Winning From The Inside Out

How good are you at winning? Maybe a tougher question. How good are you at losing? If you want to be a class act you need to be empathetic while winning and respectful while losing. That may sound backwards.

 When us guys come in for lunch during babysitting days the little grandkids beg Grandpa to open the ladder after lunch so they can climb and play in the store room above the garage. Then I sit at the bottom of the ladder during their time up there in case they need ladder help or to warn them if they get to close to the opening. Well!! I never pay any attention to what they are actually doing up there. Yesterday Jan asked me to go up and get a roaster for our anniversary lunch today. Wow!! I think tomorrow, myself and some little people are going to have a "pick up parade" as my mother used to call it. Including cleaning up a styrofoam cooler that apparently was fun to pick apart. :)

How good are we at watching others win? Or lose? Or maybe a better way of putting it would be: How good are we at watching others succeed? Or fail? If our own self-worth is tied to other's outcomes, meaning feeling bummed inside when others succeed, or feeling gratified inside when others fail, we have it backwards and will not be much fun to be around. Below we stopped and visited with some farmers while in Arizona near Old Mexico.

Spring is close. Below Mark is working at cleaning beaver dams out of a creek just north of Oskaloosa.

Alex has BJ's hydraulic driven brush cutter on the front of our skidloader and is cleaning brush out of the road ditch on the Eddyville Flats. We can't use a trackhoe here because a fiber optics cable is located in the road right-of-way underneath the trees.

Mike found very little frost as he built a terrace on Karl and Kristin's home farm. He then moved here at our place. Now he is at a DOT project along highway 92.

Karl and I have a goal to start delivering seed around spring break hoping to use some middle age grandkids to help throw bags. That means we need to organize and figure out what numbers aren't in our shed yet. There is a possibility planting could be just 4 weeks away.

Another early spring job is to start spraying pre herbicides on no-till ground going to soybeans before the winter annuals start growing. So it's time to make sure the sprayers are ready to roll.

Farm drainage, meaning installing field tile, is one of the most beneficial things a farmer can do. Pattern tiling is done with this tile plow, while just drying up mudholes is usually done with a wheel trencher. BJ has been busy.

Winning at farming means taking advantage of opportunities. Farmers can't control outside things like weather, markets, or unexpected bearish market movers things like a Coronavirus. However we can control whether or not we're ready to roll. We can control how we improve our owned and rented land. And we can win from the inside by having a positive attitude looking forward.

For years Jan has been kindly asking me to clean up across the road. That's where the stuff that's too good to throw away went. That's where the things we might need someday were. That's where the extra machinery that needed work sat and waited.

                          

Well, I decided rather than a card or flowers for our anniversary this year we would tackle that project and take advantage of this warm early March. So we made a couple of spots in our reclaimed coal mine hole for things including this Hybrid I built as a second tractor the second year we were married.

We loaded our first skidloader from 40 years ago in the iron pile. Mike said he bet the little skidloader said to the big skidloader, "I bet I've hauled more manure than you have".

We found my first chemductor. In order to support my new bride in 1975 I went to Mahaska Farm Service and asked Howard, the manager, for custom work. I was 18 years old, shy, and most likely had low self-esteem. Howard said, "Son, never put yourself down". That advice from a stranger that became one of my close friends was winning from the inside out. The greatness of a person shows in how they treat little and insignificant people. He asked me to spray with my 3 pt. 200 gallon sprayer and 8 row homemade belly mounted boom for a set of brothers near Rose Hill. So I went to Les at Binns and Stephens for help. Les said he had some cutting edge equipment including this chemductor and electronic shutoffs controlling 3 sections at a time on that small boom. I could spray 10 acres a batch.

Because of a farm service manager taking a chance on a young inexperienced farmer with his spraying business. And because one of those brothers near Rose Hill took a chance on a young couple and rented us his land so he could be a county supervisor, Jan and I could raise our own family doing what we loved, and still love to do. Yesterday we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary by going out for supper at Liberty Street Kitchen in Pella. The restaurant is currently owned by Paul, my father's second cousin.

As we worked across the road bringing stuff to the junk pile. Old outdated equipment to Shragos, a scrap buyer. And equipment to the coal mine hole that needs attention. I was reminded how temporary things are here on earth. Yes, these are the items we farm with. And yes, this is some of the machinery on our balance sheet. However it fades. It rusts. It breaks down. And putting all our hope in stuff like vehicles, homes, machinery, and acres is trying to win from the outside. It doesn't last. Having a positive attitude. Loving others. Sharing and helping the insignificant guy. Having positive relationships by not criticizing, condemning, and complaining. And trying to be the hands and feet of Christ is what winning from the inside out looks like. Have a good week. The forecast looks wet.