Busy Couple of Days…

Sunday, we went into town so our people could go to church, and we could visit with our half-sisters. After church, Little Bear, and his mom and dad surprised Mom at Mimi’s house for a small birthday party. I heard Robert joke that Mom was “older than dirt.” She laughed and smacked him. I didn’t know you COULD be older than DIRT! What was on the ground before dirt?

Mimi had made two really pretty cakes. One with fruit, that was “Lite”… I guess that means that it was white, which it was, but I don’t know why they didn’t just call it “White,” and another that was chocolate with chocolate frosting. Unfortunately, WE only got a little taste of each.

We had to leave pretty early for a Sunday, because Robert and Dad had to make the monster finish up burying the trench it had dug before. Robert had to get up early Monday morning to haul it back to it’s home in the big town, while Dad went back to work. They sure didn’t get a very good rest this weekend, and WE didn’t get to spend much time with them either! I hope that old monster doesn’t come back and hog more time from US any time soon!

They had to let the glue dry on some of the fittings and tighten a few others before they could try to turn on the water. Mom was almost afraid to hope because that waterline runs over a mile and a half across several people’s back pastures (for those that are fairly new to this blog) and one of those people has big equipment. They sometimes break our waterline when they aren’t careful and run over it. Since it’s been off for so long, we won’t know if they have caused a problem until we turn on the water and let it run for a while.

Robert is still making water barrel runs. With Dad at work and Robert running to the Big Town, doing water runs and then our people going to their Monday night Bible Study, they couldn’t test the line Monday. Robert tried to turn on the water Tuesday evening, but there were some big leaks around some “fittings.”

He had to go and get some kind of tool they needed to tighten them up. If they are “fittings,” why don’t they fit without extra tighteners. People call things such weird names. He DID bring me a present when he came home, though. Now, I have a squeaky squirrel, too!

The leak from the first test made the hole fill with water, so now they have to wait again for it to drain/dry out so they can dig out the mud enough to redo the “fittings.” That was good anyway because we’ve had to run into Mimi’s town the past couple of days for appointments and work Robert had to do at the church. Dad also got an extra fitting in case the other fitting had it’s own problems or was made wrong. It's been a PAIN for them!

We DID get a little water up to the house during that first test, and got Mom pretty excited, but then Robert called on his cell phone and said he had to turn it off again because of that leak, so she cried a little. We felt bad that she was upset, but she says that when the time is right, it will happen. Maybe the next time they turn it on, Mom will be able to do her “Happy Dance…”

There is another big fire on the other side of the small mountains from us and it is putting out a lot of smoke in the air. It made the sun look dark red Monday night and last night. Robert tried to take some pictures, but by the time he got the camera out, the angle had changed so it’s not as red in the pictures as it was when we were looking at it. It made Mom think about what the Bible says about the sun turning blood red during the end times. Interesting how smoke makes it do that…

We are just glad that the wind hasn’t blown a lot of it this way because Dott HATES smoke and always gets all nervous and shaky when she smells it. Last year when they had a big fire and the smoke blew our way the first night, she went in and woke Mom up and wouldn’t let her go back to bed until she checked out the whole house and went outside and found out that it was on the wind. Mom says Dott is a good smoke detector.