Error Correction

Phil was up early to prep for the day. I had to leave by 8:50, and before I left I had made bread, then helped Phil separate Charlemagne the bull in with Belle, in hopes that she will breed during her next cycle. Phil had set up all the lines so perfectly that it took about two minutes and was extremely low stress. (We had been expecting a challenge and woke up the two older boys. They needed to do nothing.)

I milked and Phil kept moving cows. He had also pulled the tire off the tractor and stuck it in the van.

After my midwife appointment, I went to a new-to-me store that deals with all manner of tires. They had sourced the tube we needed for the tractor—living a half hour from the Shenandoah Valley, a major agricultural area, means that most sourcing is available next day. Not only did they very nicely get the tire out of the car for me, but the entire changing of spent tire for a new took about seven minutes before they loaded it again for me.

I remember an afternoon my freshman year of college where a friend and I wrestled all afternoon with trying to swap a spent tube on my bike. Hours of annoying, pointless labor later, we brought the bike to a shop. So to have a seven minute turnaround was like a miracle. When I mentioned that while paying, the cashier laughed, and the serviceman said, "I can do it again!"

We again had a downpour in the early afternoon. Phil used the time to research rubber roofs. "I've designed them regularly, but I've never actually seen one installed." So now he knows more specifics of the actual fasteners, and has watched a YouTube movie on how to install one. With the amount of water that leaks between the plywood, as soon as the plywood is down, we want the rubber up.

To try to prevent leaks, Phil did seal between the cracks. One of the tubes must have gotten wet in its not-as-protected-as-we-thought location. He was pressing it out and the cardboard tube cracked on him, sending sealant all over. Yuck.

He was climbing the ladder, and the ladder slipped down. I don't know how far he fell (not too far, I don't think), but his shin was bloodied.

Mostly what he did today, though, was error correction. Apparently, in running a tape measure over the top of the joists, he realized that the actual length is an inch short. But he hadn't realized that, and so he had measured joist locations from the east and then from the west, which threw off the measurements by that inch. I was of the "so what?" mentality, but apparently there would be ramifications down the road if that wasn't corrected, so that was what he did today, as well as further strengthening the blocking he installed yesterday (putting in little scraps of wood as stabilizers, I think). So he felt he had been productive, though, looking at the structure, nothing really changed. An inch over 48' isn't very obvious. Sealant between plywood is useful, but doesn't change the look overall.

***

And a report primarily for grandparents.

The boys have been impressing me lately. Joe brought Phil a jar of water yesterday, without any prompting from either of us. What a good guy! (When I complimented him, he said, "I just brought one. I didn't want to bring two.")

Abraham has been doing a Sports Camp with our church, and his leader caught up to me as we were leaving and he praised Abraham's sweet spirit and helpfulness. "He didn't want to get wet [many water balloon activities, I think], but he ran errands and picked up spent balloons. He is the sweetest boy. We love having him on our team."

Jadon and Isaiah are on a different track at Sports Camp. Today they played a form of dodge ball that sounded like utter chaos, and Jadon mentioned how he hid two balls behind his back and sidled up to the other team and knocked two people out. Abraham clapped his hands and said, "That is so clever! I wish I had thought of it!" It was clever!

And Isaiah mentioned that he said his Bible verse and was given a cherry taffy as a treat, "But I gave it back." Yes! Indoctrination of good eating has worked well so far! (And in defense of the sweet volunteers at Sports Camp, they had fruit snacks of some sort for the other children, but had specially provided raisins for the boys. I was touched by that thoughtfulness.)

Even the new baby got some accolades today from the midwife. She palpated and—good news!—the baby is head down (of course, with about 13 weeks until the due date, the baby could flip once or twice again, but I'm always happy with a head down position). But she also started laughing and said, "This is a fun baby! I just touch, and there's a little kick or squirm under my hands!"