Trenching, traveling, transitioning

Friday evening and Saturday, I slowly worked on the trench that needs to go from the utility pole to the carport/shop. Digging is like weed eating for me. I can only do it for about an hour per day because of the back issues I am having. The trench is only about 125’ in length but it is in clay and roots. I used the potato plow to mark the path and get the first four or five inches of dirt and root cleared away. Other than that, I have about six feet of the trench taken to the correct depth. I am guessing it to be about four hours of work total – which will take me several evenings. That is not even the hard part. I still have to go from the shop, across the yard, to the other side of the house to put in a receptacle for the camper Nate and Cori are living in. That is about 225’ total. Fortunately, Nate will be here to help. Maybe he will see an easier way to get power to the camper. Power will go to the shop regardless.

Nate, Cori and the kids will be on the road today heading from the Pace, FL area to the farm. It will probably be a two-day trip. Mama and I have driven it many times and the best we have done is about thirteen hours of driving time. Everyone is well right now and the kids are looking forward to being at the farm. Nate and Cori are praying the Lord will fill up their schedule so they can continue to gather the support they need to get to the field. At this point I believe they are at 43%. With only one year of deputation under their belts, I think they are doing well but there is always a sense of urgency to get the job done and get started on the work that initiated the calling. The lead missionary at the work in Honduras suggested that they come down with the kids in this slack time. It was a good suggestion but a costly one. Well, one of the churches they recently visited is going to pay for the airfare to get the family to Honduras so they can expose the kids to the work. Praise the Lord! Now all they need to pay for is the hotel they will need to stay in – unless the Lord provides something else for them.

Brittany and Andrew got to bring the twins home last night. There is still a bit of concern about Zoe’s bilirubin count. She was the first through the birth canal and spent the longest time in that state of compression; causing some bleeding under the scalp (perfectly normal) and all that blood has to be treated and removed by the newborn liver.  It may take her liver a just a little longer to get about the business of normal activity with the increased initial load it has been assigned; but it knows what to do. When I think about the little lives, even the normal act of breathing, digestion, liver function, kidney function, etc. it truly amazes me how wonderfully made the human body is. Just so you know, bilirubin is a yellow substance that the body creates when it replaces old red blood cells. Too much bilirubin in the blood causes the yellowing of the complexion known as jaundice. The liver helps break down the bilirubin so it can be removed from the body. If we knew all the autonomic functions our bodies carried out in the course of a normal day we would have a much greater appreciation for our bodies – and perhaps a greater interest in their care.

The twins first night at home was a good one. Brittany had to get up and feed them at 12am and 3 am. Zoe is still having an little trouble regulating her body temperature – another wonderful thing our bodies for us – but they were able to wrap her warmly to compensate. Other than that, the two of them slept through the night. As they begin to realize that they are hungry and crying out for mom is the way to get that hunger sated, they will become more demanding, but the current patterns are working well for Brittany. Mama slept through the 3 am feeding – as did Andrew. Brittany said she could not wake him. I vaguely remember Mama telling me the same thing many years ago. It did not take long for her to realize that those early morning feedings were better handled on her own. It made for more pleasant mornings overall; especially when I had to get up and go to work two hours later.

I am sure Brittany and Andrew will work it all out – and the babies will help.

The twins, work changes, the farm constant

Zoe and Sophie were born about 2 pm yesterday – in that order. I am not sure how Brittany decided on that but that is the way it transpired. Mother and babies are doing fine. Everyone other than the medical staff attending to them is completely worn out. Mama and Andrew are exhausted from the wait; Brittany from the work; the twins from the whole birthing process. It took about two hours for Zoe, who came through the birth canal face up, to come out. Sophie, followed very quickly. Now, the easy part is over. Yes, the easy part. The entire process so far has taken none months. The labors following the birthing take an entire lifetime. The real labor is just beginning. I do not know when Brittany and the babies will be sent home, but it should be tomorrow or Saturday. That is the moment when the reality of having these children will hit Andrew the hardest. At least, that is the way it worked for me – many years ago.

Mama was excited to be there. I would like to have been there too but circumstances prevented it. New job; limited vacation; limited finances, etc. As it stands now, Victoria and I will be going up to meet the twins late next week. The delay gave her time to get the vacation scheduled at work. The dates were originally coordinated with the arrival of the Mortenson clan at the farm. I have heard rumors that Cori, Nate and the kids will be coming to the farm on that earlier schedule – arriving next Tuesday or Wednesday – but those are unconfirmed rumors as of this morning. If they do make it over, Cori will go up with us. It will be Brittany’s chance to show off a little bit.

At work, things are a bit chaotic. We have four or five new people being added to the company next week. In anticipation of their arrival there are equally that number of persons being relocated within the building. Some of the moves are well received. Some are not. In our department, we have also been affected by the moves. Fortunately, ours has been limited to a single swap of persons. Other departments are undergoing a more dramatic reorganizing. It will all work out, but it is somewhat disruptive none the less. Growth pains are never pleasant, but they are a welcome interruption when they are handled well and enough information is given to compensate for the displacement. Time will tell how well this shuffle has been handled.

At the farm, things continue as usual; even better with the soaking rain we had early in the week. I met an engineer from Wise Electric at the farm yesterday afternoon to outline how they could get service to the carport we are converting into a shop. It was all pretty straight forward; expensive, but straight forward. I am a little pressed to get it done so I can get the power run to the station I will set up for the RV Nate and Cori are bringing with them. It will still be a couple weeks before I can get it all put together but in a week I will have Nate to help. In the long run, it will be a blessing to have all this done. It will make the farm nor serviceable in the years ahead. If the Lord calls on us to sell the property, having all this work done will only add value to the property – and that, far above the cost of getting it done.

I have always promised myself that one day I will be caught up on all the projects I have going. It does not look like that will happen soon.

Back at the farm, Brittany

If you have ever watched a very old movie or TV show you will see the header come up that reads, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch,”. I believe that was done to help viewers, new to the media, understand the flow of the story. Well, in our case it is “meanwhile, back at the farm.” So far Victoria has handled the morning feeding and watering and I have taken care of the evenings; except yesterday. She was off yesterday so the only thing I did was close up the chickens after I got home from church. I will have to start setting out the trap for raccoons again. On the way home last night I saw two young coons crossing our road. It will not be long before the smells of the farm draw them to the chickens, the rabbits and the garden. In Mama’s absence, we get a deeper appreciation for all she does daily at the farm; not just the feeding and watering of the animals but all of the scheduling of feed purchases, the setting up of allotments for the various groups of animals and the little treats she makes sure each type of animal gets every morning and evening. All the animals miss her – even if they are not able to express it. The dogs are very forthcoming about the little things Mama does that Victoria and I do not typically do – especially in the area of evening treats.   

So far, everyone is doing well enough in this heat. The daytime highs are now over 100°F and the heat index associated with that, depending on the relative humidity, fluctuates between 104° and 107°. The rabbits seem to be the most stressed by the heat, but even they are getting along well enough. Mollie, our oldest pig, has shrunk down in weight by about thirty pounds since the piglets were born. The problem is not the heat or the nursing piglets; she refuses to eat anything but scraps. She will not touch the feed we normally put out for her. I wanted to see how long she would go without eating her feed but finally gave in to her demands and fed a her a healthy portion of scraps. She would not allow any of her babies to get the smallest bite of the meal. So, Victoria and I have amassed all the eatable items we have in the pantry that need to be thrown out and have begun feeding her with those items – brown rice bowls, chips, grits, pancake mixes that are expired and overripe veggies from the garden. Mollie wonders just where we have been hiding the delicacies.

As of this morning, Brittany is having stronger contractions, dilated to a five and they broke her water early this morning. Mama called me to let me know she was on her way back to the hospital anticipating the arrival of the twins by midmorning. Her only concern was that the last ultrasound showed Zoe, who is in the birth canal, to be face up. That is not the best position for birth. Most doctors prefer the baby to be face down to reduce the pain of birth as the head passes over the tailbone of the mother. I suppose the face is slightly more elastic or pliable than the back of the head as the child is extruded through the compressed opening. I also think it alleviates the risk of the child ingesting fluids during the end of the birthing process – depending on how vocal the child is at the birthing. Brittany and Andrew should meet their children, and Mama meet our grandchildren, sometime in the next several hours.

She was trying not to speed on her way to the hospital.     

Travel, trouble, twins

My trip to Abilene yesterday did not take as long as I thought it would. My coworker, who serves as our videographer and I went to team up with a man who works for a client of ours who has been very supportive of our training development efforts. Our intent was to record me doing a performance evaluation as well as get some pictures of line locating. Red and I expected the whole process to take several hours with retakes of portions of the script we were using. With repositioning the camera for capturing different angles of the action and with the retakes we were satisfied with what we had recorded after only an hour. We took our time reviewing as well as getting the images I needed to complete the line locating course I am writing and were wrapped up by noon. We took our time eating a bar-b-que lunch and headed home about 1 pm. Three hours ahead of where I thought we would be. We were both pleased with the time taken to get a video my company has been talking about making for over two years. It was a productive and pleasant day out of the office.

When Victoria got home she told me about a vehicle accident Cori and Nate were involved in – while they were parked in a parking lot. As it was related to me, a woman with a very expensive car which was brand new to her hit the side of their vehicle damaging a fender and almost ripping off a door. Cori was in the process of changing Savanna before they headed out when the woman struck the vehicle. No one was hurt, so that was a blessing. The woman immediately called the police only to be dumbstruck when the police informed her that the entire accident was her fault. She later called Nate and asked if they could settle the accident without insurance getting involved. Too late. Once the accident report is filed and the ticked issued, the course of the investigation has been set.

We are not sure if all of the repairs will be covered by her insurance but we are certainly hoping so. Just think, all the miles they have covered and all the near accidents they have avoided only to be struck in a parking lot in their hometown. Repairs to the vehicle will hinder them from coming to Texas on the earlier schedule we were making plans around, but they should be here within a week or so of those dates; sometime within the second week of August. It does mean that Victoria and I will be going to Brittany’s without Cori for our initial visit but we will make the trip up at an appropriate time after they do get to the farm safely. It also means we will have to get coverage for the farm while all of us are away. Fortunately, we have someone on standby.

Brittany has made it all the way through now. She is scheduled to be induced at 7 pm this evening. By the time Victoria and I get home from church, her labor should have started. Within 24 hours we should be introduced to the twins. Mama is in the I’m-trying-to-act-like-an-old-pro-at-this-but-inside-I-am-about-to-explode-with-excitement” mode. We all are to a certain extent. These are grandbabies eight and nine for me and Mama. Our first set of twins. A miraculous answer to prayer.

What a good God we serve.

The weekend, prayer and perceptions, Mama, Brittany

The weekend was hot – very hot. Still, we worked on clipping the goat’s hooves – that proved to be an interesting and far overdue experience - and I hung a ceiling fan in the chicken coop. I had replaced the ceiling fan in Victoria’s bedroom and the one I took out was just the right size to put into the coop. It took more of an effort than I had counted on. I had to reset the outlet and the support board for the outlet to move the fan far enough into the coop so that the door could open with the fan running. I also raised it a couple inches to be on the safe side. The noise it makes while operating is not a bother to the chickens like it was for Victoria; however, we had to catch the stubborn chicks and put them back into the coop the first night the fan was running. They do not like anything new.

As for the goats, they have to have their hooves clipped several times per year. We had not taken the time to follow through since we bought them. Like our finger nails, the hooves grow out and begin to turn under making it painful for the goats to walk. For Kai, it was way overdue. His had grown out to the point that the “fingernails” were growing into the quick of the adjacent side of each hoof. He was having trouble getting around. I started with him because he was having the most trouble but we went on to clip two others before we moved on to other things. So, we still have three girls and the two boys to do. Hopefully, Victoria will help me do that this week. Kai is getting around better, but I am trying to talk Mama into taking him to the market so we can get some real use out of him. I’m not sure, but at this point he may be too old to provide good meat.

Sunday sermons were on prayer in the morning service and perceptions in the evening service. Both were good instructional sermons. The one on how we interact with God through our weak, timid and selfish prayer efforts. If we communicated with our spouse in the same way we pray, we would not have very strong marriages. I don’t know about everyone else but I need some serious improvement in my prayer life – and I could always improve on my communications with my wife.  Likewise, our perceptions of ourselves, others and God are mostly lacking. We tend to vacillate between thinking either too highly of ourselves or too poorly of ourselves – moving from self-deprecating to self-promoting with fascinating ease. Neither is productive. Neither is honest. That struck home for me and Mama; guilty on both counts.

Mama heads out this morning for Brittany’s. She has made the trip several times now so it should be uneventful. She missed a call from Brittany last night and was panicked thinking she had missed something important. I tried to reassure her that if there were something important, Brittany would have left a message but Mama started talking about heading up last night – until I told her that I would not permit her to drive six hours to Wichita in dead of night. After several attempts to reach Brittany, Brittany finally called back and reassured Mama that everything was really alright; hence, the departure this morning.

So far, Brittany is in good spirits, the babies are healthy and the doctor is confident that all will go well with the delivery. Andrew is home for the birth and Mama is headed up to be the matronly support for our daughter in this, her first delivery. As with all pregnancies, things are subject to change without notice. We are hoping for the best and trusting the Lord in all those areas where we have no control. He has brought the twins safely this far, we can trust Him to complete the work He started.

There were storms in the area last night and we hoped for some rain. At the very least, the lightening show was beautiful. I told Mama I would be happy with an inch or less of rain. We ended up with 3 ½ inches total. That’s not a bad thing but it damaged the tarp we have over the little chicken house, flooded the pig areas with water and filled the feeders we use for the goats with water. Mama had to dump water from the feeders and dry them because the goats will not eat wet food. We will deal with any damages or extra work because the tradeoff is to the benefit of all the plants and trees that are struggling to survive in the triple digit heat.

The weekend, the call, the heat

As usual, we have a full weekend ahead of us. Mama and Victoria are going to some store in Arlington to order a mattress and box springs so she can upgrade her bed – she has needed that for some time. (It is frightening what mattresses cost.) Plus, we have a wedding to attend Saturday afternoon. It does not seem like much but when those two items are added to the normal weekend routine, it can get hectic in a hurry. One of the hassles of having to attend to chores or events in town is having to change clothing to do so. When Mama and I have been working outside in the heat it takes a few minutes to cool down sufficiently to ensure that the clothing we are changing into does not get immediately soaked. Mama routinely changes several times a day during the week to get into dry cloths once she gets back into the house from feeding and watering chores, but if we have to leave the farm for an errand the change is more significant for her. We manage, but it adds a certain dimension of inconvenience to the requirements of daily life.

Mama has a bag packed for the trip to Brittany’s. She had had it ready to go for several days. The Lord has blessed Brittany with a very uneventful pregnancy so far so Mama is waiting until Brittany’s appointed delivery date. The fact that there are twins growing in Brittany’s womb has not seemed to affect her noticeably – which is a huge blessing since this was considered a high-risk pregnancy. We are excited about finally meeting the babies. Neither Brittany nor Andrew are fully aware of how significantly their life is about the change. They have planned carefully and set up the house as needed for the twins, but none of us can know the extent of the impact that the infant twins will bring to daily life. Will they sleep well? Will they eat well? Will they stay well? Will there be special dietary needs for either of them? Will they be pleasant or cranky babies? Those and a thousand other questions linger, but the overall expectation is that this will be a lifelong blessing – constantly bathed in prayer.

In an attempt to be instantly available should Brittany call and say they are on their way to the hospital, Mama has been keeping her phone on the nightstand every night. Or course, the volume has to be left on so she does not miss the call – even though I think the phone vibrating against the nightstand would wake her. So far, the only thing that has disturbed us is the gong that sounds with the notifications she receives; from Facebook, Marco Polo and weather or Amber alerts. It has not been too bad through the night but the mornings have gotten noisier than I am used to. Maybe it is my age.

Mama’s main concern for being gone is leaving the care of all her animal charges to me and Victoria. Intensifying that concern is the fact that I will turn those duties over to Nate when Victoria and I go up to meet the twins. She is worried someone will be forgotten and die of thirst in this intense heat. She takes her ministrations to the pigs, chickens, goats and rabbits very seriously. As thankful as I am for her dedication and diligence, I believe all the animals will survive her absence for a short time. They will not be as pampered but hopefully, they will not be forgotten.

The heat is brutal right now. The temperatures are near 100° F and the humidity is below 40%. The plants are in the usual summer stress mode and Mama and I are watering carefully and thoroughly three evenings per week – if not more often. As is typical for the summer months, my concern is centered on the fruit trees and the berry bushes. Mama focuses on the garden and animals. So far, we are keeping everything alive, but even our best efforts can be thwarted by long periods of severe heat. – especially in the garden.

Two months to go before we have to start setting up for cold temperatures.

Growth rate, history lesson, Mama’s phone

As my role at work continues to change, I am amazed at how fast the company I am working for is growing. In the very near future, I can easily see an additional 50% growth. That’s pretty incredible. It is also a little overwhelming and I can see the growing pains associated with such rapid growth – especially when there is relatively little established with regard to job titles and responsibilities. There is so much flux that is difficult for anyone to know exactly what they are supposed to be doing and /or where they fit. For the very responsible, conscious staff that has been hired by this organization, that makes it difficult to know where their priorities should be placed so that they can maximize their contributions. On the bright side, management is aware of the problem and seeking solutions to help pin things down. For the moment, only those who are the most structured in their approach to life are truly overwhelmed. But all of us are looking for stable footing and a clear path forward while managing an ever-increasing work load.

We had a missionary at church last night. He is connected to a ministry among the Jews and it was very clear that he had a great passion for those people. He gave an interesting history of how the US treatment of the Jews over time had directly affected our country; whether for the good or the bad. Like the story of Hyam Salomon who is considered the “Financial Hero of the American Revolution” because he loaned George Washington the money needed for arms and powder that allowed Washington to win the Civil War. And the story of President Nixon giving to Golda Mayer the arms, ammunition and military equipment needed to secure Israel during his presidency. He outlined several of the bad consequences that followed when we abandoned Israel and the Jewish people. It was a great sermon. It was a great history lesson with a direct application to our daily walk and our attentiveness to the things of God.

Mama is still deciding whether or not she likes her phone. She loves having an iPhone. She is still getting used to the smaller size of the SE. We discussed her ordering a case for the phone but I suggested that she order something inexpensive so that if I end up with the phone because she needs a larger model we will not have bought items that are no longer needed. That somehow got lost in the translation and she ordered three cases for the phone. None were expensive but I will not use any of the cases should the phone come to me. We will see how it finally works out. It will not be the first time we wasted $40; nor, sadly, will it be the last. I have to admit that I love the quality of pictures the phone captures. It even enhanced the quality of the images transferred to the phone from her android phone. That part of the phone she likes; that and the huge memory. The only drawback is the size. It is funny when you think that that is all we had for years only a short time ago, but all of her friends at church have iPhone 7 or 7+ which dwarf her little 4’ screen. Thankfully, the price of her small phone matched the size of the phone.

At least now she can make and receive phone calls; even though that seems to be a peripheral use for a smartphone.