2002-10-30 - 10:32 a.m.

A day in the life of-----

It started snowing last nite just before I went to work, switched to rain about 4, then back to freezing snow. I am sure it will not stay long, just long enough to motivate folks to put snowtires on. Then we will have Indian summer til Thanksgiving weekend, another snow, another melt, then nice til Christmas. After that, watch out!

Actually we could use lots of moisture from now on. Two concerns that have risen in the last few days are the condition of 800's diesel pickup and our well. The pickup has around 400,000 miles on it, and needs attention more and more frequently. Being a diesel, it becomes recalcitrant in the cold weather and takes more ether to start, but for the last 2 days it has needed ether each time, even just a few minutes later. I suppose one could buy alot of ether for what a new pickup would cost. The well has begun to sputter when too much water is used in a short time. The river level has dropped much in the last few days as dams upstream are closed off now at the end of the irrigation season to store water up for next year. That combined with the new deeper wells most of our neighbors have put in has probably lowered the water table so that our 60 foot well is getting slower and slower to recover. It has been unable to furnish us with all the water we could use inside and out ever since the earthquake20 some years ago. At that time, we could water outside 24 hours a day with 2 hoses and never notice a slackening. After that, only a few hours at a time could be used. The last 2 or 3 years we have used little well water outside, just the low pressure water or farmer's sprinkler water. I sure hope the well keeps on. The cost to drill deeper will be heavy and burdensome to me. I will need to choke back on all spending very heavily and even work as much overtime as possible, which may not be wise physically. You know, Father.

When our shift is over at 8 in the morning,we will not go back until Monday or Tuesday except for a 4 hour retraining session on Saturday. Almost all of the light duties and new folks will be gone when we come back, about 180 people. Then in a few month, 18 at the most, the rest of us will be gone also. Change is in the air.

No one ever dreamed it could happen in our area, but it has and will continue to do the same in many parts of our land, I fear. I am so thankful that I live moment by moment, day by day with You. Taking no thought for tomorrow, but trusting the path You set before us. Even with that mindset, change is unsettling. 'As the eagle stirreth up her nest---' Without that stirring, young eagles would never fly, but sit in the nest forever, never to fulfil the grand purpose they were created for. What a loss, never to see one soar high, and what a loss, never to soar high.

EE's devotional

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