the emotions of a young boy who for just a few minutes wants to feel “normal.”  

They appreciate your prayers for this ongoing need.

Harvesting, honey, kidding

Mama and I are starting to reap the rewards of our – Mama’s mostly – constant care of the bushes and plants growing in our garden and yard. Though the bugs have chewed the leaves off many of the potato plants and the Brussel Sprout plants, even they are producing well enough to give is a harvest. But the blackberry plants have outdone themselves this season and Mama and are picking almost every day to keep up with the ripening berries. If we slack up on our efforts to harvest the fruit the birds and our chickens eat everything they can reach. Hopefully, today we will make some jelly with the berries we pick since we already have several quart bags full of the berries in the freezer and the bushes are loaded to the point of the branches drooping under the weight of the berries.

Sometime next week we will start picking blueberries. They are not as loaded are the blackberries, but we will get enough to put in some oatmeal or mix with yogurt for breakfast over a few mornings. The peaches are ripening but there is an issue with insects piercing the skin of the fruit causing the juice to leak out and cover those peaches that have been stabbed. We do not know if those peaches will be edible in a couple weeks when they fully ripen, but we will watch and hope for the best. I am loathe to spray anything on the tree or the fruit so we may not have a very good harvest this year. As with our vegetables in the garden, the bugs seem to be winning the battle we are waging against them on the front. Fortunately, they have left our squash and watermelons alone. We will be picking our first watermelon in a few days. Mama is extremely excited about that!

Also, on the animal side of things, four of the nine eggs we put in the incubator have hatched and those little ones will be added eventually to our flock. That makes eight all told that we have hatched from our own eggs, and we will probably incubate more over the summer. Mama is currently raising a brood of chicks, now six or seven weeks old, in the little coop so all newcomers will have to start out in the Banty House. Right now, the tiny chicks are in a tote in the sunroom because we need to give them extra heat to make it through the nights. The overnight temperatures are in the low seventies. That does not seem cold, but to the little ones with very little covering and no ability to produce sufficient body heat to stay warm in those temperatures, the heat lamp is required through the night hours. Thing of it as swimming in seventy-degree water. That is how the cooler air feels to their uninsulated bodies.

I will be re-inspecting the hives today. It will be interesting to see if the bees in one hive have produced any honey in the honey super I sat on their hive. I expect that they have but I have not verified that. In any event, they have enough honey in the upper box of their hive for Mama and I to get a few pints of honey by robbing their excess stores, but I have to wait until the honey is capped and ready to harvest. That is what I will find out today or tomorrow. The other two hives are in various stated of development and will not give us any honey this year. Perhaps next year. I am still hoping to catch a swarm or two this year but have not succeeded so far.

All of the female goats we set up to be bred are starting to show signs that that breeding was successful. Our older females are beginning to look like we will get triplets from this kidding. Our first-time mommies are developing more slowly, and Mama and I are hoping for singles from this breeding, however, our nannies have consistently given us twins for the most part with only one nanny birthing a singe kid. Time will tell, but we may be looking at increasing our herd by twelve to fourteen in late September or early October. Raising these goats has proved a good hobby for me and Mama. We can afford the feed – so far. We can easily handle the animals. They do not require much room, and we can manage the breeding program with the facilities we have onsite. They produce offspring in doubles and triples each year. Most importantly, they are fun animals to be around.

Mama and I are waiting to repopulate the farm with pigs until the weather cools somewhat. Right now, the hot days would not do well for piglets, and we are in no hurry. Though the pigs can eat most of the food scraps our home produces, they still need feed provided for them and we are not anxious to increase our feed bill at this time by adding two extra animals to tend to. That increased feed requirement will come as the kids start to need more than their mommy’s milk, but we are months away from that. Adding the pigs to the farm at that time will not seem like a separate increase to the feed we will need on hand.

Fun times on the farm.

Men’s fishing trip, Maggie’s move, Brittany’s move, Grandma’s move

The men from our church have made the trip to Lake Texoma for a fishing trip for thirty years and though Mama and I have been attending this church for over ten years, this was the first time I had taken the opportunity to tag along. Several of us left the church in Decatur about 8 am Thursday morning and drove the hour plus to the Walnut Creek Campgrounds. Three trucks were in the small caravan leaving the church, two were towing boats and one was towing a trailer with a side-by-side loaded on it. Both the boats and the side-by-side got many hours of use over the time spent at the lake. We met up at the lake with those who had already arrived and set up the camp.

Fishing was terrible. Nothing seemed to be biting because recent rains had muddied and cooled the water and the areas where we had access to fish from the shoreline or from the docks were busy with patron trying out a variety of lures and bait. The many young fishermen on the docks did not give the fish a moment’s peace as they shouted and played while pretending to fish. I spent Thursday out on the lake in a boat that had seen many years of use. It had a manufacture date of 1981. We set out juglines and fished from the boat in a variety of areas known to the pilot to be “good holes”. I caught several keepers on those excursions while the baited lines we set out produced no fish and my two companions in the boat caught no fish at all.

Friday, I did not get invited to go out on the boat, so I fished where I had access to the lake and in the six hours of trying different lures across different access points, caught nothing except very small fish. No keepers. Those in the boats had no luck either, but several of the baited lines produces some nice catfish. All in all, we had more than enough fish to feed the thirty people at the camp for our meal Friday evening. Although, most of the fish we cooked for that meal had been brought to the camp by those who had enough experience with the lake to prepare in advance to assure we had ample fare for that particular meal.

It was a great experience. Everyone had a good time even though we did not catch much. Everyone was safe. All the very used boats ran well enough to get us out on the lake and back safely. In some cases, that was just this side of miraculous. With our Pastor’s boat (manufactured in 1878), the bilge pump runs almost continuously while the outboard motor may or may not run well. But we made it – and we had fun joking with each other, spending a relaxed time together, eating very well, encouraging the young men in our church, and making memories.

Several of our children are moving or in the process of moving right now. Aaron, Maggie, and the kids have made the trek from Upper Michigan to the shores of Virginia and are currently looking for housing in the area they relocated to - a challenge in this time of economic turmoil. Andrew, Brittany, and the girls are moving in-state to get closer to the church in order to save Brittany and the girls time in transit to her job at the church. Again, securing a house is a huge challenge but in Brittany’s case, they may have successfully addressed that issue. We are praying so. Everything for them is an issue of timing the move. In Maggie’s case, nothing is settled, and they are finding it necessary to look further away from Aaron’s duty station to secure a rental property. The current market is a landlords dream because rental properties are highly sought after.

Right now, large real estate companies are buying up all the houses they can because of the demand for rental homes. This does two things. First, it makes the competition for homes very difficult for individuals or families to compete against the buying power of large conglomerates for the available homes. Secondly, because of the competition engendered, it raises the price on homes available on the market far above the budget of personal buyers. Both Brittany and Maggie are finding the competition fierce even to find a home to rent. Please pray for them as they continue to search for the right home.

Meanwhile, Grandpa called Mama last night to ask her to begin looking for places near us for them to park their little travel trailer – their current residence. They are making the final decisions about relocating back to Texas. That is something Mama and I have been praying for. We need them closer so that Mama is available to help provide the care they are starting to admit they need, and Mama is the right person to provide that care. Grandma and Grandpa were supposed to travel over to see us this month, but those plans were abandoned when Norman scheduled a nine-hundred-mile side trip to West Virginia followed by a thousand-mile trip to Texas, with a twelve-hundred-mile return trip to their campground in Florida. Grandpa wisely bowed out and now they are strongly considering moving back closer to Mama.

Grandpa admitted last night that he is getting to the point where he cannot care for Grandma on his own. Considering the remoteness of their current setting, he is concerned that he would not be able even to get her into a vehicle to get her to a hospital if needed. They need our prayers as they consider and plan this move.

It won’t be easy, but the outcomes will be well worth the effort.

Glassblowing, Memorial Day Weekend

Friday of last week, I participated in a team building activity at a glassblowing shop in Arlington, TX. We met at the office and carpooled to a coffee shop near to the venue to make sure we had everyone onboard before walking the three blocks to the workshop. The glassblowing shop was set up in an old gas station. The office of the old station served as a gallery as well as an office. There were some amazing pieces of crafted glass on display. The prices being asked were mindboggling. The garage of the old station had been converted into the workshop with a central oven containing the molten glass at 2100 degrees and two smaller ovens for reheating and shaping the glass being worked. Those ovens were kept at 900 degrees. Needless to say, it was a hot working area. Small bleacher type benches were set up at the open doors of the garage area and there was a cool breeze blowing that morning, so it was pleasant enough. The noise of the natural gas burners firing the three ovens was pretty loud, so we had to speak up to be heard.

After we were familiarized with the safety precautions, mostly dealing with very hot temperatures, the team that would be guiding us through the process of making our gazing ball took the time to demonstrate that process to us – actually creating a piece of their own. It was fascinating! I did not go first, but I was the second to participate from my half of my peers. There were fourteen of us in all, so we had split into two groups. Glass was drawn from the main oven and allowed to cool for only a moment before I was led through the process of adding color – which I had preselected – by dipping the molten glass into a steel scoop containing metal fragments that would melt into the glass to provide the final colors. I chose three colors, a deep violet, a light purple and a white. After adding each color, the glass was reheated in the 900-degree oven to melt the metal shavings into the glass. Once all the colors were incorporated into the glass, it was taken and elongated slightly by blowing a very small breath into the rod we were using to work the glass.

I sat at a bench and the rod was laid in a set of rails for me to cool, shape and work the still soft blob on the end of the rod. The rod had to be continually rotated so the glass would not get lopsided as it was being worked. After that was done, the instructor sat at the bench and a line was attached to the end of the rod for me to blow the glass. I blew a little more than needed so the globe I created was a bit thinner than some of the others that followed, but the talent of the gentleman working with me saved the project and it turned out beautifully. It was a great activity. I am planning on taking Mama to the workshop to make something at some future date. She would thoroughly enjoy the experience.

As for Memorial Day weekend, we had a pretty calm few days. On Saturday I spent the day with Mama at a Biker for Life rally where she had purchased a space to sell her nails. It was a very hot, very windy day with nobody was in attendance except for the twenty or so other vendors, so there were few people who visited our booth, but Mama did make one good sale. Enough to pay for our spot. Other than that, it was a boring day for me. We ended up leaving at about 3 pm because the wind was picking up and we feared for our canopy even though we had anchored it as best we could. Several of the other vendors had their canopies blown over or ripped from the supports as the day progressed. Though the gusting winds made the ambient temperature bearable, it was a constant treat to our display.

Sunday at church we handed out little Army men to be used a reminder to pray for our military members and our first responders. I did not know how the idea would go over, but it was very well received. Sunday evening several of our church members told me where they placed the figurines so they would be easily seen as a reminder to pray. Mine is standing on my desk at home and Mama’s is on the side table by her recliner.

On Memorial Day I worked around the farm mostly focusing on getting an idea of what needs to happen to fix our barn lot fences. I put in just under 17,000 steps that day. In the afternoon, I fired up the grill and cooked sausages, steaks, and chicken legs. While I was doing that, Mama made potato salad. macaroni salad, and baked beans. Mama and I had lunch by ourselves that day because Victoria was working and Trace had a side job that needed to be completed. They each ate when they got home, so we all got to enjoy the fare. It was a slow-paced, calm weekend overall.

I taught class yesterday and will be going fishing with the men from our church tomorrow and Friday. So, I used the extra day at the farm to get ahead on chores. Still, Mama will be largely on her own for the remainder of the week when it comes to caring for the animals.

Victoria has a job interview tomorrow for a receptionist position at a county facility. Please pray for her that she would have the wisdom to discern if this is the right job for her…should she be offered the position.