Busy weekend, brutal cold

Mama and Kimberlyn set up shop at Trade Day’s Saturday morning. It turned out to be a very nice day weather wise. They had some customers who actually bought some of the items they had for sale, but all in all it was a slow day. When the final tabulations were made, they netted $65. At least they made some money. With all the clothing they had – some of it quite nice – they had a lot of lookers, but very few buyers. The majority of their profits came from the sale of one of the three-foot tall scarecrow/snowmen Kimberlyn had painted. And of course, my Christmas donkey sold right away. The rest of the profits came from the sale of lip balms and earrings. On the bright side, people at the bee keeping club and church are excited about the lip balms. Those items will sell very well over time. Mama and Kimberlyn are already planning another batch. They are also rattling around ideas for more painted crafts. Kimberlyn’s artistic flare is impressive in that area. Mama’s ideas add well to the scope of the work they do with those plaques.

Victoria was off Saturday. Sort of. She tagged along with Mama and Kimberlyn and helped them get set up in their spot. Then she was sent back to the farm to pick up a couple items Mama had forgotten to bring. Both of those items sold, so I suppose it was a wise use of Victoria’s time and gas. After that was done, Victoria had to report to the pharmacy to rearrange the shelving to create an area for newly classified drugs. She was only supposed to work for a couple hours but the work was far more involved than originally thought. She ended up working about six hours on the project since it had to be completed to keep the pharmacy operating efficiently. She was worn out when she finally got home.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I worked all day getting more things rearranged and cleaned up. I took apart the pallets we were forced to attach to the pig enclosure. They had served their usefulness and were looking ugly. I had been wanting to get them taken down for some time, so it was nice to finally get started on removing them. I did not get them hauled away because my tractor was having issues. A clogged fuel filter I believe. I also started outlining the new pig enclosure. I hope to make it a little less unsightly when we have pigs on the farm again. While I have the old enclosure torn down, I will get the tractor and refill and relevel the area the last pigs we had tore up so badly. In between picking up items that had been cast about in various places in the coop area and putting a creep feeder in the goat barn, I worked on getting the well house cleaned up.

Mama and I want to make the well house our honey house. To that end I moved the newly built hives from the shop to the well house. That will give Mama and Kimberlyn more space to lay out their crafts as they are assembled. It will also help us keep in mind the purpose of the building. I will eliminate all the items that should have long ago gone to the shop or the garage. Especially paints and other chemicals we do not want around the honey or the honey processing equipment. As Mama and I talked about the cost of honey supers and hive parts, we decided that I will build all we need in the future. It will become another ongoing project at the farm. Praise the Lord, I have a shop and the tools required to do that work.

Brutal cold coming today. I was shown and app called MyRadar a few months ago and I have used it consistently since downloading it to my phone. On that app, you can track the line of the cold front as it plunges south. We are only a few hours from the cold overwhelming us. As soon as I get home, I will have to take up hoses, turn on heat lamps, set up heaters and draft reducers and double and triple check the well houses. The forecast is for the morning temperature to be 22°. I will not be shocked if we are in the teens when I leave for work tomorrow morning. The uncertain part of the forecast is the rain that is expected to come as the temperatures drop. According to the current forecast, we will be at freezing by noon and well below that by the time we get off work this evening.

Welcome to Winter.

Pups, chickens and kids, bees

Mama and Victoria are watching the Echeveria kids this morning while Erin goes to the doctor. This is one of the longer visits, so it is not practical for Erin to have the kids with her. It should be interesting since Mama is in the middle of finalizing all the crafts that are being priced and packed to be taken to Bowie tomorrow. Things are still scattered about; on the dining room table and floor, in the garage and in the shop. At least Victoria is there to help. Not that the children are difficult to manage, just that Mama still needs to get a lot done before tomorrow morning and the house is filled with extra items that Mama does not want to lose rack of.

Later today Mama and Victoria will be taking Kobe to the Cantrell’s to see I Leo and Kobe will breed. Victoria has vacillated on the issue of Kobe having more pups before getting her fixed. Kobe is difficult when it comes to breeding. She keeps herself so clean that it is nearly impossible to tell when it is the right time to take her to Leo and she is quite aggressive with Leo unless the circumstances are just right. Kobe can be very fierce. None-the-less, they are scheduled to try today. If they are successful, I will have to clean and sanitize the birthing center which is now being used to finish out our Cornish Rock hens.

Speaking of the Cornish Rocks, Mama and I are a little disappointed that they are not as heavy as we were assured they would be by this time. I think the largest of the six we have left weighs about five pounds. Dressed out, that will be about a three-pound chicken. The rest will be smaller. I am disappointed. Raising them has been an additional expense and workload. To see that work and expense yield poor increases is not encouraging, but we will follow through with the experiment and see if we were told correctly about the quality of the meat the chickens yield. We will probably not do this again, but we bought the chicks for fifty cents apiece at the end of the season. Not a huge loss. But not much of a gain either.

Lilly and Dolly have not kidded yet. Mama is a little worried because of the very cold temperatures we have forecast for early next week. Three nights in the twenties. Days in the low forties. I suppose the babies will do fine. There is little we can do to change the situation or offer warmth to the newborns should they come during the next five or six days. Next year, Mama and I will be careful to move up our breeding program by a month so that all the kids are born no later than October. The other kids, now two weeks or more old, are doing very well. They are a delight to watch.

Just before Thanksgiving we will have to take three of them to be de-budded; have their horn buds seared off to keep them from growing. Horned Myotonic goats are not a hot item. Plus, the one horned male we have is a Myotonic wreck-em- Ralph. He is constantly hooking his horns into everything he can and then pulling with all his might. Fortunately, he is not big. If he was, we would have real issues. As it stands, it is simply irritating. He gives Mama fits every time she feeds the boys, trying to hook her clothing, butting her, pushing against her. He likes his horns and is quite proud to show them off at every opportunity. She talks about getting rid of him, but he is still with us…for now.

At our bee keeping meeting last night I volunteered to go with one of the other members to do a bee removal about two hours away. Probably next Saturday. His friend sent a picture of a bar-b-que grill filled with bees. The owners of the camp where the grill sits wants them gone. Hunting season is coming very soon. How it is going to be managed is a mystery, but I would like to tag along to help. I ordered a suit – a very cheap one – last week so it should arrive in time. I ordered it so that Mama and I can fit ourselves before we order a more expensive suit. A more professional suit. I ordered an extra large. But for the coming excursion, if I get to go, the cheap one will have to do.

Mama and I are in the queue to get two hives set up in the Spring of next year. We are excited about that.

Mixed up days, lots of rain, personal pain, patience

When I got home yesterday evening, I realized I had gotten my days mixed up. Or rather, Mama’s days mixed up. She and Kimberlyn spent the day at the farm yesterday making lip balm in five different flavors, hand and foot sugar scrubs and some all-natural hand sanitizer. All the lip balm was made from bees wax and mango butter along with some essential oils. It was quite a day for the two of them. I got to help in the cleanup when I got home. Fortunately, bees wax was easy to melt off the pans, double boilers and graders used to process the lip balm concoctions. Mama had me try the lip balm by putting in on her lips and then kissing me. That is the only way I apply lip balm. She had me try the hand sanitizer right away. Later I had to try the hand scrub. I liked it. She wanted to try the foot scrub on me, but I passed. I am not bothered by someone scrubbing my feet since I grew up in a denomination where foot washing was a church ordinance, but it is not something I like having done to me. I may eventually yield, but I did not do so last night.

This morning, Mama is taking Grandma and Grandpa to the doctor’s appointment in Denton. It will be a yucky morning to rush out and feed the animals. It rained heavily last night with light rain continuing this morning. We started getting thunder and lightning just before we went to bed, but the rain did not come until well after midnight. When it did come it must have come in buckets. I can only guess since I slept through it. The rain gauge showed over three inches of rain this morning. About three times what was forecast. We’ll take it. Along with the cooler weather, that might be enough to close up the deep cracks in the ground. We are about a month late getting these rains, but we are finally getting the fall rains we need to fill stock tanks and creeks and ponds for the winter and into the Spring.

I will have to check the goat shelter this evening to see if my roof work helped seal enough of the leaks to keep the building drier. I could not tell last night when I went out to feed because it was not raining heavy enough to really test the roof. I imagine, though I will not know until tonight, that with three inches of rain having fallen, there was some runoff into the shelter. Our farm sits at the lower end of a long gentle slope that runs towards us for almost a mile. That is a lot of terrain to accumulate and channel the runoff in our direction. Sealing against that runoff into the south facing opening in the shelter is one of my next projects for that little building. It is almost fun to have to keep plucking away at all these little projects – almost.

Mama and I did not go to church last night. She was hurting badly after being on her feet all day. I had a painful sore throat with an accompanying tooth ache. It felt miserable. I am a little relieved this morning, but still have the scratchy throat and my tooth still hurts. I found some leftover antibiotics in the cabinet last night and began taking them immediately. That should help over time, but the immediate relief from clove and Tea Tree oil in warm water was a real blessing. I managed to sleep well in spite of the tooth pain. I am praying the antibiotic will take care of the tooth infection, if I do indeed have one. I have known, suspected rather, for some time that I am developing some serious issues in my mouth, but I have held off getting anything done for lack of funds. I am waiting on one of the houses to sell to help finance the dental work needed. That has not happened yet. Soon, I hope. Until then, I will hold out as long as possible; until I cannot tolerate the discomfort any longer.

Mama and I have our monthly beekeepers meeting tonight. We will be putting a deposit on two nucs we are purchasing from the club president. We will not take delivery until next Spring, but we need to get the nucs reserved. A nuc is a partial hive, complete with a queen, her devoted bees and several – at least four – drawn out frames of honey and brood. A jump start on a hive. We are using ten frame hives for our apiary, so having two 40% of the way done at the very beginning is a good investment. We are looking forward to starting at least two hives in this manner. We may start a third by buying bees and a queen from a supplier. We are debating that at this point. So far, I have found many hives for sale on Craigslist, but we have held off buying any because we are not really ready to set up active hives. Plus, the active hives for sale are fairly expensive. Money we do not have to spend in that way. Patience is the order for our bee keeping, honey making business.

I am just a bit weary of being patient, but it always pays off in the long run.

Medical issues, Trade Days

Mama is taking Grandma and Grandpa to Denton this morning for Grandpa’s doctor’s appointment. I remember one of the older ladies at church telling me a few weeks ago that the only time she got out was for church and for doctor’s appointments. She is 84 years old. I thought that was humorous, because I see it playing out in Grandma in Grandpa’s life. Grandma will not allow Grandpa to go to a doctor’s appointment without her – with rare exception. She says it is because she thinks Grandpa will not do what the doctor asks him to do so she needs to hear the instructions as well. I do not believe that is as true as it may once have been. Grandpa likes his current cardiologist, so he is faithful to the advice he is given. Grandma likes to get out. She likes to hear what the doctor says to Grandpa even though she gets it all jumbled up later. Mama often has to intervene and clarify a discussion by retelling what she heard the doctor say. It’s kind of funny to watch all that play out. So far, the reports from the doctor on Grandpa’s health, his heart, have been very good. They ask Mama to take them partly because Grandpa does not like to drive anymore and partly to keep Mama occupied in their lives. The appointment is early. Before the rain begins in earnest. Mama should be able to get home by early afternoon. Much better than she was originally thinking. Perhaps much drier than she was originally thinking.

Grandma went to the doctor the other day because of severe abdominal pain. She was diagnosed with diverticulosis. A version of colon pain that I suffer from as well. Hers is more advanced, more indicative of deeper damage. She asked the doctor to put her in the hospital, to operate on her, to do something, anything, to relieve her discomfort. He advised her to begin to eat better. That was not what Grandma wanted to hear. Her diet consists primarily of McDonald’s chicken nuggets and breakfast cereal. Diet is the only remedy for what we have. She was thoroughly disappointed with the visit. She was sincerely hoping to have some type of surgery to eliminate her pain. I can wholeheartedly sympathize. Alas, the pain continues – for both of us. Cori, who gets the propensity for the same condition from which she also suffers, now has medical evidence that she gets it from both sides of the family. Sorry, Cori.

On the bright side, my blood pressure – as measured by my H Band – is spot on. 120/80 or below on most readings. I have been checking it regularly for the past three weeks and have not had any readings anywhere near what I have had in the past. That, especially for me, is great news. Believe it or not, that has actually relieved some of the stress in my life. I have always dreaded getting my blood pressure taken. One doctor in New Jersey diagnosed me with “white coat syndrome”. He was being facetious. He was also quite accurate. Mama, even though she is on blood pressure meds, has run some higher readings, but nothing high enough to cause concern.

Pastor actually spoke Sunday morning about how many times our hearts beat per year on average. I could not find the calculation, so I used the number of seconds per year to estimate the total since our resting heartrate is close to one beat per second. 31,536,000. Using that as a baseline, my heart has beat at least 1,986,768,000 times. Probably more than two billion heart beats so far in my lifetime. What an amazing organ. Truly, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Mama and Kimberlyn are gearing up for Saturday; Trade Days. I am not planning on going with them to Trade Days, but that could change. I certainly am not planning on spending all day. They have amassed a fair amount of stuff. Both homemade crafts and garage sale items. I offered up a small .22 caliber pistol for them to sell. It may draw more people to their table. I do not use it. I do not particularly like it and have replaced it with a much better pistol. It is the only item that I know I contributed. they desperately want to add to the income of each household. I believe they are on the right track to do so. They are praying to do well.

I can join them in that prayer.

Roofing mess, crafts, holidays

Rain over the next three days will test the coating I applied to the roof of the goat shelter yesterday evening. It took me all the time I had between getting off work and the quickly approaching nightfall to get the roof coating applied. It will make the roof look uniform. It will protect the roof for many years to come and it will seal some of the holes the rain was dripping through. A few of the holes will need further attention, but for the most part, I was able to coat over most of them. I put on some older farm cloths to work in because applying this type of coating makes a mess regardless of how careful I could have been. I ended up not getting much on me, but I was thankful what I did get on me was not on my better clothing. It is something that will never come out. I have had the roofing material for a few weeks but have never taken the time to get the chore done. Now it is done. Check that one off my list.

My biggest challenge during the process was keeping Scamp away from the ladder. He is our only horned goat and he is well aware of his advantage over all the other goats. He likes to get his horns hooked into the fencing and pull with all his might against the fence. I have had to reinforce the fence in the areas he likes to attack the most. For him, it would have been better if I had used cattle panels for the enclosure, but it was too expensive at the time. Mama has talked about getting rid of him but has taken no action yet to do so. Anyway, he would not leave the ladder alone. Even when I was on it. He would hook his horns on a rung and pull back against the ladder. I have no idea what he hoped to accomplish but my weight on the ladder held it in position when I was on it. Every time I got off the ladder, he renewed his efforts to topple it. It made for an interesting contest during the time I was working on the roof. Shooing off the goat. Containing the mess. Trying to keep my roller brush out of the tree limbs.  But I was able to finish just before dark – which comes now at about 6:30. Heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow and possibly Wednesday. That will tell me how much more work I have left to fully seal the roof. As a fallback the bucks still have the igloo doghouse to retreat into if needed.

Mama is driving to Kimberly’s today. They are at the point of finishing up a lot of items they will try to sell this Saturday at Trade Days. I brought a few items to work to set on my desk to see if I could drive any interest among my coworkers. So far that has not been overly successful, but Mama and Kimberlyn are hopeful the flea markets will be kind to them. There are a few things they have made that are unique. Among my favorites is the Christmas donkey.

They also have one of a wolf done in an American Indian theme that is going to sell quickly once it is displayed. On one side it reads, “Feed the good wolf”. Mama and Kimberlyn are both excited and scared to market the items. It will be fun to see how this venture of theirs turns out. For their first time at Trade Days they will have a lot more than just their crafts. They will have garage sale items as well. I do not know if that will be an attractant or a deterrent, but that is the plan they have put together. I am praying they do well.

Mama and I are looking forward to the holidays. Thanksgiving is now only three weeks away. We have a few things to get done in the house and at the farm to be ready for all who will be with us that week. I have scheduled some time off that week to accommodate those plans – and to give me more time to visit. We always have a big organizational and cleanup task when we prepare for guests. Mama and Victoria tend to leave things out after they have used them – especially Mama’s craft items. That produces a lot of clutter on surfaces all around the house. Tabletops. Countertops. Every corner in the house is filled with stuff. Fortunately, all the items that we accumulated for Cori and the kids were taken to Honduras already, so the spare bed is usable now. Still, we have a lot to do to ready the house for the holidays. I am still of the opinion that we should have people over at least every month just so that the house gets a thorough cleaning on a timely schedule.

But at the very least, reorganizing and decluttering will make things easier as Mama gets help decorating the house for Christmas – after Thanksgiving.

Shelter work, Victoria, Ben and Marie

It was a beautiful weekend. Saturday, I worked outside from sunup to sundown. Always in a light jacket or a Carhart vest. The weather was beautiful. The sky was clear. The temperature was perfect. There were several times I wanted to take a break from putting siding on the goat shelter and go fishing for a few minutes, but I stuck with the more important project until I literally ran out of screws to attach the metal siding. To put up the last piece I had for the lower portion of the walls, I scrounged in every nook and cranny of the shop to get what I needed. Even at that, realizing I was short on screws, I put only a few in each panel trying to make them go further while still getting as much siding as I could attached. I also built a small deck inside the shelter so the bucks could have a resting place off the ground. They started using it right away. Mama was happy enough with the outcome. Even though the metal sheets were used they match in color and style. At some point we will paint the metal to match or at least compliment the shop. For now, the bucks are protected from most of the wind and rain. This evening, I will get the roof painted and sealed to limit the drips into the shelter from holes in the metal from its previous uses. Yes, I have used this metal on several projects. But I think it has now found a permanent home. Mostly.

Victoria was able to get everything settled at work. Her leave of absence was approved and her time off was accepted without the absences being counted against her. She did not get paid for the personal time off she requested during her stay in Honduras, but that is a favorable trade off to have the absences dismissed. So, she is back at work as normal. That was a relief to her – and to me and Mama as well. She is still very tender in her back. Every wrong move or every sudden jerk - while playing with the dogs, for instance - reminds her that she is still not completely recovered. She is slowly mending, but it takes a very long time to heal from such an injury. Something I am very familiar with.

Victoria and Mama were at the table the last several evenings looking at the pictures Victoria got while in Honduras. She and Nate, Cori and the kids went to the ruins of Copan. An extensive archeological site in central Honduras. It has been largely restored and reconstructed. The architecture of the ruins is very impressive especially considering the time when it was built. But what the kids loved more than the ruins was Macaw Mountain. It is a rehabilitation facility near Copan. The vivid colors on the birds is beyond description. It is also beyond explanation as far as evolutionary theory is concerned. Such variety, such beauty, is wholly unnecessary for life. It is there simply given for us to marvel; to enjoy the pleasure of color and form. Mama wants to go there if we are not able to afford a trip to Roatan when we visit Nate, Cori and the kids early next year. We will evaluate that as we get nearer the date of our visit. I would like to do something with them that they would not do on their own. We will see.

Ben Muldoon had lunch with us at the restaurant Sunday. He is an impressive young man. He is a delight to be around. Careful, thoughtful, but quick witted with a great sense of humor. A gifted listener. Fluent in sign language. Always looking for a way to serve the Lord. All the kids in church respond well to him. The adults love his as well. He grew up in a very remote mission station in Papua New Guinea. His parents continue in that mission work. Ben and Nate-and-Cori’s-Marie are engaged to be married in June next year. Marie, also fluent in sign language is currently serving as the on-staff nurse at the Children’ s Home in Honduras. She is the antithesis to Ben’s studious, analytical, disciplined application to all areas of his life. Marie is scattered, busy, distracted yet connected. Taking on everything in a mad rush. Like a hummingbird marrying an owl. A raging rapid cascading into a large, calm pool. They are in for a fun life together.

It has been a funny, strange sort of long-distance dating and engagement for the two of them. I assume they have met in person, but I am not sure that is true. Regardless, October was the month the two of them were praying for guidance as far as whether they should get married. Mama and I were praying with them as they sought God’s direction. I have to assume the answer was affirmative based on the setting of a wedding date. But at the outset Marie was not sure hers would be a yes answer to his proposal of marriage. She flat out told Ben that she did not like his voice. He does not have a manly voice. It is not as feminine as any of the males in one family in our church, but it is definitely pitched in a less masculine way than you would expect to look at Ben. I suppose love conquers all.

It will be a lot of fun to see this all get worked out.

Pumpkin Carving Results, Victoria, hive purchase

Yesterday was our 5^th Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest. I have participated in the last three. It is fun, but here’s hoping this one will be my last. Not that I mind the competition. I just hope to be working for my own company this time next year. Anyway, the contest always starts with each designated team selecting from the pumpkins purchased by the company. For some teams the shape is not particularly important, but for my team yesterday we needed a distinctive stem on our pumpkin. One of our members selected the one she thought would serve us best and I was in place to claim it as ours at the appointed time. That time is carefully controlled in order to give each team a shot at the pumpkin they want for the contest.

Next, the time is set for opening and gutting the pumpkin. Only one member is allowed to do this part. That person has to ensure that what they do does not interfere with the carving that will follow. The entire team is encouraged to help with the carving. One hour is allotted to complete the work. We can only use the tools provided by the company to actually carve the pumpkin. Those tools are the store-bought pumpkin carving sets sold at Walmart. They are not precision tools. I did all the carving for our entry. When we were selecting a theme for our pumpkin, I suggested to the team that we go about the work to have fun, produce something we could be pleased with, and enjoy the morning. That is exactly what we did.

We carved a witch with a very ugly stem nose, buggy eyes and missing teeth. It turned out pretty good. We were very pleased with the final product. Some of the other pumpkins were extremely clever.

A barbeque grill complete with dry ice smoke. The house from the movie “UP” complete with balloons coming out of the chimney. An ice cream cone with cherries on top. Oscar the Grouch, in a trash can brimming with trash. I work in a very creative group – and it shows. The barbeque grill won first place. Our witch won second place. I do not remember which pumpkin won third place. It was fun.
One member of our group was ecstatic about placing in the contest. She has competed all five years and never placed. Each member of each winning team got a gift card for one of the eateries in town. I took the Subway card from the four randomly selected by one member of our group. The entire morning off and a Subway gift card as a reward for taking the morning off. Not a bad deal.

Mama and I went to get Victoria at the airport last night. She got in around 7:45. Mama and I left early enough to kill some time at Costco as we waited on her flight to land. DFW is an easy airport to navigate. We were in and out in thirty minutes. We got home a little after 9 pm. Hopefully, Victoria can clear up any residual work issues today. She did not get her paycheck yesterday as she should have. So, something is messed up with her leave of absence. Being there in person should expedite fixing whatever is wrong. With that is mind, she is going to work this morning hoping she can get all the miscommunications resolved. We are certainly praying so.

Kimberlyn spent the day at our farm yesterday. She and Mama got a lot done. I was impressed. Today, Mama is going to her house to complete more projects. I brought a few pieces to work to see if I can generate any interest in their crafts. Some of the prices they have painted are quite clever.

Tonight, Mama and I are driving to Greenville, TX to purchase a top bar hive. The seller is asking only $50 for the hive. I cannot build it for that. The cost of bees to put in the hive will be about $130. Total cost of less than $200 to set up a hive is cheap. the primary product of a top bar hive is honeycomb. We will get honey out of that hive as well, but the way the hive works, it is best for harvesting comb. That will allow me and Mama to extract honey from our other hives and retain the comb in them for next year’s honey production. It saves the bees a lot of time when they do not have to produce the wax for the comb.

It will be another evening of travel for us, but it should be worth it in the long run.