I determined that after four weeks of total disregard for the garden, that this was the week to reclaim the wheat from the tares. Monday I started at 630, spending about 45 minutes on my hands and knees (easier on the back) digging out weeds. Not bad for a guy who could barely get out of bed the week before. Then I came in and got breakfast for the two of us, showered, and took a nap! We both had an appointment with our attorney concerning a trust Sandy is contemplating. Then I was off to the rent house to paint the interior. That evening we had empty nestors; I baked a cake for that event since we weren't sure if Sandy would be up to this activity. Fortunately she was and we had a good time visiting and having a short lesson.
Tuesday, I was back in the garden by 630 and worked an hour. It is cooler at that time and the sun is not high enough to shine on the garden; good time to be out there. But the chickens are noisy! They keep up an almost continuous stream of cackling and whatever other sounds chickens make. When I headed off to work at the rent house, Sandy headed off to the oncologist for her immunotherapy appointment. The doctor is scheduling a CT scan before he does another infusion. Hopefully that will transpire in the next 10 days and will give us an idea of what the cancer has been doing these past 5 months.
Wednesday was a repeat of the week; in the garden by 630, work for an hour, breakfast, clean up, short nap and then back to the rent house. This particular house was built in the 50-60's time frame, when the dams were being built. It has a solid concrete foundation; the interior walls are genuine lathe and plaster (try putting a nail in the wall). It originally had two bedrooms, about 9 x 9 foot. The living room is 12 x 20 foot and the kitchen 12 x 16 foot. You can see where the emphasis was back in those days. The 2 car carport had been converted to a decent sized bedroom and we upgraded by adding a laundry room when we first purchased it in 2004. And it only has one small bathroom. But it has character.
Thursday...yes back to the garden for weed therapy. But I was able to complete the wall painting in the rent house. Next is the trim.
Friday more early morning garden weeding (see the title of this post). I am 90% complete; but then I get to start over again next week. We have enjoyed lettuce and snap peas so far. When I woke up, the clocks were flashing, indicating a disruption in power (why I like wall clocks!). I checked on line news and discovered that a substation 3 miles from us had some type of malfunction or lightening strike and the entire station burned to the ground! The electric coop official said in his 30 years experience, this was the first time he had heard of this happening. The fire initially plunged a majority of Mountain Home into darkness; we probably only lost power for a couple of minutes since we live near another substation. But 1100 customers were without power for an unknown period of time. I went out to check on some of my ministering families to see how they were doing without power. Evidently there were some members who purchased generators back in the 2009 ice storm that did not bother to run them periodically to ensure they were operable. One brother was busy repairing several of those overlooked generators. One member has a friend near the damaged substation; when he looked outside and saw the flames his first thought was, It's the Second Coming!
We had a date with the Drakes to go to the St Louis Temple and they picked us up at 3 pm; we stopped in Rolla for a Mexican dinner and arrived at our hotel by 830 pm.We were up and at the temple by 830 am Saturday and enjoyed a wonderfully spiritually time there until we left about 1230 pm. It is always a joy to serve in the temple and soak up the wonderful spirit that is there.We also brought home Saul, a young man from our ward that is headed to the Mexican MTC in three weeks. He spent the past week as a volunteer in the temple. What a great experience for him prior to serving a mission. We stopped at Olive Garden on the way out of town, then had a DQ milkshake in Cabool and got home by 7 pm. Sandy held up well for the entire trip. We did have a dying chicken when we arrived and I had to take care of her. But we do have one hen that insists on nesting; so we obtained some fertilized eggs for her to sit on.
Today in Sacrament meeting we heard from our stake patriarch and his wife. Some powerful spiritual thoughts were shared on revaluation and feeling the Holy Spirit.
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