It has been such a pleasure having my brother, Morry, staying with me. As soon as he started feeling better he began helping out. He does most of the grocery shopping, which I hate to do, and is a much better cook than me. He has spread 2 piles of cedar chips and is well into a third. We have had a few hard rains and the chips have helped immensely with erosion control.
We are enough alike that we get along great. He is good with keeping the windows open and not running the air conditioner constantly. We turn it on when it gets really humid but most of the time we have a great breeze on the top of the hill. Morry is great to feed the cats and lock the chickens in if I am running late. He can feed the horses if I have to be out of town. I have not taught him yet how to milk Sally but maybe someday.
He is a great help on fox patrol. We have a female fox that is nursing babies and she is determined to get our chickens. I let the hens out last night because I was going to be in the yard working. I am shoveling away when 2 of the hens ran past me squawking with the fox on their tail. I was able to run interference but she was back this morning and actually dug under to get into the pen. I ran out 1 door and Morry the other and between us we were able to chase her out of the pen. I am sure she lost some hide squeezing under the fence.
As Morry has felt better he has begun to catch up from all the things that got behind when he was sick. He has worked out payment schedules with all his credit card holders. They were not immediately cooperative but when he took the time to tell the managers what was going on they really worked with him. I guess they get lots of sob stories from people who don’t want to pay them back. Once Morry convinced them that he did want to pay his debt but it would be impossible at 27% interest they lowered his rates and set him up with an automatic withdrawal plan.
He has been looking for a new job and finally found one yesterday. Morry is a mechanic and he got out the phone book and started driving around to various shops. The fourth one he talked to had just lost a mechanic and practically hired him on the spot. We went to his old job and picked up his tools. I had no idea how many tools a mechanic owns. He has a huge tool box and we had to use a come along to get it up on my flatbed trailer. Then one of the wheels broke through a weak board but we finally got it secured and transported to his new shop. His previous employer is a great guy and obviously gave Morry a good reference.
I am so glad Morry has decided to stay in this area. I never thought I would leave Austin but it has gotten so big. It takes a bit of getting used to being this far out in the country but it is sure worth it for the peace and quiet. Madalyn