Planning, Norman, Victoria

Mama and I spent about an hour at a friend’s house last night looking at her set up for her freeze dryer and it really augmented our desire to get one. The long discussion with Jan built in Mama’s and my mind an application for a freeze dryer that would allow us to justify the expense. I made the commitment to the Lord, however that I would not buy a freeze dryer until we had the cash set aside for that particular expense. At this moment, we do not have that money in hand, but there is no urgency either. We will continue to pray and see what God will do. It’s exciting to see God work in our lives and to see our prayers answered. We have had a freeze dryer on our prayer list for a while, so maybe we are close to getting one. After last night, it seems far more practical than over the past few weeks. 

One of the issues I have been wrestling with is where we could fit the large appliance. It is not necessarily a quiet appliance to operate and the cycle of freeze drying can be as long as 24 hours. The vacuum pump for the freeze dryer can also generate a good bit of heat, so the placement of the unit needs to take into account that additional temperature in the room where it is placed. 

So, when we got home, Mama and I began to look for a place. I believe we settled on removing a set of upper cabinets from the west wall of the chef’s pantry and setting the freeze dryer on the counter on that wall. That would allow us to run a dedicated circuit to the plug on that wall. That solves two of our problems. Now we need to settle on what size unit we need and focus our prayers on that. 

Today I spent most of the morning finishing up what I had started last night on a course review project for Energy Worldnet. But this morning, Word messed up on me so badly I lost everything I had done the night before. As I reworked the document, Word messed up on me again. I thought I had lost, for a second time, everything I had done. I finally got the bug worked out and got the document review completed and sent off for updating by the author, but that rework took me almost 3 hours to get done. This one revision will open the door for me to do many more projects of this nature for Energy Worldnet. The money that I earn doing this sort of review is not insignificant. It actually pays pretty well just to do course revisions as a subject matter expert. I’m not sure how many courses might be available for me to help with, but at least the door is open. 

Friday afternoon, the Lord began to open up doors for Norman to find enough work to stay here. As of today, that opportunity seems to have expanded quite a bit. As always, with Norman it’s difficult to tell what the outcome may potentially be, but for the moment it looks like there may be enough ongoing work for him to do his renovation, remodeling, landscaping, and handyman work, and earn enough money to more than meet his needs in our general area. If things work out that way, that will be a great relief to Grandpa. And admittedly, it’s a relief to Mama and me as well. It is not what Norman said he wanted, but that seems to be what he has gotten.

Victoria let us know today that she has an interview with Florida Health System for an opening as a pharmacy tech. That is a wonderful answer to prayer. It is only an initial interview, but it is a great opportunity. The interview is set for Thursday next week at 9:30. Please be praying for that to go well. What she is doing now does not suit her physically. It is a huge strain on her knees, back and wrists, but she is doing her best to apply herself to the scope of work she agreed to do for Walmart. She is obviously younger than me but walking over twenty miles per day pulling grocery orders in not an easy daily routine to meet. Then she will go home and take Kira and Kobe for a long walk…at a much more leisurely pace. 

Again, please pray for Victoria. 

Mixed blessings and total blessings

After months of praying for Norman to find a job he could be happy with, our prayers seem to have been answered today. It is not wholly confirmed, but it looks like Norman will be reporting to a crew tasked with building fences around some government facilities. Firstly, in Ft Lauderdale, FL. The pay is good and the per diem is excellent. As I am told today, he will be needed on the job by the first of May. This project is slated to last nine months. That is a mixed blessing because he has been a huge help to us here. We will be sad to see him go, but thrilled that he has this opportunity. 

Grandpa will miss Norman’s constant movement here at the farm. Norman’s drive to keep Grandpa stirred up has had a profound effect on Grandpa health – for the better. It encourages Grandpa and motivates him to be on the move doing what he can to support Norman’s endless schemes to earn a dollar. Grandpa’s finances have taken a bigger hit in supporting Norman than ours have, but everyone is still doing relatively well, other than Norman. He really needs this job.

Mama is concerned that she and Grandpa will not be able to keep up with the garden, but I know otherwise. Mama and Grandpa will do fine with the garden. We will all need help with the harvest when it comes, but the daily tending will give Grandpa something to do. My biggest loss in Norman’s leaving is all the help he has provided with the maintenance and repair of our vehicles. Neither Grandpa nor I can do what he does in that regard. My prayer is that all the required repairs have been accomplished. 

We still have two weeks to get help with trimming and felling trees about the property, loading the trailer with Victoria’s stuff and getting all those items to her when she closes on her house. Two weeks to square away the barn that has been filled with Norman’s stuff and sell off the many extra items he has accumulated. Two weeks to complete the repairs on our backyard fence. Two weeks to set the steel pipe for the shed we are adding to the shop. We will see what we can actually get done, but we have a pretty tight list. 

Honestly, I consider myself six to eight months ahead of where I thought I would be at this time as related to projects that have been finished on the farm. Other than the short list above, Grandpa and I can pick away at the other projects we have planned. Norman’s help has allowed me to rest a bit easier as I spend two days per week at the museum in Glen Rose. 

At the museum today, I was able to define some structures in a couple bone slides that had been used for the polarizing microscopes. I was a little disappointed that the images I was able to capture were not as clear as I would have liked, but I am hoping to learn some techniques to do better on image capture. The folks in the lab are ecstatic with the progress I have made in the past two days. I am pleased, but not a willing to celebrate just yet.  

Our last pregnant doe gave birth as I was driving home today. Mama called me as I was turning onto our road to tell me that she had needed to pull the little girl out of her mommy because the mommy was not able kid without a little help. Mama had been able to get a firm hold on the hooves of the front legs that had showed along with the nose of the kid and pull pretty firmly on the kid. Once that movement starts, it is not difficult for the nanny goat to finish the kidding. I have had to help several times, but this was Mama’s first. Happily, both the nanny goat and her kid are doing well. 

Since Mama had misgendered one of our little ones before she got a good look at the kid, we moved the total count a bit. We now have seven little girls and three little boys. Five of the little ones, three does and two bucklings, are blue. What a blessing.

Tomorrow is our first unencumbered Saturday in three weeks. We have so much to get done. As always, we will do all we can and let the undone things wait until next week. Since I am not teaching any more classes until late in the month, I will have the early part of next week to pick up what is left from tomorrow. 

Retirement is mostly good. God is always good.

Successes

I spent the day in the lab at the Creation Evidence Museum today. During the hours there I was able to get the help I needed. I talked through the issue I have been having with the SEM and it turned out to be a minor mechanical adjustment was needed to realign the beam through the gun. Once that was accomplished the tech had me go through a series of complicated steps to reset the beam alignment on the microscope. The tech was in California but was sitting in front of an identical model of SEM as he guided me through the calibrations. Since we made the adjustments several times in the last hour we talked, I was mostly certain I could reproduce the adjustments when needed.

When I got off the phone with the tech, I placed a bone fragment from a Amargasauras into the sample port and took a look. It turned out that I needed to repeat the adjustments to get the image to display. But I did get an image! None of us looking at the image had a clear idea of what we were seeing in the bone, but it was a magnification of 2,500 times whatever we were looking at. That was exciting. Tomorrow we will make a better sample to look over and really begin exploring. For today, I feel like we made huge progress. 

Taking a step back, it turned out that the problem I was having was a simple fix to something that should not have needed adjustment. The adjustment I had to fumble through was minuscule, but the outcome was grand. No one is sure how the misalignment happened, but it is corrected now. Fortunately, the tech knew what to do to eliminate potential issues one by one until he had the problem isolated. In so doing, I learned a lot. It was a good day.

Meanwhile, Mama and Grandpa went to the cardiologists today and Grandpa got a fair report. He still has an irregular heartbeat but is compensating well enough. So, the treatment he is under will continue as normal. There is not much more we can ask at this time. Grandma, seems to have had a major medical turnaround today. For two days she has confined herself to bed, getting up only for very brief spells which required someone help her make it back to the bed. Today, she is up, laughing and joking and having a great time. We are not sure what happened that made the difference, but I suppose we are glad for it?

On the farm, another of our nanny goats gave birth this evening. Mama has been watching her all day expecting the kidding, but we did not see the little ones until we were headed to Decatur for a visitation for our Pastor’s brother who died Sunday night. When we did spot the new little ones in the goat barn, Mama and I turned around to get a better look before we left the farm. Once again, they are Little Boy Blue offspring. Both of the little ones this time are boys, but that is okay since they will fetch a really good price in the Myotonic market. We have one more nanny yet to kid, but that will happen by this weekend. So far, we have four little girls and four little boys. One of the little girls we were nursing along died Tuesday night.

Our realtor In Lawton has been helping us replace the roof on our property there. I tried for several weeks to contact the insurance agency to get the roof inspected, but the agent that had been helping us, and the only contact I had available, died of cancer. Sad. So, our realtor made the contacts we needed got the roof inspected. The roof was totaled, and we should be receiving a check shortly to cover the expense of that roof repair. Our contractor, who’s become a friend of ours, told us that he would make sure everything fit well within the budget of the roof replacement so we should at least break even on that and end up with the brand-new roof on our property. 

One of the things that he told us specifically about the rental property, one of those praise the Lord moments, was that he was very impressed by the renters, he said the house was immaculate inside and out. That the renters are taking exceptional care of the property, which he rarely sees in his rental properties. So, he was extremely impressed, and we were very pleased, because we’re hoping to sell that house later this year.

God is good!

Reasons for praise

I apologize to anyone who may be following along on this humble blog, but for a while, I just could not drum up the emotional energy to take the time at the end of the day to sit down and write out the events of the day. And that is really a big shame-on-me, because the Lord has been doing so much in our lives here, recently, that it’s irresponsible of me not to take time to praise Him for all the little things that are happening around us. 

As we have helped Victoria pray through buying a house in Florida over the past six or eight weeks, she has finally found one that she would like to pursue and has been approved to do so. We will see how that works out in the weeks to come, but the prospective closing should be the end of this month. So, by the first week of May, we may be making a trip to Florida to help Victoria move into her home. That’s a huge praise the Lord. 

Also, I have been able to work for my old employer, Energy Worldnet, and do some classroom training for them. That has worked out extremely well. They have been very gracious in getting me set up with the computer and programming I need to make that happen and paying me a very fair rate to do so. I’m not sure how long this will last but I will take it as far as they’ll let me and will hopefully put some money in the bank based on that. 

We have now had our third kidding on the farm. All of the kids (baby goats) that have been born to the three nannies on our farm in the past two weeks have been the progeny of Little Boy Blue. His coloring is coming through in phenomenal ways on those little kids that he fathered. Two of our goats that kidded first were two that we had bought as rescue animals and we have had them for a year, but finally were able successfully to get them bred. We did not know that Blue Boy was the father of those offspring because he was only with them for a couple of days. The rest of the time they were in the presence of one of our male goats they were with Midas, but he never got to do his work on them because Blue Boy beat him to it. Blue Boy, we are finding out, is an extremely amorous little Billy goat. The person who sold him to us, told us that she was having trouble keeping weight on Blue Boy, because he had nothing on his mind, but getting in with the feamles and creating offspring. He has done so extremely well for us. 

It’s hard for me to remember since the last time I wrote in the blog a lot of the little things that God has done in our lives that just worked out miraculously, but one of those things that I do not want to take for granted is the fact that in every project we have begun lately, I have not had to buy any material for any of those projects. I had all the materials required for those projects just laying around the farm. The metal that I needed to redo the duck pen roof and sides. The fencing that I needed for the redo of the yard with that duck pen. The metal that I will now need for the new pen that I have built for Midas and his two ladies to stay in for a couple of months. Even the siding for the little shelter that I am building for them. All of those are materials we have laying around the farm or have been brought here by Norman. 

So, in spite of the diversity of materials needed, we have been able to do we have without needing to buy anything to get all of that done. It’s a real blessing when God works things out that way. When I was installing the fencing for a new lot we need for breeding, I was able to use two pieces of fencing that had been cut to section off the goat barn the last time we did this. One of those two pieces fit the length with about six inches to spare. The other section of fence fit with about sixteen inches of overlap. You may now think that is anything special, but it is. When we have exactly what we need when we need it, that is God’s way of showing us He is always supplying our needs ahead of time. We just have to be willing to look carefully at what we already have that can meet the need.

We took two hogs to be butchered and at the same time we lost our upright freezer. So, Mama gave away a good bit of meat and vegetables that we had in different freezers to pare down the contents of the chest freezer we have out in the well house. We recently bought a small upright freezer that has nothing but drawers in it. It is small enough to fit in our chef’s pantry. I wasn’t thrilled about that purchase when Norman and Grandpa brought it home. But it turned out to be an extremely good purchase for us. When Mama picked up the meat from our hogs, everything fit with room to spare. It’s just little things like that that add up to real blessings in our lives. 

Also, in reconnecting with my old employer, it has been neat to see the impact God let me have on my coworkers and other people associated with the company. It is nice to know that my witness for the Lord really had an impact on those around me at work. Nothing we do as we live for the Lord is done in vain. With that thought in mind, we need to be careful to do our very best in all we do so our witness in not tarnished as we are being watched. 

Norman has been struggling for several weeks to find a way to make money. Mama and I have had to cover a couple expenses on his behalf, but he has repaid us in spades for the little bit of money that we spent on him. I say a little bit of money because it has not been a significant amount, but at the same time it does take away from what Mama and I need to do, adding to our overall financial burden. What he has been able to do for us, either in repairing the vehicles that he’s worked on or in fixing up the property that he and Grandpa have worked on has more than compensated for what we have been able to do to help him keep his insurance current, or to help him keep his bank account solvent, or to help him to keep fuel in his truck. We’ve tried to be an encouragement to him without being a source for him. It has made an impact, but he still needs some type of full-time employment so that he can begin to cover all of these expenses on his own. 

Grandpa over the past few days has had some days where he was hurting a little bit more than normal, but he has always forced himself outside onto the tractor, walked around the property, hoed or watered the garden, pulled up weeds, taken care of flowerbeds, etc. Just anything to keep himself moving. Everything he does in that respect is a blessing to me and Mama. So, the fact that Mama and I are supporting three families right now on a fixed income is a little bit challenging, but at the same time we are managing to get a whole lot more done that I had anticipated. 

So, I just wanted to say, praise the Lord!

The Yuk, teaching again, good help is hard to find

Just a quick weekend update. Friday evening both Mama and I started feeling poorly. So, we did not attend any of the activities scheduled at church Saturday. We missed soul winning. We missed the pine car derby and we missed the chili cook-off. I spent the majority of the day lying down. We missed both services Sunday. Only this morning did the effects of our weekend malaise start to abate. We both loathe missing church. It is a big part of our life and not being there leaves us feeling sort of empty. We still listen in on the services via Facebook, but that is not at all the same. 
This morning, I worked on a couple things here at the farm, but mostly I concentrated on cleaning out the small goat barn our Billy goats are in. As the pile of manure and refuse began to accumulate on the other side of the fence, I realized just how long I had let it go. Two hours after I had begun, I had a small mountain piled up. We will move it to a location where we have a compost pile, but for the moment, getting it out of the little barn was the objective. It is hard to tell what I did other than by looking at the pile I left behind. But I know.
Since that chore wore me out, I decided to lay out the extension we have been considering for the now repurposed duck pen. I took some string and laid out the two sides of the enclosure that needs to be fenced. I was thinking that if Norman and Grandpa were interested in working on that fencing tomorrow, I would put my suggestion out there with string and a stake. After I lined that out, I got ready to go to the office.
Tomorrow, for the first time since my retirement, I will be presenting a class for EWN. They are in a bind with the class schedule, and I have been asked to fill in some of the holes in scheduling instructors for classes this week and through April. I met my ex-boss this afternoon at the office and got a computer set up so I could use the company facilities – and internet – to present the class. All told, that took a little over two hours, but my computer should be ready to go. We will see how that goes in the morning.
I am a little nervous about teaching the class even though I have done the same presentation several hundred times. That apprehension is actually a good thing. It keeps me on my toes and keeps me humble. The honest truth is that if I only do fair job of presenting the class, it will meet the immediate need. I want to do better than okay, but I am seriously out of practice, so I hope no one from EWN sees me stumble about tomorrow.
As I was heading home from the office, I was asking the Lord to show me what I could spend the afternoon doing. There are still multiple projects going on at the farm. To my surprise, Grandpa and Norman had already set the fenceposts for the new fencing I had laid out. When I arrived home, they were busy cleaning up the junk that had been set there as it was moved from other cleanup projects. We did not get to the point of stretching out the fence, but everything is in place. Praise the Lord!
Meanwhile, in my time away from the museum, I have been trying in vain to get some technical help with the issues I am having with our electron microscope. In a shot in the dark move, I called the University of Houston to see if I could be put in touch with someone in the Biology department who operates their electron microscope. My first call went nowhere. So, I started searching their website to see if I could find any contacts. I emailed the head of the Imaging department since theirs was the only email listed. 
I was hopeful because the image on the web page was of an electron microscope almost identical to ours. I did get a reply. The PhD Department Head responded that she had never operated an electron microscope so she could not help me. I thanked her for the quick response and asked if she would put me in touch with someone who did operate their electron microscope. Her response was that I should call the manufacturer. 

I will try another approach Wednesday, but definitely with a different person.

Successes, setbacks, and set ups

Wednesday was actually a very good day. After meeting with our tax accountant, I started working on the duck pen we are re-tooling to serve as a weaning area. I redid one part of the structure that I had made a mistake in assembling, and then sealed up a gap that I had here-to-fore left open to let the rain blow in on our ducks. Once that was done, I started lining up the roofing and was able to complete getting the roof on in about an hour and a half. 

One of my serious challenges in putting on roof panels is that when I am standing at the side of the roof panel looking across the roof panel at the two-by that I will be nailing the roof panel to I cannot see straight, so I miss hitting the two-by about a third of the time. I was too lazy to go over the shop and get a straight edge that would have helped me hit more than I missed, but eventually I got everything done. That roof will be tested today because we’re supposed to get about an inch and a half of rain through the late evening and early night hours. I also sealed above the windows on the container (I am calling it Kim’s Craft Cube) and hopefully that spray-on seal will provide the additional seal that I’ve needed to stop the persistent little leaks that we saw during the last rain. I will know by tomorrow at the latest. 

As far as my day at the museum went, it was just a series of setbacks and frustrations. After watching several videos on how to change out the filament on the microscope, I was confident when I started that operation earlier this morning. Sure enough, I was able to get the filament changed out pretty quickly. One of the challenges that I had though was lining up that filament in the holder so that the filament would be lined properly to shoot the electron beam down into the sample. I was pretty happy with how easily it all worked out, but when I started up the microscope, I was still getting the same error. That is, that the filament was not putting out any heat, and therefore was not producing any electrons to scan the sample. 

I tried looking through the software program to see if there was something I was not doing electronically that was required by the computer program. I could not find anything, so I went to looking at mechanical issues. I double checked all of the interlocks and switches that told the microscope that the gun chamber was sealed and ready for service. All of that seemed to check out. By the time I had eliminated all of those it was going on 2 o’clock. 

I would have continued later into the day but forecast for very heavy rain and possibly some strong thunderstorms were saying that those rains and thunderstorms would begin somewhere between four and 6 o’clock. So, I headed home at 2 o’clock hoping to beat the rain and thunderstorms and get in the garage before all that nonsense starts. It’s not that I mind the rain, it’s just kind of a pain to be driving in the rain on these two-lane roads that are the thoroughfares I travel going to, and from, the museum. 

I hope to go back tomorrow and pull the back panel off the electron microscope and start looking at the fusing and the wiring in the back of the electron microscope. It would be easy if all I had to do was replace a fuse. Life isn’t always that easy. But it is the next thing I need to do to troubleshoot the problems that I am having. 

Norman and Grandpa picked up freezer today. It is a small upright freezer. I have never seen one like it. It has no open shelves, only drawers. I like it. Mama and I had thought seriously about going with the chest freezer for a couple of reasons. First, they tend to be larger and can accommodate more food items. Secondly, they tend to last longer, and seal better than the upright freezers do. The issue was pricing. The chest freezers we could find that we thought were probably good enough were between $400 and $500. The upright freezers that would certainly be adequate for what we needed were between $150 and $200. So, the upright freezer one out strictly from the Financial setpoint. 

The one that was bought is only two years old. The young couple that was selling it was being relocated by their work, so they couldn’t take the freezer with them. Or it just did not make financial sense for them to pack the freezer up and take it along when they could buy another one when they got into their new housing. That additional purchase will enable us to have adequate freezer space when we take the hogs for processing. Of the hogs we are going to process, the two largest will go to the processing plant tomorrow morning. Mama and Norman have loaded them loaded up already. I am predicting Grandpa will go along on the delivery just to see what the set-up is like at the processor. We’ve had good success with this particular processor. I don’t know if they will take the time, seeing that they’ll have the stock trailer with them, to stop by HEB to do some shopping but they will be close since the processor is in Weatherford. 

My day tomorrow will be spent at the museum. 

His supply

Since I retired, Mama and I have been praying for our finances. Our focus initially was for the little bit of extra we needed month to month just to make our budget, especially with the farm expenses added in. But now, making two round trips a week to Glen Rose has added about $100 a week to our expenses at -when I take the Sequoia. So, there is from month to month the need to bring in a little bit of extra money just to balance out the checking account. And to that end Mama I have been praying.

I believe that to answer that need, God set things in motion at my old employer that would open the door for me to do some contract teaching for them. My old boss, Crystal, contacted me via e-mail last week and asked if she could meet with me to gauge my interest and to find out what I might need in order to take on that responsibility Mama and I had lunch with her today. It was good to see her and good to hear that things are going OK at work. However, the person who replaced me as instructor left the company last week. Since the teaching assignments for the year were divided between him and one other person in the company, his resigning from the company means that more than half of the classes that are scheduled for this year have no instructor available within EWN. I am definitely interested.

I waited till very late in the lunch to mention the price tag associated with that sort of contract work. About two years ago a colleague of ours who also retired from the company did some contract teaching for EWN, and I did not feel that the price that they were paying him met the standard that I would need in order to take on that added workload. So, I asked if that was the going rate or if I could negotiate a higher rate. Crystal asked what rate I would like to suggest, and I told her. My suggestion was higher but not unreasonable. She promised me she would see what she could do. 

When Mama and I both hugged her goodbye, we left with the impression that maybe the old rate was what I would be paid and I'm OK with that but not excited by it. About two hours after the lunch Crystal texted me to tell me that she had negotiated a better rate than what I had suggested. I am not sure how long I will pursue the added responsibility of teaching one class per week, but it looks like it could be a long-term opportunity. And opportunity provided by the Lord at just the right time, for just the right amount of money. It always fascinates me how God is able to do that in our lives.

Meanwhile, here at the farm, I spent the day redoing the structure that will hold the roof on the repurposed duck pen. That is now complete. Tomorrow I will attach the roof panels to that structure and all the repairs will be completed. Just in time. We are supposed to see significant rainfall Thursday. 

Additionally, Mama and I have made upgrades to the craft container. The shelving that I had bought for that craft container, that turned out to be not what I had anticipated, has found places in the garage and in the craft container to which that shelving is perfectly suited. I have held off buying shelves that resemble the ones we have already sitting in the craft container holding totes full of crafting materials, so we are a little bit short on shelving that I had planned to have available. 

However, last week Norman hauled home two enormous file cabinets. The company looking to relocate those enormous file cabinets simply wanted them moved, so Norman hauled them here thinking that he would resell them. The more we looked at it, that seemed problematic simply because the file cabinets are so large. In order to put them to practical use we are going to install them in the craft container beside the shelving in the back of the container. That will give us the additional shelving that I have procrastinated in purchasing. Again, one of those wonderful coincidences that seemed to happen when we pray and lift up our needs to the Lord.

Also, Norman has found several opportunities to earn some money over the past few days. Those opportunities look like they will turn into long term contract work for him. We certainly have been praying that the Lord would supply for him financially, and there was no slacking on his part to try and find opportunities for work, but nothing seemed to pan out until now. Anyway, those little things and the timing of these little things always works out perfectly in God's way. We just have to be prepared to do what it takes on our part to make the most of those opportunities once God opens that door.

The same thing will happen eventually for Victoria as she looks for a permanent residence in the Milton/Pensacola area. Right now, she feels like she's spinning her wheels. We feel that she is being prepared for what God has for her somewhere in the very near future. Staying steadfast in our faith and remaining faithful to what God has given us to do while we are looking for other opportunities is often the most difficult part of living the Christian life because we want to quit and move on before God is ready. But that patient waiting is also the most blessed part living the Christian life. 

When those blessings overtake us, it is absolutely glorious.

Weekend update, a productive day

Saturday was a rainy day, but that allowed me to do a lot of things that I had not taken time to do before. I completed working on our taxes so that we can set an appointment with our accountant to get that done. I worked on several things in the shop and in the house making minor repairs to items I had left in need of repair for longer than necessary. I was able to install some of the parts that I had ordered four different upgrades to tools in the shop and got those in tip top shape. One of those being a battery powered band saw that we will need for the shed we are adding to the shop. That shed will be made largely of metal pipe.

Sunday was a typical Sunday. Our pastor preached exceptionally well. The choir did a phenomenal job on the song that we sang for service Sunday morning and Sunday night there was a great spirit in the church. We are praying for revival, but I sometimes get the feeling that we're too late for a national revival, so I focus on a personal revival. Asking the Lord to change me and make me more of who he needs me to be for him, so that I can do more for him in these last days I have to offer him.

Today was pretty exceptional. I started off in the shop cleaning up behind the shop where I had let things accumulate to my own discredit. Once I got all of the junk that had been placed there moved, I found out I had a lot of room in which to place trim that had been lying on the floor on the floor of the shop, always in my way for months. Late last year as a business was going closing its doors, I bought enough trim to do the base throughout the house. That's a lot of board feet of half round and I had laid it in the shop next to a worktable and had been stepping over it as I went from one side of the shop to the other for way too long. When I emptied the specialized lumber rack I had installed in the back of the shop I was able to put all of the trim on those shelving racks and got it off the floor of my shop. Now my shop is open, the trim is safely stored, and far more easily accessed. I was very pleased with that.

When I finished organizing in the shop, I began making the prepares to the duck pen that had been damaged when a tree fell on it late last year. Fortunately, when the tree collapsed on the roof of the pen, we had already sold the ducks. Because there were no ducks in the pen, and because we did not immediately need the area for anything specific, I had put off making the repairs needed to fix the roof and the structure that held up the roof over half of that duck pin. Once I got the busted-up roof panels off and tore out the structure that had been broken, I started rebuilding everything. At about 3:00 today I had to stop. My back was hurting so badly I just couldn't keep going any longer. Altogether, I'm about 1/3 of the way done with the repair but I lack three boards to finish the structure. We will go to town and purchase those tomorrow.

I have enough metal roofing to completely redo the roof, so once the structure is in place it will only take me an hour to put all of the roof back on, and then the area will be ready for goats to be weaned. Since we have four more nannies who will be kidding in the next three to five weeks, and we have 4 babies already on the ground, I will need multiple areas to separate boys from girls and to separate them according to their size. That way cousins that are a month older will not be able to dominate the smaller third ones when we pull them off their mommies. It is a challenge every time we have a large group of kids born at the farm, but it is a wonderful challenge. 

With the little girl goat that Mama was so worried about, we have seen some major progress. For several days we gave her shots to help her deal with whatever was hurting her. We assumed she had been stepped upon. It was either that or she had a virus that was causing her joint pain. The virus would have been fatal in a few weeks, but that does not seem to be the case. Anyway, Mama took her to the vet and the vet prescribed antibiotics that we have been giving her for several days. Today she is greatly improved. In fact, we were not able to catch her to give her a dose of antibiotics tonight. That's a mixed blessing. She's strong enough that she may not need the antibiotics, but she may still have symptoms that the antibiotic would have helped with. We will know more in a few days but for now she seems to be doing well.

Please pray for Victoria, she's going through some challenges right now that are proving difficult for her. She definitely needs a change in work, but she's willing to do what she has to to make this current assignment work out until she can find something better. To that end she has put in applications at several other jobs that would use her past training to better advantage than what she is doing right now. All in all, she is doing pretty well, but she certainly would appreciate your prayers. 

And so would we.

Successes and failures, God’s goodness

The drive home from the museum yesterday was miserable. Twice I got stuck behind drivers who are doing 10 miles an hour under the speed limit on the winding single lane roads that we have to travel from Weatherford all the way to Glen Rose, about sixty miles total. There is no good area to pass anyone safely, and it was raining softly making the roads a bit slick so it took me more than 40 minutes extra to get home yesterday, but I made it safe. So, I should not complain. At least I was in time to hurry out to feed the animals since Mama and Grandma were coming home from getting feed and Grandpa and Norman were coming home from picking up some free filing cabinets. No complaints on my part. I get very few steps on my museum days. 

From the Front

This morning, I started up the Scanning Electron Microscope and guessed at the passwords each time a password was required but was successful on all three counts where passwords were required. I have a vague memory of discussions we had with the tech who installed the microscope in the lab, but since that happened over a year ago, I was not certain until I tried what I seemed to remember. After the computer was started and the microscope had gone through its diagnostic routine, I felt like I had really accomplished something.  Having succeeded in starting up the microscope I opened it and looked inside the sample port to familiarize myself with the external controls for the sample placement once the sample port is closed. I then tried to reset the microscope to look at the sample I had inserted. 

Inside the sample port

However, after an hour of trying, I could not get an image to show up on the computer screen. I know it had worked a year ago, so I assumed I was doing something wrong. “When all else fails, read the instructions” became my default position and I got back in the instruction manual. Four hours later and dozens of attempts to find a solution, I was giving a series of commands to the microscope via the computer when an alert popped up on the screen, telling me the filament, which is used to create the electron beam that the microscope uses for imaging, was not working. Well, that is a problem I could not quickly solve.

I let Dr. Baugh know the bad but not horrible news. I assured him I would investigate how to purchase a replacement filament and investigate how to replace the filament. When I got back to the lab and has sat down at the microscope, something came to me. Earlier in the morning I had dug earlier into a little rinky-dink red toolbox that was sitting in the general vicinity of the electron microscope. In that toolbox I found a CD with the instruction manual I needed for the EDS attached to the microscope – which thrilled me - but as I re-explored that box, I found that inside that little toolbox was a tiny Styrofoam container that held 10 brand new filaments. So, when I go back to the museum on Thursday, I will replace that filament. Hopefully, that will take care of the problem. Time will tell. 

When I arrived at the museum this morning, I met Dr Baugh, and we talked about the goodness of God. How He sets events in motion sometimes years in advance so we can one day, in His time, we can walk right into a blessing. This is one of those times when we got to see His planning and His provision work out exceptionally well to His Glory and our good. 

Saturday is forecast to be a rainy day, so after soul winning, I’m going to take the time to sit down and complete our tax paperwork so I can give it to our accountant. Not one of those fun things we look forward to, but one of those necessary items in everyday life. Though we have had several severe storm warnings for our area over the past weeks, we have not suffered any bad weather. We have gotten some dry, sunny days punctuated with a rainy day here and there, but never too much rain. A quarter inch or maybe a half inch total. Just enough to keep the garden moist and the vegetable and fruit plants happy.  

Mama wore herself out of the past two days Eliza, yesterday, and Cheyenne and Aubrey today. The entertainment both days consisted of crafting, baking, animal husbandry, and general garden inspections. Mama quite wore herself out. She had fun, and I think all three of the girls did as well, but Mama is not as up to the task as she once was. This was a way Mama could interject herself into the spring break the kids had this week. We are trying to make the mot of our time with the girls. It will soon be over. 

Having completed the welding repairs on our little stock trailer, Grandpa and Norman put two new tires on that trailer so we can haul pigs to be processed the end of next week. Two is only half the number mounted on the trailer, but two will be enough to make it road worthy for now. It is little things like that that makes such a big difference here at the farm, Norman and Grandpa, take care of lots of odds and ends, making my life so much easier and the farm so much more productive. It’s a great working relationship.

More than that. It is and outlet Grandpa needs to keep him going.

Something new

Over the past two weeks, we have had four kids born into our herd. Jersey gave birth to two little girls, who are blues, and Minnie gave birth to a little chocolate boy and a little blue girl. The term “blue” is kind of applied loosely to the grayish coloring that the goats have because of Blue Boy as their father. One of the challenges Mama is facing today is that she has to take one of the two little girls from Jersey’s twins to the vet to find out why they go is so lethargic and seems to be in pain. We have no good understanding of what may have happened to the little one, but now, at less than two weeks old as she seems to be very stiff, not wanting to get up and move around not even wanting to nurse her mommy and that’s troubling. 

The unusual color of these four babies all four of them, the blues, and the chocolate, will make for easy high dollar sales of these baby goats so, we’re hoping that we can save the life of this little one, not only for the money that she might bring us, but just for the sake of saving her. 

Driving back and forth from Glenn Brose, every Thursday and Friday it’s going to be a challenge. Not a huge challenge, but a challenge, nonetheless. As I was talking to one of the men in church last night, who drives to Arlington every day, his commute to Arlington (much closer in mileage than Glen Rose) is about the same timeframe that my commute to Glen Rose, which is 92 miles away. Taken into perspective, it isn’t that big a deal, but it does chew up four hours in transit every Thursday, and four hours in transit every Friday. Long-term, I don’t know how this will work out, or how long I will keep this up, but for now being a part of the ministry of the Creation Evidence Museum is something that I enjoy. Whether I will get to continue to enjoy that is the question. 

Our garden has grown in scope and breath over the past couple of weeks as Grandpa, Mama, and Norman add plants to the garden. We now have blackberries blueberries, figs, along with all of the vegetables we have in the garden, and a few days ago Norman and Grandpa bought two grape vines to plant along the fence separating the garden from the backyard. If we get any production out of this garden, it will be the first time in nearly 15 years that Mama and I have gotten any produce out of the garden. 

I have to give a lot of credit to Norman and Grandpa for their fastidiousness, and tending to the garden, but also to Mama for her desire to have such a large garden. The good part is I haven’t had to do much of anything for the garden. It has all happened as I have worked on other things. 

Among those other things was the completion of the work needed to be done to the container, so that we could begin to move furniture and rugs into the container to occupy it. Last Saturday Mama loaded up the two shelving units I installed earlier in the week. We also put down two rugs in the container and added Mama’s glass desk to the sparse furniture we have inside. Will soon make it the workshop that we have wanted. 

I decided to try something new recently. Since I am having trouble dedicating the time to sit down at the computer through the day, I am exploring the possibility of just recording notes to my phone and sending those completed notes to the computer. I could then copy the notes into my blog. I do have time to sit and talk to my phone especially as I’m making the two hour drive each direction to and from Glenn Rose. I’m going to see if, even though the days when I am not in transit to the museum, I can just dictate notes to my phone and then compile those notes at the end of the day so I can continue my blog. It may not work out, but technology will allow me to do it, so I’m going to give it a shot and see if I can make this work. I do want to continue writing the blog. I do want to continue publishing it. But sitting down at the computer in the evening, when I have exhausted myself through the day has become problematic for me. So, I’m going to try an approach that will allow me to record in bursts throughout the day and then hopefully spend less time in the evening compiling those notes into the blog. We’ll see. 

At the museum, attached to the scanning electron microscope is a device called an EDS, which stands for Energy Distributive Spectroscopy. This allows us to see the elements in the sample that’s being scanned by the electron microscope. That makes for interesting observations as we take bones, either fossilized bones, or non-fossilized bones and look for organic material in those bones. Since the bones look like stone, it will be interesting to see how much of each sample is made up of carbon, which is indicative of life. The EDS will allow us to do just that.

It is fun to watch from my little atrium/labratory, where the scanning electron microscope is set up out into the museum. Several of the people who work in the labs spend time just talking with the crowds that come through, explaining to observers what they are actually looking at. Perhaps in the next few months, I will become one of those museum guides to try and give context to the displays that are nearest to the laboratory. But, for now, I allow those who are far more experienced in that interaction to handle those discussions. 

Since this week happens to be spring break in Texas, the crowds at the museum have been pretty big every day. I am told that this week the museum will see about 2000 visitors - as compared to weeks in January February when they might see 100 visitors each week. The people coming through seem genuinely interested in the displays. It’s nice to have evidence, something we can see with our eyes, that compares to what the Bible record has told us was true all along. 

Meanwhile, back at the farm, the vet told Mama that the baby goat we have been worried over may not be in a life-threatening situation. She definitely has an infection and is in considerable pain, but it does not appear that what she has is life-threatening. We will have to maintain a close eye on her to ensure that we get her past this infection to a full recovery but for now Mama is relieved that the problems the tiny one is suffering is curable. 

Maggie and her crew have managed to stay sick for some time now. The last victim has been Walter’ who has a serious case of flu. This too shall pass but it seems to have been an ongoing issue for them more than three or four weeks now. I am hoping and praying they can get well, especially Walter seems to take these kinds of infections very poorly.

Please keep them in your prayers.

Family, ongoing work, Norman, Grandma

The end of February into the beginning of March is a heavy birthday time for us. Gailyn Owen and Audrey all have birthdays within a week’s period. Mama and I are a little late in getting presents out because of our time in Honduras, but you can rest assured that presents are en route even though they will be arriving after the birthday date.

Please continue to pray for Victoria. She is being challenged in a big way. As I said earlier, we were praising the Lord for the little apartment she was able to rent, but it has not turned out to be the best solution to her needs. She does not, as I had thought, have a microwave in the apartment, so she decided to use the stove to heat some food. However, when the fired up the burner it began to smoke and quickly set off the fire alarm. Another shortage she will have to remedy to make this work, but she is giving it her best shot – at least for a month or two. What she needs is a larger apartment or a house to rent in a decent area, but since she is there and has temporary housing, she has time to work out that need over several weeks. 

I have continued working on repairing the floor in the container and managed to get about a third of the way through those repairs. I got to look at the results of the work I did yesterday late this afternoon and I am pleased with the repairs made so far. I also took time to paint the first ten feet of floor so we can set shelving on place in that area. That should happen either tomorrow after I get back from soul winning or Monday. Mama has the majority of her crafting supplies sorted, boxed and ready to set on those shelves. 

Today she spent several hours cleaning off Victoria’s dining room table – which has been a part of our furniture for several year – and Norman and I moved it into the enclosed trainer we are packing Victoria’s stuff in to take to her when she has a more permanent place. To replace that table, we moved the tall granite topped table from the sunroom into the living room. It is so much smaller that it looks tiny compared to the table we are carrying to Victoria. Far less space to accumulate stuff, which is a great upgrade to our living room. 

Norman has had some success in his yard sale. He told Mama that he has already sold about $300 worth of stuff as he and Seth were setting and marking all the items they are selling. The yard sale officially starts tomorrow at 8 am. So, he is encouraged with the drive by response he got today. 

Late this evening, Mama and I clipped chicken wings. We are hoping to keep the chickens contained to the coop area and out of the yard and garden. Clipping their wings keeps them from flying over fences, but additional work will be required to keep them from squeezing under gates or fitting through the holes in the cattle panels. The feathers will grow back by Fall, about the time we are finished with the garden. By that time, our new landscaping will have taken sufficient root to withstand a bit of scratching should the chickens begin to enter the restricted areas on the farm.

Chickens may not turn out to be our greatest threat to the garden. Norman was pretty sure that the kelp fertilizer applied to all the broccoli and cabbage plants we placed in the garden would keep any critters at bay and spare the plants from rabbits and other varmints. Sadly, that was not the case. We had a heavy frost last night after a day of rain, so we were anxious to see how the plants fared. Turns out the rabbits are not repelled by the smelly fertilizer as Norman expected. All the broccoli plants had been eaten to the ground.  So, our hopes of leaving the garden open and easy to work have faded somewhat. Fortunately, we have plenty of raised beds to plant the vegetables most prone to rabbit foraging. We will try that before we fence the garden. 

This morning, Grandma, who was up early, came into the dining area fully dressed to go out. Shoes and sweater on, purse in hand. We asked where she was going, and she responded that she just wanted to be ready when anyone went out. Sadly, by noon she gave up on the idea of shaming someone to take her to town. None of us needed to go so none of us went. 

Maybe tomorrow. 

Struggling for direction

I have been asked by several people if I am enjoying retirement. I am, but with a caveat. I am still struggling to find the time to do all the computer related items I used to squeeze into a normal workday, checking account balances, making doctor calls, writing, paying the bills, etc. Somehow all the time spent in the desk chair at the computer seems unproductive when compared to the multitude of projects I have been able to work – some to completion. So, by the time I feel free to do all those electronic chores the day is usually far spent. 

Perhaps next week that will change somewhat. Next Thursday I will be starting to work at the creation Evidence Museum two days per week. I have not worked out all the details, but I feel certain everything will fall into place as I move forward into that role. It is one of those ready-fire-aim circumstances when we step out by faith and let God fill in all the details we did not know needed attention before we started.

Victoria is in one of those circumstances right now. We were rejoicing Tuesday that she was able to find an apartment, a studio apartment, that would accept her dogs. The management even waived the pet deposit to simplify her signing the month-to-month lease. It is not an inexpensive space. The rent is $1050/month for the very small space. It can be compared to having a kitchenette (stove, refrigerator, microwave and sink and cabinets) and a full bathroom tucked into her bedroom. Where she will go from here is not yet known, but she has a place of her own, such as it is.

I am told that she is spending one more night with Nana and Papa Shipe before she commits herself to the apartment. So far, this has been a tough week for her, but all in all, it has been a blessed week. So many at our church, as well as all of us in her immediate family, have been earnestly praying for her as she has met a few difficult challenges and seen her way through each of them. She is not settled yet, but she has a starting point, and she has some onsite help and council. 

I have spent my time this week focused on the container. The walls are painted and now I am working on leveling and repairing the floor so it too can be painted. Mama and I have gone back and forth on what to do with the floor, but sealing and painting it is probably the best option for now. That has proven an unexpected challenge. I ordered a quart of a certain oil-based paint many months ago and decided to apply it to the floor at the far end of the container. It looked beautiful, so Mama and I looked for more of that brand and color of paint. We searched high and low, but none was available. The next best thing was to match the color with a different brand of paint but no one in Decatur had anything comparable. Mama and I finally went to the Sherman Williams store and bought their brand that would match the color and use we needed. It was not cheap. In fact, it was kind of expensive, but it will work, and I am confident we will get what we need out of the purchase. I hope to have the repair to the floor done – some deep gouges in the wood – and be ready to paint the floor next Monday.

My goal is to have the shelving we purchased for the container assembled and placed before I go to Glen Rose Thursday. With that plan in mind, Mama has been aggressively organizing her craft supplies in the house to be ready to fill those shelves once they are in place. That has always been our plan, but it has been a long time in coming. Mama has been very patient with me.

Meanwhile, in-between working on the garden and completing the fence in the back yard, Norman has been sorting through his tools, which are currently filling our barn in preparation for a yard sale this weekend. Mama and I have donated to the cause. Selling scrap, hauling junk and selling his tools is the only income he has had this month. At this point he is very motivated to reassign ownership of all the stuff he has accumulated over the years. He has cleaned out one storage unit locally but has another unit completely full. 

Along with what is currently filling our barn, I have begun to wonder how he accumulated all he has. I realize the accumulation happened over time, but the money spent to obtain all this stuff must have been significant. Certainly, far more than he will recoup in a yard sale. Yet here we are praying wholeheartedly that he attracts a crowd willing to trade their cash for his abundance of stuff.

I think secretly Grandpa would like his barn back so we can buy some cows. 

Fast review, a new garden, a new direction

Since I last wrote, Mama and I have traveled to Honduras and back, plowed and planted a large garden (with Grandpa and Norman’s help) and watched Victoria leave home to start a new life in Florida. Bear in mind, we have only been home for about two weeks. So much happened in Honduras, it is always difficult to summarize. Since Mama and I have been part of the Come Away Conference in Iglesia El Faro for four or five years, we are familiar with most of the attendees each year. Mama and I help where we can during the conference because it makes it more fun to be there when we can support the hosts. The conference is a huge blessing to Mama since it is conducted entirely in English. 

This year we added Marta and John Espinos to our growing friends list. He is native Honduran. She is a Brooklyn Hispanic. They met and married while he was in the states but when he got spiritually convicted about being illegally in the US, he turned himself in to the authorities and was deported. That was five years ago. So during the past five years, Marta will travel to Honduras for a few weeks every other month and return to the United States to continue working here. They are hoping to get John legal entry to the United Stated this year. They were a lot of fun to be around.

We had a great time with Nate, Cori and the kids. We always do. We spent a few days at the beach early in our time there. Since there were not seashells to collect where we stayed, Mama and the kids collected sticks and rocks. I had to figure out a way to get the twelve to fifteen pounds of rocks into our luggage for the return trip, but we made it. I cannot fault Mama for the extra weight in our suitcases, I bought about twenty pounds of leather we had to trim to fit into the largest suitcase. We also had to carry back forty pounds of coffee. Twenty for us and twenty for Victoria. 

Grandpa and Norman had plowed the garden while we were traveling, but renting a large tiller (one that fits on the back of the tractor) to finish working the soil before we could use our normal sized tiller to finish preparing the ground to plant. Renting the tiller seemed straight forward, but the first one they brought home was unusable. It had been broken by some previous renter. Norman and Grandpa had to take that one back to the dealer – over an hour away – and then go to a second location for that dealer to get a working tiller. Five hours in all to return the broken tiller and get home with the working one. But it eventually worker out.

Last Friday we planted six long rows of potatoes, three short rows of onions, six cabbage and six broccoli plants. We will plant more over the next few weeks and eventually fill the entire garden bit the weather is a bit unpredictable this time of year to get too far ahead of ourselves. I am more hopeful of a harvest this year because of the change in location of our garden. 

This morning at 4 am, Victoria loaded up the dogs and headed to Florida. The trip seems to have gone off without a hitch; however, the extended stay hotel where she booked her stay in Pensacola turned out to be extremely disappointing. The room required an additional daily pet charge on top of the money already fronted to a two week stay and the room was filthy. Victoria fussed to the desk clerk and finally asked for cleaning supplies to try and clean the room to an acceptable standard. She has since sent us several pictures of the dirt she cleaned out of the tub and off the bathroom floor. She told us the dogs are whining and laying with their noses at the bottom of the entry door. I guess they prefer the smell of the hallway to that of the room. 

Tomorrow Victoria is looking at an apartment she could possibly rent for a year while she looks around for a permanent home and at a potential mobile home to purchase. We will wait to see how all that works out, but she is safely in Pensacola and has a few days before she is scheduled to start working at the Walmart in Pace, where she transferred to. 

Knowing she is not coming back home is a little saddening, but Mama and I are prayerfully supporting her new direction in life. As long as the Lord is in it, all things will work together for her good and His glory. 

That is His promise to us – and to Victoria.

Another scare, major upgrades, tentative plans

We had a bit of a scare Thursday morning with Grandpa. It was apparent that he was not doing well by just talking to him. He was having obvious trouble breathing even lying down in bed. Mama was extremely concerned and began to speculate about the need to reschedule our trip to Honduras. That angst followed us through the entire morning until about noon when, Grandpa got out of bed, dressed himself, and joined Mama and Norman in the living room. it was well into the evening before he felt like eating anything and then, he asked only for a piece of toast with jelly. He was not despondent and overly concerned, but he did share with Mama and Norman that he had not felt that poorly in many months. 

As he began to move around, he began to feel better. Better enough that he and Norman went on several small jaunts to get some little things for Grandma. Today, he seemed improved. His breathing was better but still difficult. The swelling in his right ankle and calf have lessened noticeably. We have cautioned Grandpa to keep his feet elevated – especially when he is lying in bed. Since we have several recliners in the house, he is able to elevate his feet somewhat as he sits in the living room. It is not optimum, but it is better than letting his feet dangle for hours. 

We are on a very short timeline with Grandpa, but he is in good humor. As Mama talked with an elderly friend from church about Grandpa, Mama made it sound as if Grandpa was knocking at death’s door without realizing how much in despair she sounded, she had pronounced him ready for hospice. It gave the impression that we were watching for him to take his last breath. 

When Mama got off the phone with our concerned friend, she realized just how desperate she sounded and apologized to Grandpa who has heard both sides of the entire conversation since he was in the living room with Mama and Mama does all her phone conversing on speaker. Grandpa just laughed and assured Mama he had enjoyed the conversation. He told Mama playfully, “I didn’t know I was that bad off.” 

In the container, I have continued working on the windows. I have completed trimming them windows inside and outside. Yesterday, I took a heat gun and dried the seal at the top of the window enclosure, scraped off the caulking that had separated from the metal container wall and applied a liberal coating of roofing tar to seal the gap thoroughly.

Since the caulking had held out about 95% of the water, the roofing tar will cover over the working seal and reseal the leaking areas. Each window took be about forty-five minutes to treat, but today, as it rained, I got to see if the time had been well spent. It seems to have done the trick. There are no leaks that I could find today. I got to observe the rain from inside the container for several hours because I was completing the trim on the last window and then sanding the cedar trim on all the windows. 

Tomorrow, we will finish up the wall trim, finish up the base trim, finish up the ceiling trim and do all the last of the caulking needed to seal any air gaps. Hopefully, with the heater I bought, I will be able to begin putting the urethane on the cedar trim and paint the walls. I assembled and tested the propane heater this evening and it should be just what we need.

To paint, we need the interior above seventy-five degrees. I believe we can get that done. The ambient temperature is forecast to be sixty degrees Monday. All we will have left is to treat and seal the floor. We are so close now. 

Mama and I will still continue packing for our trip to Honduras with our eye carefully on Grandpa. One true philosopher stated many years ago, “Life is what happens while you are making plans.” James 4:15 cautions us to always consider God’s will in our plan, “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” 

So, with our heart set toward God and our eyes cautiously observing Grandpa, Mama and I will continue to follow through on our plans to go to Honduras. 

Proverbs 27:15, scrap, job hunting

In the container, I thought I had only one leak on the four windows, but as I worked on putting cedar windowsills on the windows today, I discovered that three of the four windows have little leaks coming from the top sill of the windows – where the frame is cut into the side of the container. I got to discover all the leaks because it rained through the day. Not a heavy rain but a steady drizzle. Enough to give me a steady drip on two of the four windows and a steady trickle of water into the container on the fourth. 

Oh, well. It should be an easy fix and since tomorrow and Thursday are forecast to be dry, I will get to apply the remedy soon. Friday is forecast to be a rainy day, so I will get to test my fix and see if I chose wisely. If I did the battle is over. If I did not, we will try something else to seal the tops of the windows. But I felt confident enough in getting the leaks stopped, that I went ahead and did all the windowsills. Tomorrow, Lord willing, I will start trimming out the windows. I plan to do the trim in cedar as well. I will take some pictures when I am further along, but Mama and I are very pleased with the look of the windowsills I completed today. 

The barely leaking frames reminded me of a verse in Proverbs where a continual drip is compared to a contentious woman. I guess Solomon would know about dealing with a contentious woman. Since he had three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines, I am sure not all of the one thousand women in his life were sweetness and demure humility all the time. Get that many women in one kingdom competing for the attention of a single man and there is bound to be drama. Thank God I have only Mama. One is enough.

Don’t get me wrong, Grandma and Victoria are still in the house with me and Mama, but Grandma tries to get along and Victoria tries to disappear. When she is thinking with some measure of clarity, Grandma is easy enough to share our home with. When her meds take over, there are some interesting and difficult moments. Those are few and manageable. Grandpa is a huge help in the difficult times. As for Victoria, it is not easy to tell that she is home most times. She largely keeps to herself and her interactions with us, when she does come out to join the larger group, are mostly fun. I say that with a bit of sarcasm, because I spend most of my time by myself – working on the container or farm projects or working on the computer. Mama always knows where to find me, so I suppose she is happy with my absence from the confab. 

Norman and Grandpa picked up all the metal pipe and roofing scraps stacked in various locations across the property. They gathered up all the baling wire I had wound and hung over fence posts or stacked in bundles near where we feed out the wire-tied bales of hay. They salvaged all the small pieces of rolled fencing, barbed wire and chopped up cattle panels and accumulated all that scrap into the dump trailer Norman is borrowing. That large dump trailer is now overflowing. Norman put together a heap of copper lines and wire, brass pipe and fittings and aluminum wire fragments I have been saving for just such a time as this. These were kept apart from the other metal scrap. They will be sold separately. 

I have resisted the task of compiling all these items because I have only a utility trailer to haul the refuse to the scrap yard. With the utility trailer, I would have had to handle all those items a minimum of two times. Once to get them onto the trailer and once more to get them off the trailer at the scrap yard. With the dump trailer, the handling was minimized. The items had only to be loaded then dumped at the scrap yard. 

This cleanup was not necessarily benevolent on Norman’s part, but it works out well for me and Mama. Norman desperately needs money and selling scrap is one way to get a few dollars. I am more than happy to donate all this scrap to his cause. Please pray for Norman as he looks for steady work. Finding a good job is not as easy as some make it out to be, but he is earnest in his quest. He wants to stay close to Grandma and Grandpa. That is wise. 

I am confident God will lead him in the way he needs to go – if Norman will allow God to do so. 

Above freezing, a new restaurant, a possibility

For the past several nights the temperatures have been above freezing. That is a welcome relief to me and Mama. I suppose it is welcome to our flocks and herds as well, but it is difficult to tell just how much the cold affects them. In simple terms, from our point of view, it is easier to provide drinking water to the chickens, pigs and goats when the water containers do not freeze overnight. Praise the Lord! 

Winter is not over by any means, but we will enjoy the non-freezing nights for as long as we can get them. I have hesitated to hook up the hoses, but I will probably do that tomorrow. I have hesitated because along with the warmer weather, we are getting a long stretch of rainy days. Hooking up the hoses then means dragging them through the wet, sometimes muddy, ground. When that happens, everything gets a little nasty, so I have continued to carry water from the yard hydrant to the chickens and pigs, leaving the coiled-up hoses on standby. 

Mama and I took Victoria out for her birthday dinner this afternoon. Victoria was sick on her birthday, so we waited until she was feeling better on her day off. For the next two weeks, she has only Monday’s off. Her heart was set on Thai food, but the restaurant she most favored is closed on Mondays. So, she had to find an alternative. Boy, did she find a great one! The tiny restaurant is located in Denton, almost on the campus of the University North Texas. It sits less than a block from the University cafeteria. 

The menu was not huge, but the selections offered a breadth of foods we were familiar with because of Andrew and his family and because of Mrs. Happy, a Korean woman in our church in New Jersey, who was a Thai food connoisseur.  Many of the foods overlap in those two cultures, but the Thai way of preparing those familiar dishes in slightly different. Each of us, Mama, Victoria and I, enjoyed what we selected, and what we sampled from each other’s selections. 

The portions were large enough to get each of us comfortably full, but the only part of the three meals we brought home was the broth from the Spicy Ramen Soup I ate. I had to eat a couple pieces of chicken from the dish Victoria ordered, but Mama, who ordered a “tray meal” from the menu was able to clean her plate on her own. Prices were good. My soup cost less than a meal at Braum’s, which is one of the cheapest places in Decatur to eat a burger right now. We will be going back, especially since it is so close and easy to get to. It may be our new favorite. Mama will let me know at some point if that is the case, and I will be ready to agree.

Saturday afternoon, Mama, Norman and I made the trip to Lewisville to look at an RV. We debated back and forth, but finally made the decision to make the drive. When we found the RV that Norman had found online, we were quickly ready to walk away. It was in poor condition for the price being asked. The seller was texting back and forth with Mama, so Mama let him know we were going to pass on the initial RV. When he responded, he let Mama know that in the same row of RVs for sale, there was a second RV of the same type (a toy-hauler) we should look at. That one was far better. The setup was exactly what Mama, and I are looking for. It was even equipped with a queen-sized bed in the garage part that was mounted on rails. The bed could be raised to the ceiling to open space in the garage then lowered back down when needed. That was a surprise bonus. 

Mama quickly made an offer. The seller made a counteroffer. His price is a little too high and we are not in a hurry to buy just yet. Mama told the seller we would contact him when we get back from Honduras – mid-February – to see if the RV was still waiting on a buyer. At that point, we may be in a better situation to negotiate and get a lower price if we are still interested. The seller wished us well but offered no further comment. 

I was contacted by Energy Worldnet today. They forwarded some forms to me for me to look over as well as to acquaint me with the process of working in a contracted capacity. I let them know that I will not be available until March, but the wheels are set in motion to begin working on some courses for my old employer. It is something we talked about before I left, but I was not sure if they really needed me to help. 

It would be fun to take on that role. 

Mostly easy, pre-packing, temporary packing, repurposing, exploring

Today was a lazy day, sort of. It was cold and very windy outside, so we all spent as little time outside as possible. Mama and I did our normal feeding in the morning, but I did not work in the container at all today. I am letting Norman take the lead on trimming out the windows inside the container and I did not want to alarm him by starting a project he has promised to take on. I was still hurting badly from yesterday, so I needed a day to recuperate anyway.

Since we were inside for the morning, Mama and I got out the suitcases we plan to use for our trip to Honduras and began to pack those suitcases. As we did so, the anxiety of all we have accumulated to haul to Cori began to abate. We have been easily able to fit everything we need to take into two large suitcases and two carryon suitcases. Cori alerted Mama that there is more to come which is more important to carry with us than anything we have in our possession, but with the space left in the two large suitcases, I cannot foresee a problem. As far as meeting the weight limit for the suitcases, we are well under the allotment at this point. That may not remain true as we finalize everything, but we are ahead of the game for now. 

Later in the day, Mama emptied a cabinet in the dining room that she and Norman are going to prep for paint. As Mama packed the little tea sets and pitchers that have set in that cabinet for almost fifteen years, I began to wonder once again, why we are hanging onto these unused, and potentially unusable, fragile items. The tea sets and pitchers are beautiful, and I am sure they have some value, but they have very little value to us. Keeping them in the cabinet has preserved them and kept them clean, but they will almost certainly never be used. Having to take the time and care to handle all the little cups, saucers and pitchers was a reminder of how much we have that we simply do not need. Finding ways to get rid of or sell such items is a challenge – which is why Mama and I have never pursued that. It may be time for us to try again.

Norman and I split some more firewood from a tree we had cut up earlier in the week. Since it was very cold today, we started a fire in the fireplace early this morning and will keep it going for the next few days and nights. We split the extra wood, not because we needed it, but because rain is forecast from Sunday through the week next week. It seemed a shame to let the wood we cut for splitting get soaked when we had a chance to split it and bring it in. So, we will have plenty of firewood for this little cold snap. 

I do not know why we did not think of this before, but Norman showed Mama a picture on Pinterest of someone using an old crock pot as a heated waterer for their chickens. Mama and I just threw out a crockpot we had had for years because the ceramic insert was seriously cracked. Fortunately, Norman has three old crockpots in storage, and he gifted Mama two of them to use in the coop. That is far better than paying a high price for a company engineered heated chicken waterer. I need to buy two short extension cords to place the pots somewhere other than under the roost – where the water will get contaminated with poop – so I will make that purchase tomorrow morning after bus calling and put the not so fancy heated waterers in service tomorrow afternoon. 

Early tomorrow afternoon, Mama, Norman and I are going to look at a toy hauler RV for sale. That is, if it is still available. Mama and I have talked about purchasing an RV for some, but there was not really a need to part with that much money unnecessarily. Now, with me praying about spending at least one night per week in Glen Rose, owning an RV has some merit. Timing is the issue. We are not obligated to buy this VR, but it would be prudent to begin searching for one so we can determine what we need and want when the time is right. 

I am still undecided about how to handle the schedule I will need to meet when I do start doing research at the Creation Evidence Museum, but I have until the first week of March to pray about it. 

It will be interesting to see how God works it out. I just need to stay out of His way. 

Window completion, bonfires, Candy

Maybe I am too much of an optimist, but the completion of the exterior enclosure of the windows on the container took a bit longer than I had anticipated. To frame, trim, caulk and seal the windows took me about three hours per window. The good part is that the windows are uniform and the frames they are mounted in are uniform, so the size of the wood on the fronts, sides and tops was fairly uniform. I had to shave, shim and fill differently on each window, but the wood I cut in bulk was close to fitting each respective space, but that is the way things always work out with trim work. What made all this a challenge was the corrugated sides of the container the windows were fit into. 

To seal below the windows took a bit of work, but I have done all I know to do to get the windows sealed against the rain. They will be tested in the coming days. Hence, the urgency in completing the work today. Fortunately, the day today was perfect. It was the only day that we are forecast to be above fifty degrees for a long stretch of days. So, I did not quit until I was done. Even still, the foam I applied to seal underneath the windows to fill the openings where the corrugated sides provided a large void did not fully cure in the ambient temperatures the day offered. The temperature in the morning is predicted to be twenty degrees. We will not see fifty plus degrees until next Tuesday. Hopefully, I will not have to dig out the uncured foam sealant and try again in warmer weather. At least as warm as February in North Texas can offer. 

Meanwhile, Grandpa burned one of the smaller plies of trash and limbs that he and Norman have piled in various locations across our property. I counted twelve such piles which will all be burned eventually. The one Grandpa started with was the smallest. It burned for about four hours. I imagine the larger stacks will burn all day and most of a night once we set them alight – one at a time - through the Winter. That will actually be fun. I did not get to participate in the small bonfire today, but I hope to make time for those larger ones in the near future. 

Mama spent most of the afternoon in Decatur working on her Sunday School classroom while Grandma went to the beauty shop to get a perm. Her second in a promised string of trims and perms planned for every other week. We will see how long the ritual lasts. Grandma is a little hard to please, especially since she seems to remember that a perms used to cost twenty-five dollars. The cost is triple that today. Before they left to make the appointment, Grandma was adamant that there would be no tip offered to the beautician. I did not ask if she followed through on that. 

Late yesterday evening we were told that Mama’s Aunt Candy passed away. She had spent about a day on life support while her children discussed a path forward in her care. Once the family took her off life support, her struggle ended quickly. By her own testimony, Candy was ready to go Home. She was Grandma’s baby sister, only eighteen months older than Mama. Candy as a late in life baby for Mama’s Grandma Lawrence. Candy had nieces and nephews that were older than her. It was always an interesting dynamic. Please keep Candy’s children in your prayers. A few of them do not know the Lord. For them such a loss is difficult to bear. For those of us who know the Lord, it is a celebration, a respite, a release from suffering and sin. Our day will be her soon. 

Trace has been very helpful in keeping us informed on all the events happening now that Candy has gone home. We will not be going down to Florida for any of the services even though Grandma feels compelled to try to make an appearance. Such travel is outside of her ability whether we try to fly her over or make the two-day road trip each way. Grandma swears she is up to it, but she clearly is not. Another of those times that our mind is making promises our bodies cannot keep. I certainly fit into that category more and more. 

We had a blessing today in that there was no damage to the well apparatus in the barn lot well house. I discovered the day before yesterday that the lines had frozen sometime during the near zero temperatures we had experienced for several days. The lines did not seem frozen hard but there was no way to tell until I warmed the wellhouse sufficiently to repressure the tank on the well and test the lines. I bought a thermometer to put in the wellhouse so I could monitor the temperature and ensure we keep the enclosure above freezing. I warmed the wellhouse overnight and pressure tested the lines this afternoon. All is well. Praise the Lord!

We will still have to haul water to all our animals for a couple more days because of the persistent cold, but we got to use the yard hydrant behind the coop today for the first time in over a week. That will be the only time we will use that hydrant this week. 

Warmer, wetter weather is forecast for next week. That will be welcome relief. 

Cold, cold, cold, a good day

The temperature dropped so suddenly over the weekend that we had to scramble to get freeze protection ready and make sure that we had enough three-gallon and five-gallon bottles to haul water from the well house out to all of the animals twice a day. Everything froze overnight Saturday night into Sunday morning, and Sunday never got above freezing. Today was well below freezing all day. Both days were accompanied with brutal winds as well. So, Mama, Norman, and I had to take water out several times a day Saturday, Sunday, and today. Any water that the animals did not drink was frozen solid in about half an hour. The freezing temperatures are forecast to end Wednesday. 

We will have several overnight freezes from Wednesday on, but the afternoon high temperatures will be getting above freezing which will allow the animals to drink from waterers that will thaw during the day. It's a fun time, but at least right now, with me retired, I don't have to be at my computer for 8 hours a day or in the office for 8 hours a day so I'm available to help as needed. Our hope is that we will be through with this brief cold spell and it won't repeat itself while Mama and I are in Honduras in a couple of weeks. That would put a lot of work on Norman.

To help the house keep warm we have had a fire burning in the fireplace 24/7 since Saturday night. Mostly it has been responsibility of Norman to keep the fire going overnight, but since he's up several times a night anyway, just for normal biological functions, it's a fairly easy thing to just stir the fire and put another log on. Mama and I generally put a log on the fire when we first get up, but that will only last a couple more nights. It has really taken a load off of our heating system to have the huge living room heated by the fireplace.

Today we spent some time and effort cutting up trees that had been laying on the ground for several months if not several years. It is probably the best firewood we have had access to in a couple years. Grandpa and Norman were both excited to see the wood that was split from the trees we cut up. The oak definitely gives off a nostalgic aroma. 

It was far too cold to work for long in the container, but since I had purchased the screws I needed to finish attaching the trim to the walls, I did take time to get that done. Hopefully, Wednesday, we will finish out the trim on the outside of the windows. If time allows, I would like to trim out the windows inside as well, but that is secondary. I need to rainproof the windows before we do too much more inside. 

During my time out in the cold today helping cut and split firewood, I also checked the barn lot well house. I was very disappointed to find the well lines had frozen. The freezing was not a hard freeze. More like the lines were filled with slush. The heater I have used in that well house for several years was not up to the task in the 6-degree overnight temperatures. Once I upgraded the heater, the lines quickly thawed, and I drained the tank and blew the lines clear to help expedite any repairs that will be needed when I get a chance to test the lines. It may mean hauling water to the animals for a couple more days, but we can handle that. 

I spent the early part of the day making phone calls. Some were just to catch up to individuals. Those calls were pure fun. Some were more related to what I will be doing in the near future. A call to Dr. Baugh, the curator of the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX was one of the most important calls I needed to make. As we talked, my role expanded in the research I will be doing for the museum. I asked a pointed question as to expectations for the schedule that will be required of me to move the anticipated projects forward. Mama was listening in on the call, so she got to hear what I was hearing. It will require some accommodations here at the farm and perhaps the purchase of a camper to allow me to overnight in or near Glen Rose one night per week. That is still a matter of much prayer.

One other important call was to the realtor friend Mama, and I have in Lawton, OK. His name is Glenn. We spoke twice today and have set the sale of our house there in motion. The current lease extends through July this year, so we may not move on the house until after that lease expires. The realtor, who is a go-getter, called the occupant of the house and let them know the house would be put on the market when the lease was up. Glenn was led to believe that the renters may be interested in purchasing the house. We will see where that leads, but the wheels are set in motion. 

It was a good day. A day where we could see the Hand of God moving in our lives. 

Scripture, simple blessings, answered prayer, worry

“Psalms 68:19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation.” This is one of the verses I have been memorizing. Mama and I have little plastic container that is made to resemble a loaf of bread. Inside the trough molded into the loaf are little Scripture placards with verses printed on both sides of each placard/card. The printed cards are small only three quarters of an inch wide and three inches long. I believe there are fifty placards/cards in the loaf. 

Recently Mama put it on our kitchen table again, and I have been pulling out a placard almost every day, but Ps 68:19 really caught my eye one morning, so it has been lying at my spot at the table for a couple weeks now. It thought, why not chose one or two verses per month and try to commit them to memory. As I have done so, it is fascinating the see the Lord bring the verses to light. To find ways to make them real in our daily walk. We acknowledge that we are blesses in a sort of “yah, I know I’m blessed” way but rarely take to time the thank the Lord for just how blessed we are. Mama and I are trying to do just that. Constant, continual, timely, simple blessing fill or days when we choose to give God credit for them. 

I prayed last night that the Lord would give me wisdom in trimming out the windows in the container, both inside and outside the container. I was not sure how that would need to be done. I had a vague idea but was not certain. However, as I started to lay out the pattern I would need to miter and cut the trim pieces to meet the insertion of the window into the corrugated container wall, it all suddenly came to me. Praise the Lord! I was also able to use lumber pieces already on hand to make all the trim pieces for the sides and tops of the windows. I will need a few pieces of lumber to cut the trim pieces for the bottom of the windows, but I was able to do about 2/3s of the work with what was already here. I made a lot more progress than I had expected, and it looks very nice. I will include images when the trim out is complete, but I am pleased with what the Lord helped me do today. 

Tomorrow, Norman is going a couple hours north of us to look at some hay he found advertised. He was able to borrow a heavy-duty dump bed trailer to haul the 1200-pound square bales for us. Mama and I are buying four bales and Grandpa is buying four bales. That is our plan if the hay turns out to be good quality hay. Unfortunately, we cannot know until we get there and inspect it. We are praying it will not be a wasted trip. God has been good, so we are trusting Him with the outcome. There is no quality hay near us for the bargain price we could get on this hay, but we will have to make the drive to see if it is what we want. 

I do not plan on going with Norman if Grandpa feels up to going. Grandpa did not feel well today, but he has had a few very good days this week. He tells me that most of his issues are bowel issues, not being able to go for days at a time. Today he did not eat much at all. A cinnamon swirl with his morning coffee and a cherry turnover late this evening. No fiber to help his bowels but not much volume either. Not the diet of champions, but that is all he wanted. Maybe giving his bowels a rest by taking in less food and more liquids will work well for him. We will see. Please continue to pray for him.

We have a lot of sickness around us at the moment and Mama is a tiny bit apprehensive about our upcoming trip to Honduras. I allow her to spend all the emotional energy given to thinking about not getting sick. If she did not mention it to me, I would never think about it. Not that it is not a potential issue, I just don’t give it much thought. If I did, it would paralyze me in all my efforts to keep moving forward with the projects I am just now making great headway on. When it's cold, I dress warmer. When it a rainy, I stay out of the rain as much as possible. When I get too cold, or too tired, or too wet, I come inside and take a break. I can do that now. I’m retired.

Right now, we are getting flooded with packages from a variety of vendors, mostly shipped by Amazon, that Cori and the kids are ordering. The packages are being sent to me and Mama and we will pack them into our luggage and carry them to Honduras. It may be a very inefficient method of making purchases, but it works if you are in no particular hurry. 

One of the fun parts of every trip to Honduras is the initial unpacking when we get to Cori and Nate’s house. The suitcases are rolled into Cori and Nate’s bedroom and excitedly sorted through behind closed doors. Mama and I have to take our clothing in the suitcases as well as all the other items, so Cori is careful not to muss thing up too much. Then as all the purchased goods are laid out, the kids are allowed in to claim their purchases and be given the gifts Grammy and I bring. Each category is like getting a Christmas present. Even if the item was ordered by one of the kids. Just the fact that it arrived, that they have it in hand, is super exciting to them. It is truly fun to watch.

It makes all the struggle of getting those overweight bags through the airports.