Busy day, acclimating, win-wins

Yesterday was a busy day workwise. I was trying to keep up from the time I signed on until the time I signed off. That made the day pass by very quickly. I even took a very abbreviated lunch. I do not have days like that very often and when I do, I struggle with my connection to the internet, but yesterday it all seemed to work out. From rework on a project I had tested in an 8-hour online class to cleaning up a complicated spreadsheet to make it service a new need as we move our training online. Tomorrow I will be teaching a class all day. This will be in-person at the office. We are still drastically reducing the size of our live classes to accommodate the still touted distancing requirements, so I will have only three participants in my session while Red will have four in his concurrent session.  To think, only a few months ago each of us would have twenty-five to thirty in each of our concurrent sessions. My how times have changed.

The hurry of the day carried over into the afternoon and evening. Mama and Victoria went to look at a small house in Alvord. Victoria is starting to get the bug to get a place of her own, but it is not within her grasp at the moment so there will be a lot of time spent looking. I did not go along for the tour. because my evenings are too short to give up an hour or more on a wild goose chase. Instead, I started building the porch for Mama’s small coop building. I used up all the lumber I had taken from other projects and repurposed it in the foundation of the porch so, I ran out of lumber about the same time that I ran out of energy. I had only been working on the porch for about an hour and a half when I ran out of materials, besides, I needed to leave an access point to the coop for Mama to continue tending the her little flock while I am getting the foundation built.

I will go to Lowe’s at lunchtime today to buy the lumber for the deck of the porch so that I can get it all done at once. I am making a corner step onto the porch so that Mama can easily get onto the porch from the front and get to the yard of the coop - which is to the side of the coop building - without having to exit the front and walk around the corner of the porch to access the coop yard. At least, that is my plan. We will see how that works out. I have laid out the foundation to accommodate the corner steps. As I put it all together, some things may have to change, but I at least have a plan in mind.

The issue with starting something like that in the late afternoon is that it is difficult to acclimate to the heat. By the time I get out – after shutting down work – I have to start in the hottest part of the day. Yesterday, by the time I started, the temperature was 97°. The humidity has been high but not like Honduras. There was no breeze. It was dead still. In the time I spent working I was soaked from the top of my head to the knees of my pants. Those are the times that wearing glasses becomes a pain. Sweat constantly dripping into the glasses as I bent over to build the porch foundation. Sweat dripping from my nose onto the boards I was working with. Sweat dripping from the end of my shirt sleeves. I was wet. At some point I will acclimate to the heat, but I am not there yet. Tonight, I will get as much done as I am able. We will see how far I get. But I know Wednesday and Thursday evenings are taken for church and entertaining a missionary family.

Months ago, I was able to get about 60 pallets from a guy down the road from us. Since I have been very slow to use those pallets, I gave about 40 of them to Daniel Wycoff. He and his son Steven are repurposing the wood into a variety of projects and they had just run out of pallets. I am happy for them to get the stacks off the farm. Those stacks have become a harbor for pest and snake by the wellhouse in the bran lot. Moving them out will allow me to keep that area mowed properly. Giving them the pallets will be a help to them as well. A win-win.

Meanwhile, there has been great progress on the houses in Lawton. we are not sure how long it will be before they are ready to be rented, but it should be very soon. Praise the Lord!