This is our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life (Hebrews 11:8-10) along the narrow way (Matthew 7:14), even the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16), submitting to the Bible as a light unto both (Psalms 119:105). It is our prayer that these documented moments in our earthly time benefit whom God might choose to edify, but ultimately that God glorifies Himself through them.

Month: October 2021

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2021 6th & 7th Chick Hatchings

We are grateful to the Lord for Him granting two more rounds of chick hatchings this 2021!

Here’s group 6. We put 12 eggs under her, and we’re pretty sure she hatched them all out! They’re doing pretty well, although some, especially one, have shown signs of getting sick (standing kind of scrunched up, often with the wings down a little, not very active), so I’ve been giving about an 1/8 to 1/10cc of 660ppm angstrom silver, 2-3 times a day, tapering that over time…most seem basically better, except the one, although it seems improved as well, for which we are thankful:

6th 2021 Chick Hatching
More of 6th 2021 Chick Hatching

And here’s group 7. 8 originally hatched out, and 1 had started but wasn’t progressing, so I helped it a little by breakup up its egg shell some, and it made it out, although I found it dead soon after. 🙁 However, the other 8 are still doing fine!

7th 2021 Chick Hatching
More of 7th 2021 Chick Hatching

And here’s their video:

Again, we are always very thankful to God for these new provisions, and any food He might grant from them, for us and others, we pray!

— David

Storing Rain VI – West Tank (Pond)

While a decent amount of water on average is supposed to fall on our county, it usually comes in spurts, so we are always looking for ways to store more.

Even though I added an extension onto the original tank (ground water ponds are called “tanks” in Texas 🙂 ) that was here, it can sadly dry up, which not only doesn’t really allow for stocking it with fish, it also means less water available for the cattle, and last year we had to start watering the cows off the black water tanks we have, for a few days anyway, after which God graciously granted huge rains and filled up all the ground water tanks again, and we were very thankful!

Still, you can never store enough water around here, and so, after the Lord granting that we be the recipients of a kind and gracious gift of some funds, I thought it a good idea to add another tank.

I had thought originally to put it on our north field, as after good rains we would see standing water, but the ground digging folks who were going to do the job said there wasn’t enough water running through there…that we really needed lots of acres feeding a tank to be good. At that point I wasn’t sure what else to do. But then I thought, you know, we have a pretty good creek going through our place that flows really well with heavy rains. And so, we went back there, and they said that this would be a much better place and would probably work well. Well, great!

Here is part of the area where the creek would flow through before they started:

New Pond Digging Area
More of New Pond Digging Area

After they brought a backhoe out to make sure they could get through the top so-many feet and weren’t going to hit rocks to where they really didn’t think they could dig, they began.

Lots of trees to clear. It was hard to see some of the bigger oaks go down, but now we have stacks of firewood to cut up for quite some time!

Here’s the bulldozer they used:

Bulldozer

The trees were no match:

Bulldozer Felling Trees
Bulldozer Felling More Trees

Here’s the area cleared:

Part of Cleared Tank Area

And then the digging commenced!

Digging New Tank
More Digging New Tank

Between knocking down trees and digging, they didn’t get a lot of dirt moved that first day, but here is the progress after day 2. Sue’s there to give some perspective of the size of the dug-out area:

New Tank After Day 2
More of New Tank After Day 2

And this is the back side of the berm after day 2:

New Tank Berm After Day 2

Here they are back at it again on day 3:

New Tank Day 3 Digging

They’d use the claws in the back to break up the dirt to make moving it more easy:

More of New Tank Day 3 Digging

And here’s after digging day 3:

New Tank After Day 3

And then after digging day 4. We still had planned probably at least another full day of digging:

New Tank After Day 4
More of New Tank After Day 4

This is from on top of the berm:

Still More of New Tank After Day 4

But then, the Lord indicated to us that we were apparently going to be done with the digging, because over night and early that morning, He filled it up nearly to the top!

New Tank After Big Rains
More of New Tank After Big Rains
Still More of New Tank After Big Rains
Again More of New Tank After Big Rains

Well, that wasn’t going be pumped out so they could continue, so we thanked God for the rain and the water stored in the new tank, and submitted to His perfect, wise and good will in deciding when we were done. 😀

All that was left after that was for the digging crew to come with the road grader and “top” the berm, make a spillway off to the side to allow for overflow so we weren’t blocking the water flow entirely from those down stream, and then perform some final clean up.

First, we thank the Lord for the provisions He granted to be able to do this!

And we thank the very nice people who gave us those funds…thank you very much again!

And we thank Him for His graciously granting the rain and directing us in our endeavors with His perfect will!

Prov 16:9 – “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

We pray He always does, and who better to do this than the great Jehovah God, King of all creation!

— David