Category Archives: Sawmyl Synders

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The Deluge

2016 at Sawmyl Synders Farm

Every ascent has a descent in its future.  So it goes with Sawmyl Synders Farm.  Selling an average of 30 dozens eggs a week up until May 26th, 2016.  This stream of income included sales of mostly chicken, ample duck, plenty of turkey and sparse goose eggs. Farm expenses helped offset income taxes and eliminated sales tax on farm related spending.  Quickly getting rich…slowly.  In the prior holiday season, I processed two of my young turkeys.  These two standard bronze birds, a nine pound (dressed) hen (we infrared-fried for Thanksgiving) and the jumbo twenty-two pound  Tom (we roasted) for Christmas.  In the garden, our crops included five types of tomatoes, two variety of long string beans, three kinds of potatoes, plus cucumbers, okra, onions, garlic, etc.  The little cabin (shack, some say;) wore a new and a freshly painted, inspired interior, including earthy colors with accented walls.  Our sweaty  endeavors in a far-from-the-crowd setting allowed for satisfaction.  Yes, before us, then, we saw a growing ideal and a peaceful retirement.  After us, came the deluge.

At around 5:30 P.M., I headed out, loaded with farm fresh eggs, headed for Thursday home deliveries.  As I locked tight the front gate, the clouds above let loose.  Before I drove down a mile, the blinding rain drove me back.  Back in the house, in the laundry room, my wet clothes in the dryer, I moved to the easy chair and put on a favorite DVD in my still cable-less house.  Within an hour, a buzzing alarm sounded in the laundry room.  Water rising from the floor into the dryer.  Oh my!  My boots go and I take off.  The near catastrophic Tax Day flood back on April 18th, forced me to move the tractor and trucks up stream.  Now, wading through water already knee high, the new tractor and old pickup awaited my rescue.  They waked their way to the rail fence one-hundred yards away, and nearer the main road out.  I hugged my bewildered livestock guardian dog, Syndee, and put her, for the first time, in my truck cab.  She road shotgun on leather seats, while quite confused, as we drove up to the Nichols Sawmill Road exit, only to find traffic already stopped dead.  No fleeing this disaster.  Seeing a rising fate.

Now rising water up from the once shallow creek far from the house.  Now near.  Cresting fifteen foot banks, flanking the house.  Streaming down from the main road above, surrounding the house all around.  Sitting in my new King Ranch, we waited.  Listen.  The water crunching gravel past tires.  I resisted the urge.  As I watched in the rear-view-mirror, the fast moving muddy rose.  The top of the  duck house sank.   The five foot high waterfowl shelter, two hundred feet away, gasp its last.  I saw my dreams of Sawmyl Synders Farm sink as my ducks and geese rise and revel in their new water wonderland.  No reveling on the other side of my car mirror for me.  Fleeting thoughts of doom, constant thoughts of what next, and no place to go, we existed for two hours in suspension.  No anxiety or boredom, no fear and no hope.  A halt to the rain brought all of these sentiments flowing back – and then some.

A scream can not rage indefinitely, and so it is with storm.  Two hours after it began it stopped.  Our home – flooded.  The propane tank leaking.  Those few goats gone.  More loss than could be counted now.  Less future than could be imagined before.  In the days ahead, I heard more unsolicited opinions than genuine empathy.  Can you imagine?  Such as: It could have been worse (true, I could be dead).  You are lucky you have insurance (false, I paid my annual premiums and FEMA excluded items, limited coverage, and took a deductible).  But my favorite:  I told you so! (not true, a neighbor claimed to have warned me about this 500 year flood after I bought the property.  In any case, friends I expected to help with the disaster never showed up for the crisis part.  However, strangers I barely knew showed up on Memorial day and beyond.  So, it was that season again.  Time to find some new friends.  Time to rebuild.  Time to update my paradigm.

Months have passed.  The fifty laying hens I lost are being replaced.  Only twenty layers remain but with twenty-five pullets in the pen, production looks good for February.  Twenty-five more pullets coming this December, with production due in June 2017.  The ducks and geese survived the high water and relished it.  The turkeys survived but, they will tell you, with less relish.  These birds on higher ground must have wondered “What’s the rumpus!”.  With the goats gone, and nothing to guard, I felt I needed to get another guardian dog for my surviving guardian.  Her name is Sydnee.  Akbash puppy.  Now I have two Turkish livestock guardian dogs with nothing to guard.  Karabash and Akbash.  Black Head and White Head.  Other additions include the dozen meat chickens I raised and processed for the holiday meals in 2016 and the weekend feasts in 2017.  Busy work while still trying to grasp the past and grope for a future.  Believing without seeing becomes a necessity.  Surviving a flood means drowning your sorrows and moving on.  Those witnessing Mother Nature’s devastating potency and cold lack sentiments have a new reality.  But what will it be?

Every descent has an ascent in its future.  I can’t build more field fences and animal building on the rubble of this flood.  Repair the existing and adapt to the reality.  Do not wait for the next flood but have alternatives if it occurs before I die.  Can you dig it?  Yes, my land is higher on the other end where I also have road access.  No, it’s not in my original plans.  But neither was the deluge.  So it’s time to put on my big boy pants, stop feeling sorry for myself, and wade back in Sawmyl Synders Farm in 2017.  A funny thing happened on the way to my retirement

 

 

 

Animals, Vignettes

Getting Boxed In – Pray for a Miracle While Plotting an Escape

Yesterday, one of my hens, Barbara Boxer, got trapped in one of those twelve inch plastic milk carton cubes that was sitting out.  You know, the ones you buy at Target for storage purposes.  Anyway, I discovered this in the afternoon when I went out in the humidity to check on the sweaty livestock.  I heard frantic cackling.  I saw curious interest.  My chicken killer puppy Sydnee probed that black plastic upside-down container.  Something moved inside the makeshift cage.  Chapter II of “Chickens knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it”.   Chapter LXVI of farmer playing god and reaching down from people heaven and lifting the cursed carton.  A seeming miracle to the Godless chickens.  A continuing wonder to the amused farmer.  A constant reminder that farmer incompetence trumps barnyard stupidity.  When will they learn.  When will they ever learn.

Don’t know much about how poor Barbara Boxer got boxed in.  Don’t know if that is the end of her woes, but probably not.  I do know that she is not unique among chickens or other life when it comes to getting boxed in by her own actions and needing a seeming miracle to get out.  I was there but if not, death was certain.  The actual box of chicken fiasco opened me up to the hypothetical box of human humility each of us has experienced, escaped, and then been re-trapped within.  Pick from life’s realities, any of life’s challenging realities, and you will be able to assemble a box from which you seemingly can not escape… without a miracle.  Even though you always do.  But one day your luck may run out.  Someday your wits won’t be enough.  Your family and friends may not be able to lift the increasingly heavier box off.  What should you be doing if you are now or have been trapped in a box consisting of a job too consuming, a partner too demanding, finances too over whelming?  I don’t know.  But do something to escape the “box-on-box-off” cycle.

Having been within the walls and ceiling of the job-marriage-employment box, I have been trapped in more than once.  I remember some one reaching down and saving me – once.  I remember reaching up and saving myself – once.  In both cases it was important for me to understand how I got boxed in.  It was important to accept that I had the biggest hand in building the box that so imprisoned me.  It was more important that I did not allow myself to let that same box to surround me again.  I think I have been successful but boxes come in a great many deceptive forms these days and there is no end to the creative ways in which the crafty human can construct his own prison.  Ok, so when one finally finds oneself trapped by the walls of self destruction, what are the steps to getting out?

First – what happened?  Finances, affiliations, frustration will weigh heavily but unless you understand your circumstances you may make things worse by choosing quick action or slow denial.  Find a sound sounding board.  Put your worries on the shelf until they can properly and orderly be consumed.  Maybe speculating the worst can help with putting your best foot forward.  Perhaps saying some things out loud can advise you on your necessities.  Never let a contrarian in the room – this brings doom.  Get yourself a straight shooter to keep you on the path.  Always put your concerns in an important/urgent grid which allows you to label each as important/urgent (!), important/not urgent, not important/not urgent, and NOT IMPORTANT/URGENT (!!!).

The blind pedestrian walks to work on the highway shoulder during rush hour because of the urgency of the job, not the importance his life.  The beleaguered parent watches the world series on a school night because of the importance of escape, not because of urgency.   The jobless breadwinner worries about the urgency of the family vacation, not the importance of getting a job.  Walls are built by current urgency.  They are knocked down with the acknowledgement and action on future importance.  Let go of the immediate curiosity and get a hold future reality.  Dream on but don’t fantasize.  Unless you are still a child, you should not look outside yourself for rescue.  Even though it can happen and inspire wonder, it should not be your fallback plan.  But what do you do if your best isn’t good enough?

Think!  You have to decide what you want before you can decide what you want to do.  Balance your life.  Be honest with yourself.  Shed the things that don’t do you no good.  Usually nagging thoughts should be addressed.  When your unconscious comes knocking, let her in.  She, your unconscious, will not harm you.  That’s a start.  You, your conscious you, has a bad reputation.  Like a manipulative friend, his inspirations go awry.  His motives are the kind that don’t do you no good.  Use evidence, reason, logic, self-preservation if necessary but get out of the box on your own power.  Get into the groove of self-reliance and intuition by acting responsibly, confidently, and slowly.  That’s the ticket.  Who will notice?

Everyone.  Once you can not be easily influenced, lots of people will go away.  Others will attack.  Some will come towards you.  Those are the ones you want in your inner circle.  Losing friends isn’t always a bad thing.  Being alone can sometimes be a good thing.  A dedicated relationship is better than Facebook full of Friends.  Unfriend those who have not proven to be friends.  Reach out to those who are worthy to be friends.  Never seek to go below or above the level of relationship that costs you self-esteem.  Empower yourself using the means that work for you.  Pray.  Read.  Converse.  Listen.  Meditate.  Cry.  Laugh.  Find out who you are on your terms without having those terms dictated to you.  So much of is out of power can be brought into your hands by simply reaching out.  Getting out.  Looking within.

Animals, Vignettes

A Killer Prowls My Land

Yesterday evening, Friday, we arrived back at Sawmyl Synders Farm and one dog greeted us, Syndee, the big Anatolian.  No Sydnee, little Akbash.  We unloaded the truck and entered the cabin I restrained Syndee from accosting my wife.  I looked around.  I called.  I listened.  It was dark.  There was no Sydnee.  I went back in and got one of my newly purchased mini-flashlights.  No need.  With the other lights that come on at night, easy to see a pure white puppy even on a perfectly black night.  The pup just out of sight back near the garden and the coops.  But she didn’t greet me.  Something was awry.  Something was dead.

Sydnee finally did it.  She let her instincts and nature take over.  And now the worst thing, the most nightmarish thing had happened.  Laying in the grass, lifeless, an animal killed by its protector.  An eight week old poulet in the jaws of a four month old guardian dog.  The little chick was too small to survive its first day outside, having escaped its protective coop.  The young puppy, too young to know the consequences of going too far with its animal antics.  The master of both too inept to secure the chicken run against the escape or anticipate the horror of a confrontation with his beloved charges.  The guilty must be dealt with.

A chicken killing dog must be stopped, no matter young or old, no matter if it is the first time.  But first, what happened?  I wanted to let my maturing poulets out of their 8X8 Coop III but the attached chicken run had unrepaired damage from the May floods and also the since departed billy goat.  I inspected the run closely two days ago and made the repairs yesterday.  The repairs consisted of holes torn in the chicken wire, separation of chicken wire from fence and fence panels, and movement of panels from their prior attached positions.  I spent an hour and thought I was thorough.  The poulets were released and reluctantly explored the outdoors, safely in the fully enclosed chicken run.  I checked on them several times that afternoon.  I put a waterer in the chicken yard to encourage their adventuring.  All was well, until the night.

Just when you turn your back.  Just when you let your guard down.  Just when you think it is safe.  The puppy is a guardian as much as it is predator.  A friend can be trusted but he also must be watched.  The needy must be given generosity but their desperation often exceeds their gratitude.  Just as I have faith that my dogs will do their duty, I must also remember their nature.  Just as I trust in my friends, I must remember that they are not family.  Just as I want to give to the needy, neither do I want to be taken.  Each encounter has a double edge.  Each edge has the ability to heal as well as cut.  Do not fall asleep expecting either health or harm.  Do wake up to the possibilities of both from those you choose to allow in your circle.

 

Animals, Vignettes

Tangled Up and Don’t Know What to Do About It

On Monday, I discovered one of my Cornish Rocks with a string wrapped around one leg.  That discarded eighteen inch piece of string belonged to a feed bag and attached to a length of wire which the unlucky chicken dragged around the otherwise sparsely furnished chicken coop.  This unfortunate circumstance happened several days earlier.  How do I know this?  My little chicken, now Chicken Little, grew half the size of the other thirteen coop-mates.  Chicken Little’s right legged extended straight out from her feathered frame due to dragging the mass.  Even though the leg could be flexed, after removing the drag, CL could still not walk properly.  The mishap injured her and crippled her.  I pray she recovers but I doubt she will.  So who is responsible for the crippled chicken?

In my earlier blogs I have besmirched poultry, really all birds, as “bird brains”.  Knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it.  Also, in another blog, I assumed that my chickens knew what they were doing when it came to birthing before finding a dead chick in the nest box.  Who is responsible for the chickens?  Who is responsible for the dangerous debris littering the coops and the grounds?  Who makes assumptions?  The chickens?  No.  Of course it is the clueless farmer.  Yeah, the one over there with the big brain and bushel of assumptions.  The one holding a crippled Cornish Rock in one hand and a dead Buff Orpington chick in the other.  The one making judgements about those under his care and now facing judgement for his lack of care.  Recommendation?  Cleanup, shut-up,  and be a farmer not a philosopher.

I stated last Sunday that I blogged for a hobby, blogged about how my farm animals knew how to get into trouble but never knew how to get out which closely paralleled my own conundrums.  This chick-caught-on-a-string-and-wire episode sits as a good example.  Months ago, I accepted an invitation to a gathering with pleasure.  Weeks ago, I realized the reason for the invitation with apprehension.  Days ago, I accepted my financial obligation with trepidation.  Now, I lay here along side my crippled chick, tangled up in a situation, dragging an unwanted responsibility, and fearing that I will never be quite the fully functioning believer that I was before I got entangled.

Just as I am responsible for removing the hazards to my farm animal and rescuing them when they get into trouble, so also am I responsible for removing hazards to myself and for extricating my limbs from the tangles of life and the people in my life.  Don’t say yes so easily to strangers, it is a steep slope.  Question the details of what you are getting into before getting into it.  If money or time is involved, gather enough information so that you can set a limit.  Even though charity should be unbound generosity, in reality it can become unbound avarice.  The meek can become predatory if you allow yourself to become prey.  Your donation can become robbery if you never stop and say nay.  It is better to stop giving in time than to stop giving altogether.

Animals

Bird Brain – Knowing Only How to Get Into Trouble

Barnyard birds get into trouble.  The trouble farmer gets them out.  Today, ten birds crowded the small isolation coop meant for the six gift hens given by the neighbors.  Six buxom buff orpingtons joined four golden sex-links.  Golden girls.  Farmer Drew Goode knew not how they got into this once-thought-secure coop.  And those golden girls didn’t know how to get out.  No matter how they cooed and cackled the gateway to freedom did not open.  No matter their pained pleas, the resident rooster didn’t come to the ready rescue.  The harried hens knew how to get into trouble.  But they couldn’t, never could, never will figure a way out.

It isn’t that all blondes are dumb, not even in the chicken world.  But at least these blondes, the golden sex-link hens, have an excuse.  Their brain size compares to a dime, though they have slightly more sense.  Early in the week, the fatigued farmer saw Tom turkey roaming outside the turkey trot fence.  Not a complete shock.  When all of the turkeys were younger and more svelte, they were constantly escaping the four foot fencing, flying sometimes thirty feet in the air.  With age and sage, they stuck to the muck of their enclosure, occasionally escape escapades tolerated.  This rare bird broach by big bird required human intervention (open the gate, kick the bird towards it while fending on the guardian dogs).  Soon secured, Tom said nothing about how or why he sought trouble.  The dumb animal, somewhere in his little bird brain, got high on the rescue.

Birds aren’t the only creatures that can’t find their way out of a paper bag, let alone a cardboard box.  Not to labor the dumb blonde sex-links, but one of these cuties found her way into a discarded cardboard box the other day.  Old Goode two-shoes heard some strange clatter as he pronounced his morning chicken chores of fooding and watering.  Thud-scratch-clat-clat-clat!  What could it be?  A little silence and focus led dense Drew to the chicken size box on the nearby bench.  Sure enough, the terror to all head-first-entering beasts – a door that opens to the inside.  Once the chicken pushed into the box to see if there was anything to eat – it became a trap – and escape could only be accomplished by a reluctant benefactor.  Benefactors, though only appreciated at the point of rescue, benefit us all at one time or another in our recurring dead-ends in life.

The moral to the story might be that birdbrains and geniuses both find their way into trouble.  Without a benefactor, one might get stuck.  Without luck, one might succumb to a bad actor.  Sometimes one has claw their way out.  Other times one must stay and fight and adapt to the new environment.

Animals

Wasted All the Way – Bad Debts, Good Intentions, and Naive Assumptions

Today I found a fully feathered chick – in the nest box of a broody hen among a dozen unhatched egg – DEAD.  Eyes pecked out.  Not the original broody hen on the eggs at the time.  I assumed the hens knew what they were doing broody.  I assumed the hens were looking out for chick life among themselves and no harm would come to the new born poulet.  I assumed I knew something that I had no reason to believe.  Feeling naive?  For sure.  Feeling stupid?  Not any more than usual as a novice farmer.  To blame?  Who else?  Stepping back, my fallacy of assumptions, good intentions, and experience with bad debtors, I seem to have built a wall which blocks my vision of reality.  Is this a bad thing?  Whether good or bad, I probably won’t shed my myopic visions of the world to save my life.

Look around me
I can see my life before me

Yesterday, I collected a debt.  Well, I collected the majority of it.  Actually, someone else, a debt collector friend, collected the partial debt for me.  The debtor confected a sweet story, believed by my friend, which had me saying that I would contact the debtor about the repayment.  Not true.  Has this happened to you?  The debtor needed something – six months ago.  The eventual debt collector referred that person to me.  I willingly became the benefactor.  But once the kindest was afforded, I unknowingly became responsible for resolving the debt.  If someone does not value your relationship, that person will not honor their debts incurred.  I learned again the lesson I should have already memorized.

Running rings around the way it used to be

Bad debts, partial payment, lost relationships scatter my past even as my experience with them has enriched my life with unintended wisdom about the way things used to be.

I am older now
I have more than what I wanted
But I wish that I had started long before I did

Early in the week, I encountered some known acquaintances who I intended to help financially.  They certainly needed it.  I could afford it.  What could go wrong?  I don’t mind a little manipulation for a good cause.  I have more than what I wanted…these people have less than they need.  I know that entry into heaven can be influenced on goodness, even though I don’t believe in heaven.  I know that the path to hell is paved with greed and selfishness, even though I don’t believe in hell.  I also now know the feeling of when I don’t want to do something.  This feeling came over me as my good intentions were being manipulated thin by the recipients of my generosity and I felt unintended responsibilities were being piled on.  Soon my financial obligation, already hundred’s of dollars, grew to double.   I sought council and found resolve.  However, the manipulation resumed the next afternoon.  I have little experience with philanthropy because for most of my life I had so little.  Now I know philanthropy’s steep slope, hard for the novice to avoid, with total abuse being the abyss.

And there’s so much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way

A friend in need is a friend indeed, so goes a proverb.  My closest friends, I always assumed, experienced my loyalty.  My old buddy benefited from my friendship on many occasions, yet on many occasions he did not fulfill his assumed commitment to me.  Didn’t show.  Didn’t call.  Didn’t answer the phone, text, or email.  Didn’t care.  My old work colleague of nearly twenty years wore his lack of reciprocity with honor.  He never returned a favor.  Never repaid a debt.  Never spoke well of me to others in person or behind my back.  My old best friend could call me at any time and for any reason and I would be there for him.  This would be true of him toward me when I was in need.  Until the last five years or more.  Just when I needed help most, he did not show.  He did not respond to his own commitment to come over when I flooded this spring and I lost everything.

So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

I secretly estranged myself from my-former-best-friend way before the flood.  I’ll say that life caused him to become loony and lost.  My contacts with him were to sit while he worked on his “zingers” to sling at me.  My widely spaced visits to his house were merely welfare checks, the best part – leaving.  The contagious insanity in that monstrous house infected my inoffensive demeanor.  Now, I got rid of him (from my conscious life) but he still haunts my unconscious.   Unaware he lost a loyal old friend – in the depths and tangles of his new found insanity.

Oh, when you were young
Did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve

As a young one leaving home, I realized something wasn’t right.  I knew I had to get out of that place to find the answers.  I got out but I didn’t find any answers.  I found more questions.  More pain.  But at least I was living in reality if not acknowledging it.  I envied many but found, eventually, that they were also full of unanswered questions about relationships, desire, and flaws in human nature.  I realize that I must state what I want.  But with age, the sand runs faster and the formula for life seems buried.  With regard to human nature, I now give people reduced expectation.  With my own myopia, I must cut through the myth mist.  Be more realistic.

Look around you now
You must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved

I remember what House MD had to say about “deserve”:  “People don’t get what they deserve.  They just get what they get.  There’s nothing any of us can do about it.”  I left home but I never wanted anything but out.  I probably thought I deserved something. I didn’t know what it was.  I certainly didn’t get it.  However, now I have much.  In the form of my children and grandchildren. Those who had much back then, have much less here and now.  My family doesn’t cringe when I approach.  I don’t fabricate the past to justify the present.  I don’t explain a lifetime doing honest work for felonious clients.  I didn’t expose family to felons (or their future felonious ferals) on vacations.  I didn’t hook up with a female felon for future years.  I didn’t get what I deserve but the one’s who got the good stuff early and through stealth,  get other stuff late and through just deserts.

So much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

I waste no time trying to change the past.   Yes, most of my years were spent in fear, isolation, and sadness.  No, I don’t have the power to change any of that.  I wasted time but now it’s over.  My life being over blesses someone who never comprehended my purpose anyway.  Life flows like water under the bridge.  I’ll never get back what I allowed to be taken from me or what I have freely given away.  Bad debts, good intentions, and naive assumptions litter everyone’s path.  Better to let them be carried away than bitter to sit beside them.

Wasted on the Way – Crosby, Stills & Nash

Animals

100 Times Happier

Today, I can turn in every direction – past, present, and future – and see something unseen before.  Partly because savage summer now submits to humane autumn.  Particularly because infernal rain invites eternal sunshine.  Pleasantly because transitory impasse submits slowly to incremental improvement.  The reasons?  Out there, as ever.  As before, I stop, take notice.  Never before, did I think of companions and rain, freedom and weeds, as ends in themselves, let alone beginnings.  Happiness awaits.  She does not pursue you. Nor you her.  She waits for you to be…

Biting is good.  Eating poop is good.  Jumping on a  sleeping dog is good.  It’s all good if you are a two-month-old Akbash puppy relocating from Whirlaway Farms in Caldwell, Texas to Sawmyl Synders Farm in Magnolia, Texas.  Who could be happier?  Definitely Syndee, an eighteen-month-old Anatolian Shepherd livestock guardian dog.  She lost her charge when the May floods carried her boar goat buddies away on fast moving muddy water.  She wandered the abandoned Capra confines and broken fence line of former goat pasture.  She slept long and sullen afternoons until, suddenly Sydnee, the Akbash pup arrived bright eyed and – you know.  At first the towering, older Syndee growled.  She foamed.  Only later did we discover she had been stung or stuck.  Something swelled, a salivary gland, soaking everything, a viscous slobber spill.  Now canine Mutt & Jeff explore the wondrous goat shelter, fascinate the fence line, and snore long satisfying siestas (a trait Syndee picked up this summer).  The new pup purchase quickened the old resident guardian, she learns new tricks from the frisky female partner.  At first, the more mature Syndee, must have thought, “I’d rather be gored by a Boer, literally.  I’d prefer the wrath of a rooster, occasionally.  I’d accept the company of my master, reluctantly.  Anything but this pest.”   Now she’s feeling it.  “Now we be sisters.   Now we couldn’t ask for more.  Now we’re 100 times happier!”

May 26th, 2016 brought a good day to a bad end for Sawmyl Synders Farm.  In two hours of early evening, a freak storm raised the slumbering creek twenty feet and gathered human hopes into it’s new reach.  The little house on the pasture never saw it coming.  The smaller goat shelter surrendered its loved ones to the cruel invasion.  Seventy hens and roosters climbed and crowded up the seven foot roosts in their appointed coops where only twenty could be accommodated.  All of this rolled off the backs of the ducks and geese…  They were 100 times happier!  From muddy duck muck to rushing water – Splash Town!  Tide and torrent beating bills and quills – fowl heaven.  To bring a duck delight, spray it.  To give a goose glee, flood it.  The farmer in his pickup at the end of the driveway,  looked in the rear view mirror, watching the tragedy in reverse.  The dog in the seat along side, watched her master.  Outside, scattered light caught the current, barely communicating that the brown flow overtook the peak of the duck house.  The waterfowl wondered what great deed they had done to deserve this gift from heaven.  One man’s misery is a fowl’s fortune,  or so say the ducks and geese.  Their duck yard mates –  The turkeys – did not squabble.  While Sawmyl Synders Farm rues that day, for the water birds, that day rules.  Remembered with fowl bliss.  Happier.  Much.

Chickens don’t know much but they know what they like.  They don’t like being cooped up.  They don’t like a diet of dry pellets and wet piss-like water.  They don’t like that anytime bids bed time and everyday echoes the same.  But after the flood the surviving soaked hens forced some adjustments.  First, because of the flood waters, the captives still in the coops couldn’t leave.  The outcasts outside the coops couldn’t enter.  The guardian dog – gone.  The protective farmer – here – but only from crowing sun up to sinister sun down.  Predators – all present and preying at sundown.  Two-thirds of the birds were lost to the flood waters.  Next, the predators took advantage of coops damaged and blocked up by tree trunks to decimate the dwindled flock.  Depressed, lethargic and alone, the lone farmer sweated several days, chaining trees and removing debris, and securing sad coops.  Death suffocated continually the already stifling air.  More than a month moaned by before the farm fences stood relatively restored and the growling guardian dog reinstated.  The chickens remained restrained, restricted to their caged in run.  The grounds outside, soon overgrown, a future green feast for these prisoners of water.  The bountiful bugs, the multiplying maggots, the gutted garden created a cornucopia for these birds on the run and their wanton appetites.  Released into this mini-jungle, my hens foraged, 100 times happier.  What else could they want?  A rooster.   So they clucked incomplete…until two months later the yellow young devil moved in – Pac-Man.  A gift from a family that keeps chickens as pets.  Pets with names.  Pac-Man.  This Buff Orpington orphan found a home at Sawmyl Synders when it was discovered at a home in a restricted city sub-division.  He won twenty hens hearts – only after pinning the first three macho hens to the ground who challenged.    A foxy male in the hen house.  Now the girls cackle exponentially happier.

Life makes happiness.  The living make it continue.  A pile of poop, a fast flood, or the slow caress of a fawning beak – each with possibility.  Getting another guardian dog for a farm that had nothing left to guard? Could it make ME happier?  What other wonder hath God wrought?  The muddy duck yard grew verdant, with rich sediment infusing the fowl residence; a thick salad for summer’s feasting.  So where have the piles and deposits left me.  With apprehension abated.  With disaster at ease.  With calm on the creek.  I added forty fluffy pullet chicks to my rinsed off brooders.  Happiness has its moments and its seasons and its sorrows.  Moments have their lightening and their breadth.  Seasons infinitely cycle and influence our happiness quotient but they should never take complete control, no matter their power.  These animals ask for little but return great things.  The openness to being content, satisfied, and happy serves as the greatest gift.  Last May, a flood loomed not possible.  That flood created an opportunity in its pool.  Now, there lives more potential than before…to be happy.

Sawmyl Synders

The Dorp of Dornok – Something is Missing

The old man watched the others fade away.  His parents who put gratitude before self.  The civilized who put civility before righteousness.  The modest and meek who expected nothing from others and usually got exactly that.  It was the time of the New Rude but wasn’t restricted to age or upbringing or species.  It was simply a new time when each one looked out for oneself.  Those who held to the old ways were fewer and being used up faster.  Civilization was dependent on their survival and the one sure thing was that they would not survive the invasion of the New Rude.

Walkel took in everyone, leaving no one out.  The big bear that always interpolated everything that the old man said to be the most idiotic person.  It wasn’t the bear’s fault.  The behemoth had only half a brain, he claimed, because of a hunting accident.  Then there was the loon.  Can’t walk on land but must run on water into the wind in order to take off and fly.  Yes, a problem child.  But the old man fed and protected the bird like it was his own child.  Tolerating incessant ridicule, with little compensation, among the tenants of this man’s cabin, the loon was the least aware of  services rendered.  Finally, there were the ever wet beavers with their crude construction skills and ever eager appetite.  Each was a cross to bear but the kind old soul held hope in the face indicators pointing in the opposite direction.

The Deluge

Grouting Tile and Groveling With My Mortgagee

Since Monday, August 1, I’ve been trying to complete a couple of unfinished objectives: hard tile and legal tender.  The tile in the living room was only half way grouted when the contractors left.  The FEMA money held in escrow by my mortgagee was wholly withheld by the bank from the start.  Following will be a description of who and how I had to literally get on my knees to finish the grout route and figuratively get on my knees to end the mortgagee dead end.  I will be forced to tell you of some of the sins of my contractors.  I will be delighted to tell you about my mortgagee’s many misdemeanors.  My uphill battle with the grouting was a result of my contractors taking the path of least resistance.  My demeaning descent with the little bank that couldn’t was a factor of too many people ascending the corporate ladder and not enough on the ground holding the ladder in place.  As always, and with both, my endeavor endured the pattern of the seasons.  From the dead season of “this should be easy”, to the spring of “lets follow the rules and trust in others so that things will get done”, to the summer of “I should have known it would be like this and when it comes to money, money rules”, and finally to the fall of “you reap what they sow, you don’t get what you pay for, and your urgency doesn’t constitute their priority”.

Grouting tile is a simple yet tedious process.  How to do it is described in step by step instructions on the back of the grout bag in both English and Spanish, along with simple pictures for the simple minded.  There are quicker ways of grouting known to man, men who have grouted standard polished square tile projects.  That brisk quick method spreads grout over a reachable area and uses a wet mop to mop the still wet grout up before it dries.  Rinse, mop and repeat.  Done.  This method is only fair but mostly fast substitute for the conventional approach (trowel out, trowel up, sponge off, sponge clear) because the smooth tile allows for the wet mop to easily sop the tiny excess grout sand in its large roping tentacles and drag them off the slick tile beach into the slop bucket lagoon.  However, this method I rate (irate) poor to inadequate for tile that has a rough texture such as slate stone or wood look porcelain.  The latter, wood look porcelain, is what I have, and what I have is a mess.

Grout contains cement and is easy to apply and clean when wet, impossible to manipulate when it is dry.  The entire tile work that WAS completed in my house was left with dried grout on ALL of the tiles.  In order to clean this residue off the tile there are no easy solutions.  If there is a large amount of grout dried on the tile, I read where one could use a hardwood plank (1×4 oak) to scrape and remove the chunks.  The rest is accomplished by wetting and brushing with water or cleaning solutions and a non abrasive brush (nylon) each crevice of each tile until the hardened artery softens.  I’m referring to scrubbing over 400 square feet of tile needing to be cleaned of a disturbing white grime.  I’m going to roughly estimate that I paid $2400 to have 2 workers lay and grout 400 square feet of tile at $20 an hour, taking 120 hours.  I’ll then estimate that it will take be 15 minutes per square foot to clean each hardened tarnished tile.

That comes out to (400 sq ft X .25 hours) =  100 hours.  We already spent many hours cleaning up the tile project work area, minimal cleaning grout for furniture delivery, and grouting and tiling the remainder of the project, for an approximate total of 32 hours.  Add the 100 hours for cleaning the remainder and you have 132 hours to complete the tile job the workers started.   It will cost me more to complete the job (@ $20 hour) than I paid the workers to get 2/3 of way through it.

I deposited $10K of FEMA insurance money with my mortgagee to be held until repairs were made.  The exact process of what it would take from me to get them to release the money was not worked out but I trusted that it would a simple process.  I started working with one person who knew the ropes but was moving up the corporate ladder.  He said that since he was familiar with my case that I should talk to him with questions and issues.  From that point forward, there was no one else that seemed to be familiar with my situation, able to respond or concerned about me getting my money.

Two months went by before I started to probe the mortgagee about getting my $10K.  I called on a Monday and was told that the guy I needed to talk to was in the corporate office and that they would get back to me.  With no call back I called back later in the week to be told that they were working on it.  Honest.  The next week, I called and was told the fella I had originally talked with was now acting vice president and that the local office would be handling the case.  Still nothing happened.

The following week, I called the main office to get someone who might care, perhaps the acting president.  Instead, the call was routed to a different branch office.  I asked for the acting president by name.  The woman on the other end asked which office my loan was out of.  I told her but added I was asking to speak to the person who was now acting president.  She told me there were 400 employees with the bank and she didn’t know them all by name.  I said he’s your president.  She said she would look up who was his immediate supervisor.  She got the number and the name and transferred me back to my local office.

When the local office answered, I explained my circumstance and she said she would get someone.  That someone was the top guy at that office and he knew all about my situation.  He told me what he needed from me (receipts, pictures) and what I needed from him.  I stopped everything to deal with this glimmer of hope.  I sent my spreadsheet of expenses immediately.  I sent the copies of receipts, payments, and progress pictures that night.  Two days later – nothing.  I called the office again.  The receptionist said she was not familiar with my case.  She put another woman on who was.  Apparently the guy I had spoken to two days ago had handed my case over to her.  I had sent all of my documents by email directly to the top guy at the local office.  The woman now in charge was not aware that the signed documents were returned because he turned it over to her and didn’t open his emails.

She said she would take care of it and send me my money.  Hours later – nothing.  I called her and she said had everything she needed and would be sending the money electronically that afternoon – and she did.  That should be the end of the story.  However, a larger check arrived that same day with the mortgagee’s name on it.  This will have to be deposited with them and the same process repeated.  We are back living in the house but that does not automatically mean they will be giving us the money.  I must now make this place look good for the mortgagee so that the rest of the money is easily released.  Good luck with that.

 

The Deluge

The End or the Beginning – Furniture -Arriving!

Yesterday was a mad scramble to get the floors ready for the furniture arriving today.  Specifically, the master bedroom and living room tile.  It wasn’t cleaned of the grouting material.  Not even close.  So I arrived at nine a.m. to find it that way and mopped the whole house.  It still looked bad.  I called my wife and told her the situation.  Driving back to her house, grabbing some cleaning stuff, we landing back at the farm and started work.  She mopped and re-mopped the master bedroom.  I concentrated on the portion of the living room that would be reserved for the large sectional couch.  I scrubbed the wood-look tile on my hands and knees.  After five hours, the tile was much improved but mediocre.  It would have to do.  We were whipped.

If I had it to do over, I would do it differently.  The language barrier was too much.  The expertise was too limited.  The price was too high.  I still have a month of work left.  I have untold fixes on work done or left undone.  I have time.  Especially if I make the life changes I have in mind.  Dropping an activity here a relationship there.  Adding goals and discipline in their place should do the trick.  Goals will be easier than discipline.  The discipline I don’t have is the discipline I’m talking about.  An everyday get up and push-up and run and diet, in a mental sort of way.  The path to discipline a path divergent to natural tendencies.  The ascent of discipline is the descent of natural tendencies.  The seasons of discipline are the winter of discontent, the spring of effort, the reality of personality and the harvest of an essentially modified and more disciplined natural tendency.

If my life is to be better then I have to be better.  My temper must be kept in a different place than on my sleeve.  What I expect and what think the world should need to be seen as humorous approaches to life that when confronted by real life, are exposed and trampled – with a giggle!  The tendency of me to allow inane circumstances to kerfuffle my demeanor is many a splendor-ed disorder.  There are so many stories that could be drawn from the tormentors who bring out the worst in me and tantrums that love to be brought out with them.

In any case, living room, bedroom, and dining room should arrive today.  I’ll call my mortgagee to get an answer on how I get my money held in escrow.  I’ll get it, I know.  Along with the long awaited FEMA checks.  To day I should buy the two TV stands.  One for Francis and one for Sawmyl Synders.  Need to call the plumber about the natural gas line.  Need to call AT&T about cable.  Need to find someone to cleanup the jungle that has developed in the beds around the house.  Plenty to do while the heat of summer is still on.  Plenty to be done before the heat needs to come on for winter.

About that house in the back, you were saying?  Oh, yeah, the little log cabin that faces Veterans drive.  A real log cabin with an efficient fire place and water well and an aerobic septic system.  Where the water can’t get to me and the neighbors are close and the original farm house is 2,000 feet from my new door step.  What happens first?  How about designing that puppy complete so that you can then start putting in a foundation.  Who will we meet?  We’re bound to meet somebody.  Who will we lose?  Old man river I should hope.