The weekend, prayer and perceptions, Mama, Brittany

The weekend was hot – very hot. Still, we worked on clipping the goat’s hooves – that proved to be an interesting and far overdue experience - and I hung a ceiling fan in the chicken coop. I had replaced the ceiling fan in Victoria’s bedroom and the one I took out was just the right size to put into the coop. It took more of an effort than I had counted on. I had to reset the outlet and the support board for the outlet to move the fan far enough into the coop so that the door could open with the fan running. I also raised it a couple inches to be on the safe side. The noise it makes while operating is not a bother to the chickens like it was for Victoria; however, we had to catch the stubborn chicks and put them back into the coop the first night the fan was running. They do not like anything new.

As for the goats, they have to have their hooves clipped several times per year. We had not taken the time to follow through since we bought them. Like our finger nails, the hooves grow out and begin to turn under making it painful for the goats to walk. For Kai, it was way overdue. His had grown out to the point that the “fingernails” were growing into the quick of the adjacent side of each hoof. He was having trouble getting around. I started with him because he was having the most trouble but we went on to clip two others before we moved on to other things. So, we still have three girls and the two boys to do. Hopefully, Victoria will help me do that this week. Kai is getting around better, but I am trying to talk Mama into taking him to the market so we can get some real use out of him. I’m not sure, but at this point he may be too old to provide good meat.

Sunday sermons were on prayer in the morning service and perceptions in the evening service. Both were good instructional sermons. The one on how we interact with God through our weak, timid and selfish prayer efforts. If we communicated with our spouse in the same way we pray, we would not have very strong marriages. I don’t know about everyone else but I need some serious improvement in my prayer life – and I could always improve on my communications with my wife.  Likewise, our perceptions of ourselves, others and God are mostly lacking. We tend to vacillate between thinking either too highly of ourselves or too poorly of ourselves – moving from self-deprecating to self-promoting with fascinating ease. Neither is productive. Neither is honest. That struck home for me and Mama; guilty on both counts.

Mama heads out this morning for Brittany’s. She has made the trip several times now so it should be uneventful. She missed a call from Brittany last night and was panicked thinking she had missed something important. I tried to reassure her that if there were something important, Brittany would have left a message but Mama started talking about heading up last night – until I told her that I would not permit her to drive six hours to Wichita in dead of night. After several attempts to reach Brittany, Brittany finally called back and reassured Mama that everything was really alright; hence, the departure this morning.

So far, Brittany is in good spirits, the babies are healthy and the doctor is confident that all will go well with the delivery. Andrew is home for the birth and Mama is headed up to be the matronly support for our daughter in this, her first delivery. As with all pregnancies, things are subject to change without notice. We are hoping for the best and trusting the Lord in all those areas where we have no control. He has brought the twins safely this far, we can trust Him to complete the work He started.

There were storms in the area last night and we hoped for some rain. At the very least, the lightening show was beautiful. I told Mama I would be happy with an inch or less of rain. We ended up with 3 ½ inches total. That’s not a bad thing but it damaged the tarp we have over the little chicken house, flooded the pig areas with water and filled the feeders we use for the goats with water. Mama had to dump water from the feeders and dry them because the goats will not eat wet food. We will deal with any damages or extra work because the tradeoff is to the benefit of all the plants and trees that are struggling to survive in the triple digit heat.