Travel, repairs. travail

It was good to get home Saturday evening. It was even better to have Monday off to compensate for being on the road all day Saturday. Unfortunately, I did not get a lot of things done either Saturday evening or yesterday because my back was hurting badly. I guess standing is the hardest thing for my back to handle at this time – and I have to do a lot of it when I teach. I am home for the rest of this week but for the next two weeks I will be mostly out of town. Traveling to New Mexico next week and to Michigan the following week. Mama will be going with me when I go to teach two classes in Port Huron, MI. I have been looking for an opportunity to take he on one of the out of town assignments and that one looked like a good candidate to have her travel with me.

I do hope we have better flights than I had Thursday. Actually, the flight itself was not bad. Recovering my checked bag was a pain. I flew into Nashville because the flights into northern Alabama were horrifically overpriced due to the hurricane that just passed through. It was about a two-hour drive to Athens, AL from the airport – not bad. I did not have to check my bag but it was a very full flight and the flight attendants asked if anyone was willing to check their carry-on bag to ensure there would be enough room in the overhead bins. It did not seem like a big deal but when we arrived in Nashville it took almost an hour for the luggage to come through. Renting the car was a breeze and the drive through southern Tennessee was a pleasure. Thanks to the maps app on the phone – and the fact that I had been to the site before - it was pretty easy to get around once I got to my destination.

The flight back was a mirror image of the flight over but I had never flown into Terminal C in DFW. It is set up completely differently than all the other terminals with individual baggage claim carrousels spaced separately throughout the terminal. It took me a few minutes to find the right person to tell me where I needed to be to get my bag. Once again, it took about 45 minutes. Oh, well.

I spent a couple hours yesterday working on rabbit cages – after I went to the meat market to pick up our goat meat. We needed to get a cage repaired so we could separate a couple of maturing females. They tend to fight when they get to a certain age and it was evident that they had reached that age. I was planning on processing the largest of the females because Mama does not like her. She is very mean, but I promised to wait until the boys were through with school work before I began getting her ready for the freezer. I could have simply moved one young female into the vacated cage but it seemed a good idea to take the time to make the repairs I had been putting off. Mama and I had bought the specialized clips I needed to make the repairs when we were in Kansas with Brittany but I had not taken the time to use them for the repairs until yesterday. I think Mama will like what she has now. I should find out today. She came home early from school yesterday and headed straight for bed to rest up for the FBI class we had last night.

Mama came in Saturday evening to welcome me home with a terrible grimace on her face. She is dealing with some pretty intense female pain at the moment. It did not abate much through the weekend. Her body seems resistant to the change it must go through based on age. Pray for her that that pain would ease.

Rooster free zone, already full, elderberries

Mama and Brittany Wycoff bought thirty roosters to raise for meat but the roosters they ended up getting turned out to be some type of fancy breed that would never have grown to the point that they produced any meat to speak of. The last time the Wycoff’s were at the farm they took five of the ten we had and dispatched them at their place – Mama and Victoria did not have to witness the deed. I wanted to see if they would eventually gain any weight but it was fruitless effort. After several months, they weighed less than two pounds each – live weight. Rather than feed them any more I decided that last night – since we had done our FBI DVD Saturday evening – would be a good time to get them culled from the flock. The problem is that I did not have a prayer of catching them by myself, so I enlisted the aid of both Mama and Victoria. With their help, we soon caught the birds and put them in a small cage I could easily get them out of. I waited until Mama and Victoria had run to the house before I started dispatching the birds. It is not something I enjoy doing but when it has to be done I can do it. For now, we are rooster free; at least until we find out which of the Bantams are roosters.

As I run electric through the shop I am kind of making it up as I go. I did not have a grand plan at the outset and as I picture all the things I will be putting in the building I am starting to realize I will easily occupy all the space it has to offer. It is only 21x24 so I have about 500 square feet in total. Not a small space, but certainly not a huge shop. It may take several iterations to get everything placed so it is usable as positioned – at least, that is the goal. At this point I am wishing I had not volunteered to put the two freezers in the shop, but I have already run dedicated circuits for both appliances. Oh, well. No sense getting greedy.

Mama and Victoria will be making their second trip to the Cantrell’s this evening. They took Kobe to meet Leo Saturday afternoon but it was not yet time for her. They hope she will be in standing heat today. She was bought with the idea of getting puppies from her. If the puppies have a mix of her and Leo’s personalities, they will be great dogs. I have maintained the shelter for housing the pups and their mama once that moment comes, so I feel like we are set up for the breeding. We have at least three families that want pups if Victoria lets Kira have another litter, but I think these pups – if the breeding is successful – will be as good as or better than Kira’s offspring. Time will tell. That litter will end up being a big part of our winter activities.

Mama picked another batch of elderberries from our little patch. She filled the colander I normally use to catch the harvested fronds of berries to overflowing and still could have picked many more. When I was done watering, I stripped the seeds from the fronds and we filled two quart freezer bags. If I remember right, that makes eight quart size bags of ripe berries we have put up so far this year. With the way the plants are producing, we are less than half way through what we will have access to by the first frost. I will probably make our first batch of elderberry syrup this weekend. With the nights in the fifties and the days in the nineties, we will need the cold remedy earlier this year than any previous year.

We should be able to make plenty; which is good because I have a feeling we will be needing it.

Last Minute cancellation, Tampa, Danny

Just after I got home from church Sunday afternoon, about a half hour before I was going to leave for the airport, I got word that the workshop in Alabama had been cancelled. The track of the now weakening hurricane Irma was headed directly over Athens, Al. They are under a tropical storm warning expecting heavy rain and strong winds for today and tomorrow. It was a good, albeit belated, decision on the part of the organizers. One of the previous emails sent out by the same group was a warning to check our hotel reservations to ensure our rooms were still available. Due to the influx of people evacuating the Florida peninsula, hotels were filled up and some attendees and vendors had reported not having a room when they arrived late Saturday evening. Fortunately, our rooms can now be given out to those who are in need of them. Mama was not unhappy that I will be staying home for the week.

Since the track of the storm was headed to Tampa, Mama and I were concerned about the children in the Hope Children’s Home. We visited the facility before we drove down to Sanibel Island – which I expect was heavily impacted by the storm. After initially setting up to ride out the storm in their school building, which is a substantial structure, the decision was made to evacuate the home. Staff and children were taken to a location in Tennessee that Bro. Mike knew could house all of them safely. I do not know what they will go back to, but they will all go back to it together. Mama has not heard from Jake but we trust the they made it through the storm safely. All of Mama’s kinfolk – uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. – are accounted for. Now, like in Houston, the long process of cleaning up and getting lives back on track begins. Hopefully, we are done with hurricanes for the season – as Jose sputters out in the Atlantic -  but only time will tell.

Danny and Kim came in Friday evening and stayed the night with us. We had a very pleasant visit. They are headed to Yellowstone Park. She has never been and it has been many years since Danny and I went there as children. Our brother Steve and his wife Diane live in the area so the vacation will include a visit there as well. Mama and I were pleased at the visit and the time we had to share with them. They both really liked the farm. Danny even offered to come over and help me butcher the two pot belly pigs we are trying to get rid of. Mama passed on that offer. They left about 10:30 Saturday morning. Danny took several of Mama’s biscuits with him for a snack later.

I was able to put in several hours on the shop an got all the metal siding up Saturday morning and afternoon. Right out of the gate I cut my left thumb all the way to the bone on a piece of the metal siding I had to take down and recut. The cut edge on this siding has a razor-sharp raised line and the leather gloves I had been using are full of holes so I got a thinner pair of gloves to handle the piece as I put it on the saw horses to make the needed adjustments. Not a good decision. It took about an hour for the wound to quit bleeding. After that I used the mangled leather gloves for the rest of the day. It looks more like a shop now. I also got power to all of the outlets I have wired into the walls on the north, east and west sides of the shop. I have to do some work on the roof to wall seal on the south side before I install those outlets and switches. I had thought that would wait until I got back, but I may get that done tonight.

In preparation for being gone a week, I picked up all my tools a put everything away so the grandkids would have less temptation to use the plyers, hammers, etc. when they got back on Thursday of this week. It should not take me long to get everything set up again.

Better safe than sorry.

Garden cleanup, visitors, progress

As soon as I got home yesterday evening I got the weed eater and cleaned up the garden for Mama. I am not sure how the garden gets away from us every year but it does. I take heart in the fact that most gardens look like ours by the end of the summer. It was to the point that the pastures looked better than the garden and it was starting to frustrate Mama. Weed eating the garden never takes very long to do, but that activity is one of the most painful ones I attempt in keeping up with the farm. I should have worn a dust mask because this morning my nose is plugged up. Hopefully that will clear up by Monday morning when I start my week of teaching. This morning I am drinking hot liquids and sometime this weekend I will make a fresh batch of elderberry syrup. From the way the elderberries are producing this year, I have a hunch we will need a good supply of the natural cold remedy by the time Spring come next year. I am expecting a cold and wet winter in our area.

The garden looks better. Now we can see what is left and can tend to it properly until all growth has stopped and I till everything under in preparation for next year. Overall, the garden was a bit disappointing this year even though the raised bed I built worked out very well. I do not think there were many who had good tomato crops. We did not either. Peas produced nothing and the rabbits got all our sweet potato plants. The potatoes we planted looked good from the ground up but put out only a few little potatoes. Peppers, squash and pumpkins did the best. Fortunately, we did not the produce to survive. If we had, Mama and I would have gotten a lot thinner over the summer.

My brother Danny is supposed to come by the farm this evening for a visit. I am not sure what brings him into the area but I was pleasantly surprised that he wanted to stop by while he was in the area. We have never had a good relationship because we have divergent spiritual values but Mama and I have prayed for him for many years. Mama is going to a ladies meeting in Denton this evening and tomorrow morning. She will be riding up with the ladies from the church; leaving before school gets out this afternoon. So, I will get to host by brother and his girlfriend by myself. Not a problem. Just an interesting set of circumstances – which reflects our life in general.

I got to work a couple hours on the shop after I got through with the garden and was able to get the back of the building almost completed before I was called away to watch the FBI class videos we brought home to make up for not having class on Labor Day. We got through that by about 9 pm and will watch one more Saturday evening to make up for the class I will miss next week when I am in Alabama. Still, I was very pleased to get all the siding up that I did. Now I have five more cut pieces to attach and all the building will be fully covered – less doors. Since I already have most of the wiring run, it should only take me a few evenings to complete that. Sealing in the roof to the walls and covering the corners will complete the project – less the doors. I know what I want for the doors but I do not have the money to get them yet.

Patience.

Hurricanes and our family, Victoria, TX, working on shells

Joshua was in the path of hurricane Harvey and it looks like Maggie will be in the path if hurricane Irma. If the stories I heard on the radio on the way to work are even half true, it looks like Irma will cause a huge problem if evacuations are made. One story reported that people were walking along the Florida Turnpike, passed the jammed traffic, to get to the rest stop so they could use the bathroom. One guest suggested that people not go too far, just to go far enough to get to higher, safer ground – a hotel, a friend’s house, etc.; not necessarily to go so far that you risk running out of gas or getting stuck in miles of stopped traffic with the storm looming so close. I do know that Sanibel Island, where Mama and I just spent a couple days, would not be someplace I would want to ride out a hurricane and many places in Florida are situated as vulnerably as that island is. Even a glancing blow from such a large, powerful storm will be a huge problem for many homes and businesses. I cannot imagine what will happen in the Keys. As for Maggie, we would love for her and the kids to come to us, but that is not a short trip.

The farm looked empty when I got home yesterday. The camper that has been a part of the landscape there since Cori and Nate arrived was gone. It left a pretty big hole. They will be back next week but it was an interesting sensation to see the spot so open. Mama wanted to meet them in Victoria, TX while they are there for the Mission’s Conference at Western Hills but we cannot afford the additional expense of the travel for her to go so soon after our trip to Sanibel. She is disappointed. One of our friends in the church offered a place to stay while she was in Victoria, but getting her there and back is the issue. At least we got to see our friends there a year ago when I went to Victoria for work and took Mama along. Every opportunity to see old friends is a blessing. That will be one of the amazing experiences of Heaven, to see all our friends again and have plenty of time to catchup on how good God has been to us.

Mama is still working through the shells she and I gathered when we were at Sanibel. Thankfully we have had good weather so the table on which she has the shells still being processed can sit just outside the garage while she tries to figure out where the bad smell is coming from. It is far less that when we packaged the shells to come home. She and the grandkids have found multiple small snails in the collection but there must still be one or two – or some portion of remains in one or two of them. We are still working through that issue. Overall, we got some great shells during our trips to the beach. Other than the lingering smell, Mama is quite pleased. After church last night, she and four-year-old Aliza Burns looked through a small portion Mama had brought to the school to share with the kids there. One of my coworkers had asked me about our time shelling and I told him about some of the more unusual shells we brought home. He had never heard of an Angel Wing shell. He looked it up and was amazed by it.

So are we – and I found a very large one on the Caya Costa beach.

More travel, bye to Kai, an addition

This week is the final week I have to get prepared for the classes I will be teaching next week in Alabama. I have had the presentations ready for review for more than a month but they finally got reviewed last week. The changes my boss made to one of the presentations was significant – so much so, that I will have to spend a good deal of time getting ready to use it in the class coming up on Monday. The biggest problem is that the book I will be teaching from will not be handed to me until the morning of the class. I am trying to figure out a way to have the material ready without the actual manual. Surprise, surprise. One of the reasons for the major change to the presentation, which now is void of talking points with only graphics displayed, was that last year the presenter read the slides verbatim and it caused some embarrassment to our company. What I have now is what I will be stuck with for the class so I will have to make it work, but it is not the way I had envisioned it. Although, I am finding out that that is the way things are done in my department.

I will be leaving for Alabama Sunday afternoon; not returning until Saturday afternoon. Neither Mama nor I are looking forward to it. I have three classes to teach starting on Monday morning. One class is the one I have presented about a dozen times and the third is one that I have reformatted and updated for this set of classes. I will be able to review all the changes to that presentation on Tuesday, so I am not as concerned about that class. Nate, Cori and the kids will be leaving for Victoria, TX today and not returning until Saturday. That leaves Mama without the help in the morning and evening feedings that she has been getting used to. It could be a long week for her.

Mama and Nate took Kai to the meat market yesterday morning. Blake went along just because. Mama called me that morning to tell me that she was reporting to school as soon as she could make it in because Zach’s parents are in town and he wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. She called so I would know to meet her for lunch at the school – with the caveat that I would bring her something to eat because she would not be taking the time to pack her a lunch. Blake came along. Again, just because. He had a fun school day with the kids at the church school. I am certain he got several special treats in return for his time with Grammy.

As for Kai, our Chinese friends wanted all kinds of parts of the goat that the butcher shop was not allowed by law to give them, but we will still end up with more internal organs than Mama and I would have normally requested. The brain, stomach and intestines were not allowed to be processed for human consumption even though Lin said the stomach would sell for lots of money because the Chinese love stomach soup. The fact that we were talking about parts of the body that make Mama nauseous only added to the fact that we were butchering a pet. Kai was having problems walking so it was best to do something with him rather than watch him suffer and slowly die.

On the cattle side, Mama and the kids found out yesterday that Daisy – our pet cow – had a little heifer calf with her when she came for feed. It was the first time Mama had seen Daisy since we put her over with the bulls. So, we ended up with three calves this year. One bull ( now a steer) and one heifer that I know of. Mama thinks Daisy’s calf is a heifer but I have not seen it and Mama’s track record of sexing cattle is a bit spotty.

The temperature was 57° this morning. What a change.

Spirit, Hope, Sanibel

Last Wednesday morning Mama and I flew to Tampa, FL. We had made vacation preparations to go to Sanibel Island so Mama could go the one of the top three shelling destinations in the world. It was our first time to fly on Spirit Airlines – which was a pretty poor experience. We arrived at DFW a little over two hours before our flight and saw a line of at least 125 people. Two agents were working very slowly to check bags. In the first forty minutes, we moved so little that we were in danger of missing our flight. Finally, a third agent was added and Mama and I got the bag checked and headed to security. It was about twenty-five minutes before our departure time. By the grace of God, we were given pre-check clearance and flew through the security line. Our gate was on the outermost tip of the terminal and we ended up walking – a difficulty for Mama – for about fifteen minutes to make the distance. By the time we got there, they were boarding the last of the passengers that had been in the waiting area. Mama and I had had nothing to eat because we expected to have time at the airport. One poor lady who had been in line with us got to the gate as they were closing it. Fortunately, they let her on the plane. The lines, the baggage weight limits, the fees and several other little things made it a bad experience for us overall.

Once on the flight, things got a little better and we arrived in Tampa on time for the appointment I had set up with the director of Hope Children’s Home. That is the ministry that directs the work at the children’s home in Honduras where Cori, Nate and the kids will be working in the very near future. Mama and I spent about two hours with the director at the Tampa home and discovered it to be an amazing ministry. They have a forty-five-acre campus, which is set up with multiple dormitories for girls, boys and very young children, a school building/rec center – all done in an attentive, meticulous manner. It was impressive, very well organized. Mama and I both left there more willing than ever to pray about becoming a part of that ministry in some capacity in the future.

On the drive to Sanibel Island, Mama passed through some of the cities that were familiar to her from a time in her childhood when they had either visited relatives or lived for a time. It was nostalgic for her in a good way. She even called Grandma and told her we were eating lunch in Bradenton, FL. The drive - a little over two hours - was pleasant and uneventful. We rented a little Chevy Sonic and were very pleased with the car. We got to the hotel/condo where we had reservations about five minutes before the office closed for the day, got our room keys, a short rundown on the local events and a couple suggestions on where to eat before we parked and got our luggage taken to the room. It was a generous room with a large bedroom, a small kitchen and bath and a large living room with an adjoining screened in porch. Much nicer than we had expected. We did not wait too long to change and head to Lighthouse Beach which was very near the hotel. To access the beach, we had to walk an indistinct pathway; so much so that Mama and I felt like we were trespassing as we walked through the back edges of people’s yards. But the path did eventually access the beach and in the first two hours we collected about five pounds of nice, high quality shells. Mama was very excited.

Mama had been told that Lighthouse Beach was not the best beach for shells so we were anxious to try the other four on the island. As it turned out, our first beach worked out to be the best one on the island that week so we went back several times, but on the way back from one of the far end beaches, I had Mama call to schedule us a shelling cruise to an island only accessible by boat. It turned out to be the highlight of our fourteen-hour day Thursday. We took a thirty-minute boat ride across the Pine Island Estuary to Caya Costa Island, shelled for two hours and got some very unusual shells. There were so many that we could be very selective. Even still, we came back home with a carry-on bag full of shells so we struggled to keep our checked bag under the 40-pound limit.

The flight back was much better.