No more piglets, doctor’s visits, our truck is home, rehomed chicks

The sympathy for the three little piglets did not last long. After Mama discovered them inside the pen with our market pigs, she realized we needed them gone. There was no sense in taking the chance that the little ones would bring some communicable disease from the wild herd to the hogs we were raising for meat. So, I tried my best to dispatch the little ones. 

I was able to get pretty close when I had my rifle in hand, but the sights I put on the .22 rifle are not very functional for a person who wears tri-focal glasses. I did manage to dispatch two of the three and wound the third, but it took nine or ten shots to do so. It was not a pretty sight. I do not enjoy killing one of Mama sick chickens to put it out of its misery, so what I had to do to the piglets was very unpleasant. Mama was agonizing over the lone piglet hiding in the woods, but the next day Norman too care of that little one. Unlike me, he enjoyed the hunt. So, that little situation is over.

Last week I was seen by the ENT and the cardiologist. The ENT visit was uneventful. My voice will continue to improve, possibly to the point of being able to sing again – no guarantees. The cardiologist visit was very informative. The cardiologist, who I met for the first time after he took over the practice of the doctor I had been seeing for several years, was quite helpful. Once again, my issues, in his opinion, are related to medications. So, I am now on a different regimen. I was able to see a difference in my symptoms within the first twelve hours. Quite an improvement. However, my blood pressure seems to be a bit higher now. That is easier to deal with than the symptoms I had been experiencing. Overall, it was good news.

We also got our truck back last week. I am sure Roger, our mechanic, did more work to the truck than he charged me for, but I was not going to argue. It is good to have the truck back at the farm, but I do not know how long we will keep it. Mama and I talked extensively about selling the truck once we got it back, but now that we have the opportunity to sell it, I do not have peace about doing so. 

It is not a problem to keep it, but it will be a while before I trust it as I used to. For now, we are using the truck as needed, but it is not our first choice very often, especially on a longer excursion. That may change over time, but having the vehicle towed to the shop three times in eighteen months tends to limit our trust. Still, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as the saying goes. I know the full history of this truck. I will not have that information when I sell this vehicle and replace it with another used truck. Because buying new is not a consideration, we will hold where we are until the Lord give direction. 

Mama’s chicks were moved to larger cages in the West side of the coop last night. Mama postponed her Saturday afternoon move because the forecast called for two consecutive nights at or below freezing. The chicks are probably old enough to survive that cold with the heat lamps we provide, but Mama was not taking the chance. Honestly, there was no real urgency other that the crowding the twenty chicks were experiencing in the steel tub we had raised them in. 

Those two nights were hard on the young plants in our garden. Grandpa and Norman covered what they could of the most vulnerable plants but left the potato plants open to the elements. The frost Sunday night punished the plants harshly, but they will recover. Meanwhile, Mama and I have a couple dozen tomato plants growing in the sunroom and have planted peas, zucchini and okra in small starter peat cups as well. I will have to separate the tomato plants next week, but we have not seen any of the other seeds germinate yet. We still have time.

Since the weather has been fickle, we are taking our time putting out the plants we wintered over in the sunroom. Monday morning the temperature was 28 degrees. By Saturday afternoon, the high will be near 100 degrees. That’s quite the temperature shift. 

Typical for North Texas. 

The great mouse chase, fishing before the storm, three little pigs

A couple day ago, as I was sitting at the table in our dining nook, I heard Mama scream from the front porch. It was one of her “There’s a mouse!” scream so I paid little attention to it at first. But the screams continued periodically, followed by laughter from both Mama and Grandpa, who was helping Mama blow leaves and accumulated birdseed off the porch. The laughter was as loud as the screams, so I did not hurry to investigate. When I did join them on the porch, I found out the rest of the story.

In Mama’s blowing out the unreachable nooks and crannies of the porch, she had dislodged a mouse from it’s hiding place. However, the mouse did not merely run around the surface of the porch from one hiding place to another, that would have been bad enough. Instead it scampered up the brick walls of the house surrounding the porch on three sides. It was when the mouse took its vertical route that Mama screamed the loudest. 

To protect Mama from the dangerous rodent, Grandpa had grabbed the broom we leave on the porch and was trying to kill the mouse by knocking it from the wall and stabbing at it with the broom. That sufficed only to encourage the mouse to return to the surface of the porch where it would run in Mama’s direction. Eliciting another round of screaming. This went on for several minutes. 

Mama came into the house to get my help, but I told her there was very little hope of killing the mouse with all the obstacles we had sitting on the porch. She was adamant that I try anyway. By the time I got outside, Grandma had joined in the hunt, but no one had seen where the mouse last had hidden itself. We never saw the mouse again.

One of two things will likely happen. Either the mouse will see the folly of trying to occupy the front porch or it will go and gather several other mice to join it in the game of dodging the broom while a silly human cheers them on. 

Yesterday evening  I went fishing on the quarry lakes. Since I had my truck available, I drove over, which changes my approach to the water. The place I normally fish is quickly accessible by foot when I scamper down a steep incline to the lake. When I drive over, it is a long hike to the same location, so I was fishing from a different spot on the lower lake. 

Since I had no luck catching anything but grass. I packed up and drove to the upper lakes. On my first cast into the smaller of those lakes, I caught a nice bass, but it was too little to keep. Over the course of forty-five minutes, I landed another nine small bass. Nothing worth keeping, but always fun to catch them. By the time I loaded up and drove home, a slight rain was falling.

The storm that did finally come, hours later than predicted, was a severe storm. While we did not get any of the tornados forecast, we did get very high winds and over an inch of rain. The lightning and thunder were mesmerizing. Both continued well into the early morning hours. Every time the lightening woke me, I would count the seconds before the thunder sounded to calculate how far away the lightening had struck. It is better than counting sheep.

The three surviving piglets of the sow Norman shot have adopted our farm and have showed up several times a day around the area where we are raising our pigs. With the over-population of wild hogs, it is senseless to wish them to survive, but that is exactly what is happening. Mama is even talking about scattering some feed for the little ones in the patches of ground where they root for food. It is an exercise in foolishness, because when they get bigger, we will be forced to shoot them. But for now, they have garnered our sympathy. Silly humans!

I had an appointment with my ENT yesterday morning. He was pleased with my progress and suggested that I take voice lessons to not only strengthen my voice, but also to learn to use in more effectively. I will seriously consider his advice, but the price may be prohibitive. The doctor predicts that the surgery to my vocal cords will be able to help me retain my voice for a year or longer. I am praying he is correct. 

Tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment with my cardiologist. I am praying Mama and I will get some answers to the current condition of my heart. Time will tell.

Gardening, Eclipse, budding out, more chicks, more pigs

Mama and I went to Bro. Craig Shaw’s house yesterday before FBI class to see his garden setup. He has two large garden tracts. One is over a third of an acre and the other is about half that size. He has almost the same vegetables planted that we do, but he is about two weeks ahead of us on some of those selections. He has a large selectin of plants in his small greenhouse that will be put in his garden very soon. 

In our garden we have potatoes, onions, and lettuce coming up. Th pepper seeds Grandpa planted have not germinated yet. It is too early to plant sweet potatoes, cucumbers or squash, but those are on Mama’s agenda. I would like to see some pumpkins and watermelon sown somewhere in the garden, but I will have to wait. 

We did set up a couple sprinklers to water the garden. It took several tries to get the reach of the sprinklers set, but once we did, they are doing a great job of wetting the whole garden. Our garden plot, by the way, is considerably smaller than either of Bro. Shaw’s garden areas.

Mama and I were up a little earlier than usual this morning. The forecast for the lunar eclipse, where the earth’s shadow crosses the moon, was set for the 5 am to 6 am hour of the morning. We were there to see the start a little before 5 am. It was beautiful! The sky was clear despite the prediction of heavy cloud cover. Mama and I were able to get several okay pictures of the eclipse, but no camera, especially a phone camera, can do justice to the absolute beauty of such and event. 

Once again, we are in my favorite time of the year. Everything is budding out as Spring approaches. Since we have had an unseasonably warm February, all the plants are getting a head start. My pecan trees are now three years old but still only about four feet tall. Both are looking good as we head into Spring. The blackberries I potted are doing very well after I rescued them from the dry area we tried to plant them in. Both grape vines survived the Winter and are now showing signs of life as well as the roses we have planted in an opening in the back patio. Of course, all the plants we wintered over in the sunroom are doing well. 

Bro, Shaw gave us six tomato plants that he had grown from seeds. The seeds he used are the fifth or sixth generation of the heirloom seeds they have been using in their garden. That does give me a bit of hope since they are able to sell tomatoes at a market stand they set up each summer. Mama and I are also going to plant a few of the seeds he gave us so we can try our hand at tomatoes again. None of the local greenhouse plants we have bought over the past several years produced a single tomato. 

Still, I am not getting my hopes up. I do think that our garden will be better off this year since we have a watering system in place. That was always an issue. That and the soil that needed constant tilling to keep it soft enough to allow water to get to the deeper roots of our plants. I would like to see Grandpa succeed this year. It means a lot to him.

Yesterday, I set up our small incubator. We placed fifteen Banty eggs in it. We have had very consistent success with this incubator. I still do not know why Mama insists on hatching more chicks, but I always go along with her. The seven we hatched out several months ago are never separated from each other. Thick as thieves, they are always in a group, and they are very friendly. In fact, they will come running to us every time we go outside. 

When Mama was entertaining the King children, they had no problem picking up the chickens and carrying them around. The twin girls and the youngest son were quite enamored with the Banty chickens. Unfortunately, six of them are roosters and will soon be sold. Maybe the batch we have in the incubator will be more hens. Time will tell. 

A week ago, Norman shot several wild hogs. One of those eliminated was a sow with several piglets. Yesterday three of those piglets showed up trying to make nice with our domestic pigs. They are tiny, and as such are cute as can be. Sadly, we cannot rescue them. 

They will need to be dispatched but I do not have the heart to do it. 

Oops, more chickens, weather

In our exuberance to combat the overpopulation of wild hogs plaguing us, we almost made a serious mistake yesterday morning. As I was getting ready to leave for the museum, about 7:15, Mama opened the curtains in our bedroom on the window that looks to the West. Normally we see the goats milling about as they wait for us to feed them. Yesterday Mama looked past the goats and saw several big hogs in the field beyond the goat paddock. 

She alerted Norman and both he and I got our rifles. It was only as we got closer that we realized they were our hogs. A quick look at the gate to the pen confirmed that. I am not sure how long the pigs had been out rooting for acorns, but it had been several hours. Possibly before daylight. They had covered a large area but fortunately for us, they had stayed together. As we approached, they were happy to see us. It is easy to recognize their “happy to see you” grunts. It always makes me smile.

It did not take too much effort to get them back into their pen, but it did require setting up some roadblocks on their way back into their enclosure. I did not relish the thought or chasing them around the property. So, Norman and Mama herded them along the fence towards their pen. All in all, it took us about fifteen minutes to get them resettled. The interruption to my preparations to leave put me a bit off track and it was only when I was too far down the road that I realized I had forgotten my wallet. 

It's kind of funny, because as I was driving off, I saw Mama feeding the girl goats and knew she would be walking in front of the house to go feed the boy goats. I backed up and circled the driveway to intercept her so I could get my goodbye kiss. As I headed back to the car after our proper goodbye, Mama asked if I had everything I needed with me but all she listed out was my cellphone, not my wallet. It was not a big deal. The only consequence was that I did not have money to buy anything to eat. So, I fasted for the day. 

I had a good but largely uneventful day at the museum. I got to spend a bit of time looking over the EDS unit that I will have to pack up and ship off soon to have the repairs made. It will be a chore, but nothing insurmountable. Plus, it was requested that I call Vili, the service tech, as I was doing the disconnection and let him double check my work. When the box comes that is needed for packaging up the transmitter unit, I will get the disconnection and packaging done. I guess it will take me four to five hours to complete. 

Also, Tuesday or Wednesday, Norman and Grandpa bought five chicks to add to the fifteen Mama bought a few days earlier. Norman bought a straight run set of five. So, we will not know if we have hens or roosters until they mature. In addition to that, Mama is collecting Banty eggs to put in our incubator. Again, we will not know what we will have until those hatched chicks mature; 21 days from starting the incubator process. As I said in another post, we ended up with six roosters out of the seven that we hatched last time. 

We have potatoes coming up in the garden. I spotted the first sprouts to emerge Tuesday afternoon. When I told Mama and Grandpa they went to look the next morning and could not spot them until Mama told Grandpa that I see the first hints of green before anyone else is able to. So, they both looked a lot harder and eventually saw the sprouts throughout the rows. The onions are doing well for now and Grandpa planted cucumbers and several other vegetables yesterday. Hopefully, we will get the plants well established before the summer heat kills them.

Other than the storm a few weeks ago, the Winter has been mild. It does not look like we have a chance of freezing weather anytime soon but that could change quickly. Other that it being unusually dry, we have survived the worst of the season and very warm days are upon us. Eighty degrees today and tomorrow with the long-range forecast for highs in the upper seventies. 

We don’t know what is in store for us this Summer, but it could be a scorcher. 

Doctor’s appointments, Godly council, vehicle issues

Both Grandma and I had doctor’s appointments yesterday. Mine was a bit earlier than Grandma’s so we had to take separate vehicles. My appointment was a wellness visit. It was quick and uneventful. My bloodwork was, in all areas tested, the same as the results from the last time I was tested. I shared my more recent concerns with my doctor, and we agreed to wait until after I see my cardiologist next month to see if we need any further investigation of my symptoms or to change course in my health maintenance routine.

Grandma’s doctor visit was a complete disaster. The reason for her appointment was to see of the doctor could clear the buildup of wax occluding her right ear. When the attempt was made to soften the glob of wax by softly squirting warm water into Grandma’s ear she screamed in pain. Fussing at both the doctor and Mama for torturing her. The doctor was deeply apologetic even though she knew the infusion of water did not actually cause the pain Grandma was angrily complaining of. It might have been uncomfortable or a bit unusual feeling, but to say it was causing excruciating pain was a hard stretch. Mama was upset because there was no consoling or calming Grandma. 

Mama left the office with a splitting headache and Grandma left the office with a still plugged ear and a very bad attitude. When Mama attempted to take Grandma to lunch to see if she could distract her from the experience, that too was a disaster. Grandma’s burger was replaced three times because the bun was too dark (burnt in Grandma’s eyes), then the burger was not fully cooked, so she says. On the third burger offered to her she took one bite and declared it did not taste right. Mama’s headache was pretty severe by the time she got home. I ate what was left of Grandma’s burger during our FBI class last night. It was delicious!

Prior to our FBI class, Mama dropped me off at church for my meeting with Pastor. We talked about a range of topics for almost an hour. Although the meeting did not reveal any new plan of action to me, Pastor agreed with my overall reasoning concerning the sale of our farm and our plans to relocate Mama to Florida. Mama read me a post this morning that seemed to sum up what Pastor and I agreed upon, to set a course and prayerfully do the next right think required to stay on course. 

God rarely tip His Hand to us. That is always for the better. His plans are so much better than anything we would think up. For me, the most notable part of my consultation with Pastor is confirmation that Mama and I are lined up together with what sems to be God’s direction at this moment in our lives. That helps. I do not want to wander offtrack looking for the next shiny thing. 

After paying another $5000 (three days past) to get his truck out of the shop, Norman called to ask if we could pick him up at the church where he is working so that he could get Seth’s truck to tow his truck either home or back to the mechanic. It appears the transmission has gone out. The mechanic he has been using is not getting rich off Norman, but he is certainly making a good living servicing this truck. It provides a steady stream of income for his garage. 

My truck on the other hand is still sitting in my mechanic’s yard waiting repairs. It has not cost me anything, but it has done me no good to own it for the past 18 months. I’m probably better off, but it is hard to tell. Last time I talked to Roger about my truck, he told me he had to get help moving it out of his front yard. His wife was not happy with it as a yard ornament. I would love to have it back, but I am inclined to sell it as soon as it is functioning properly. I want to avoid Norman’s mistake of holding onto something that has caused me so much trouble. 

Today is cleaning day. In the house and in the coops. There is always so much that needs to be done. 

God is good!

Pigs, chicks, goats, finding my voice

After months of complete silence from the parties who purchased the quarry beside us, Mama made contact last night to see if we could get help with the hog overpopulation we are dealing with. Michael Brennan returned Mama’s call for help and said he would get in touch with the owner of the property today. Please pray that happens. It is so bad that Norman drove through a group of about one hundred hogs (his estimation) Saturday evening as he was coming towards the farm on our county road. We have not seen them since but are constantly discovering the damage they leave in the wake of their foraging on our property. They are more of an inconvenience than a danger to us, but the longer they reproduce unchecked, the more of a danger they pose to us and our animals. 

I will be meeting with our Pastor today or tomorrow to get his council on Mama’s and my plans to sell the farm and relocate. Pray the Lord will give him wisdom. There are times when we are too close to a problem, a trial, a decision. So close that we cannot sort our own calculations, plans, expectations, or personal desires from the Lord’s leading. We can start to read too much into the happenstances related to a difficult decision and move in the wrong direction. We will say to ourselves, “This or that happened, so it must be the Lord directing us in this direction.” Maybe, maybe not. Hence the need for council to evaluate if we are seeing things properly. Plus, I enjoy the Pastor’s company.

Our urge to seek council was strongly reinforced Sunday as our friend Dan Martin, an evangelist, preached on following your heart versus following the leading of the Lord. A timely message for me and Mama. In considering our situation here on the farm, neither Mama nor I have any urgent desire for a certain outcome, but we still must decide what to do. It must be a wise decision, since three families will be directly impacted by that decision – Mama and I, Norman, and Grandma and Grandpa. We only get one shot at it. The great news! The Lord has already prepared the way for us. When we are certain we know that way, we will pursue it. Not until then. For now, we will enjoy the farm…even with the rampaging hogs. 

On Saturday Mama got fifteen chicks, hopefully female chicks. I was not overjoyed but I was not opposed. Plus, she is planning to hatch out another group of Banty chicks as well as allowing a sitting hen to hatch the clutch she is hording. If all those come to fruition, we will have plenty to deal with in the coop for months. If we are moderately successful raising the chicks to maturity, we will have twenty or so new laying hens. Unless the ratio of hens to roosters is like the last batch we hatched. There is only one hen in the lot of seven we are now watching grow up. 

The only apprehensions I have to augmenting our flock is the number of hawks we have circling the sky above our farm and the warming weather coming. Warming weather always portends the return of snakes to our farm. If we can get these chicks to the point that they are too large for the rat snakes to kill them it would be better, but we may have started too late in the Winter to do so. Time will tell.  

Mama is thinking about selling our two male goats. We no longer have need of either of them and it would be nice to see them rehomed. With the approach of kidding time, I would like to refocus our feed expenses away from the males and onto the kids we are expecting soon. We have five nanny goats bred, and all are showing signs of their pregnancies. One or two will be giving us kids in three weeks or so. The remaining three will take a little longer. Perhaps five to six weeks. By then, the weather will be considerably warmer so Mama will not fret too much when the newborns come.

My voice is recovering nicely. It now resembles the voice I used to have, but I am still not able to sing. That is not too bad as far as recovery goes. This Wednesday will be two weeks since the surgery. 

As rough as it was that first week, this one has been much better. 

Sad but necessary, Grandpa, Swap meet, Gracious offer

Last night as we were all going to bed, I decided to step outside and listen. When I did, I clearly heard the hogs in the yard beside the shop. It sounded like several hogs were there and just me being on the patio startled them. Bear in mind that the moon was not up, and no lights were on, yet they knew I was there. I held still for a moment before I turned and went back into the house. Hoping not to scare them away.

I got Norman out of bed. He was still on his phone getting comfortable for the night, so when I told him about the pigs nearby, he quickly got on a pair of shoes and his rifle, and we headed outside. I had a flashlight in hand as we snuck around the front of the house towards the garage. We were halfway there when we realized that a sow and her little ones were only thirty yards away from rooting for acorns in the front yard. 

Norman got off one shot as I held the light on the sow. He resighting for another shot because, clearly confused, the sow was in no hurry to run off. He sighted more carefully, pulled the trigger and realized he was out of ammo. (He brought his Barny Fife rifle to the hog hunt.) We watched as the sow led her eight little ones toward the woods behind our house. I am not sure he hit the sow with his only shot, but he was confident he had, so, we will see if the family quits tearing up our yard. It is a sad necessity to kill the hogs to stop their destruction of our property. Not something I enjoy, but something that must be done. 

I have mentioned lately that I have not been feeling well. More important is that Grandpa has not been feeling well either. He has never been one to complain, but it is easy to see how drastically he has slowed down over the past few weeks. He still spends as much time as possible piddling around the farm and working on the truck he and Norman are trying to resurrect. He enjoys each day as best he can, but he is struggling more and more to do so. He has shared his struggles with Grandma, but she is not understanding his concerns. Her mind is unwilling to allow Grandpa to diminish. He is still her rock. I can understand that.

Grandpa has said some things to me and Mama concerning his increasing struggle to walk. He has not been able to feel his feet for several years, so walking is a concerted effort for him. That has been slowing over the past months, but he still prefers to walk to the barn and opposed to driving there. His biggest concern is losing the use of his legs. He has vivid memories of his father, who died from complications of prostate cancer, being bedridden in his final days because he could no longer use his legs. Please continue to pray for him. Like me, he plans on living until the Lord takes him home. 

There is a swap meet going on in Decatur this weekend. It is a very big deal. Auto enthusiast from all over the United States travel to either sell or buy hard to find parts for the projects they are working on. For the last four or five years our church has set up a booth with parts donated from church members just so they can be there to pass out Bibles and tracts. It is a great soul winning opportunity. I participated for the past several years, but this time, I do not feel up to it. I hate to miss but with the struggle I am having with my voice and the fact that I do not have the energy, I will stay home and pray for those who are able to participate.  

The EDS is the blue unit stabbed into the microscope

I got some very good news earlier this week when I contacted the tech that has done all the maintenance on the Scanning Electron Microscope I operate at the Creation Evidence Museum. One of the additional electronic appendages, an EDS system, stopped working last year and we have not found a )way to get it corrected. However, the tech and the company he works for have developed a way to recondition and repair the unit. They have offered to donate their services for those repairs asking only that we purchase any parts necessary to complete those repairs.  That is huge. Potentially saving the museum tens of thousands of dollars. Please pray that they are able to get the unit functioning properly. 

It will make a huge impact on our research.