Time is burning

This area should be full of tomato and pepper plants, but lays unready to even plant

4/18/12 Wednesday
This is going to be a busy day for sure. Tomorrow I head to Lamesa for 4 days of prison ministry and there is much that needs to be taken care of before I go. So much has been neglected because I have been busy working for a friend. He came to me in February and said “I need some help” so I dropped everything to do so. I didn’t exactly drop everything but it sure slowed things down. I asked for Friday’s off and that gave me three days a week to attend to farm, home, and ministry to others. Ministry to others takes a higher priority in my mind that taking care of my own stuff so much has suffered because of that.

Under this is drip irrigation going to waste as I do not have what it takes to clear it by hand.

These pictures will show so much that hasn’t been done. Many areas of the farm should have already been cleared and planted but sit with weeds growing. The fact that our tiller seems to have burned a valve and will no longer work puts a big damper on things. Clearing and tilling by hand is hard and slow work that brings with it extremely high pain levels.

I managed to get corn planted in this area though it's hard to see. Trying to use the old cultivator I got from one of the widows we help turned into a disaster. I have spent much time over the last 2 years installing underground drip irrigation tape and since that time the wind has blown away much of the soil so I ended up cutting and pulling up much of the tape. I repaired what I could but ran out of repair parts and we don’t have the funds to get more right now.

A high priority for me is to get the cantaloupe and watermelons planted, as we hope to finally make a profit on something we grow. So I spent hours and hours building these mounds to plant on. They had been built last year but the wind has blown away all that I did. In fact many of the water lines I had buried underground now lay stretched out above the ground. It takes me ten to fifteen minutes to make each one of these mounds so that works out to four of five an hour. I have hundreds to make.

The drip irrigation I hoped to have finished and planted for the watermelons remains unfinished. What a disappointment it is for me to see this stuff laying there undone. It is frustrating but a sacrifice I chose to make for one of my brothers in Christ. I will get it done, eventually. Part of my frustration is I am helping this brother to put about six figures of income in his pocket and he’s too cheap to buy work gloves for me to use. It has cost me several pairs of jeans and T-shirts that have had holes burned into them from welding and grinding on his project, and we can’t really afford to buy new clothes. But that’s ok, I remind myself that whatever I do I do for the Lord and when I get to heaven I will have my reward. When I get done with the two weeks of prison ministry and go back to work for him I will take a $6.00 pack of new gloves I bought for use on my farm and give them to him.

We are unsure of what will happen with the RV park. In a conversation with the brother, who said he would help back the project, he said “I’m one hundred percent invested in my other projects” indicating he had no funds to spare. I must email him and get a clarification on that for we have worked hard towards that dream and it would not be good to have the water well drilled only to find we can’t pay the guy.

Here you can see tubing that was once underground now exposed by the wind. There are also the vestiges of what once were nice tall mounds we planted with cantaloup. You can also see the white from salt deposits left by the well water.




Just got off the phone with the company that has a pipeline running across our land. Come to find out this pipeline has been in place for 35 years. It’s a crude oil line and he informed me that we can’t build anything within 20 feet of either side of it. He will come out tomorrow and mark the line clearly as well as help me understand the rules and laws concerning this stuff.

So as I write time is burning. There is so much I want to say but each minute on this computer is another minute I am not working on the farm. I hope to be able to mow a widows property today but we will see. I was able to go visit the Stanton jail yesterday and spend some time with the prisoners there. For that I am grateful. Ministering to those guys is another thing I sacrificed to help the friend and that bothers me.