Help, the move, defending ourselves

Krystal came by sometime yesterday afternoon to drop off Norman so he could do the evening feeding with Mama. Since Mama is on standby and I am definitely traveling next week, Mama needed a backup plan for feeding in our absence. With Victoria working and Grandma and Grandpa some distance away, it makes sense to have a helper closer to the farm. Some things have changed since Norman last helped Mama do the feeding, so he was reintroduced to all the locations where the feed is kept. All the locations of the waterers. All the nuances of who gets how much feed and where to place the feeders in case of rain. We should have plenty of feed available and I will ensure sufficient is put out before I leave next Tuesday afternoon. Norman is a good helper. The saving grace of having younger helpers is that if feed and water get put out on a regular basis, the animals will be fine. Collecting and sorting eggs is a bit touchier, but, again, we can work with however it gets accomplished.

We also needed the help yesterday evening to get the weanling girls relocated. I was not completely ready with the new lot, but I found a piece of fencing to cover the gate. It was made for cattle, not young goats. I also found a few pieces of metal siding to cover the back and some of the sides of the shelter. Until I get that completed, the little girl goats can fit easily into the igloo doghouse I put in the enclosure. It was a challenge to catch a couple of the young ones, but since they are fainting goats, all we had to do was scare them sufficiently to get them to stiffen up and slow down. Once caught we carried them to the new lot. It was a good distance to walk from the paddock with the nanny goats to the new lot (past the house, behind the shop) with a squirming, bleating thirty-pound weanling. But we made it. Norman took one. I took one each time in two separate trips. Victoria took one. Actually, Victoria took the second one from my arms at the corner of the house.

I still need a permanent latch for the gate at the new lot, but I found exactly what I needed at a farm store in Decatur yesterday. I will get that welded on this evening. It was fun yesterday evening finding exactly what I needed for the gate and the back of the shelter in the scrap pieces I have accumulated. None of those pieces needed to be cut. They fit perfectly. I will need to make some cuts to fit metal to the remaining portions for the shelter, but I will not have to buy any metal to get it covered. I get to finish a project and clean up the farm at the same time. A win-win. Praise the Lord!

Kimberlyn might try to get together with Mama today. She and Kenny were at church Sunday night and Kenny gave a presentation on what to do in an active shooter/attacker situation. It is a shame that we, as a church, need to plan and prepare for such an eventuality, but that is the prudent path forward. I came away from the presentation with more questions than answers, but I did not ask for any clarification. Even though Kenny knew what he was talking about, he left some questions in people’s heads on how exactly we are to respond in such a situation. Maybe there are no good answers. The takeaway in general was that you must analyze the situation, accept that there is a danger to you and others and get out if possible. You must deny the attacker access to the area you and others are in – when possible. Several ways were shown on how that can be done. Lock the doors and turn the lights off. Wrapping a belt over the opener arm on a door to keep it from opening. Barricading the door with whatever you can find. Lastly, you must be ready to defend yourself. Do not fight fair. Do not give up. It was a powerful presentation. How we will apply it to our church is being finalized but it was something we needed to see.

Mama’s greatest worry is that in such a situation, she cannot get down to a crawling position and she cannot move quickly. Hopefully, we will never need to apply either of those options. It did make me think of Cori and Nate’s church in Honduras. They are more vulnerable there than we are here. Praise the Lord, nothing like that is happening in Honduras but it does give me pause when I think about how the church is set up. There is still a respect for churches in that culture.

Sadly, here, there is not.