January 12: More Blessings

On Saturday, Phil had a morning meeting with friends from church. I am pleased with how many opportunities he has to talk about God's word, and to encourage the believers (and be encouraged). He picked up a specific wrench to get the tractor's filter off, too, while he was in town. We have hope that by changing the filter and the hydraulic fluid, that will be sufficient, and we won't also have to replace the pump.

We had just enough of a freeze on Saturday night that Phil was up early Sunday to try to deliver hay. He first tried his wrench—success removing the filter! Then he put back the hydraulic fluid, which he said ran quite freely compared to the draining process. Was it because it was a different brand? Because it was new and clean? Or because the temperature wasn't single digits? I don't know.

But thanks be to God, a new filter and new hydraulic fluid was sufficient to get our tractor working again! And Phil was able to deliver two bales of hay, and only got stuck part way up the driveway! Better still, by midafternoon, the land had dried enough that he was able to drive the tractor the rest of the way up the slope.

We also spent a few minutes banding the bull calf. Soon he won't be Ferdinand the Bull, but Ferdinand the Steer. That's fine by me. Then we turned cow and calf back in with the rest of the cows. The mom is not a great milker, so while she should produce enough to feed her baby, I'm not anticipating anything more.

Then, since the weather was glorious and I was antsy, Phil and I spent maybe an hour doing the very beginning of clean up around our site. I carried several loads of small cardboard boxes down to the burn pile. We did general pick up of strewn about trash. I like the feeling of civilization returning, bit by bit.

And I had a special surprise. As I was walking back up the hill after delivering a load of boxes to the burn pile, I noticed my two neglected beehives. I didn't bother to do anything for them this fall, no feeding or monitoring. I suspected they might both have died out. The first monitoring tray I pulled was deeply covered with flakes and debris. I feared the worst.

But when I thumped the side of the hive, the short, healthy hum of a hibernating hive sounded for a few seconds. The second hive, too, sounded fine. What a gift!