Officially sick, storms, not a total loss

Mama is officially sick. Just how sick remains to be seen, but she has the cough and sore throat, the nasal draining, the snotty-ness and the general malaise that confirm to her that she is not well. She is mad at me. Sort of. Not that I could have done anything about getting sick myself, but she can confidently pin her current discomfort on me. Oh, well. This too shall pass. The real reason she is upset is that it may cost her giving up traveling with Kim Cantrell this weekend. That decision has not been made, but Kimberlyn has a weakened immune system and is battling fibro myalgia. Unnecessarily exposing her to any virus would be unwise. None of us, Mama, Victoria or I want to go to the doctor and pay them to tell us we are sick. Though we may be forced to take them to shorten the infection, we do not want to take any antibiotics. So, we let our bodies fight the infection with minimal medical intervention using herbs and oils to help us cope with the symptoms and fortify our natural abilities to fight an infection. It is not the easy way, but in the long run, it is the best way. Mama will make her travel decisions this morning. I will await the final news on that front.

The storms that passed us by earlier in the week battered us most of the night last night. It all started just before dark. Very strong winds. Very heavy rains. Lots of thunder and lightning. I woke up several times through the night and it was storming every time. I do not know if it was the storm that woke me each time, but I laid listening as I fell back to sleep. I have always enjoyed storms – other than when we lived in Bowie and dreaded the approach of any bad weather.  As I left this morning, I checked the rain gauge. We got three inches of water overnight. Not a huge amount, but significant. As I left the farm, I noticed the HIGH WATER warning signs were up on FM1655. That is the route Victoria normally takes to work so, I called her to let her know she might have to take an alternate route. She might try it anyway but based on what I saw of the creek that I cross over on my way to town, the bridge that is normally flooded after storms like these will be underwater this morning. Fortunately, there are a number of alternate roads she can safely navigate to get her to the same place. For Mama, feeding will be a soupy mess this morning; especially with the pigs.

We got our check from the stock sale where we took our sheep. We did not do all that well with them. It was not a total loss. We got about 60% of what we had originally paid for the bred ewes. And we have five lambs to sell in a few months. We should end up with a 50% profit overall. Not counting feed and vet bills. As far as operating a small hobby farm goes, that is a pretty good return. I was not too disappointed. As I stated when we brought the ewes home, they were butt ugly sheep. Compared to the Dorper sheep already in the lot, I had the feeling that ours would not sell high. Overall, I am pleased with our little venture into sheep. We will probably not repeat it. If we want some lamb or mutton in the future, we will buy one to have it processed. We will not raise it ourselves.

With the cows our neighbor took to the sale for us, I am at a loss to even guess what we will get for them. Some weeks the market is up. Some weeks the market is down. I suppose it depends on who is there to buy on any particular day. But both of the cows we were forced to sell were born on our farm so, any money we make on them can be tagged as a profit. At least in farming terms. We should have that check tomorrow or Saturday. At the very least, it provides us the cash we need to buy feed for the next several months – if we do not spend it elsewhere.

Cori called last night to offer me an inroad into Medical Missions Outreach as a translator. That would be an answer to prayer. I will make the contact and see how things work out.