StillwatersIowa

One of the blessings of living on a farm is having jobs to do together. Here Cody, Ethan, and John are cooperating to get bales stacked on a hay rack. Working together with adults not only affirms kids it helps them relate to folks other than their parents. Here the rack crew is waiting on Uncle Kurt to throw them their next bale Sometimes working comes with a price. Ethan is showing his cousins his battlescars of being scratched by a baling wire. It never hurts to keep an eye on Dad just to make sure he is getting it right . When working together becomes fun as little guys lots of times it stays fun as big guys .

Our family hosted our 22nd annual Customer Appreciation Supper this past week. What a blessing to have customers, family, and friends get together in the shop for one of Jan's home raised meals. For 22 years we have been blessed with great weather for our get together. This sunrise reflection was a promise that we were going to have another wonderful evening. For some pictures of the evening go to our daughter Becky's blog entitled "The Ochsners". Her post is named Dekalb Supper. Being a seed dealer for the past 20 plus years has been a rewarding experiance. It has kept us on the cutting edge of crop production. We have some wonderful business relationships which have grown to friendships. The seed business has allowed me to help others be better at what they do and grow. It has been the source of revenue for Christian education. This is a fun story. Several years ago Jan's aunt gave her this ugly plant. Her aunt told her it came from Grandma Terpstra. She to...

August is always the month that reminds us of how fast the summer is going. It's State Fair time and then back to school is here. The past couple of weeks we have been getting ready for fall. In this picture we are making a plan for harvest. This past Monday we had one last rodeo with sweet corn. Jan has spent the summer freezing and canning from her garden for our family and others. She has done asparagus, strawberries, tomatos, sweet corn, pickles, apples, and peaches as she makes a plan for winter meals. Our potato crop was a failure this year. Karl has been working on his house all summer with his future father-in-law and others. He and Kristin get married October 30. In this picture Mark and I are helping taking out a large tree right next to the house. These are our supervisers watching Mark and I. Or maybe they're making a plan . Last weekend the youth group from Gateway Church in Monroe used our cabin for a youth retreat. This shows Jerry, Elaine, and Sarah making a pla...

About 3 am Jan woke me up and told me we were having one whale of a rainstorm. We went to the basement and rolled back the floorcovering, a common occurance this summer. During an early morning visit to town we realized just how much water we actually had. Somewhere between 3 and 6 inches. While in town we found out some folks were stranded in their homes just east of town. After being rescued by boat these homeless were taken to a church. We met the families there and offered our cabin. An older lady accepted and is staying until she can make more permenent plans. Later in the morning Kurt deceided to check crops on our creek bottom. I don't think he found them. Around noon the firechief stopped at our farm and asked if there was a way we could get him to the neighbor down the road. Since our neighbor has two dogs we deceided the jet ski wasn't an option so BJ took him in the next best thing, the Ro-gator. Since a farmer, a firechief, a neighbor, a newfoundland, and a b...