Brittany and the girls, busy schedule, class tomorrow

Mama met Brittany and the girls in Oklahoma City Monday afternoon. From there they drove back to the farm, arriving about 6 pm. Brittany drove her vehicle and Mama followed so that she was able to help with potty breaks and meals in transit. This morning, Brittany will head back with Audrey. Zoe and Sophia will stay here with us until Friday afternoon when Mama and Victoria will reconnect with Brittany. Friday, as was Monday, will be a long day for Mama. The trip is about three hours each way. Some of it through heavy construction on the interstate. This visit was a welcome and unexpected visit and may well be one of the last times we will see the girls before Brittany and Andrew relocate further north. So far, I have not been welcomed by Audrey, but Mama and Victoria are able to hold and snuggle with her. Zoe and Sophia are very including of all of us. It is fun to have them close for a few days even though I will have limited time with the girls due to my teaching and working schedule.

We did not have much time with the girls Monday night, but Mama and Victoria made up for that Tuesday. I was teaching yesterday, so I only got to interact with the girls in the evening. Mama and I went out to feed with Zoe and Sophia in tow. That was a spectacle to behold. Mama broke up bread for the girls to feed to the chickens. Fortunately, the chickens are not at all particular who has the bread. They will follow the source until all the bread is spent. The girls made much of the cluster of chickens around them as they dispersed the bread. When it came to feeding the pig, they were very intimated and steadfastly refused to pet Rosalita. Not at all surprising. She is a beautiful 350# hog that stands eye-to-eye with the girls and not the type of animal that inspires warm cuddle feelings. At the goats, they got involved once again. Mama and I keep animal crackers on hand to feed the goats. Zoe loved the feel of the goats pulling the cookie out of her hand with their lips. Sophia was not so brave, but she did not mind being in with the goats.

After the feeding was done, we packed everyone up and went to Moua’s for dinner. The girls – all three of them – ate very well. Our original intent was to go to Casa Torres, but there was a twenty-five-minute wait (at best) and that is not a workable situation with three young ones. Moua’s was a great alternative. As we wound down in the late evening and were gearing up for bed, Sophia had a brief meltdown which had to be dealt with, but it was over shortly. Our only concern in the hysteria was that her very loud protest would wake Audrey who had been put to bed only a little while before the protest began. It all ended well. Fortunately, all the girls sleep well. Audrey was in our room for the past two night while the twins slept on the bed in the spare bedroom. Brittany slept on the couch. That sleeping arrangement made it a bit of a challenge for me to get ready to teach a class on Tuesday, but Brittany is a very sound sleeper, so I was able to get all my things and get out of the house(at 6:30) without disturbing either Audrey or Brittany.

First thing this morning, as I was sitting at the dining room table working on my computer, I looked out the window and saw Julian – one of our Billy goats – wandering in the front yard. I alerted Mama and we both went out to herd Julian and Midas back into the enclosure. They were enjoying their freedom and were in no hurry to go back to their area.  I had left the gate unlatched when I fed last night because I left the enclosure from a different gate. The hard winds in the storms last night blew the gate open enough for the two goats out. My bad! I hurried to close the gates on the driveway, so we did not have to chase them down the road. Having done that, we guided them back slowly, circuitously to the enclosure. They both seemed to enjoy their brief visit with the girl goats. Once they were inside their paddock, I fed them and moved on the feed the other goats.

Brittany left with Audrey, headed back home fairly early this morning. Mama left with the girls as soon as Grandma and Grandpa arrived at the farm for Mama to guide them to a doctor’s appointment in Decatur. Grandma had an appointment with an orthopedist to get a shot in her knee. I am not sure which knee, but she was not looking froward to getting the shot no matter how much Mama reassured her that it would help with the pain – at least for a time. I encouraged Mama to get a shot in her left knee as well if we could afford it, but I am not sure she will do so. If she does, she should also get some relief from the constant pain she is in.

Tonight is church. Mama will get to show off the girls. She is looking forward to that. Tomorrow I will be teaching an 8-hour class.

Busy Grammy and Papi.

Another busy Saturday, a busy week ahead

Friday evening Mama and I went to Lowe’s and Tractor Supply. To Lowe’s for lumber and to Tractor Supply for chicks. At Lowe’s I passed on the lumber I had intended to buy and purchased a backup style of wood for the cabinet I was working on. We also bought mulch and potting soil and some plants for Mama’s flower beds. I was not sure what work I would be able to get done on Saturday, but we had plenty of materials to get started. Tractor Supply was a bust as far as buying chicks was concerned. They had sold out the day they got chicks last week. Mama will try again this week.

After making some final measurements for the shelves I want to install in a cedar wardrobe Mama and I have had for many years, I started cutting the shelving boards to length. My original intent was to make the shelves out of particle board, but the sheet of particle board was so heavy that I did not think I could manage it by myself through the process of loading, unloading and then handling it for the several cuts I would be required to make for the shelving cuts. In my best days handling an eighty-pound piece of particle board was a struggle. At this point in my life, it is a two-person job.

So, I bought the same material I have used in making the parts for the beehives. Pine boards that are a true 1x6, treated and planed smooth on all edges. I cut those boards and used my biscuit joiner to get either two or three boards joined for the depth I needed for the shelving. That took some time, but I got all the shelves made by lunchtime. Today I will take them out of the clamps and stain them before mounting them in the cabinet. I have yet to install the cleats that I will mount the shelves on, but that should be a simple process – albeit time consuming. Nevertheless, Mama should have her cedar wardrobe repurposed into a craft cabinet late this week.

While I was waiting on the assembled shelves to dry, I got out the pole saw attachment for the multifunction weed eater I bought last summer, and I tried it out. I had to make several adjustments and even refit the bar to get it to function properly, but after an hour I had it working. It worked surprisingly well; however, it is a fixed length. I cannot extend it, so I had to make due with what it offered. To get to some of the branches I was trimming at the garden – to allow more morning sun onto the raised bed – I was required to use a ladder. I had to be careful to keep the branches from striking the garden shed roof as I trimmed them off, so positioning was important, especially when using the ladder. It was while I was trimming a large branch in the garden which overhung the raised bed that I got into a bit of trouble.

I tried to position the ladder to keep myself clear of the path I expected the branch to take as it fell but I miscalculated. As I finished cutting through the branch and I began to fall, I hesitated before I made the final cut. I was pretty sure I was okay where I had set up to make the cut. As I cut through the final portion to sever the branch at the tree, its outermost parts began to contact the ground and as the heaviest portion of the branch broke loose, it bounced back and hit me squarely in the chest. I had the pole saw in my right hand, so I used my left hand to lift the branch off my chest and redirect it to the ground. As I did, it sprang back just enough to hit me very hard in my left thigh. That blow caused the ladder to start leaning and I had to hop off the ladder – pole saw still in hand. I had to take a few minutes to recuperate after that incident. My chest and my leg are both still bruised and hurting. I was praising the Lord that the branch did not hit me in the face or head. That would have been far worse. At least I was positioned to avoid that type of strike. I still have two branches to trim out, but I will require help to get those removed.

Since I was moving slowly after my incident, I worked on filling containers for Mama to plant vegetables in. I hauled compost from around the area where we confine the residue from the coops as we clean them to put into the containers and filled the last several inches with the potting soil we had bought. That turned out well and hopefully this week we will get the plants set out that Mama plans to grow in those pots. Using pots for certain vegetable plants has worked out very well in the past, versus planting those plants in the garden. Mama and I also planted beans and butternut squash seeds in the garden.

Late this morning, Mama will drive to Oklahoma City to meet Brittany. They will caravan to the farm from there. Brittany is staying with us for a week so Mama can help her with the girls as she continues to recuperate from surgery she had a couple week ago. Andrew is spending the week away from home in training. So, this should be a fun week for us, plenty of activity as we enjoy the little ones in our home.

I will be teaching a class tomorrow. 

Change of schedule, moving fast, vacation planning

In a slight change of schedule, I have to teach an in-person class tomorrow. I was not originally scheduled for the class but that is the way things worked out. So, I will be teaching tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. My only concern is my voice since I seem to lose my voice in the course of an eight-hour class. Teaching three back-to-back classes will be a challenge. I am not sure what happened in the scheduling, but I am glad I found out yesterday rather than Wednesday morning. Also, in a slight change of schedule, we went last night to pick up a chair from Grandma and Grandpa’s since Norman was available to help me load the chair. That was done after I had gotten the tires Norman passed along to me mounted on the truck. The tire work took over an hour, but now it is done. Same with the chair. Mama and Victoria are very excited about the chair. Me, not so much.

Today is the only day this week that I will be working from home. As predicted, these days of working remotely will get less and less. There is a company-wide meeting next week which I will not be able to attend that will more than likely address how we are to coordinate returning to the office. The challenge to our management is to house an additional fifteen people into the office when we do not have space for those additional people. There has been some talk about sharing desks – as in working one week in the office and one week from home. During my week working remotely, someone would be sitting at my desk in the office. So, every Friday we would have to pack up our desk and vacate our office space. Not a good psychological approach if we are interested in promoting a sense of permanence. I am not sure if it would feel more like being a contract worker. One week on. One week off. It will probably work, but it will not be a good solution. My worry is that we will be more fractured as a company than we currently are but I do not have a workable solution to offer.

By the time we complete this week, we will be halfway through the month of March. That is to say, we will be nearly through the first quarter of 2021. Fortunately, this year is passing quickly. I am not always looking forward to the year flying by, but this year seems different. We have to suffer through at least two year of the current administration before we have the chance to change things – if we have the gumption to do so. I am not looking forward to gas prices being over $3 per gallon, which it will be by the end of the year. I am not looking forward to one million or more illegal alien coming into our country, which will happen through this year. Certainly by the end of two years. I am not looking forward to our loss of liberty as it is eroded by executive order and judicial overreach, which is happening right now. I am not looking forward to our religious freedoms and our free speech being taken from us, which we will start to see very obviously in the months to come.

We will stand against all these infringements every step of the way, but we are stuck with what we have in the highest offices in the land for now, with very little options to win in that opposition. I can say that I will no longer support the Republican Party. I am wholly on board with Donald Trump and his Save America PAC. I can at least do that with some confidence. The only thing we have on our side right now is that the Liberal crowd always pushes too far when they are in power. The fact that they had to cheat on a massive scale to gain that power is making them more feverish to get their agenda instituted as quickly as possible by whatever means possible. For a long time, we, as conservatives, have lacked a definitive voice and a recognized leader. Now we have one and we should rally behind that leader. Like him or not, we need someone fearless to lead the advance to reclaim our republic. Enough on that.

Mama and I have been talking about taking a mini vacation. I am not sure where we will go – or if we will go – but we are taking about it. We need a break. Some time for us. The daily needs around the farm will keep us from going away for too long, but I feel like we need to go somewhere special. For many years Pensacola had been our default and we will probably look there first.

Time will tell.

A busy Saturday

Mama and I went shopping Friday evening. I had to exchange a saw blade I had bought at Harbor Freight and she had to check out Hobby Lobby. We did not stay out long and were back home a little after 7 pm. When we got back home, I went to work getting the swarm traps ready to set out. It is a little early, but I thought I should get it done since the colonies in all our hives are very busy right now. I spent an hour or so in the shop rearranging again and was very pleased with the new setup.  Early Saturday morning I set one trap in a tree at the East edge of our property and since I had enough frames to do so I set a trap near the active hives at the South side of the property. This time, I will check the traps several times per week to ensure we do not let the bees they attract get too far ahead of me in building their new home. I only have one hive available so I will keep only one swarm, but I have plenty of people in the Bee Club who will take the other swarm should I be able to attract two swarms. I consider it part of our conservation service to get as many swarms into domestic hives as I am able to catch. When I checked the trap nearest the hives yesterday evening, I saw a lone bee checking out the trap. I will check the one I hung in a tree this evening.

Mama went to Trade Days so I took on the chore of cleaning the coops. I also cleaned and sanitized the boy goat’s shelter. It was long overdue. In order to house the waste from the coops I expanded our compost bin. Now we have the extra capacity we need to keep things clean. Once I was done scraping the floors of the coops, I got the tractor fired up and swapped the hay forks for the bucket and attached the brush hog to the tractor. That took a lot longer than I thought it would – almost an hour – but I did get it done. I was able to get in the garden with the tractor and shred a lot of the accumulation of leaves near the raised bed. I do not have room to maneuver the tractor in all the areas I needed to take care of the piles of leaves, but I got what I could. I felt a little better about it. One of the issues with having the leaves cover the ground is the possibility of snakes hiding in those leaves. Especially copperheads. That is why I like to get them all removed. I have waited a little longer than I usually do to get them cleaned up, but I will get it done eventually.

I moved on to taking apart pallets I had stacked behind the pig pen, but I only got three of those pallets disassembled before I needed to shift gears. Trace, Krystal and their crew were coming over for a meal of burgers, sausages and hot dogs. I took the boys fishing for an hour or so just to keep them occupied while Trace went to pick up Krystal and Savanna. Trace and the boys had been working at BBTI. Leo was the only one of us that caught a fish. It was a good one, but we released it back into the lake. No sense getting all the required tools to clean only one fish. Mama seasoned the burgers and they turned out great. I had not eaten since very early in the day, so I was hungry when the food was finally served. We sat around and talked for quite a while as the boys played outside. They were in no hurry to leave and we were not in a hurry for them to go.

When I went out to close up the chickens, I found all the chickens roosted at various places near the coop. The boys had closed the gate to the coop yard and the chickens could not get back inside – so they did the best they could. We have repeatedly cautioned the boys to keep the gates shut – and they did. We just forgot to make clear that that one gate has to remain open. It took only a few minutes for all of us to get the chickens back into the coop and close them up properly, but it was a hilarious few minutes. None of the boys wanted to touch a chicken so they were more in the way than they were a help to me and Mama, but Trace managed to catch a few and get them into the coop. It all ended well.

Sunday afternoon we went to Grandma and Grandpa’s to meet Norman. He had set aside a set of five tires for me to use on the truck. They are not new, but they match, they are a very good brand, and they have twenty or thirty thousand miles left in them. I will get them mounted as soon as possible. Having five will allow me to replace the spare tire also. They should do me for several years. We were supposed to pick up a chair also, but for some reason I was not informed about that, so we left without it. Mama and I will go back this evening to retrieve the chair. It will replace the one recliner we kept from the pair we bought years ago in New Jersey. Mama is thrilled about that upgrade. I am pleased with the tire upgrade. A win-win.

Norman is vacating the place where he has been living in West Virginia and moving to Florida. So, all his belongings are being brought to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. If that move actually happens, Grandma and Grandpa will go with him. They are excited about it, but they are trying not to show it.
It would be a good move for them, and it would help Norman to protect his homestead as he works his business hauling for hire.

Another win-win.

Having a worthy vision, forever cleaning up

Mama has been getting a lot of coaching lately and much of that coaching focuses on vision – a clear, specific image of your future. In one training the coach said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” So, to reinforce the training I asked Mama what her vision for the day was. Instead of giving me her vision, she gave me a long set of goals for the day. Goals are set milestones or targets that move you to a strategic accomplishment. Hopefully, those goals move you toward your vision, but they are not vision. So, I began to think, how do I make the concept of vision work in my thought life? It is not as easy as supposed, especially for those of us who are believers.

We are hesitant to visualize or create a mental image of our future because it goes against the grain of allowing us to be led daily by the Holy Spirit. So, concentrating on the temporal – as we typically tend to do – is a path we try to avoid. But what if we let the Holy Spirit give us His vision for our future? If we focus on the Spiritual vision God has for each of us, all the things we need in this daily walk in the world will be provided for us – as promised in Matthew 6:33. The promise is that if we seek first the things of God, all the necessities of life we spend so much time agonizing over will be added to our lives as needed. So, that is where my focus is going to be because I believe God wants me to have a vision for this life, a Godly vision. Something that motivates me to press through difficult times. A vision that encourages me to remain faithful to the end. Something more than just surviving day to day, enduring this life as I wonder if I am making a difference. I still have some praying to do to get there, but that is the path I am set upon.

Mama was supposed to go visit with Kimberlyn today, but those plans fell through. She will still have to go to the feed store to replenish our stock of feed, but she is not pressed to do so at any particular time. Being home for the day will facilitate her business goals for today. I have to admit, even though she is having trouble verbalizing it, she has caught a vision for her business, and it shows in her commitment to grow this business. Honestly, we are not seeing the fruit of those effort but if you continue to do the right things, the right results will come. Another Bible principle we take for granted. It is the principle of sowing and reaping. Whatever seed you sow you will reap – later than you sow, more than you sowed. We just need to make sure we are sowing the right seed…in thought, in word and in deed.

Speaking of sowing, Mama and I are going to get started on our garden this weekend. There are not many things we can plant in the actual garden plot, but there are several plants we can get started on in pots and tubs which will be kept in our sunroom until the weather is right for them to be set outside. We already have one row of potatoes planted. They were not bought as seed potatoes, but they were not eaten in time to keep them from turning into seed potatoes. By the way, most of the fig trees I separated out last year survived the deep freeze they were put through. The blueberries and blackberries seem to be showing signs of life as well. All the fruit trees are starting to put out buds and a couple seem to be far more alive than last year. Maybe the freeze helped them. At the very least, it did not kill them.

This weekend will be spent on cleaning coops and barns. I have neglected the small goat shelter for too long and with the outbreak of lice in that area, I need to clean and sanitize it thoroughly. Of course, I would rather be doing other things, but that will take precedent. I also have to add to the compost bin we have overfilled with manure from the coop. I like being able to put all that mess somewhere where it can be managed, but we have exceeded the capacity of the 4x4x4 containment I originally set up. It will not be difficult to double the size of the bin so it should not take me too long to get done.

To assist us in cleaning up, I am going to hook up the brush hog to the tractor today so Mama and I can chew up the accumulation of leaves from last Fall. Somehow it seems to be more than we have dealt with in the past. As far as mowing, we need to mow but the clover that is covering the back yard is being fed on by the bees, so it will stay until the flowers are gone. It looks ugly to us, but they are needing the pollen and nectar so we will endure the ugliness for the sake of the bees.

A small sacrifice for a big gain.

Busy schedule, lifting restrictions, missionaries

Last week I taught three classes. This week I have taught two and am attending a practice class today getting an additional instructor ready to teach for our company. It has been a busy schedule to maintain. Not because the classes are difficult to teach, but because there is a significant amount of prework before each class is presented and several hours of follow-up administrative work for each class. Next week I have three classes to teach and the following week I have two classes to teach and one to attend as an auditor. Mama is not enjoying the schedule too much. She has gotten used to me helping her with the morning feeding while I have been working from home. I have enjoyed that routine as well, but all that is about to change as our governor had declared an end to the COVID impositions starting next Wednesday.

I am anxious to see how the populous in general responds to the lifting of the mask mandate and the restriction of maintaining a 6-foot distance from others. Some have gotten so used to the masking and distancing that there will be a good deal of discomfort on their part to go back to the way things were before the panic drove us to submission through largely unfounded fear mongering. I watched an awkward moment in church last night as a missionary wife offered to shake hands with someone in our church and was demonstrably refused. The refusal was verbally apologetic, but the refusal was shouted out through body language.

I have come to the conclusion that the person refusing to shake hands had never liked the custom (they are very cleanly) and now have a “valid” reason to avoid the gesture of friendship altogether. Based on how much people were willing to shame others for not wearing a mask, I am wondering how they will handle the lack of legal requirement to do so. Time will tell but it should prove very interesting to those of us who are willing to look for the signs of awkwardness from those not quite willing to give up the isolation – or the empowerment of shaming their fellow Americans. Also, it will be interesting to see just how many at our church will begin attending the services in person now that the restrictions are abolished.

The missionary we had at church last night is headed to the Philippines. He has been the children’s ministry director at his church for over twenty-five years. His presentation was superb. He had a short video presentation followed by a long series of slides which he used as a topical guide for the work he has done and plans to continue to do in the Philippines. There are over 1.8 million street children on the main island in the Philippines and he is going to try to reach some of those abandoned children. What a ministry! He did a couple of tricks for the congregation and he called them tricks. Not magic tricks. He said he is careful to do so because he uses the idea of tricks to tell how the Devil tries to trick each of us into not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. The kids at the service last night were all ears. So were the adults. His wife, who is Filipino, was a gem. Mama and I will keep up with the two of them as they are quickly progressing in their support to get onto the field fulltime.  

One of the young ladies at church has been very faithful to set aside money for us to get to Nate and Cori for their ministry and their home. So far, Nate has been able to buy a nice weed eater and is gaining the money to buy a power washer. Both will be tools for use in the ministry as they help families in the church to clean up their homes and properties from the flooding caused by the two hurricanes that struck Honduras last year. Just this one person’s sacrifice has made an enormous difference for the mission’s work being done in Honduras.

It is amazing to see that happen.

A great visit

 Mama and I had a great visit with Brittany, Andrew, Zoe, Sophia and Audrey. Peter, Andrew’ s brother and their mom were also there for Audrey’s birthday celebration. Mama and I traveled up on Friday. We were in no particular hurry but made the drive in less than six hours with a couple stops. We got to visit with Brittany for a couple hours before she and Mama went to get Zoe and Sophia. Just before they left to get the girls, Andrew got to the house with his family and took over with Audrey – who was not overly welcoming of any of the additional adults. Brittany refers to Audrey as her COVID baby and it is an appropriate reference. She has been at home with mommy and daddy and no other adults to speak of for almost an entire year. She finally started to warm up to Mama about the time we were ready to leave Saturday afternoon. She was still very hesitant about me. I could hold her as long as she was in my arms facing forward – not able to see my face.

Friday evening, Peter bought us Korean food from a local restaurant/store. It was excellent! We just lazed around that evening and allowed Zoe and Sophia to wallow us as they went from one thing to another in their uninterrupted play. All the time Audrey scooted along behind her two older sisters trying to get involved in whatever had attracted their attention. It was a fun interaction to watch. Everyone went to bed by 8 pm and we started to set up the dining room for the party coming the next afternoon.

I got to get the girls out of bed Saturday morning. That was a wild event. They know they are not allowed to get up until someone comes to get them up but by the time I went up to release them from their room they had been awake for a good amount of time. I stood outside the door for a moment listening to them argue with each other about something I could not understand – but they were each set on their difference of opinion. When I opened the door their first words were, “Papi, you didn’t leave!” Brittany had muffins and fruit for breakfast and the girls were hungry. Each of them ate almost an entire muffin in small stages and a large amount of fruit. When they started to get silly, I called them “muffin heads” and that set off the goofiness that followed through the morning.

We played. We decorated. We cooked. We just enjoyed being busy. When Brittany and Mama arrived with the cakes all attention shifted to those sweets. We ate a simple lunch before getting to the cakes and again, the girls all ate very well. One of the cakes Brittany brought home was a smash cake. One that was made as a miniature of the formally decorated birthday cake for Audrey to smash all by herself. It took her a minute or two to get started but once she figured out how soft and sticky the little cake was, she demolished it with gusto. I got several short video clips for Brittany so she could post them as desired. She ate only a couple bites of the cake, but she had a great time flattening it.

Once Audrey was cleaned up and redressed in her traditional Korean costume, we let her go through the tradition of selecting an item from a variety of items laid out in a line in front of her. A microphone, a football, a ball of yarn, a pencil, a dollar bill, a stethoscope, a calculator and maybe one other item I have forgotten. Once she was placed on the floor in front of the row to pick from, she picked the pencil and held onto it for the remainder of the morning. I think I was told that means that she will be an intellectual – teacher, a writer, or something along that line. Time will tell.

Mama and I said our goodbyes to the girls before they went down for their naps and left about 3 pm Saturday afternoon. The drive home was spent listening to a coach/mentor whose training Mama had signed up for. It was helpful but somewhat repetitive. It gave me and Mama a chance to talk about what each of us see as challenges she must overcome to succeed in this – or any – business. March will be a telltale month for Mama and her business. We drove through some light rain as we traveled and a lot of fog, sometimes heavy, for the last couple hours of travel, but we were pulling into the garage at about 8:45.

Sunday services were wonderful and there is talk about our governor ending the mask mandate and lifting other restrictions so we can begin to function normally. We had a fellowship after church last night. Everything was individually packaged – sub sandwiches, chips, soft drinks and cupcakes. Somewhat sterile, but at least we had a fellowship. More and more people are coming back to church as the panic begins to subside. That is encouraging. Maybe soon we will take the tape down limiting access to every other pew in our auditorium.

Patience!