Months without an r, fishing evening, Mama, getting together

Tomorrow we will enter the period of the year where we work our way through the months without an “r”. There a lot of old wives’ tales about what should not be eaten during those months. Oysters and rabbits among others. Whether or not those have any merit is debatable, but the ideas persist none-the-less. The overarching truth is that Summer is almost upon us. For those of us here in North Texas, this truth will prove itself this weekend as the temperatures fly up into the upper nineties for a day of two. We will have those hot days followed by cooler days for a few weeks yet. Then we will be wholly given over to very hot days through the remainder of the months without an “r”. I do not mind the summer, but that is probably because of air conditioning. The house is always a retreat from the heat. Our bees will love it.

Pastor is coming over this evening to try out the upper lakes. We had originally planned on fishing Monday evening, but the winds were steady at 15 mph. Not a time to be out on the lake. You would think that with the two of us in the 12-foot boat that the wind would have trouble pushing the boat, but that is not the case. We would be blown about like a bobber on the water. It is a little more difficult than blowing a ping pong ball on a tabletop, but not by much. So, when it is that windy, we avoid going out on the boat. It is too frustrating to have to constantly fight against the wind while trying to fish. Last Friday evening, when the winds were up it was very difficult to cast unless you had the wind at your back. Still, a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office.

This evening should be much better. The water will be very clear since we have not had any appreciable rain and the winds will be still; less than 5 mph. The temperature will be in the mid-eighties. I am not sure what we will find in the upper lakes when we get out on them, but we will give it a try. It will be a little bit more of a challenge to get on the boat onto the upper lakes. There is less immediate access to them than the lower lake, but it is only a matter of a slightly longer walk to access a launch site for the boat. Once in the water, one is the same as the other from the boat. We will figure that out when we have the boat at the lake. The small upper lake has given us some really large bass. I have a hunch the large upper lake will do the same, but that remains to be seen. It will be fun testing the theory. It is certain that the large upper lake has not been fished for a couple decades. It should be fun.

Mama’s business is doing very well. She has progressed within the organization quickly which translates into higher payouts for her sales. So far, this business has proven to be a good fit for her. It may be a little stressful, but it is low impact physically. Which is a good tradeoff because Mama has been hurting a lot lately. Mostly in her knees; including the replaced knee. But lately, her back has been hurting as well. I can sympathize with the back pain. I am starting to be able to sympathize with the knee pain. Some of the issue is how much time she spends reclined on the couch with her legs extended. Some is the result of arthritis setting in. The end of the couch is her office, which serves her well enough for the time being. I am thinking about how to make her a better area to spend her time in, but I have not come across anything yet. I am not sure what I am looking for, but if I continue to think on it and pray about it, the Lord will give me the insight I need. I love living for the Lord.

We will have church this Sunday. There will be some “social distancing” rules in place. No handshaking. No groups in conversation. Every other pew in use. No more than two persons in the restroom at a time. And so on. But we will be together. Some will not attend for fear of the virus. Those who are most vulnerable are being advised to stay home and watch online. Others will stay home and watch online for the convenience of it. I am pleased we are continuing to offer the online services, especially since some of our isolated missionaries are able to enjoy those services. I am looking forward to our congregation being together. Regardless of the restrictions on interaction.

Hopefully, this will be over soon, and we will lose our fear of infecting each other – regardless of the infection in question.

Teaching live classes online, hive tops, rain, more re-purposing

My coworker did a great job teaching the online live class yesterday morning. Since we have set these classes up for four hours, it is less of a strain that it would have been for a longer eight-hour classes. But I am sure those longer classes are on the docket for later this year. We had only four attendees, but it worked out for the best since this we our first attempt at this style of presentation. The program we used did well. Everyone was able to stay connected. Everyone was able to participate in the class. All the required videos and documents were available to the participants when needed. If I had been at home, I would not have been able to participate due to internet issues, but all the participants had good enough connections at each of their locations to stay logged into the class for the duration. All in all, it went well. Mostly because we had a second person acting as administrator for the class to keep up with all the sign in issues and monitor the chat through the class so the instructor could focus on the presentation. All the participants did well on the exam – which was also offered online. It will be my turn next week to be the instructor. If this is our future, it could be fun. We got a lot of very encouraging feedback from the participants. Hopefully, that is a precursor of what is to come.

Yesterday evening, I worked on building tops for the two hives I am piecing together. I have other pieces to assemble or construct over the next few weeks but, I need the tops to be able to rehouse the swarm we have caught. I did not quite get done last night. Fitting the flashing to the top to seal it is the difficult part if I want it to look good. I should be able to do all the final work Thursday evening and have the hive ready for a Saturday swap. We are still not sure it will work, but at least I will have everything I need in place to give it a good try. I have not decided if I will make the swap at night or during the daylight, but I will definitely get the swarm trap out of the tree in the daylight. Probably late evening when all the bees are home for the night. The next swarm trap I hang will be placed so that it is easier to retrieve. But I have to admit that where this one was placed – regardless of the difficulty – it worked quickly. Last weekend, I built a stand for the swarm trap so that it could be more easily set and retrieved, but I have not hung that stand yet. It may go up on the Cantrell’s property. Getting it from that area would satisfy the “two feet or two miles” mantra concerning swarm relocation.

Yesterday we received a bee suit I ordered more than a week ago. It is a jacket and hood only. I will use it and Mama will use the full suit when she gets the chance to work with me on the hives. Sometimes it is nice to have two working together on some of the hive operations. Mostly, I can do the routine things by myself, but, now and then, an extra pair of hands is a huge help. Besides, Mama wants to see the hives up close. Now, we can do that – within Mama’s physical limitations. I will probably wear the full suit for the swap this weekend. I have no idea how those bees will react, and I do not have a smoker to use to calm them down. I do not know if these are “friend bees”. One way or the other, when I start, I will have to see it the entire process through.

We had a storm blow through last night that was all wind and fury without much rain. From the winds, the lightening and the thunder, you would have thought we were going to get deluged with rain. Alas, that was not the case. We ended up with 1/4” of rain. We will take it, but according to the forecast, it was our best chance of rain for the rest of this week and into next week. So, Mama and I will have to start our normal watering routine sooner than expected. Hoses are in place for that very purpose. When the plants and trees are producing fruit, it becomes a labor of love rather than a chore…mostly.

Mama took Kobe to the vet this morning to get her fixed. No more puppies out of Victoria’s two inside dogs. Now the birthing center will be permanently repurposed to a chicken nursery. Hopefully, we can get it moved out of the yard and closer to the coop building this summer.

That will facilitate caring for both the yard and whatever chicks are in the building. Which seems to be very often.

Mama’s business, more new bees, online class

Mama’s business is doing very well. She has so many parties going on that I cannot keep up with them. Thankfully, she can, but to do so takes her a lot of time. It is time well spent. I would estimate that she spends more than six hours every day following the parties and providing the communications required to keep things moving. For Mama, it has become a labor of love and encouragement as she watched her hostesses succeed. Last week she got her first real payday. The amount was more than she was earning every two weeks when she worked for the church school. It was not a huge amount, but it was enough to help with our ongoing needs as well as supply some of her business needs. Right now, every little bit helps. Paydays will follow weekly. That will keep Mama encouraged. Coming in May, she already has several more parties scheduled. I do not know how long this will keep up, but there are ladies in her organization that have been doing this business successfully for years. That is encouraging.

On our way out last night – we had to run to Walmart – I backed the Sequoia up the road towards the gate to the quarry property so Mama and I could get a look at the swarm trap I had put out. Mama and I was very excited to see that we had already caught a swarm. How great is that? We had been told that we were at a perfect location to catch swarms. We had been told correctly. Now what? It is kind of like having a skunk in a live trap. We had to call a local beekeeper to find the answer to that question.

He advised that we get the swarm rehoused in our hive within a couple days. Sadly, I am not prepared to do that yet. To the best of my knowledge, the bees have been in the trap for a couple days at least. Perhaps one week. It will be as late as Saturday before I can make that happen. He thought that would be okay, but he was concerned about the proximity of the hive we will put them in to where the swarm trap is located. Where they are building their home right now. The two locations are potentially to close to make it work and the longer I leave the bees in the trap, the more difficult the successful relocation will be. The bees are very directionally astute. They will have a very strong tendency to go to the hive location they have been servicing (the swarm trap) rather than the new hive location. I will build the remaining parts I need to assemble the two hives I can put together and move the bees into one of those two hives and see if it works out. The beekeeper advising us, James, told us that with swarm traps the rule of thumb is that you move the swarm either two feet or two miles. We did not plan for that contention. If this is a fail, we will try again. It was just nice to see the trap succeed.

I am participating in another online class this morning. We are testing a different system for the training. It looks like it will work well but we are experiencing some difficulty getting it to function as presented. Today will be the pilot of the system with multiple users in separate locations. The last online class we presented was to six users in one location. This morning, the attendees (users) will be in individual locations across the United States. This should be fun. I am here to help with the class and to learn the program. Next week, I will be presenting in the same fashion.

Oh, what FUN!

Minor repairs, fishing guests, services

Friday evening Alex and Leslie invited themselves over to go fishing again. Mama told them about the upper lakes, and they were anxious to see for themselves. I went with them, but we did not have an overly successful evening. In all we caught ten keepers out of the three lakes. For them, the greater portion of fish came out of the lower lake we normally fish. They were excited about it, but it was so windy it was difficult to cast. Still they fished on. After an hour or so, I abandoned them to the lake, and I went home to feed the calf and do some much needed watering. They always drive their own vehicle and I supply them with a key for one of the locks on the gate at the entry to the property, so they were not left completely abandoned. They did not leave the lake until after dark. I felt a little bad for them. I almost went back over after tending to things at the farm to see if I could help them increase their catch, but I was worn out. Fortunately, they did well enough to give them another few fish meals. I am sure they will be back soon.

Early Saturday I made some little repairs here and there in the house and around the farm. I had to swap hoses at the chicken coop so that we could start watering the garden properly. We are planting more and more vegetables as our seedlings mature and the plants we have in the garden – mostly potatoes and sunflowers – desperately needed a drink. Mama and I have to buy a new 50’ hose about every year to replace a degraded one. They last about three years on average. Inside I made a couple quick repairs that I had been putting off for no good reason. It is too often the little things that fail to get our notice until they are not little things anymore. Mama never complains, but when the handle of the front door comes off in her hand when she tries to close it, it is frustrating. Especially when all that is required is a small screw to affect a repair. Shame on me!

Saturday afternoon, Kenny and Kimberlyn came over to go fishing. According to Kimberlyn, it has been years since the two of them went fishing. They were very excited about the outing. They had to buy a couple poles at Walmart on the way over and I supplied line for the reels in that combo package. All of us caught fish. Mostly in the small upper lake. Mama caught her first large bass. That was an interesting moment. I wanted to commemorate the catch by taking a picture of Mama with her fish. So, once I got the fish off the line, I handed it to Mama. The fish immediately fell from her hand because she did not want to really hold the fish as needed. She wanted to kind of pinch the lip of the fish in two fingers. That did not work. It took a moment to catch the flopping fish on the ground and get it back in Mama’s hand for the photo op, but we got it done. She happily gave me her catch and went back to fishing. Kenny caught two large bass and several small ones. I caught five small bass and one large one. I also caught a sizable crappie. So, we went home with a full basket of fish which I filleted out while dinner was prepared.

We were given all the fish since Kenny and Kimberlyn are not any meat right now. They had a seasoned bean, corn and tomato mixture served cold on tortillas for dinner. We added a salad to that and will had a nice dinner together. Victoria spent quite a bit of time talking to Kimberlyn. More than ordinary for Victoria. That was nice to see. Our visitors did not stay too late. Kenny is an early riser which often translates into an early bedtime. It was very pleasant evening. One we will repeat sometime soon.

Sunday services went well. The Pastor had been working with an internet provider and a missionary who is stuck in our area who is very computer savvy, to increase the speed and consistency of our online services. We are making very good progress. Broadcasting the services online will be one of the most beneficial outcomes from this chaos we are enduring. Pastor preached two very poignant sermons. One on what made Daniel stand out in God’s eyes and another on the lists that God keeps. Which list we want to be on. Which list we do not want to be on. Which list we can never be taken off of.

Sunday evening, before the service, Pastor met with the deacons to discuss how we could restart our services while still meeting the guidelines that will ensure we cannot be  accused of infecting anyone who might come to our services. It is a difficult balance in the very fearful environment that has been created around us. No decision has been reached yet, but we all agreed on how to approach populating the church once we open the doors for congregants to attend.

We will know more Wednesday.

Weekend prep, weekend plans

Yesterday at lunchtime I drove to a bait shop at the entrance to Wise County Park. It is only about ten miles from the house. Pastor had told me that he expected the crappie to be very interested in minnows and the bait shop sold minnows for $2.50/dozen. A very inexpensive experiment. I spent a few minutes chatting with the owner while he bagged up the minnows. I learned in that conversation that if you keep the minnows cool, they will stay alive for several days in the bag. That is what I needed to know. So, once I got home, I put the bag of live minnows on the refrigerator in the garage. Mama did not discover the temporary aquarium in the fridge until very late in the evening yesterday. She found it very funny to have live fish swimming around in their bag in her refrigerator. They spend most of their time in the dark, but they are cool enough to be viable this evening.

Alex and Leslie are coming over tonight to fish. I cannot tell them no. I am not sure what they have done to prepare for their time at the lake tonight that is different from what they have done on the past times at the quarry lake, but they are excited to try again. Even though they caught only three fish last time, they did catch fish. So, their success rate her has been far greater than in the public waters they have fished. I am not sure if they want to try the upper lakes, but I will offer that to them as well as our normal lake. I enjoy the time with them as they chat in Mandarin including me in the conversation when needed. at some point they will bring the girls to fish as well, but their mama has not allowed that to happen yet.

Late yesterday evening, I tried the minnows at a spot where we typically catch crappie. I had limited success. I did about as well with lures as I did with live bait, but it was still fun to see the bobber popping on the surface of the water and know that a fish was interested. I caught four fish that way. Two I threw back. They were too small. I caught four with lures as I waited on the live bait to be taken. With the difficulty in getting to that particular spot, I will not use live bait there unless I am in the boat. It is too much paraphernalia to carry down and then up the steep bank - rods, bait bucket, fish bucket and tackle box. It took two trips to carry all the stuff back to the top of the bank. I could only handle the bucked with the caught fish in it by itself since I still needed one hand to help me climb the bank. I had to rest after carrying the fish bucket to the truck in the second trip up the bank.

Since I was basically on a mission to find accessible places to fish tomorrow night, I went to the upper lakes. I tried a couple spots on the smaller lake and caught several bass before landing a very large bass. The minnows did not seem to attract any attention in that lake. Then I went to the large upper lake and caught several small bass there as well. I also caught a large bass in that lake. All told, I caught four crappie, eight bass and one very large perch in about an hour and a half. I am not sold on the minnows, but I will try them tonight on a different spot with a different hook setup. If I can get that to work, I will get more for our outing with Kenny and Kim Cantrell tomorrow evening.

Mama arranged for them to come over tomorrow afternoon so we could get together. They have wanted to go fishing for some time and now that I know these lakes a little better, I think we can have a very good time enjoying being close to the water. We were going to see them tomorrow one way of the other. Either they were going to come over to go fishing or we were going to go to them to hang a swarm trap on their property. They have a lavender farm within a mile of their homestead. The bees love lavender. It is a little bit far to place one of my traps, but it is not too far to visit with friends.

So far, neither of the traps I set out have attracted any bees, but that is just as well since I am not quite ready to house more bees. I still need to build a couple parts for the partial hives I have on hand. It will not take me long. It is just getting that to be a priority.

Mama’s business continues to thrive, and she is getting to be quite proficient within the company internet framework. It is a pleasure to see enjoying this as much as she is.

Inserts, poor advice has a cost

At lunchtime yesterday Mama helped me don the bee suit and I opened the hives and inserted the feeders into the hives. Donning, putting on, the bee suit was the tough part. I did not think we were going to make it at first because the hood is not easy to attach to the suit. Mama tried to get the zipper parts lined up for several minutes without success. I had to pull the zipper through to get it started and finally Mama was able to zip me into the suit. That suit will be hot this summer, but it is what we have for now.

Once I was protected, I got the pitcher of syrup and the feeders – which are like deep narrow troughs – and headed to the hives. I have a ratchet strap holding the hives to a pallet in case any animals mess with them or in case of high winds. I released that tie down and took off the top of the hive and the inner cover. Once I took off the inner cover, the bees were all over me. Without the hood, I would have been stung many times. I had to remove two frames from each hive to allow room for the feeder to be inserted into the hive. With that in place, I put everything back carefully in each hive and ratcheted them back down to the pallet.

The whole process took less than twenty minutes. Mama watched from afar. The bees were not happy with the disturbance, but they calmed down very quickly. I lifted out a couple of the full frames to show Mama. It will be better when she has a suit as well. I will not leave the feeders in for more than two weeks. By that time the bees will need the frames reinserted into the hive so they can build and fill comb to fill out the box they have started in. A couple weeks after they fill that box – or are nearly done filling it – I will put on the honey super. Those frames will contain only honey when the bees are done. At least, that is the plan. I will not open the hives again until I need to take out the feeders…unless I see a problem. For now, I check the hives daily from the outside just to make sure I see a lot of activity.

Mama and I are talking about where to put this calf in a couple weeks. She is getting bigger and stronger with the twice daily feedings. Plus, she loves being in the open paddock with the boy goats versus spending the day in her stall. She will need a bigger space on the farm, but the fence is not good in some areas of the farm and I fear she could simply walk through the fence at numerous locations. I have fixed those points of exit that were obvious to me, but I am certain I have not gotten them all. I believe she would not go too far, but I hate to think we would have to catch her in a herd of cattle on someone else’s property. So, we are puzzling that through before we have to make the move. Mama wants to borrow a companion cow from one of our neighbors, but I have not warmed to that idea yet. So, we put her in with the goats in the morning and put her back in her stall at night.

Mama did not go with me to the service last night because she need to do a live presentation at 8:15. But at the service, I talked with Pastor to see when he felt we might open the service to our church. He is going to wait until he hears what the governor of Texas has to say before making that decision. Most of our church members are ready to get back together. The risk (which is minimal) is worth the reward. I am praying we open up businesses this weekend. I firmly believe we will look back on this “quarantine” as an abysmal public policy failure. Case in point. Most of us would never allow a doctor to dictate how to live our lives. What to eat. How and when to exercise. Where we were allowed to travel and who we were allowed to meet. Where you could work and what you could do at that job. And yet we have allowed the government to do just that.

Most of us listen to our personal doctor’s advice – which is always restrictive – and apply it as we see fit. “You need to lose fifteen pounds.” we say, “Yeah, I do” and then we go live our lives. What we would not allow is for that doctor to assign us a “body coach” to be with us 24/7 so they could ensure we followed their specific instructions. Most of us would say that that is oppressive. And yet, here we are. Being told what we can buy, where we can travel, what we can eat, and who we can meet. No wonder there are protests. Thank God we are in Texas. What has been done here for compliance is still too restrictive and many households are suffering the effects of those restrictions. This will end soon, and we will find out that it was mostly for nothing. No way to tell if any lives were actually saved. No benefit. No reward. Only loss. As you can tell I am troubled by it. The road to recovery will be a long one. Some businesses will not make it. Some of our friends will lose everything. Some already have. It was a sad trade off but God is still in control.

I am resting in that.

Sprouting, Dr visit, bees, fishing with Mama, watering

About six weeks ago I planted some pecan in cardboard sleeves. I have tended to those little sleeves filled with dirt since that time. I was telling Mama recently that I would give the pecans until the end of the month to sprout before I discarded them. Monday, I saw a tiny sprout. At least I thought it might be a sprout. After observing it for the last few days, I am pleased to say that it is a sprout. In fact, there is another sprout showing from a second of the six nuts planted. I would take a picture, but the sprouts are so small that a picture would not show them well. If things progress as expected, I will take a picture when the leaves start to show. Time will tell whether or not the seedlings will survive to be planted and give us pecans in the years ahead, but it will cost me nothing but patience to follow through on that plan.

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday morning. My appointment overlapped with Grandma and Grandpa’s appointment. Mama had encouraged them to see our doctor versus the one they were seeing in Bowie. Dr. Aulds is more engaged and diagnostic than the man they were seeing in Bowie. Anyway, my appointment went well. By blood pressure was low. My pulse was low. My weight was lower. The doctor encouraged me to keep up with whatever I am doing with the one recommendation that I take a lower dose of one of the two blood pressure medication. Since I have already been doing that, it will not be hard to apply as instructed. Grandma and Grandpa were very encouraged by their visit with this doctor. Though they will not necessarily follow all her instructions, they were impressed by her approach to understanding their current health conditions and her interest in moving them to a better place in that continuum.

With the bees we have on the farm, since they are not interested in the syrup I have put out for them, I asked Mama to call Donny to see if we could pick up the in-hive feeders I left with him when we transferred the bees into our hives. We drove out yesterday at lunchtime to retrieve them. This morning we will mix the feed as instructed and I will open the hives, check on the bees and insert the feeders into the hive. If I do not do that, I run the risk of the bees dying of starvation or swarming to find a better home. I do not like either of those options. Hopefully, we will not have to deal with either.

When we finished feeding yesterday evening, Mama and I drove over to the quarry to find the lake Ricky had told Mama about. It was not hard to find. It is just above the lake we have been fishing. A wall of rock about 150 feet thick separates the larger lake from the one we currently fish. The third lake is smaller than the other two, but it has a ton of fish in it. Mama and I defaulted to trying the smaller lake for a few casts, then we went to the larger lake. The water in each lake was crystal clear. On my first cast into that lake I hooked a small bass. When I let him go, I cast out again and hooked a monster bass. Mama watched it come out of the water three times as I struggled to keep it on my line. At one point, when I thought I had it, the line snagged on the branch of a willow tree at the edge of the lake and broke. I was very disappointed. Not only did I lose the fish, which will eventually die because of the lure hooked in his mouth, but I lost a very good lure. Mama and I went back to the smaller lake and fished at a different location where I caught five bass. Three I put back. Two were huge. We took them home and filled them. Mama worked on her business while I fished because the reception was so good up at the smaller lake. Those fillets will be supper tomorrow. Hopefully, I will show the pastor the other two lakes later this week or early next week. He will be excited to have that much water to fish in.

Mama and I are having to water our plants already. After getting almost 6 inches of rain this year, we are looking at about ten days without rain. Fortunately, the days are not oppressively hot. Those days are not far away, but we will enjoy the warmth we are getting. It is perfect for the plants we are raising in the garden and all over the farm. Our peach tree is loaded with fruit. The nectarine as well. The blackberry bushes are full of berries. I might actually have too many of them around the farm, but it seemed a waste to not replant all the sprouts the original blackberry bush gave me. I have more than a dozen of the sprouts from the original that are not larger than the plant that spawned them. We should be picking those berries in a couple weeks.

Now if we could get our finances as healthy and robust as our farm, we would be in great shape.