Sunday, March 12, 2017

Joint Venture

This is the time of year when we never quite know what to expect. We got up early. We have our work boots on. We're dressed and ready to go. However sometimes we just have to wait. 
There are so many things that go into a successful crop season. Lots of planning and practicing including soil samples, tillage, drainage, nutrients, hybrid selection, counting the cost, and arranging the financing. However we all know we also need the right amount of sunshine and moisture and the gift of getting life out of a dead seed. So it's a joint venture. We set aside a service at our church to ask God for His intervention on our year. 
Kurt, Alex, and Andy spent most of the week applying fertilizer around the Ottumwa area where the soil conditions were dryer. It's a gift to be able to be in the field the second week of March.
Parents sometimes aren't quite sure how to handle a young one when they get outside their boundaries. Just like this momma cow, they are worried enough. Just not sure about the solution. It's another joint venture. Sometimes we just need to ask for help from God and others.
Precision and Ag Leader are two companies in the technology business usually competing with each other for business. Precision takes the lead in the equipment that does the work on the planter. However Ag Leader has always had the upper hand in developing a display that monitors that equipment and records data.
These companies are trying something. They are doing a joint venture on two of our planters seeing if they can work together for the better of each of them as well as us, the end user. One of the 11 planters they are trying this on around the country is already planting corn in Mississippi. There were 14 of us at lunch time one day this week as developers and installers from both companies worked together.
At our prayer service we not only prayed for crops but industry and other occupations as well.
One chilly day Cassia, Gideon, and Natalie worked together and all helped BJ put in tile 
Karl spent a day and I another day working with the scraper moving black topsoil back where it belongs. The grass waterways get high as they work to stop soil loss and drain water. Once in a while they need to be cleaned and reshaped. 
Mike worked all week building terraces that stop water and get it to drain under ground.
We prayed for God's blessing on our country. I don't watch the news anymore because so many folks are complaining and pointing fingers at folks they think are the problem. Most of those folks are well fed, have a comfortable place to live, and still enjoy most freedoms this country was founded on.
I missed a school function that I wished I had gone to. The Junior High kids at Osky Christian recreated a wax museum where each one of them was a different character. Their assignment was to research the person they were acting as and answer questions as if they were that person.
Finally we prayed for God's blessing on our churches and their mission. I believe going to church is a good thing. I do think those of us who go regularly should ask ourselves why we go. Is it because we were taught we should? Do we take our kids so they won't get outside the boundaries? Is it because we hope God helps us with a crop? Is it because we might be missed if we're not there? Or should it be a joint venture where we receive God's word, learn about His will for us, honor and praise Him with everything we've got, and then say thank you by including others in this  blessing?

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