Some Couple Weeks
Last week, my home computer gave up the ghost. I shut it down one night, and in the morning, nothing. No boot cycle. Nothing. That usually means a blown motherboard, though I couldn't tell you how it happened, so rather than go and get a new one and see if I could get all my components to work with it, I stripped the components and went and got another computer. If you're wondering why no blog for two weeks, that's most of the reason. Reassembling all the data and all the programs is a process that is still going on. It takes forever and it isn't cheap.
Also last week, the central vac stopped working. Central vac is great, but it's biggest drawback is that if something gets jammed in the piping, you're screwed. It costs a good deal to get it out again, unless you are hugely fortunate and can do it yourself. Well, we have one or two kids here, and they have one or two friends, and things are constantly getting jammed. Sometimes we can get them out. Not this time. Not only that, but the guy comes out, fixes the problem, and within one day it starts again; exactly the same problem in exactly the same place. We haven't been able to vacuum the house in over two weeks. Maybe in your house that's livable; here, it is not. We need the vacuum every day. There is an oppressive and increasing amount of crap on the floor and it's starting to really weigh on Jeanette, especially, who has to be around it every day and can't really get it clean with a dustbuster.
Last Friday, as I was driving home from the home office in Bountiful, just tooling along in the fast lane doing a relatively sedate 75, the the engine up and stops. I rolled to a stop about a quarter mile from the Bangerter highway exit - thank Heaven it wasn't much, much further north - over against the concrete dividers and tried to get it to start. No luck. I had to get Jeanette to come get me - fortunately she could - and tow me to my folks' place, where we could get the car over to the mechanic.
He called about half an hour later and told us the integrated timing belt broke and we'd have to spend about $500 just to find out if the car had any serious damage to it, which it probably did. A new engine costs $3500. I bought the car to be my primary transportation, leaving Elanor, our Dodge Stratus, for my wife, so she didn't have to drive our gas-guzzling 15-passenger van to the grocery store while the kids were in school. We had owned it for a little over two weeks.
Those things are a little tough to take. They hurt our wallets, which are none too fat to begin with, and they take up huge chunks of time, of which we have even less. They kill productivity, stop momentum, wear us out. But in the end, they're just things, and things we can get along without.
But then yesterday morning, a stray dog got into our back yard. We were sitting down to scriptures when we heard him barking at our cats, so we sent Alexander, our animal lover (and our oldest and largest child) to shoo him away. Friendly dog. Didn't bark at him and wasn't mean.
A few minutes later, Xander came in white as a sheet and told us he thought the dog had killed all our chickens. We have ten chickens of all sizes and ages, all different kinds, many of whom were given to us by locals, but some we raised from eggs since the day they were hatched. They were all young, and just starting to lay. We built them a very sturdy coop and run, and were looking forward to a long cycle of egg production, something we really need. They had names. They had personalities. They were, like all living things that we come to know - animals, people, everyone - part of our family.
I say "were" because Xander was right. Silky, Xander's favorite, was lying in the middle of the run. Chickens don't lie down on their sides, except for one reason. The coop exterior door was open, and Honey, Charlotte's favorite, was lying in the doorway. Outside on the grass by the woodpile three of our bantams were scattered in a mass of feathers. When we opened the coop, we found the Chicklets, the three Buff Orpingtons we raised from the day they were born, all together as always, all dead.
Reconstructing, the gate had been left open and the dog - it was a bird dog breed - got through into the back yard, jumped up on the coop and broke into the run. It killed and ate one of the bantams, then killed Silky in the run while the rest of the flock tried escaping into the coop. But the dog followed, killed the Chicklets, who would, just like our three older boys, never leave each other no matter the danger, then killed Honey and in doing so knocked the door open, so the three remaining bantams escaped through the door. The dog caught them and killed them a few feet away. Because most of it happened inside the coop, we never heard a thing.
By this point, of course, the girls are weeping, and the rest of us are
having trouble ourselves. We loved these birds. What made it worse
was that we, all of us, felt responsible for not having protected them. They were in trouble and needed our help, and we weren't there. We knelt together as a family - nobody's going to school after this, I can tell you, not today - and prayed that God would forgive us for not being better stewards, and that He'd help us not hate the dog, who was just being a dog. Our family has had some shocks, and we've always prayed for help when they came, and our prayers are always answered.
They were this time as well. It was a terrible day, a very sad day, but we were comforted and it didn't end up being traumatic. We worked together to bury the chickens (except the one we ate - hey, it's what chickens are for), get the house cleaned up a little, get the garden back in shape. We pulled together and talked about what happens to us when we die. Fortunately, none of us have had to face that yet. But it's coming, and we need to be ready. And it turns out that our best egg layer survived the attack. Crispy is the one that knows how to get out of the run, and she did it when the dog attacked. She got bit - there are feathers all over - but she escaped. How she'll deal with being all by herself instead of part of a flock, we don't know, but we're very grateful she's still with us.
I don't know what this is all for. We're under a black cloud at the moment. We're not able to replace the car, and it will take months to replace the chickens. Huge amounts of time and money, feed and water, exacting care so that eventually - next March, now - we'll start to get eggs again. We can survive without another car, though it will cost us both in the wallet and on the clock.
But we're here. All of us are still here. Thanner is still running around the house and laughing, and it's a school day. Life goes on.
Psalm 121:1. We'll make it.
Also last week, the central vac stopped working. Central vac is great, but it's biggest drawback is that if something gets jammed in the piping, you're screwed. It costs a good deal to get it out again, unless you are hugely fortunate and can do it yourself. Well, we have one or two kids here, and they have one or two friends, and things are constantly getting jammed. Sometimes we can get them out. Not this time. Not only that, but the guy comes out, fixes the problem, and within one day it starts again; exactly the same problem in exactly the same place. We haven't been able to vacuum the house in over two weeks. Maybe in your house that's livable; here, it is not. We need the vacuum every day. There is an oppressive and increasing amount of crap on the floor and it's starting to really weigh on Jeanette, especially, who has to be around it every day and can't really get it clean with a dustbuster.
Last Friday, as I was driving home from the home office in Bountiful, just tooling along in the fast lane doing a relatively sedate 75, the the engine up and stops. I rolled to a stop about a quarter mile from the Bangerter highway exit - thank Heaven it wasn't much, much further north - over against the concrete dividers and tried to get it to start. No luck. I had to get Jeanette to come get me - fortunately she could - and tow me to my folks' place, where we could get the car over to the mechanic.
He called about half an hour later and told us the integrated timing belt broke and we'd have to spend about $500 just to find out if the car had any serious damage to it, which it probably did. A new engine costs $3500. I bought the car to be my primary transportation, leaving Elanor, our Dodge Stratus, for my wife, so she didn't have to drive our gas-guzzling 15-passenger van to the grocery store while the kids were in school. We had owned it for a little over two weeks.
Those things are a little tough to take. They hurt our wallets, which are none too fat to begin with, and they take up huge chunks of time, of which we have even less. They kill productivity, stop momentum, wear us out. But in the end, they're just things, and things we can get along without.
But then yesterday morning, a stray dog got into our back yard. We were sitting down to scriptures when we heard him barking at our cats, so we sent Alexander, our animal lover (and our oldest and largest child) to shoo him away. Friendly dog. Didn't bark at him and wasn't mean.
A few minutes later, Xander came in white as a sheet and told us he thought the dog had killed all our chickens. We have ten chickens of all sizes and ages, all different kinds, many of whom were given to us by locals, but some we raised from eggs since the day they were hatched. They were all young, and just starting to lay. We built them a very sturdy coop and run, and were looking forward to a long cycle of egg production, something we really need. They had names. They had personalities. They were, like all living things that we come to know - animals, people, everyone - part of our family.
I say "were" because Xander was right. Silky, Xander's favorite, was lying in the middle of the run. Chickens don't lie down on their sides, except for one reason. The coop exterior door was open, and Honey, Charlotte's favorite, was lying in the doorway. Outside on the grass by the woodpile three of our bantams were scattered in a mass of feathers. When we opened the coop, we found the Chicklets, the three Buff Orpingtons we raised from the day they were born, all together as always, all dead.
Reconstructing, the gate had been left open and the dog - it was a bird dog breed - got through into the back yard, jumped up on the coop and broke into the run. It killed and ate one of the bantams, then killed Silky in the run while the rest of the flock tried escaping into the coop. But the dog followed, killed the Chicklets, who would, just like our three older boys, never leave each other no matter the danger, then killed Honey and in doing so knocked the door open, so the three remaining bantams escaped through the door. The dog caught them and killed them a few feet away. Because most of it happened inside the coop, we never heard a thing.
By this point, of course, the girls are weeping, and the rest of us are
having trouble ourselves. We loved these birds. What made it worse
was that we, all of us, felt responsible for not having protected them. They were in trouble and needed our help, and we weren't there. We knelt together as a family - nobody's going to school after this, I can tell you, not today - and prayed that God would forgive us for not being better stewards, and that He'd help us not hate the dog, who was just being a dog. Our family has had some shocks, and we've always prayed for help when they came, and our prayers are always answered.
They were this time as well. It was a terrible day, a very sad day, but we were comforted and it didn't end up being traumatic. We worked together to bury the chickens (except the one we ate - hey, it's what chickens are for), get the house cleaned up a little, get the garden back in shape. We pulled together and talked about what happens to us when we die. Fortunately, none of us have had to face that yet. But it's coming, and we need to be ready. And it turns out that our best egg layer survived the attack. Crispy is the one that knows how to get out of the run, and she did it when the dog attacked. She got bit - there are feathers all over - but she escaped. How she'll deal with being all by herself instead of part of a flock, we don't know, but we're very grateful she's still with us.
I don't know what this is all for. We're under a black cloud at the moment. We're not able to replace the car, and it will take months to replace the chickens. Huge amounts of time and money, feed and water, exacting care so that eventually - next March, now - we'll start to get eggs again. We can survive without another car, though it will cost us both in the wallet and on the clock.
But we're here. All of us are still here. Thanner is still running around the house and laughing, and it's a school day. Life goes on.
Psalm 121:1. We'll make it.
Labels: adversity, family, perseverance
posted by Cj at 7:45 AM
3 Comments:
Chris- If you still have access to the car and haven't torched it in anger, I will buy the wheels off of it for $1000. Scott's folks want them for Vicki's Prelude.
Predictable. I'd have tried to keep you from finding out about the car if I didn't think it was impossible. Mostly, I've been trying to figure out how to stop you from making this offer.
Because of course I can't accept it. You sold me a 20-year-old car. This is what happens to cars that are 20 years old. It isn't your fault, and you shouldn't have to pay for it, and you need the money your own self.
The tires are free. I have done them no harm (nor would I - I really liked that car). You can have them.
Cj
But hey, at least you still have your hair.
Love you bro.
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