The mural, no big plans

For once in a very great while, Mama got home after I did. I had fed and watered all the animals and even collected the eggs before she pulled up in the driveway. She was pretty worn out but had thoroughly enjoyed the day with Kimberlyn Cantrell. Mama actually left before Kim was ready because her husband Kenny had come to meet her and wanted her to complete the mural that evening since the two of them had visiting to do today and over the weekend.

Mama got several pictures of the work in progress – a Noah’s ark scene. I suppose it depicts the opening of the ark doors to let the animals out since there is a rainbow in the sky. It is very cute and quite clever in how Kim painted all the animals. Mama was especially impressed with the giraffes.

We do not have big plans for this weekend. Even though I got paid today my budget tells me there is no money to make extra plans with. We have lots of little things to do on the farm, not the least of which is to progress on getting the farm house emptied of all the items we still have stored there.

It is still difficult for Mama to get rid of things but I am at the point of frustration at having so many things packed away that we have no real use for. Never the less, we will most likely repack many of the trove of stored things and find yet another place to house them as they rest in forgotten boxes packed into a dark corner of the shop. I am resisting that as an ongoing trend but I am not getting much support in the effort.

Tonight we have RU at the church so Mama will be cooking most of the day. I think Victoria will be getting off early enough to go with us this week. It has been several weeks since she has been able to do so. At this point we have only four regular kids. The oldest of that group is five years old. Twin boys are the youngest at just over two years old.

When we grow the program there will be a nursery and a children’s program provided. For the moment we are just entertaining the little ones for the two plus hours of the meeting. It is fun and I know it is profitable to the little ones but I have a desire to do more in the teaching portion of the assignment.

That will come in time.

Health issues, backup plans

Maggie and Aaron made it back home yesterday. I think they are planning on seeing a doctor today to find out if they can get a diagnosis to the pain she has been experiencing the last few days. I know it cost Aaron a small fortune to go get her and the baby so I am praying that whatever is causing Maggie’s pain will not be a protracted health issue; that it is something fairly easy to overcome – physically and financially.

Mama almost did not go with me last night. Her eyes were better but she did not think they were recovered enough to let anyone else see her. As we got the animals fed and watered for the evening she began to feel better. I did not think she looked that bad but I have learned that my opinion does not outweigh her own in certain matters. By the time she showered and dressed she was feeling pretty good – although her eyes were still a little puffy and red.

She felt a little guilty since our pastor was at home hurting from a kidney stone. He is in a lot of pain and not getting much relief. He is scheduled for surgery to have his gall bladder removed on Monday. The two are unrelated events but the combination of the current pain and the anticipation of the future pain and recovery do not do much to lift ones spirits very high.

A man from the Rock of Ages Prison ministry preached last night. It was a good sermon about shutting some of the doors in our liver that we leave open for our pet sins to have access to our mind and life. Mama and I have seen him before when we were in Amarillo at Central Baptist Church. His ministry is with the prisons across Texas and the south. Both churches, here and in Amarillo are strong participants in that ministry.

I had a very poor night Tuesday night so I was dragging through part of the service. I thoroughly enjoyed the service and am glad Mama and I got to go together but I was happy to get home and into bed. Less than seven hours of sleep time was available to me but I think I used every minute of it. Hopefully I can get a little bit longer night tonight; or at least be less rushed getting to bed.

Mama is going to spend the day with a friend who is painting a mural in a nursery for a church in Sanger, TX. She was debating going until the friend called and asked for help. Her husband who runs the Boots and Badges ministry has been called to another appointment and was not going to be able to get her to the church so Mama is coming to the rescue.

It is something she wanted to do anyway but was holding off since money is pretty tight at the moment. The round trip is 150 miles or more and she did not want to spend gas on it if it was just for fun. Now there is a real purpose. The fun the two of them will have is coincidental.

Hopefully she will take a picture I can post of the work being done.

Mama, change of plans, Maggie

Last night Mama and Victoria were to have gone to a ladies meeting at church but Mama was feeling too badly because of her eyes. When she got up yesterday morning they were worse than at any time in the past. I think it is the hay we are feeding the cattle that it causing the reaction, but we will not know that for several days. I have asked her to let me do the feeding in the evenings so she will not have to handle the hay for the remainder of the week. By that time we should know.

Since Victoria seemed very excited about the night at church Mama went ahead and prepared a dish for the meal and was just about ready to make herself go regardless of the swelling – just to encourage Victoria. That fell away pretty quickly after I got home. We ended up having a nice dinner with the taco meatloaf she had made. It all worked out since Victoria was more than an hour late getting off. They would not have made it to the meeting in time.

Weather-wise, if it got as cold as predicted overnight it was hard to tell this morning. When I went out to the truck there was a light frost on the windshield but the wind was very light. As I rolled through town the temperature displays were posting twenty two degree. That is far better than the twelve degrees predicted. I did not look at the thermometer on our window in the apartment to see what it was reading but I was relieved to not be chilled to the bone.

Maggie has been going through some problems while she is visiting friends in Washington State. She went to the ER yesterday with severe abdominal pain. After hours of waiting and several inconclusive tests, the hospital sent her home with the friend who has been entertaining her and the baby. She was not a happy camper.

Her friend wanted to send her home to recuperate with her husband – in her own house, her own bed, her familiar surroundings. That was not a welcome thought to Maggie. She was hurting and did not want to make the flight with the baby by herself. I do not know how long a flight it is but I do not think it is more than a couple hours in the air.

Regardless, what Mama and I heard last was that Aaron had booked a flight to go down and get her and help her and the baby back home. I am not sure how happy Maggie was with the arrangement but I know Aaron will be happy to have her and the baby safely home.

Knowing we were too late to go to the ladies meeting Victoria got a movie to watch. She rented the new Long Ranger movie. It was pretty good but it kept me up way too late.

Winter storms, Mama’s mirror

Last night I went to bed pretty early because on Sunday night (read that ‘Monday morning”) Mama and I were wakened by a wind that slammed into the north side of the apartment and shop. It sounded like a truck had driven into the building. That happened a little before 3 a.m. On the way home Sunday night Mama had been reading the winter storm advisory but the warning did not mention any precipitation – only the velocity of the wind.

I did not pay too much attention since the winds normally blow around the thirty mile per hour mark. Forty miles per hour did not impress my consciousness in any threatening manner. When I did get out of bed two hours after the rude awakening and was listening to the weather reports on the drive to Decatur they were reporting sustained winds of fifty miles per hour with gusts over sixty. That would have caught my attention. Either way, there did not seem to be any damage to anything on the farm – buildings or otherwise. Not at all like I was imagining as I lay awake that morning listening to it try to overturn the shop building.

South of us along the Gulf Coast the weather is a wintery mix this morning. Cori, Nate and the kids are likely to get snow and sleet this morning. As Cori announced the weather change to the kids yesterday, she excitedly told them that there might be snow tomorrow. “The boys perked up and asked, “Are we going to Grammy’s farm?” (That’s where they came expecting snow over Christmas.) They were disappointed to hear that the snow was coming to them; so much for that exciting moment.

I did manage to hang our bathroom mirror last night. We got it back from a lady at church who wrote a verse on it. Mama attached some shells to the mirror and she did a really good job on the arrangement and type of shells she chose. The words of the Bible verse are written between the arranged shells on the open part of the frame. It looks amazing.

The verse is from Nehemiah 9:6 “Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.” It is not the entire verse. It reads, “Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all.”

It was a chore to hang it because of the imbedded metal tabs on the back of the mirror. I had to take the light over the bathroom sink apart and remove the towel rack we have to the left of the sink to get it properly placed. It came out pretty good but I had to trim the towel rack before I could put it back up. It took me over an hour to get it all done.

Last week when I told Mama it might take me a couple hours to get it done she thought I was being facetious. As she watched what I had to go through to get it done she realized I was telling her the truth. We had to turn the light over the mirror to point to the ceiling because the frame of the mirror is pretty thick and the globes for the lights would not fit the fixture with them hanging downward. It changed the entire look of the bathroom. And I got to shave looking into a mirror much larger than the little one we have been using waiting on the mirror to be finished. That was a nice change since I had to crouch slightly to see myself in the smaller mirror.

We will enjoy it while we can.

Mama’s dental work, cleaning up the farm, Sunday morning

Last Friday I took off so I could get Mama to and from her dental appointment. She was a nervous wreck but she came through the procedure without any difficulty at all. The dentist had a difficult time getting the roots of the tooth to come out but he eventually got all the leftover pieces to wiggle free. Mama was pleased that it had gone well but she was even more pleased as she went through the day, and the weekend, pain free.

She has had relatively little pain from the extraction. The only part of the procedure that has her concerned is the slight injury done to her lover lip. It was pried upon at some point in wrenching the tooth from her mouth and there is a place that looks like it may become a fever blister. Other than that she is ecstatic that that part is done. We are not looking to replace the tooth at this time because the price is enormous, but time will tell.

On Saturday we all worked together in the calf barn. As we were mucking out the area where we have the creep feeder I asked Mama how long it had been since we had cleaned out the area. I remembered her and Victoria doing it in the past but since Grandpa and Grandma left in October it has not been done again. Four months of manure and excess hay had been compressed on the floor and it was a chore to get it up. We had to take a break a little more than half way through.

We got six loads out of the large stall and another from the watering area at the entrance to the barn. It was all put on the garden so that I can till it into the soil over the next several weeks. The only bad part of the work we were able to get done is that we really needed to go down another three or four inches to get to the dirt we should have uncovered in the cleanup; that’s for another weekend.

I took time early in the morning to get the trim completed in the apartment. At least I used the remainder of the trim I had from the purchase I made months ago. I ended up a piece short of completing the entire apartment. I got the most obvious areas and the areas with the longest pieces. As is the case with wood, I ended up with enough little pieces that if I could have coalesced then into one piece I could have easily finished. Unfortunately I will have to buy one piece to really be done.

Later in the day I rearranged the access we have to the calf lot from the driveway. I put the panel we have been moving to drive into the area to the side with the fence that comes across the back yard of the farm house and put the gate in place to be hung for our access from this point on. It will be much better to work with as we gear up for spring and summer. I need to do the same thing on the access to the pasture from the calf lot but I do not have the gates available for that at the moment.

Having the posthole auger made the work very easy. I had the two holes dug in a matter of minutes and at a depth that I can rarely accomplish with the manual variety. I still needed the manual ones to clean out the hole a bit – but not to dig it to depth. The power auger should make our coming fencing job much easier.

Sunday morning we had two people saved. One young mom rode the bus with her three young children. The other, a middle aged man had been with us Friday night at RU. He had left before our director had had the time to speak with him about salvation but he promised then to come back Sunday morning. We were praying hard that he would come – and he did.

Lee spent quite a bit of time with him that morning and he prayed with Lee there in the Sunday School room. It was a great morning.

Church

We had a great time at church last night. We had a pot lunch dinner at the church before the service – which is always enjoyable – then Kevin Walker preached a sermon from the parable of the prodigal son. It was different than most of the other’s I have heard from that passage. To get it kicked off he had two men from the church come up and put on a party hat.

They were each given a bag of noise makers (the kind you low through to make that irritating wazoo sound) to pass out to the congregation. He then explained that the message was “Don’t miss the party” and he held up a sign the read, “It’s Party Time!” When he held up the sign during the sermon we were all to blow our noise makers.

It was a great sermon on why we miss God’s “party” of rejoicing when a prodigal comes home; work is too important, we are angry about something, all we can think about is ourselves, etc. I took notes as I usually do so Mama had to make the noise for both of us. He got some great congregational participation.

Mama wore herself out getting food ready for the dinner. We took a pot of chili, a pan of cornbread, a pan of biscuits, a salad, a gallon of tea and a tray of chocolate covered peanut butter crackers. There was plenty of food there and there are always plenty of desserts. I tried not to eat too much since I would be leading the singing to open the service, but I still had difficulty taking a deep breath. Thankfully we only sang one song and turned the service over to the Walkers.

The senior Walkers are Mama’s and my age so their children are the ages of our children – several are married, one has a very young child. Yet after the children went to Bible College each of them returned to carry on the ministry with the parents. It is a great testimony of the merits of a properly run ministry. It is made even more outstanding by the fun they all have together.

After the first couple of songs they tackled the song “Excuses” which is never easy since there are so many lines spread out through the singers performing it. Sure enough on the second part of the song they all were messing up but they kept going until they got to the oldest son who simply sang, “He just sang my line.”

When he did that they couldn’t hold it together and started laughing, the joy of which carried over into the congregation. They finally regrouped and got through the second part of the song successfully, but it was hard since they kept stifling back a laugh at each line. They finished with a slow melody – a solo with backup vocals. The youngest brother said something as they were leaving the platform and the laughter began again. It was fun to watch the little ones in the church as they watched what was happening. They were not sure what was going on but they knew it was something really fun.

We got home late - happy we went.

Walking better, closing doors, special services

Yesterday evening I finally felt able to walk well enough that I could get out and help Mama with her normal chores. It was a little painful navigating the very uneven ground in the calf lot. Early in the winter we let Misty into that lot to facilitate Mama getting feed and water to her. During her stay there she left deep imprints everywhere she walked because the ground was very wet at that time. I will have to get the disc and drag out to work the ground to a more level state at some point in the very near future.

I was able to haul a couple bales of hay to the pig building where we are storing it for Misty. That will have to change soon since Mama and I are planning on getting a couple piglets next month. When we put that building back in service for pigs we will have to build a new shelter for Misty and her feed. I am in the process of getting those plans together now. I see nothing wrong with feeding her on the ground and letting her shelter under the large oak trees. Mama sees things differently.

As I was looking over the chicken coop Mama came up to me with one of her more friendly chickens in her arms- cuddling the bird and talking to it as though it could understand. I knew what was coming. “I want to see if we could make a pet of one of the chickens like Maggie’s friend.” I looked at her and answered, “If you want to make sure Grandma and Grandpa never come back to the farm to stay with us, go right ahead.” I think the idea is a real looser. Chickens are really messy birds – even if you diaper them.

I met with my boss yesterday to discuss raises and ratings. I let him know at that time that I was no longer interested in the Licensing job. The prospect of rotating 28 days on (away from home) and 28 days off (back at home) is not attractive to me. The idea was never overly appealing but I saw it as an opportunity to advance in my career as well as an opportunity to take Mama to Australia. There would be other travel involved, some international and some domestic, but all in all, I do not think those periods of separation would be good for Mama or me.

He was at once relieved and disappointed. He realizes this job, although a very good job, may not be enough to keep me engaged at a level that will keep me interested and at peak performance long term. At the moment there is nothing on the horizon that would not require a move away from the farm and that really does not interest me at all. We will see what the Lord brings to us in the months or years to come.

Tonight we will have a special guest at church. The Walker family will be there with the entire crew. They are the ones with the Wild West Vacation Bible School, complete with a miniature horse that does a wealth of tricks. They will be leading the services tonight and tomorrow night. It should be fun, but I have no idea what will be required of me as song leader.

That too should be fun.