wire – Nancy Tart: Writing for Life

November 8, 2018

Proper Burial

Rebeccah likes to tinker with stuff. She always has. Most of the time, she can fix electronics when we think they are broken.

If it is headed for the trash, she always gives it at least one try (and she likes seeing the “guts” of the item too).

Today it was the playstation 2 unit (for the 5^th time). We bought it used in the first place and it had a short from day one. Rebeccah has fiddled with it four times successfully, but this morning, all of her efforts led to naught. She had it completely apart. Every breadboard, wire, connection, screw, etc. was separated in her ordered little piles. (Conclusion was “I have no clue what’s wrong with this thing!”)

So I’m trying to work on “Fibbing Fishermen” (#5, it will be out soon) in the Devonians series when I hear Kimberly show up:

Kimberly: “Becky, what are you doing?”

Rebeccah: “Putting it back together.”

Kimberly: “I thought it was really garbage this time?”

Rebeccah: “Yes, but when something dies, we should at least bury it in a proper casket.”

…

Seriously? For me, this was just apropos timing. We’ve closed a business, I’ve started a totally unexpected but awesome job, life is shifting into a strange limbo for us right now, and every time we turn around it appears something else is stealing something of value from us.

Bury it. Wrap it and every part of it back in the casket and hide it from sight. That so made me laugh.

Perhaps that’s what God wants us to do with these remaining bits of the past; bury them completely. Hide them away so we are fully open to what God has planned next!

For me, right now, it’s pretty awesome: my job is teaching children (I love this!) and I get to expose each of y’all to something I’ve always wanted to do (gymnastics) as a perk! Granted, we can’t live on this income alone; but it is something I can do very well. I’ve felt a peace about our life right now despite the fact that our insurance is due in 8 days and we are $1350 short, I can’t focus on that. All I can do it do my best and let God take care of the rest.

God will provide a way.

***NOTE*** You know what’s really funny? After Rebeccah put that Playstation 2 console back together for its “proper burial,” it now works. No short, no sticking CD tray, no dying. She and Lucas have been playing football for almost an hour now and no issues. Even though she couldn’t find the problem, just resetting everything back the way it was supposed to be fixed the problem. (It is almost time to go to work so, I’ll think about that more later!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

June 5, 2018

Crafting Cages

Last month we built two big mobile cages for our livestock

One is for the “teenager” chickens (those between just feathered and adult, about 6 weeks to 24 weeks). Rebeccah bought the clearance Buff Orpington straight run (mixed males and females) from Tractor Supply at the end of their chick days and they are now a little over 12 weeks old – time for selling the males before we eat them at 24 weeks!

The other was for Rebeccah, Kimberly, and Christina’s newest project: Guinea Pigs. They had one named Jack, who, just like his namesake, was adept at getting out of cages (starting with a two-day excursion on the day she brought him home!). On one of his excursions, he decided to disappear into the wild for good (I think he’d heard some Wild Kratts: free and in the wild!).

But TobyMac stayed with his two girls, Taylor and Avery.

The bright orange is TobyMac and the pretty one below is Avery. Taylor is camera shy.

Shop day had us designing and building the cages. They are night-time predator proof and easy to move. We discovered that Guinea Pigs are a perfect lawn mower: one day and they graze the grass to ½ inch height. (Formula = 3 adult pigs to 32 square feet of grass.)

Kimberly and Jaquline using the portable drill to make pilot holes and drive screws.

Rebeccah tacking on the chicken wire.

Notice the painted guinea pig on the door when it’s open.

Even Lucas was helping! He painted, held screws, fetched tools, and helped measure boards to cut.

The best drill ever! Plus wire cutters for the chicken wire.

Three different lengths of screws and our poultry staples

We precut all of the lumber for the second cage!

The girls learned and practiced using power tools, critical thinking (this looked good on paper, but in reality it will cause this problem, how can we fix it?), planning, budgeting (looking prices up online and estimating our actual cost before we went), and applying this knowledge in a practical way to create a final product. We painted the walls to help keep them from rotting, but Rebeccah, who is never satisfied with leaving something plain and functional, turned them into a work of bi-colored art. (I only had white, so she had to mix dyes to get another color!)

Although this was a “day off” from school, the girls learned and used various practical skills and developed two products for our family livestock. They had a blast! They learned a lot. They had a very successful and memorable day creating and a huge surge of pride when they look out there now – something they made is being used everyday by cute little animals!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Tag: wire

Proper Burial

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Crafting Cages

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