Looking Forward

We were made to look forward. To growing up. To having a family. To how we spend our lives. Maybe to retirement. Even to a better place after struggles here on earth. Emily took this picture and was looking forward to gardening with her boys. However one year old Jayden wanted to eat dirt and four year old Jackson told his Mom he was going to "tile" her garden.

In 2002 I received a call from Bob. Bob was a 38 year old manager for Cargill/New Sharon. Cargill had bought this crop supply business from Greg and Bonnie who we used to do business with. Bob asked to take us out to lunch at Bonanza on the east side of Oskaloosa.

Cargill was growing fast and Bob asked us if we would consider 3rd party spraying for them. That means instead of a business purchasing more equipment and help it would sort of custom work out part of it's work load. Bob said he had found a sprayer we could lease the first year and purchase it if things worked out. Although I had done custom work all my life and at that time even had a partnership with a couple of boys that was the start of custom spraying for our family. 

Kathy is the office manager at New Sharon. She not only does the bookkeeping she runs the computer driven dry fertilizer tower loading trucks to go to the spreaders in the field. After Bob moved to Minnesota and circumstances caused the location to be without a branch manager for some time Kathy held the business location together. At 6am on many mornings Kathy and I would talk either by phone or in her office and make a plan for the day as far as spraying, spreading, or even treating soybean seed. This past week Kathy lost her husband Jerry to cancer. Our sympathies to her and her children, Jeff, Mark, and Julie and their families.

We often did Jerry and Kathy's spraying. Karl even remembers Jerry taking him in their home to coffeetime for Pepsi and Oreo cookies. One May day while spraying some corn that had been planted Kurt got stuck. Jerry tried pulling him out with his White tractor to no avail. Denney from Bill and Rays pulled us out. Good memories Kathy. You are in our thoughts and prayers.  

This was a picture I took last Sunday morning after finishing our visit. We were definitely looking forward to spring. We realize our friends to the north are still waiting.

So early last week while we waited for the weather to improve we gathered up the mowing equipment, serviced them, sharpened or replaced blades, and got them ready for if and when the grass decides to grow.

We dug out the seed tenders, aired up the tires, serviced the motors, and made them ready to haul seed to the field.

On Wednesday we cleaned out a large waterway and had Mike build a terrace.

It was good to see BJ back on the tiling machine again on Thursday. Alex, Andy, and Mark were all there to do the hand digging and connections while BJ's back fully recovers from disc replacement surgery in early February.

Dan is an Iowa Senator and is running for Secretary of Agriculture. I had met him previously at the state capital. He called and asked if he could stop out and meet the crew so we had breakfast pizza together one morning while he shared with us his vision for the future of ag in Iowa. I forgot to take a picture of our get-together. We thanked both him and his friend and our Senator Ken for voting for the heartbeat bill and encouraged them to encourage their friends in the House to do the same.

Friday we started spraying pre on ground going to soybeans this year. By last evening Karl and Kasey tendered by Andy, Jim, and Pablo had our bean ground pretty well covered as well as a fair amount of custom work for others.

Jan surprised us with breakfast in the office early Friday morning. She made and brought out an egg casserole.

Southern Iowa may have some faults when it comes to farming however we recover quickly from cold weather. Thursday afternoon we again started loading planters and Friday were planting in earnest.

As you go east and south the fields were dryer and as we went north and west it got wetter. We did have three tractors with hiccups late last week and needed repairs.

As I taught Ezra to plant corn yesterday I encouraged him to keep looking forward to keep his mark straight. Looking forward is what we do in farming when we put in a crop. Not just looking forward but looking forward and believing. Believing we will get to harvest. And not just believing in ourselves and our abilities but believing we have a God that cares about us. And not just cares about our crop but cares about everything we are and do in all our lives here on earth. In the short term I can't make a crop grow but God can. In the long term I don't come up with those meetings like in 2002. But God has a plan for all of us and can't wait to make it happen if we are willing to commit things to Him. Have a good week.