Thinking Inside The Box

These little gals are always thinking of something when they come to Grandma's house.

We were asked to go back to the field this week. I have mixed feelings about applying in winter. Field conditions are so variable.

This is what inside a pickup box looks like after running NH3 a day. Conditions went from hard to greasy as the week progressed.

Technology controls rate, steers the tractor, turns the product on and off, and records data while going through the field. The data is then sent to the fertilizer retailer we are working for. They in turn can give it to the producer.

So all this technology is kind of cool however once in a while you need to sit down and decide if it pays. Below a technology salesman, a farm magazine, a farm university, and a producer are talking about how to measure the benefits. 

Kurt and Emily's son Jackson had his first birthday Friday. He and his Grandma Glenda share birthdays.

A year ago he was in Blank Hospital over Christmas with a blood platelet issue. Today he looks and acts so much like his Dad when he was small. As I think back over the year God has been so good.

 This is little Jackson with his great grandparents.

We helped Karl sort hogs this past week. I remember when market weight was 220 lbs. Today the packers like a hog marketed around 290 lbs. My high mileage knees sometimes take a beating when in the pen with these big guys.

Jan and I went on a ride last Sunday and stopped at an old hog house on one of our farms. This is a pen where the sow had her baby pigs. Notice the boards around the edge to help keep the sow from laying on her pigs. Also the corner gate was where the baby pigs could go sleep under a heat lamp in cold weather. 

It's interesting this old hog shed still has some coal laying in a corner. I think a coal stove would have struggled to keep up on a cold winter night with block walls and no insulation. This shed raised hogs 50 years ago.

After coal and wood folks started heating with fuel. I remember many a night going out to check the pigs and fill the knipco heater. Today geo thermal systems circulate water under ground to capture heat in winter and cool in summer.

This is an old section of the main highway used across Iowa just 50 years ago. Things sure have changed. Today we always seem to be in a hurry doing all our own stuff.

Sometimes when we are busy doing our own stuff we don't slow down and think about the blessings, the opportunities, and the gifts we've been given. Often selfcenteredness feels justified today. Our culture says if you don't take care of yourself no one else will.

People think about the what, the when, and the how of Christmas in Bethlehem at the time of Christ's birth. What's important is the why. The Bible says after Jesus was born he was laid in a manger, a feed box for livestock. I'm sure He had plenty of stuff going on in heaven yet He was selfless, came into this world as a lowly child, and was an example of how to serve during His time on earth. 

Find an opportunity to follow our Savior's example this Christmas season. It could be a nursing home visit, a gift to someone with few friends, helping out a family member, a phone call to someone lonely, financially supporting a cause, or just a smile and word of encouragement to someone. 

Making a difference takes time and effort. But if you stop and think back, what do we remember the most? If you're like me it's those times when we were helping or being with others.