StillwatersIowa

Dear Friends, In some ways it seems like this week's post should be like a Christmas letter. The cards and letters we have received this season remind us and help us appreciate friendships. However since I visit with many of you weekly on this blog it feels like I know you even though I'm not sure who you all are. And since we visit regularly it seems you not already know what our family has been up to, you can at times read my heart as well as my words. Little kids are good at not hiding how they feel. If they are hurt they cry. If they are happy they laugh, jump, and sing. One of my Christmas memories as a little kid was getting out our aluminum tree. It was in a box about 4 feet long and consisted of a wooden pole with angled holes and these tinsel branches that were stored in paper sleeves. I think I even remember my Dad buying this tree at a store called Erickson or something like that on A Ave West which was the main highway right through town. ...

Last evening our family had our Christmas together. As always the grandkids couldn't wait to come and see what presents were waiting for them. Thanks to the gals for organizing. Thanks to Jan for shopping, buying, wrapping, planning, preparing, cooking, and serving.   Many areas of southern Iowa had between 3 and 4 inches of rain early in the week.  I can't remember roads closed due to flooding a week before Christmas.   Jan still watches the grandkids who aren't in school yet on Mondays. It's fun to watch cousins interact, play, and grow up together.    Thanks to Daryl and Colton for coming this week and finishing up the kitchen area in our basement.  This is the time of year on the farm when things either do or don't add up. A lot of time is spent in the office wrapping up the current year and making a plan for the next one.  It's hard to see but if you look close you will see a dandelion blooming. Another interesti...

The definition of a calendar is a system for measuring and accounting for time. Like chapters in a story it's divided up into days, weeks, months, and years. Even though this is the fourth Sunday morning in a row I've woken up to rain we did get a gift this week and were able to get in two or three days of farming. December in Iowa is generally cold. All we heard about this week on the news is climate change and what humans are going to do about it. Our planet has been through at least one flood. Folks say we had an ice age. People interested in the old days are still digging up mammoth bones in our county meaning there used to be more livestock here than just hogs and cattle. If our climate is changing it's the hand of God and not the hand of man.   The Bible promises us "as long as the earth remains there will be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night." Genesis 8:22 That verse kind of describes a calendar doesn't i...

This weekend is first season shotgun for deer hunting, a pretty big deal in southern Iowa. I stopped to check in on a hunting party just in time to see Brian show and help his 7th grade son Luke how to field clean a deer. Pretty cool father/son time. BJ, Alex, Karl, and Mike have been tiling and building terraces in the mud in the county south of us. One morning the hitch pin broke crossing the double tracks and the tile cart rolled and landed down in a ditch.   As they were assessing how to get the tile cart out of a deep ditch a neighbor and good Samaritan in the area happened by and mentioned he had 60 feet of log chain in his pickup. Once the cart was pulled over, out, and reattached to the pickup the stranger would take nothing but a thank you for his assistance. Tile can be the difference between having or not having a good crop in a wet year. However sometimes it takes maintenance or repair. Mark has to first loc...