No more piglets, doctor’s visits, our truck is home, rehomed chicks

The sympathy for the three little piglets did not last long. After Mama discovered them inside the pen with our market pigs, she realized we needed them gone. There was no sense in taking the chance that the little ones would bring some communicable disease from the wild herd to the hogs we were raising for meat. So, I tried my best to dispatch the little ones. 

I was able to get pretty close when I had my rifle in hand, but the sights I put on the .22 rifle are not very functional for a person who wears tri-focal glasses. I did manage to dispatch two of the three and wound the third, but it took nine or ten shots to do so. It was not a pretty sight. I do not enjoy killing one of Mama sick chickens to put it out of its misery, so what I had to do to the piglets was very unpleasant. Mama was agonizing over the lone piglet hiding in the woods, but the next day Norman too care of that little one. Unlike me, he enjoyed the hunt. So, that little situation is over.

Last week I was seen by the ENT and the cardiologist. The ENT visit was uneventful. My voice will continue to improve, possibly to the point of being able to sing again – no guarantees. The cardiologist visit was very informative. The cardiologist, who I met for the first time after he took over the practice of the doctor I had been seeing for several years, was quite helpful. Once again, my issues, in his opinion, are related to medications. So, I am now on a different regimen. I was able to see a difference in my symptoms within the first twelve hours. Quite an improvement. However, my blood pressure seems to be a bit higher now. That is easier to deal with than the symptoms I had been experiencing. Overall, it was good news.

We also got our truck back last week. I am sure Roger, our mechanic, did more work to the truck than he charged me for, but I was not going to argue. It is good to have the truck back at the farm, but I do not know how long we will keep it. Mama and I talked extensively about selling the truck once we got it back, but now that we have the opportunity to sell it, I do not have peace about doing so. 

It is not a problem to keep it, but it will be a while before I trust it as I used to. For now, we are using the truck as needed, but it is not our first choice very often, especially on a longer excursion. That may change over time, but having the vehicle towed to the shop three times in eighteen months tends to limit our trust. Still, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as the saying goes. I know the full history of this truck. I will not have that information when I sell this vehicle and replace it with another used truck. Because buying new is not a consideration, we will hold where we are until the Lord give direction. 

Mama’s chicks were moved to larger cages in the West side of the coop last night. Mama postponed her Saturday afternoon move because the forecast called for two consecutive nights at or below freezing. The chicks are probably old enough to survive that cold with the heat lamps we provide, but Mama was not taking the chance. Honestly, there was no real urgency other that the crowding the twenty chicks were experiencing in the steel tub we had raised them in. 

Those two nights were hard on the young plants in our garden. Grandpa and Norman covered what they could of the most vulnerable plants but left the potato plants open to the elements. The frost Sunday night punished the plants harshly, but they will recover. Meanwhile, Mama and I have a couple dozen tomato plants growing in the sunroom and have planted peas, zucchini and okra in small starter peat cups as well. I will have to separate the tomato plants next week, but we have not seen any of the other seeds germinate yet. We still have time.

Since the weather has been fickle, we are taking our time putting out the plants we wintered over in the sunroom. Monday morning the temperature was 28 degrees. By Saturday afternoon, the high will be near 100 degrees. That’s quite the temperature shift. 

Typical for North Texas. 

The great mouse chase, fishing before the storm, three little pigs

A couple day ago, as I was sitting at the table in our dining nook, I heard Mama scream from the front porch. It was one of her “There’s a mouse!” scream so I paid little attention to it at first. But the screams continued periodically, followed by laughter from both Mama and Grandpa, who was helping Mama blow leaves and accumulated birdseed off the porch. The laughter was as loud as the screams, so I did not hurry to investigate. When I did join them on the porch, I found out the rest of the story.

In Mama’s blowing out the unreachable nooks and crannies of the porch, she had dislodged a mouse from it’s hiding place. However, the mouse did not merely run around the surface of the porch from one hiding place to another, that would have been bad enough. Instead it scampered up the brick walls of the house surrounding the porch on three sides. It was when the mouse took its vertical route that Mama screamed the loudest. 

To protect Mama from the dangerous rodent, Grandpa had grabbed the broom we leave on the porch and was trying to kill the mouse by knocking it from the wall and stabbing at it with the broom. That sufficed only to encourage the mouse to return to the surface of the porch where it would run in Mama’s direction. Eliciting another round of screaming. This went on for several minutes. 

Mama came into the house to get my help, but I told her there was very little hope of killing the mouse with all the obstacles we had sitting on the porch. She was adamant that I try anyway. By the time I got outside, Grandma had joined in the hunt, but no one had seen where the mouse last had hidden itself. We never saw the mouse again.

One of two things will likely happen. Either the mouse will see the folly of trying to occupy the front porch or it will go and gather several other mice to join it in the game of dodging the broom while a silly human cheers them on. 

Yesterday evening  I went fishing on the quarry lakes. Since I had my truck available, I drove over, which changes my approach to the water. The place I normally fish is quickly accessible by foot when I scamper down a steep incline to the lake. When I drive over, it is a long hike to the same location, so I was fishing from a different spot on the lower lake. 

Since I had no luck catching anything but grass. I packed up and drove to the upper lakes. On my first cast into the smaller of those lakes, I caught a nice bass, but it was too little to keep. Over the course of forty-five minutes, I landed another nine small bass. Nothing worth keeping, but always fun to catch them. By the time I loaded up and drove home, a slight rain was falling.

The storm that did finally come, hours later than predicted, was a severe storm. While we did not get any of the tornados forecast, we did get very high winds and over an inch of rain. The lightning and thunder were mesmerizing. Both continued well into the early morning hours. Every time the lightening woke me, I would count the seconds before the thunder sounded to calculate how far away the lightening had struck. It is better than counting sheep.

The three surviving piglets of the sow Norman shot have adopted our farm and have showed up several times a day around the area where we are raising our pigs. With the over-population of wild hogs, it is senseless to wish them to survive, but that is exactly what is happening. Mama is even talking about scattering some feed for the little ones in the patches of ground where they root for food. It is an exercise in foolishness, because when they get bigger, we will be forced to shoot them. But for now, they have garnered our sympathy. Silly humans!

I had an appointment with my ENT yesterday morning. He was pleased with my progress and suggested that I take voice lessons to not only strengthen my voice, but also to learn to use in more effectively. I will seriously consider his advice, but the price may be prohibitive. The doctor predicts that the surgery to my vocal cords will be able to help me retain my voice for a year or longer. I am praying he is correct. 

Tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment with my cardiologist. I am praying Mama and I will get some answers to the current condition of my heart. Time will tell.

Gardening, Eclipse, budding out, more chicks, more pigs

Mama and I went to Bro. Craig Shaw’s house yesterday before FBI class to see his garden setup. He has two large garden tracts. One is over a third of an acre and the other is about half that size. He has almost the same vegetables planted that we do, but he is about two weeks ahead of us on some of those selections. He has a large selectin of plants in his small greenhouse that will be put in his garden very soon. 

In our garden we have potatoes, onions, and lettuce coming up. Th pepper seeds Grandpa planted have not germinated yet. It is too early to plant sweet potatoes, cucumbers or squash, but those are on Mama’s agenda. I would like to see some pumpkins and watermelon sown somewhere in the garden, but I will have to wait. 

We did set up a couple sprinklers to water the garden. It took several tries to get the reach of the sprinklers set, but once we did, they are doing a great job of wetting the whole garden. Our garden plot, by the way, is considerably smaller than either of Bro. Shaw’s garden areas.

Mama and I were up a little earlier than usual this morning. The forecast for the lunar eclipse, where the earth’s shadow crosses the moon, was set for the 5 am to 6 am hour of the morning. We were there to see the start a little before 5 am. It was beautiful! The sky was clear despite the prediction of heavy cloud cover. Mama and I were able to get several okay pictures of the eclipse, but no camera, especially a phone camera, can do justice to the absolute beauty of such and event. 

Once again, we are in my favorite time of the year. Everything is budding out as Spring approaches. Since we have had an unseasonably warm February, all the plants are getting a head start. My pecan trees are now three years old but still only about four feet tall. Both are looking good as we head into Spring. The blackberries I potted are doing very well after I rescued them from the dry area we tried to plant them in. Both grape vines survived the Winter and are now showing signs of life as well as the roses we have planted in an opening in the back patio. Of course, all the plants we wintered over in the sunroom are doing well. 

Bro, Shaw gave us six tomato plants that he had grown from seeds. The seeds he used are the fifth or sixth generation of the heirloom seeds they have been using in their garden. That does give me a bit of hope since they are able to sell tomatoes at a market stand they set up each summer. Mama and I are also going to plant a few of the seeds he gave us so we can try our hand at tomatoes again. None of the local greenhouse plants we have bought over the past several years produced a single tomato. 

Still, I am not getting my hopes up. I do think that our garden will be better off this year since we have a watering system in place. That was always an issue. That and the soil that needed constant tilling to keep it soft enough to allow water to get to the deeper roots of our plants. I would like to see Grandpa succeed this year. It means a lot to him.

Yesterday, I set up our small incubator. We placed fifteen Banty eggs in it. We have had very consistent success with this incubator. I still do not know why Mama insists on hatching more chicks, but I always go along with her. The seven we hatched out several months ago are never separated from each other. Thick as thieves, they are always in a group, and they are very friendly. In fact, they will come running to us every time we go outside. 

When Mama was entertaining the King children, they had no problem picking up the chickens and carrying them around. The twin girls and the youngest son were quite enamored with the Banty chickens. Unfortunately, six of them are roosters and will soon be sold. Maybe the batch we have in the incubator will be more hens. Time will tell. 

A week ago, Norman shot several wild hogs. One of those eliminated was a sow with several piglets. Yesterday three of those piglets showed up trying to make nice with our domestic pigs. They are tiny, and as such are cute as can be. Sadly, we cannot rescue them. 

They will need to be dispatched but I do not have the heart to do it.