Loading Coal, cutting pieces, the cello

I met mama for lunch yesterday. She had a lot of little errands in town, so we met at Braum’s. She got a burger and I ate what I had brought for lunch. As we were sitting in Braum’s, Mama mentioned that Tractor Supply had chicks for fifty cents apiece. I told her to go ahead and get some. At that price, how could we go wrong? We are already set up for chicks. We have two batches of chicks in two different areas of the coop and could easily manage a few more. She bought ten pullets of different varieties and ten straight run of Cornish hens. The Cornish hens will need to be processed by the end of next month. They are for eating only. We have been told that they are the best chickens to grow for the table. We will see. So, now we have forty chicks in various stages of development at or in the coop.

The first order of business last night was to get the racks on the truck so Coal could be loaded. Mama has had the appointment at the meat market set for over a month – the earliest one we could schedule - so we did not want to miss it. Victoria was home just before I got home so I had the help I needed. Coal weighs over one hundred pounds now. That is more than I can handle by myself when it comes to “walking” him to the truck and lifting him into the bed. Since Mama has been feeding animal crackers to the goats, Coal has taken a shine to the treats so he is far more social than he once was.

We tried catching him near the gate into the paddock by offering the crackers to our male herd, but he was too skittish to be so easily caught. It is amazing just how fast he could move when we tried to grab him. Eventually, Mama got them into the shelter where they normally feed and Victoria and I were able to get hold of him. He was not at all cooperative as we walked him to the truck. We held up his front legs and let him walk on his hind legs – when he would. Mostly he dropped his butt to the ground and forced Victoria and I to drag him most of the distance to the truck. Maybe fifty paces. He loaded easily enough once we got him to the truck, but he bawled loudly the rest of the evening and into the night. But he is loaded, and Mama can make the trip to Muenster to offload him this morning. She will get some feed while she is there and go from the feed store to visit with Kim Cantrell for the rest of the day.

Once the lamb was loaded and feed distributed, I took some time to cutout some pieces I had marked for the beehive frames. It was not difficult with the tools I have, but I was a little disappointed with the inconsistency of my work. They will work, but they do not look nearly as nice as the machined pieces sent in the kit I assembled. All the replacement parts were cut from scraps I had lying about in the shop. I will have to see if I can do better at some future date, but for now, they will have to suffice to complete the assembly. It was fun to do, and it took less than an hour to cut the twenty pieces. If nothing else, it was good practice.

I stopped around 6:30 so I would have time to water the plants before I quit for the evening. I wanted to leave myself plenty of time to get out the cello and see if I could figure out how to play it. Once I cooled down enough to shave and shower, I go the instrument out. It took me about twenty minutes to tune it using a frustrating app on my phone. I do not remember how many ads I had to go through as I struggled to get the cello tuned, but it was exasperating. Once tuned, I got out the pages I had printed and started learning the notes. After about forty minutes, I began to get the hang of it and was able to figure out a couple songs. Mama loved it. At least she was able to recognize the tunes I was trying to play. The cello my brother Tony gave me has a wonderful, rich, relaxing sound. It is frustrating to begin at the beginning, like anyone learning an instrument, but I hope to advance quickly.

While I am learning the cello, I will not abandon the guitar. We have a young man in the church that plays the guitar the way I would like to, so I will learn from him as I progress on both instruments. Somewhere in all of that, I will get out my old violin and see how far I have regressed on that instrument. Whatever time I give to the instruments will be time well spent.

Who knows what God can do with it?