November 24 and 25

On Sunday, after church and community group, Jonelle and I looked through homeopathy books, comparing what we’ve used the last year with the course we’re looking to transfer into. We are excited about the books we’ll be using: much superior to what we’ve been using.

On Monday, I had a day in the car: up to Charlottesville to drop off Jonelle and home again. Up to Charlottesville to take three boys for evaluations by the holistic dentist and home again.

Jonelle was blessed with travel mercies: she caught a standby flight for the second leg of the trip and made it home hours earlier than she would have.

I had a mercy at the dentist. Although the appointment was scheduled for Jadon, Abraham, and Joe (all cavity-free, thankfully), I asked about Caleb’s difficulty latching on. It turns out he is pretty severely tongue-tied and has a very high dental palate. A frenectomy (to cut the frenum and free his tongue) can be done without anaesthetic up to six months: that might allow him to avoid later dental issues, and it will certainly help with his latch.

I’ve scheduled it for ten days from now.

We returned home to find that Phil had had a profitable four hours. He had dug a trench and laid a water line, and backfilled the trench.

Our water to the RV froze last night. We have done no dishes. We have steaks thawed, but no plates to eat them on, no forks to eat them with, no knives to cut them into bits. So we had popcorn for dinner. And some bread.

When we have no water, life feels much harder than normal.

Phil told me later that he had had an issue with water, too. I had done a good job during his illness making sure the water line was unhooked from the spigot to the cows. But the line curled in a few places, and the water in those places froze. To water the cows, he had to go out with a blowtorch and melt the water, but not the plastic. I suspect it took quite a long time.