It's starting to look a lot like winter in our neck of the woods. We have had our second snow event. We have dipped down to single digit temps a couple of nights. My work priorities are shifting to numbers, excel spreadsheets, custom work billing, and the seed business.
Oskaloosa has done a really neat job of lighting the businesses all around the square for the Christmas season. Seeing it some evening is worth the trip to town.
This year we knew we would not be able to physically get all our crop delivered to Eddyville during harvest so we added the month of December to our forward selling. Our crew has done an excellent job of keeping the trucks busy delivering corn.
Mike and Kurt took Saturday afternoon off. They are still building terraces. The ground has around four inches of frost in it. Mike's dozer doesn't have a cab. He turns his fan blades around to blow engine heat back to the operator seat which works well if it is not windy. On windy days he is a cold, tough dude.
BJ and Alex are tiling every day and still have several projects to go if the ground doesn't get too hard.
Pablo and Ryan and others of us have been washing equipment and putting it away. Jim and Matt and others have been starting to fix and service things. These projects usually get pushed back for shop jobs on cold days.
Tis the season for Christmas get-togethers for businesses and families. Seeing and visiting co-workers in a non work environment is fun and gives a business the ability to show appreciation to it's help.
Aunt Wilma passed away this week. She was married to Uncle Sam. They farmed near Rose Hill on a farm where my father grew up. Uncle Sam sold Caswell hog equipment and Better Built honey wagons for years during the 70s and 80s. After Uncle Sam died Aunt Wilma married Bill. In the 50s and 60s Bill operated an IH equipment business selling red tractors.
Remember about 6 months ago I mentioned their were a couple of new additions coming. Well Hazel arrived Thursday about mid morning. She joins her brothers Ezra, Elliot, Zach, and Harris. Her parents are our daughter Becky and her husband Brian.
While Grandpa and Grandma babysat we went to Culvers where the boys told me how I could get free ice cream.
Jan was hoping Hazel would be born on her late mother's birthday, December 8. Well she got her wish. This coming week will be the anniversary of losing Mom. Francis passed away in 1992 when she was just our age now. In the picture below she is holding Kurt who now has a family of his own. She so felt and enjoyed the blessing of her daughter Jan having twins. She used to help me tile and pour concrete.
Seeing and remembering the sights of this season is more than just celebrating our Saviors birth. Many of us have experienced births around this time of year. Some of us are remembering those we have lost. Remembering loss this time of year often feels lonely. Hazel in Hebrew means "God sees". Whether it's remembering the excitement of an addition, or remembering the grief of a loss, God sees. He also cares.
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