StillwatersIowa

  Greetings from southern Colorado. No, I didn't get this picture off of my latest Zane Grey western novel. As I mentioned last week our son Kurt came out here to help friends work and move cattle.  Kirk and Rebecca  live and ranch in Westcliffe. Mark, their ranch manager and friends with our family, lives there as well. However they winter cattle further south in Thatcher.    Kirk and Rebecca's ranch in Thatcher has 5 miles of the original Santa Fe Trail going through it. The crew worked and lived down on the southern ranch about a week. This is the old 1800s cabin that was their home during that week. When they arrived they chased out some varmints. They also killed a rattlesnake the first day. After rounding up the pairs and working the calves, they moved them north to Westcliffe. Jan and I brought Emily, Jackson, and Jayden to Colorado to see Kurt and finish the week with him.   Kirk and Rebecca along with their ranch mana...

Last Sunday evening Jan and I attended the Lower Grove Bible School program where Becky and Brian's kids attended. Bonnie and crew always do a good job. Any time you're working with a large group of kids it takes strength and energy to be firm and organized. It also takes courage and caring to be gentle to accomplish the mission. Back in the old days livestock feed came in cloth bags with colorful printed material. Mom's would then take those used feed bags and sew clothes for their kids. Rosie, a friend and widow, had taken her childhood dresses made of these colorful feed bags and embroidered them into a pattern. Jan quilted twelve of these patterns into a pretty quilt. I think it would have taken strength and courage to farm and raise a family back then.    Actually it takes strength and courage to farm and raise a family today as well. Today is Father's Day. I'm blessed to still have my father. I'm blessed to be a father. And I'm blessed to wat...

Summer is a time of growing. We watch plants bloom. We continually cut our grass. It's when crops  rapidly develop. It's the time of year kids outgrow their clothes. A farmers job in the summer is to monitor that crop development. To weed and feed if necessary. To keep bugs and disease out. And to pray and trust God for the proper amount of sunshine and water. Crop development happens fast in an Iowa growing season. It has to. After planting and emergence a corn plant has about four months to mature. We also want it to. Our goal as farmers is not to end up with continually growing green plants. Our job is to feed the world. We plan to end up with grain soon after Labor Day. In order for that to happen that corn plant has to start to diminish after it has served it's purpose. After emergence, growth, roots, development, and reproduction, the starches and energy switch from focusing on the plant to focusing on the ears of grain.    ...