Cleaning Out!!

Recently having redone "final documents" (Powers of Attorney, Wills, Healthcare Directives - great thing to keep current!!) it has been stunning to realize how much "stuff" has been collected. Some was kept because "it would be good to have if needed," or "this was great, I might reuse it;" or simply because there was room for it!!

It has been enlightening to look with questioning eyes, and sometimes STUNNING to realize: "This will mean NOTHING to my heirs! It will just be junk they have to toss out, not knowing why it was kept (possibly for 20 years!), what memories are attached to it, or even what it does! They'll think I'm an idiot for keeping this!"

This BBC article has some great tips for the de-cluttering adventure. You may find things get too painful to work with or consider giving away. I found examining and working in an area several times, over time, helped loosen the ties... Lots of things have gone to local charities for resal, or reuse by someone who needs it!!!

The joy of living with less

www.bbc.com

Take your life back to the basics, slash costs and reclaim your time.

Caring For the Sheep

I grew up on a farm, 320 acres in a beautiful valley with a running creek, a pond, trees and greenest pastures I’ve ever seen. My father, a veteran of WW 2, was trained to do Veteran’s On the Farm training, to help train young (and older) men in new farm techniques developed in the 4 to 5 years that they had been away from their family farms.

Father was thus by nature and by training skilled in many fields…. He could give injections to the sheep (and my allergy shots to me!!), he could take apart a bulldozer and repair its internal problems, and he introduced new crops for hay that others had never used (Johnson grass). I think one of his favorite hay grasses to use was a sudan-sourgum blend, which seemed to make great hay for the winter. Before I was fully conscious, I’m told we had pigs. In the early years, we had goats and sheep. Later the high maintenance sheep were replaced by chickens and dairy cows.

The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, and the University of Georgia came to our farm for interviews, pictures of the pastures and our family, documentation of procedures, and farm life in Georgia. At one time, we had the largest sheep farm in the state. Later, my father’s chicken house was the FIRST fully automated one with temperature controls that triggered the coal-fired furnace to generate its hot water for heating. The watering troughs were automatically refilled when the water level dropped, and the grain feeding hopper and trough system (that was mostly welded together by dad) came on by timer several times a day, and moved the chickens feed through 2 large loops of troughs, at the low level the chickens needed. It was a show-place, and became at state-wide model. But you have to be careful around chickens… loud noises will frighten them, they will run together in piles, and can suffocate themselves by the thousands… that’s a horrible sight to see. Thunderstorms meant chicken house watch detail….

When the dairy barn was constructed, it was from the latest designs, to allow safest entrance and exit for the cows, most comfortable access for the vacuum milking machines, etc. My dad had a radio playing in the milking barn, because he understood that the music soothed the animals. And father could tell each cow apart, by their personality, and by the brass number tag hanging from their neck! Each cow got a different amount of feed, and there was a list in the barn of what that amount was, cow by cow… and my sister as a teenager was called by my dad, “the best helper I’ve ever had with the cows!” 

We had 3 John Deere tractors… one was gas-powered, one had a diesel engine that was started by a gasoline engine (the 70A was unique… 2 fuel tanks!) And that powerful 3020, which was the first diesel design that could start its own engine with 2 tandem 12 volt batteries!! Thousands of dollars we had in equipment, Thousands of hours of training for father and from him to us children, Thousands of hours of tending….. for one purpose: to take good care of the animals on our farm.

During lambing time, my parents would get up at midnight in the winter to act as mid-wives for the sheep. Sheep have to be moved every 2 weeks to a new pasture or the parasites they are prone to will take up residence in the group, and continually plague them. Sheep had to have regular oral injections of medication with a large syringe…. 500 sheep is a lot of shots to give!! They regularly can develop foot diseases, so father built a walk-through concrete wading pool, 5” deep, so that he could put the medication in the water, and have the sheep walk through it!

When I was about 6, and my sister 8, we were full-fledged farm helpers. Sheep are interesting… I was always anxious around the large herd of 500, especially when my dad would have us move them to the south pasture. This required moving them out of one pasture, down a road, making a right turn at a Y, then making a left turn off the road into another pasture…the sheep were tracing the outline of a capital M. If cars were coming, they had to wait! What was so amazing, is that terrifying as it was to have the first of 500 sheep come running at you… if you just gently waved your arms, and turned the first 5, the rest would follow!! You could actually left your place in the open road, run ahead of the sheep to the next turn, wave gently there, and turn them again into the next leg of their journey!! Amazing!! 

The dairy cows had calves, and they were kept with their moms in a separate pasture for a while. Each night I and the hired man’s son refilled the half of a half 55 gallon drum my dad had cut to make a watering trough. There was a hose run 100 feet for refilling, but it was quicker to also fill 5 gallon buckets and carry them to help fill the tank. Once I came to the trough with full water buckets, and the boy was throwing rocks at the calves, to drive them away!! “What are you doing?” “As soon as we get any water in the trough, they drink it up! We’ll never get it filled!!”

I don’t remember being kind as a 10 year old telling him: “The goal is not to fill the tank… the goal is to water the calves… and whatever time and water it takes to get them to be satisfied, and the trough THEN to be full for later, that is what we must and will do.” I was so upset with him…. I sent him home. Throwing rocks at those precious little calves, hitting them in the head, and sometimes on their tender sides, and they hadn’t done anything wrong, they were just coming for a drink because they were thirsty!! There was no place else for them to get the water they needed to survive in that particular pasture.

The stress and hours of the farm schedule finally became too much for my dad and our family, especially with my mom so sick from depression many months of the year, that he sold the farm when I was about 12. That was very painful for all of our family in many ways…. We gave up our beautiful home site, our natural recreation area of woods, creek, ponds, and rolling pastures…. I simply loved it there, though we later learned that I was allergic to every tree, grass, and animal on the farm!

So, some lessons I learned from animal husbandry…. You don’t yell and make loud threatening noises in the chicken house, NEVER, EVER…. You gently guide the sheep (dim-witted and poor-sighted as they are!)… It can all be done with a calm voice…..and you don’t EVER, EVER throw rocks at ANY of the animals. In fact, a good shepherd of animals provides food, water, medicine, medical care (animals need an onsite doctor like dad when you have hundreds of them), and preventive, protective measures. And, unfortunately, the farm doctor has to be on call 24/7….. But the farm owner, at least from my study of materials and my dad in action on the farm, is the VERY BEST FRIEND, and the VERY BEST THING, for every animal in his care.
© Tom B. Bandy, 6/22/13

Circle Maker Quotes - Persistence - Mark Batterson

Some Quotes from The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson:
Chapter 8 Persistence Quotient:

Success is a derivation of persistence. The bigger the dream, the harder you will have to pray. We allow our circumstances to get between God and us, instead of putting God between us and our circumstances. It is easy to give up on dreams, miracles, and promises. We lose heart, lose patience, lose faith. The only way you can fail is if you stop praying. Praying is a no-lose proposition. We do know that 100% of the prayers we Don’t pray Won’t get answered. You can give up or hang on. You can let go or pray through. You can get frustrated with God or choose to live un-offended. 

Lazarus’ sister to Jesus: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that Now God will give You whatever You ask.” Even though her brother is dead and buried, she is still holding out hope. First degree faith is preventative faith. (Jesus could have prevented the death. ) Second degree faith is resurrection faith. (Jesus can bring him back to life.) EVEN THEN you believe EVEN NOW. 

Our most powerful prayers are hyper-linked to the promises of God. It was settled on the Cross when Jesus said, “It is finished.” It wasn’t just the final installment on our sin debt; it was the down payment on all of His promises. “No matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” 2 Cor 1:20. By virtue of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross, (regarding the 3,000 promises in the Bible), every one of them belongs to you. Every one of them has your name on it. Reading is the way you get through the Bible; praying His Word is how you get the Bible through you.

Ben McNeal - Finished Well

This is the video that was played at nephew Ben McNeal's Celebration Service, 2 pm Tuesday, December 15th. That would have been his 22nd birthday, and he wanted a PARTY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otSkYHMSbrE

Ben McNeal Day

A wealthy fellow in NC heard of Ben's illness a few months ago at a prayer meeting, and had this video made about my wife Lisa's nephew in Wake Forest, NC, Ben McNeal. After his mom died of ALS in 1990, his dad Don married my wife's sister Paula. They moved to Wake Forest with oldest son Daniel so that dad Don could work on a degree at Southeastern Seminary.

In 2008, Ben's older Marine brother Daniel was sent home from his 2nd tour in Iraq, having developed the disease. Daniel died in June of 2008, leaving behind a wife and stepson. His decline followed the 6th month pattern of his mom's.

In the summer of 2009, Ben was diagnosed with ALS after beginning to lose muscle control in his left arm... in November he had no function in his left arm or hand, and had lost movement in his right hand. Ben would have been 22 on his birthday December 15th. There was very little that he could do for himself, physically.... BUT: He did become a source of encouragement to those around him!!

Several church and community friends rallied around him, befriended him, and did special events for him. A special "Ben McNeal Day" was held November 5th in Wake Forest, with police escort, a luncheon, high school band, red carpet, and Chic-fil-A for all! That night, Ben and 20 friends were taken by limo to a "Casting Crowns" concert in Raleigh, all with backstage passes to meet the band, and 6 with front row seats...

This is a video that the sponsor of the "Ben McNeal Day" made to be played at the special luncheon. Dad Don speaks first about the effects of ALS, and death of his first wife, and oldest son; then Ben shares.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szgy--GMuF4