Consistently Moving Forward

It's summer time. Most folks need a good rain. Prices aren't anything to get excited about. The weak spots in the fields are showing up. What does consistently moving forward look like?

On the farm there are two times of year when the crop doesn't require total attention and effort in Iowa. One of those times is mid winter. The other is mid summer. Oh yeah. The crop is hollering for water. But where we farm, that's not our call. So we move on to other things.

Our family was able to all get together on the evening of the fourth. We made pizza pockets over the fire for supper. The grandkids went swimming.

BJ made a hole in the basement of the burnt house and we moved out some things that survived the house fire like geo thermal units, water heaters, and electrical boxes.

Sometimes moving forward means tearing down. It's so easy to focus on what we don't have. Losses hurt and are real. Consistently moving forward moving means picking up the pieces and facing a new day. Can we do that on our own? No way. That's why we were given Faith, Family, and Friends.

Remember last week when I talked about Vasily delivering me pallet racks? Well my machine shed looks like a mess as I'm trying to organize and prioritize.

It was a good week to bale with the warm temps and low humidity. 2nd cutting alfalfa with no rain makes great small square bales. Grandson John ran the baler just like his Dad use to do 25 years ago.

Loading a rack brings back so many memories. Not all good. It was always sort of an art to stack a load of hay.

There was and still is a satisfaction in getting off a finished load all sweaty and itchy with either blisters or callouses on hands and seeing a well stacked load of hay. This load went to Isaiah and Emily for their horses.

Karl, Mark, and Mike dug a hog house pit this week. They found a little soil moisture down about five feet.

It didn't take the cement crew long to come and pour the 45 loads of concrete for the pit floor.

Mike's dozer had some down time. Tearing apart things on a dozer isn't all that complicated however everything is super heavy.

These are the parts that keep the tracks tight. They are all supposed to be together in one piece. When a piece of equipment starts to show it's age it's always hard to know what the right thing to do and moving forward looks like. Do you continue fixing or do you think about replacing?

Most of the corn crop got tired of waiting on a rain and started tasseling and shooting ears. We are now in the fill period. Filling those shoots with kernels of  grain takes energy and moisture for that plant. On dry years a corn plant will develop roots 6 feet deep to find moisture. On the good black loam soil that process will happen if it doesn't get to hot. On the lighter clays soils the plant will turn grey and the filling process will fail.

I can not stay out of a package of chocolate chips and am always snooping while Jan is baking cookies for Sunday coffee time at church.

Yesterday afternoon the kids and some of their friends got together to go to a side by side race. I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for my kid's friends.

Last Sunday morning nine young folks from our church made their profession of faith. That means they publicly tell their parents, friends, and fellow church members that they love their Lord and want to move forward in living for Him and with Him. It's good to have Pastor Paul and Ellen back for a couple of weeks. So many churches are full of old folks these days. If our churches want to continue to move forward we need to include our younger generation in the process, work, and leadership of the church.

Yesterday after I was finished baling I went and visited a friend. We talked about loss. We talked about the importance and support of faith, family, and friends. I went to encourage and ended up being encouraged. Relationships are a gift from God. When life is good we need to support and care. When life is tough we need to be ok with receiving that support and caring.

So as you look in the rearview mirror what do you see? Are you moving forward? Or are you waiting for something or someone to happen? Success in life is not what happens. It's an attitude to what happens. Take the time to look back. You will see God has been there the whole time caring and helping.