Skirts, taxes, Owen Daniel

Thursday was a blur. Both Mama and I were still recovering from the San Diego trip on Tuesday and Wednesday, so Thursday was the first day we felt like we had a clear enough mind to attack the accumulation of tasks that needed to be done before we could leave Friday morning to see Owen. The shop needed to be dried out and cleaned up. The chicken coop had to be cleaned. Feed had to be distributed. Everything needed to be rearranged and dried out because of the rain we continued to get. So, as soon as I got home from work, I changed I went out the door to get started. Before we left for San Diego, I had rescued the one woodworking table from the flooded area of the shop but I had left the mess sitting in the water that had accumulated on the shop floor because of the hard rain we had had over the time I was in Michigan. It took two trash bags to contain the mess of cardboard and Styrofoam used to pack the table for shipment. Fortunately, the table was largely unharmed by the water.

On my way home, I had stopped by the Chinese restaurant to get the cages we had left with Lin and Alex. I did not remember that we had also loaned them dog crates so they could go get baby goats at Trade Days. All in all, there were four cages they had been waiting for me to pick up from them. No wonder they were anxious to get them out of their little storage building. I unloaded those by the shop and started my cleanup before Mama got home. She had some LuLa Roe business to attend to on her way home. Once I got the trash accumulated, I headed to the dump – three minutes before it closed for the day. Then we got started on the feed, the feeders and the coop. While we were tending to the Nubian goats Mama decided we needed to put Skirts down. She had never recovered from the time she was caught by her horns in the fence, but it would have to wait until we had taken the time to do our business research once we were free to go to the office to do so. We only had about an hour and one half, but we made the most of it and once we got back home, I handled Skirts for the last time. Sad.

We needed to be up early Friday morning because I had scheduled an appointment with our tax accountant in Amarillo. The only slot he had available for Friday was at noon. Mama and I needed to leave by 6 am to make the appointment. We made it to that appointment in plenty of time and took our time once we got together with our accountant. It all worked out because Owen and Makaila did not get released from the hospital until after 1 pm. So, we ate a leisurely lunch and stopped by Texas Tea on our way to visit with our newest grandson. Chase and Makaila had moved from the last place we visited them to an apartment on the south side of Amarillo, so we had to track them down. It was not too hard. Makaila told us as we were snuggling with Owen that this was the seventh move she and Chase had made – all of them within Amarillo.

Owen is one of those little boy babies that looks like a little boy. He was only two days old when Mama first held him Friday morning, but he seems like a very mellow baby. Like his daddy, he is content to sleep, eat a little and sleep some more. He barely made a sound as we passed him among us. Mama especially enjoyed holding him and Chase and Makaila were happy to watch. Happy to share him with us.

It still gives me a bit of a pause t think of Chase as a daddy, but he is stepping into the role happily. They have a large extended family in Amarillo, so they will have plenty of help when they need it. Owen has two little boy cousins only a few months older than him. If they stay there, he will have playmates built into the family unit. Mama and I will be content to watch from wherever we are, visit as often as we are able and hold them up in prayer.

That is a grandparent’s life.