An Update on Benjamin

First, thank you, friends for the outpouring of love and support and prayer cover.  It sustains us.  We are humbled by your words of encouragement.  God is so Good.  He is on His Throne and is in control.  Since Sunday night, we have seen nothing short of a miracle.  I want to give you a quick update so that you know how to pray for Benjamin.  While on that topic, have you ever prayed to the Almighty and your words were formulated perfectly?  The prayer eloquent and profound?  To be perfectly honest with you, that's not how my prayers go most of the time.  I was telling Tricia that in the past five days my prayers can be mostly be described as moans followed by the words, "Oh God!"  I can't even put together what I'm trying to communicate to God in an intelligible sentence or plea but Romans 8:26-28 explains this situation in detail.  

Since we've last talked, he's undergone three surgeries.  The doctors feel that there will be no more.  After we left the ICU tonight and headed home, we received a call from the hospital from his ICU nurse at 10:30 PM.  It is normally not a good thing to get a call from the ICU late at night.  They have moved him out of the ICU and into a regular room!  The nurse wanted us to know.

They removed the IV's and oxygen today.  He still has the drain from his spinal surgery in.  He is still catheterized.  They tried to remove it, but he cannot feel the sensation to urinate, so they put it back in.  They think that this could be due to swelling from the surgery and trauma.

Prayer Request #1: Urinate
Prayer Request #2: (Appropriately) - that he could #2 (have a BM)

Prayer Request #3: Pain levels to decrease - his legs, back and pelvis injuries result in pain that the medicine is unable to touch for a while.

Prayer Request #4: The selection of an in-patient rehab hospital for intensive physical and occupational therapy.

They have already begun to work on therapy and everyone is encouraging him to push through the pain. After surgeries on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday, they put a brace on him and sat him up in bed!  Only one day after pelvic surgery and two days after spinal laminectomy.  Unreal!

But they weren't done.  Using his upper body strength to push himself up, they stood him up on a walker.  Now his right leg is non-load bearing, but both bones in both lower legs are broken with rods in them and he's standing on them with all the weight on his left.  I'm cringing thinking about it as I type this.

Today, they removed a lot of the bandages on his legs and cleaned the incision areas.  After a liquid diet of only broth because his jaws hurt from the skull fractures, they wanted him to begin with solids to get more protein so he has energy to rehabilitate.  He didn't want to, but ate scrambled eggs and hash browns with Tony Chachere's.  He likes the spice!

Physical therapy came by today, had him "log-roll" to the side and sat him on the side of the bed.

They had him stand on a walker, pivot around on his load-bearing leg...

And he sat in a chair!  They gave him some homework of lifting his arms and moving his fingers.  He has numbness in his right hand and fingers with "pins and needles" sensation.  Please pray for this to diminish.  His right lower leg and foot is a lot slower than his left one, but this is the leg that had the compound fracture.  Please pray that his right leg and foot will heal.  His homework is to continue to move his feet and toes, "pumping the pedal," and trying to bend the knees.  He is working hard to do whatever they tell him.  The doctors and nurses have been outstanding.  Benjamin has been telling them "Thank you" for all that they are doing and saying, "Yes ma'am and Yes sir."  One of the nurses last night told him, "You don't have to call me sir.  I'm only 3 years older than you."

I think we are making fantastic progress.  We know that he has a long road ahead of him, but he has made great strides in a very short amount of time.  So many of you are praying and for that we are so appreciative to have caring, wonderful, faithful friends. We leave this in God's hands and trust Him with the outcome.  Benjamin will have a strong testimony.  Perhaps we will emerge on the other side of this having learned something through the hardship and pain, the fear and the doubt, and will give Him the glory.  Thank you again, family and friends.  We can't say enough how much you mean to us!

Psalm 18:1-6

1“I love You, Lord, my strength.”
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my savior,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.
4 The ropes of death encompassed me,
And the torrents of destruction terrified me.
5 The ropes of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

What a fitting Psalm!

Unlikely Friends

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Isaiah 11:6 (NASB)

The Bible tells us that in the Millennial Kingdom, members of the animal family will live peaceably with other animals and with humans as well.  What a sight that will be to behold.  As we listen to the news and learn of senseless violence and hatred and see many of our cities are becoming unlivable, we pray for this time of peace to come quickly.  According to Bible prophecy, however, there are many things that must take place between now and then.  God, give us the strength to endure.  May you find us faithful when you return.

I happened upon an event that made me think of that verse.  Cats are, by nature, independent animals.  They do their own thing.  Dogs are more friendly.  Dogs AND cats together are like oil and water or fire and ice.  But not all the time.  Check out this photo of our cat, Ginger, and our dog, Belle: 

It had been raining everyday (Raining cats and dogs, you might say) for two weeks.  Belle was miserable out in the pasture so we brought her into the garage after the first day.  At first Ginger kept her distance, but she warmed up to Belle, it seems.  She and Ginger have struck up a friendship.  The canine and feline have put aside their differences and have decided to give peace a chance.  

A Sweet Visit

On Saturday a dear friend I worked with at a former place of employment came to visit us.  Our offices were right next door to each other.  She had learned about our momma goats giving birth to twins and triplets and wanted to bring her grand-daughter to see the babies.  We had a real nice visit and caught up with what's been going on.  Well, being a true Southern lady, she didn't come visit empty handed.  She and her grand-daughter made a delicious cheesecake for us to enjoy.

It was not an ordinary cheesecake.  They spent a lot of time making it, and it was perfect!  It was topped with raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and drizzled with homemade lemon curd.  A little later that afternoon, Tricia and I put on a pot of coffee and got out the nice china. 

Would you look at this thing of beauty?  My blood sugar is spiking just looking at the photo.

Not only was it nice to look at, but it was delicious.  I tried to make it last while sharing it with Tricia, but in no time at all, it was reduced to just a few more bites.  I tried to ration it, but try as I might, I couldn't make it last and soon, the plate was empty.

That's the sad thing about visits and desserts, they're over before you know it.  I'll leave you with a couple of my favorite dessert quotes:

Erma Bombeck

"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart."

Linda Grayson

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate." (or cheesecake)*(my addition to her quote)

Good Neighbors

It was around seven o'clock yesterday evening when I slogged through ankle deep mud to go milk Daisy and Rosie.  When it gets dark all of the chickens routinely go to their spot to roost for the night.  After a grueling day of pecking and scratching, they're ready to bed down for the night at the Motel 6.  There must have been a shake-up somewhere in the pecking order because I was greeted with seven birds roosting in a new spot - the gate to the barn.

We'll leave the light on for ya!

I looked and saw that there were two roosters - a Rhode Island Red in the middle facing the camera and a Barred Rock Rooster on the far right with his tail feathers hanging down.  There were also three barred rock hens and two Rhode Island Red hens.  This guy needs to get with the program, though, and turn around. The rest of the birds are facing south and he's got his head toward the foot of the bed.  An odd bird, indeed.

An odd bird

They're all different.  Different sexes.  Different breeds.  But they all get along when it is bedtime.  Good neighbors, you might say.

Milking two cows by hand takes me 45 minutes from back door to back door, so I've got plenty of time to pray and/or think.  After seeing the birds all lined up close together and getting along, I started thinking about neighbors.  We've been blessed to always have good neighbors.  Many times I see people that live close to each other erect big privacy fences.  I understand that completely.  Everyone needs some privacy.  I've talked to some people, though, who live like this and the fences are obstructions that keep you from meeting your neighbors - or maybe the fence isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the problem.  Some people can live for years right next door to someone and never know them.

Or I don't know, maybe they are just heeding a verse from the book of Proverbs that I always think is funny:

Proverbs 25:17 Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor's house, Or He will become weary of you and hate you.

Neighbors are indeed a blessing and we've been fortunate to have some real good ones.  They'll keep an eye on things when you're not around.  During hurricanes we've worked together cleaning up each others' yards after storms, mowed each others' lawns, and helped each other out with projects.  We'll share fruits, vegetables, and baked goods.  One of our neighbors has fish fries and invites us over or will bring over a big plate of whatever they're cooking. Another neighbor is originally from Scotland and out of the blue she'll bring over piping hot homemade shortbread cookies or banana bread.

Growing up on the farm, we had great farming neighbors - the Smiths and the Monceaux's.  We all had shops full of tools and we'd share tools, equipment, and welding machines.  If your tractor got bogged down in the mud, you could count on your neighbor to come with a tractor and a chain and pull you out and you'd do likewise for them.  When you were finished harvesting and your neighboring farmer was still cutting rice, you'd bring your combine, truck and cart and help him out until the work was done and the rice was in the bins.

We like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists, and we are to a certain extent. But it is true as John Donne once wrote:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 No man is an island.  We need each other in good times and we'll certainly need each other in bad times.  Thank God for good neighbors.

We're back!

Well, the Sonnier Family has returned home from our annual family vacation.  This year we went tent camping in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park for a week. We escaped for a week in the mountains, leaving sweltering 100 degree heat and humidity and escaping to highs in the 70's and lows in the low 60's. It was truly refreshing and I'll tell you a bit about the trip over the next week or so.  In addition to making some great family memories, we also learned a lot, believe it or not.  It was great to get away, but as it always is, it was great to be back home.

How, you might ask, does a family get away from a farm in which we're milking two cows and a goat everyday?  Not to mention taking care of two dogs, two cats, two turkeys and 60+ chickens?  Two words: Good Friends!  It also takes a little planning.  A couple weeks prior to leaving for North Carolina we started the process of drying off Rosie.

You left me high and dry

Rosie had been in milk for about 9 months.  Sometimes we'll keep milking the cows for a year and a half, but since Rosie will be calving somewhere around November 3rd, we wanted to give her an opportunity to put the energy that she's currently using to produce milk - into developing her calf for the last trimester.

Since milk production is based upon supply & demand, for a few days we stopped milking twice a day and went to once a day milkings.  Then we stopped milking completely.  If the cow is producing less than 2 gallons a day, you can do this.  If she's producing more than 2 gallons a day, you have to milk her down a little bit to take the pressure off.  Rosie was right at two gallons and we watched her closely for several days.  Her udder was pretty tight after the first day, but after a couple of days, her bag began to loosen, confirming that she was indeed drying up.

Well that solves the issue for one cow.  How about the other?  Well, unlike Rosie, whose calf was stillborn, Daisy has a calf, Bully, by her side.  Normally we share the milk with him.  He gets the milk all day until a little after 5:30 pm when we separate him from Daisy.  Daisy then makes milk for us all night and we milk her at 5:30 in the morning and then put Bully and his Mom back together.

Bully will get ALL the milk while we're gone!

While we were vacationing, Bully simply stayed with his Mom all day long, getting double the amount of milk than he normally does.  He kept Daisy milked down.  This made the old boy very happy and enabled us to get away without Daisy getting engorged and possibly getting mastitis.  It worked beautifully.  When we returned, we simply separated Bully and began teaching him to share again!

But what about Nellie?  Well, we have the same system with Annie that we do with Bully and we could have used the same method and left Annie and Nellie together all day during the week.  We actually have some good friends who volunteered to milk Nellie for the week, so Tricia put on goat milking training for a few days and our friend fed and milked Nellie all week!

What about us?

Instead of putting Nellie and Annie back together, though, it is now time to wean her.  I'll separate Annie from Nellie by putting her in a separate pen.  We'll have to start milking Nellie twice a day, but Annie is eating grass now in addition to milk and she's getting big - too big to still be on Mama.

The cows and goats were in very good hands while we were out.  Another very good friend came by the house twice a day and fed and watered dogs, cats, cows, the calf, goats, turkeys, chickens and gathered eggs  for us.  Family members checked on the house while we were gone.  What a blessing it is to have good friends and a loving family!  Our family enjoyed the vacation immensely and it wouldn't have been possible without them.

Tomorrow, I'll share with you about the art of blacksmithing!