Hog Heaven?

Goings on ...

We picked our first cucumbers a few days ago and harvested our corn 2 days ago. The corn, due to lack of rain at the critical time wasn’t as big as in the past, but it still is tasty. We are just finishing last year’s corn from the freezer. I don’t know if we will have enough to put up much this year, but I will take what God provides.

We had to replant our cantaloupe and pumpkins. They are just breaking ground last week, so we will see how they do. The tomatoes are there, but slow in coming.

We still have a very large hog to put down. We just never got around to it, and now it looks like the fall? This is the last of our own hogs. We have two young Jersey steers (Jersey beef is the best to eat.) which should be ready in winter and early spring. AND we bought a pregnant sow a few weeks ago. I want to get our own breeding stock again, but it will have to wait until the fall. (I think I said that last year.)

The bathroom remodel saga still goes on. Remodeling a bathroom which is not square and which has many quirks in the walls and plumbing has been no fun. Looking back, I should have gutted the whole thing including the towel closet and started from scratch. The budget would probably been about the same and I would have finished a week ago.  Yesterday I thought we were ready at least to have the bathtub operating (shower walls are proving a bear), but alas the tub drain is leaking. Oh, it goes on and on.

Oremus pro invicem!

Still on bathroom remodel – day 15 of a planned 2-day project….

But bigger things are happening. I have mentioned in passing before that we have had a special young man visiting with us for the past 3+ years. Just a few days ago we signed adoption papers for this special 13-year old. Nothing is final until the court signs off on the adoption, but now it is all but final. Happy days!

Oremus pro invicem!

Daughter B found the calf in the corn this morning. Not too much damage. But it was hard moving the several hundred pound steer back into its own fencing. I guess we should have halter broke it. But of course we usually won't do that for a Jersey steer going into the freezer come winter....

We had no rain for a month, and hot, hot weather. Cucumbers fared well, but the cantaloupe and beans never broke surface. Replanted some this week after 3 or 4 days of off and on rain (finally). This rain may have saved the corn.

Still working on the bathroom. Floor, toilet, vanity and tube are installed. Kitchen sink let go in the middle of all of it. JB Weld solved the problem.

This morning I installed shutoff valves under the house for the shower hot and cold so I can total redo the plumbing for the tub and shower at my leisure. This plumbing is necessary to get the shower walls to fit properly.

Oremus pro invicem!

Life is great, but I hate bathroom remodels. I have been working so much and doing so many things that this old blog has been sadly neglected. Did I mention I hate bathrooms?

School is out for me, and except for a possible 4 week course at the end of July, I have little work this summer. 

That may be good because the 2-day bathroom remodel looks like it may take many more days and even weeks. Did I mention how much I hate bathrooms? Things leak...

I am done for the night, but I am hoping that by this time tomorrow night the most critical issues have been resolved. 

The worst of it is that after this remodel, I tackle the one upstairs..... This could be the summer from....

But otherwise, life is great. I am blessed greatly. More on this later, if I can get by the bathroom issues.

Oremus pro invicem!

It's been a long time, and lots has happened. I have been to Wyoming to see my granddaughter. I listened to talks about "The Beer Option" at St. Joseph's Farm. I have finished the semesters at both my Adjunct gigs. A few weeks off and all the kids will be home at sometime in the next couple weeks. Everyone overlaps for at least one day.

I love Wyoming. This time Mrs. Curley went with me. She fell in love too.

The homestead is at a quiet time. We have been drying the peanuts and need to take them off the vine. The Jerusalem artichokes are ready for harvest.

We need to get back to cutting wood for next year. And there are two hogs out there ready for slaughter.

Mrs. Curley (especially) and I are testing our will power and patience, having an infant and her 2-year old brother staying with us since July. I forgot about infants....

I have thought often of writing about various things I have heard on the radio or read about, but there has been little time.

Oremus pro invicem! 

Life and Death

I became a grandfather for the first time one day late last week. There is a certain joy to this. It is hard to explain. It is also difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that my son is now a father. 

I remember when I am taking my children to college the first time, it usually involves a long drive. During the drive, I always panic that I only have a few hours left to tell him or her all things I should have but haven't gotten around to yet.

But this is worse, I can't tell my sons how to be a good father (or daughters a good parent). All they have is my example - yet that has been too often lacking. Hopefully they will get their inspiration - not from me, but from the Bible and see how God is a good father.

*******************

Last week we also lost a good one. My wife's uncle, Dave Stanley, passed away. He was a good man. He was always welcoming to our family. I recall especially he was good to our special needs foster son. Dave always made our foster son smile, let him drive the golf cart to his extreme delight, and bought him hats - a favorite item for our son.

May his soul rest in peace!

Oremus pro invicem!

Time

We had the best looking sweet sorghum crop in years, but we ran out to time to process it correctly. It won't go to waste, the seeds are chicken feed and the stocks, although not squeezed to make syrup, will be fed to some appreciative pigs.

We are just about done with most of the summer garden. There are lingering tomatoes and one or two pumpkins left to pull. It was a good year for pumpkins, although absent were some of the huge pumpkins of past years.

For to be a farmer's boy, 1887-Winslow Homer

I think our peanuts (although the smallest plot in years) will be stellar based on what I have seen so far. Harvest is still a few weeks away.

The summer won't leave. We are still having 90+ to 100 degree days everyday. It burns up any broccoli or cabbage you try to put in.

With school having starting for me, getting a big fall garden in will be a challenge. I like fall gardens because weeds don't grow.

Speaking of school, I have started a new assignment. In addition to teaching part-time at a local technical college, I am now teaching Physics at a 4-year college (as an adjunct.) 

More money but less time at the homestead.....

Oremus pro invicem!

Back to Cleveland!

It had been 30 years. I lived in Cleveland for 2 years. The last thing I did there was to attend my friend's wedding in 1988.

Last week I was back in Cleveland for my son's wedding. It was great. The liturgy was chanted. Everything was beautiful. The bride's family was very gracious. We had a great time!

Oremus pro invicem!

The need is great!

I mentioned back in 2016 that we were finally licensed for foster care in South Carolina. Since then we have had 10 children ranging from 4 months to 15 years come into our home for times ranging from a few days to more than 2 years.

Our very first foster child is still with us after more than 2 years. Presently we also have 2 other young children.

But we get calls all the time to take more....

Yesterday we had two calls: the first to take a sibling group comprising 6-month old and two-year old; the second for a sibling group of 5 children.

And this is not the first time we have received multiple calls in one day.

We don’t have the beds or rooms to take more than we have now. (Sometimes I wish we did – other times we feel overwhelmed with whoever we have at the time.)

It is hard to say “no”.

The need is tremendous. We have been very blessed.

Oremus pro invicem!

Assuming this is an accurate quote that is making the rounds (or even if it is not) I endorse this remedy of St. Basil and would only add that the same consequence should apply to anyone who knew of such behavior and didn't report it:

Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting into his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in the custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjugated to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men for purposes of improper conversation or advice.

They still don't get it, do they?

It is a struggle not to be consumed by all this.

I am reading the Power of Silence by Cardinal Sarah. Begin agitated by the news is not part of his remedy.

Oremus pro invicem!

Diapers

I may have alluded to the fact that we have had a special young man living with us for the past 2+ years. It may become permanent sometime in the next - who knows how long when government agencies and courts are involved? - but we are looking forward to it.

In the meantime, Mrs. Curley and I are expecting our first grandchild in September - in Wyoming - go figure. 

I don't feel old except when I get up (out of bed, out of the car, out of the couch) or when I climb over things. In both cases, I creak. Once I am up, I am fine. Not that being a grandfather means you are old....

So this week we took on a 3 week old and her 2 year old brother. 2 in diapers! at our age! Maybe we are going through a mid-life crisis - trying to prove we can still do it. Just now I changed the poopy infant, the poopy 2 year-old, and then the poopy infant again. During this second change she peed all over the place. Not complaining. These are gifts.

I asked Mrs. Curley this morning how long she could do what she did last night - up every three hours up for feeding/changing, etc.  She just looked at me.

Oremus pro invicem!

Rainbow in Bethune

This was taken a few weeks ago. It was more impressive in person - the camera on my phone is not much to write home about.

We need more of this - rain that is. We ate our first corn tonight, but I don't know how the rest will go without more rain.

Oremus pro invicem!

End of an era

For the first time in at least 10 years we don't have a breeding pair of hogs on the property. Thor (Hampshire boar) and Polly (York/Duroc cross sow) have both found new homes.

We do have enough pigs to keep us in pork for a while. We will look for a new breeding pair in the coming months, but it will give us a little break for the summer.

Speaking of the summer...we are starting to pick summer produce. Today the first batch of green beans, along with some zucchini and cukes.

Oremus pro invicem! 

We've been hearing a duck quacking ...

but it was a frog!

I took a picture of a frog in the overflow pipe from our kitchen in August 2016. Now he's there again, but bigger! See for yourself, same pipe.

May 2018

August 2016

Confession

Saw this on the confessional door at the Divine Mercy Shrine in Stockbridge, MA last week.

Oremus pro invicem!

May he rest in peace....

Fr. John Oholohan, former pastor at St. Catherine's passed away on April 19 at 95 years old. The picture above shows Father with my 4 sons (and others) before Mass some years ago.

Below is a picture of Father John giving his first blessing to his parents at his ordination.

God blessed us immeasurably with Fr. John's presence in our lives at St. Catherine's. May his soul rest in peace!

The link gives the details.
Fr. John Oholohan

Some pictures....

The garden is finally coming alive. We have tons of broccoli, and below is a view of one of our small sweet corn plots. Let's hope the rain keeps coming!

Number 1 son just graduated from AFR boot camp!

And finally a historical picture: Not sure when this was taken, but probably last year at Number 2 son's graduation weekend from NCC. He came across the picture and noticed that I was in the center of it. Looks like I arrived just in time not to be late! 

Oremus pro invicem!

Spring arrivals

Woke up this morning to find our new litter of 15 pigs! Hopefully Polly will be a good mother - usually she is.

Our game hen hatched 5 chicks last week. Garden is slow due to lingering cold weather, but we have had some broccoli and lettuce.

Oremus pro invicem!

How do you want to live?

This is the question asked and answered (below) over at Country Will Always Be Home. I am  humbled by the wisdom dispensed by this young man. Read everything he writes. (Besides, I like the pictures. They remind me of home!)

You can follow the current and live a dull, predetermined course. You can seek financial, political and social stability. You can spend pointless endless hours on Netflix, social media, gaming, and small talk. You can be that object, floating downstream, unaware of where it is headed but thinking it is comfortable going wherever the current drags it. But if you choose that path, no one will recognize the life within you.

He is risen!

An update: A new link appears on the list in the sidebar. Yet another offspring of mine has decided to blog: Man of the Southern Woods