Karoke winners at Confluence

Here are the two winners of Karoke night at Confluence. Emily Owens took First place when she sang, " I can only imagine" and Josh took Second place. Both are very talented singers and did a Great Job. I am so proud of Emily because she was so scared to sing in front of people. This was the first time that she has sang in front of anyone and apparently everyone thought that she did Great!! I know she did but that is my biased opinion since she is my daughter.

The place was packed tonight and everyone had a great time!! If you were not there then you Missed it!!! The place was packed with lots of talented singers and some not so talented but they had a blast trying!! Lots of great laughs, Wes is one crazy character!!

Well, it's late and we have church tomorrow, can't wait, so I must turn in for the night. I will post more later, God Bless and see ya at church!!
Joe

Hi, Sorry that I haven't posted in a while but the good news is that the Chicken tractor building is over and the adventure is just beginning. We did have two of the chickens to lay their first eggs so they must have appreciated what we did for them.

I have been busy at Confluence getting the downstairs ready for Sunday's service, it has been long hours and I have not seen much of my family this week. The good news is that we are almost finished and tonight will probably be the last night that we can work before Sunday since we have the "red room" rented out on Saturday. If anyone can show up and help tonight then it would be greatly appreciated and then maybe I/we could enjoy some music and freezers tonight and spend a little time with our families.

Hope to see ya there!
God bless

Chicken Tractor continued

Hi everyone,



I've had some requests for pictures of the Chicken tractor so here they are and I've included some pics of the "Big House" too. The Chicken tractor is the triangular shaped house with the small chicks inside and one photo is of the tractor with 2 large "Birds" inside.

Saturday we went and met our dealer and picked up some "chicks" in McDonald's parking lot in Clemmons, (they had a few less "nuggets" that day) but like a good drug deal everything went off without a "hitch." Kathy did call on the cell phone while the deal was going down but we recovered and the "chicks" was ours.



We then had to make it across the county line into Davidson County, thank goodness Sheriff Hege is not on patrol anymore or we probably would of gotten "busted." If we would of gotten pulled over for something then they would of known what was going on because there was no way that we could ever of been able to "mask" the smell. I turned the AC off and rolled down the windows but that did not help much, it just moved it around so that we all could smell it.



Well, we finally made it to the "drop off" point without passing out from the poisonous gas and then I proceeded back to putting the finishing touches on the Chicken Tractor. We then outfitted the movable Chicken tractor with an Electric Fence mounted to the bottom frame of the tractor. If something does penetrate the Electrified fence then the Chicks have a "safe house" within the compound fully equipped with a hinged draw bridge ramp, so intruders will have a hard time getting these Chicks. They also have a feeding trough and plenty of water, enough to last for several days in case of a "lock down."



After the Chicks were inserted into their new Cell, I was observing them from the lookout tower and I did see a couple of "chick" fights out in the "yard." The biggest one, with the white fur coat, was "pecking" on the little red headed one but she was standing her ground and did not back down. I would say that, that was one tough "chick." The other little black chick is just flighty, she just runs around like a chicken with their head cut off, oops, sorry honey, and just flys back and forth from the "cell" to the "yard." That one has way too much energy, maybe someone put something in her food, we may never know.



These chicks have come to a loving compound where they are loved and well taken care of but someday soon they will have to do their part and lay their own eggs because they have to learn that we are not going to do everything for them. Sometimes you have to give them "tough love" or they will grow up and be lazy and you know what happens to lazy chickens.....









Well...... around here they will just be loved and cuddled.

Friday Night at Confluence

The family and I went to confluence last night, listened to some great music and singing by Brad Bennett, and enjoyed some delicious coffee and freezers. The place was packed, probably the biggest crowd that I have seen thus far. We all had a great time and met up with many of the River church folks. I think the community is glad that we, the River church, came in and opened a safe place for people of all ages to come and hang out together. It is not often that you see people of ALL ages hanging out and enjoying the same thing.

I think togetherness is one thing that we need to focus on because alone we are weak but together we are "Unstoppable." Just like the last series that we had about all the "churches" uniting as one, we as a church must be united one with each other and one with God. If we could come together in one accord then we could do wonders in this community and ARE doing wonders.
We could upset Satan as he sits back and lets the world destroy each other, lets the world raise our children, lets the world twist the truth of right and wrong to lead us to think that what once was wrong is now O.K. because it is accepted by society and that makes it alright. NOT!.......just because we as society accepts something does not mean that God accepts it because in Heb. 13:8 it says that "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever." God has not changed his point of view but society has because God is not in these things of the world.

We need to take the things back that belonged to us and show "Society" that you do not have to go against God to have a good time, you do not have to go out and get drunk, go to strip clubs, go and do harm to others. We have a community center that All ages can come to and be safe and surrounded by love, not hate, not drunkards, and not sex feigns. I see the River Church congregation growing every Sunday so that means that WE ARE making a difference in the community. If we can lead just one soul to Christ then All the work that we did to bring Confluence to the community was worth it! We need to take the world back from Satan and what better place to start than in our own community. I am Proud to be a part of the River Church and Confluence and I know that Great things will/have come of this because in Acts 5:39 it says, “But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."

(Don't know why) Automatic doors

Well, let's see; Nothing really exciting happened yesterday except that I had to get up really early to throw the transfer switches to test the generators at the hospital. After that I had another cup of coffee and then I did preventive maintenance on the automatic doors for the rest of the day and Baptist has Lots of automatic doors. I like to call them Semi-Automatic because they are so old and wore out that they open sometimes like they are supposed to. I have tried to get them replace but of course Baptist is "broke." They have to save money for the new hospital in Davie County, I bet that hospital will have new Automatic doors.

I don't know why I am talking about automatic doors when I have so little more to say. I don't lead a very interesting life so my blogs may be a little/lot dull, so why are you still reading? You must be Really bored and I need to go to work again. Who come up with this work week anyway? Why can't we work 2 days a week and have off 6 days which equals 8 I think, but we need an extra day off just for ourselves.

I will post more exciting news later......blah, blah, blah

Thank Goodness Labor Day is over!!

I did not realize that they made a holiday to do Hard Labor on. When I was on my journey yesterday building the Chicken tractor, which I will get to later, I saw dozens of people out shopping at Lowe's for lumber to build something, mowing the lawn, cleaning up around the outside of the house, etc.

Does anyone or did anyone just take the day off of work to just relax, cookout, hangout with our neighbors or are our lives so busy that we have to use the holiday to catch up on all the work that we have not had time to do? I for one am a very busy person, I have a Full-time job, a part-time job doing side work and another part-time job doing my Copper work getting ready for the fall shows and I have a family that I have to make time for too. Why are we all so busy? We have new technology that is supposed to make our lives much easier but does it really or does it just make more time that we cram other things into that we should be filling with family and friends and most importantly God.

I am guilty of this also, we are living in hard times now and it is hard just to make "ends meat" and I for one am doing all that I can to do, just hoping that it will ease up soon. I am the sole provider for my family so if I don't work then we don't eat. I look around and see all the stuff, junk, whatever you want to call it and think to myself, did technology make my life more pleasent or just fill it with more junk?

I know that there are two sides to every coin but wouldn't it be nice to be at a cabin somewhere, get up in the morning with a cup of Confluence Coffee and just sit on the porch in a rocking chair, watch the sunrise on a crisp cool morning and just sit and talk to God? Sorry, I must have been day dreaming, back to reality Joe.

Now that I have strayed away from the subject I will get back to the Chicken Tractor story. Well, I started yesterday off with having some sort of idea, with no plans on how big it was going to be with my wife saying that she showed me a hundred pictures, none of which had Any dimensions on it. I had no idea of how much lumber or what hardware I needed so I proceeded in sketching out a plan and then getting off to Lowe's. I bought the supplies that I thought needed and headed home, after picking up some Frosties from Wendy's. I then proceeded to build the bottom frame then I was stuck. I have 6-2x4's and 3-1x4's now I have to figure out what I am going to make from the wood that I have, I have a general design but I don't have a clue of what size it needs to be so I cut a 2x4 in half to see if that looked right, then I called for the forman or forwoman over to give me my opinion and it was great. I then proceeded to cut the pieces one at a time with all these complex angles since it was a triangle shape but not a true triangle and put them together. Well, this went on until about 9:00 last night and all that I have left to do is put the roof on and then she will have a movable chicken house with no bottom in it that she can take the chickens out to new places and new adventures.

That's my chicken story and I sticking to it.

Must get to work!!
Bye!