The week in retrospect, looking forward

It is difficult to step back thorough the past week and do a summary when I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday.; but I can try.

With OSHA training taking all my time Tuesday through Friday last week, I did not get a lot done at the farm; besides, I have not felt well all week. I missed work Monday because I was feeling so poorly. (I passed the exam at the end of the OSHA class, so that was a relief.) I did manage to get the well at the barn running properly. It quit on Mama Tuesday morning. I replaced the control box on Tuesday evening but it did not work as expected. It kept clicking because the relay in box, which sends power to the pump pressure switch, would not reset when the circuit was open. In other words, when the pressure switch shut off because it had met it’s set point the relay would keep trying to keep sending power over to the switch. It did not hurt the operation of the pump but I knew it would quickly fry the relay. So, I pulled the control box back off and got another one on Thursday. When I tried it, it did the same thing. At that point, I knew it was something I had done in the initial wiring – but I could not see a way to do it differently.

I took back some hours on Friday by taking the afternoon off. The first thing I did was pull the control box – which comes apart in two pieces – and wired in the relay from an old control box that had worked properly until the capacitor went out. When I put that relay into service, it worked perfectly. I am not sure what the difference is, but we are leaving it as is for now. It is a great convenience to have water at the locations that well supplies, especially since the garden has needed constant water through the past week. Even though the nights have been cool, the afternoons seem to bake the plants and by evening they are withered to the point of Mama and I thinking we have lost them. We have been watering every evening to keep them healthy. We are not alone in that, everyone we know is fighting the same battle.

Saturday was Trade Days. Mama was excited about it because Leslie Ling, Cheyenne, Yilin and Mr. Plumley were all going with her. She was excited that I might be going, but I backed out. I was still not feeling well and did not relish the chatter and questioning that goes along with such an excursion feeling the way I did. They all had a good time at Trade Days while I went to get the doors Mama had ordered. Since we needed to get the doors picked up on Saturday and it was in the opposite direction from Bowie, it made sense to me. Plus, it gave me something to do on my own.

Mama, et. al., had a good time looking at all the stuff Trade Days offers; so much so, that they came home with two rabbits – big rabbits. As I understand it, Leslie gave them the buck and they bought the cage and the doe from someone at Trade days. Now I have to build rabbit hutches and nesting boxes and buy feeders and waterers. Not something I was planning on doing with the very limited spare time I seem to have at the moment. Right now, we have the cages sitting on top of a set of shelves I threw out of the well house. Neither Mama nor Victoria were delighted with the set up but it is all I could do with the advance notice I got.

This week I will be traveling – starting this afternoon. I should be back in the office Friday. Next week I think I will be traveling again, but I am not sure as I write this note. The following week – the end of the month – I will be in Houston at a conference. This is a bit more than I bargained for but I accepted the assignment so Mama and I will endure hoping things slow down a little.

Friday when I am back home I hope to see a doctor to find out what I have been wrestling with for the past several months.

Another full weekend

Mama and I had quite weekend. Since I got back from my traveling after 7 pm on Thursday I got to take off the afternoon to balance out the hours for work. I took the time to make some wood tops for a couple of the feed barrels that had no lids. The wood was salvaged from Victoria’s house – now the Burns’ house. While I was working on that I heard a horn blow in our driveway. When I went to investigate, there was a man waiting by his pickup. He saw the “Beware of Dogs” sign we have never taken down and took it to heart. He was a salesman from a paving company looking for a place to use some extra blacktop left over from a nearby job. I have been approached before with the same offer but I let him talk. After a lot of discussion, he got down to a price I could live with – one Mama and I could afford – but I would not commit without talking it over with Mama. Well, she pulled into the drive at that moment. After we talked a bit we decided to let him do the work. So, within a few hours, we had a new blacktop drive. It loops all the way around the circle and connects with the concrete of the drive at the garage. There was a plan to do the carport/shop but there was not enough material to complete that after some of the low spots in the circular drive had been filled and leveled.  I am not sure if concrete may actually be a better choice in the long run, but the price quoted to me was hard to pass up at that moment. For now, the site is prepared for either, which is a nice change from the clutter that had been there.

Saturday I spent a lot of time getting the well house cleaned out. By the time I had worked there for a couple of hours I had a huge load of trash to go to the dump. I did find a couple of the things Mama had been looking for. She was relieved to have them back. On the other side, we had to throw away a lot of items that the rats and mice had nested in and soiled beyond recovery. None of the items was a great loss; which leads me to question why we had been storing them in the first place. Now, everything in the well house is packed in totes which seems to deter the rodents from setting up homes in them. There is still a good bit of clean up and rearranging to be done – as seems to be the case with everything I start on – but I am pleased with the results for now.

Later that afternoon, I took the mower that Mike brought us and chewed up the leaves that we have piles up in several places; most importantly in the garden. It worked well enough to get that done but I will have to do some repairs to it to get it to work well enough that Mama can use it. I never did get the bagger portion to work properly and at one point I hit something that blew the cover off of the side where you would normally make the change from mulching to bagging. So everything blew out the side discharge and covered me thoroughly. Needless to say, I did not get everything done with that that I had planned to do, but I could only take so much of the dirt and dust covering me.

Even though we had been under the threat of severe storms all weekend I took time to water the plants and the garden before I went to prayer meeting with the men of the church. Everything needed a good dousing and it did not look like the stormy skies would give us any rain so I took the chance of overwatering as opposed not giving our plants any water at all. It turned out to be a good decision. Even with 80-90% chances of rain predicted, we go nothing here.

All in all, it was a good weekend.

Bad timing, new kids, new challenges

While I was in Leander, TX Mama and Victoria had quite an evening; so much so that Mama told me that I was not allowed to leave again. It all started when she got home and found Kira attacking Tilly. Lately Tilly and Molly – the two pot belly pigs - have been escaping their enclosure and foraging in the secondary enclosure where the coop sits. It had not been an issue until Wednesday evening when the dogs decided to break through the back yard gate to attack the pig. Though we are never sure what triggers such responses this was severe enough that Mama thought Tilly would have to be put down. I assured her that a pig is pretty difficult to kill and if she was not bleeding profusely, she would most likely recover. I got to see her last night when I got home and she looks like she will pull through but it raised Mama’s desire to find a new home for the two pigs. We’ll see what happens both in the recovery and in the rehoming.

As for the dogs, Kira seems completely oblivious to the fact that she did anything wrong. Kobe is deeply repentant; even to the point that it was difficult to get her to go into the back yard the following morning to do her morning ritual. Victoria is at a loss at to proper discipline methods for Kobe  but we will eventually find a recourse to alert her to the error of her ways. It may be that she has to find a new home but for Victoria that is like giving a child away. One way or the other we will work through it – hopefully with no further loss of stock. For my part, if the dogs kill another goat (two months ago they killed Boomer), I will not allow them to live at our farm. I may not allow them to live.

Later that evening Millie started to give birth. I assume it was all completed in a relatively short time. She now has three little kids nursing her. There are two boys – the black and white ones – and one little girl. For the moment, they see to be healthy. We are watching carefully to make sure they all get an equal share of Millie’s milk. There is a tendency for one of the three to be crowded out by the other two. Once that happens, the one who is not getting the milk has to be bottle fed. It is not optimum and it is not a given. Mama and I will be as alert as we can be to ensure they all three have the best possible chance to stay healthy; even if we have to begin bottle feeding one of the three.

Once Mama and Victoria were back inside Wednesday evening Victoria discovered a mouse in her bathroom. It was not dead but it was not moving and it had chosen to take position right in front of the toilet. Neither Mama not Victoria were willing to remove the rodent so it was still where it lay when I got home last night. In order to use her bathroom, Victoria had covered it with a paper towel. So, the evening I left the farm, the ladies had to deal with bad dogs, a mauled pig, a dead mouse and three new kids. It was not the evening that Mama had been hoping for. Fortunately, she did not give me too hard a time about being away.

There are some interesting situations developing here at work; some very good, some a little overwhelming and some a bit alarming. All are due to some huge growing pains as the company grows almost exponentially. My prediction is that by the end of the year we will have grown by 30%. That is huge. An HR challenge. A payroll challenge. A management challenge. A comradery challenge. An integration challenge.

I believe I can help but time will tell.

Infestation, travel, just kidding, competition

Mama continues to battle mice in the silverware drawer. Over the past several days she washed and sanitized the drawer and all its contents; which is a feat with all the individual items the drawer contained. But yesterday, when we opened the drawer there was clear evidence that a mouse had frequented the silverware tray over the course of the night. There were little pieces of straw or grass and some remnants of munched on rat poison. That drawer sits empty this morning. I baited a trap and put it in the drawer but this morning the bait was gone and the trap was empty. I rebaited and replaced the trap. We’ll see what happens. I thought about leaving it until I got back Thursday evening but took the chance to have it ready in case the violator returns overnight tonight. The trap I set under the Sequoia was empty this morning as well.

After lunch with Mama I will head south to be ready to train a group on Thursday. I should be home late that evening. It is the first of what looks like many such trips over the next several months. With my schedule filling up, I have had to shop out the Decatur training session for May to another instructor. In case things get very busy there will be three of us on standby to meet all the training requests but at this point things seem manageable. I would like to handle all the training myself – as much as is possible – because all the other persons certified to do this training have fulltime assignments, whereas this is my fulltime assignment. May will be the first time I will have to call in help since I will be in Alabama teaching two classes when the class in Decatur is scheduled.

Over the week and weekend Mama, Victoria and I will have to find time to study for the test we have coming Monday evening. With Mission’s Conference, travel and children visiting we have had very little time to get our notes together to prepare for the test. I do not expect it to be difficult but I like to be as prepared as possible. The final test will be two weeks from Monday which will be the Monday following a week spent traveling through Alabama while I visit clients and teach two classes. It should be an interesting time for us all.

Mama went out late to check on Millie. As she was feeding the goats yesterday, Millie stayed lying down. That is unusual. Millie is not the friendly sort. While all the other goats will cross in front of as we walk to the barn – so they can get petted and scratched – Millie generally keeps a good distance from us. Staying on the ground so Mama could examine her was a good indication that she is getting very close. It could still be a few days but no more than a few days. Mama is still anxious for twins only. We have no say in that and will take what God gives us, but anything past two requires extra work on our part; mostly for Mama.

We harvested our first produce last night – other than asparagus. There was a cucumber ready to pick so I collected it and delivered it to Mama. Within two weeks we will be flooded with vegetables but for now it is fun to watch them grow. So far, we have had to compete with the squirrels in the strawberry patch but not anywhere else in the garden. I will have to spend an evening and see if I can lower our squirrel population but I have not had the time thus far. I did set out a trap with no results. Last night I put an ear of corn as bait in the trap.

We’ll see if that produces any better results.

Hurry, little needs, deliveries and escapees

I hurried through a few things when I got home yesterday. Since we had to be at church before 6 pm there was not a lot of time to do much, but some tasks were urgent. The cows needed a new bale of hay. We had fed out the last one a week ago and they had cleaned all the edible portion of that thoroughly. Fortunately, our neighbor has some bales left over from last year – or the year before, I am not sure - on the property he leases directly behind us. Mama called him and asked about buying some of that hay and he told us to help ourselves. I am not sure if there will be a price attached to the hay but it did not sound like it. The cattle were thrilled about the delivery. We will see how this bale lasts compared to the very good ones we bought recently as I shop around for a place to buy some hay. One of the men we go to church with offered me some hay for a good price so I will start there but I do not know what quality it is. Mostly, for the spring it is a filler so nutritional value is less important, but I still want to aim high if possible.

I took time to water the garden. It had rained on Friday and soaked everything well but some of the less mature plants needed a boost. It is supposed to be 90° today and I wanted to make sure they had a chance to bolster themselves against the heat. As a new cold front moves through we are supposed to drop back into the 50’s overnight but today was my concern. With the winds we have suffered through over the past five or so days things have been drying out quickly and the two inches of rain that fell has soaked in or evaporated. The goats are loving the dry and the cattle are loving the new growth of grass but the garden plants were too dry to let it go for too long. I will be traveling tomorrow. It is only one night away but that puts me back late on Thursday and I could not leave things as they are until Friday evening – in case we do not get the rains that are forecast. It has been very hit-and-miss lately with the forecasts matching the actual weather events but we will take what we get and be thankful in it, but I do not plan my garden water needs on the forecasts.

Mama and I have been enjoying the Mission’s Conference. The preaching has been great and the spirit of the services has been wonderful. It puts every evening in a rush but it is worth the extra effort to make sure we can attend. Because of traveling I will not get to go to the service tomorrow. I am sure I will miss the best service of the week. That seems to be the way things happen when you miss a church service.

By next weekend we should be picking blueberries and possibly blackberries. I have to beat the birds and squirrels to the ripened berries. It is a bit early if memory serves me correctly but we deal with things as they come. On the animal front, the next two calves should be delivered by the end of the month and Millie should be kidding about the same time. For now, we are in maintenance mode. The biggest headache at the moment is keeping the pot belly pigs in their enclosure. They are routinely getting out and into other areas where they are not so welcome but I have not had time to investigate. Mama tells me that nothing seems obvious so there has to be a loose patch of fence. She is worried about them getting bred by the boar that has frequented our property.

I don’t think it is possible but it is a valid concern – unless we want a litter of half wild pigs.

Visitors and uninvited guests

Mama and I have had a very busy weekend. Brittany and Andrew came down on Friday. They were just in time to help Mama get the Sequoia to our mechanic in Bowie since I was teaching a two-day class out of town. There has been a problem with a couple of sensors for the past few days and we did not want to drive it too much longer without knowing the issue. Brittany and Andrew were only going to spend the night so they left Saturday afternoon just after Becky, Mike, Bridgette and Justin came. They had traveled down from Hot Springs to repair the car that has sat in our carport for the past few weeks. It broke down on them when they were last here and Mike could not get the repairs completed before they had to report back to work in Hot Springs. With help from Justin they had the car running by Saturday afternoon. The guys were relieved and excited to have it going. They road tested it on a trip to see Grandma and Grandpa and it did well. After swinging back by the farm to load up, they headed to the motel they were staying in to celebrate with a swim in the indoor pool. I am not sure if they ever got in the water but that was the intent.

Becky and Bridgette went to church with us Sunday morning. Becky talks about a church they are going to but I have never heard the name of the church. At least she got to hear some very good preaching as she sat with us through the service. I would not have been surprised if they had left Sunday morning but the guys wanted to get the oil changed and replace a fender skirt they had left off for the road test before they headed back home. They were loaded up with things from the farm that Mama and I were glad to give away, so they went back home with both the car and the bed of Justin’s truck loaded to the brim.

We started our Mission’s Conference Sunday morning. The main speaker is a Bible translator who served as a missionary in Mexico at a work his father started for many years before being called into translation work. One of the recent Bibles he translated was the New Testaments into Mongolian. I am told that he speaks multiple languages fluently and is working on several other translations concurrently. Besides all that, he is a remarkable preacher. The conference will run through Wednesday night. Unfortunately, I have to travel Wednesday afternoon to Leander to teach a class for work. But I will get to participate through tomorrow night.

At the farm, Becky and I worked for a couple hours on some fencing repairs so we got a chance to talk. I feel a bit more informed about her life and their look forward. My main question was how do I pray for her and as we worked and talked I got a much better insight into how the Lord would have me pray concerning her, her child and her life with Mike. We even got to see God answer a prayer right away on something she has been fretting over for almost a year. That was encouraging.

Also, we had a calf born last week. A little bull calf. He is a beautiful bundle of energy and seems to be doing well. Chester stopped by to make sure we knew he was there and we visited for a while Saturday evening.

Sunday afternoon, after a dinner with friends we went to Bowie to pick up the Sequoia. Roger had pulled out the fuse box to repair the wires that a rat had chewed through as she made a nest in the fuse box. Mama and I are about worn out of rats damaging our vehicles but we are a little unclear about how to successfully combat them. The only successful methods are poison or predators. I am nor fond of either method but we will have to do something. For now, we are leaving the hoods of our vehicles popped open because we have been told that just having that much open around the engine compartment will discourage them from nesting there.

We’ll see. Their infestation is most unwelcome.

No change, some change, communication

I had a bit of a lazy evening yesterday. There was nothing urgent on the agenda and my back was hurting more than usual when I got home. The pain in my back was bad enough that even walking around hurt. That does not mean I just sat around for the evening, I just did not do anything major. Mama was not feeling to spry either but between the two of us we moved feed sacks from the garage into the barrels she uses daily and we cleaned up some of the bags that have accumulated at the coop as feed has been put into the feed barrels. We tended to the cattle and made a couple changes in the way we have feed set up in the barn. I reset and reinforced one wall of the pig sty where the pig had scratched so hard it had nearly knocked down the pallets along that wall; getting quite dirty in the process with help from the occupant. After the normal tending to the animals we were back inside before 7 pm. I fixed us some dinner, then I worked on the music schedule for next week’s services for about an hour; we have Mission’s conference next week so it was a bit more work than usual.

While we were out we let Millie out of her enclosure because she seems no closer today than yesterday. She took her time exiting the stall but eventually was out moving around. Her current condition makes her a bit awkward and she seems to almost stumble as she walks about. The other goats in the paddock crowd her from time to time as if they are checking in with the elder of the yard but they soon wander off on their own. Mama is praying for twins and no more. I will take what we get; there is no changing it now anyway. So, we continue to wait. Mama and Victoria continue to fret but there is little that can accomplish so I let the two of them spend that energy as they see fit.

Right before I went to bed, Mama was heading out to do a final check on Millie and close up the chickens so I went with her. All was well in the goat barn so we headed through the garden to the coop and while we were there I asked Mama for the flashlight. I had made two trips through the garden earlier to get things needed to change how we fill the the trough in the barn lot. Neither time did I look to see if the seeds we planted over a week ago had sprouted. So, we did it by flashlight. Not only had they spouted, but the plants looked several days old. Many had started leafing out with the mature leaves that pop out after the sprout leaves help pierce the ground. Some looked like the plants were week old. It was pretty exciting. I can remember watering the garden on Friday evening and there was no evidence of growth so all this happened in the last four days. The storms we had come through Monday afternoon must have helped encourage the growth. Now if we can keep the rabbits, opossums, coons, deer and cattle from eating the plants we might have a good garden. We already have little yellow crook-necked squash, zucchini and cucumbers. We even have one tiny watermelon.

Cori shared with us that at the campground where they are staying they let the kids use the walkie talkies Grant had bought some time back as they crossed the campground to the play area. They were still in sight of the camper but to them it was big deal. Cori related the conversation as reported in: “We are crossing the street. We are going to the swings. We are going to leave the swings and climb in the tree.” A brief silence as they played. “We are headed back to the swings. I have to go to the bathroom so I am turning the walkie talkie over to Grant.” Etc. Cori said she was trying to wash the dished as all this was going but the kids expected an acknowledgement to each of their reports so that did not happen. Finally, she gave up and just enjoyed the moment.

Oh well, at least they took their responsibility to stay in touch seriously.