The weekend

I took off Thursday and Friday to burn some vacation and those turned out to be very productive days. I asked Bro. Daniel to meet me at Lowe’s Thursday morning to help me load twelve sheets of plywood for the floor of the chicken building I am building for Mama. It was a real help to have him there both to stack the plywood on the cart in the store and to load it into the truck for the trip home.

I did not realize how far from square I was on the foundation until we laid out our first piece of plywood. I was way off so we squared to the floor joists and cut where we needed to in order to get the flooring to fit. It turned our okay and I considered pulling up a couple corners to make the building more square but put that thought away when I really calculated the work involved to avoid cutting one piece of metal roofing when the roofing is attached. We were both worn out be the time we quit.

Friday I debated going to Lowe’s to get the linoleum Mama wants on the floor of the building but used the day to build the back wall of the coop building. I decided to use up the materials I had on hand before I buy anything else – since I am very low on cash and will be laid off this week. As it turned out the back wall, which is thirty two feet long took a majority of the materials I had on hand. I did have enough to make two of the partial front walls that are ten feet each before I ran out of two by fours. So, hopefully later this week I will get the walls in place and be able to determine just how much I need to finish laying out the walls and the roof.

That night we went to RU. Mama had arranged with Erin to get the kids from her so she and Sam could have the night without the kids. Victoria was to meet us at the church to help as soon as she got off work. It was one of those nights when Luke, their autistic son, was in one of those moods where he cannot contain his energy and will not be slowed by direction, by coaching, by threatening or any other normal means.

It would not have been too overwhelming except that we had the twins and another child and Mama decided that putting the icing on her cake took precedent over everything else. I did not realize how uptight I was until instead of telling Luke for the fiftieth time that half hour to leave the classroom door open I hit the door as he was closing it – and punched a large hole in it. That got Mama’s attention. So when Victoria arrived she took the Echavarria children home with her while Mama and I finished out the time with the three we had that evening. I called the pastor to let him know I had punched a hole in the door but that I would replace it. A rather humbling conversation.

Saturday Mama, Victoria and the children went to Trade Days. I told Mama she would have much more fun if I was not along – based on my outburst the night before. I continued my work on the chicken coop and when I ran out of materials I worked on a couple little items on the house and the farm. I got our last bale of hay to Daisy and as I was clearing that up I noticed Chester working on the fence across the road from us. We talked for a few minutes and he mentioned that a grass fire could be headed our way.

A neighbor was burning something on his property and the fire got out of control. Fortunately, it was a very slow burning fire. Through that fire I got to meet the owner of the property beside us, Ricky Taylor. I was impressed by him. I also go to meet Chuck Smith, Chester’s boss. In an attempt to hinder the fire from coming on to our property Ricky got his tractor and twenty foot disk to plow a firebreak. Chester, Chuck and I took down enough fence to get the tractor and implement through but the firebreak never got tested. Someone called the fire department and they showed up to put out what was left of the fire just before 9 pm.

It was an interesting weekend.