New births, additions, picnic celebration

It has been some time since I have written. It is not that I have had nothing to write about, but rather that I have lacked the emotional energy to put those happenings into print. I do not have a huge audience for this little blog, but still, once something is committed to print and published, there is almost no way to take it back. I do not live in the pretentious world of today’s social media where I pretend to believe your lie as long as you pretend to believe my lie, so I try to mean what I say and say what I mean. All too often, that communication is faulty because anything said can be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misused by those who do read what I have written. Nevertheless, I will attempt to expend the energy required to put my thoughts into words. The following are real events that happened to real people, and I will personally attest to their veracity.

That being said, we have had quite a bit of activity on the farm over the past few months. What follows is a very brief synopsis. Since my last update we have had seven little ones born into our goat herd. One set of triplets and two sets of twins. The oldest set of five little ones were born a couple weeks back, and they have doubled in size over that time. The most recent births took place yesterday, just before Mama, Grandma, Rosalee and I left for church. Mama and toyed with the idea of staying home for the births, but that turned out not to be necessary. In fact, both little bucks were born in a matter of a few minutes. We watched the nanny, Honey, wander about the paddock over the course of the morning, finally ending up in the barn. We lost sight of her once inside the barn. There she had the two kids so close together that only one got fully cleaned up. Normally the nanny will busy herself in cleaning the kid just birthed while waiting on any subsequent kids, but the second must have come very quickly. The second of the two was matted with dried amniotic fluids and stubble from the barn floor when we did a welfare check on the two when we got home from church. Mama will attempt to clean up the little one sometime today. If we do not, his hair will be bristly and stiff for a week or more. So far both are doing well. They are nursing successfully and are starting to explore their surroundings.

We received four piglets to the farm Friday evening. JD and Sarah Fox found a Kune Kune pig grower who was overloaded with piglets. He was trying to cull his herd and had eight piglets for sale for thirty-five dollars apiece. Mama and I could not resist the purchase – especially since the piglets typically sell for two hundred dollars or more. In total there were eight piglets offered as a package deal. We took four, JD and Sarah took the other four with the intent of selling two of them to a third buyer. The little ones have been a delightful addition to the farm. Mama and I have always liked raising pigs, but we have avoided purchasing any because the prices were so high. These little ones fit our budget. Grandma and Grandpa are very excited to have pigs on the property. Grandpa more so than Grandma. I am hoping the additional feed required for the newcomers will not break our budget, which is already strained by having twenty goats to feed.

In addition to the pigs and the goats, we were also successful in hatching out some quail. So far, we have five. A total of eight hatched out, but three of those died within a day. Mama and I have found that the newly hatched quail tend to be very fragile. We are not sure why the hatchlings die, but our best guess is that temperature is the main culprit. We have two running around in an enclosure in the garage and three still in the incubator where they hatched. We try to leave the hatchlings in the safety of the incubator for 24 hours. That gives them time to get strong enough to be moved to a larger area. Yesterday, Victoria and Norman removed one from the incubator and placed it in the enclosure in the garage, but when I got home from church, I put it back in the incubator. It was clearly going to die if we did not do something to help it. By last night, it was running all over the small incubator. It will be moved this morning and the two that hatched yesterday afternoon will be moved this evening, hopefully.

Saturday, Mama and I attended a celebration at Bible Baptist Translator’s Institute in Bowie. The picnic was to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of BBTI. It was not as well attended as I would have hoped, but there were about seventy people there. Mama made two types of slaw and deviled eggs to add to the large variety of other picnic fare to compliment the hamburgers and hot dogs served up by BBTI staff. The afternoon was hot but there was a good breeze throughout the celebration, so it turned out to be quite pleasant. Mama and I visited with families we had not seen in many months, some for several years. It was fun to catch up on all that has happened during the extended time we were out of touch.

We all promised to be more diligent about staying in touch, but those are promises rarely kept. I am not sure why we do not do better since such communications are extremely convenient with our current technology. Too busy, too distracted, out of sight, out of mind. Who knows? There are no good excuses, but perhaps we allow ourselves too much grace in these glaring oversights. I am going to make it a point to respond to each prayer letter I receive from and of the missionaries that share those correspondences with me. Such a simple gesture is encouraging to those serving abroad. It is the very least I can do.

So, the farm is growing, keeping Mama and I busy, entertained and nearly broke. It is a wonderful life.