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.