Cccccooooollllllddddd

Well, cold for us. Down into the twenties over the next few days, with a twinkling of an idea of snow on Christmas. :-) Snow is just a twinkling of an idea here all the time, so for it to converge with Christmas... essentially impossible. Or???

I mean after all, it is impossible that we are here. Insane. Who'd have thought we seaside suburbs kids would end up tending livestock on a Texas farm?

I love it here. I really do. I have a very hard time getting my buns out the door to do morning chores (cold or not... I just am a slow mover in the morning). But once I get out I don't want to come back in. Cold or not.

Today I got quite a lot done in my three forays out into the bitterness. Wrapped outdoor pipes for the freeze, emptied hoses, moved chickens, put up heat lamps, insulated walls with hay, taped windows, cleaned up building scraps around the chicken shed, fed the cattle, tended a chicken with a cold in my tub hospital, did the usual outside chicken chores several times.

The horses are now supposed to be fed every day (we had been doing it three times a week), and are getting different rations, so I now have to corral them before feeding so they each eat the right things. I haven't actually had to do it yet; tomorrow their owners will be out and I will watch the process. I do pretty well handling the horses as long as I don't have children or dogs with me.

We are heading into the last days before Christmas. Tomorrow will be filled with baking and sheet washing as we anticipate the influx of beloved company.

I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude these days. On the verge of tears, even. I doubt I can convey what I feel... a sense of profound beauty, a tangible presence of God, a certainty that I am where I am meant to be right now. I don't know that I have ever felt this so deeply. The underpinning is the rock solid foundation that God is trustworthy. I of little faith did not ask for proof, per se, but it has been given to me over and over and over.