Update #2, covering January and February 2016

Beginning in January, I hired my friend Brian and his big dozer to come and finish clearing this section of my hillside once and for all - remove old tree stumps, thick brush, big boulders & rocks, and when done, burn or bury all the big piles, so that the hill is smooth and ready for us to spread seed. It took him a few weeks of working, waiting for rain or ice to stop, but he got it done, and it looks beautiful. I now how many more acres of pasture for our animals, and it will be shaded during the hot summers.

This was the last time we burned this pile. You can see K6 standing in front of it after getting it lighted and flaming with diesel fuel. Afterward, Brian buried the remains. The original pile was much bigger, and a few weeks before this pic was taken, K8 was the man burning piles, up until the day he fell 5 or 6 feet from the top and landed sideways on a giant boulder, cracking three ribs. He is better now, but was hurting for a few weeks, hence the change in workers. It never gets dull or boring around here. We then spread a lot of seeds on the bare dirt, and many varieties: red clover, white clover, lespedeza, timothy, annual rye, perennial rye, orchard, blue grass, rape, and turnip. The last two because they will attach deer and wild turkey (and the cows and sheep will eat them as well).

It broke my heart when this old giant white oak died a few years ago. I waited this long to make sure it was really dead. It had to be cut down before too many more big branches fell off. This pic shows K6, but it took several of us, spending many hours over the past month, to get it cut, spilt, loaded into trucks and trailers, and delivered to various people & places, but it is finally done. We delivered the last little bit yesterday to a single Mom. I love my gas powered log splitter. I can't imagine going back to swinging an axe or maul to hand split wood anymore. There will be a weeping willow tree planted about where you see the two little logs in lower left of photo.

K7 is first person on left in second row, wearing black t-shirt & ball cap. These are all the missionaries assigned to his Zone. They get time off every Monday, called Preparation Day, to do laundry, buy food at the market, clean their apartments, write letters home, one hour at Church or internet cafe to email family & friends, and sometimes they get a special outing, like this particular day when they travelled to a Park with a waterfall.

K7 said he was lucky (and happy) to do some service for this gentleman, clearing a patch of ground with machetes, because rarely will anyone let him help do manual labor or otherwise be of assistance, not even sweeping a floor.

Our house kit arrived on Tuesday, 16 February, which was a chilly, gray and overcast day threatening to rain. It came on two trucks. 

My buddy Brian was our designated heavy equipment operator, using a big John Deere tractor with forks to unload most of it.

I say most, because not all could be off loaded with the tractor. These pre-built interior walls were hand carried by human fork trucks. K6 is on the right with our neighbor David on the left.

K8's ribs were almost healed, so he helped. Our friend Jayson is the lead builder for this project. He was working with Brian to get trucks unloaded, and the material put in the right spot in the basement or around the building site.

The second truck had the long roof rafters, which took a thinking and planning to figure how to safely unload with a farm tractor.

But Brian got it done, as usual.

Getting caught up after many months of...

Thank you for your patience. Four months is too long to go without posting, but you see, what happened was...

My wife and I have been foster parents to five children the past year. They are from three different families and require a little more work than the typical family faces - establishing new routines & habits, getting used to new foods & meals, weekly visits to court, visits to counselors, visits with their birth parents, extra visits to doctors & dentists, etc. My wife was also traveling frequently to Oklahoma the past year, to visit her aging parents, 87 & 88. Her beloved Father, Jim, lost his battle with cancer and passed away at the end of October. His funeral was the day after we put K7 on the plane to Ghana in West Africa to begin his 2 year Church Mission. Then my Aunt Margaret passed away in December. She was my sole remaining close family in England. And our little family farm was busy bringing us the most success and profit since we began ranching 5 1/2 years ago, so you see, I haven't been napping this whole time...just really, really busy. And to top it off, we have been involved in a long, stressful, legal battle to adopt our youngest foster son - the big court battle was 30 December. More about that next week.

So, what are the highlights you missed during the past four months since my last post?

 We had to redesign and renovate our basement laundry room. It involved tearing out sheet rock walls and re-routing the exhaust vent line. It is finished, walls re-painted, and a much improved lay-out in the space.

My Aunt Margaret's health had been failing all year. I got the word she was in hospital, and if you know anything about British National Health (the model for obama care), old folks eventually become a low budget priority, and even get fast-tracked to death's door, so they can free up the hospital bed. I procrastinated too long before buying my plane ticket to get over to see her. I was at the Orlando, Fla, airport, waiting to board a Virgin Atlantic flight across the pond, when I got the email from my cousin informing me that our Aunt had passed that same day. I decided to continue my trip to England regardless, because I wanted to visit our ancestral home one last time, and attend her funeral. This is actually a shot of Irish country side on my flight back to States.

My Scottish grand parents bought this house north of Liverpool in September 1934, and moved into it when my mother was a month old. I first visited here in 1958 when I was 3 years old, and came back frequently with my parents, or my sisters, or on my own, and then brought my wife and later our children here for wonderful visits. I have many great memories and a sense of eternal family from my time spent within the four walls of this old house.

The ashes of many of my family are buried in the soil of this tiny backyard garden. I was lucky enough to pluck a blooming rose during this visit. 

It's a small house with a steep, narrow staircase leading up to three small bedrooms. Downstairs has a tiny kitchen straight ahead, in which I had many a fantastic meal cooked by my grandmother and later my aunt. There are two more small rooms, both on the right in this pic: the first door leads into the front dining room, and the second is the living room...

This is how it looked upon my arrival in late December. I stayed for a few days, visited some friends, and found out the funeral would take place the first week in January 2016, so I headed home.

I returned to England ten days later for the funeral, and to help my older sister and my niece with cleaning up.

Here is the living room after most items were removed. This was my favorite chair to sit in and read newspapers or books, or chat with family. Beautiful home, with beautiful memories. 

While I was in England in January, the bull dozer arrived next door to our house to dig a basement for the new house that my mother-in-law is building. We are excited to have her move to our farm. I am her contractor, and have mapped out an ambitious and fast paced construction schedule. I have lined up a great group of sub-contractors and hope to be finished by the end of April, weather permitting.

I flew back to England on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and after the funeral, I flew home on Air France via Paris. This is a shot of French countryside. It's as close as I would get to it this trip...

...I spent my two short hours in France at the Charles DeGaulle Air Port "people watching" and shopping for chocolate. 

I returned home in time to watch the concrete being poured for new basement. We have been blessed with a very mild winter, which has allowed us to get things moving fast.

And what about that handsome young 18 year old Missionary we sent off to Africa during my last post on Nov 5th? He has been busy adapting to a very foreign climate, culture, food, language, and life style. He also has been working hard serving The Lord, and, in spite of getting malaria three times(!), finding success. He is a changed man, on his way to becoming a spiritual giant.

K7 going, going, gone - on Church mission to Africa

K7 has been preparing throughout his entire life, all 18 years of it, to serve The Lord on a 24 month Mission...somewhere in the world. In September, he received his "Call" to serve in the Ghana Kumasie Mission! West Africa! Oh boy! Happy, excited, nervous, and lots of other emotional descriptives. So, how does one prepare for a mission in Africa?

Well, after becoming Spiritually solid, you need to be financially solid - earn lots of money. K7 had half of what he needed in the bank when his Call came, so he needed more - and I needed a lot of projects done on our Wanch.

Since he will be in a third world country for 2 years, have to ensure no potential dental problems - so yank those wisdom teeth out and make sure there are no cavities.

The bank account not quite full, so more Wanch work...

...and even more work.

But he had a few occasions to rest and relax.

He enjoys relaxing by shooting, he is a good shot, and hey, he is going to Africa...albeit, Ghana is probably the most peaceful and friendly country on that continent. Never hurts to know how to use a variety of tools.

Speaking of shots, got to get a few more of those babies - yea, that feels real good! He received this batch at Ft Leonard Wood Army base.

More work, even if it is baby sitting while the family gathers apples and pears at a neighbor's.

Finally! Enough money in the savings account to pay for 24 months. We stopped by our bank so he could open a checking account and carry a debit card while traveling to cover emergencies. One of his good buddies, Tia, in the blue shirt in back ground, just happened to be there at the same time, doing the very same thing. She is going on a Mission to Colorado.

Getting close to departure day, so better start saying his "good-byes" to all his family and friends, those large...

...and small.

His very last social event was attending a little brother's birthday party, which we held at a local pottery store. Kids had fun, cake, and good memories. Too bad the mug he painted in the cool colors of Ghana's national flag won't be fired and ready for use before he departs. He will get to see and use this mug for the first time around 29 October 2017.

His final full day in Missouri, USA. We drove to our Stake President's medical clinic an hour away in order for President Jones to set K7 apart as a full time Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But you ask, "Where is the dark suit?" Ghana is way too hot and humid for the traditional suit. He is wearing his official Mission "uniform" in this photo - slacks, short sleeved white shirt, tie, and sturdy walking shoes.

Final farewell to his best bud, brother K8. Then we headed to our nearby "big" city with an airport large enough to get him to Atlanta. Since his flight was at 6:10 A.M. the next morning, we decided to spend the night at a hotel near the airport.

His travel paperwork said he had to be at the airport 3 hours prior to his international flight. I told him this is a dinky little airport, so we don't need to be there at 3:10 A.M.! We arrived at 4:15 A.M. 

Where is everybody? The airline employees were't even here yet. Oh well.

The final hug and goodbye with his Mom, Mother, The Center of His Mortal Universe. People have been asking her how she feels about sending her son off to strange lands for two whole years? Her reply, "This is what he is supposed to do, and for which he has been preparing his entire life."

Walking tall, through the stupid TSA herding lanes of insanity. It irks me that we can not wait with him at the departure lounge for the next hour. Remember those days? Before the government started mis-trusting it's own citizens rather than profile the real suspects? But I digress. K7 is going to a country without many of our rules or benefits or conveniences. He will get to serve some wonderful people and experience many, many new things. He will return a different man - an even better man than the one he was when he left home.

K7 = Elder Whipple.
(And K8 inherits the new suits that Mom bought last spring!)

Texas Wedding - Part 2 - The Aftermath

After the wedding and reception, we moved from our hotel rooms over to Dan's house. He and Leslie are super kind and generous hosts! Here's K6 "chilling" out by the pool in the early morning hours...before the temperature reached 100 F, again.

K7 and K8 grew up with Dan's daughter Sarah and son Matt, two great young people.

Kids spent the rest of the weekend in the pool. Sarah gave swimming lessons to the little girls, and the boys did several versions of throwing and catching a football while airborne over the water.

It is only fitting that the "larger than life" Texas hero, General Sam Houston,  have a king-size statue. It's located in Huntsville, along I-45. Just a few minutes after this photo was taken by K8 from his side of the truck, we had a little problem that delayed our trip home...

...we had a flat tire. Not normally a big deal, but this is a Toyota truck - great in every respect except in the design of it's spare tire. It took both K8 and I a full 30 minutes of fighting it to finally get the cheesey 3-piece crank rod to lower the spare. Once we had it out, the cheesy little lug wrench would not loosen the lug nuts, so we could not get the flat tire off! I called USAA roadside. Usually they are great, but not this time. We waited a total of 3 hours on the side of the road, laden with slow moving bumper to bumper traffic right next to us, because they closed one lane for construction right after our flat! Great timing! During that 3 hours, the temperature went from 91 to 101 F. We had water bottles and a slight breeze. We survived. USAA did not send a truck from Huntsville which was only 2 miles behind us. No, they sent a truck from New Caney, which is over 45 miles south! And he was stuck in traffic the whole way. Incredible. The pleasant young guy in the tow truck arrived and gave us ice cold water. He weighed about 300 pounds and had the right tool to get lug nuts off. As he arrived, a lady pulled up behind us with a dying car, and she was in tears asking him for help getting a tow to Dallas! That just goes to show you that no matter how bad things may appear to be, someone else is really having a worse day than you.
I am buying the "right tool" to carry in my truck, and we no longer put the spare tire under the truck. It's in the bed where we can get it out in a minute. All in all, no complaints. It was worth it to make this trip. 

Because we were Blessed to see K5 and Jeremiah sealed for time and eternity in the Temple. 

And, in spite of the occasional bumps along the road of mortal life, everybody lived happily ever after!