Little climbers, breeding our goats, ducks and chickens everywhere, gardening

It is always interesting to see our little ones find the tree in the goat lot that all of them have found at one point or another. Our newest little ones, the three we bought as bottle babies, found the climbing tree this week and have kept the bark worn and dirty since then. The tree grows at an odd angle at its base then turns upward about five feet off the ground. The lower slanted part gives the little ones about five feet of trunk to entertain themselves. They will only be able to play on the tree for a couple more weeks at which time they will be too large to make the climb. I have not figured out what keeps them from climbing as they grow larger, but we have seen it happen with each batch of little ones growing in the lot.

Over the weekend, we will move the nanny goats into the paddock with Midas. All four have, in the past few weeks, expressed their interest in our buck. When they are in heat, they will stand at the front corner of the lot nearest the opposing corner of the buck enclosure, and show their interest in getting together with our buck. For his part, he is always interested in having the females visit him. Tomorrow, he will get his wish. Not only will this serve to get our nanny goats time with Midas to get bred, but it will also give us time to ensure all our younger girls, our six month olds, have time to get their fill of feed without the larger goats beating them out of the troughs at each feeding. Plus, our bottle babies will be weaned at the end of April, so we will have a month, while the nanny goats are with the buck, to ensure they grow large enough to get their share of the feed once all the females are put back together at the end of May.

While we were at the funeral in Florida, the Fox’s took our male goats to the sale in Bowie. We had one large buck, Julian, and four six-month-old little bucks. They check they walked away from the drop off with was for about $725. Mama and I were thrilled by that. So, as we breed the nanny goats this year, we are far less concerned about the amount or little boy goats we get. Now we have a market to sell them at a healthy profit. Of course, we are always a little more excited about getting the female little ones out of the birthing. You cannot count your little ones before they are born, but we can reasonably expect to have between eight and twelve kids in August from the four nanny goats we are breeding. In another year we will have eleven females to breed. We are looking forward to that.

Because of several small purchases and successful hatching of eggs, we have ducks and chicks everywhere. I am currently looking for places to put those tiny birds somewhere other than in totes in the garage. I spent an hour yesterday evening enclosing a wire cage in a stand that would allow us to place the four new ducklings in with the ducks. If that works out, they may be taken care of for a few more weeks, and we have a couple cages in the barn side of the coop to move the eighteen chicks, now a week old, into. The concern with moving the tiny fowl is the exposure to snakes. The cages in the coop are not totally snake proof and we are entering the season when we will have to deal with snakes in the coop.

Recently, Mama and Grandpa have populated the garden with vegetable plants. I am not sure what they have planted to date but Grandpa is fastidious about tending to the plants in the ground. I hooked up a hose to provide water to those plants and will hook up a second hose tomorrow to care for the far end of the garden. I will need to till more rows this evening to plant the corn seed that was bought today. That should fill up the West/far end of the garden while the East end is filling with vegetable plants. I admit to having higher hopes for a successful harvest from this garden than in past gardens. With Grandpa’s help, we stand a far better chance of beneficial outcomes than when those outcomes relied on me and Mama alone. It is fun to see just how focused Grandpa is on the plants. It encourages him to have something he can do with his currently limited physical abilities, and he is very good at gardening.

If you doubt me, just ask Grandma.

The drive, the funeral, home again, the beach

Mama and I left for Florida at 5 am Friday morning. The drive was an easy one all things considered. Mama and I encountered no heavy traffic although we drove on the opposite side of the road from several major traffic jams. One particularly memorable pileup went on for almost five miles. That would have been a major delay in travel but we were going the opposite direction and all lanes were moving well in our direction. As expected, the trip took about thirteen hours. We got to our hotel a little before 6 pm. It was a disappointing hotel but we were not willing to spend more than we needed to have a place to sleep for a couple nights. It was not the worst accommodations we have dealt with, but it certainly was not a nice hotel. Those were charging between $150 and $200 per night. We got by with the $95 per night for our recently remodeled, but still not very nice hotel.

The viewing for Jadon Goins was set for 12:30 to 2 pm. Mama and I were at the church a little before 12 pm and that turned out to be a good thing. We got to spend about forty minutes with Matt, Dellita, Joash and Justice. The crowd began to gather over the next thirty minutes and expanded to more than four hundred. Mama and I sat near the front and were able to view all that passed by the casket, hugged each family member in turn and tried to either give or receive comfort. It was a slow, patient, loving expression of support for the Goins who were there to lay Jadon to rest. It was both overwhelmingly sad and full of hope because of the faith we all share. There was no question of the “why”, only a calm expression of faith in the Will of God for each of our lives. Matta and Dellita had far less time than they had expected with Jadon. All his plans for life, all their plans for his life, were now forever terminated. And yet, Jadon is in a far better place. Fully in the Will of God. Perfect in all ways. Without the burden of this sinful world to deal with. Taking on his new Heavenly assignments. It hurts from our perspective, but it far better from Jadon’s point of view. God did not create us for this life alone. He has an eternal purpose for each of us!

Mama and I ate a late lunch after the funeral had concluded and as we did so, we talked about the service of the funeral. We had expressed to each other how pleased we were with the service to celebrate Jadon’s homegoing. There was just the right balance of the expression of loss suffered, and the expression of faith and hope we share in salvation. It was far better than what we experienced in Becky’s memorial service. We talked about the thought that this service brought us the closure we were looking for when we attended Becky and Bridgette’s memorial service. Not to disparage Mike in what he did to order the memorial service for Becky and Bridgett, but his focus was not the same as the focus of Matt and Dellita in their observance of Jadon’s life and God’s purpose for that life. That thought was vindicated a couple days later when Maggie expressed the same idea. I am glad we went. Dellita told us when we originally got there to hug them that the hug we were giving was like getting a hug from Cori and Nate. That was exactly the reason we were there. It was a difficult time. It was an emotional time. It was time well spent.

Sunday night was not what we expected. I laid down at 9 pm but was wide awake at 10:30. I sat up and prayed until about 11:30. Knowing that I would not get back to sleep, I got dressed and continued praying. Mama woke up a few minutes later and saw me dressed and ready to go. So, she got ready to go as well. We left Pensacola a little before 12 am. I drove until daylight, about seven hours later, then Mama took over for an hour and I finished the drive home. We were about an hour from home and got stopped in a traffic snarl that cost us about thirty minutes. We were home, unpacking the Sequoia at 2 pm. I laid down shortly after that and slept until 5 pm. Both Mama and I were exhausted and I took off yesterday to sleep in and catch up on some farm chores. I am thoroughly pleased with all I was able to get done in that extra day at the farm. Mama spent the day following up with Grandma and Grandpa on the days we were gone and finishing up with the hatching chickens. We have eighteen now of the twenty-four eggs we incubated. A 75% hatch rate. We have Sarah Fox to thank for that.

In-between services on Saturday and Sunday, Mama and I spent some time at the beach. We found a less populated patch of beach just down the island from Pensacola Beach proper. That area was extremely crowded.  Each of our two visits were less than two hours. We had brought no chairs and the water was beautiful a blue-green but quite cold. Both days were windy with the temperatures in the high sixties. Not a good time to visit the beach, but we made the most of it. Both Mama and I love the sights, sounds and smell of the Gulf shores. There were shells just out of our reach in the surf, but even thought we had to make do with the shells deposited by the tides, we managed to bring home a few little shells and some sand home with us.

It was nice to be able to drive the round trip versus flying.

Sad news, traveling, transfers, hatchlings

Tuesday afternoon we got a call from Cori. In that brief call Cori related that she had just been told that Jadon Goins, the middle son of Matt and Delita, had been struck by a vehicle and killed. Jadon was trimming a property near the campus of Pensacola Christian College (part of a work program that offset his tuition at the college) when a truck jumped the curb and struck him, killing him instantly. What overwhelmingly horrible news for Matt and Delita! I have to admit that that news stirred up the grief Mama had to deal with when learned about the death of Becky and Bridgette in an automobile accident last September. That grief and loss is still raw in our emotional cortex. So unexpected. So overwhelming. So final. From our point of view that loss seems permanent and irreplaceable, but God does not see things that way. We were not made for this life alone. There is a far better continuation of our eternal existence in the presence of our Lord for those who are saved. Jarod, like Becky and Bridgette, just got there a little earlier than we had expected. We will see them again soon, never to be parted again. But for now, we grieve in that loss. Not as those who have no hope, but as certain in our faith that our reunion is very close at hand. Matt, Delita and Justice ot flights to Pensacola as quickly as they were able and arrived early Wednesday morning.

Mama and I will be traveling tomorrow to Pensacola to be at the funeral and to be there for Matt and Delita should there be anything we can do to help. Cori and Nate desperately want to be there to support their friends but the needs of the ministry in Honduras, which Matt and Deita must needs set aside for the moment, has to be carried forward by someone. That someone is Cori and Nate. So, Mama and I will be there as stand-ins and to show our personal support for them in this very difficult time. We will be two among a thousand serving the same purpose, but we will be there nonetheless. Matt and Delita and their two surviving children will be surrounded by more individuals than they could possible recognize individually but perhaps, being embraced by an overwhelming show of support and love will help spread the burden of their grief among all of us and help them cope going forward. Maybe. The funeral will be difficult, but it will give closure to the event of Jadon’s death. Jadon is already home, but we can honor the life he was allowed to share with us in his brief twenty years.

Cori shared with me and Mama this morning that Grant and Blake had to be taken out of the service last night, sobbing uncontrollably, because they could not contain their grief. Meanwhile, I had been praying for Nate as he was required by default to preach the service last night. A difficult service because of the sudden death of their pastor’s son. Cori said the sorrow of the congregation was palpable. We will need to earnestly pray for Matt, Delita and Justice when they return to Honduras and face their morning congregants. Those are the times that the well-meaning condolences of friends only serve to rake open our own fresh wounds. It will be difficult for some time, but God has abundant grace for circumstances like this. After all, He watched His only Son die in the cruelest of ways.

Meanwhile, life does in fact go on. Tuesday night Mama and I transferred the four nearly grown black ducks from the grow out pen to integrate them with the mature ducks. In our limited experience, ducks are not nearly as aggressive as chickens to newcomers in their enclosure. That went well enough that we moved the four younger Jumbo Pekin ducks to the grown-up pen. The grow out pen is now empty. Next week, I will scrape the residue of duck poop from the little pen and allow it to dry out thoroughly for the next batch of young ducklings. One of which hatched in our incubator this morning.

Mama and I have three incubators going right now. One with ducks, one with chickens and one with quail. We have definite time frames on each incubator. At a certain count of days, different to each type of egg, we stop and remove the egg turner. That day was today for the incubator with the ducks. Within a few hours we heard chirping from that incubator and discovered that the first of our ducks had hatched. It is a Khaki Campbell chick. We have six more eggs to watch. Hopefully, they will also hatch. We have about twenty chicken eggs in a second incubator, and we will stop the egg turner in that incubator tonight. Those eggs, by our count, will begin to hatch by Saturday. Victoria will have her hands full.

Today Mama will be focused on preparing for our trip. It will require more than getting clothing together. We must ensure that all the farm needs will be met, the feed is ample in each area, waterers are filled where that water needs to be carried in five-gallon buckets. Victoria is not yet able to lift anything heavy as she recovers from her surgery. Getting extra help to tend to Grandma and Grandpa is the highest concern, but we have friends who will be available to back up Victoria. Nevertheless, we are going and trusting the Lord to fill in all the details we are most generally responsible for.

It might be better if the trip was for a less sorrowful reason, but we did not get to pick.

Weekend updates

The major event planned for Saturday was sealing the driveway. I had agreed to the work late Friday evening so everything requiring a vehicle that we needed to get done Saturday had to be planned around not having access to the driveway through Sunday morning. The person doing the sealing had said he would like to begin around noon. So, since Mama and I were in desperate need of feed, we made the trip as early as we could Saturday morning. As Mama was getting things ready to feed Grandpa breakfast, I ran a load of trash to the dump. Grandpa had purchased a new mattress for their bed and I needed to get the old mattress out of the garage. That took only a couple minutes, but I was relieved to have it done. It takes about two hours to get to the feed store and back and Mama wanted to make an extra stop in Forestburg at a Dollar Tree to look for one particular item. That stop did not add to much time to our trip since we drive right by the store as we make the drive to Muenster. We were able to make the round trip and get home in time to feed the bottle babies and offload the feed well before noon.

I spent the next hour moving blocks and the rails we use to enclose the bed of the pickup away from the front of the shop so there would be access to all the blacktop. Then I took the time to clean along the edge of the blacktop by the buck paddock as well. In their walking of the fence line at the driveway, they had managed to cover the edge of the drive with dirt to the point that grass had invaded the blacktop there. I also cleaned out two deep sunken spots in the driveway that have recently showed up. The man doing the sealing promised to fill those holes as well. While I was doing all that, Mama decided to make a Walmart and Tractor Supply run with Grandma. I was just finishing up when the man doing the sealing showed up. Once the gentleman – working on his own – blew the driveway clean of loose rocks and leaves, he began to apply the sealant.

He did not hurry. I was impressed with how thorough and careful he was to apply the coating. This was not a water-soluble rubberized coating. This was an oil-based liquid tar he put on the blacktop. He started at the shop and worked his way around the entire driveway. It smelled like tar and oil, so I am fairly confident that this will last longer than the last application of sealant. We were given a two-year warranty. I was impressed with that. Grandpa watched from the bay window in the dining room. He was also impressed. Mama loved the result. It took the gentleman about two hours to complete the task. We were cautioned not to drive on the new sealant for at least three hours, but we had already set things up to leave the surface untouched through the rest of Saturday and overnight. It was not cheap, but it was – hopefully – worth the expense.

When the drive was about three quarters of the way sealed, Mama called to let me know she and Grandma were on their way home. I advised them to pull through the middle gate and drive all the way around to the back of the property and come through the yard to the house. That route was shorter and safer for Grandma than to come through the garden to the house. When I was telling her where to park the vehicle, she told be she had not expected the driveway to be inaccessible yet so she and Grandma had bought a lot of stuff that needed to be hauled to the house. I am pretty sure she just forgot about it because she had bought one hundred pounds of feed, a case of water bottles, two large packages of toilet paper, and ten bags worth of groceries. I got a wheelbarrow (Grandma’s suggestion) to pack the groceries across the yard, through the sunroom and into the house. It was a new experience for us to haul groceries in a wheelbarrow, but it all worked out.  

The weather was windy and cold throughout the day Saturday. We were forecast to be well below freezing overnight. I was a little concerned about the sealant, but the vendor assured me that all that needed to happen was that the sealant be allowed to cool, which was clearly going to happen with the ambient temperature. So, in preparation for the overnight freeze I had covered all the exterior faucets and plugged in the heat tracing where applicable. We were ready on that count, but Mama and I were worried about our fruit trees, which are in bloom and beginning to set fruit.

Since we were advised by someone we trust to do so, I got up at 5:30 am Sunday morning and sprayed the two fruit trees in the back yard to cover the blooms and tender budding fruit with water that would freeze in the 27-degree temperature. That coating of ice would prevent the blooms by being suddenly warmed by the sun which would cause the frost on them to “pop” killing the bloom. Thawing the ice would prolong the change in temperature and spare the buds the instantaneous change which causes the bloom to be killed. In order to have access to the hose to spray the trees, I had to disconnect and drain the hose then place it in the garage overnight. If I had left the hose out, it would have been frozen in the morning, thwarting my need to spray the trees. Hopefully that will work as expected. Time will tell.

Also Saturday night, Victoria picked up Rosalee so she could go to church with us Sunday morning. That little one always adds a large measure of busy to our lives. She is not necessarily difficult. She is just always busy, both physically and mentally. Always wanting to include someone in her play. Fortunately, her focus is not on any electronic device. She really plays - blocks, dishes, cars and dolls. Often all at the same time. It is delightful to hear her conversation as she plays.

All in all, it was very busy day Saturday – stretching into Sunday morning.

 

Weekend update, quail questions, appointment day, processing party

With the few soaking storms we have had recently, Mama and I were disappointed with the position of the laying box in the duck pen. Since placing that box on the ground next to the deck I built on one side of the enclosure, the ducks have been laying in the box with regularity – six to eight eggs per day. However, the runoff from the heavy rains left the inside of the box as soaked as the ground around it. That seemed a problem since the interior of the box would be difficult to dry out. So, I moved the box once again. This time, I lowered a part of the deck to serve as the base of the box to keep it off the ground and allow the interior of the box to remain dry, but the ducks have been hesitant to use the relocated box. It is perhaps due to the lack of the bedding we put in the box once it was moved, but it may just be that the location was different. The box now sits a couple inches above ground level. Since the relocation, we have had only one duck lay in the box. The rest of the eggs have been laid in the open area of the enclosure. It will all work out, but the amount of effort in relocating the box seems to have been less promising than I had hoped. I am rapidly discovering that I cannot think like a duck. Chickens I understand. Ducks, not so much.

I also changed the creep feeder we have in the goat barn to allow Mama to close the bottle babies inside the small enclosure when needed. Mama and I wanted to start feeding the babies some regular feed, but the older goats are very aggressive in their competition to eat as much feed as possible as quickly as possible, generally by butting each other out of the three feeders where I place their feed twice per day. If we were to get some feed to the baby goats, it would have to be inside the creep feeder. Getting the baby goats to go into the creep feeder to find the feed was the issue. So, we closed them up with the feed overnight. That seems to have worked. We cannot be sure because last year’s baby goats – now almost a year old – are in the lot as well and it is possible that they could reach the feed inside the creep feeder if they get on their knees and slide their head in as far as possible. I am not there to see that happen or to guard the babies feed. But, the feed is eaten each day. We just hope it is being eaten by the three bottle babies.

Recently Mama discovered that one of our quail was being abused by the fellow occupants in the cage they were housed in. Mama got the bird out and placed it alone in a cage. It was not happy with the isolation and began to make screeching noises at odd intervals. In fact, it took a couple days for Mama and I to determine that that lone quail was the source of those noises. So, when it was sufficiently healed – maybe a week on its own – we placed it back with its fellows. The pecking abuse started immediately so I separated it back in a cage but put two other quail with it. That did not help. The two I placed in the cage with it continued harassing and pecking the injured bird. Having explored all other options, I released the bird into the yard hoping it would flee to the woods nearby. As the chickens chased it our of the coop area, I was confident that the little bird would find a new home in the wild, but that was not the case. Grandpa found the dead quail in our back yard yesterday afternoon. Turns out that releasing a bird that had been raised in captivity and did not know how to make it in the wild, would not work out as it does in the movies. I could have guessed, but I tried out the idea of release. I will not repeat that mistake. Next time I will process the bird and eat it myself.

Mama will be out all day today for appointments for Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma in the morning with the pain management doctor. Grandpa in the early afternoon with the heart doctor. Neither of them wanted to keep the appointments, but that was a matter of being disappointed by the outcomes of such appointments. There has been no change in the prognosis for either patient and the expenses cut into the little income they have to live on. In their mind it both a waste of time and money. From the medical insurance point of view, without those appointments Medicare will not continue their meds. So, we are stuck with the inconvenience of keeping the appointments. Mama for her part, just makes the appointment schedule benefit us by doing a little focused shopping on each trip.

Later today Mama and I will go to Sarah Fox’s house to help with the processing of chickens. We will be taking two of our own and four for the Shaw’s to be processed along with the thirty of so the Fox’s are processing. We will be using the plucker we teamed up to purchase for such an invent. I am looking forward to seeing the plucker work. Mama and I will be using the plucker in the future so it will be good to see it in operation. To prepare the chickens we are required to put the chickens in hot water – 150 degrees or so, but not boiling – to soften the feather’s attachment to the skin before putting the treated chickens in the plucker. To heat the water I bought a special burner on a stand that will let us heat the water in a large pot. I have not used it either. Tonight, that will change. I am hopeful that these purchases will have been good purchases to be used many times in the future.

Time will tell.

Wet all over, tax time, sad losses

Our little farm does not often get so thoroughly soaked that it causes issues, but every so often I do get to see the problems caused by rainwater rolling across our property in ways that are not planned. Last night we had a severe storm pass over us dropping almost two inches of rain in an hour. Although I am familiar with how most of the water gathers and runs through the front and back yards, the coop yard and the goat paddocks, I was a little surprised at how much ended up in the duck enclosure. From the residual sliminess in the shelter when we opened the ducks this morning , it was clearly flooded last night.

Fortunately, the ducks are not as affected by the water as chickens would be, but it was something I need to manage in a better way. There is a raised area, a deck, in the duck enclosure that the ducks can access to avoid the soupy ground if they choose to do so, but the box I have in the enclosure was also flooded by the runoff. That was very disappointing. The box works so much better in the ground as far as the ducks are concerned. The ducks are laying regularly inside that box, but now that interior is soaked and will need to be cleaned, scraped clear of soaked bedding, and allowed to dry. Ultimately, stopping that from getting flooded in the future just adds another project to my growing list. I would not have been aware of this complication if we had not had so much rain lately, and hopefully, when I find a workable solution, it will be a lasting one. We will see.

The benefit of having such an excess of rain now is that the creeks, tanks and lakes are being refilled after suffering through a devastating drought. Our tank has been refilled to about a third if it’s normal level. Grandpa has helped with that refilling by creating a ditch starting at the barn directing the runoff directly to the tank/pond. That channels a lot of water from the large barn roof to the tank. I have not checked after last night’s storm, but I am very hopeful that the level went up by a foot or more as it did after the hard rain we had last week. I am not at all convinced that any of the fish that were alive in the tank when it was full survived the extremely low level over the past year (the water was stagnant and smelly), but there seems to be some activity of little fish in the water. A hopeful sign.

This is the time of the year that I have to gather all our tax information and get my tabulations, my spreadsheets and my tax forms to our accountant. One of the things we will do for last year that generally presents a challenge for me is getting all the relevant information from Mama for her Color Street business. In trying to get that information, I asked Mama to retrieve her 1099 for last year from the Color Street site. That turned into an hour-long ordeal for Mama. Having forgotten her password, she called support for help as she struggled to follow the technician’s directions to her while she was on her cell phone and he was on a laptop computer.

I finally logged into her site on my Mac and got her to the right portal for the tech to guide her through the steps required on her part. Mama was relieved to get at least that much done but seems overwhelmed that I need her to now retrieve the information concerning how much she spent online purchasing her nail sets. That and determining her current inventory will meet our tax requirements. I am not looking for any expeditious results on those last two queries because Mama will spend the afternoon getting Grandpa to and from an appointment in Gainesville. That should take until some time after 5 pm for the appointment and the round trip to the doctor’s office with an additional stop or two typical in such outings. I may have to handle the 5:30 feeding as well as the 2 pm feeding of our little ones. No problem for me, but it worries Mama to be eliminated her participation in those feedings.

We delivered the chicken plucker to the Fox’s last night. Sarah and J.D. are planning on processing about thirty chickens on Saturday. I was planning on spending some time helping them in that processing, but Mama is trying to decide if she is going to Trade Day’s Saturday. If she decides to go, she will require my help in setting up. Since she is a little disheartened about her lack of success in Color Street in being able to sell the products, but especially in building a faithful team to support her business. Mama, for her part has been very faithful to her business.

So, we are on hold for now with her business. I see the potential the company offers to their stylists, but I also see Mama’s lack of energy applied to building her business within the company’s structure. She sees it as well, but with the amount of emotional energy she expends daily on Grandma and Grandpa there is not a lot left to spend on a business that requires more of that emotional energy to be spent in building.  When Mama started Color Street, I had high hopes. So far, those have not materialized. Mama has given a good effort and I hate to chalk up the failure, but that is life. If that is the decision she makes, we take our loss and move on.

I would rather have Mama happy than to see her stressed.

Special services, keeping up, good choices, predictable

Tonight, is the last service in our three days of special services. I hesitate to call it Revival services, because that title is not an honest title, but they have been very good services. Dan Martin has been preaching these services for us starting last Sunday Morning. The focus of the preaching has been meant to encourage us as believers and to give a gently warning, a pointed reminder about the little things we may have allowed to distract us, to discourage us, to give us pause in our Christian life and allow us to justify compromise in our life and witness. Each little compromise increases the potential to not just weaken our testimony but to destroy it altogether. The music we listen to, the shows of movies we watch, the books we read, the friends we choose and the things we meditate upon. I have had to ask myself; what am I devoted to? Where is the center of focus for me? How often do I bathe my decisions in prayer? Am I concerned about my relationship with my Lord and do I put Him first in my life? Do I even know what it means to put Him first? Is my walk different from those around me? I have fallen far short of even those things that I know I need to be doing, losing the fire in my life and certainly losing my focus on the things of God in some areas of my life. It is easier to go-along-to-get-along. Cause no offence to anyone through an expression of my faith. It has been good to begin to see myself from God’s perspective. At least, as much as I am willing to be honest with myself.

I told Mama last night on the way home that I am always greatly encouraged by the extra preaching, but it is a difficult schedule to keep. Keeping up with all the duties of the farm, the daily care for Grandma and Grandpa, which can become both distracting and overwhelming, and the nightly services added to his week has been a bit of the challenge. A good challenge, but a real challenge. Mama and I have had to hurry a bit every evening to get the 5:30 feeding in for the baby goats while sparing enough time to shower and dress for church. I, as always, insist on leaving about 6:20 or earlier each evening so I can make sure things are set up for the song service. Microphones in place and tested, making sure we have a pianist, making sure the songs chosen are familiar to the pianist, ensuring that the person asked to sing a special is ready to do so, making sure I do not need to amend the song service to fit in special singing groups or a missionary, etc. It is nice to have all that done well before the service needs to start. I can assume the musicians feel better knowing that all that is taken care of, and all their concerns are addressed as early as possible. I know it makes me feel better.

Yesterday afternoon, Mama and I introduced the bottle babies to the paddock with the nanny goats. The kids were not necessarily welcomed, but they were not harassed either. Each of the nanny goats and all of the yearlings in the paddock were interested in the tiny ones and came over to smell and otherwise inspect the newcomers, but they were otherwise uninterested. As Mama and I fed bottles to the babies, the youngest goats in the paddock were hard to keep away from the babies, but they had no desire for the milk in the bottles. They just wanted to make sure they were not missing any treats. So, we have left the babies in the paddock to be tended to over the next few weeks as they are fed their bottles of milk as well as being integrated into the herd. Last night Mama and I locked them into the creep feeder in the barn since the babies were not anxious to enter the barn on their own. Having closed them up last night, we let them out of their prison this morning and, once fed, we left them in the paddock hoping they would adopt the barn as shelter from the rain. That turned out to work out well. When we went back out at 10:30 for the second feeding, the three little ones were curled up together in a corner of the barn. A small win for us.

With the new shoots of grass coming up in the year, the chickens are really enjoying the time out. Mama even got to mow last weekend – much to her delight. Cooler weather has kept the grass from growing too quickly, but the eternally predictable process of growth has begun. Soon enough we will see the potato plants push up through the dirt in the rows where they are planted. Though we are not completely free from the prospect of an overnight freeze, we are rapidly coming to that time of the year. The angst of a late season freeze is problematic but if we make it through the next two to three weeks, the trees and berry bushes should be far enough along to survive a few hours of freezing temperatures without any risk to the tree or this year’s fruit.

At least, we hope so.

 

Duck explorers, Grandpa’s scrape, location challenges, new incubator

For several days Mama opened the door on the brooder box in the grow out pen to allow the ducks access to the yard in the enclosure. For the first two days, they did not even try to leave the box. They would look out of the opening but never felt brave enough to leave the box. However, Saturday morning, we moved the feed and water to the yard from the box to encourage them to explore the additional terrain. It took a couple hours for them to step outside, but they eventually did. We also added a shallow dish to the yard that would allow them to splash in the water (only three inches deep) offered in that dish. That took less time for them to begin to entertain themselves. They are not ready to swim yet. They have a lot of down exposed and not a lot of feathers, but they did enjoy the shallow dish of water. Within a few minutes of dunking themselves in the water followed by a dash around the yard, they were all a muddy mess. A happy mess, but a mess, nonetheless.

Mama got a phone call from Victoria as the service was ending Sunday morning. She waited until the service was dismissed to call back – thinking that there may have been an urgency to the call since Victoria had to know we were still in church when she placed the call. It was urgent on Victoria’s part. Grandpa had fallen and was scraped up from that fall. Some background to the incident. Saturday afternoon, Grandpa had quizzed Mama as to the owner of the bicycle in the garage. We told Grandpa that it was Victoria’s, but she had not used it very often. He told us that he wanted to begin riding the bike to see if he could build some strength in his legs.

The numbness he is constantly dealing with has crept up to his knees in both legs and he postulated that some light exercise might help get the blood flow to the appendages stimulated and maybe reawaken the legs. Riding a bike seemed a safe way and enjoyable way to attempt that rejuvenation. What he did not anticipate, as he attempted to ride the bike, was that he would be unable to raise his right leg high enough to match the rise of the peddle on that side of the bike. When he was unable, and the forward momentum of the bike failed, he stalled and fell. He was not seriously hurt, but we were a little concerned to see for ourselves how bad the injury was. Victoria was very shaken by his fall but did her best to treat and cover the skinned forearm. She told us she was shaking so badly that she could barely apply the gauze and bandages.

Of more immediate concern to me and Mama was the fact that Victoria was not to lift anything over ten pounds following her recent surgery. In the fear and shock of the moment, she had immediately rushed to Grandpa’s aid and lifted him off the ground. He obviously weighs more than ten pounds, but she was not thinking clearly. As a result of lifting Grandpa back to his feet she was hurting at the locations of the incisions on her chest. That was concerning! We monitored her pain and finally relaxed a bit as it began to abate. All in all, it was a minor incident, but we were shaken a bit by it all. Mama was very upset as we left the church in a hurry having gathered Cheyenne and Aubrey to drop them off as we tried to rush home. That upset the girls somewhat and Mama called Alex after things settled down to let them know everything was okay. I am glad she let them know. I was glad we could honestly say that.

The bottle babies are becoming difficult to contain. They no longer are successfully contained in the box we started them in. They have figured out that they can jump out of the box. Quite impressive on their part since the box is twice as tall as they are. Anyway, Mama and I talked about putting the tiny ones in with the female goats. We did that once before but not with this grouping of nanny goats. We cannot be sure they will not be knocked about too much by the much older, much larger goats. But we have to do something and keeping them in the pig building is problematic if we are to maintain the five-times-per-day feeding schedule. Having them in a closer location would at least make those trips out to feed less inconvenient. So, we may try that this week. Mama will have to keep close watch over the integration, but it would provide a workable solution. After all, that is where the three will eventually end up as we fully integrate them into our herd. We just do not want that to be to their detriment by doing so too early. These tiny ones can be easily intimidated.

 As we have eggs in three incubators, I am getting a little concerned about how we are going to manage the hatchlings. We have eight ducklings in the grow out pen and cannot safely integrate the potential six we are currently incubating. We have three tiny Banty chicks in a tote in the sunroom and twenty-four chicken eggs in one of the three incubators. Since these twenty-four eggs came from Sarah, we have a high level of confidence that they are fertile and can expect most of them to hatch successfully. Within a few weeks, we may be overrun with hatchlings. Mama and I will, once again, figure it out, but it will add to our challenges in segregating the groups of little ones.

Our hope is that we will be able to sell some of the chicks at Trade Days in June and/or July. We will see how well that works out for us.

 

True wisdom, duckling mystery, afraid of the dark, storms

Savanna, at seven-years-old seems always to be wise beyond her years. That expresses itself when anyone engages her in conversation. Her answers to questions and general observations are apropos and often humorous, almost always interesting in perspective. Even though most of those conversations are spontaneous, it is fascinating that she always seems quick to answer – whether or not she has any grasp of the situation or topic of discussion.  While we were on the island of Roatan, Savanna gathered a group of two or three very young children around her one afternoon as she dug a hole in the sand and built a castle around the edges. She calmly assured the parents of those children that they, the parents, were free to go do whatever they wanted to do while the little ones played with her. It was an impressive interaction to witness, but she pulled it off with aplomb.  Of course, Mama, Cori, Mykenzie and I were providing secretive oversight of her and her wards. None of us actually heard the conversation she was having with the parents, but the smiles on their faces was obvious as they engaged Savanna. Savanna is, after all, only seven years old – even though she does not realize what that means in relation to the world around her.

Yesterday Cori shared a story with us about Savanna. In Honduras right now there is a group visiting the clinic associated with the church and children’s home in El Progresso. A medical mission’s team or perhaps an advance team. I am not sure which. One of those participants in this week’s clinical focus is known well by Cori and her family. In a conversation between that young lady and Savanna, the visitor was searching for topics to discuss with Savanna and finally asked what Savanna she had been mostly focused on lately. The answer was school and how many hours she spends in her schoolwork. In that vein, Savanna was asked what new things she had learned recently. The classic Savanna answer was, “Nothing really. I basically know it all.” When Cori and Mykenzie, who had been on the periphery of the conversation began laughing at the response, Savanna, incredulous that her answer was being ridiculed reminded everyone, “Well, I did say ‘basically’”. As if that qualifier resolved the issue. Sometimes true wisdom finds the most unusual vessel for its expression, but the Bible does remind us that truth will come “out of the mouth of babes.” I have suggested to Cori often that it would be worthwhile to capture those Savanna-isms as they are spoken. She has a wonderful , quick and charmingly insightful wit which may soon be overshadowed by social mores as she grows and becomes more aware of those unspoken rules and restrictions. Right now, her freedom to be herself and answer for herself is a marvelous expression of innocent comedy.

Yesterday morning, Mama told me that as she was in the groove of her morning feeding, she opened the lid on the duckling box and did not see the smallest duckling in the box. We assumed that something had killed the tiny duckling and carried it off. The only possible culprits would be a large rat or a snake. Since it is still a little too cool for snakes, we settled on having lost the duckling to a murderous rat. However, this morning, Mama discovered that the little missing duckling had just as mysteriously returned to the box. We do not know where the duckling had gone for the day and overnight, but the return to our little flock was encouraging. For the moment, I do not have to worry about guarding our ducklings from a rat. That, at least, is our hope. We have opened the lid through these warmer days and opened a door on the front of the box that would allow the ducklings access to the yard should they choose to do so. So far, they have been too frightened to walk through that open door.

On that note, I had a somewhat similar experience, but in reverse, with the older ducks. I went out after church to close all the coop doors. When we turned on the yard lights to help with those activities, the ducks came out of their enclosure to see what was going on. Since the light I have on a time in their enclosure was past the hour that we have set, it was off. The enclosure was dark. The glass door on their enclosure was open but it seems there was more light outside than there was inside so the ducks refused to be herded into the enclosure. I tried twice and they rushed past the door each time I got them close. When I realized what the problem might be, I reset the light in the enclosure to turn it on. The next time I got the ducks lined up to run through the opening they decided to do so and I was able to close them in…finally. The lesson learned: make sure the ducks have light in the enclosure when I try to encourage them to go inside for the night.

Strong storms are forecast for our area today. High winds, periods of heavy rain, large hail, and possible tornados. Hopefully, we will get the rain without all the hazardous winds and hail, but we will have to wait and see. At church last night as we were taking prayer requests, one of the men in our church requested prayer for a cousin in central Kansas. His home had been destroyed by a tornado on Tuesday night. Fortunately, the cousin and his family escaped injury, but that kind of loss is hard to deal with. Lord willing, we will not know those kind of losses, but we know we are not exempt from them.

Only God can safeguard us, and we will continue to ask that He do so as well as those we know who may suffer loss in the coming storms. The outcomes are His alone and we will praise Him no matter what.

Full schedule, messy Marvin’s, fatal failure, moving quickly

Since the schedule Mama has adopted of five feeding times per day for the baby goats, her schedule, and by default, our schedules have become full. Starting at 6:30 am and culminating at 9 pm. Trips to doctors, my work schedule this week, and Victoria’s surgery early tomorrow morning all strain the feeding schedule. That’s just this week’s interruptions. But Mama manages to keep everything in perspective while remaining as close to possible the predetermined feeding schedule. Yesterday, Mama bemoaned the fact that the babies only got fed four times, having missed the mid-morning feeding due to a medical appointment for Grandpa. She was also a little bit concerned that, because I have to teach a class tomorrow morning while she takes Victoria in for her surgery, that the morning feeding could lapse into a later hour. Fortunately, Grandma and Grandpa have taken on that responsibility. It is a good thing Mama has so much help. Without that extended help those poor babies might be reduced to only three feedings per day. Heaven forbid!

Late Monday evening, Mama and I cleaned the small enclosure the eight ducklings are being kept in. That enclosure is the box I build into the grow out pen set up specifically for ducklings. Because we have had such cool nights, we have not let the ducklings, four of which are quite small, out of the box and into the little yard built into the grow out pen. That release into the larger area will need to happen soon because the little messy Marvins are ruining the floor of the box they are in. I did not build the box with the idea of it remaining constantly soaked with water, but that is what is happening. They splash the water out of the dish we provide for them necessitating a refill several times per day. They are ducks, after all. That amounts to about three gallons of water being spilled onto the floor of the box daily. We can lift the lid on the box but that does not provide enough ventilation to allow the box to dry out, especially with the humid weather we have had recently. The swelling of boards in that floor is becoming obvious. Hopefully, getting the ducklings and the water dish out into the open ground of the pen will allow the floor of the box to dry out well enough that I do not need to replace it. Unfortunately, the yard inside the enclosure is small by comparison to the main duck enclosure, so I expect that will quickly become slimy as the ducklings resort to splashing the contents of their water dish onto that area.

Mama called me yesterday when I was on a break in the class I was presenting to tell me that the alarm on the small, newer incubator was sounding. The temperature in the incubator was showing to be 109 degrees. Far too high for the eggs we are trying to hatch. The only remedy was to have her lift off the lid to allow the interior of the incubator and the eggs inside it to cool back down to the prescribed 99 degree. Unfortunately, removing the top of the incubator stopped the movement of the egg turner built into the incubator. With the extremely high temperature (for an unknown period of time) and the lack of movement of the eggs for several hours, we may have had a fatal failure within the incubator. Time will tell, but even though I reset the temperature and restarted the egg turner required of proper incubation, we may have lost this entire batch of eggs. That would be sad.

Fortunately, we do not necessarily need the additional ducklings, but it would have been nice to hatch our own eggs versus always purchasing hatchlings from others. Our most recent purchase of ducklings cost us $7 per duckling. The same lack of actual need is true for the two dozen chicken eggs we have in the larger incubator. We do not need the chicks, but we certainly could sell the hatchlings easily at Trade Days. So far this year, every batch of chicks received and put out for purchase in all of the feed stores surrounding us have been bought up within hours of the store opening. One clerk Mama talked with told her that there have nearly been fights over who was first in line at the brooders the chicks were in at the store. Since the sales are first-come-first-served, that makes a difference. Several mean spirited buyers purchase every chick left in the brooders when their turn came. Sad. So, if we could hatch out our own chicks, we would have an immediate market. At $5 per chick, two dozen would bring $120. Of course, we cannot count our chickens before they hatch, but we could do our part to sate the market with the chicks we do manage hatch.

In case you have not noticed, today is March 1^st. That may not seem like an important point, but in just thirty one days we will have exhausted one quarter of this year. Wow!