StillwatersIowa

I'm often asked, "What's happening on the farm these days?" Well, Ryan and Matt helped me form up some steps from our house sidewalk down to where I walk to the shop.   Once we get the steps poured Jan can finish planning her landscape around our front door.   Remember the pallet racks we talked about a couple of weeks ago? Well, we got them assembled. Then we filled them. That was the first step in getting our machine shed organized.   I helped sell hogs while Karl and Kristin were gone for a couple of days. I like the hog sheds these days. Karl already had them sorted and ready to load. Back in the day I would get the kids up on Monday mornings about 5 am and we would sort 34 head, load them on our straight truck, and deliver them to Ottumwa. If we had time we would stop at McDonalds on the way home before school.   One of the steps of loading hogs in the summer time is to start by attaching a garden hose to the semi trailer and mist the ...

As you drive around the countryside these days you see farmsteads no longer used or cared about. We hear about fewer farmers, all the jobs being in town, and kids not wanting to come back to the farm. I'm suggesting maybe some of the previous generation of these old places either didn't see the value of their kids coming back to the farm, didn't think there was room for them and their kids, or didn't invest the resources, time, and effort to help the next generation stay. In the 1972 movie, "The Cowboys" John Wayne is a rancher in Bozeman, Montana. His help leaves him because of the gold rush so he goes to a school house and ask these kids if they would like a job driving cattle to a rail terminal. Over the course of the movie John Wayne invests in theses kids by teaching them how to drive cattle, how to get along, how to handle adversity, and finally how to love and care about him and each other. John Wayne gets shot by bad guys who steal his...

Memories are about the past. Dreams are about the future. Experiencing life is in the present. All three fit together to create your story. All of our stories put together become history or "His-story".   What do you remember as a kid? I'll bet you there were some bigger things out of the ordinary like vacations or weddings or storms or moving. I also dare say there are a few little things that for whatever reason you just have never forgotten. These siblings and cousins are growing up fast making memories together.   I realize not everyone baptizes children. Baptizing our kids is for remembering. Yes, we remember stuff like them crying through the whole thing or the big Sunday lunch with family afterwards. But the main thing we remember are the promises God makes to us in the Bible in helping to raise them to be assets in society and His kingdom when they grow up. These three amigos went to Culvers with Grandpa and Grandma. I remembe...