Vacation, doctor visits, the little shed

I took the day off yesterday so I could help on the construction of the little shed we are calling the chicken coop. Today there will be no progress because Grandpa has medical appointments in Wichita Falls. The entire visit is supposed to take about six hours because there will be a stress test, a CT scan and the requisite paperwork – pre and post test.

Grandma and Grandpa started their day yesterday in Bowie at a doctor’s appointment for Grandma. There was not news either good or bad from the visit. Grandma only talked about the examining room next to hers where an aged friend of hers was being quizzed about her aches and pains. The lady is a favorite visit of Grandmas in the nursing home there is Bowie. She just celebrated her 91^st birthday. She described her pain to the doctor as being so bad on some days that even her hair hurt.

Mama and I also started the day in Bowie cleaning out the chicken coop and getting the cage she uses for her little ones when she buys chicks. We had left a mess in the coop since Grandpa and Grandma had been tending the flock for us but we managed to get all the old residue out and leave the place looking pretty good – for a chicken coop with a dirt floor. It will give Danny a good start and we will need that cage in about six weeks when Mama get her spring batch of chicks.

Once home we worked with Grandpa and did manage to get the roof on the building before we quit yesterday. I got most of the bolts and screws in the prepared places on the roof and gable end at the rear of the shed which stiffened it considerably. The front was an entirely different matter. Mama and Grandpa did not tell me that they had come up about eight inches short on the tin panels for the walls. They had rearranged a couple panels to make up the difference – which left us short by the exact amount where the door should fit. Well, guess how much we came up short on the roof – about eight inches.

Mama and I went and bought three translucent panels last night at Lowe’s so we could make the roof retrofits required to seal the building for use. It looks like I will have to work out in the rain tomorrow to get the shed ready for her chickens. It could have been worse, but not by much. All told, the little shed looks okay and it will be fit for use this weekend. That will be just in time since the temperatures are supposed to dip back below 30®F by Sunday night. In anticipation of cooler temperatures, the wind picked up yesterday afternoon and the temperatures dropped through the day. But it was pleasant enough.

A little after dark Mama and I went to Krum to pick up a glass door to replace the door we currently have in use in the sunroom. I am not totally sure it will fit but it is so close that we made the decision to buy it and see if I could make it work. If it will work it will be a definite improvement over the door we currently have in place.

There are some tentative plans I place for the next two days but we will wait see what the weekend brings to us.

Our troublesome shed, too busy, Victoria’s house

When I got home yesterday Grandpa and Mama were working on the metal shed but it did not look like they had made much progress. I worked on something for Grandma real quickly and went out to see how they were doing. It was not good. They were taking apart the gable end on the front for the third time. For some reason it was not fitting properly; surprising as that is.

They had the gable end on the back of the shed still up but it was going to come down also.  One of the roof beams – if you can call it that – was being supported by a 2x4 so that it did not fold at the connection. Neither of them was terribly complimentary of either the engineering or the materials of the building. But they have come too far to turn back. At least if we do need to move the building at some future date it will have the structure to be relocated; thanks to Grandpa.

Meanwhile, Mama is getting desperate. The weather is supposed to turn for the worse Thursday afternoon with significant rain predicted by Saturday morning. Right now we are sunny with the highs in the high 70s. By Thursday morning we are supposed to sink into the 30s with wind and high temperatures in the 40s and 50s. I am sure the chickens will survive, but Mama is less than enthusiastic about the turn of events.

If we had not been in such a hurry to leave the farm we would not be having this little issue; but that was not my decision. We have made the choice and now we must deal with it as best we can. We still have one chicken and the lone guinea still at the farm in Bowie as well as the large cage Mama starts her chicks in. We need to go get those sooner rather than later, but I am not sure when that will be.

When I look at our schedule it is busier than I ever thought it would be. We are definitely not settling into the “empty nest” lifestyle. I think we are as busy now as when we had all seven children at home. Maybe, we just like being busy.

We are at church Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and all day Sunday. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7 pm I call a halt to activities and we sit down to study for the class we are talking Monday evenings. If I get the few minutes to practice either the guitar or violin before we break to do our homework  I get that done because Grandma and Grandpa are usually in bed by 7:30 pm. Perhaps as the evenings start to lengthen they will go to bed later but that is not the case for now.

Victoria only gets to study with me and Mama on Saturday evenings and every now and then on a weekday evening. She is looking for a different job but is in no hurry to leave what she has. For the moment she needs to stay at the pharmacy because it will help her get the loan she is trying to get for the little house.

That does not seem to be going very well. The bank is very hesitant to loan money on the house since it is not habitable and the land value without the house included in the appraisal is not worth the asking price. We are at the point of needing an appraisal to see if it is even a strong possibility to make the deal.

If the heir will adjust his price downward to reflect the appraisal value we will be in less of a bind but at the current asking price, we are going to have to come up with a lot of money to cover the 20% we are required to put down and whatever the price difference is – past the 80% from the bank (based on the appraisal) and the 20% we put down to cover our portion of the appraised value. If the appraisal is $16500, we will need to put $3300. That is 20%. But if the asking price is still $29900 we will have to make up the difference - $13400.

I am less than certain that we are willing to cover that amount.

 

Another approach, paperwork, fun quips, the big dogs

Mama and Grandpa made a lot of progress on the little metal shed yesterday. Grandpa reinforced the structure with 2x4s at the bottom and corners of the structure. He did a very neat job of it. He also added a top rail to carry the top of the sides and the edge of the roof as they meet. It made the assembly much easier. They should be finished today.

That would be a very good thing since the chickens are exposed to the elements every night. They have roosts and a small nesting box in the kennel they are now housed in, but it is an open chain link fence style structure and Mama really wants them to have a place to sleep that is somewhat sheltered.

So far we have had no issues with coons and the covering on the kennel keeps the chicken hawks at bay. Saturday evening, when Grandpa and I were working on the hay ring in the barn, the wild chickens were scratching around near Daisy May. I heard a faint sound that could have been a bird noise and the chickens scurried for the shelter if the barn. I guess it was a hawk. They certainly thought it was. So I know we have to guard against them for the sake of our domesticated chickens.

Mama and Victoria are going to Denton this morning to hand deliver the paperwork required of Victoria. There was quite a bit of information that came in the mail yesterday. It was mailed because the banker did not have written permission to share the information with me and Mama. We have taken care of that little detail so there should be a slightly faster pace to the communication going forward.

One of the troubling items in the good faith estimate is the guestimate of money due at closing. It looks like Victoria and Grandpa will have to put an extra $6500 into the pot along with the $5000 down payment at closing. That could be a deal breaker since I am not enthused about putting up that kind of money for a project house. We will see what comes of it as Mama and Victoria talk to the banker this morning.

I am currently reading a book by Brad Thor called “Act of War”. In one portion of the book there is some lighthearted banter between the agents working a surveillance assignment. When the female agent selects a couple cookies from the snacks that have been set out, one of the male agents quips, “A moment on the lips; forever on the hips.” I will have to remember that one; and use it sparingly.

Mama, Victoria and I went to FBI last night at the church. It was another great class. While we were preparing to go and even when we were on our way each of us would rather have not had to go but once the lecture started we forgot our weariness and soaked in the Bible instruction. If seminary had been taught with that much passion, I would have enjoyed so much more.

Sam and Sasha have adapted to the new place. I think they are still expanding their boundaries at the moment but they know where they are supposed to focus their attention so they stay right at the house most of the night. The little pigs are not seen as a threat by them (probably because of Mama’s pot belly pigs) so we have them rooting near the house almost nightly. At least it appears that way. They do not let anything else get that close. I am not sure why but their barking through the night does not bother any of us, but it does not. Mama finds it comforting to hear them; reminding us they are on duty.

Look up Caucasian Shepherd. They were also mentioned in the book I am reading.

Chickens, wild hogs, “chance” encounters

Saturday morning we all went to the farm in Bowie to empty the mobile home and make certain everything was turned off and stowed properly. We got the last of the things Grandma and Grandpa had in the trailer and put them in storage. The rest we loaded up and took to the house in Chico; among some of the items we took to the house we Victoria’s table and chairs which we set up in the dining room.

While we were at the farm we caught the chickens and put them in cages for transport to the Chico house. It was a little bit of a chore to get hold of them but we finally managed. We did lose one chicken and the guinea. They will stay with Danny. Some of the chickens were put in a separate cage to be reassigned for the menu service in the near future.

Mama agonized over those poor chickens and even tried to extend their time on this earth by telling the young lady that was butchering them for us that there were a couple that are still laying eggs. It did not matter. Their time we up. They had already been prepared for plucking and bagging by the time Mama and Brittany Wycoff talked later that evening. Daniel Wycoff is supposed to drop off the prepared birds this morning.

Someone was pressing Grandpa to look at a truck in east Dallas on Saturday afternoon but he was in no hurry. They eventually agreed to meet Sunday afternoon after the seller was home from church. It was another bust. It was a four hour round trip to look at a badly abused truck. Somehow the pictures did it far more justice than it was due. That may have been Grandpa’s last trip to Dallas to look at used trucks.

Saturday evening Paul came over to try to take a hog but he was not successful. He did manage to shoot a coyote before it got dark. It is a matter of timing for the hogs because the man who has leased the property to our east and north stopped by Sunday afternoon and introduced himself to us. His primary goal was to tell us to never hesitate to shoot any hog we see. He had seen over thirty on our property Sunday morning as he drove past on his way to tend cattle on the leased ground.

We did get to talk to him about sub-leasing the forty acres across the road from us. He seemed very interested so I will pursue the contact as best I can. Grandpa and I have been making plans to clean up the acreage and cut the hay off the cleaned property in the spring. Then we can run six or more head of cattle on it for the remainder of the year. Time will tell.

In the meantime he really wants our help in controlling the hog population and is going to get us keys to the gate so we can get onto the larger property and spend some time lowering the herd density. He made and interesting observation that I have talked with Mama about very recently. A little female pig born in January can have two litters of piglets by Christmas that same year. With that reproductive rate, this could get out of control very quickly.

The man also told us he builds fence for a living and really wants to replace the fence between us on the east side of our property. That would be a real blessing since that is the only bad fence we have on our ten acres. I offered Grandpa’s talents to help him make improvements on the larger property. That may actually give me and Victoria a chance to learn from Grandpa how to farm as best he knows.

Again, time will tell.

The big dogs, truck hunting, more questions

Having the big dogs at the property in Chico is a mixed bag of gains and losses. It is always more troubling to deal with the two of them when it is wet outside – translate that “muddy”. To compound the issue, Mama has insisted that the two of them camp out on the front porch – to keep the poor babies out of the rain.

That provides us with a mobile muddy mass of wet, dirty dog to worm through as we try to access the front door. For some reason that does not rate high on my “fun-factor” meter.  The sloughed off dirt they leave behind will eventually end up in the house as we track through it and the residual smell of their wet fur lingers in the air of the small enclosure; a delightful gauntlet of doggie debris.

But we will endure the inconvenience because they are our dogs. We have made a “till death do us part” commitment to them. Sadly, in many people’s lives the commitment to their canine companions is stronger and more enduring than to their human companions – even their spouses. That is not the case for me and Mama but she does have a very strong attachment to the big smelly poop machines.

On the good side, they spend all night keeping anything and everything off the property. That includes deer, hogs, raccoons and opossums. It definitely limits the wildlife activity on the little property we own but come planting time we will be thankful for the guardianship. Also, the two of them seem to have settled into the routine on the smaller acreage here in Chico. Time will tell if we have made the right move for them or not but I do not think there is any going back at this point.

My schedule is loaded up this weekend but at this point I do not know if I will have the help I need. Grandpa is looking hard for a truck for Norman to buy and I have a feeling that that endeavor will take precedence over anything we have to get done at the farm. I do have several projects to work on if I do not have the help to work on the chicken coop shed.

I know Mama made at least three calls last night to sellers. Most of the shopping has happened on Craigslist. Norman, Victoria and Mama have all three been scouring the ads for our area but last night the calls were made to Oklahoma City and San Antonio. That is an all-day run just to look at a truck.

They are getting a little more savvy. They have run to east Dallas and several placed over two hours away only to find what was advertised did not accurately represent what was being sold. Now they are requesting more pictures and better descriptions prior to make the drive to look at any particular vehicle. I hope they find the right one soon so we can get back to the work at hand.

We are still waiting to hear from the bank whether or not they will finance Victoria on the house near us. Now the question is whether the insurance company will ensure the improvements to the home once they are done. My question is how we prove the improvements have been completed in order to be insured. Does it require a county inspector to sign off on a certificate of occupancy? Will it just be a visual inspection from the insurance company? Do we have to re-inspect the home to qualify?

We are up against a deadline to get those answers and the weekend is upon us.

Rain, up again-down again, hogs

The forecast was pretty accurate for once and we did get more than the inch of rain they had predicted. It is difficult for us to gauge the wind where we are now living. On the farm in Bowie we caught the brunt of the wind because we were a little elevated and had no trees to attenuate it. Here, we are in a small bowl with higher ground on the north, west and south sides and there are plenty of trees to slow the wind. I found that it was blowing pretty hard only when I got out on the main road.

We took precautions none the less with the little metal shed we are building. Mama and Grandpa worked on in yesterday between runs to Denton and Dallas looking at trucks either Norman or Victoria had found. (Norman wants to buy one.) Since the shed is made of sheets of metal that are just thicker than aluminum foil Grandpa and Mama took apart the partially built shed so that we did not have to watch the wind destroy it. It would not have taken much.

They did discover yesterday that we had a couple pieces of tin set improperly so the predrilled holes did not align. Once they corrected that they discovered the path forward to getting the little shed put together – only to take it apart for safekeeping until the rains abate and the winds die down. They have also formulated a plan to reinforce the shed with lumber as they put it together. That should happen Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile we are working on getting Victoria qualified to buy the little house near us. At the moment the banker is working the numbers to see if she is financially solvent enough pass muster on the loan request he is putting together for his underwriters. All the paperwork he requested is in his hands.

We will request that out insurance agent look at the house this morning to see if he can underwrite it from the home owner’s insurance side of things. All of this has to be done by Wednesday of next week or we lose the earnest money we have put down to hold the property as we do our due diligence. It is a little unnerving but Mama and I have done it multiple times in the past – with good success. This is Victoria’s first time through the process so she is very nervous. Plus, she really wants the house.

I found a plan to build an inexpensive hog trap. I would like to take the time to try to trap the little ones we see in several litters around us, but I have not had the time to really look into it as we try to get the buildings and sheds built. It does not seem to be too urgent since the hogs seem to travel in a large loop and only show up every week or so.

The problem is that if all the ones that are now running with their parents live for the next six months or so they will be big enough to have litters of their own. At that point we will have a real problem. Last time Mama and I took the time to count we saw as many as nine little ones with a mama and daddy and another group of at least fifteen without any adult supervision.

That’s a lot of breeding potential.

Yesterday, If only

I took off yesterday. The original thought was that I would help Grandpa build the little building so we could get the chickens to Chico. That is not exactly the way it turned out. I made the mistake of showing Mama an ad for calves that I had printed out several days ago. The prices were pretty good so she called.

There were still heifers available. In fact, he had five we could have gotten yesterday and it sounded like a pretty good deal. The seller led us to believe that the five head we were talking about were several months old. The price was around $335 per head. We were making plans to leave in the morning (this morning) when he sent pictures – of tiny, barely off the bottle calves. We backed out.

While all this was going on, Mama and I went to the development commission to see if the property Victoria was attempting to buy was grandfathered into the older acreage requirement for placing a septic system and well. The new requirement is for a minimum of two acres and the property in question has slightly less land – 1.86 acres. We were assured that we would be able to put in the septic system since the last warranty deed on the land showing the new boundaries was dated in early 1994.

All this time Mama was texting back and forth with the seller in Prosper, TX. It would have been about a 2 ½ hour trip each way so we were crowding the clock to get it done that day and Mama was growing more and more apprehensive about the whole deal. So, before we backed out and while Mama and the seller were still negotiating time and price, Peggy called and asked if we could be at her place to pick up the propane tank we asked to buy from her.

She had arranged a tractor to load the tank onto our trailer and we only had a small window of opportunity. So, having finished our business at the county offices in Decatur, we hurried to the house and unloaded the trailer so we could take it to Peggy’s house to reload it. It all worked out –especially since we decided not to make the trip to buy the heifers, but it was a very busy morning.

Later that afternoon, Mama, Grandpa and I worked on the little tin shed. Several times Mama encouraged us to take it all apart, pack it up and take it back. It was a tempting thought but we struggled on and I think we are at a point that we can see how everything is supposed to go together. Mama and Grandpa are going to work on it more today. They should be able to finish it by tomorrow and we will get the chickens to their new coop by the weekend.

Later in the evening Mama, Victoria and I sat down and did some of the homework we are required to do for the class we are taking on Monday nights. We thoroughly enjoyed our first class Monday night. The lectures are quick-paced and jam-packed. There is a study guide provided that is set up for filling in the blanks throughout the lecture so it is easy to keep up.

Grandma sat in on a little of out reading – which is what most of the homework entails – and she enjoyed what she did get to hear. There is so much to cover that I worry about her starting her religious discussions as we are trying to get through the homework, but we will somehow work through it.

I had to endure one of her “church on every corner while the country gets worse and worse” lectures as I tried to eat lunch yesterday. I nodded but reserved comment. That always leads to a debate which is unwinnable because of the “straw men” arguments – if we lived an absolutely pure life, if we showed men who God really is rather than promoting our church, if we all agreed together in love, etc.

Unfortunately, we no longer live in a world that readily accepts even the most basic moral concepts as absolute; much less the Authority of the Bible. That is not a reason to give up on our faith or walk with God. It is all the more reason to continue in that walk as God gives up strength to do so.

We can continue to hope that we will be part of the solution rather than part of the problem – regardless of how Grandma sees it.