Inspections, making room

Last weekend, I looked once more into the hives to see if the colonies were doing well. It appears that they are. While one hive has a low store of honey the second hive has seven frames full of honey. I am tempted to pull out four of those frames so we can harvest a little honey but am apprehensive about leaving the colony without sufficient stores to go through this winter. While I was working the hives, I began the process of preparing them for winter weather. Swapping to the smaller hive entrance and covering the opening of the screen bottom of the hive are two things I do each Fall. Later this month I will make a couple candy boards to help feed the bees through the cold season. We are forecast to have a cold, dry winter this year, so I will wrap the hives in an insulation blanket to help them conserve the heat required to make it through the very cold days. I will make my last bucket of syrup for them this evening.  Temperatures at the end of this week will be too cool for them to harvest the liquid feed. Bees are truly amazing creatures.

Tomorrow Mama will meet with a team from the Texas Animal Health Commission. In Texas we are required to register our flock in order to sell any of our birds at venues where the general population is in attendance. To get that registration, all of our chickens and quail will be tested. We have about fifty chickens and twelve quail in our flock, so testing may each and every bird may take a while. To accommodate that exercise the chickens will be left in the closed coops until they are selected in groups of five to be tested. Once those five show negative results, an additional five will be caught and tested. While the results are being processed the tested chickens must be caged until the negative result is posted. Once proven negative, they can be let loose and the process repeats.

The agent who will be leading the team tomorrow will have two helpers with him. All three will be equipped with nets to be used in catching the chickens. It should be fun to watch. My assumption is that all three chicken catchers have a modicum of experience in chicken wrangling, but that theory will be proved tomorrow. Mama is far less apprehensive of the whole affair since the agent has sufficient help to conduct the entire testing exercise on his own. We were expecting to have to provide all the support to a lone agent, but since that is not the case, it should require little participation on Mama’s part. We were told that the ducks are exempt from the testing. That is a huge relief. They just started laying again, so we were apprehensive about stressing them out.

I was scheduled to present an all-day class tomorrow, but my voice is still not strong enough to talk for that many hours. That class has been, once again, passed off to one of my coworkers. I am truly thankful for the help. Mama is thankful that I will be working from home when the chickens are being tested. At this point I am not sure that I need to be there, but I am happy that I will be available if needed. Most times that I am available to Mama I am needed for something or another. That’s okay. It is nice to be needed.

Trying to finish this craft container has become a challenge. It seems that every opportunity I have to set aside time to work on the container, I am drawn away to some other more urgent tasks. The latest interruption is on behalf of the goats. We have little ones that are now ready to be weaned. This means they need to be separated from their mommies. We have used the pig building in the past, but it is not properly occupied with pigs. So, I have to create a separate area to sequester the weanlings for a few weeks. We will use the garden area for the weanlings. To create three breeding areas, I have to section off two areas on the farm to allow us to use three bucks in the three separate enclosures. Each buck will have two or three does to breed. To accommodate that, I am going to split the goat barn in two and enclose one side of the paddock to have entry to the barn on the West side of the barn, while the goats that are not getting bred will have use of the East side of the barn. All of that labor for a couple months of separations.

I finished a shelter for the weanlings in the garden last night. We will begin the weaning process later this week and by the end of the month will have at least four of the nine little ones in the garden area until their mommies dry up. The shelter was built in such a way that it can be quickly disassembled and once again be repurposed. Sometime before Thanksgiving we will have sold off at least four of the goats we are now feeding. Three of the four we rescued will have had their kids by then – if, in fact, they will be having kids – and we will have the paddock for the boys back in use by our three bucks. Mama is also looking to sell one or two of our current flock to cull our herd. Right not we are keeping too many goats. How many is too many? What we have right now is too many and we will have to cull the herd to bring the feed costs back into a manageable budget. That is very hard for Mama.

By Christmas we should have everyone back to normal…whatever that is.

 

Doing our best, Fall, new to us

Mama met with a friend a couple days ago whose 45-year-old son is dying from alcohol induced terminal illnesses. It is a very sad story. But not, unfortunately, uncommon. Another friend of ours at church has a son about the same age that has been sent to prison for twelve years for a drug possession and distribution charge. That son, like the alcoholic son walked a long but predictable road to their own destruction. No intervention was sufficient for either son and now their families are suffering as well with the consequences of those destroyed lives. The families of the sons may not bear the penalty of the choices that led to the current circumstances, death or imprisonment, but they will bear the loss, the regret, the guilt of the “if only I had” or “is this partly my fault” accusations that will haunt their thoughts for many years.

Such are the musings of many parents that, though they had done the best they knew how to raise their children, have nonetheless, watched certain of their children make one bad decision after another leading them to a very certain end. It is sad, especially when the outcomes are so predictable; yet every warning offered, every caution spoken are scoffed at and trivialized. The Lord allows us to each make our own mistakes and forgiveness is available when sought from a sincere heart. However, though the sins are forgiven, the heart is set right, and the penalty for our sins has been paid in full, the consequences of our errant decisions and presumptuous sins can affect our lives and the lives of others – especially those who love and cherish us - for many years to come. My cautionary note: If you have someone who loves you cautioning you about something you are doing or allowing in your life, take the words to heart and at least give that person a fair hearing. It may save you from years of hurt and loss.

Mama and I have the windows open today. It was just over sixty degrees outside in the early morning. The ground is still moist from the inch and one half of rain we had overnight Wednesday, so the dust is minimized as a light breeze stirs the leaves on the trees. The change in weather happened so quickly. Only a week ago we had high temperatures near one hundred degrees. Then, overnight the forecast changed, and we will have days with high temperatures in the low eighties and nights in the forties and fifties. We moved from Summer into Fall in just one day. Our animals are loving it!

Norman who has been staying with us, has been doing several remodeling jobs in the area. One took him almost a month and he was able to stay in the house he was working on as he worked. Anyway, he has come across multiple items in those renovations that he has passed on to Mama and me. The most recent of which is a table and chairs that are absolutely perfect for our eating area. Mama and I have been through four table and chair combinations over the last two months and none of those arrangements seemed to fit all we were needing in that small dining area. Until now. This set is everything we did not know we were looking for, but nonetheless wanted. It is an oak pedestal table with one leaf that can be inserted to expand the table. The four chairs are the most comfortable we have had in any of our dining areas. The pedestal design allows Mama to prop her feet up as she sits at the table. That is the first of its kind for us. With Norman’s help we installed it yesterday placing the higher table with the granite top in the sunroom.

Also in his travels, Norman located for us a one-time rabbit cage that we have repurposed into a quail condo. It was into that that we put the recently hatched quail. Only five managed to survive but at least we have that small success. So, to bring some new genetics into our quail flock we are negotiating the purchase of hatchlings from a coworker who recently set up a large quail farm operation. The newly established quail breeder sells fertile eggs for one dollar each. They also sell hatchlings and young quail, up to three weeks old, for three dollars each. We will probably buy the older quail in the hope that we can distinguish males from females at two to three weeks. That would take some of the disappointment out of raising hatchlings to discover that the majority of them are male. Not that that is a bad thing, since we can eat the overage. At least, I can. Mama and Victoria are reluctant to eat what we raise, be it birds, goats, or sheep.

Last night I candled the duck eggs we had in the larger incubator. Twelve were viable and nine were clearly not fertile. Those that were not viable were removed. The twelve viable eggs should be hatching by the 16^th. It is fun to candle the eggs at this point. You can actually see the embryonic duckling moving around in the egg. It is kind of freaky looking because mostly all that can be seen are large blood vessels and a dark shape, but it is clear that there is a live, developing ducking in the eggs. Only a few more days to wait. Again, we will not be able to determine males from females for months after they hatch, and again, we will cull the males from the mature ducks and either process them for me to eat or sell them to someone else to eat.

Either way, we come out alright.

New births, additions, picnic celebration

It has been some time since I have written. It is not that I have had nothing to write about, but rather that I have lacked the emotional energy to put those happenings into print. I do not have a huge audience for this little blog, but still, once something is committed to print and published, there is almost no way to take it back. I do not live in the pretentious world of today’s social media where I pretend to believe your lie as long as you pretend to believe my lie, so I try to mean what I say and say what I mean. All too often, that communication is faulty because anything said can be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misused by those who do read what I have written. Nevertheless, I will attempt to expend the energy required to put my thoughts into words. The following are real events that happened to real people, and I will personally attest to their veracity.

That being said, we have had quite a bit of activity on the farm over the past few months. What follows is a very brief synopsis. Since my last update we have had seven little ones born into our goat herd. One set of triplets and two sets of twins. The oldest set of five little ones were born a couple weeks back, and they have doubled in size over that time. The most recent births took place yesterday, just before Mama, Grandma, Rosalee and I left for church. Mama and toyed with the idea of staying home for the births, but that turned out not to be necessary. In fact, both little bucks were born in a matter of a few minutes. We watched the nanny, Honey, wander about the paddock over the course of the morning, finally ending up in the barn. We lost sight of her once inside the barn. There she had the two kids so close together that only one got fully cleaned up. Normally the nanny will busy herself in cleaning the kid just birthed while waiting on any subsequent kids, but the second must have come very quickly. The second of the two was matted with dried amniotic fluids and stubble from the barn floor when we did a welfare check on the two when we got home from church. Mama will attempt to clean up the little one sometime today. If we do not, his hair will be bristly and stiff for a week or more. So far both are doing well. They are nursing successfully and are starting to explore their surroundings.

We received four piglets to the farm Friday evening. JD and Sarah Fox found a Kune Kune pig grower who was overloaded with piglets. He was trying to cull his herd and had eight piglets for sale for thirty-five dollars apiece. Mama and I could not resist the purchase – especially since the piglets typically sell for two hundred dollars or more. In total there were eight piglets offered as a package deal. We took four, JD and Sarah took the other four with the intent of selling two of them to a third buyer. The little ones have been a delightful addition to the farm. Mama and I have always liked raising pigs, but we have avoided purchasing any because the prices were so high. These little ones fit our budget. Grandma and Grandpa are very excited to have pigs on the property. Grandpa more so than Grandma. I am hoping the additional feed required for the newcomers will not break our budget, which is already strained by having twenty goats to feed.

In addition to the pigs and the goats, we were also successful in hatching out some quail. So far, we have five. A total of eight hatched out, but three of those died within a day. Mama and I have found that the newly hatched quail tend to be very fragile. We are not sure why the hatchlings die, but our best guess is that temperature is the main culprit. We have two running around in an enclosure in the garage and three still in the incubator where they hatched. We try to leave the hatchlings in the safety of the incubator for 24 hours. That gives them time to get strong enough to be moved to a larger area. Yesterday, Victoria and Norman removed one from the incubator and placed it in the enclosure in the garage, but when I got home from church, I put it back in the incubator. It was clearly going to die if we did not do something to help it. By last night, it was running all over the small incubator. It will be moved this morning and the two that hatched yesterday afternoon will be moved this evening, hopefully.

Saturday, Mama and I attended a celebration at Bible Baptist Translator’s Institute in Bowie. The picnic was to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of BBTI. It was not as well attended as I would have hoped, but there were about seventy people there. Mama made two types of slaw and deviled eggs to add to the large variety of other picnic fare to compliment the hamburgers and hot dogs served up by BBTI staff. The afternoon was hot but there was a good breeze throughout the celebration, so it turned out to be quite pleasant. Mama and I visited with families we had not seen in many months, some for several years. It was fun to catch up on all that has happened during the extended time we were out of touch.

We all promised to be more diligent about staying in touch, but those are promises rarely kept. I am not sure why we do not do better since such communications are extremely convenient with our current technology. Too busy, too distracted, out of sight, out of mind. Who knows? There are no good excuses, but perhaps we allow ourselves too much grace in these glaring oversights. I am going to make it a point to respond to each prayer letter I receive from and of the missionaries that share those correspondences with me. Such a simple gesture is encouraging to those serving abroad. It is the very least I can do.

So, the farm is growing, keeping Mama and I busy, entertained and nearly broke. It is a wonderful life.

A short update

For weeks we have been waiting and watching our nanny goats expecting them to kid very soon. Well, Lilly, one of our older nannies, had her three babies early this morning. We were expecting Lilly to kid yesterday, so Mama was not surprised to see the three little ones this morning. She had asked me last night if there was a way we could separate Lilly from the others in the paddock, but there is no good way to do so without a lot of work. There are eleven total in the paddock right now, which makes it quite crowded at feeding times. Three of the goats in that paddock are very young – our bottle babies which have never been exposed to a kidding nanny goat. Four are approaching one year old and four are pregnant nanny goats. Dolly, another of our older nanny goats should be kidding in a few days. Most likely this week.

Mama is horribly stressed about the new kids being born and reared into that crowded environment. Lilly is batting and butting the other goats away from her recent offspring, especially the overly curious bottle babies we raised. I may need to find a way to isolate Lilly from the other residents of the paddock to assure the survival of the newbies, but we will know if that is necessary over the next few days. So, three little ones were introduced to Mama this morning, two little girls and one little boy, with the expectation that we will have more coming in the next few days followed by two other nanny goats kidding within the next couple weeks. Additionally, the four pregnant nanny goats we rescued are getting large as their pregnancies advance. I expect to see those kidding within the next four weeks. Certainly, by the end of September. In total, we should have up to twenty little ones born on our farm this year. A moderate success.

One thing after another has delayed the completion of our craft container. Mostly it is a matter of excessive heat, but also my lack of time and energy to work very long on the projects in the evenings. But this weekend I was able to get the entrance framed in so we can apply the foam - perhaps next weekend. That is the next big, expensive thing to be done. As the weather cools, I should be able to do more each available evening to add the little finishes required to spur us toward completion. Mama is anxious to get moved into the craft shop, but she is not pushing me too hard. I too am anxious to get the craft items moved out of the house. At this point, I am about forty hours and $3,000 short of that completion.

Tonight, I will refill the five-gallon bee feeder. I know it will only last the bees about three days, but I plan to refill the feeder no more than once per week. I cannot. Since it takes twenty-five pounds of sugar for each filling, the cost of which is about sixteen dollars, I cannot afford to keep them filled up. Even at once per week, I will be spending over five hundred dollars to cover this dearth and get the hives fed sufficiently to prepare the bees for winter. It is worth the cost and effort on my part, but it is still an added expense for us to deal with.

Attracting attention, Grandma’s birthday, diminishing strength

 After doing all I could to allow the bees to pull the majority of the syrup they could reach in the five-gallon bucket feeder, I took it, after dark last night, and refilled it with fresh sugar water. There was very little left in the bucket when I rinsed it out to clear away the older syrup and the ants that had gotten into the bucket. It was a sticky mess. I dumped a twenty-five-pound bag of sugar into the empty bucket and added enough water to begin mixing the contents. It took several minutes to get the solution completely mixed and once in solution, I added more water to fill the bucket. I did not want any of the sugar to fall out the mix, so I let the contents settle several times, mixing it thoroughly after each pause. When I was finally satisfied with the mix, I sealed the bucket and carried it to the site where I had retrieved it from and flipped it over to allow the hollows in the bucket ridge to fill with syrup.

I was anxious to see if the bees were interested, even though I knew they would be, so, early this morning I wandered over to check the activity at the feeder. The bees were certainly interested. In fact, they would not allow me to get close to the feeder. When I was within twenty feet, the bees came out to see who I was. I did not venture closer. I do not know how long it will take the bees to empty the contents, but I anticipate I will have to refill the bucket before the week is out. Mama is buying several more large bags of sugar today. I believe we have found a way to keep our bees alive and happy through this dearth. I am pleased with that.

Today is Grandma’s birthday. Several cards, several phone calls, and a visit by Norman have been among the celebration activities. Grandma has reveled in the attention. Since yesterday was payday for Grandma and Grandpa, they are being ferried about by Mama to take care of the monthly financial activities needed to meet their limited obligations. Among the stops will be Sam’s, WinCo, and the bank. Mama and I talked about getting some cupcakes for the three birthday’s this month versus a large cake. I am not sure how that will play out. Norman’s birthday is tomorrow. Grandpa’s is Thursday. From Grandma’s perspective, it will be a three-day celebration of her birthday. Nothing wrong with that.

Oddly enough, each of the birthdays this month required Grandma, Grandpa, and Norman to renew their driver’s license. All three lapsed on this birthday. Norman’s was fairly easy. It took a couple of tries to complete the online application for renewing the license, but we got it done. I was able to renew Grandma’s license as well because the cutoff age at which a person can renew a license online is 79. Grandma turns 78 today. For Grandpa who turns 81, it has proved a challenge to get his renewal done. His requires an appointment to be created through an online portal that is fairly difficult to use. No action can be taken without the appointment – even if you dare to show up in person without the appointment. After two conversations with DPS employees, I was finally able to schedule an appointment at a date less than two months out. It has been frustrating to say the least, but the appointment has been set for Grandpa and the other two licenses have been applied for and accepted by the DPS. This is the last time we will need to do so for Grandma and Grandpa.

Since there was nothing more urgent to do yesterday evening, I installed two of the windows in the container. I had figured out a way to hold the windows in place while I centered them in the frame and put a few screws in each to secure them in place. They look good. I had planned on installing all four windows but was interrupted when Sarah and JD came over to get the feed Mama had picked up at the store for both our families. When they had extracted their portion from the pile in the back of my truck, I had to unload the rest into the shop. All told, I had to unload and stack twenty bags of feed. I had already taken four from the truck to feed the goats earlier in the afternoon. After all that was done, I was too worn out to install the final two windows. Perhaps, that will get installed tomorrow evening. Tonight, is church.  

 

Tomorrow, I have an all-day class to teach and at some point in the next couple evenings, Mama and I have another thirty bales of hay to pick up. All this lifting and stacking is taking a toll on me. I have to balance out these more strenuous activities so that I do not hurt too badly over the following days. So far, I have managed, but I get a sense that my days of being able to continue in this labor are diminishing.

Time will tell, but we are planning to do so for as long as possible.

Some success, losses, Chase, traveling issues

 After making five gallons of sugar water for the bees last week, I thought I had failed in the attempt to feed the bees. They did not seem interested in the syrup I had made for them. At least, that was the case for a full two days. On Wednesday evening when I checked the feeder, the bees were all over it. Praise the Lord! Since Mama and I were gone over the weekend, I was interested in seeing how soon I would have to mix another five gallons for the bees. I hoped the five gallons would last a week or more, but I  was wrong. I was a bit shocked to find that the feeder had been drained as far down as the syrup could flow out of the feeder as it sat level on the block holding it. So, I tilted the five-gallon bucket to allow the last of the syrup to flow into the hollows encircling the top of the bucket. I further tilted the bucket today and will plan on mixing another five gallons tomorrow afternoon when I get home from my half-day class.

The heat is still taking a toll on our flock. We have lost a few more chickens and one more quail. We are doing all we can to help the chickens and quail to make it through the heat, but there is actually very little we can do. I am not sure if the dry conditions are beneficial or harmful, but it is what it is. So, we are giving plenty of water in the morning, Mama refreshes the water containers in the afternoon, and we redo all the water dishes and the duck pool every night. We wet the ground for the birds and try to keep little hollows in the ground behind the coop full of water – Mama-made mud holes. The ducks require a lot of water, but chickens like to get their feet wet too.

Today and tomorrow, we will get a respite from the heat with the temperatures remaining under one hundred degrees. It is difficult to imagine that those ten degrees make a difference, but they do. We hope that the temperatures will start to drift lower over the next couple weeks, but as always, we will take what we get. Meanwhile, we will do all we can to help our flocks and herds cope with the heat.

One the bright side, we have eight nanny goats getting larger and larger as the babies grow inside them. The goats love the heat. Several are looking very close to kidding. By our calculations, we ought to have the first few kids introducing themselves to us within two weeks. Right now, our feed bills is so much higher than we are used to that I am finding it difficult to buy enough feed to last us a month, which is our normal buying cycle. At the moment, we have only enough feed for one more morning feeding. Yesterday and today, we eliminated the afternoon feeding so we could at least feed in the mornings. Tomorrow, we will be buying more feed – some of which must be ordered – but we will have emptied all of our feed containers as we waited to make the trip to the feed store. That is the first time we have run so low because I did not anticipate how much feed we needed between purchases. Hopefully, we will buy enough feed to last for the entire month this time. The timing of the feed purchase is a matter of money, rather than a certain elapsed time.

Mama and I got to Amarillo a little after 5 pm Friday evening and met Chase, Makaila, Owen and Gailynn at a Thai restaurant a little after 5:30. We had a great visit with them even though our time was limited by their very busy schedule. Owen had some memories of us, so he warmed up to us quickly. Gailynn does not require any introductions to a stranger. She may have had some very vague recollections, but it did not matter. She is extremely outgoing. Makaila told Mama and I as we were greeting inside the restaurant Friday night that Gailynn, who is just now connecting titles/names to individuals reassured herself as to the purpose of this gathering that we were indeed meeting her daddy’s “father and mother”. A bit formal but totally correct. We quickly became Papi and Grammy to both children. We spent some time at a park Saturday morning as Chase taught a class at their gym followed by a short time at their home, but Chase and Makaila had some work that was time constrained, so we said our goodbyes about noon. Mama and I did a little shopping and headed out.

The visit was far too short of necessity. Mama and I headed home from Amarillo about 2 pm. Our drive home was far more eventful than the trip over. We drove through some very high winds blowing thick clouds of dust across the road and troubling all the large vehicles and trucks on the road. Just outside of Electra, TX all traffic was diverted off the highway onto a narrow backroad. The closing of the highway was due to grassfires being blown by the howling winds we had been driving through for the past hour. The smell of smoke was thick on the wind. We followed those secondary and tertiary routes for about twenty-five miles and got back on the highway in Iowa Park, TX. The detour added about forty-five minutes to our trip home.

 .

No complaints on my part. That kept us far East of the fires.

Too hot to handle, shift in attention, meds

As I got into the truck to head home from teaching a class yesterday afternoon, I could not touch the steering wheel because it was so hot to handle. The outside temperature displayed on the readout in the truck showed 114 degrees. I looked up on the internet to see how hot the steering wheel had to be for it to cause the pain I felt when I tried to grip it and the range of temperature suggested was between 125 and 140 degrees. I had no way to gauge the actual temperature of the steering wheel, but it remained too hot for me to grip as I normally would have for the entire drive home. I had to use the heel of my hand on the center of the steering wheel to maneuver the truck. Even that was uncomfortably hot. It was bearable, but uncomfortable. The overheated steering wheel was my fault because I did a bit of hopscotch before starting the class yesterday and when I finally ended up at the office, I did not put up the sunshades inside the truck. That is a mistake I will try very hard not to repeat.

For the remainder of this week and next week, the high temperatures are forecast to be between 105 and 112 each day. There is no chance of rain on that forecast, so things here are not just dry, the landscape is burned up. To be fair, this is not the first time we have seen this, but it has been many years since we have endured such a long spate of such hot, dry weather. Because of the continued dry conditions, Grandpa is a little concerned about our water wells here at the farm. I do not know if there is cause for concern, but it is worth being vigilant and careful in our water use. Meanwhile, all the birds are suffering in this heat, and we have lost about seven of our chickens and quail in the past two weeks. As expected, only the goats seem unaffected. They love the heat. Since we have four pregnant nanny goats, it is good that they do so well in this kind of heat.

As for me, I have found it difficult to work in this heat. I have to limit my time outside. I am afraid I have become more delicate in my older years. There is much I need to do, but I cannot risk my health for those things that are, honestly, unimportant. Prior to the excessive heat, I was able to get the electrical conduit finalized and the plugs in the outlets installed. I was able to get the frames for the windows installed as well, but I have made it not further. I did clean out the container so we could be ready for the foam to be applied, but I am not sure we can do so in this heat. Fortunately, there is no hurry. It gives me time to think through what remains to be done and how to get those things done.

I have to admit that listening to and researching the video about the prophecy of Daniel has given me a lot to think about. What was mentioned in the timeline proposed is worth considering, it’s worth the hour to listen to. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw2p06bgyKg) That in addition to the information I am gathering in review of Chinese aggression towards Taiwan, especially from Dan Bongino, is a powerful argument in support of the very short timeframe we may be in. At the very least, Mama and I have become more conscientious about handing out tracts and talking to people about the Lord. I have committed to spending each Saturday morning soulwinning/bus calling. If the Lord does tarry, and for the sake of many who do not know Him, I hope He does, changing my behavior to focus on those things that I know please the Lord will only be a benefit. I want to be found faithfully working for the Lord regardless of how much time we have ahead of us.

Speaking of time remaining, I had a very good visit with my doctor Monday afternoon. I was curious to see the results of the lab work that had been done prior to that appointment. My primary concern was with my cholesterol levels. In preparation for those blood tests, I had restricted my cholesterol intake for ten or eleven weeks. Those results clearly proved that I do not benefit from taking the Statin drugs. Those drugs cause me so much discomfort that I do best to afford them even though they are strongly recommended. I shared with my doctor that I recently found a study that showed the overall benefit in reducing cholesterol to extremely low levels does not translate into a reduced risk of heart attack. I shared that study with him. He agreed with the changes in medication I wanted to make. We have implemented those changes and will visit again in a few weeks to see if the changes have produced the desired results. It is nice to work with a doctor that looks for the patients input into their care.

One of the surest signs that Mama and I are getting older is the plethora of medications in the cabinet we use to house those prescription bottles. For many years, that cabinet was filled with herbal combinations and over-the-counter medications. Now, that is not the case. Mama is much less medicated than I am, but she has not yet suffered the heart issues I have. As much as I detest taking prescription drugs, I cannot avoid them if I want to keep my heart rate and blood pressure down. Our hearts have only a finite number of beats left to give each one of us, and mine has far less left to make that some. That is what the cardiologist told me, and I have a feeling she is right.

Praise the Lord there is help available for me. I am glad my life I in His hands.