StillwatersIowa

Our past week was full of actions and interactions as I'm sure yours was as well. It started with grandkids, hosting a governor candidate, hauling grain, tiling, dozing, and hospital visits. It ended with getting ready for a Thanksgiving snow storm and looking forward to our final goal of the week, a family Thanksgiving get-together. Tatum is comfortable on Grandma's lap reading Go Dog Go. Grandma can make the story come alive. Go Dog Go is a 1961 children's book that describes the actions and interactions of a group of dogs. They work, play, travel in cars, go up, go down, try to gain approval of a hat, and look forward to a final goal, a dog get-together in a tree. Our family's book must must be at least 40 yrs old. Anyone else remember reading kids and grandkids this book? Our corn merchant texted Friday asking if there was a way we could deliver corn ahead of the coming bad weather. Kasey and I were able to get in 10 loads. Thanks for the picture John. The tiling cr...

Have you ever thought about how hard it might be to learn our American language? Thanksgiving is "just around the corner". What corner? What's the difference between "cattycorner and cattywampus"? "May your days be bright and your Christmases be white" Bright and white? Or like yesterday when I asked Matt to "swing by" and "look at" the "SoilTec" on the Honda. If Thanksgiving is just around the corner, Christmas is just around the next corner after that. Last evening our community of Oskaloosa "turned on the Square lights". I think that was going to be Byron and Deb's job this year. Congratulations. Well deserved. Thanks for the picture. "In the old days" after our "cribs" were full, we would put up "pickets"(temporary storage)  for the extra crop. Harvest usually lasted until Thanksgiving. I remember Jan and I going out on a snowy Thanksgiving afternoon and trying to finish up o...

It's been a beautiful, yet busy week for mid November. This is the time of year when fieldwork overlaps with getting ready for winter, meetings, selling, evaluating our past year, balancing where we are at, and planning where we are going. Our goal around here is to work for a purpose and not a position. The guys continue to be busy with tiling, building pads, basements, waterways, terraces, and farm improvement projects for others. Thanks for the picture Mark. BJ finished the week with spreading lime for Karl. Jim had stockpiled product from the quarry earlier this summer. We're about caught up chiseling cornstalks on the ground going back to corn next year. Corn/soybean rotation is much simpler, less investment, and less work. However a farm business also needs to evaluate what has the possibility for a profit next year. Many of you in our country had the pleasure of seeing the northern lights, either in person or pictures by others. They were as visible here in the Midwest a...

This past Friday evening near Madrid, with a crisp northwest wind, John and Ella dedicated themselves to each other for life in their marriage ceremony. John is BJ and Cassia's third child. Ella is Matt and Heather's youngest. In the old days, John's great-grandfather and Ella's great-grandfather were best men at each other's weddings. Little Oakley and Rosie, granddaughters of BJ and Cassia, wore their hats to stay warm. The food and fellowship afterwards were inside. John and Ella publicly promised to be a family that would do their best, with God's grace, to serve the Lord. Both sets of parents publicly dedicated themselves to praying and supporting their children. For rehearsal supper Thursday evening Kurt, Emily, and their boys made and served pizzas from their Boonies wood fired pizza trailer. The following morning, Jan took some extra pizza dough, and made breakfast dessert for us and our crew in the farm shop. Farming this past week consisted of finishin...

Yesterday I was blessed to work with grandsons in the morning, to attend a 70th birthday party for Sue and visit with friends in the afternoon, and go to the Boonies trailer in Leighton for pizza in the evening. The combines are finished, however we're still working on cleaning up field edges, terraces, and waterways. Iowa has the ability to grow trash trees in fencerows and non cultivated ground at about 4 feet/yr. The many trees we want and choose to keep just started to turn to their brilliant fall colors this past week in southern Iowa. This is a picture of a bluff overlooking the Des Moines River bottom on a farm we call Howell Station. I was 9 years old when this movie came out. My parents took us to Des Moines for my first of a very few movie experiences in my lifetime. The Sound Of Music was the #1 at the box office for 30 weeks in 1965.                                         Thu...