I'm a welder now, sort of

7/3/10 Saturday
It’s a Sabbath day, from the Jewish Hebrew roots perspective. We struggle with the many conflicting teachings we hear on that subject. It’s an old conflict dating back to the early church days and Paul spent much of his time writing on that. I read and study but am still not clear where to stand regarding keeping the Sabbath, how to do it, when to do it, do we have to do it? What I know is that it’s one of the ten commandments and I’m certain the rest still apply, I mean there’s no question about thou shalt not murder, steal, commit adultery, or any of the other ones. And keeping the Sabbath holy is listed right in there with them. Jesus had lots to say about that and one time he told the Pharisees something about how they would pull their cow or donkey out of a ditch on the Sabbath and consider it ok, to make a point about their being so picky about things. So I read Galatians this morning and discussed what it said with Cherie as part of our morning scripture and prayer. It’s supposed to be a day of rest dedicated to the Lord, but that’s hard for us both. For Cherie the weekends are the days she doesn’t have to work her regular job and is thus able to catch up with stuff around the house. For me there’s always stuff I need to do and I’m always behind. My conclusion, at the moment, is that we are under grace and no longer subject to the Law from the Jewish standpoint. I think we can still keep the day holy to the Lord and get some work done. I think we should strive to make every day holy.

I finally got the welder out of it’s box and used it. Can’t remember when I bought it but it was a few months back when we had some money to spare for that kind of thing. The hoe finally bit the dust. It’s the third hoe I’ve gone through and held up pretty good to some seriously hard work. Cutting down some of those weeds is like cutting down small trees. The steel of the blade snapped across about a four inch area. I got the welder out of the box and of course “Some assembly required” is almost an understatement. It’s a cheap welder that only uses welding rods that are 1/16 of an inch thick, or perhaps thin would be more accurate. It can be wired for either 110 or 220 volts but we never hooked up the extra wire I ran for 220 so I set up of at the 110 level. At 220 I can use a thicker welding rod. It took me a few tries to get it right but I successfully welded my hoe back together. While at it I ran a bead across the edge with the idea that this would provide some harder steel that would hold an edge better. Seems to work but the file no longer will sharpen the edge because it’s harder that the file is now so I use the grinder to sharpen it.

The miscreants didn’t come home till noon today. Sure wish they would stay home at night and not go wandering but that’s the way it is. They were pretty muddy from their adventures but that’s nothing new. Ben was sure glad to get his pets when he saw me.

I’m going to plant some more seeds today. We planted a bunch of sunflower seeds and I figured out I over ordered them. Planted the whole ridge and didn’t use half of one of the two bags I have so we’re going to have a bunch of sunflowers when it’s all said and done.

Money is going to be exceptionally tight this month. I paid out what we had in the farm account for labor and will have to get some money from Cherie to put gas in my truck. No more eating out for a while now. We got dog food and Cherie is buying essential foods today so that’s covered. I need to buy a new wallet to replace the one I lost but that will have to wait too.

Getting a replacement drivers license was an additional expense this week. We took my birth certificate and my DD214 military discharge papers to Social Security to get a new Social Security card and they told me that wasn’t acceptable. “What!” I more or less exclaimed. The lady told me that they would accept a current medical bill or something like that as proof I’m an American but not my birth certificate. So if I was an illegal alien I could walk in with a medical bill and get a social security ID card? This doesn’t make any sense to me at all. It seems that anyone can go to a hospital and get a bill but I know that getting a copy of my birth certificate isn’t that easy. There’s something wrong with the system, something is amiss here.