Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Stormy Weather

Storms come in lots of forms.

The worst sort of storm of all is the
emotional / spiritual storm when
there is GREAT loss.


Rod's uncle Ronnie passed away suddenly
Friday night.  He and his wife came down to
attend George's funeral last year and I got
an opportunity to sit with Ronnie for 
about an hour and chat with him.
Turns out we had LOTS in common.

His wife, Anita, had just recently retired.
They got to spend a couple of months
enjoying lots of time together.

He was such a loving man.
Within an hour or so of his death being
announced on Facebook, there were 
hundreds of condolences.
He touched so many lives and impacted
many many people for good.

He will be greatly missed!

***************************************

And then there is the regular storms.
Those up north of us had to deal with feet of snow!

We even logged some snow in north Florida!

In our neck of the woods, it was cold.
(The rule is, there has to be a "3" in the 
temperature before it's officially cold.
Otherwise it's "chilly".)

We had some really stiff winds which dropped
the temperature to the point where Rod had to
put blankets on the horses.
(They don't "need" their blankets, but they are all
seniors, so we like to spoil them a little.)
They actually LIKE their blankets.

Anyhow.
Rod got up on Saturday morning to see
the results of the winds.


Notice the fence.
On the right side of the picture it's sort of leaning.
In the center all the way to the left,
it's FLAT on the ground.

Moon Pie was innocently standing in her pasture
wondering what just happened.
CJ is happily munching on the cow's hay.
(Probably Andy is too, but just not in the picture)

And Sir Loin is on the other side of the back fence
eating the horse's grass.

The horses are in with the cows.
The cows are in with the horses.
Pandemonium!
(lol)

Kyle was at work all day
so Rod had to put the fence back up
the best he could.
The posts all broke off at the ground.
So he sort of propped them up and
restrung the barbed wire.
A trip to Tractor Supply to buy 18 new posts
to replace the broken ones...

It took most of the day.

When he was done with the fence building
and all his Farmer MacGregor's chores,
he headed to the house
to take a nice hot shower.

And discovered we have no water.

Turns out one of the pipes on the house pump
had broken.  Kyle went out to the shed and got
some cleaner and glue and fixed the pipe
while Rod got some water from our food storage
to prime the pump.

Fixed and pressure back on.
YEA!

Three minutes later it blew apart again.

The glue seemed to be old,
so Rod headed to WalMart to get some
new glue while Kyle re-cleaned the pipe.

They glued it again and then read the tube.
If the temperature is below 40, you 
have to let it cure for at least 6 hours.

Sigh.

Sunday morning about 6:00 Rod went out
and re-primed the pump and it seems to be holding.

Such excitement.
(I was out of town and missed it all...)

Today he is off work so he and Kyle can rebuild
the fence for real.  Scott has been living with us
during the week and I imagine he will be out there too.

And our hearts and prayers will be with
our family in Tennessee saying their final goodbyes
to Uncle Ronnie.

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