I've got no problems

Every time I get to feeling a bit blue about this year I get smacked up side of the head with the realization things are not so bad. 4th of July the local Fire Dept had a booth set up at the festivities at the Park. It was Dave's idea, so he ran with it, pretty much using the "Do It or Have It Done" philosophy.

I was there off and on, and met a couple young ladies who worked with his wife at McDonald's. One was a very nice red-headed young lady. She was there with a local church youth group setting up a booth. Sue and went to McD's over the weekend and she was working. Once it clicked who we were we talked a bit. The Marshall Ambulance had a run this evening I heard while I was putting a wagon in the shed. Woman had collapsed. Dave called me later in the evening. It was this girl's mom. The girl was feeling ill and stayed home from work. She took a nap and when she woke found her mom on the floor. She didn't make it.

I've got no problems.

Brother called. His son is home from the Army for a couple weeks. Because of some of Illinois' screwy Driver's Ed rules and his age and stuff He had never gotten a driver's license. He got his today. Brother said, well, let me copy an email he sent later:

He wrecked my truck tonight, HE IS OK !!!!!!!!!!......... Truck's not, it's toast, we had a hard rain tonight and he went threw a low spot and the truck hydroplaned, he was only going about 45 but ended down a ditch and hit some trees He has a sore leg, nothing broken ,one of the boys that was with him has some scratches from the glass and the other has some neck and back problems, It wasn't his fault , just one of those things that happens

I've got no problems

edit: Here are a few photos

David's Swallow Test

I don't know who reads this that might not be familiar with my oldest grandson, so a quick explanation then a copy of what his Mom wrote on her family blog page. David was born way early. He was 1 pound 3 ounces at birth. Yes, that caused a lot of difficulties. Here is a photo from early on in Riley's ICU.

But things are steadily improving. He is an active, healthy 3 year old.

He went for a test yesterday that should be another step toward his eating solid food. Here is Becky's post:

Thursday, July 3, 2008

David's Swallow Study!!!

David did his swallow study today. He did great! It was so cool to watch the video of him swallowing. It was a little scary looking through David's head. You could see his glasses and the little metal circles on the glasses strap. When Aman started feeding David he couldn't get any liquid out of the sippy so they took the stopper out of the sippy . The liquid went down with no problems. David kept pointing to himself and when he did you could see through his finger. He didn't want to eat but Aman got him to take a bite. When he got the food to the back of his mouth he kind of gagged on it. Stacey says he probably gagged because of the taste of the barium.

Stacey said to try thicker liquids like milk or V-8 Smoothies. Next week we are working on Sprite with orange juice, and ice cream.

OK, my patience is wearing thin ...

I finally got my internet service back today. We only had 65 messages to download. 21 were from the same person ... I have had to set up a filter to put email from him in a separate folder. Do not be surprised if I change ISP's the next week or so. If I do the cell1net.net address will at some point fail to work. The ARRL.net address will forward to the correct mailbox as well as the firehousemail.com address.

And yes, it is 12:25 AM as I type this. I was upgrading my Open Office and fell asleep at my desk waiting for it to do its thing and now am not sleepy. Its been a challenging day

The backup light on my truck do not work. They don't work because we stole the fuse from them to use in the combine. The combine needed it because the parking brake was locked on.

Oh, you want an explanation?

My son-in-law was running through the field cutting wheat when the combine made a terrible noise and lost all forward motion. It was like someone threw the parking brake on. We could not get it to work right. If you put the transmission in 1st gear you could get some forward movement out of it. This was 5:30 PM. Dad came to take my place in line at the elevator while I looked at the combine. I got back to the field, yep, still looked like a combine. We looked it over, and finally called the service dept about 10 before 6. Everyone had left but a salesman who was no help at all.

Elevator was open until 6, so SIL jumped in the full truck and headed for town. I went back and changed with Dad. I finally got unloaded and put my truck away for the night. Wife helped me get stuff in. We were setting there contemplating when Dad called and asked if we had checked the fuses. SIL popped the fuse cover off and started looking at the diagram to see what fuse it might be. He got this funny look when he discovered the parking brake and the air pump for the driver's seat share a common fuse. He realized he had been pumping up the seat when the combine stopped. We stole the afore mentioned fuse from my pickup and VOILA! he was back in business.

I mentioned challenging? We tried one field this morning and it was too wet so we went to try another. Combine almost didn't start. So we changed fields, it too was wet. We cleaned the battery terminals on the combine, then set up an auger on a bin to put wet wheat in.

OK that is not from today, but it might give those reading this that do not understand "farmer talk" an idea what I mean. If you are reading this and do not understand the significance ... you are fortunate. Putting wheat in a bin now means sometime in the next month you will need to get it out. Combine physical labor (running a scoop shovel or powered equipment) inside a closed circular metal structure with summer heat and you have a setup for heat exhaustion. Nobody likes the idea of wheat in a bin. So we get it all set up, ready to take wheat, I plug in the spreader in the top of the bin ... and trip the circuit breaker.

Fortunately, after we get the first truck loaded I take a sample to the elevator and it has dried enough we can take it directly to town. This is an idea it seems everyone else had as well.

Anyway, broken bolts, blown fuses, non-working devices ... by the way, I forgot to mention I found the big green tractor has a flat tire on it after we got it to the field and a load on the grain cart.But Hey! Yesterday afternoon for fun I talked to the IRS, the insurance company, and of course my internet service provider customer service folks. This is a piece of cake

Well, I've been at this about a half hour and am beginning to get drowsy again, so see y'all later.

The perfect is the enemy of the good

Jill posted something on her blog that hit me "I'm lazy. And because I'm a perfectionist." A lot of people don't realize that is why many people don't get things done. I for example, am a closet perfectionist. (I keep it hid pretty well) One of the ways it manifests itself is I tend to put things off until I can do them "right" I hate starting and them stopping and then starting and eventually finishing. The downside is I tend to put things off until I "have time" and they don't get get done.

I have a framed quote on the wall from Eugenio Najera, President of Seminis Vegetable Seeds. I have no idea who he is, but the quote is a reminder to me

We have a saying in Spanish-
El perfecto es enemigo de lo bueno

The perfect is the enemy of the good

If you are waiting for something to be perfect, you are wasting time.
You will never be perfect, so don't wait.
Implement practicality, maybe not at 100% perfection, but something like 80% is good enough

I need reminded of that at times. My typing sometimes looks like it.

Sorry I've been away ...

well, not really away, I've been here. It is just my ISP has been ... less than responsive. The 19th sometime mid-day they made a change in their system, but forgot that necessitated a change in my equipment. I left a message on their voice mail Thursday night. It was Monday before someone had a "V-8 moment" and realized I was off-line. They Monday fix didn't work. It was Tuesday afternoon before we were up and running properly.

I had stopped by a friend's Sunday and checked my email, dumped a lot of spam. When I got home Tuesday I only had to download 57 new messages. So I've been a little slow about a new blog entry.

Anyway, here are some photographs showing one of the places I have been this week

Now, that MIGHT tell you something if you know where you are looking. Maybe this will help? (hint, it is on top of Grandpa Neal's barn) Notice I am looking down at it?
OK, the first one was looking east, the second was looking west. Here is where I was looking down.
Aman said it was my turn to get in the bucket. I was fastening down sheet metal on the roof. I forgot the camera but at least I had my phone.

Anyway, we are hoping to cut wheat this week. Tried a couple fields, but they were too wet.

Luke 12:22-26 Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

I’m trying, I really am. But if I am accomplishing it why am I up at 4 AM when there is absolutely no reason for me to be?

Let’s see …. Dad’s taking chemo fighting recurring cancer, which when they first operated on him to remove the doctors said this kind did not respond to chemo ... I have a grandson who has been fighting challenge after challenge … It is almost June 10 and I’ve had around 500 acres under water the past few days … we are obviously going to have to replant beans and the seed supply is so tight there may not be any … I have at least 150 acres of corn that may need replanted at this late date … we are maybe 2 weeks from wheat harvest and every field has either standing or running water in it … I contracted too much wheat if we have a lousy yield … I had an exceptional year last year and bought a couple things that looking back from this perspective I could have gotten by without ... historically a weather pattern like this is followed by a drought … our church has gone from nearly 180 to just over 80 and lots of hurtful words have been said … I thought maybe writing them out would help but I’m not sure it does. And there are more private concerns I would not list.

You know, thinking about it the last one is probably to hardest for me. Seeing what has happened at church really bothers me. The farming stuff … we’ll make it. Things will be tough for a while. But we will make it. If not we’ll just find another way of supporting ourselves. But the division at church REALLY bothers me.

I don’t understand how we got to this point. I understand why some held such strong positions. But I don’t understand how some could just up and leave just because they had a difference of opinion. And it is opinion. Nobody has opened their Bible and said to me “Here is what is being done wrong”. Well, let me clarify that. I don’t recall anyone doing that and being willing to discuss it. They just want to tll me what is wrong and not consider that fact they might be wrong. There is a lot of “I feel” and “I believe” and “I just don’t understand”. And yes, there has been some “This is wrong”, but very little really trying to understand the other person.

It is times like this we need faith. Hebrews 11:1 says Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That sure describes where I am now. I know it will all work out. I have seen Romans 8:28 proved time and again in my life And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. But there are times it really takes faith, that being certain of what we do not see, to get through it.

I like to include a photo of some kind with these blogs that illustrates the thought. Here is one that may need some explanation.


I heard a preacher one time say someone complaining the conservative old farmers in his church didn't have faith. He told him to take all the money he had or could borrow and bury it and then tell him they didn't have faith. To me seeds are the ultimate expression of faith and hope. You take something that does not look alive and put it in the ground. Usually you put a fair amount of money with it, in machinery, fuel, herbicides, fertilizer. Sometimes you do that and the river takes it away. I'm still working on the faith and hope stuff.

Oh, and I mentioned one of my worries was my grandson? He stood and walked on his own last week! Not far, but a start. God is good.

9.25 inches

9.25 inches. That is how much rain we had from 5 PM Friday until 5 AM Saturday. A real interesting wind storm came through first, then we got rain. and it sat on top of us and just continued to rain. Here are a few photos.

This shed has a history. Dad had a barn burn in 1965. They replaced it with an aluminum sided pole building. About 15 years ago after Dad decided to put in an irrigator and the shed was in the way. He sold it to a neighbor who jacked it up, put it on a sled, and moved it about half a mile. When that neighbor quit farming my cousin Don bought it. I told you all that to show you this. Friday evening we had some incredible straight line winds that picked up the building and tossed it.
9.25 inches makes strange things happen. Tiles run backwards...

water ponds in places it never ponded before. This is looking north in Walnut Prairie. This is not a creek or river, not flowing water, just surface water
If you look near the left edge of the next photo you can see the blown apart building I showed in the earlier photo. This is flowing out of my milo field on the left into my soybean field on the right.

Here is a scarier photo. It was taken at the Raccoon Creek bridge on Illinois Route 1 just south of West York. When these vehicles were abandoned early this morning the tops were just out of the water. Water was flowing 2-3 feet over the top of the bridge bannisters. The strips across the road are not speed bumps. They are pieces of asphalt from the edge of the road. The water was flowing so fast it picked up the asphalt strips and tossed them. Here is a shot of the edge of the road where they came from.
It's been a challenging year and not getting any better.

I'll add this. The National Weather Service put out this rainfall map of the event. It shows Illinis counties and amount of rainfall by color. We are the dark blue: