StillwatersIowa

Today is the last day of June. 2024 is half over. We are around 8 weeks past the bulk of planting. And we're just 8 weeks away from the start of harvest. The new crop bid for the corn crop in the field is $3.95. I sold my first corn crop in 1974 in the $3s. My one year old tractor back then cost $9500. Today a year old tractor is $500,000. What we value and do is a reflection of who we are. Jan loves keeping her garden, yard, flowers, and plants in good shape. Summer and Mondays are grandkids, and the mid-age ones help the younger ones. Below six granddaugthers are helping each other get their hair ready for swimming in the pond. Different mid-age grandsons help out on different days. Below Elliot is stacking return seed boxes. Two loads of boxes have already returned to Colfax. Alex planted soybeans on a field that had previously been in CRP for thirty years. CRP is a conservation reserve program administered by the government starting in 1985. It's setting aside sensitive acr...

Last Monday morning shortly after 3am our oldest grandson Gideon and his wife Emily welcomed Oakley Mae to their family. They live on the old home Ferguson farm where Jan grew up. Thanks for the picture. Earlier in the pregnancy I was teasing our son BJ about being a Grandpa in his 40s. He asked back. "Well, what does that make you Dad?" Now I'm telling you, I had to think about that. Thanks for the picture. Last Sunday we celebrated Oakley's Uncle John's senior graduation party in BJ and Cassia's shop. John has been busy haying and shooting trap where he was 2nd in the state. Mike spent the week in Canada fishing with his friend Tracy, Tracy's son, Tracy's father Mel, and Jan's brother Paul. Thanks for the picture. We got the little square wire tie baler out this past week to bale some grass hay. That brought back memories from when we used to bale all small square bales. Natalie, a 7th grader, and Adi, a 9th grader, Oakley's aunts, helped the...

Fifty years ago I remember a pastor that would admonish the fathers of the world for not stepping up and being a dad. I wonder what he'd think today. The fifty year old tractor below is an IH 1456 getting ready to pull a 26 foot Wil-rich field-cultivator. New price on the 130 rated PTO horsepower tractor back then was $12300. 5600 were built and sold. We used that tractor and cultivator Friday to level off a patch of ground that Mike cleared. The land was pasture ground fifty years ago that had been abandoned. Valor is courage, boldness, determination, selfless, strength of mind, ability to lead. My friend Andy and I talked this week about perseverance and integrity. These are character traits that are not an option, but a must for fathers. Kurt is mowing road ditches below. John and his Dad, BJ, baled hay all week for themselves and others. Farming is a vocation that has the advantage of fathers working with their children. Farming also has the advantage of extended family. When k...

Generational impact is the effect and outcome one generation leaves on another. Some things are taught. Many are observed. A few can be tradition. The most effective positive impacts are given selflessly. Passing on the principles, values, and morals we grew up with is getting harder. Today's culture wants to raise the consequences and cost of speaking truth so high that folks will keep quiet. Either lack of courage or apathy in speaking truth is leaving a void and is damaging to the next generations. The second most asked question I have gotten in the last two decades is how do we operate as a family unit. I'm going to let the farming pictures about replanting, spraying fence rows, mowing road ditches, putting equipment away, 2nd pass spraying, and haying, tell their own story this week. And I'll share some business and life goals we've had over the last twenty years as a family. When a business grows, don't make smaller slices. Don't necessarily make a bigger ...