Counting Gifts

Thanksgiving is the time we count our blessings. It's also the time when we look back and evaluate our year. My family has heard me say many times, "Don't count your Israelites". In Bible times King David asked Joab who was his main man to go out and count all his fighting men. Joab warned him not to do it but David was feeling pretty good about himself and insisted. As soon as Joab returned and reported there were well over a million able bodied men who could handle a sword King David felt bad and remembered his gifts were God given. He told God he had done a foolish thing and God let him pick his punishment. He could have three years of famine, three months of his enemies chasing him, or three days of a plague. David picked the plague and seventy thousand Israelities died. God has given Jan and I so many gifts this year that you don't count in bushels or acres. Watching this sunrise this past week makes me thankful for where I live and what I do for a living.

Another gift has been all this nice weather since harvest. Alot of fields needed attention after over fifty inches of rain in a growing season. Here BJ is installing field tile to help eliminate wet spots next year. There has been so much interest in tiling that the tile manufactures are backed up until January for tile deliveries.

All the water took it's toll this year on river bottoms and levies. In this picture Mark is helping Dale and Scot install a new culvert under a dike.

Pwablo was born and raised in Jamaica. He counts his blessings and always has a smile. He helped my brother Doug harvest this fall. He is a very gifted and helpful person. He has been helping us clean up equipment before we put it away for the winter. When I asked him where he learned to clean so well he told me his dad taught him in Jamaica and then he kept an employer's jet and helicoptor spotless when he lived in Florida.

This past Friday evening Jan and I attended our grandchildren's fall music program at Osky Christian School. Cheryl, Gloria, and Ruth are so good at getting the kids to sing from their hearts. It's such a blessing to have a school that helps parents teach their children where our gifts come from.

Yesterday the tractor and chiesel were available so Brian and Becky and their family came over and Brian and his boys chieseled their farm. Even though we enjoyed our visits to Michigan I count it a gift that they moved to Sully this year and the fact that we can enjoy having them live closer.





These are our daughter-in-laws and daughter. Working with sons is a gift but I can't begin to tell you and I don't tell them often enough what a gift each one of them is to our family. Pictured from left to right are Cassia, Suzanne, Kristin, Becky, Stacy, and Emily.