Not so relevant, more travel, making lists

With the busy schedule Mama and I have had to keep and with the very full schedule at work I have not taken the time to look at or listen to the news as much as I would normally do. I believe I am the better for it. I do listen to select podcasts and specific talk radio shows, but I have avoided combing through the news feeds – which in and of itself can be very disheartening without reading anything but the headlines. I have a somewhat lighter week next week, so I may get to look a bit more deeply into the headlines but, like the soap operas of a decade ago, there is very little that changes in the storyline on some networks. They can only say “We hate the President” in so many ways before it becomes nauseatingly redundant.

Now, looking back after a few days abstinence, it is sad to recognize that even the cable news providers that I used to respect and follow regularly, have succumbed to the pervasive narrative of the day. I am convinced there is much more happening in the world that we would like to hear about. Sadly, that news is hard to find, particularly as those in political power take up their chosen positions and defend them with the full extent of the resources they are connected to. There is a whole world around us that we have become disconnected from. Maybe it is time to ferret out those connections and see what we can involve ourselves in that will actually make a difference.

Nate, Cori and the kids should be setting up at the farm this evening. I am not sure of their travel schedule, but Mama assures me that they will be joining us some time before dark. Nate and Cori have a very short layover. After the morning service this Sunday, they will be heading to Houston to fly out to Honduras. There are a lot of friends praying for the success of this trip as they seek out a house in Honduras; what will become a home for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, we will keep the kids. I think it will be a nice break for them and it will be a good opportunity for Mama, Victoria and I to get a chance for a long goodbye. Savanna and Mykenzie need some settled time to recoup. Savanna from a cold that she has been battling and Mykenzie from a broken toe she gave herself last night as they were playing. Plus, right now we have all kinds of baby animals for the kids to watch, to play with, and to help feed; baby goats, baby dogs and baby chickens. The chicks will arrive tomorrow – all forty of them. As an added bonus, Mama and I are both off tomorrow.

As is customary with a long weekend, I have complied a long list of things to do. Some of those will not get done, but hopefully just putting them on the list will spur me to action in a focused manner. I have come to realize that none of the tasks are urgent. What gets done will certainly help, but it is not going to affect the overall operation of the farm or the home. However, each task makes the operation of the farm more convenient or serves to clean up a specific area of concern. I guess I like lists. I especially like checking things off of a list once those tasks are complete. Those are both good things especially considering that while we own this farm, there will be a never-ending list of things to be done.

That works for me.

Cooped up, travelers, a good report, squeezing out the time

It may be safe to plant a garden now. Since Mama and I added the extra height of wire to the coop yard we have had very few escapees. We do have to make minor adjustments to the inhabitants of each side every night in order to keep the chickens that like to get out on the side where we have added the extra wire, but other than that, we seem to be able to contain the hens in the assigned enclosure. As for planting, we will wait until the garden dries out a bit before getting into it to plant. So far, we have had about an inch and a half of rain. That is a blessing for the ground but not so much so for the dogs being let in and out of the house. That is always the tradeoff.

Kira’s pups have discovered the food dish and are routinely emptying it. Kira is about ready to wean the pups so getting them interested in dog food was a necessity. This weekend I will get the kennel attached to the birthing center so the pups have a small outside area to go potty – rather than in the building; if Victoria can make that work. The pups are growing very quickly and should be ready to find a new home in about three weeks. One is already spoken for. Mama and Victoria have already chosen their favorite so that one will need a very special owner.

Nate, Cori and the kids should be here tomorrow. Nate and Cori will be traveling to Honduras next week while the kids stay at the farm with us. This trip will allow them to locate and set up a house to move into at the end of May when they relocate to the field. They are excited about getting to the work and getting involved. Having a house ready to go will facilitate not only the move, but also the initial involvement in the work they will be doing there. It is a tall order to find and secure a house in a foreign country in only a few days. We will bathe the search in prayer and trust the Lord that, as He has supplied every other need for Nate and Cori as they have been on deputation, He will have a house ready for them that will be just the right home in just the right area with just the right neighbors. Hopefully, Mama and I will get to see the house this year, but that remains to be seen.

Norman took Grandpa to the doctor in Hot Springs yesterday and the report from the doctor was a good one. Grandpa’s vitals, his bloodwork and his heart all look good – for his age. I am always a little suspect when the doctor dismisses a lack of energy, a general malaise and periodic bleeding in the bowel to the consequences of age, but that was the prognosis. “You’re as good as can be expected for your age,” was his general disclaimer. Grandma and Grandpa were both thrilled. We will celebrate the good news with them. While they were in Hot Springs, they stopped by to see Rebekah and Bridgette – and pick up a bumper Mile had hauled to Hot Springs to sell for me and Mama almost a year ago. I will put the bumper on my truck and explore the option of selling the freshly outfitted truck.

I taught class yesterday and Mama and I came to the office later in the evening to work on our business. We seem to be making small steps forward, but it is a painfully steep learning curve. I am not complaining. At some point in the near future, it should prove to be worth all the effort we can muster to get it going. However, Mama and I did not realize just how busy our lives are until we needed to extract ten to twelve hours per week for this project. I need about twice that amount of time to get grounded, but that’s not going to happen.

You gotta love it!

Our chicken gulag, a barn raider, growing little ones

For some time now, Mama has been letting the chickens free-range around the farm. It is good for the chickens, but it is not so good for the yard, the landscaping or the garden. I have had to put barriers around the areas and plants where I do not want the chickens to scratch. That presents a problem when we need to mow and weed eat the property. Now that we have the garden started, Mama and I are concerned about the damage the chickens will do there. So, to limit the chicken’s ability to range free we decided to try and leave them cooped up. That is difficult when the several that range the furthest and do the most damage to the garden can simply fly to the top of the gate that closes off the coop yard and fly down from there to escape the coop.

Saturday, to inhibit their escape, we installed two feet more height to the fence surrounding the east half of the coop yard – including over the gate to that side. We did not have time or materials to enclose the other side, so we knew some of the more industrious chickens would still get out – and they did. But only a few figured out the escape route. To get out Sunday morning, they had to fly over the gate in the center of the coop yard to gain access to the west side of the yard and then fly over the gate on that side of the coop yard. Some of them actually made it out, but only a few. We will hold off planting the garden until we have set the wire in place on the west side of the coop yard in the hopes it will keep them contained while we plant, water and eventually harvest our little garden.

We were supposed to set up the garage for the forty chicks Mama is scheduled to receive Wednesday afternoon but that did not happen. It will have to happen over the next several evenings, but our day Saturday, after Mama and Victoria went to Wichita Falls and I went to bus calling, was spent getting wire on the coop, moving hay and feed and figuring out just how to get enough feed to Daisy that she will start to put on some weight. Right now. she looks pretty gaunt.

The caveat is that we have a large coon or opossum getting into the feed in the barrels in the barn – and, boy, can they make a mess. To try to combat that we moved a barrel for feed into the well house where we can try to keep it out of reach until I can eliminate the scavenger. I used the tractor to move the remainder of the bale of hay we have set out for the calves under the shelter of the equipment shed that attaches to the barn. Our plan was that we would have a much easier time getting hay from that bale to Daisy, but the residue from where I moved the bale was taken to Daisy and she ate it in only one afternoon. It was two bucket loads of hay. With that kind of appetite, we decided to get Daisy her own bale of hay and Sunday, between services, I did just that. I told Mama it would be good to see just how long a bale lasts her, so we can get real feel for the amount of hay we need to feed out when she is the primary consumer.

The baby goats are doing well; growing quickly, hopping and scampering around the rockpile and paddock. Mama makes a point to handle them regularly. The pups are also doing very well. They are growing so fast it is alarming. We moved the kennel to the birthing center so I could cut an opening for the pups and Kira to access the kennel, but we repositioned it Saturday so the opening could be behind the center gate in the building. To make the transition I will have to build a little tunnel from the building to the kennel. I will also have to repair the kennel so we can reattach the tarp that should be covering it.

That is on the long list of projects to be worked on this week – when we are not working our normal jobs or working on our business or making emergency repairs somewhere on the farm.

Life vs business, the kids, the puppies, the chicks

Three days of travel can certainly mess up an evening work schedule. Essentially, Mama and I are trying to work two jobs. It has not been a thrilling success for us, but we are making the best of it. While I was on the road, I spent the evenings getting the notes from our three-day conference – a month ago – typed up so Mama and I can use them as a reference. The total was a collection of ten pages of single spaced, size 11 font notes. I also caught up on receipts that needed to be tagged and entered into a tracking program we are using to keep track of expenses. All the while, Mama was studying on the various states and counties we are going to talk to our coach about when we have our first meeting tonight. Also, happening in the background, USTLA has been working on getting our LLCs set up. I received confirmation of the paperwork being completed yesterday. I will have a good bit of work to follow through with the initial set up and funding of the accounts, but we should be pretty much done by the end of the month. So, even though the coordination has been a challenge, we are making steady progress.

Mama and I took time to look things over yesterday evening. The garden was in bad need of water and Daisy needed hay brought to her from the bale the calves are eating on. All my trees and plants in the back yard needed to be inspected for signs of life. The grapevine was shooting our new growth. I was pleased with that. Of the berry bushes along the back fence, three of the four were showing a spark of life. I will work this weekend on getting those replanted in a bed where they will have a much better chance to thrive. The one we planted in the raised bed with the blueberries is doing so well I will have to more it to keep it from taking over the entire bed. All the fruit trees are budding and flowering. If we can avoid a Spring freeze, we should have fruit this year – red raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, grapes, figs, peaches, pears, apricots, apples, plums and nectarines. My one dwarf peach tree died through the winter, but the roots are sending up growth from under the graft. Since the grafts are normally from a standard root of the same general variety of tree, I should have a standard peach tree coming up. That will give us one in the garden and one in the back yard.

Lilly’s triplets seem to be doing well. All have fat little bellies. All are getting around exceptionally well. They love the little rockpile I have set up for them in the goat area. Dolly is getting bigger by the day, but we are not expecting her to kid until mid-April. We will take Millie, our senior nanny, to Ricks next week to be bred. That will keep we from interfering with Dolly when her little ones are born. We are in the process of trying to sell two of our myotonic goats and all three of our Nubian goats but have not had any luck so far. Please keep that in prayer.

The puppies are starting to try to walk but are not getting very far at time yet. I will be cutting a door into the birthing center to allow the puppies to pass from the building to the dog kennel we have set in place for that purpose. Another little weekend project.  All the pups are fat and whiney. Mama and Victoria are very pleased.

Also, this weekend, I will be setting up places for us to house the forty chicks Mama ordered. Thirty of which are ours. Fortunately, the weather is perfect for brooding the chicks in the garge.

Triplets, mulching, gardening

Saturday morning was an early morning; sort of. Friday night it was pretty obvious that Lilly was going to have her kids this weekend and Mama was fretting over the birthing. So, Saturday morning she popped out of bed a little after 7 am and looked out our bedroom window to check on the goats. What she saw put her into immediate action. Lilly was in the paddock giving birth – there was already one kid on the ground that Mama could see from the window. By the time we got out to her, she had given birth to her third tiny kid. Two males and one female. The female, the doe, is marked just like her father. Both of the bucklings are the black and white Mama favors. It started off our morning with a flurry of activity.

The first issue was that Millie, the matron of the herd, butted Lilly away from her newly born kids. None of the little ones had even been thoroughly cleaned yet and all of them needed to nurse at some point, but the older Nanny would not let the mommy near her babies. Mama and I had to get a leash, catch Millie and drag her out of the paddock so Lilly could take care of her little ones. That caused us a problem because we chose to put Millie in the coop area which abuts the Nubian goat’s enclosure. Millie and Sugar, the matron in that little herd, decided to but each other through the wire gate that separates the two areas. So, Mama and I had to herd the Nubian goats into the pig lot, close them up and hang a sheet over the shorter fence on that side of the enclosure so the goats could not see each other. Hopefully, we can put Millie back into the paddock this afternoon. Rick told us that the aggression on the part of the older goats only lasts a day or two. We will test that carefully.

After we got the goats situated, Mama and I went to the feed store to get bales of alfalfa for Daisy and the goats. Since Daisy it corralled in the barn, she has to be tended to every day. Getting the portions of feed correct for her has been a challenge. She will eat whatever we give her, and we want to help her gain her weight back, but we do not want to go broke trying to do so. We are still learning how much of what she actually needs to thrive while we wean her calf. Getting the one hundred-pound bales placed where we needed them took some time. One went in the cow barn with Daisy. The other went into the loft of the goat barn. Thankfully we have a tractor to help us get all that done. By that time, we were ready for breakfast, so we ate the sausage kolaches we picked up in Chico when we were getting feed.

Mama and I worked in the garden after getting the cows taken care of. We got her mower and used it to mulch the accumulated leaves so we could start to prepare the garden for some plants. The leaves took a bit of work even with the mower to mulch them, but we got the chore done in about an hour. After which, I started the tiller and got some rows ready to plant. I already had onions in the raised bed, but we needed a lot more soil added to plant anything else. Early in the afternoon, we made our trip to Lowes and to Decatur Garden Center. Lowes for soil. Decatur Garden Center for plants. By the time we got all that done, our evening chores done, and everything put away properly, it was almost 6 pm.

As of last night, all the kids were doing well. The little doe still has not gotten to where she walks properly. She still curls her hoofs under her as she tries to walk. We will see if that works itself out as she gains strength and coordination. When Mama and I checked on them late last night, the three were in the Igloo dog house we have in the goat barn, with Lilly standing guard at the opening. The dogs were on duty and well aware of the new kids. Mama could relax and go to bed.

Sunday was going to be equally busy.

Overwhelmed, kids and pups

Have you ever come to the point where you were overwhelmed with the amount of work that needed to get done and you knew you could not possibly do it all in the timeframe in which you felt it needed to be accomplished? Me too. I must have been at one of those points last night where the weight of the load caught up with my consciousness. Something hit me as I walked into the garage and it was, once again, full of leaves that had blown in under the partially open door. Mama and Victoria like to raise the door in order to give the rabbit, whose cage seems to be permanently set in the garage, some fresh air. My contention is, if the rabbit needs fresh air, set the rabbit outside. I know, it is just a few leaves, but for some reason it hit me the wrong way yesterday evening as I unloaded my things from the truck. I got over it, but not before I had to apologize for getting snippy with Mama.

As I changed and got busy working, I had to ask myself what was really bothering me? So much to do. So little help. So little time. So little money. Yearning for a change and finding the same, same, same. As I worked on mulching leaves so Mama and I can have a garden at some point this year, I began to realize – as is typical – I was frustrated because I had so much. Sad, huh? Mama and I had all this because we had prayed for it. We have a farm because we had prayed for one we could manage as we grew older. We have a garage because the farm God gave us had a large house in it with an oversized garage – complete with all the amenities of a large garage. We have all these noisome leaves to contend with because, unlike much of the area around us, we have lots of trees on our little farm; to shade our goats, our cattle, our chickens, our dogs – and our house.

We have a goat barn that needs doors because God allowed me to build it. A chicken coop that needs some finishing touches – which is very nice, by the way - because God allowed me to build that. We need fencing stretched over three hundred feet of pipe fencing because we have a property that can be subdivided for the goats we are keeping. We have a barn for the cattle and all the equipment I need to maintain the property, to get large bales of hay for the cattle, etc., etc., etc.

So, once again, I decided I can either be like Martha, who “was cumbered about much serving,” or I can be like Mary who chose the “good part”. I would like to say my attitude changed immediately, but that would be a lie. It took time to realize that being overwhelmed is a two-sided coin in this instance. At some point, I will be overwhelmed with gratitude for all that the Lord has given me and Mama. Because, in fact, He has given us so much.

Mama was somewhat frustrated yesterday evening because she cleaned an area in the goat barn for little Lilly to have her babies and rather than lie in the cleaned spot the goat was bedding down in the area that still has a bit of rabbit manure in it. Later that evening, as I was working on leaves, she checked again and was pleased and relieved that Lilly had moved to the spot Mama had prepared for her. Unlike the Disney movies, these animals act just like animals and we have to allow them to act on the instincts God gave them – and adapt our expectations to conform to those instinctually guided actions. However, in this case, Mama seems to have anticipated the need in sync with the mama-to-be. Mama is very good at that.

Kira’s pups are growing quickly. By the middle of next week, their eyes will begin to open, and we will have to make arrangements for the seven of them to be more mobile. With that in mind, I need to repair the kennel we typically use for the Banty house, so it can be ready to be used for its intended purpose – a dog kennel. It was damaged by the ice storm we had a few weeks back. We will move it this weekend to sit near the birthing center so Victoria has a place to put the pups as they require more room to move about. A place where they can be somewhat contained.

Another “extra work” blessing in disguise.

Mama’s home, training yesterday, mock training today

Mama made it home safely yesterday afternoon. She was a little worried about one particular stretch of road in Oklahoma City where the construction had caused longs delays for the southbound traffic. She had noticed the backup on her way to Brittany’s last Saturday. Since she did not know an alternate route, she knew she might be stuck with the delay. She is not a fan of traffic jams. Well, she stopped on her way back in Edmond, OK and as it turned out, she spoke with a policeman who was able to tell her how to get around the construction area and avoid Oklahoma City altogether. She was thrilled. Those of you who know Mama know she loves shortcuts and alternate routes. She thoroughly enjoyed her time with Brittany and the twins. She actually gained a little on her biceps while she was there.

I was conducting training all day yesterday. It was an uncharacteristically small class – only twelve. However, it was a good class. There was a lot of discussion, a lot of participation and so many questions that the class lengthened itself to the point that I had to breeze over some less relevant portions. All in all, it was a very good class. Two more to go for this month. The next of which is very near San Antonio. IT is one of these class venues that I wish I could take Mama with me. We both love San Antonio, but I will not do much on my own while I am down there. I may go to the River Walk for dinner one of the two evenings I am there, but not much more than that.

Today, I will be in a class setting all day. With the program we have implemented to get new trainers onboard, one of the requisites is to have each new trainer candidate to do a mock training. Something akin to a full class presentation done in a mock setting – generally with me and several other employees to serve as the attendees. Today, the presentation will be with me and the presenter alone. It is a pre-mock setting for this individual. Because of the volume of the information contained in the eight-hour course, this individual needed a run-through that would allow me the opportunity to do a good bit of coaching and instruction as he wades through the material. I am confident that he will do very well, but both of us realize that he will need a chance to do a full-blown presentation to a mock audience before he presents to a client class. This will serve as a time to adjust his presentation pace and broaden his understanding of and comfort with the material. I have had to adopt this process for a couple additional candidates as we add trainers to our roster. It may seem tedious, but the final results in presentation confidence are well worth the additional time.

Since Mama is off and since we have limited groceries in the house, I suggested we meet for lunch. Mama was pretty quick to agree, but we did not settle on an eatery. I thought we would play that by ear as the day unwound. We’ll see how that turns out. She will be getting feed this morning and will be on the road back home about the time we would normally have lunch so, we will see what she is ready to eat when she comes back into Decatur from her shopping trip to Muenster. I am ready for school to start again. I find I would rather eat lunch with Mama in that setting than in any restaurant we have available to us. I do not mind eating out per se, but I do not like the associated costs of doing so. Most times I would rather eat what I brought.

It is more boring, but it is so much more cost effective.