Steve, new business, new shelter

I got a call from a family friend Sunday night. It was too late to return the call by the time I saw the missed it, so I called him back yesterday evening. I had texted him earlier in the day to let him know I did get the call and would be catching up to him late in the day Monday. When I did give him a ring, he was out on a tractor somewhere. I had to hold while he got whatever he was working on paused. Steve had passed over the Guadalupe River earlier in the week and it brought to his mind all the fun we had on our excursions canoeing down the river. The nostalgia encouraged him reach out so he could get caught up on all our kids – the playmates he lost when we moved to New Jersey. The rundown took about thirty minutes, but it was a pleasure to reaffirm the friendship. Steve, now in his mid-seventies, still does consulting work for a drilling outfit and never sits still when he is at home. He has stayed connected with us since we moved into his neighborhood in the late 90s. In all those years we have witnessed to him and he has remained gracious to our witness, but resistant to the Gospel. We will see him at Joshua’s wedding in a couple months. We will share the Gospel one more time. It would a pure delight to share Heaven with him.

Yesterday morning, Mama and Kim Cantrell worked at the church for a couple hours. They were decorating Mama’s Sunday School room. One of the Sunday School rooms is decorated to resemble a farm and all the children get to be the animals on the farm. Mama’s will be a garden where all the children will be flowers in the garden. They did not finish yesterday, but each of them have high hopes for the project. Right now, Mama does not have anyone in her class but when those in the farm class are promoted, they will enter the garden. She has been talking about doing this for some time now. Seeing it finally become a working project has her quite excited. Having help makes it even more fun for her.

While the two of them worked, they developed a business model of sorts. I am still trying to piece together the marketable items this partnership will offer but they seem committed to the idea. Both are anxious to generate some income. Right now, Mama has only her egg money to spend as she sees fit. Kimberlyn does not even have that. We will see what they come up with, but Mama can be quite creative and Kimberlyn is gifted artistically. There are plenty of ideas out there in the internet world. They do not have to come up with something new, they just have to produce something marketable.

I spent a large portion of the day with two of our company partners that will be taking over one of the classes I teach. I am encouraged by their ideas and insights. The wealth of experience they bring to the class will take us to a new level of instruction. They will probably teach the class next month. If we split the class into two groups – as we did this month – each of then will get to present the class on the same day. That should prove interesting. It is a relief to me to have them involved in making this particular class into something more relevant than it is in its current form. It will serve this company well as the industry struggles to make the changes required to meet constantly shifting regulations. And it will help new recruits to the industry to grasp more clearly what is required of them in the role we present in the class.

Once the evening chores were done yesterday evening and I ate a bit of soup, I spent an hour assembling pallets into a shelter in the second paddock. I had laid out the pallets last week, but it rained too much Saturday to assemble them. What I did get done last night made a good start on the building. I hope to complete the assembly by the end of the week. The pallets, once assembled, will require an exterior of either metal or wood. That will be the only expense of assembling this shelter. It is a bit unclear when I will be able to get that done so it will be added to my growing list of almost finished projects. I do believe it will get priority because Mama is desperate to get the larger lambs separated from the ewes. Right now, I have no good place on our farm to offer her to get that done. If she follows through on her plans, we will simply put the lambs in the coop area.

That should make our normal feedings more interesting.