Arrangements have been made and Cocoa and his other young male buddies will be leaving the premises within the next couple of weeks:)
-Morgan
It’s the little things that count.
Have you ever had an old clunker car that needed constant pampering to drive? I remember lending one of mine to someone once and it took about half an hour to tell them that they had to hold the key just the right way, and jiggle it just so to make it start. Also, don’t forget to check the water because it has a slow leak. And there’s the power window that if you forget and roll it down, it won’t go back up again without taking it apart. Don’t worry about that slight burning plastic smell if you have to turn the headlights on, it’s got some kind of short, but it’s never actually caught on fire, so it’s probably OK. Also, the back brakes vibrate sometimes, but only if you brake really hard. Then there’s the loose battery cable, if it won’t start, it’s not that you need to jump it, you just need to open the hood and jiggle the ground cable which has a stripped bolt holding it on. If jiggling doesn’t work, try tapping it with a screw driver or wrench, there’s one in the trunk if you need one. And one last thing… the sunroof has a leak, but only if it rains when you are parked on an upward incline, so if rain is expected, please park the car in a spot with a slightly down pointing incline and it’ll be fine.
Today, we were moving our portable turkey shelters with a tow rope and tractor. It was my job to drive the tractor, Will’s job to hook up the tow rope to just the right place, and Sam’s job to help out. I noticed that Will had taught Sam all of the little idiosyncrasies of the towing process. One of the shelters required bending the roof at a certain spot in order to hook up the tow line. (This is of course, because the nails that were placed in the right place to hook the tow line on have long since bent over or come out) Sam was standing inside the shelter at a ninety degree angle pushing with all his might to bend the roof just so. A casual onlooker would think, “what in the world is that little boy doing?” But as I observed, I saw a skilled laborer efficiently applying a necessary workaround to get the job done! Each shelter had its own little tweak that was needed. Almost none were the same. I would venture to say that every job on this farm is filled with little things that if you are not skilled at finding unusual solutions, you would be hard pressed to get anything done. I’m thankful to have an environment where my children can face less than ideal conditions head on, and come up with creative solutions to real world problems, and develop what we hope will be a can-do attitude toward the many problems they’ll face in this life.
-Scott Wilson
What we’ve been up to this past week….
The kitchen project has finally resurfaced to the top of the list! (Well sort of, one of the first few anyways:) We've been working on it for the past couple of days, painting mostly. We found a sage sort of green for the walls and white for the trim. We plan to paint the cabinets white too and decorate with accents of red and yellow. It is shaping up nicely and we really hope to have it finished before my graduation at the end of October. The mornings have been cool and crisp, so nice to work in! We’ve started stocking up on hay for the winter. A friend of ours makes his own hay, and this past Wednesday, Dad, Katie, Maddie, Will and Sam went to one of his fields and in two trips brought back 275 square bales! One of the men who was there let Dad borrow his large farm wagon to bring back one of the loads. And for the record, backing up a farm wagon is a whole different story then backing up a trailer! It was like trying to back up a regular child’s wagon hitched to the back of the truck, (except this wagon held 175 hay bales!) We also were able to plant our fall garden, collards, broccoli, spinach, lettuce and turnips. It was really neat because just as the last seeds were being planting, the much needed rain began to fall! God watered the garden for us! We also got more beef in this week, we always go a little crazy trying to find room for everything when we get beef and/or pork back from the butcher :) (We had also just processed 225 broilers the day before!) But the Lord always provides enough room for us! And we were able to fit everything in:) Yesterday we had church at our house. Daniel Heffington led the music and singing at the beginning, along with Katie, Alaina Wright and her brother Justin. They played their guitars and did a great job! Mr. Keckley and Mr. Heffington each shared a message and then we had lunch and then fellowship time afterwards. During fellowship time we played Ultimate Frisbee, I’m afraid the team I was on got creamed, 3-10. Ultimate Frisbee kind-of turned into Ultimate tackle…We had several substantial collisions:), though I’m happy to report that no one was seriously injured. At the end of this next week we’re looking forward to the Young Adult Gathering being held at the Heffingtons on Saturday! This past year my parents have instigated the “Young Adult Gathering” which is get together hosted for the young adults in our circle of friends, where we can get together for an afternoon of fun and fellowship. I really appreciate them starting this for us! A thank you to all of the parents who put it together and also to the younger siblings who cover chores for us so we can go!
-Morgan
