Snow and ice, septic issues

Sunday night into Monday morning brought us ice and snow. The temperature on Monday never got to freezing. Because of the hazardous travel conditions I stayed home from work. I tried to work from home. That does not work well for me. With Grandma’s constant talking and Mama looking over my shoulder as I typed emails I was not very productive.

It all turned out for the best because that morning I flushed the toilet in our bathroom and it did not go down. I was able to shut off the water before it overflowed but that was the start of a really bad thing. I plunged the toilet and got nowhere so I went outside to check the cleanout on the sewer line. It was to the point of overflowing.

Thinking it was plugged going into the septic tank I tried to find something to rod it out – with no good coming of it. I told Grandma, Victoria and Mama they could not flush toilets or run water through the sinks until I figured it out. Victoria had just gotten out of the shower and Granma was starting a load of cloths.

Grandpa was over at the barn burning trash – it was a good day for that up to that point. I got his opinion and we decided to dig up the septic tank cleanouts. We had just had the tanks pumped out a few weeks ago. Grandpa knew right where they were located so it was easy to uncover them. That’s when the real problem became apparent. Both tanks were full to overflowing so the problem had to be in the lateral lines, the leach bed, since nothing was draining out of the tanks.

We dug around the tank that the lateral lines should have been coming from for several hours and found nothing. Grandpa got the tractor and tried to dig with it to speed up the process but the ground around the septic tanks was way too soft for us to do any good. We ended up making a huge mess in the yard and gathering a lot of effluent in the holes we had made, but got nowhere.

I had Mama call the people who had cleaned out the tanks for us to have them come back and at least pump the waste out of the tanks to give us room to use our bathrooms but no one was able to come that day or yesterday. Maybe they will make it out this morning to clean the tanks and look into the problem with the lateral lines. Hopefully hid pump truck will not damage the yard too much. It would be hard to tell with the damage we already did to Mama’s beautiful back yard.

I am rapidly adjusting to the idea of another three or four thousand dollars coming out of the savings account to repair the septic system but there is no way we can occupy the house without it. In order to be able to flush the toilets I dipped about 150 gallons of “water: out of the second tank to lower the overall volume enough to take on some of our needed bathroom use. That’s how the house is operating this morning.

Victoria’s closing got postponed due to the weather. Mama and I are waiting to see when it is put on the schedule at the title company. I still have a trip to the panhandle hanging over me as I wait on word that things are lined up for me to do what I need to do when i get there. It is a singularly unpleasant task.

Boy, am I looking forward to that.

Cold weather, fine dining, travel plans, herding chickens

It looks like the cold weather that has been paralyzing the north is coming to interrupt out daily routines here also. We are forecast to have sleet and some snow by early Monday morning. Temperatures are not expected to get above 25®F and there is an 80% chance or precipitation. Sounds lovely.

In all of that I have to drop off our gooseneck flatbed trailer to the laydown yard in Krum so the crew dismantling a porch that attaches to the trailers we have had there for years can load the lumber onto the trailer. It is not a large porch and some of the lumber will be scrap, but there are enough good pieces in the mix that it will be worth the effort to sort through it. On the farm, there are always a lot of small projects that need to be done and using recycled boards is far less expensive than cutting up new lumber. Mama and I will probably drop off the trailer tomorrow or Sunday afternoon to avoid the slick roads Monday morning.

Mama and I took a walk down our road yesterday evening. She is not able to do that very often because of the pain she has in her knees but we made it there and back without giving her too much pain. When I make the trek I do so alone but when Mama or Victoria goes with me the big dogs always come along. I do not mind either way but I tend to see more when I do not have the canine company.

Several days ago one of the larger hogs was struck and killed by a motorist. The carcass ended up in the center of our road where it intersects with the larger county road. Some kind soul pushed the carcass about halfway up the road toward our house and half covered it with some dirt and gravel near the creek that flows through a rather deep gully bisecting our little road.

Why it needed to be right there I am not quite sure but it does not smell strongly..at least not to my sensory abilities. The big dogs, however, could not ignore the aroma they were able to pick up from the veritable smorgasbord of ripening flesh. Mama called them very sternly (both coming and going) and both of them were called away – to her great delight – but that will be an obstacle in our future walks for many weeks to come. We have so many hog skin and bone pieces lying about in the yard that I think the big dogs are getting bored with the carrion.

 Grandma and Grandpa are thinking about leaving for West Virginia next weekend. The plan is to spend several weeks working and gathering money to help remodel the little house Victoria is buying. (We are actually closing on Monday afternoon.) However, Grandpa will have to recover from the dizzy spells he is having before they can make that trip, but the plans have been set.

Last night, just before dark, Mama, Grandma and I worked to get three chickens that had been left out the other night back into the coop. I do not know how a chicken thinks but it cannot be too deeply since the “herding” required quite an effort to guide them around fences they could have easily flown over. Every gate had to be opened in such a way as to allow them to pass in the proper direction – once they got to the gate.

I got the stragglers into the back yard from the front yard without too much effort but once they could see the coop – it was just there on the other side of the cyclone fence – it was challenging to get them all the way to the back yard gate to put them on the other side of the fence. One actually flew up onto the fence and ran straight to the open door of the coop. For all three to have done that would have been too easy.

The other two took quite a bit of coercing to get them lined up with the gate they desperately wanted to go through – even when they were only inches from it. Mama got so mad she called them, “you stupid birds…” a couple times. For her that is a little over the top.

Fortunately is does not take long for her to calm down.

Bonus day, chicken woes, Victoria’s house

Today is a much anticipated day at my company. It is the day we find out how much our bonuses are going to be. February of each year a variable compensation is awarded to all employees. Some years it has been a large bonus; some years not so big, but there has always been some money given. I do not have high expectations for this year but we will know soon enough.

It is one upbeat (hopefully) day in an otherwise overcast economic situation. It always amazes me how aggravated people can get over this payout. Through the year most of the employees have done their jobs faithfully without much extra, but when it comes to this bonus some expect to be paid as if they were CEO. I have always thought of this as free money – a way to pay down my tax burden for the year; because there is a large amount taken out in taxes. There is never a bad feeling from anyone in my group. It is always a good day for us.

Yesterday Mama was upset that one of her chickens was being picked upon by the rest of the flock. I suggested letting the chickens out of the pen they have been in since we moved them to the farm in Chico. She thought that was a good idea. In Bowie, they had always returned to the coop at dark so there was little risk to them and it would be a good test for future days.

That turned out to be poor advice. They meandered all over the farm, the back yard, the front yard, the flower beds, the newly sown grass in the front yard, tearing up the ground as they went. Mama was quite frustrated by the time I got home. We both should have known what would happen because of how they moved around the entire farm in Bowie, but for some reason it was still a shock. Mama and Grandpa will assess the damage this morning. It will be a long time before they are allowed to roam freely again.

Mama and Victoria are heading to the bank this morning to get things lined out for closing on Victoria’s house Monday afternoon. She and Grandpa are very excited about the little venture. Both have made grandiose plans for the house and accompanying acreage – most of which, I definitely agree with. It will not take too long for those plans to be scaled back into manageable projects.

Victoria is quite humbled by the help she has been given by Grandma and Grandpa as well as by Seth and Norman. In the long run it will be a good thing to have the extra living quarters for Grandma and Grandpa and in the end for Victoria to have a house of her own.

We will see how it all works out but for now we are all looking forward to the project.

Napping, our little park, animal news

Brittany and Andrew were at the house yesterday afternoon when I got there. I walked in and found the two of them sleeping on the couch. Mama was in Bowie getting our electric bill straightened out and getting Rosie looked at by the vet. Grandma and Grandpa were in Bowie at a doctor’s appointment. It was kind of interesting to walk in and find the only persons in the house to be our napping visitors. They woke slowly after I got home. I was happy they were comfortable enough to really sleep – and that Lucy would be still enough to let them sleep.

Mama and Grandpa really went to work yesterday. Mama got the mower and did a close trim of the property – or at least six of the ten acres. The leaves had accumulated for several years beneath the oaks that occupy the property and getting them chewed up was needed to get the grass we want to grow some much needed light. Just getting the leaved chewed up opened up a lot better view of the property.

Grandpa got the weed eater and chainsaw and cleaned up the fence row on the front and one side. It looks like a park now. He cut down several small cedars that interfered with the view of the road at the front of the property near the driveway and really cleaned up the fence line there. Both Mama and Grandpa were a little surprised by the amount of grass that is growing in different areas. The next few weeks will give us our first look at the property in spring. Mama and her Bad Boy mower will be best buds again.

We have had several days of light rain followed by warmer days of sunshine. That is a perfect combination for the growth we are seeing. We are all anxious to see exactly what type of fruit trees we have in the garden area. Only two of the trees from the small orchard are still living. The others we had to cut down. They were long since dead. It is one of those best-guess moments that will be fully answered when we see the fruit they produce. My first guess is one pear and one peach. Time will tell.

We have decided where to put the fig tree but are waiting until the danger of frost is passed. The pecan Grandpa and Mama bought last week we will plant in a corner of the back yard where it will be largely undisturbed for the years to come. I had originally thought about putting it out front but we are parking in and around that area on occasion. So the back yard is a better option.

Daisy May should have her calf in the next few weeks. We are not sure exactly when she was bred but have an approximate guess which puts the calf due in early March. Grandpa and Mama are worried about our lone cow. Grandpa seems to think she if fretting over her solitude so they are planning on getting a companion for her – a yearling donkey.

Boy, am I excited.

Visitation, gardening, Brittany and Andrew

This was a busy weekend but we got a lot done. Mama and I went to the church Saturday morning to meet with the bus visitation crew. Mama wanted to visit some of the little ones in her Sunday School class. That particular route took us to Bridgeport for the morning. After stopping at the nursing home to see a couple men there we went through the bus route and found most of the ones that either sit with Mama in the morning before Children’s Church or that are in her class. We were out until a little after noon. It was a little longer than we had intended to stay out but it was well worth it.

Once we got home we started work on the garden. Grandpa and Victoria had already set the posts and cut down a dead tree that was threatening the garden so most of the work was done when we showed up. We unrolled some fencing we had brought from the farm in Bowie and stretched it using the tractor bucket as the anchor for the fence stretcher. It turned out pretty nice. Grandpa had set up some gates using some of the temporary corral type panels we had there in Chico so the whole set up looks neat and well thought out.

We planted six short rows of potatoes and two short rows of onions. We have more seeds in hand but the weather was supposed to turn cold and rainy so we did not want to plant anything susceptible to frost. That turned out to be a good decision since the trees and cars were covered in ice this morning. We will have to see how Mama’s little flowerbed around one of the trees in the front yard survived the cold temperatures.

As we were finishing the planting and doing minor tightening on the fence I had Mama go and find the charcoal and lighter fluid so I could grill some meat for Sunday dinner – Brittany and Andrew were on their way over for a short visit. We were crowding pretty close to the time we needed to head to church for the Valentine’s Banquet so we needed to split up in order to get the grill started and still have time for me to get ready.

We had a good time at the banquet even though I got chosen to participate in a Bible Trivia contest that was set up like “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” I have never watched the show but the rules seemed simple enough. I did okay until the final question and even though I poled the crowd – no one knew the answer either – I got it wrong. I made a joke of it on Sunday morning by saying, in case you ever get asked this question, this is the correct answer; those who had been at the banquet got a laugh out of it.

We did not see Brittany and Andrew until Sunday morning but spent most of the day with them between services. They are going to Ft Worth this morning and will spend the afternoon and evening with Mama and Grandma. (Mama, Victoria and I have FBI this evening.) They will head home tomorrow but since they are only about two hours away we may get to see them a couple more times before they go overseas.

Until they move I can stop on my way through to say hi as I come home from my visits up north.

The flood, travel, difficult situations, it’s a boy – maybe

I have been on the road since Tuesday morning and a lot has happened over those days. I have often said that Mama gets to lead a far more interesting life than most people would imagine. Though you would think she would have predictable and uneventful days living quietly on the farm in Chico – that is not often the case. What happened while I was traveling to the panhandle was a case in point.

Wednesday afternoon I got a frantic call from Mama who had been out shopping for plants and grass seed with Grandma and Grandpa. They had come home to a flood. There was water collecting in the living room – which is about five inched lower that the rest of the house. We were making a swimming pool out of the area. She knew at that time that the toilet had been left running but not much else.

 It was only later that I found out that the toilet in our master bath had been stopped and the flush handle had gotten stuck in the open position. That made far more sense. Fortunately, the stoppage on the toilet was far enough into the sewer line that no offal was present in the floodwaters.

Grandpa was able to take the filter and bag out of the shop vac and use if to suck out the water ten gallon at a time. Mama said he was sore from getting the full vacuum to the front porch to empty it. I think she told me he filled it ten or eleven times. The floor seems to have survived the submersion in water so the damage was very minimal.

I wish I could have accomplished more when I was in meetings with my staff in west Texas and Oklahoma but I think all I did manage to do was stir up the controversy I was trying to settle. Time will tell but the ladies there are in a difficult situation because of duplicitous leadership and there is little I can do to insulate them from the Human Recourses storm I see coming to that area.

It was overcast most of the time I was in the panhandle but I did not think anything about it –severe weather wise. I got a good reminder of the fickle nature of the weather on those high plains on the way back to the hotel from Guymon, OK. I had left Dumas that morning under cloudy skies with the weather report saying that there could be some sprinkles. On the way back through Stafford, TX there as a pretty substantial accumulation of snow on the ground.

The roads were okay, just a little wet but the grassy areas were fully covered with snow and it had all happened in the six hours I was in Guymon. The next morning there was heavy ice on the truck windows and the temperature was 21®F. Fortunately, the forty mile per hour wind had blown itself out.

On the way home from Elk City, OK I had to pull over and put out a grass fire. I had passed three small fires already but there were people tending to them  - beating the fires with towels and jackets - but the forth one I came to was unattended and it was near  little rustic furniture shop. Since I had a fire extinguisher in the truck, I got it out and used it on the fire until I ran out of dry chemicals. By that time there were other people with me. We got that fire put out completely. The next four I passed were already large enough that they would require a lot of water and a long reach to contain.

Maggie texted last night that the nurse doing the ultra sound told her the baby is a boy. Time will tell. I would think it difficult to discover the definitive parts on one that small but those who do the sonograms for a living are better at the details than I am. However, they have a 50% chance of getting it wrong.

We will know more as the pregnancy progresses.

Building, selling, baptizing

Saturday was a productive and painful day. Grandpa and I worked on a shed we are attaching to the barn. It is not particularly large – only 24x30 – but it was a challenge for both of us. The ground around the barn was heavy with rocks and roots. Even though I had the power post hole digger it beat me pretty badly as we struggled to get the depth we wanted for the six posts we set. We ended up doing the majority of the digging by hand and supplementing with the power auger. By the time we put the tools away on Saturday afternoon we were both pretty worn out and sore.

We put up nine four by fours and twelve two by sixes and it wore us out. That’s a sad commentary on the stare of our health. My back was completely worn out by the time we quit. Honestly, Grandpa was not doing very well through the day. His blood pressure was pretty low and he needed to stop every time he stood up to let his blood pressure come up so the dizziness he was experiencing would pass. It was slow going at a couple points but he hung in until we got to what he considered a good stopping point.

Mama and Grandma had gone to Trade Days that morning. Mama decided after the evening with the pup peeing all over the place when the children came into the house that the pup needed to find another home. Though it saddened her, she did find a buyer among the many shoppers at the flea market that morning. It is a relief to me and I think is will be to us all since Kira is in heat and bleeding.

Mama and Kimberlyn Cantrell are supposed to get together this morning and let Kim’s dog, Leo, a German Shepherd male, meet Kira to see if there will be some puppies produced from those encounters. All I need is another litter of puppies to deal with. So far Victoria has committed to selling all the pups. We’ll see if that holds true when the time comes. The way Kira sheds I do not want another one like her in the house. Then again, I could just put some mild adhesive on the floor and we could virtually carpet the entire house with dog hair in a couple months.

Last night Cori shared videos of her children being baptized. All three were baptized after the evening service at their church. She tells us that they were counting down the days to the event and it proved to be a memorable one. The pastor had forgotten about the baptisms so the heater had not been turned on. The water was, according to Grant, colder than frozen.

In the videos all the kids were troopers but the pastor probably got more wet in these baptisms than any in his recent past since Blake practically climbed onto his chest as he came up out of the water. Kudos to the pastor for holding each of the little ones as far up as he could until they were submerged and then getting them out of the water as quickly as he could, but the muted antics of each of the children as they tried not to overreact to the cold water is worth watching.

It is a moment they will always remember – as it should be.