An Update on Benjamin - Back to Work

Tricia took Benjamin by the Medical Office at the refinery that he works at and he was cleared to go back to work (light duty) part-time.  Benjamin completed his first full week back at work.  He works M-F 7AM -1PM.  Because he hasn't been cleared to drive, I drop him off in the morning and Tricia picks him up in the afternoon.  It is a 45 minute commute to his work from our home in Jennings.  I drop him off by the front gate and he walks in.  He's very happy to be back at work.  Even though he's limited to office work only, sitting at a desk behind a computer, he says it feels good to be useful and part of his work team once again.

His right leg (the one that has the non-union) hurts him while walking.  He walks with a limp and since he is spending more time upright, he's noticing swelling coming back in his right ankle and foot.  He's a little discouraged with that, but doesn't spend a lot of time worrying or complaining about it - at least not out loud.  On Monday and Wednesday, he has rehab in Jennings from 1:30 - 3:30 or so, where they work on improving his strength and his gait.  He's still working hard with that.

We did receive a call today from a nurse who will be bringing by a bone stimulator on Thursday that he is to wear for 20 minutes each day on the right leg.  The hope is that it will stimulate bone growth where it hasn't healed yet.  After 3 months of this, we'll return for x-rays or MRI and consultation.  If it hasn't healed, another surgery will become necessary where they will go back in and remove hardware.  We are praying that this is not necessary.

Benjamin tells me that he tries real hard to walk as normally as possible at work so people don't stare at him, and he thinks that's why his leg is hurting so bad.  All things considered, we feel absolutely blessed by Benjamin's healing up to this point and the progress he has made.  The fact that he is back at work just blows my mind.  I watched him as he walked into work this morning as the sun was rising.  It hasn't been an easy road and no doubt he may have rough days ahead, especially if another surgery is needed, but God has been so good to him and so good to us.  Thank you for being so faithful in praying for Benjamin.  He's so appreciative and can't believe how kind people are to him. 

Checking in on the Honeybees

The fall flow from goldenrod flowers is just about done.  We didn't pull any honey at all this year.  We caught two swarms in the spring and decided to let them grow the colony for the first year.  We will attempt to get honey in 2024.  We open the boxes and inspect what's going on.  They are slowly filling the boxes.  This spring we are planning on splitting to double our two boxes of bees to four.

We love watching what they are doing.  Currently, they are bringing pollen into the hives.  You can see the bright yellow pollen on their legs.  They are very interesting insects!  

You've heard the old saying, "busy as a bee."  They stay busy indeed.  They work and work and work.  Back in the 70's there was a song that had the following lyrics: "Work your fingers to the bone, what do you get?  Boney fingers.  Boney fingers."  Bees are kind of like that.  They work themselves to death.  Their lifespan is roughly 35 days.  They say that a bee will have flown 500 miles in it's life.  Tricia was looking at a honeybee the other day.  I was trying to get a good photo of it, but I couldn't get it to focus.  I think you can see roughly what I'm talking about in the photo below.  Look closely at the bee's wings:

The edges of the wings are ragged.  There are notches in it.  This is normal in a bee nearing the end of its life cycle.  It's just worn out.  Do you ever feel like that?  Ha ha!  The impressive thing about the honeybee is that its life is almost over, yet the been in Tricia's hand is still out there working, gathering pollen for the colony.  She'll soon be dead, yet she is gathering sustenance for the hive to eat long after she's gone.  The amazing, industrious honeybee.  Since learning about bees, I've often said, "How can you be a beekeeper and not believe in God?"

Barn Work Day

We built our barn back in 2009 out of mostly recycled materials from old barns being torn down in the area.  It needs some work.  Tricia and I have a knock-out list of a few ticky tack things to repair.  The "old timey" tin (corrugated metal) they used back then was so much thicker than this new stuff they sell.  However, even the good stuff rusts out, especially the tin that butts up against the cows' feed troughs in their milking stalls.  I think that the salt rusts it out.  In the winter, cold winds from the north blow through these holes, chilling us to the bone.  

Now, I could do a professional job and replace that entire piece of tin, but a patch job will do just fine.  The cows aren't particularly particular about how it looks.  Once the weather levels out, I'll paint it to match.  No more holes in the side of the barn.

Those were the only holes in the side of the barn.  The remaining holes are in a more troublesome area - the roof!  The tin was in marginal shape when we put it up, and it didn't help when hurricane winds deposited a heavy limb on top, busting holes in the roof.  Just look at the rusty holes in the roof.  You can see the sunlight coming through.

Sunlight isn't the only thing coming through.  Rain comes through.  Lots and lots of rain and it makes a gigantic mudhole under the northern wing.  That's where the animals like to lie up and rest and it's become a mess.  Time to try to fix this problem.

The roof tin is in too bad shape to patch.  I put two full sheets of tin on top to fully cover the area that was leaking.  Tricia climbed up on top of the barn to help me.  It ended being a two-person job.  Then a rain came through to test or roof job, and I think we fixed the problem.  I'll climb back up with some caulk and clean up some seams and screw holes, allowing a few leaks here and there.

According to our calendar, we should have some goats that begin to kid in just a week or so.  That means we'll be milking goats again.  Our goat milking stanchion that we built quite a few years ago is in pretty good shape, but needs new pegs for locking down the head gate.  All it took was a drill, new dowels and some carpenter's glue and we could strike that off the list.  Done.  Ready for goat milking!

One of the hay racks above the milking stall on the east side was a metal one.  It completely rusted out.  The milk cows won't be calving until late summer, but I needed to build a new one before that time comes.  Might as well get that done while I'm working on these other projects.  I had some lumber in the barn that I ripped up and constructed a hay rack that sort of matched the other one.  While we're milking them, the cows eat their feed in the trough, but then we'll put hay in the rack that they'll eat on until we're finished milking.

The goats are demonstrating how the older hay rack works in the other milking stall and that's a good opportunity to point out the last barn project we got done.  Goats are trouble-makers, especially older billies.  Buckwheat likes to head butt and tear everything up.  The outer rail of the milking stall below had been broken by buckwheat hitting on it.  It actually broke the 4 x 4 off at ground level.

I sawed off the bottom of the 4 x 4, dug a hole with the post hole digger, poured some quickcrete in the hole and used a level to ensure it was square.  Once water was poured in and the concrete was allowed to set, I screwed the side rail in.  

Mission complete.  For now.

Things Couldn't be More Different...

In the mornings I wake up early and commute 42 miles to work.  Sometimes, depending on traffic, the drive only takes me 40 minutes.  Other times it may take me an hour and 40 minutes.  The commute is actually a peaceful time for me as I usually quickly catch the news on the radio while I drink my coffee and then I turn off the radio and pray.  Before I know it, I'm turning into the parking lot at work.  I work with some good people and we provide a good service in keeping the cogs in the wheels of industry turning.

I was thinking the other day about how the view at work couldn't be more different than the view I have at home.  The sounds couldn't be more different either.  From time to time, we'll hear loud hissing sounds and see huge flares, like you see in the photo below.  We always joke that they just burned off more in the flare stack in value than we'll ever make in 10 lifetimes.  Black smoke will billow out and we'll hear announcements over a loudspeaker that we cannot understand.  We wonder if we should run as fast as we can.

Then at the end of the day, I hop in my car and drive back home, moving from an industrial area into a pastoral one.  The hissing sounds, flares, black smoke, and warnings are replaced by the gentle cackling of hens as they make their way to their evening roosts, the bleating of goats and lowing of cows.  Instead of looking at chemical plants, I look at real plants in our vegetable garden.  The sun sets and the light show put on in the western sky is far better than a flare stack.

I'm truly thankful to God for clean, country living.

Polishing Up The Resume and Looking For Work

I've been working at a Restoration Company in Lafayette for a little over a year.  My role was General Manager and we were General Contractors that specialized in Water Mitigation and Mold Mitigation.  We also did reconstruction projects involving remodels, fire damage, flood damage, roofing, etc.

My boss owned the franchise that had locations in Baton Rouge and Lafayette.  Three weeks ago I received a call from the owner telling me that he was about to go into a meeting with his staff in Baton Rouge and wanted me to hear the news from him.  He had decided to close the doors of the business in both Baton Rouge and Lafayette.  Therefore, all of us were losing our jobs effective October 31st.  Trick or Treat?  It was not a treat.  I had to let all my employees know the bad news. 

Let me rewind a bit to tell you how things got to this point.  Back in August of 2016, the Baton Rouge/Denham Springs area experienced disastrous flooding.  This flooding caused thousands of people to lose their homes.  It was a catastrophe, to say the least.  For a company that specializes in water damage restoration and repair, you would think that this would be great for business!  In actuality, the opposite is true.  Since we are General Contractors, all of our subcontractors left us and immediately found work directly from the homeowner.  I really can't blame them.  There was more work than workers.

This necessitated us in having to hire new, untested subcontractors and we quickly found that there was a reason that they were unable to find work on their own.  They did shoddy work.  Their poor craftsmanship resulted in us having to hire other subcontractors to come in and fix the work and the materials (paint, drywall, etc.) had to be purchased a second time.  This slowed down the ability to finish work which slowed down payment and all of this resulted in cash flow problems which became insurmountable.

At 51 years of age, this isn't where I thought I'd be - filing for unemployment and looking on Indeed.com and the Louisiana Workforce Commission for work.  I'm also getting my resume out to as many friends that I can.  First and foremost, I'm praying that God directs me to the right job and that I'll have wisdom to hear His voice.  I know He's in control and I know we are going to be okay.

At times like this, I like to do a post-mortem and see if I can learn anything from this.  I learned that I like jobs where you rise or fall based on your own merits.  I am definitely a team player.  However, our "team" consisted of people that did not live by the Golden Rule, they did not have integrity or a commitment to quality.  This forced me to constantly try to go behind them and do my best to 'clean up their messes.'  In the end, the subcontractors were our undoing and it cost all of us our jobs.  I am very far from being anywhere near perfect, but I do have a strong customer service focus, and I had to repeatedly apologize to our customers.  This was very uncomfortable.  I don't regret the last year.  I have grown as a person.  I've learned about construction.  I definitely have thicker skin than I did a year ago! I've learned to ensure that your team is committed to quality and customer service and the bottom line of the company.   I'll keep you posted as my employment situation changes. 

Hay Day 2015

Make hay while the sun shines!  Those are very important words.  Once the hay is cut, fluffed, and baled, you must act fast to get it into the barn before rains fall on it or it will be ruined and/or the quality greatly diminished.  Hay is vital during the winter months for our cows and I always want to have it on hand.  Like the Ant and the Grasshopper fable, you've got to work real hard in the summer in order to store away food (hay) for the winter months.  Lazy grasshoppers (and cows) get real hungry in the winter.  You can't afford to fiddle all summer...

I had mixed feelings when I got the telephone call from a neighbor down the road, alerting me that our order of 100 bales would be ready for pickup.  Picking up hay is hot, hard, itchy work, but I know it has to be done.  I made plans to take off 1/2 day from work and borrow my Dad's pickup truck and trailer and called back to confirm that we would pick up the hay Thursday afternoon around 1:30 pm.

We get a discount if we pick up the hay in the field right behind the baler, because that saves on Mr Myers' labor, so we arrived and looked out over the work to be done.  A daunting task, indeed. Benjamin drove the truck, keeping it between the rows of freshly baled hay.

Hay Day

We put on gloves, gathered our resolve, and started to load the bales of hay onto the trailer, Benjamin creeping up slowly as we picked up each bale, weighing about 45 pounds each, and arranged them onto the 16 foot trailer.

We were able to get 18 bales on the bottom row and then 16 bales on the next successive layers going up.  We quickly figured that we'd need to use the back of the truck to make them all fit.  My Dad and my nephew, Conner, loaded the hay while I took pictures.  Ha, No really, I did my share of loading, too!

Once we got 3 layers high, I climbed atop the trailer and as the bales were thrown, I positioned them so that they were stacked tightly and uniformly.  We only live a mile from the hay field, but we wanted to be sure that we didn't drop any bales on the side of the road as we drove it on home.

As I was on top of the trailer, it gave me a good vantage point to see the operation. My neighbor was on his tractor baling hay and you can see an action shot of the baler below spitting out a bale in mid-air. We have been purchasing our hay from the neighbor for many years now.  He's been very good to us.  He stepped down from his tractor and walked over to visit with us.  What a guy!

He told us that he is 84 years old and has no intentions of slowing down.  Dad told him not to stop - that's what's keeping him going.  He told us that after rigorous chemotherapy, he just had a PET scan and was cancer free!  He beat the big C - nothing's gonna keep him down.  You have to admire his work ethic and consistency.

His hay is high quality Alicia bermuda.  You can read about Alicia and other varieties of Bermuda grass that will grow in Louisiana HERE  Serious horse owners from miles around come and pick up hay from him as his reputation for quality hay and a fair price is well known.  In fact, this hay is primarily used for race horses and our milk cows probably don't have the refined palates to really appreciate the top quality forage they are receiving, but what can I say?  We pamper the old girls. We give them the best hay and in return, they give us the best milk.

When I pulled out some cash (egg money) to pay him for the 100 bales, I asked him how much.  He replied, "The same price as last year."  How often do you see that happening?  The inflation rate in some parts of Jeff Davis Parish is flat.  He told us that he normally gets three or four cuttings of hay in a year. This year with all the rain, though, the high water had washed in weed seed and he was going to burn the field and try to eradicate the weeds, so he may only get 3 cuttings.  He is particular about the quality of his hay and it shows in the final product.

He said that he maintains his equipment himself and it is pretty much a family affair.  He takes good care of his implements and they last a long time, but he lamented the rising cost of baling twine and parts for the baler.  One thing that really saves him time and money is the implement you see in the center of the picture below.  It is a trailer pulled by a tractor that picks up the bales with a conveyor belt and lifts and stacks it until the trailer if full.  Then the trailer is brought to the barn and it lifts hydraulically, stacking the bales neatly in the barn, all while the driver sits in the cab of the tractor.

He told us that without that piece of equipment, he couldn't continue to make hay anymore at his age. He lamented the fact that in the past, you could get people to come load hay for pay, but no one wants to work that hard anymore.  That says a lot about our modern culture right there.  All in all, though, it was inspirational to visit with my neighbor - 84 years old and still going full throttle, with no signs of putting on the brakes.  Impressive!!

Labor saving Hay-Picker-Upper

Our 'hay picker upper' was the old fashioned type.  You know, where you grab the bale by the twine, lift and throw it up on top of the trailer!  We stacked the hay one way and then the other on alternating layers to 'tie it all together' so it wouldn't fall.

Dad on top of the hay

Before you could say, "Hay, Hay go away. Come again another day," we were done. The trailer and truck were loaded down with 100 bales of hay.  We slowly made the 1 mile trek back to the house, checking to see that none of our precious cargo had fallen off.

Loaded up!

I wish there were words to adequately describe the smell of fresh-cut and dried hay. It is a lovely smell and the sight of short cropped grass evenly mowed against the blue skies and sunshine brings you back to simpler times.  Slower times with no cell phones, spreadsheets, and other modern accouterments to distract us or entertain us. Scratch the picture below and you'll get a big whiff of the hay smell I'm talking about.  Hopefully, it won't make your hay fever flare up. 

The Fragrance of Summer

Unfortunately, we couldn't back the trailer next to the barn to unload it because it was still too muddy around there.  I wasn't thinking and built the barn in the lowest part of the property and didn't build up the area with dirt.  This year that caused a lot of needless work as we had to off-load the hay from the trailer and bring it to the barn in a wagon pulled by my lawn tractor, 6 bales at time, using a ratchet strap to tie them down on the little trailer.  Then, using a pulley, we pull the hay up into the loft.

The Hay Loft

As Benjamin hooks the twine, I use the pulley to hoist each bale up, swinging it into the loft and then sliding it down and stacking it up.

1 down, 99 to go

I took a picture of the last bale to be loaded in the loft.  Although it is not a pretty picture due to the surrounding mud, it is a picture of completion as one more years' supply of hay is in the barn.  We're prepared for winter now.  Now we can fiddle! The capacity of the loft is 93 bales.  The remaining 7 bales was stacked on a pallet in one of the stalls in the barn and then wrapped with a tarp to keep cows, chickens and goats from getting into it. 

Whew!

There is something to be said about hard work.  When you finish an honest day's work in which your shirt and pants are soaking wet and your muscles ache, there is nothing as satisfying as a glass of cool water, a cold shower and a soft pillow to lay your head, drifting off quickly into a contented sleep, resting peacefully until the rooster crows again.

He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, But he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully.  Proverbs 10:5

We went to sleep AFTER the harvest!

Random Thoughts about Mud and Hard Work

Last Friday night I watched a movie called "Mud."  I liked the movie, although I must say that I hate the fact that directors must always include strong language that makes almost every movie not family friendly, even movies rated PG, but that's going down a whole 'nother trail that I won't get into at this time.  I realize that makes me seem prudish, and I probably am.  As with most things in popular culture, unless you are a hermit, you are sort of relegated to a 'chew up the meat and spit out the bones' mentality when engaging with a culture vastly different with the one you grew up in.

Mud was an adventure that reminded me an awful lot of a modern day Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn story.  It is set in DeWitt, Arkansas and involves the adventures of Ellis and his best friend, Neckbone.  Southern nicknames are the best.  Everyone needs a friend named Neckbone!  Anyway, and I won't spoil the story, Ellis and Neckbone discover a boat high in the treetops on an island in the Mississippi River that they want to make into a camp.  Upon climbing into the boat, they find that there is already someone who has laid claim to their boat - an outlaw on the run who is named "Mud," and is played by Matthew McConaughey.  Mud needs some help and Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him and the tale develops from there.

Image Credit

As I stated, Mud has a Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn feel to it.  Ellis and Neckbone live on the river in a houseboat that is connected to the levee by a gangplank that rises and falls with the level of the river.  The vast range of the rise and fall of the level of the river seems to be in alignment with the boys' discoveries about love and loyalty, about good and evil.  Because of their hardscrabble upbringing, they grow up fast and are able to do things like clean fish, drive dirtbikes and boats, fix boat motors and work.  Hard, manual work that turns them into men at the age of 14 and they are expected to contribute to the family economy.

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One particular part in the movie that made me think was one in which Ellis and his father are having a talk one night about a difficult family situation.  It goes like this:

Senior: You know I love you?

Ellis: Yessir. I know.

Senior: I work you hard 'cause life is work. You know that?

Ellis: Yessir.

The Dad is a tough man and demands a lot of Ellis, but he loves his boy and his boy loves him. That just made me do a lot of thinking.  Thinking about Life and Work and Balance of the two.

We live in a modern culture where entertainment and leisure is highly valued.  Let me correct that, entertainment and leisure has always been valued, but the thing that has changed is work.  In Early America prior to the Industrial Revolution when we were overwhelmingly an Agrarian nation, hard manual labor such as tilling the soil, milking the cows, harvesting the crops was required.  Those things were essential for survival and the entire family was engaged in those roles.  The family was a productive unit.  The productivity was born out of necessity.

The family economy was multi-generational, with older generations and younger ones all working together to provide food for the table and spending money for necessities that could not be produced on the farm.  Family was important and everyone pitched in to help.  Even the youngest children contributed.  Contrast that to many children today that  are looked on as a burden to the family budget and as a result, people have children later - and fewer of them.  But in those days children contributed directly to the family (by providing labor) and large families were common.

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The Industrial Revolution brought about change.  Instead of producing things, families became largely consumers of things.  Because of mechanization, farming could be done with fewer people and children became liabilities instead of assets. Family members were sent to work off-farm to earn wages to purchase family necessities.  This displaced people from the land and distanced them from one another.

Although the family economy still exists in some parts of the country, it is largely gone.  I realize that I'm waxing nostalgic about a bygone era - one that I didn't really live in, although I worked on our family farm growing up.  I'm sitting in a climate-controlled room, typing on a computer and I fully appreciate the niceties and conveniences of modern life.  However, I am convinced we are missing something.

We've always given our children chores to do - things that they were responsible for. They were always responsible for doing everyday chores like gathering eggs or feeding the animals.  They were also given extra things to do that were seasonal in nature like harvesting the garden, picking pecans, gathering sticks after a storm or getting hay in the barn.  Work like this is needed on a farm and was expected in normal agrarian family life.

But what about today?  What about when no one else does this?  When kids play travel tournament ball or play video games or sit in front of the TV?  None of these things are inherently wrong or bad, but scooping poop out of the barn is not going to compete with playing on the X-box in the eyes of a child.

And therein lies the struggle for balance.  How in an agrarian lifestyle do you balance the needs of labor with entertainment/leisure?  Although we never deprived our kids of extracurricular activities, we never did as much as other parents did to entertain their kids with full schedules of activities. Will our kids resent us for that?  Will they look back at me like a cruel taskmaster?  Will they look back at their childhood with regret when compared to their peers?  Will they want to have anything to do with farming or the agrarian lifestyle?  Or us?  I don't know.

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I'd like to think that they would look back longingly and lovingly with good memories of their somewhat 'different' upbringing - much as I do, but only time will tell.

Although I agree with Ellis' Daddy when he told him that "I work you hard 'cause life is work," there is balance between work and leisure.  Offering our kids outlets for entertainment and leisure while at the same time helping them develop a strong work ethic and maintaining that balance is a critical and crucial endeavor for parents.  Mud was a movie about love and love lost, about dealing with disappointment and hurt, about redemption and about growing up.  Just as the boat high up in the tree seemed to be out of reach for Ellis and Neckbone, finding the delicate balance between fun and work sometimes proves to be the same for me.

Work is a Beautiful Thing

Call me crazy, but I like to work.  I especially like to work hard outside.  Maybe it's because I work a white collar office job Monday - Friday.  Maybe because I love the outdoors.  Maybe because when you put in a good day's work, you feel good about what you've done and you definitely sleep better at night.

To underscore the topic of WORK, I stumbled across an incredible ad the other day.  t is narrated by Mike Rowe.  You know Mike.  He's the host of the show Dirty Jobs. We watch him in that show travel across America spending time with people who do Dirty Jobs.  One program will find him in a septic tank scrubbing down walls or hand fishing for catfish in a muddy riverbank or at a worm farm handling millions of the slimy creatures.

Mike has teamed up with an advertiser to bring us the following ad.  Click the arrow to view the 1 minute video and then come back and let's talk.

I LOVED that ad.  First, it was just doggone optimistic.  Americans need something to be positive about right now.  The spot starts off with ominous music amidst a dull, colorless backdrop and sad narration.  You see hulking equipment and brown fields and warehouses all empty, quiet, and vacant.  It makes you sad, really, especially when he says, "I was mighty!"  What happened?

Then at about the 0.27 second mark, he says I'm still here.  The switch is thrown and he says, "I will rise again!"  Man, this is like a pep talk at half time when your team is down by a few touchdowns.  You hear something like this and you're ready to run through walls!

The ad is by Wal Mart, as you know by now, and that really surprised me.  I'm going to be honest now and tell you that I don't like going into Wal Mart.  I don't like them because they replaced the mom & pop stores across America with big warehouse stores with no character.  I don't like them because of all the people in the stores.  I don't like them because they have 35 checkout lanes and only 3 or 4 will be open at any given time.  I don't like them because part of the formula for their success is cheap goods manufactured in foreign lands.

However, I want to give credit where credit is due.  They are pledging $250 Billion dollars (that's billion - with a B) to source goods manufactured in the good old US of A and they think that will create 1 million new manufacturing jobs across our fruited plain.  If they can do that, my hat's off to them.  Americans need to get back to work. If you're not working for whatever reason, you become dependent.

I don't know about you, but I don't like to be dependent on anyone.  Dependency, to me, creates a debt that must be repaid, because we're all here together and should all be pulling the wagon, if physically able.  I don't want to owe anyone anything.  I'd rather be a giver instead of a taker.  Romans 13:8 tells us to "owe no man but to love him."  I think that being dependent upon the government or your neighbor or the taxpayer or your parents for any considerable period of time is a burden - an inner battle that eats away at you because work is what we were intended to do by our Creator.

I agree with Mike Rowe that work is a beautiful thing.  In fact, so does God:

Genesis 2:15

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

From an agricultural perspective, yesterday was the first day of Spring.  It is time to get in the garden and get your hands dirty and work.  Putting in work planting a crop and later harvesting it, cooking it, and serving healthy meals to your family that you grew by toil and sweat is a labor of love - and that WORK is a beautiful thing! 

Having fun when the work is done!

Tricia is recovering from a surgery that she had done and Benjamin has really been stepping up and helping out around the farm.  He's been milking Nellie the goat and feeding the meat birds along with his other chores of feeding the dogs and cats, collecting and taking out the garbage, making sure the water troughs are full, gathering eggs and feeding the quail.  He's been a busy guy and I appreciate his help.

Last night he assisted by being a spotter while I pushed the chicken tractor full of meat birds forward one length so they'll be on fresh grass.  I learned the hard way that these birds aren't smart and if you don't have a spotter while you push the tractor forward, you'll run over and kill them.  It was well past dark as Benjamin and I were walking back to the house for supper when Benjamin turned to me and said, "Dad, it always feels better to do something fun AFTER you've finished doing work."

I had to agree with him.  I like to work and get tasks completed, but as the old saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."  We try (and need to try harder) to reward ourselves after completing a job. We'll sit down for family movie night once we finish getting stuff done.  We'll play a game or treat ourselves to a snack after we finish chores.

The same thought was instilled in me during my upbringing.  I can remember always enjoying an ice cold Dr. Pepper and a honey bun while sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck at the end of a hard day's work on the farm. During rice harvest, at the end of the day when we'd finish cutting rice, we'd do particularly grueling work by "spreading the bin."  An auger carried the rice from the pit and dumped it in the storage bin, creating a cone.  If not knocked down and spread evenly, when attempting to dry the rice, air flow would travel to the point of least resistance around the sides and the center would never dry and would heat up and ruin the entire bin of rice.

So we'd climb up the side of the bin with large aluminum shovels and jump down into a dark, sweltering, dusty bin full of rice and begin leveling it by shoveling rice from the center and throwing it to the sides until the cone was gone and it was flat.  The heat and humidity in the bin would be almost unbearable.  After what seemed like an eternity, we'd climb out of the bin with our shovels.  Although it would be in the 80's or 90's outside on those August afternoons, it felt like a cool, Spring day in comparison to where we had just been. We'd sit on the top of the bins, dripping with sweat, and then proceed to blow our noses to eliminate black dust boogers from breathing in all the dust.  Sorry, it's not pleasant, but it's true.

We'd then climb down the ladder and have a Dr. Pepper and relax, feeling good about completing a tough job.  Sometimes we would go and jump into a farm pond right behind the bins and allow the cool, albeit muddy water, to reinvigorate us while perch tickled us while they nibbled on our toes.  Ah, the good old days!  Who says you can't work AND have fun?  I see an example of this work/fun balance each and every day as I commute to work.  Between the communities of Welsh and Lacassine, right off of I-10 on the south side of the Interstate I see the following:

Work & Fun

I pulled over yesterday and took a picture or two and I zoomed in below so you can see what I'm talking about:

Ride 'em Cowboy!

The thing you're looking at is a pump jack, a piece of equipment that pumps oil, black gold, Texas tea, out of the ground and into oil storage tanks.  They are a pretty common sight around our neck of the woods.  Look closely, though, at the silhouette and you'll see that an oilfield worker cut the image of a saddle bronc rider out of a piece of plate metal and welded him to the pump jack, making it look like the cowboy was riding a buckin' bronc as the pump jack went up and down.

I'd like to shake the man's hand who did this.  It is a testament to the ability to work AND have a good time. It takes a creative mind, a good sense of humor and a great personality to have a little fun like this on the job. I'll be willing to bet that the gentleman that fabricated this would be just the type of fellow that you'd like to share an ice cold Dr. Pepper with on the tailgate of a pickup truck after a hard day's work.

Whistle while you work

This past Saturday we woke up early and got all of our chores done quickly.  My list of weekend tasks around the farm hadn't gotten any shorter during the week, but better things were in store.  Saturday was a "work day" at our little country church.

We attend a church that is spitting distance from our house.  If there was a sidewalk, we could actually walk to church on Sundays.  It takes all of about 3 minutes to get there.  It's not a perfect church.  I'm not sure a perfect one exists, but it is a loving little congregation of people that genuinely care about each other.  People who will pray for you.  People who will encourage you.  People who are very giving.  It is truly a church family in every sense of the word.

While a "work day" on the weekend might not sound appealing at first glance, it was a good day.  The day before, several gentlemen from the church used a lift and pressure washer to wash the mildew buildup on the steeple and mowed the lot on the north side of the church.  That made a big difference.  The ladies did a thorough cleaning of the inside of the church and the kitchen in our fellowship hall.  The men (and boys) had several items on the agenda:

1. Pressure wash the buildings, sidewalks and parking lot,
2. Replace fascia boards that had blown off in storms,
3. Repaint all the fascia boards that had faded in the sun,
4. Fix some shingles that had blown off,



Russ Painting fascia boards, with Benjamin and Brother Joe providing supervision

The important things that happened at the work day, though, weren't the tasks being performed, oddly enough.  One key thing was the fellowship that occurred while we worked together with the church family.  We laughed, we joked, we served each other (and the Lord) and we bonded.  Of equal or greater importance was the learning experience, and I think it was a valuable experience for my boys (and me). 

We have an older congregation composed of very talented individuals, people who are skilled at carpentry, plumbing, electrical and many other skills.  It is a very good thing to have my boys sit under the instruction of people older than them and learn about how to do things, to listen to their life experiences, and to hear their military stories.

Many young people go through phases where they think they "know it all."  I have, unfortunately been guilty of that.  It doesn't take long out in the world before you realize how little you know.  A powerful thing occurs, however, when a young person will listen and when an older person takes the time to teach a younger person a skill, a discipline, a trade.  

Benjamin on the ladder with a hammer securing the fascia boards to the roof

Other things are taught as well.  While sanding down and putting Ospho on a rusting electrical box, one gentleman took the opportunity to pour into Russ helpful advice to guide him as he leaves the nest and starts out in college next year.  Sometimes advice is better received when it doesn't come from a parent, if you know what I mean?  

My boys need tangible life lessons to put in their toolboxes.  Hopefully, they will have the opportunity to "pay it forward" and can pass along similar skills, advice, and lessons to the next generation.   Although it was a work day at the church (and we did get a lot done), I left feeling like a lot more work got done than just work on the church building.  Work was done on lives and I appreciate that.