Lessons In Perspecive

Another reason for the length between postings is some of the "life lessons" we have encountered this summer have been rather intense. Besides the lack of rain, the unreal heat and humidity, a plethora of financial setbacks, a less than ideal work situation that has gotten progressively worse since the beginning of the year, and a number of health and dental issues with Susie and myself, we recently dealt with a life threatening situation with our youngest granddaughter. On August 27th, we were here at the farm working on the gray sweater project (STILL!) when we got a call from our son asking for prayer for Liberty, our 10 month old granddaughter and his youngest child. Liberty had been fussy and this fussiness had been attributed to an ear infection and teething but when she had gotten sick that morning and became very lethargic, they took her to the pediatrician who in turn sent her to the local hospital. At the hospital, they noticed that she was having a difficult time breathing and even though x-rays didn't show any problems in her lungs, she continued to not respond. The decision was finally made to call in the Vanderbilt Life Flight helicopter to transport her to Nashville. Prior to transport, they decided to insert a breathing tube which we later found out probably saved her life. During the flight her breathing stopped and the EMT's had to manually give her air. Once in Nashville her blood sugar level was found to be at 440 so the initial diagnosis was infant diabetes. Liberty ended up staying at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital for 10 days and is now home and well on her way to a TOTAL and COMPLETE healing and we believe it will be a healing that eventually will mean one without the need of daily insulin shots!

Having said all this, the "perspective" lesson we learned was that even in the midst of all this stress and worry, the little 3 year old girl in the next room was dealing with cystic fibrosis.....ALONE! Her father, we learned, was a patient at the other Vanderbilt Hospital and her mother was hours away having to take care of other children. Even alone though, she had the sweetest spirit and stood in the doorway and waved at everyone going past her room. This little girl was really able to put "life" into a perspective that touched our hearts and we pray daily for her healing as well. What I've learned is the truth in the old saying that no matter what your dealing with, someone has it as bad or worse. We've had work issues....but I am at least working! We've had financial issues, but we still can pay our bills! It's been hot and dry here, but we have not dealt with what Texas and the East Coast has had to deal with! All in all, regardless of what it may look like, things are really not that bad!

Romans 5:3-6

More over (let us also be full of joy now!) let us exult in triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character (of this sort) produces (the habit of) joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. While we were yet in weakness (powerless to help ourselves), at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly.

The Amplified Bible

FINALLY Another Posting!

I have really been meaning to post on here for over a month but, as usual, life just seems to move faster than I am able at times to keep up with. Like most of the nation, we have had to deal with a lot of bizarre weather this summer. This has been some of the hottest, driest weather I can remember since moving to Tennessee and I'd say the closest our spring had EVER come to running dry! Prior to some rain that we got September 4th, we hadn't had a drop in over 9 weeks! This was also one of the first times I've seen it so dry we weren't even getting any dew in the mornings. The plus side to this was that until this week, I hadn't had to mow our 4 plus acres in 2 months (which was fine with me). The problem was that the cotton, along with all the other vegetables in the garden, came close to dying. With the spring down to a trickle, we had to carry water to each individual plant in a watering can just to keep things alive. The growing delay means that we are just NOW getting tomatoes and peppers and while the cotton is looking really good, I'm going to have to pray that they develop mature bolls before frost. Since I still have never figured out how to add multiple pictures to this blog, I will be posting several more times today as I attempt to bring it up to date with whats going on. As you can see, the cotton is looking much better than back in July when I posted a picture of it before. Stay tuned for another update in a moment!

Summer Update!

Here you go....the 2011 Pima Cotton Crop to date! Susie counted and I think we have 33 plants (out of several hundred we planted!). Not what I would call a very good result but at least we have SOMETHING to look forward to! As of this date, they are still small but looking very healthy so only time will tell if they will mature enough to make bolls. Actually everything in the garden is still small so I'm not real sure just what the problem is but I'm guessing that it's time to apply a few tons of compost and fertilizer to the beds again and dream about large crops NEXT year!

Maybe a year ago....I can't remember when...I posted about a project we were working on that included a number of gray fleeces we've purchased. The project is a pair of matching sweaters for which we are blending 2 Shetland fleeces....1 mix breed fleece and 2 alpaca fleeces along with several pounds of alpaca top that I bought pre-processed into top. I'm glad to say that by the time the weekend is over, I will be down to only ONE alpaca fleece to work on before we start the math end of the project where we weigh out each separate fiber then figure the blend percentages...then start carding samples on the Super Carder for Susie to spin and once we hit upon a blend we like and works well on the knitting needles, the carding process will begin! This has been a much bigger project than I realized but hopefully we will be able to wear these sweaters before we retire!

"Life on the farm is ANYTHING but laidback!"

The year continues to be a weird and wild one! Our weather here has been from one extreme to the other with temperatures being way cold to over the top HOT! And of course, right in the middle of the hot spell, our 30+ year old window AC unit decided to call it quits! Every year we wonder if this is "the year" it dies and sure enough, this was it. Our daughter had a small window unit she wasn't using anymore that we installed to replace the old unit but try as it might, I don't think its big enough to help a whole lot. Really, out here in the woods the goal is not so much to cool the house as it is to take the humidity out of the air. High humidity and the problems accompanying it are more pronounced in the woods and hollars than when we lived in town. (At least the dehumidifier in the basement has held up and I'm doing "stair laps" 2 or 3 times a day to empty it!)

Snakes continue to be an ever present problem this spring and early summer which is not normal at ALL! Even the cats walk through the yard as if they are about to step on a mine. We usually don't have to be this cautious until later in the fall when they begin their shedding and get much more aggressive.

Most of the garden is in but for some reason nothing seems to be growing! I'm not sure what to attribute that too but we should be picking our first tomatoes by now and yet they are still only a matter of a few inches tall! The cotton is just sitting there and about the only thing that looks like it's doing anything are the lima beans. (While the garden doesn't seem to be growing the grass is growing JUST fine!)

On the fiber scene, I had a printing supply salesman stop in the shop a few months ago that I found out raised Alpacas. Last week he brought in 4 bags of samples from this years clip for Susie and I to look at and try out. I scoured them this past week and combed them last night so tomorrow I will take them back to the shop to weigh on the digital scale and see what percentage of loss we had. These are some REALLY nice samples and I'm looking forward to not only Susie spinning them up, but also driving over towards Nashville to visit this breeders farm. Maybe we will have to buy some more fiber....after all.....it's IMPOSSIBLE to have too much!!!!

Weird Spring!

To say that "life" has continued to be weird around here would be a gross understatement! Part of the reason there is sooooo much time between blog postings goes back once again to the old adage of if you don't have anything nice (or positive) to say then don't say anything! Well.... with that in mind I probably should just post a picture and not write much because it's been pretty un-positive. While we have graciously been spared the death and devastation the weather has been dealing out to areas like Joplin and Tuscaloosa, we have had our share of weather issues. Here we are almost into June and Susie and I are JUST now getting into the garden to turn ground and plant. With a 40 mile drive to work each day, I try to keep my eyes open for every one's gardening progress and I must say that I am seeing very, very few gardens that have been planted or even worked up so I guess it's not just us. (Somehow I find very little comfort in that!) As far as the Pima cotton progress goes after planting close to 300 plants, I THINK we have 30+ that have survived and they look really bad! At this rate, IF we get a harvest, we may be able to make "his and hers" matching Q tips.

As you can see from the picture, we are already dealing with "nasties " which is really out of the norm since we usually don't have to worry about these bad boys till in the fall! I've already scored one rattler and one copperhead so far and Susie has one copperhead under her belt so far as well. It's getting to the point you don't venture through the door unless you scan the ground FIRST!

Cotton Update!

OK.....I haven't lost it QUITE that bad....I realize that this is NOT a cotton picture! Actually it's a picture of the columbine (Aquildgia canadensis to be exact) that grows out our back door but I wanted to see if anyone was paying attention.

As far as the cotton goes, I'm starting to wonder if there is going to be much to report this year. We have already planted and RE-planted the crop and from the looks of things, it could stand to be re-re-planted but at this point in time, there isn't time to start again and get a crop from it. I'm not sure if the poor growth as been caused by cold temperatures, lack of sun light, the fact I used newspaper starting cells, or if it's just the way Pima is. I was suppose to have growing shelves with heat pads and grow lights done before we started these seeds but the planer broke and we ended up spending too much time finding parts and repairing it to wait till it was finished. Next season should see it finished and i hope it makes a big difference. Although it's been years since we raised white Pima, memory tells me that we had this problem last time as well! Depending on how this all plays out, I think we may well go back to the open pollinated heirloom colored cotton next year....assuming there IS a next year growing season.

Susie and I spent yesterday out in the garden hand turning ground and putting as much of what was left in hopes that maybe it would get growing but the ground is still rather cold and of course we had yet ANOTHER storm come through early this morning! We are praying for whats IN and praying for a break in the crazy weather so we can get the rest in....not to mention the never ending mowing! To date we have all the yard mowed but haven't been able to do either of the fields yet which stinks. The grass is already almost taller than our poor mower can handle and with push mowing over 4 acres, ANYTHING that causes problems or delays really causes a snowball of problems. Besides the cruddy weather, the gas prices are going to be really interesting with this years mowing. We took our cans into town yesterday and filled up and spent more for just this time than we use to spend for an entire season!


On a positive note, not only have we been spared the death and destruction that others in the south have faced this past week, but the wild flowers were really amazing this spring! We were worried what they would be like since the area around us had been basically clear cut last year and things are REALLY tore up. Some of the flowers we are use to seeing were gone but others were spread far and wide. The biggest thing we have missed this year were the mushrooms. With all the habitat gone, we have only found one to date....but it was sure good!

Out The Back Door!