StillwatersIowa

Sydnie is four months old. One morning this week she helped her dad, Karl, while her mom, Kristin, ran some errands. At four months old you have all the time in the world.   Well, winter finally came and it looks like it's going to stay for awhile. We have had three or four snow events since last Sunday and the temp is below zero.   Cold weather has made the ice on the pond thick enough for Mike and Cody to fish. It won't be long and the studded tires on the motorcycles will be going on for racing on the ice. On Christmas afternoon Mike, Cody, and I helped BJ's family cut firewood. My job was to dump the cut firewood from the skidloader bucket into the dump truck. Marketing and delivering crops in the winter time can be a challenge. Especially when the prices don't move more than a dime a bushel in months. However as many of you can relate year end is a time of getting things paid for the next crop. So a few weeks ago we negotiated the...

Christmas is about gifts. Anticipation. Joy. Giving. Receiving. However the excitement of those wrapped boxes are when they are given, unwrapped, showed to others, and even shared. Christmas is also about making a plan. Jan spent the day preparing. As I was helping move gifts to the cabin, lighting the fireplace, and helping set the table, I couldn't help but think back some 40 years. I had no plan. But God did. And over the last 40 years He has steadily and deliberately unwrapped His gift to me here on earth of life and family. I started our evening by reading a Christmas letter I had written 30 years ago for Jan.  Karl and Malaki took advantage of the warm weather and formed up a cement pad for their new generator. With cold weather in the forecast we decided it would be easier to put machinery away a day early rather than a day late. We filled a machine shed northwest of Pella with machinery used in the fall like grain ca...

Last Sunday we went to Brian and Beckys for lunch and celebrated Hazel's first birthday. After lunch her four brothers helped open her gift.   I remember a Christmas forty some years ago when I was dating Jan and was invited to her family's Christmas. I wanted her parents to like me so I spent most of my checking account back then on a pair of insulated coveralls for her father. I'll never forget how I felt when Papa Gene opened the gift and said, "Did I open the wrong package? I don't wear these." Jan's mom graciously received the gift, thanked me for them, and wore them for years after that Christmas. Francis, my mother-in-law, passed away 25 years ago this past week. When you receive a wrong gift this week remember it's not so much the gift as it is the importance of the folks that love you and are trying to show it. Monday evening Jan and I took several grandkids to the Osky theater to see "The Star". It's an animated picture...