Tom of all Trades

              I am learning the truth of James 4:13-15.   We don't know what will happen from day to day so we shouldn't boast about activities we are going to do in the future without at least acknowledging this.  "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that," the Scripture says.  This past weekend was a good example of why this true.  We returned safely from Kentucky to a house that smelled.  Bad.  And not just the house but also the back porch too.  The day we left for Kentucky I noticed a slightly bad smell in the basement but if the tubing has fallen off the gutters and water seeps into the basement, it can be a wee bit smelly for a day or so.  Nothing the dehumidifier won't fix.  But upon returning, the smell was so bad it smacked me in the face as soon as I opened the door to the basement and I couldn't even go down there.  Tom checked it out.  Smacked him in the face too.  We both agreed it smelled like something died down there.  

             Oh!  That's when I remembered the opossum I saw going under the back porch the week before.  He looked sickly but, then again, he was an opossum.  And he was out at high noon which is unusual for opossums.  We figured he had crawled under there and died.  Tom agreed to check it out the next day since we returned home late at night.  

                The first surprise of the next morning was that the Sprinter would not start.  Well, not too surprising since it does already have 150,000 miles on it.  These issues are bound to happen at that mileage!  This time it turned over but wouldn't start.  The engine wasn't getting fuel.  We thanked the Lord for not allowing us to be stranded in Kentucky or somewhere in-between, though if He had, we can trust that it would be for a reason that would bring Him glory.  In fact, we have had a breakdown on the interstate in the middle of winter (though not too far from home) and because of that, a taxi driver and whole lot of folks at the nearby library received gospel tracts!  

              So Tom did his best to solve both issues in one day.  He searched online for some clues as to what might be wrong with the Sprinter, examined the fuel lines closely, and procrastinated on what promised to be a smelly, nasty job.  Diesel dirty is one thing--dead animal dirty is quite another.  But it had to be done.  The smell was starting to seep into the main level of the house.   So he put on some disposable gloves, the headlamp that we bought him for Father's Day (it was to help him work hands-free on the cars--we never imagined he would need it for this type of job!), and in the end, some professional knee pads (leftover from the nightmare of scraping carpet glue off the hardwood floors) and a face mask.  But before he could even enter the "chicken coop" area underneath the back porch, he had to remove all the garbage that had no doubt been in there for decades.

Once that was done, it was time to crawl in and check it out.   This is as far as I went!

           A few minutes later Tom came into the house to report on what he saw.  Far inside, in the pit where the cellar stairs used to be was the poor creature.  I'll spare you the rest of the detailed report.  Then there was a long discussion on what would be the best way to extract it.  In any event we knew that lime may need to be involved because of the tremendous smell.  It took awhile for Tom to find the right tools but eventually he settled on these:

             I went back into the house to let Tom do his work.  Awhile later I heard our oldest son outside yelling, "Eewww!  I saw it!  I saw it!  Look! Look!" so I knew Tom had finally gotten it.   Thankfully I never saw it but did hear another detailed report on how it looked from the children.  Alas, Tom reported that it was not an opossum after all---it was a groundhog!  And it had been badly wounded.  Poor thing.  It went immediately into a VERY thick garbage bag.  

Who appreciates this man more than me?  NO ONE!!

            Hmmm.  So whatever happened to the sickly opossum?  Don't know.  Ahhh.  Almost immediately we could breathe again although the basement needed a day or two to clear out.  Amazing, the stench of death.  And to think that death was brought to this planet by the sin Adam committed in the beginning---the very same sins we commit every day. (Genesis 3:1-6 and Romans 5:19-21)  It certainly shows us that sin is serious in God's sight and that He is holy.  And the fact that He is giving grace to save sinners like us proves He is patient and rich in mercy! (Ephesians 2:3-4) 

            Once the groundhog was disposed of, it was time to get back to the Sprinter van---but not before changing clothes!  After receiving much advice online, he decided to try changing the fuel filter.  But by time he purchased the fuel filter it was late and time to call it a day.   Lord willing, we'll have the Sprinter back sooner rather than later.  It's in good hands.