Happy Birthday Dad!

Owl Trouble -from the FQF farmers notes

The Wilson family was gathering around the breakfast table one summer morning when Dad announced in a grave voice. "We are in a state of war."  We children glanced at each other in hushed surprise, envisions of a third world war flashed across my mind. "With who?" we clamored, all eyes turned to him expectantly. "With the owls," he said, and then his somber expression dissolved into one of amusement as we all laughed together.
"For the past few nights," he continued after the excitement had died down, "Owls have been easily attacking and eating our turkeys, and now they're going to tell all of their owl friends about the "All-you-can-eat" Turkey buffet at Full Quiver. So we have to stop them." A flurry of ideas and opinions were then offered, ranging from the absurd to the workable. We first took into consideration the following facts.

1. Owls are a protected species. (Scratch the midnight hunting expedition approach)

2. Owls are afraid of unpredictable moving objects. (Cue the laughable: "We could get one of those motion activated Santa Clause’s that sing and dance and put it on top of the turkey shelter!"  or "one of those blow up balloon-man thingy's they have to catch people's attention at car lots!".)

3. Owls are afraid of dogs.

We realized amid the flood of ingenuity that we must respect our neighbor’s entitlement to a restful night sleep. (Scratch the singing-Santa idea) After narrowing down the possibilities we decided on installing some homemade circular boards that we would attach to the corners of the turkey shelters. These would blow in any slight breeze and frighten away our midnight predators.
We also decided to use our farm dog, "Bess". Now Bess is getting on up there in years and hates to be posted on night-guard duty, so Dad, being the compassionate and resourceful farmer that he is, decided to record her barking. After he got the recordings he multiplied the barking and then burned it onto a CD. He then bought a cheap CD player and timed the recording to come on periodically to keep up the delusion that there was an actual dog on duty, but also turned the volume down enough not to bother the neighbors :)
We spent the day putting our ideas into actuality and then waited eagerly for the next day to come so we  could see how our inventions had worked. The next morning we happily found all of our turkeys safe and sound and seemingly none the worse for having been serenaded by a dog barking CD all night. Needless to say, we were immensely pleased. Necessity is truly the mother of invention. :)
-Morgan

Happenings

Whew! So much has happened since I last posted! Where to begin? Last Saturday, Dad had a heart-attack. It gave a quite a bad scare! But the Lord was very good and merciful to us. He blessed us with that profound "peace that passeth understanding". And we knew that, even if the unthinkable happened, the Lord would never leave us nor forsake us. We are so blessed and thankful that the Lord spared Dad to us! So many of our sweet family and friends jumped to action when we made the calls as Mom was on the road taking Dad to the hospital, blessing us with a "cloud" of prayer, meals, farm help and more. We were and are so blessed. The Lord is so good. Dad was able to come home from the hospital last Tuesday. Wednesday evening, Sammy was outside helping catch chickens and he jumped to clear a ditch but landed on a 5inch deck nail. (Ouch is right!!) It went all of the way through his foot, so it was back to the hospital we went. Poor Mama who had held it together so well through the craziness and stress of the past weekend with Dad ill and in the hospital, coming back and forth to stay with him and then with us, lack of sleep, etc. This seemed to be the last straw. Tearfully and overwhelmed she headed out to the hospital for the fifth time that week. Thanks to prayers and a sweet talk with a friend she regained her composure and we went on to Kings Daughter's with the wounded Sam in tow. (Mom and I, (Morgan) took him) Two hours, a tetanus shot, an x-ray, and an extensive cleaning session later, we were on our way home again. So Sammy and Dad now constitute the invalids. We're trying to keep Dad from doing too much (which can be hard at times!) He is supposed to take it easy for a month. He has been able to rest a lot which is good. Sammy is in good spirits and is doing valiant job putting up with his many foot soaks, horrible tasting antibiotics and having to keep his foot up. Skipping a week of chores is not getting him down too much:) We have been blessed with the remainder of the week playing out in its normal busyness. No more trips to the hospital were necessarily, much to our relief!:) Today we have a very successful pick-up day at the which was a blessing since the weather wasn't the most conducive to visiting the farm. I hope everyone has a great weekend and thank you to all of you who have been praying for our family! I will close with a few verse that have been a comfort to me in this past week....

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." Psalm 121

"Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Joshua 1:9