Heat, VBS, power

Wednesday our weather station registered 111 degrees. It did not feel like it was that hot because the humidity was only 10% and there was a  constant wind blowing the hot air around. However, our plants and trees are definitely feeling both the excessively high heat and the excessively low humidity. Mama and Grandpa have given up on the garden for the most part. They are continuing to water only a few struggling plants. The rest have been pulled up or allowed to wither away. The idea that we are presented as a cardinal truth of gardening, to “give your plants full sun”, is turning out to be a misnomer for our garden. Though Grandpa was excited about the plants when the weather was cooler, he has lost all that enthusiasm as we have watched almost all the beautiful, lush plants shrivel in the recent heat. Our hopes for a better garden this year petered out once again. That has become an annual tradition. We did get some produce for all the effort of planting and tending to the garden, but even the plants grown in pots have given up without any edible fruit being produced. We will probably try again next year but I am not anticipating any better success.

Brittany called last night. She was very upset. She continues to face some significant struggles – especially financially – as she is setting up a home for her and the girls without the promised assistance from Andrew. It is difficult for Mama and me to know how to help. We covet your prayers for Brittany and the girls that the Lord would give her wisdom and opportunity. She is an amazingly resourceful person when she sets her mind to the task. Please pray that she allows the Lord to lead her to the right opportunities and helps her make the right decisions.

We have had Vacation Bible School each night from Monday through Thursday this week. It was a bit of work, but it was great fun. We had over one hundred kids each night. With several children, including Aubrey and three of Cheyenne’s visitors, praying to receive Jesus as their Savior. Mama and I were able to take Cheyenne and Aubrey to VBS each night along with six and sometimes seven of their friends. Cheyenne was very motivated to win the competition for the most visitors, but she came in a close second with thirteen visitors across the four nights. For that she won a Nintendo Switch. The prize was secondary to actually winning the competition. She was thrilled with her victory. Mama and I, as well as many church members, were more thrilled with Aubrey’s salvation.

The theme for VBS this year was Coming out of Egypt. The stories followed the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt: the Red Sea, the ten plagues, the rebellious heart of Pharoah, and the power of God. Each night the lesson followed the Bible story through the exodus and each night Bro. Zach presented an illustrated Gospel presentation. Each presentation was well presented and well delivered. The impact on the children listening to the presentation was noticeable. I was impressed. What is even more thoughtful about the program used to present VBS is that the same presentation will be used again at the Navaho Reservation in Nazlini, AR in a few weeks. Our church puts on a VBS for the Navaho people every year in July. I have wanted to go to help but have not been able to get the time off to do so. Hopefully, in my retirement next year I will finally have the opportunity to follow through on that desire.

Mama and I are picking up four rescue goats in the morning. They are four bred nanny goats that have been poorly cared for by their owner due to financial constraints outside of her control. They are all registered Myotonic goats. They are from a different bloodline than our own, but we are assured that they are good stock. Mama and I plan to allow the does to kid and then sell the nanny goats once the kids are weaned. We will keep any of the doelings that look good and sell off the rest of the offspring. It should be a win-win for us, but time will tell. It will require some travel to get the goats – which are about two hours away - and rearranging of the herd we have on the farm at the moment since we will need to isolate the new arrivals from the rest of our herd, but we should be able to manage for a few months.

Other than fetching and rearranging goats, I hope to get into the beehives this evening or tomorrow. I am also planning on getting power fed to the container. I was able to get power hooked into the box in the well house, so I will certainly be able to activate a plug or two inside the container over the weekend. Though we are still waiting for windows to be purchased, I can get a couple outlets energized as I run the conduit for the power throughout the container.

One small step at a time.

Six Flags, container work, brutally hot, snakes, small success

Last week was occupied by training my company provided for all employees in a setting where we could all participate in person. There are now over one hundred employees at Energy Worldnet and about 40% of the workforce is fully remote. Although we see each other in Teams meetings online, it is infrequent that all of us see each other in person. So, this training provided a great opportunity to interact with our whole team and to catch up in person with those we so rarely get to spend time with. The training related to a new operating system being employed to refocus the company efforts in specific ways and since the system is new to us, it was beneficial that all of us got to go through the training together. The training sessions took all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Five separate training sessions each day. It was enough to get all of us started in the same direction but not enough to clear up all my questions about my part in the course correction we are now employing. Hopefully, it will be enough to allow me to ask the right questions as we move forward.

Thursday we all met up at Six Flags for lunch and a work-free day at the park. Many brought their families to the park as well. I was able to take Mama, Victoria and Rosa Lee. Even though Rosa Lee was a bit of a pill throughout the day we had a good time. We got to the park at 11 am and filtered in with the crowd. It was raining off and on so many of the rides had not opened, but as we ate lunch, the rain played itself out and by the time we had finished with the company activities – about 1:20 – the sun was out, and all the rides were operational. Victoria and Rosa Lee tried the teacup ride, but it went backwards the entire time and terrified Rosa Lee. The log ride was much better. We finished that ride and queued back into line for a rerun. It was more fun the second time. Mama and I did a couple more rides together with Rosa Lee and Victoria, but we mostly sat out as Victoria and Rosa Lee did those rides that would not scare her too much. We stayed at the park until about 4 pm. Three hours was about all Mama and Rosa Lee could handle. I could have probably done with less, but the lines were short, so it was almost always a short wait, making it more fun for the little one. Plus, we were able to duck into a gift shop or restaurant when we got too hot or when Mama needed to sit down for a minute.

On the way home we stopped at WinCo to get a few bulk items so Mama could bake cookies for Vacation Bible School, which starts tonight. We were cruising along pretty well until about fifteen miles from home, we got into stopped traffic due to an accident. Getting through the mile long backup took about thirty minutes. Fortunately, we were in an air-conditioned car for the wait. We were in no particular hurry to get home other than to meet Norman and Seth to get Rosa Lee home before it got too late. The delay just ended up giving Rosa Lee a chance to get in a good nap before we turned her over to Seth. Mam and Norman were planning to go to Dallas Friday morning to look for windows to cut into the container. That turned out to be a wasted trip for Mama, but Norman met with a client and got a month’s worth of work assignments. So, it was not a completely wasted trip.

Friday was spent catching up to all the work that did not get done while we were in training, so it passed by very quickly. Friday was our last day of temperate summer temperatures. Starting Saturday, we began a week of temperatures well over 100 degrees. Saturday, the high was 105 degrees. Sunday the thermometer climbed to 107 degrees. Those high temperatures are forecast to continue through the week with a break coming to us by Saturday. Wednesday is forecast to be 110 degrees or more. Our poor flocks are suffering from the brutal heat and there is little we can do to mitigate that suffering. Mama has been going out in the afternoons and wetting the ground for the ducks and chickens, but the way we have the quail housed, we cannot offer them any relief. So far, we have had only one death due to the heat. That was one of our older quail.

We have suffered more losses from snakes so far than from the heat. Two of Mama’s little Bantam chicks were taken by large snakes. One was eaten. Another was killed and left behind. I finally caught up to two of the largest snakes and killed both of them. In another two consecutive nights I caught two other large rat snakes and dispatched them as well. Saturday night I had to chase one snake down through the coop but was finally able to get hold of it sufficiently to unwind it from the roost and take it outside the coop to put it down. Mama, needless to say, is tired of dealing with snakes. Of the seven coop-hatched Bantam chicks, only two remain. I have to admit that it was fun to see the chicks scampering about with the mama hens as they grew, so the two half-grown chicks are a sad reminder of the hazards we deal with to protect our flocks.

Saturday, I spent the day leveling the container (with Grandpa’s help) and running the electric line from the well house to the container. The morning started off in the low nineties and quickly climbed to over 100 degrees. By noon, I was a muddy mess. The ditch I had to dig to bury the electric line required me to use a mattock to cut into the hard ground. Each cut with the mattock sent a spray of the dirt onto my sweat-soaked clothing, which turned to mud when it settled against me. I had to take a shower to clean up so I could eat lunch, but I did get the ditch cut, the conduit laid, and the wire run to supply power to the container.

It was a good day.

Trip news

This will probably be the only post I write this week due to a different work schedule Tuesday through Friday. So, I want to take a moment to share some of the highlights from the trip to Honduras to help with the Medical Missions team in El Progresso.

I flew to Honduras Thursday of last week and was greeted at the airport by Nate, Cori and the kids about 12 pm local time. Mama had dropped me off at DFW around 5:30 am so I did not get any breakfast in Dallas. When I got to Houston, I had only fifteen minutes to get to the gate for my flight to Honduras arriving at the gate as boarding had already started, so I ate nothing in Houston as well. That is not really an issue. I generally do better if I do not eat when I travel. All in all, the trip down was smooth, but hurried. The layover in Houston was far too short. I will need to remember that inconvenience next time we fly to Honduras.

We hit the ground running once in the country. Once at Cori and Nates’ home, I took the suitcases I had brought with me to the master bedroom to be secretively unpacked. Victoria and Mama had done all the packing so all I knew was that there were multiple birthday presents stowed within and just enough clothing to get me through the week of clinics. In the unpacking, Cori allowed Savanna to witness the unpacking, not realizing that one of the largest and most exposed presents was for Savanna’s birthday. So, Savanna, in her characteristic hurried fashion unzipped the largest suitcase and flopped it open to reveal her birthday present fully exposed to her. When she realized what she had seen, she closed the suitcase with a guilty, shocked look on her face and confessed to her mommy, “It’s okay. I will probably forget by my birthday.” That is probably not totally true, but the look on her face was worth the moment.

Friday was the only free day and we used it to get set for receiving the medical team that would be arriving that night, ensuring we had sufficient snacks and drinks for the coming week and planning evening meals we could easily fix once we were home from a long day at the clinic. We enjoyed the calm before the storm so to speak.

Saturday morning, Nate and I met the medical team at their hotel so we could get all the freight they had carried with them for the clinic moved to the school where we would be holding the clinic. That took three trips with Nates small pickup to get all those totes, soft sided medical crates and suitcases of materials and equipment to the clinic. We spent the next several hours separating the medical equipment, optical equipment, glasses, and meds for distribution to the appropriate areas. By 2 pm, we had almost everything set and opened the clinic to those who would be volunteering the next day as well as to church members who wanted to participate.

That gave us an opportunity to test the new software that would be used to track patients through the clinic on the general medical side. That turned out to be about 200 patients total in two hours. We had a few hiccups with the iPads and software, but it was a good start. That evening, we all met at the church for dinner and enjoyed a time of fellowship outside in the heat – made bearable thanks to a constant breeze. We were having cake in celebration of a couple birthdays among those on the visiting team when the power went out to the entire area. That ended the party abruptly. Those that had them got out their cell phones and activated the flashlights because it was pitch black. A fun welcome to Honduras.

Sunday, we had lunch at the church and a meeting in the afternoon to revisit assignments and organization of all the stations at the clinic that would begin at 8 am Monday morning. We were onsite with all the team members, volunteers and translators at 7 am. I was a translator for the pharmacy, so we talked to every patient that had come through the clinic because every patient got at least a multivitamin given to them when no other meds were required. Saturday and Monday were brutally hot, with high temperatures at or above 100 degrees and a dead calm in the area where we were stationed. To give the medications to the patients, we had a table set up on a walkway in front of the classroom serving as the pharmacy with no air movement at all. I was a sweaty mess the entire day. So, to help with that, Tuesday morning Nate brought a fan from their house to give us some air. It was a huge help.

Tuesday, I worked at the pharmacy as the only translator until after lunch, when Cori took me over to the optical side of the operation. I was placed in an air-conditioned classroom with two young ladies fitting patients with reading glasses. Not only was the air conditioning a huge blessing, but that position gave me more time to interact with the patients. Wednesday and Thursday I had the same assigned post, which was fun because all the grandkids were helping on that side as well. So, I got to see a lot of the interaction Savanna, Blake and Grand had with the patients. Cori was working that side of the clinic as well helping match patients with prescription glasses the team had received from donations. Mykenzie was translating for the first time under Cori’s watch care. Finding a set of glasses that were close enough to what the patient needed was a challenge, but more times than not, the team found something that would work well enough to provide some help.

It was encouraging to hear all the chatter among the kids as we drove home each evening. Grant, who did some translating on Wednesday and Thursday, told us that he did not merely step out of his comfort zone, he as shoved out! But he did it and he was obviously thrilled to have done so.

My flight home was even more rushed than my flight down. Deplaning in Houston was delayed due to a gate change. To get to customs, there was a fifteen-minute walk to the area where we were screened by a customs agent after which I had to collect my luggage to redirect it for a domestic flight. Almost twenty minutes more elapsed in that. Then on to security where we were held back for fifteen minutes to allow the line already queued in for security to clear. More twisting lines to the security area, packing and screening our personal items, regathering my iems, redressing, checking to make sure I had everything, then another twelve-minute walk across two terminals to my gate. When I got to my gate there was no one there. I was the last person to board my flight! We were airborne ten minutes later.

It was a great trip. A very busy, fast paced trip. I look forward to doing it again.