Un-Tarping the Garden

The freeze is past us.  At last!  Saturday morning, I quickly went out to the garden and began unfurling the big tarps off of the garden vegetables.  I was curious to see what we had remaining.  The lowest our temperatures got was 14 degrees, but it stayed well below freezing for a number of days.  In reading about plants' ability to survive in frozen temperatures, much mention was made not only of the low temperatures, but of the length of time that the frozen temperatures persisted.  Both variables do not stand in our favor.

I've already resigned myself to the fact that we may have lost everything.  In a "glass half full" perspective, this just means we'll have more room to plant the spring garden earlier.  I think we'll give the plants a few days under the sunshine and warmer temperatures to decide what to do.  Let's look at each row and the prognosis.

I harvested all of the turnips and radishes in the midst of the freeze.  The cows and goats enjoyed eating the greens and the roots.  I added some additional mulch atop the rows of those harvested crops.  Moving to the left, the swiss chard is hurt pretty bad.  After this photo was taken, we cut them down to the ground to see if fresh growth will come.  The Brussels sprouts look fairly unaffected.  Good news.

The carrots look green and relatively healthy.  The greenery is just flattened as the water/ice on top of the tarp mashed it down.  I'll give them a few days to see if the sunshine perks up the greens.  It is about time to harvest the carrots, blanch them and freeze them anyway.  Probably tomorrow I'll pull a carrot to ensure the root itself wasn't damaged by the freeze.

In the upper left hand corner, you can see the Galilee Spinach.  I had been allowing it to go to seed to save seed for next fall crop.  I will give it a few days, but I think I lost the seed!  Unfortunate, but c'est la vie.

The lettuce is a mess.  We pulled it all up and tossed it to the chickens.  They enjoyed the tossed salad.  We had our most productive lettuce crop ever.  All good things must come to an end, I assume.

The bull's blood beets' foliage are flat and freeze damaged.  Similar to the carrots, I'll give them a few days to see if they bounce back or if I need to harvest the beet roots.

The dinosaur kale (lacinato kale) looks fairly unaffected.  The cabbage is damaged, however, and we'll have to see if they survive.  You can see they have a yellow, sickly tinge to them.  The broccoli is still standing.  We'll see if they continue to produce little florets that we have been enjoying.

I was very worried about our onion crop.  They were looking SO good!  The onion tops are flattened somewhat and there is leaf damage.  A few days will be needed to see if they are resilient and bounce back.  Boy, I sure hope so!

Finally, the mustard green row had some leaf damage, but they'll make it.  I picked off some of the damaged leaves and the cows and goats were appreciative.

All in all, it could have been a lot worse.  We'll report the verdict for those crops that the jury is still out on in a few days.  Meanwhile, our goal is to get our potato crop in the ground this week.  We're about a week late right now, but who's counting?

Pointing Toward Heaven

During Hurricane Laura, strong south winds pushed our church steeple, breaking two of the four anchor bolts out of the roof, allowing the steeple to bend over sideways.  The resulting rainfall swept through the holes in the roof and flood through the ceiling over the baptistry, significantly damaging the church in the process.  But that is why you diligently pay insurance premiums each year, for storms or mayhem.

First things first, a blue tarp was put over the roof to protect the church from further damage.  Then it was determined that a new roof needed to be installed.  We contacted roofers, received a favorable quote and ordered materials.  Prior to roofing, however, the steeple needed to come down.  This was no small task.  We arranged for a crane to lift it off the roof.  I arrived early to unbolt the two remaining bolts from the roof.

The Piddler on the Roof

Some steeples serve as bell towers and have a bell in them that rings as a Call to Worship.  Ours does not.  There is an entryway - a door that can be unscrewed to allow entry.

Once I gained entry, I climbed inside and got to work loosening nuts off of the rusty bolts that had held the steeple in place since 1981.

Just as I got them loose, I heard the crane drive up.  The crane company was not sending any riggers - only a crane operator.  The operator quickly got his piece of equipment ready and instructed me on how to properly attach the slings and clevices so the steeple could be safely lifted without toppling over.

He extended his boom and pointed directions to me as we worked beneath a beautiful blue sky.

In no time at all we had the steeple snugly secured and we were ready for lift-off.

I backed away as the steeple was lifted.  It teetered for a minute, but was quickly stabilized as the crane operator expertly did his job.

He swung it around and laid it on its side in the grass.  The steeple does have some damage and we'll have to show it to the adjuster to see if repairs can be made to it.  What a sad ending for the steeple?  After seeing it pointing toward Heaven, it now lies on its side, broken on the grass.  An inglorious end, one might say.

I read a little about the history of church steeples.  In Europe church steeples were grand, towering over the countryside.  When the settlers came to the new world, they wanted their churches to be like the churches in Europe.  The architects designed the churches to have steeples that would be the highest thing in town.  Places of worship would be easily recognizable from all around due to the high visibility of the church steeples.  The steeples would point the way to Christ, His Word, His Worship.

That is why it is so tragic to see the photo above.  But take heart!  The Church is much more than the physical building.  The Body of Christ is the Believers.  Despite the condition of our steeples, it is the Believer's job to point the way to Christ.  Metaphorically, we should not be lying in the grass, broken and on our side.  We should be lifting up Jesus and pointing the way to the Son.

We're Back! Again - Safe and Secure

First, Hurricane Laura.  Next, Hurricane Delta.  Two powerful storms coming ashore 12 miles apart from one another such a short time apart.  Really quite amazing when you think about it.  We are safe and sound.  Another stint of no power, but a friend let us borrow a generator.  At night we would turn it on to power our refrigerator, a deep freeze, and an oscillating fan so that we could sleep comfortably.  Electricity came back on for us a little quicker than it did for Laura.  Our neighbors still don't have power.  Our hats go out to all the linemen working so hard to restore power.

We weathered the storm in our home.  Tricia, Russ, Benjamin and I rode it out and prayed.  The electricity went out at about 6pm.  This time the storm passed in daylight hours and you could see the ravaging winds.  It was better to SEE instead of just hear what was going on.  We prayed for the storm to pass through quickly.  The Weather Channel was here in our small town.

Russ had a large tree fall on top of his house in the last storm and had a blue tarp on his roof when this one came through.  I could tell he was worried.  When the eye was above us, it became very still and quiet.  We quickly went to the truck and decided to try to make the 10 minute drive to check on his home while still in the eye before the back end of the storm hit us.  We left and had to turn around because of downed powerlines and poles blocking the highway.

We turned around and drove through high water to find another open route to his home.  We ALMOST made it before things got rough again.  We were glad to make it to shelter in his home for the last part of the storm.  We re-positioned buckets in his house to catch rainwater falling into three rooms in his house.  The next day we put a new tarp up on the roof.  

For several days, we cooked on a Coleman stove you can see on the patio table above.  We also ate some MRE's and food donated by some gracious ministries distributing aid around our town.  Samaritan's Purse was here in Jennings along with many other fine folks, helping in peoples' time of need.  All in all, even though Delta zeroed in on us in Jennings, we felt like the winds were stronger in Laura.

We had no damage to our home once again.  Praise God!  When this storm was coming in, I remarked to my wife that we probably wouldn't have any limbs down since Laura had "pruned" the weak limbs, leaving only the strong.  My theory proved to be incorrect.  We had quite a few limbs down, though not as much as in the first storm.  The entire yard had broken branches strewn about, and it took the better part of a day to drag them all to the pasture.

The cows and goats took full advantage of the buffet of fresh live oak leaves we placed before them!  They quickly devoured and defoliated the branches while we drug new branches in like the next course to a meal.  

Here they are in action from a different angle.  We will have a nice bonfire once things dry out a bit.

The next morning I had to drive in to work to check on the facility.  There were countless 18 wheelers and campers turned on their sides on I-10, including four 18 wheelers turned over on the Calcasieu River Bridge in Lake Charles.  Though out of power, things were okay at work.

Our neighbors called and checked on us during the storm.  They had windows that were being busted out of the frames to their patio by the strong easterly winds.  We talked to them more after the storm.  They took some serious damage to their barn, losing a total of 230 month-old chicks they were rasing to the storm!  Although there was lots of damage, people are safe.  People are thankful that the damage wasn't worse than it was.  People are thankful to have their families, friends and neighbors out of harm's way.  God is good!  Thanks for your prayers and concern.  We will be back Sunday night.

The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock

When I was a kid in Sunday School, we learned the song, "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock."

The wise man built his house upon the rock,

The wise man built his house upon the rock,

The wise man built his house upon the rock,

And the rains came tumbling down!

The rains came down and the floods came up,

The rains came down and the floods came up,

The rains came down and the floods came up,

And the house on the rock stood firm.

Of course the song was about building your life, your hopes, your dreams, your eternity on faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Many people build their "houses" on the shifting sands of success, money, recognition, fame, and the like.  When storms come, their houses are decimated.  When eternity comes calling, well, those that don't know the Lord will be tragically separated from God.

In today's post, I'll show a few more storm damage photos.  As we drove down the road, the first thing we came to was our church.  We noticed that our sign had blown over and that many shingles were missing, but the main thing was that the high winds had blown our steeple over.

Superficial damage, mainly.  There was some ceiling damage to the church along with other minor issues, but really not much compared to many other people nearby.

We drove on to Welsh, Louisiana, a town 10 miles to our west where our son, Russ, lives.  Hurricane Laura moved in to the coast about 40 miles south and west of us.  The closer you move west, the more destruction.  We were saddened when we drove up to Russ' home.  His neighbors had a large water oak tree that fell over his house and onto his roof, puncturing the roof in numerous places.

You can see in the photo below that the tree was hollowed out and weak and should have been cut down prior to the storm.

While we were sad for a minute, we began to work to clear the tree from his house.  The whole family pitched in to work.  It was hot, but we pressed on.  

We pulled limbs to the side of the road, building a big windrow that blocked off the view of the road.  The town crews will come to pick up the limbs.  They've got their work cut out for them (pardon the pun.)

Slowly, we made headway.  Inch by inch, it's a cinch!  

As more and more of the tree was removed, we could clearly see the extent of the damage.  When the tree fell through the roof, it damaged the house structurally and it rained in the house, causing more damage.

Thankfully, Russ has insurance and the adjuster has already come to inspect the damage.  We pray that Russ will be made whole.  

When we finished, we realized that the larger parts of the tree would have to be removed by professionals.  The large parts of the trunk leaned against the house and threatened additional damage.

The goal was to remove the tree and put up a tarp to prevent further damage by rainfall.

At the end of the day, I think we accomplished that.  Although Russ is sad, so many people lost so much more.  We are truly blessed and grateful.