RVing With a Purpose

Monday, October 16, 2017

It rained all night last night. It was still raining when we got up this morning. However, it had finally cleared our area by 8:00 devotion time. It remained very cloudy until about lunch when the sun was out, sky blue, windy, cool and a gorgeous fall day.

We are having morning meetings and breaks in the guest house behind the President’s home which is currently unoccupied. The guest house is a little 2 bedroom 1 bath house. There is a gathering area/den where we can hold our meetings and a kitchen with a nice refrigerator. We are being spoiled. As is our custom we were responsible for devotion on this our first day, and used Philippians 2:14-16. We chose this due to the reference to us shining like stars. Today was our friend Ken’s birthday. Ken is an astronomer so it seemed appropriate to talk about stars. After devotional, we gave the team a brief tour of the campus at Murphy-Harpst and stopped by the administration office to sign everyone in. We then met Randy at the barn and discussed our plans for the day.

Today was demo day.  Always fun, but also hard work. Randy wanted us to remove all the old siding on three sides of the barn. We knew we needed to get the siding off so we could identify and replace any rotten studs. The original plan was then to install OSB and then metal roofing as siding on top of the OSB. Since the hurricanes OSB cost has gone way up and the budget constraints require that we only put OSB where there is not already some type of solid backing. First things first, we started removing the siding. We got all the siding off today, cut new windows in two of the stalls, and replaced one of the studs. Ken and Joyce repaired the two doors to the bathroom of the guest house so they now will latch. We are now waiting on additional supplies for the barn. We surprised Randy with what we accomplished on day one.

After work we hit the Silver Comet Trail again. Nice ride, again on the hills, and going a little further than previously. Then it was time to just sit outside and relax a while.

Thanks for all the prayers for our cousin Janet. She was able to return home today. Thank you God! Today was a good day!

Sunday, October 15, 2017

It was another nice morning. No fog today. The turkeys returned, all 18 of them. We also had two calves come for a visit. The little ones can just come through the fence if they want. However, if you encourage them to walk back toward the gate, they just step back through the fence and return to their mama. Just hope they don’t come visiting when we are at work tomorrow and leave us presents.

The team went to Marietta Street UMC today and enjoyed a spirit filled worship service led by Pastor Church. The congregation was very welcoming and warm. We always enjoy visiting here. You know you have been to church when you leave Marietta Street. It is the closest church to Murphy Harpst and while a small church seems to work to serve their community.

After church we went to Zorba’s restaurant which serves Greek, Italian and American fare. They are always busy after church but the food is always good. Today we had chicken parmigiana, served over spaghetti. Didn’t need any supper tonight. Very good.

As we finished we received a text from Cheryl and she was just a little way from Cedartown. We were able to talk her most of the way to Murphy Harpst and then Max met her and led her the remainder of the way. After helping her get her tow dolly stored away and parked, we worked to finalize everything for tonight’s team meeting. A little later Evelyn and Tom arrived, completing our team for this project. Wonderful! We have everyone safely here. Thank you God! They got parked and set up and everyone had a little time to relax. Before long it was time for our first official function of this project – our introductory meeting. We started with prayer and then of course food. Well really it was desert – ice cream sundaes and cup cakes. We didn’t have desert after our wonderful lunch so we had desert for supper. The meeting seemed to go well. We have a good group that we think will be a lot of fun. Looking forward to a good first day of work tomorrow. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

It was another beautiful foggy morning looking out over the pasture. We didn’t see the turkeys this morning but did see them late this afternoon. We also saw two deer today and we now have 9 horses in the pasture. The are really pretty horses. Oh, and some really cute young calves. As our team members from New Jersey said, “I could just get a couple of dogs and live here”.

Don and Bobbi arrived this morning. It is so good to see them. We haven’t seen them since this time last year at Hinton Rural Life Center. In January, while working a project in Florida, Don required surgery to replace the aortic valve in his heart. At one point they really didn’t think he was going to make it. He had a rough time and was hospitalized for 7 weeks. Thanks to a lot of prayers, great surgeons, and the grace of God, he looks great today! Love to see his and Bobbi’s smiles and hear their laughter.

The six of us went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. The food was good and the conversation even better. After lunch Bobbi and Don worked on getting set up while Max and Ken cut some more limbs. We all piddled around our rigs a little and then had banana splits. Very good! Thanks Joyce and Ken for the suggestion! Of course they didn’t have to suggest it twice. And yes, for us anyway, that was supper. Unfortunately, Cheryl missed the banana splits. She had some motor home problems today and hasn’t arrived yet. Hopefully tomorrow. Maybe we will have banana splits again when she arrives.

After some more visiting and catching up with what everyone has been doing, we went for another bike ride. We did even more hills today. Haven’t checked our mileage yet but it was further and several more hills riding. So we have been told, there is only one hilly section on the Silver Comet and it is between Cedartown and Rockmart, where we are riding. We could head toward the Alabama line instead, but after the banana splits we figured we needed to do the hills. A little more relaxing, a little TV, a little football and that was our day. Hope yours was as nice as ours. Remember tomorrow is Sunday and be in prayer for the pastors and the services. Also please continue praying for our cousin Janet. She came thru the surgery yesterday but has had a lot of pain. Hope you are all having a great weekend.

Friday, October 13, 2017

It was really foggy this morning but really nice looking out the front window seeing the fog, cows and 17 turkeys. It’s really quiet here and very peaceful. Nice start to the day. The fog burned off around 9:00 and then we had a cooler day with a high of 81 with intermittent sun and light rain.

Randy, Steve and Glenn were here this morning to complete the fencing and new gate to keep the various live stock out of our camping area. We will now have to open two gates when we go in or out but that’s okay. Once we get all the dried cow paddies cleaned up this time the camp ground will hopefully remain that way. Ken and Joyce arrived today and it is so great to see them again! Ken worked with Max to clean up the area and then trim some low hanging limbs so the rest of the team won’t have to be as careful when they arrive. Currently one section of our beautiful area is for the cows, one for the horses and the other for us. We also have an area and wood for a campfire sometime next week.

 

Anne returned to the mountain this morning to check on the LOLs and prepare Juno’s medications for the next month. We should have done this before we left Wednesday, but after we took care of all of Helen’s medications and issues, we were distracted and just left without taking care of Juno’s. We have had a few caregiver issues as of late so there is never a dull moment. Mama Ruby getting better, more problems on the mountain. At least they weren’t happening at the same time. Anne sat up in bed last night at midnight at said, “We forgot to do Juno’s meds”, with a little panic. There wasn’t a lot of sleep after that. Oh well, the afternoon shower presented a nice opportunity for a nap and as far as we know all the needs on the mountain are met for now.

Tomorrow we will complete our paperwork and preparations for our team meeting Sunday evening. We are looking forward to another wonderful team and project.