StillwatersIowa

When I was 10 years old my Dad took me to Farmers Savings Bank in Leighton to open a checking account. Howard, the bank president, thought I was a little young to have a checkbook. I was also 10 years old when my folks allowed me to be in 4H. Adams Champs. I bought my first club calf off of Granvel, a neighbor. I bought feed from New Sharon Elevator. My Dad cosigned my first loan when I went back to Howard at Leighton Bank to ask for an operating loan for my 4H calves. When I sold those club calves at the 4H auction I again went to Howard at Leighton Bank and paid my 4H loan off with around 7% interest. When my Dad asked what I was going to spend the profit on, I didn't know. I just wanted to write one of those checks in my new checkbook where I had to sign my name in cursive. He told me my first check had to be my tithe. Dad taught me to share with God and the church no matter how tough times were. Mom taught me to share with others. Two years ago this morning I found Dad had pass...

We live in a culture today where we have to sift through stories and determine what is true and what is not. We often say we need to see it to believe it. Yet there are things that are unseen. Like the future. So, how do you move forward? You determine your purpose. You create a vision. And finally you engage in the mission.  I know. That sounds like a psychology class in college. Since I didn't go to college I'm going to give you a practical example in the next picture. Below Karl was struggling with the rate (amount of hog honey) staying locked on while applying hog manure. He discovered a piece of metal had broken off inside the wagon and covered the outlet. So we had to crawl inside the wagon and remove the metal piece. The mission was accomplished safely. One of our purposes around here is to produce food and fuel as farmers. Our vision is to grow another crop next year even though we can't see the future. And our mission is to continue to get ready to plant that ...

It often takes becoming uncomfortable to move forward. To grow. To be productive. To accomplish a purpose. I thought about this while loading hog manure. Helping feed the world involves growing crops. Crops need nutrients (hog honey). In our case it takes being uncomfortable a couple of minutes of sitting in the cold wind loading a manure tanker, driving two miles and loading the honey wagon, which applies the nutrients the crop will use next year. On other fields we are also feeding next years corn crop with commercial fertilizer. Alex, Layton, and Kurt worked on NH3 application. Late last night as I was filling in it would take about two minutes of being uncomfortable every 40 acres when I changed from an empty tank to another full one. Thanks Jim, Matt, and Brent for keeping us supplied with product. My days kind of ran together this past week so I'm not sure which afternoon it was. We started warm and were working in 76 degrees. About mid to late afternoon you could feel the co...

The forecast was for heavy rain the end of the week. We had just finished a custom combining job near Deep River. It was Tuesday afternoon. Our crew moved to our last 450 acres of corn between Sully and Peoria. Cassia brought out supper. We knew the combining crew could get this farm out before the rain. However I wasn't as optimistic about our five trucks hauling 80 loads 35 miles in the two days we had. The folks who have helped us truck earlier were all busy. We appreciated Andrew's help on Thursday. We have an Iowa Select hog facility on one of our farms. An employee and young farm wife called and wanted an interview and a picture. Thanks Erica. And thanks Eleanor for being ok with my request to include a grandson in the picture. John stayed home from school on Thursday to run graincart. We were also blessed to have our landlords come out and join us for combine rides. Thanks Keith, Karen, and Kathy and family. One of the things that make our vocation so great is the relati...