Some home improvements after 21 years!

We finally took the leap in 2016 and started to do some renovating that really had been needed for two decades, and some that were not quite so urgent, but worth doing anyway. Here is a record of some things that we did between 2001 and 2018.

2014: Gutters, fascias, painting

The cage around our afdak (lean-to) at the side of the house.

Since 2014, trees have been removed in 2016 and a boundary wall built in the front of the house in 2017.

We had installed a carport in 2001. We also remodeled the kitchen and en-suite bathroom.

The carport was built in 2001 and for a long time had a basketball board and hoop attached. The beams were clad in 2014.

In 2007 we had a break-in. Prior to this we had a dog, a Jack Russell cross, that was presumably a deterrent to anyone breaking in, and then he died. From that time we had at least three break-ins. On the first occasion in 2007. Richard, at age 14, came home from school and found that someone had been rummaging in drawers. He came in through the front door and found the house in a mess. He then found that the side gate was open and there were things lying on the front lawn, presumably from the person running away, so he would have frightened the person who, fortunately, did not attack Richard, but simply ran away. Cell phones, jewellery and other things were stolen. He kept his cool and called his Dad who advised him to call the police. It is apparent that the thief was in the house and fled when Richard got home, and Richard was protected during the ordeal. He handled this all very well.

In 2009 we installed security gates and caged ourselves in. We installed a new stronger gate for the front door, and the afdak at the side of the house was extended and caged in. A trellis gate

was installed for the bedroom sliding door. The gate at the other side of the house was moved from the back to the front of the garage.

The security gate for the bedroom sliding door.

In 2012 we had another break-in where one burglar bar was bashed in to gain entry. Two laptops were stolen together with other smaller things. We then engaged the services of ADT, the security company, with a burglar alarm.

During 2013 and 14 we did further work - the house was painted inside, the lounge ceiling had been knotty pine strips and we installed a ceiling beneath this, painted white. The main bathroom was remodeled. New gutters were installed.

Some of the work that was done inside the house during 2013-2014

The house after painting and before the gutters and cladding were done.

Work in the main bathroom

Laminated flooring and painting in the passages and lounge.

During 2016 we had a number of large trees removed, most particularly those that would impact the house such as the tall palm tree that could cause serious damage if it should blow over, and tree roots that would affect the walls or foundations.

The palm tree that was cut down. The house can also be seen as it was before the renovations in 2013-2014.

During 2017 Sally was threatened by someone who broke into the house. Fortunately Richard was home studying for exams and attacked the attacker who fled after snatching Sally's cell phone. We were in the process of building a boundary wall in the front of the house. The wall was completed soon after the break-in.

The motor for the rolling driveway gate was stolen in 2018. Great skill was used - if only the person who stole it would use that skill to build society rather than only thinking of self.

During 2018 we installed four rainwater tanks to harvest as much as 10 000 litres of rainwater. These have all overflowed several times since then. We have used the rainwater for the washing machine and two toilets for most of the time. We also use rainwater in the garden and for washing the cars. We collect from 186.4 square metres of our 334.5 square metres (55.7%) and 229.1 square metres of the van Dorps' 403.1 square metres (56.8%). It should be easy to add our carport to the collection to increase our harvesting to include the carport, thus harvesting 69.5% of our roof area.

Although it appears as though our house has been targeted - it seems to be the only house in our close neighbourhood that has been broken into, or at least had as many break-ins - we have been blessed. In about 1984 we made a decision that, since we had to choose between using part of our monthly budget for paying Fast Offering or paying short-term insurance for the contents of the house, I was impressed that we had a wonderful promise from the Lord. In Malachi 3:10-12 we are promised that if we bring our tithes and offerings into His storehouse that there might be meat in His house, that He would pour out a blessing that we would not have room enough to receive it, and He would rebuke the devourer for our sakes, and bless the harvest of our fields. The challenge in Isaiah 31 that I studied in Institute to place our trust in God rather than in the arm of flesh helped us to decide to place our trust in the protecting hand of Heavenly Father. We committed to Him that if we did not lose more than we would through the excess that we would have to pay to an insurance company in case of a claim, we would not be losing out, and we would pay more than the amount that we would have needed to pay in monthly premiums to an insurance company into Fast Offering. We always continued to pay our full tithes as well as other offerings. I believe that the Lord has not failed to bless us in accordance with our personal promise and faith. We have had losses, but would have had losses even if we had the best insurance. So, we paid our monthly contribution to Zion rather than to Babylon and trusted God to prevent losses, whereas an insurance company would at best reduce the inconvenience in the event of a loss. We did what we could to improve security and then trusted that the Lord would assist us with reducing the incidence of losses or problems that we might otherwise have.

Lorem ipsum, Deep philosophy, losing toes, and some of my insights

I find it interesting that I'll often have a thought during the week and am able to see an application of the thought in counselling one or more people during the week. This week I have been thinking about something that I shared last week that I don't think that I have shared with you. I see I have shared the analogy of the 168 hectare farm, although I am not sure that I explained that the 168 ha represents 168 hours in the week that each and every person has? Well, this week I shared with some people the Lorem ipsum dummy text that I first recall seeing on the graphic design layout of the cover of our vegetation map book. So I only learned of Lorem ipsum at about 50 years of age. This is some Latin text that is used as filler text in graphic design. Wikipedia explains it as follows.

In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum is a filler text commonly used to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation. Replacing meaningful content that could be distracting with placeholder text may allow viewers to focus on graphic aspects such as font, typography, and page layout.

The lorem ipsum text is typically a scrambled section of De finibus bonorum et malorum, a 1st-century BC Latin text by Cicero, with words altered, added, and removed such that it is nonsensical, improper Latin. 

I happened to have been speaking to someone who is working with me on the indexing project, he being a retired gent who it turns out taught second languages in grammar schools in southern England. I asked if he had taught Latin to which he replied that he had. Then somehow Lorem ipsum came into the conversation with him asking if I knew what it was, and that he had looked it up and it was interesting. On Saturday morning I had read parts of Moroni 7:5-23 and then decided to look at Lorem ipsum. I did a Google search and was amazed at the parallel between this and Moroni 7.

Moroni talks about good and evil, our choosing and judging good and evil, and the way to know is plain, and that we can know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night, enabling us to judge between good and evil. The following is an English translation of the Latin. The bold is the English translation of the text that is typically used and jumbled as filler text.

[32] But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? 

[33] On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

This is deep philosophy. So you can see that my blog this week is the philosophy of men mingled with scripture.

Today I met with a young man who said that he wants to go to FSY in December, but who has dropped out of school in Grade 9, and misses all too many Church meetings and activities.

I asked him who he would be in twenty years time? He eventually said that he would like to be involved with mechanical or electrical engineering.

I then asked him what he would do if he bought a ticket to fly from Cape Town to Johannesburg, if the pilot flying the plane carried on flying south instead of turning toward Johannesburg? He was not sure that he could confront the pilot, but I said that he had bought a ticket to Johannesburg, and the plane was supposed to be headed for Johannesburg, but was going in the wrong direction. he then agreed that he ought to confront the pilot and query why he was not headed for the destination. I then pointed out that he is wanting to fly to 'Johannesburg' but the pilot of his plane (himself) is headed for the 'South Pole'.

I asked him what situations make it easiest to make right decisions? He concluded that church and home would be best, maybe school. I discussed which company is most supportive and which least supportive? I hope that he will think about what I have shared and that it will help him to make wise choices. I then had him with me as I shared the plan of salvation and the restoration with someone who is caring for one of our youth who is making unwise choices, skipping school and keeping unsavoury company. He was able to recognize the parallels between his situation and that of the other youth and the need for changing some of his choices.


I then shared with him how I used to catch sand diving lizards Meroles anchietae (that I knew then as Aporosaura anchietae) in the Namib Desert, and we would weigh them and release them again.

We would walk carefully along the back of the dune so that we could see just along the slip face where the lizards would be out looking for food, mates, or opportunity to challenge the dominant male. When we saw a lizard above the sand we would throw our hat so that it would think a bird was flying over and dive into the soft sand of the slip face for cover.

We noted where it entered, went down the slip face, plunged in our hand, and usually came out with a lizard. Those that were cautious and responded to the vibration of us moving on the dunes would not be caught because we would not know they were there. It was those who were out that we could catch.

We needed to be able to identify lizards that we recaptured so we had to mark them in some way that was permanent so that we would be able to recognize them when recaptured. To do this the researcher would cut off fingers or toes. This sounds cruel, but some lizards lose toes in their fighting for a dominant position, so it is not just man being cruel. Each lizard is born with 20 digits and we could identify 20 lizards by removing one digit, or 400 if we cut off two digits. So that is what we did. Thus we were able to determine that dominant males lose weight as they defend their territory and breed with their females and thus are not able to eat as much as their competitors. So a competitor would oust the dominant male and for a while his DNA would be introduced into the population, but he would then be defeated by a challenging male who would become the new dominant male.

I asked this young man if he would ever miss a Church meeting if he knew that not being under the protection of being in the right place at the right time (in Church) would result in him being caught by one of Satan's hosts resulting in him losing a finger or toe every time he was not at Church? I had previously asked if he would ever miss a meeting if there were R1000 waiting for him each time he attended? he felt that in either case he could probably manage to be at every meeting. Somehow losing a finger seemed to be stronger motivation than gaining R1000. I reminded him that Heavenly Father sometimes blesses us for our faithfulness, and sometimes he prevents the loss of privileges, blessings or protection. This is like the positive reward of thousands of rands, or like preventing the negative consequence of losing toes.

I stressed to my young friend that I want to send him to FSY in December with '20 fingers and toes' or 'R20000' for each time that he attends meetings! I reminded him that Heavenly Father does not want to only give us R20000, but 'all that the Father has shall be given him', which far surpasses R20000! I hope that he uses these mental images as motivation to choose good and not evil.

So I shared Moroni 7, Lorem ipsum and losing toes with my Priesthood Executive Committee and two people this afternoon. Somehow this seemed to be appropriate in each setting. I am interested to see what will come to me this week that I will end up sharing with someone next Sunday?

Harvest, the devourer, dangers, and blessings in disguise

I shared an analogy with the youth today. I ended up teaching them with no warning and no preparation, and shared an analogy that has been developing in my mind. The theme is Marriage and Family and I chose to teach about learning and teaching in the home. 

It is as though we each have a farm, and each of us has the same size farm, with the same potential. It has 168 hectares of good soil, and we are allowed to do with it as we see fit. Each hectare represents an hour in the week. The harvest that we will eventually reap will depend on the amount, kind and quality of seed that we sow, or do not sow. If we sow maize and tend it well, then we have the potential of harvesting an abundant maize harvest. If we do not plant all 168 hectares then we will not reap the maximal harvest. It is also feasible that we can sow the entire area and do all that we possibly can to ensure the harvest, but then at the last moment before a very promising and exciting harvest we can lose everything due to lightning striking and causing all to be burned up, or there could be locusts or hail that destroy the crop, and we might harvest little or nothing. That is not a measure of failure on our part, but the harvest will not be what we hoped. 

The harvest is a result of our effort, but far more significantly and important is the sunlight, fresh air, rainwater and soil nutrients and quality that are provided free by a loving and provident Father. All that we reap is a free gift to us, and nothing is fully guaranteed or deserved. True, we will not have any promise if we do not sow, but even with our most faithful effort we still are dependent on the providence from above. Our input costs remain the same if we plant for the maximum harvest whether we have no harvest or the most capacious harvest. So everything is entirely due to the goodness of God. He invites us to give back 10% of our harvest, thereby showing our gratitude for the harvest. In return, He promises us in Malachi 3:11 that ‘I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.’ We can then hope for the maximum harvest in accordance with our greatest efforts. We cannot hope for more, and can hope that there will not be less. But if we do not bring our tithes into the storehouse, so that there will be meat in His house, then we cannot hope for any such blessing of protection from the devourer or the variableness of nature. We cannot complain if the devourer destroys the fruits of our ground. 

But, by the same token, even if we seem to have mishaps, we cannot always know what protection we may have enjoyed. We may have been spared far greater mishap that would have happened, and the small mishap that we do experience may be simply to try our faith. My son Richard pointed out that sometimes the mishaps might be because Heavenly Father knows our potential and is preparing us for a greater harvest. He cited the example of a field that needs to be burned in order to have a better harvest the following year. After thinking about this, I thought more and realised that it might be for us to learn a lesson, or for someone else to learn a lesson from the way that we handle our loss. We need to be trusting enough to accept the loss and not ask 'why?' but 'how?'. How do we move forward, rather than why did we experience the loss?

I am fully confident that very often we are spared a lot of problems and have blessings in disguise. I say this because of thoughts that have come to me as I have pondered the promise given in my patriarchal blessing that many physical dangers and difficulties shall continue to pass by me, giving unto me blessings in disguise. One such blessing was that I was not bitten by a puff adder that was right next to me. I wonder how many times I have been spared from dangers, but on this one occasion it happened while I was pondering on the promises given in Mark 16:18, Luke 10:19 and Doctrine and Covenants 84:72 and whether I as a young LDS missionary was worthy enough to be given this blessing should I be bitten by a snake on this occasion when I was alone for a very brief time in Kloof Gorge. I wonder how many times I have been blissfully unaware of such protection, and even complained that I do not see the blessings in my life, but that was because they were ‘blessings in disguise’.