A Bumpy Week

Last weekend I mentioned we had a storm come through. We had a fair amount of hail that stripped the leaves off the trees, left nothing but stems on the rhubarb, and beat the asparagus clear into the ground.

Right after this blog was finished last week BJ stopped and said we had some church friends that had a tornado go through and lost house windows, a farrowing house, a machine shed, and a corn bin. So we took our semis over and a number of neighbors and friends loaded ten semi loads of corn with an auger and a grain vac.

We lost a major portion of our treehouse tree close to our house and had to finish cutting it down. This is Jan bringing out warm cookies during the cleanup.

I had a landlord tell me he received well over two inches of rain in just 15 minutes south of town. You can imagine what that amount of water in that little time did to soft, pretty planted fields. We will have to replant the worst washed fields. Our terraces and waterways did their best but it was just too much water in one shot.

We had a track come off BJ's skidloader in a tough spot and spent most of an afternoon getting it back on.

Our family was asked to run a second sprayer this year. Wednesday afternoon was just dry enough to do a little spraying around Pella. Karl sprayed with our sprayer that same afternoon west of Blakesburg.

Gideon is our oldest grandson and celebrated a birthday this week. My brother Doug and his wife Ginger had an anniversary on the same day. Also my father will be just two years short of 80 tomorrow.

Our family has kept the ER at Pella hospital busy. Ethan had a new cast put on his broken arm. Mark went in after a motorcycle incident and has some torn ligaments in his knee. Brian had his back decide to give him fits and will have to sit out preaching today. 

Finally God took a good friend of our family home late Friday evening. She will be welcomed in Heaven by her father who was also a good friend of mine and lost his battle to cancer a few years ago. Diane was my age and had been fighting cancer for some time. Our sympathies go out to her husband Mike, her girls and their families, and to her mother and her brothers and sisters. 

"Because He lives, I can face tommorow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives."