Cows in the morning...

On Wednesday morning, I was heading out to a dentist appointment...

... I noticed the cows in the slight fog under the cedar trees across the road...

...they were spread out relatively evenly... I just thought it was pretty and peaceful!

Did you know? It's election day!

Boy howdy! I think you'd have to be living under a rock to miss the fact that Tuesday is/was election day! I am certainly looking forward to no longer having political ads pop up on the computer, on the TV, everywhere I look!

I saw this article today - too late to impact for today, but I'm hoping I remember to come back and review its suggestions the next time an election comes around:
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/how-should-christians-approach-election-day

One of my favorite statements, "Seek to persuade, not pulverize."

It's hard being the new kid in class...

... or the new chicken in the chicken yard!

A friend of Jimmy and Regina's had chickens that they wanted to re-home, so she brought her chickens to the chicken yard here...

Some of the new ones -- the greyish colored one is (I think) a Lavender Orpington.

The one to the right with a naked neck is a Turken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Neck).

The one in the foreground with the tufts under her beak is an Ameraucana. It seems that they will lay light blue eggs (https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/ameraucana/) - though no proof of that yet from these... moving to a new location and dealing with being in a new environment has not done great things with egg production.

For the first couple of days, there wasn't much mingling between the "new" chickens and the ones that have been around for a while (seen in the background of this picture). But, the roosters from the "new" flock, along with some of the hens, went to Kendra's chicken yard across the field, and it seems that there is starting to be a bit more peace in the chicken yard here.

It's hard being the new one, whether a kid in class, or a chicken in the chicken yard!

Making the roof rain-tight

The area where we are in Virginia has had SO much rain this year (it is about 17" over normal or about 25% high), and it continues to rain here every few days... so the roofing project at the church that was started yesterday needed to be "buttoned" up a little in preparation for predicted rain starting on Monday.

The side of the fellowship hall roof that is covered with underlayment (since I didn't get an "end-of-day" picture on Saturday evening, I took this when we went to church in the morning).

Scaffolding up on the side of the fellowship hall for Sunday afternoon to get the trim pieces in place.

Jimmy checks the documentation to ensure the plan is correct.

Putting up trim piece on the eaves.

Pre-drilling the holes

Nephew Ricky on the scaffolding

Jimmy on the roof above him

Removing the plastic covering that protected the trim material during shipping - likened to peeling sunburned skin or dealing with a roll of Saran Wrap that has gone awry.

Pre-drilling the pieces to go on the gable ends.

Once the first pieces went up, the plan was set and the work proceeded smoothly.

Jimmy and Dubby are working on the gable end pieces.

Ashbee made it up on the roof (she is raising her arms in celebration).

Since it is now standard time, the end of the day came early -- the needed tasks to make the roof weather-ready had gotten completed. Discussion about when the next part of the project will be done (putting the metal roofing material up). It not only needs to not be raining, but also the underlayment surface needs to be dry - current forecast implies that Saturday might be a possibility... but the weathermen here are just as predictably incorrect as anywhere else!

Happy return to standard time!

I usually am not much of a proponent of "standard" time, that is, the condition that is *not* daylight saving time... I prefer daylight later in the day and would just as soon that we were always on a schedule that had the hours of the day shifted so that the sun rose and set at later clock hours... but today I'm happy that we'll get an extra hour of sleep time overnight -- today Dwayne and I helped out at Jimmy and Regina's church where they were working on replacing the roof over the fellowship hall portion of the building. It was quite a project... Dwayne and I took a few pictures and a couple of videos during the day - you can see some of them here: YouTube video of Roofing project

Anyway... we will appreciate the extra hour of sleep this night!

Pretty trees

Just outside the fence around the pasture on the other side of the road is a stand of (what I think are) birch trees...

In the afternoon sun...

... I think they are so pretty!

A caution....

Dwayne was away from the farm on Tuesday, and I got a text message that a debit card from our bank had been locked with a phone number to call. I texted Dwayne to see if he had had any problems with his debit card, and he had not... and then I remembered that I have a separate debit card from the bank. I went to the bus and checked to make sure that I had it in my possession (it was in my wallet), and then I called the number on the back of the card.

Turns out that the SMS message was phishing (or "smishing" is a term for using SMS text messages for this purpose). If I had looked closely, I would have seen that the "From" address for the text message was definitely questionable. Thankfully, I called the number on the back of the card... I was tempted to call the number that came through on the text message... it would have been easier than keying in the phone number on the card... if I had, it is possible that I would have inadvertently divulged information to the "smisher".

It struck me as interesting that this happened when Dwayne was away for the day... If he had been right with me (which is usually the case), there would have been a quick conversation, probably immediately recognizing that the text was phishing for information. But, on my own, I immediately thought that maybe it was a real situation where he might be having difficulty and that I may need to do something on my end... and thankfully did not do something rash.

Just a reminder to friends... don't call a number that is sent to you in a text unless it is coming from a source that you know and trust.  Don't click on a website link within an email or blog entry -- or make sure that the website that the link is going to open is correct. It is easy to create a link that looks like it would be good that actually takes you somewhere else...  For example, I created this one to fake you out:  https://www.walmart.com/  -- It looks like you'd be opening a Walmart site, but in fact, it will open a Target site. On most browsers, if you hover over the link, it will show you the site that it is going to open if you click the link -- I was just checking and with the browser I am currently using (Firefox), it shows the site in the lower left corner of the window. It is frustrating that we need to make these kinds of checks, but, is unfortunately the case!