Life Improved

I must say life without illness is an immense relief. It feels good to feel good...
In other news, Ben, Fred and I went and looked at some buildings on the old Frazier place today. This is a 250 acre farm in Altavista. Beutiful place which is for sale for only 2.5 million. I think I will buy it...
A gentleman thought I could use the lumber for a building project I will be doing this spring. I am thinking it looks like more headache than it is worth. He wants me to take all three buildings a lot of lumber I can't use. I don't have anywhere to store it either. So, it may get turned into eternal smoke...
And still in other news of a completly different nature. Sonny, his wife, Ruth, and two of there 5 children headed across the pond to visit some relatives. They will be spending, roughly, 10 days in Ireland. They are in the air, I hope, at this very moment....

My Plight

Last evening about bedtime I was very tired and didn't feel good. I didn't tell my wife this because I knew she wouldn't appreciate my poor health. When you mother five chillins I guess you would hate to see them all get sick. So, I took some Ibuprofen and went to bed. This morning while milking I started feeling bad so I took a few more. As long as I stay on them I don't feel too bad. Aside from aching muscles and feeling chilled. If I am catching what my parents had when we were there for Christmas I will start feeling queasy sometime soon. The queasy part makes me nervous. I hate being queasy...
There was something else improtant I was going to tell you about but it has slipped my memory....
maybe next time...

Good To Be Home

It is good to be home, yes it is... Even though I am scheduled to milk in the morning. Three comes earlier everyday... Anyway, we had pretty nasty driving until we got to Berkley Springs WV. From then on things opened up and we were able to make pretty good time. I have a big day tomorrow. I messed up and synchronized a bunch of cows. This means I have 13 cows to breed tomorrow afternoon... Well supper is ready so I must go....
Merry Christmas everyone....

Robert Shaw

Jon found a VHS (video) of Robert Shaw conducting the Messiah. We are going to be watching this in a few minutes. I have always loved the music or choirs he has conducted. I really like the spiritual album. I have heard a few snippets about how he got the sound he got. Robert Shaw was a perfectionist and got what he wanted. Anyway, I am looking forward to watching him conduct. watching people conduct has always intriguer me. Maybe this is because I enjoy conducting.

Games

So far today I have played two games of Sequence and several rounds of Rook. We have also had the Zehr Christmas. This will continue through tomorrow afternoon when some of us will be leaving.
We are currently under a winter storm warning, or something of that nature. We are suppose to have 6-12 inches of snow fall upon the roof sometime today. As I type the sun is shining and this snow accumulation looks some what unlikely.

Still Traveling

We left Middlefield OH after lunch today and headed to my parents in Meadeville, PA. We will be here until Tuesday evening. We will then head back to my in laws before heading home on Wed. So far things are going well. It was cold today and I heard it is suppose to drop down under 10 by morning.
My sister and her family are already here. My brother and his family are in route. It will be nice spending time together it will also be nice to be home for Christmas day...

This Is A Test

This is a test to see if I have set up my face book page to automatically update these posts onto my facebook page....

Lazy Day

Oh What a great day. I spent a lot of time doing nothing, really. I spent time on facebook. I was making new friends. Or something like that. VOP has a facebook page also. Feel free to take a look at that and become one of our fans...
Glad Songs has a top 10 downloads on there home page. Because I am a member of VOP I have the ability to see how many times a VOP song has been downloaded. As of this afternoon Tiny King seems to be our most popular song. Drummer boy is right on its heels. What is your favorite song on the new album?

Glad Songs

For those of you who are not aware, there is a new website called Glad Songs. You can find it at gladsongs.com. Sorry, I am to lazy to put the link in. Anyway, I went to the site this morning and listened to somethings. One of the groups was called the Table Singers. I have never heard of them. They were really good. They reminded me of the Mennonite Hour Choir. From what I could tell the group was singing in the late fifty's. I don't know if they are still active or not. So, slip over and check it out.

Half Way

Well, our Christmas travels have begun. I am currently sitting in my in-laws living room enjoying the high speed internet connection. We arrived on the premises about 45 min. ago. uDad has wood cutting plans for in the morning and then we will be leaving for OH about lumch time. Dad has been cutting wood along Rt. 30. If you SMBI and go west take hard look up the mountain on your left after you pass the second runaway truck ramp. Personally, it makes a man feel like a real woodsman when you lug your wood off the cliff down to the sleigh, I mean truck...

Kaiden James Zehr

This morning at 10:10 we had a conference call with a lawyer and a judge in Fl. This five minute phone conversation finalized Kaiden's adoption. We are thrilled about this... The judge made some comment about us being repeat customers... Very friendly group of people. Very personable. This begining to feel like old hat to us...

Scheduled Events

We will be leaving on the 18th and headed to OH for Christmas with my wife's people before heading to my parents on tthe 21st. We will be headed home on the 24th. Fred will be gone the 26th-28th. Sonny's leave the 29th for Ireland. They will be gone for 10 days or so. We had plans on going to MX to visit Rod's but we then remembered Kaiden would need a passport. We were planning on going the middle to end of Jan. This is begining to look unrealistic at best. Kaiden's adoption will be finalized this Wed. the 17th. I guess there is a chance we could get the paperwork done and back before we were planning on going but I doubt it.
There are a smattering of VOP events the biggest one on the schedule is the Quartet Retreat held at SMBI. If you want information about this event shoot me an email. glen.dairyfarmer@gmail.com

Wedding # 3

So, I am now sitting in a cheap hotel room in Harrisonburg. A group from church is scheduled to sing at my cousins wedding in the morning. I am getting a cold and my singing voice is leaving. Fortunately I am singing bass in this group which is a good thing.
So, we leave for home as soon as the wedding is over. I need to chore in the afternoon. My family is at home also. So we head home as soon as possible....
The wedding involves another of my first cousins. Galen Yoder who is marrying Coleen Roher. He picked some rather tough songs. Prayer of Thankful Praise, to name one.

More Phony Issues

I was trying desperately to update this blog last night and my internet connection was awful I finally quit trying. This morning it was worse. The phone had this rediculous noise on it. Finally I went to the barn and used my hairdryer to dry out the external box. Now it works... This boxis located directly beneath the deck at the front of the parlour. There is a big door in the front of the parlour also. I think when we wash the parour floor down water is going through the bottom of the door and running down on the box. I need to find a good solution to this problem. Think think think... I feel like pooh bear....

LIfe

I realize some of you may be getting tired of my lack of posting. Of course, some of you may be thrilled... Well, if your thrilled your not reading this anyway. I don't know why, but I have been so tired lately. By the time we get the children to bed and Rachel get's Kaiden fed and in bed it is usually 9:30 and I am exhausted and don't feel like trying to find something to expound on. Such is life. When I was getting up at 4 to milk it wasn't so bad. Now I am getting up at three but am still going to bed at the same time. Maybe I am just a wimp...
So, that is why I haven't been posting as often...
We finished cleaning up the milkhouse. Wow, it looks good. Next week we need to move some rock out of the new ground land. I really need to get this land sowed.... We also need to clean out some cow pens and haul some rotting silage. So we move on. I can't believe Christmas is so rapidly approaching....

Clean Up

So far this week Fred and I have been diligently trying to find the floor in milkhouse. For some reason, I didn't realize it had disappeared. Reality set in when the milk inspector showed up. Reality always sets in when he shows up. It was really bad. I have put Fred in charge of keeping it looking respectable. However, it looked it a bit daunting, cleaning up all the residue, so I decided I needed to help him clean up the mess he didn't make. It will be looking good by this evening I think...

Happy Boy

Kaiden has been fussy for the last week or two. We finally moved him into the boys room. He is getting more sleep now. Especially his naps. He used to be in the office and if we, I mainly, tried to do anything on the computer he would wake up. This practice would cause a certain amount of stress on the mothering department. He is happier now that he is getting more sleep. Anyway, here he is grinning happily at me... He is begining to giggle some also...

Dead Phone

Our phone was dead all day yesterday. I have no idea why. This morning I checked when I left to go milk and we had a dial tone again. Very strange indeed.
So, It was nice not having a phone for the day. I was thankful no one could harrass us. Of course there was the cell phone but the service for that apparatus is poor in the house which aids the silence.
SO how many of you are off spending your hard earned money on this day splurge and spending? I went last year for awhile and was not impressed. I will more than gladly stay home, feed a few cows and spend my day in a leisurly fashion. The ladies are planning on going. Rachel, Sierra, and Carla. Yes I would say Sierra is now a lady, most of the time....

Land Clearing Gone Wrong, Sorta...

We have been clearing some land. By this I mean we had roughly 100 acres clear cut twenty -five years ago that never was grubbed and put into farming production. So now we have 100 acres of junk. After waiting on a logger for a year and a half he came in and is chipping everything. There are no logs in this timber it is all junk. So I have been very pleased with his work. The problem came when I had a guy come in and grind the stumps. It would probably be fine if we were going to graze it off but we are not into grazing. Fortunately we only did about 20 acres. We spent a pile of money on something that still is in poor farming condition. I had another gentleman stop by today and look at it. He thought he could have done a much better job for less money. So, now he is going to smooth out the humps, bury the rocks and grub out an acre or two the other guys missed. Hopefuly he can do this in two to three days. We won't be grinding any more stumps in the future. It cost way too much for the amount of acres covered...

Weather

The weather has been very odd for us. It was cold all week. It feels like Feburary. I know most people would scoff at us for considering highs of 40 cold but the last several years we have been having 70 degrees for a high temperature. So this is a major switch for us and I am wondering if we are going to have a very cold winter....

Work

The cows milked a little over 5000 lbs this morning. That is the best they have done yet. Hopefully they milk another 4500 tonight we shall see. We are about ready to start preparing some new ground land. I really need to get it sowed here in the next several weeks. We had a company come in and grind the stumps. This worked decently but not as well as I was hoping. It is fairly rocky also. So, we will need to pick up some rocks and some sticks. I don't look forward to this tedious task. Hopefully the hunt club guys will be up to helping with some of it...

Kyoto

Last night 5 couples from our church went to Kyoto for supper. I was impressed. The food was really good and the cook didn't hit anyone with a knife while showing us his skill. For those of you who don't know Kyoto is a Japanese restaurant. They cook your food right in front of you. I had steak and shrimp and four different kinds of sauce. The only sauce I didn't like was the mustard sauce. If you have never eaten at a place like this you should try it once.

Home Again

We were getting on I 75 last night at 8:15. I arrived home at 10:30 this morning so it took us just over 14 hours to get home. We had a really good trip. Met some old friends of mine. Funny, Brian Miller hasn't changed a lick in the last 15 years. We went to the beach Sunday afternoon. We spent roughly five minutes on the sand. This was about how long it took us to walk from our van to the water's edge and back to the van. The wind was really howling and it was cold.
This coming Thursday is our first practice with Joe. The new CD has arrived. Tom, yours is in the mail and Nevin, I need your mailing address. Till next time....

On The Road Again

I am currently sitting in a dark hotel room in Spartan, SC. At least I think I am in Spartan or Spartansburg or something Spartanish. We, VOP, are headed to FL for the weekend with a stop in Barnwell, tonight.
We had the company who manufactured our new album overnight us a box of 100. The rest of the order was suppose to arrive last night. They didn't. The box they sent was suppose to arrive yesterday morning and they didn't arrive until 2 in the afternoon. We left at 4:30. We like to have things barely arrive on time. This helps keep the blood moving through your body at a rapid pace. This is a result of madly pacing around the house and occasionally banging your head against the wall for added effect. You also need to stare wildly out the window once in awhile this adds to the drama that is unfolding. Unfortunately none of these antics changes the facts only your facial features will change and possibly the walls of your house from all the head banging...
So, life goes on...

Frozen Bagels

For breakfast this morning I had blueberry bagels. I was in the process of preparing one for the toaster when I made a fascinating discovery. I was calmly slicing my frozen bagel with a bread knife when I made this discovery. I must admit there was some amazement concerning the sharpness of the tool I held. I was slicing the bagel and was trying very hard to control the speed of the knifes exiting of the bagel. Of this I was very unsuccesful. I now have a cut on my pinky to prove it. The cut was quite deep and what so shocking was the amount of blood which flowed from my battle wound. It was very little. I am assuming the frozen bagel slowed the amount of blood passing through my pinky. So, the moral of the story is this. When you are cutting things make sure your hands are frozen...

Begging

Aleya has been after me for the last several months, begging for a Shetland Pony. Here she is expounding on all the different places we could put it. I am still rather skeptical and have no plans of purchasing a pony. Maybe when she gets a little older, say like 20 years or so... I am kidding about the 20 years at least 2-3 would be a good plan for now I think...

Presidential

So, now what happens? What is you opinion on the election? Is our country headed into some form of communisim? A socialistic approach to living?

Nope

Just so you know, I didn't go trick or treating...
I have never gone and have no plans of ever going. My children didn't go either and I have no plans of them ever going. I was wondering if people still do this? I have not heard any horror stories concerning razor blades in apples or strichnyne lazed candy.

Work

We wrapped up the fall work yesterday. After, it seems, many moons of agonizing and struggle we have finally finished the fall work. What a relief. We have about 20 acres of new ground to work on here in Nov. but that shouldn't be too stressful.
On a different note, topic, or discussion. Did you go trick-or-treating tonight?

Ramblings

I finished hauling manure today and plan to finish planting tomorrow. For this I am greatful...
Now onto other interesting topics and unsettling things I have heard. I heard on the news the other day that someone had been trying to sue God about something but because God couldn't be reached they threw it out of court.
I heard on Dobson tonight that a gentleman in Massachusettes (sp?) got thrown in jail because he was in a tiff with his school. They were trying to teach his preschooler about same sex marriage and things of that nature which the father was adamantly opposed to. The school higher ups actually called the cops and had him handcuffed and thrown in the slammer for the night. From what I could gather the family had gone all the way to the supreme court concerning the issue and hadn't been very successfull...
On a more light note the World Series was postponed because of weather. It seems that the commisioner, Bud Selig, has taken it upon himself to make up rules as he goes. Basically he got lucky because the game ended up being tied when he postponed it because of the freezing rain and slop they were playing in. Selig has been quoted as syaing he wasn't going to let the World Series end in like that. Meaning, if the Phillies would have been leading after the Tampa Bay Rays top of the 6th inning the series would have been over. Not just the game but the Series. They are finishing game five tonight starting in the bottom of the sixth....
It's a strange world we live in.....

It's Over

Just like that it is over. Done. Finished. You work hard for several days and then it is over. What a disappointment... But I guess I am glad it is over. It would get old trying to keep going at the pace for a long period of time. I am referring to the Fall Festival, if you haven't figured that out yet. It rained all morning and that affected how long people stayed on the grounds. I did notice, though, the people who came for the auction did not get up and and leave half way through. They sold 900 and some odd halves of chicken, I think. Mr. Irvan Swarey told me they served well over 600 free cups of coffee. That, my friend, is a lot of coffee. As far as a doller amount on the day. I have no idea and won't venture a guess.

Farming (And Other Stuff)

We sowed another 30 acres of barley today. I am hoping to cover another 35 tomorrow and then start on rye Friday. We shall see. I still have one big day of manure hauling left before we can finish planting. I will be so glad when this fall work is done. After we finish the fall work I have decided to go to a 3x milking schedule. (If we can work out the scheduling...)
This Saturday is our school sale or Fall Festival. Rachel and I will be involved with the auction quite heavily, along with Randy and Anita Martin. We love working with them and we are looking forward to it. I love this event. I love watching our church pull together in this way...

Hired Man

Fred Knicely took me up on my job offer this evening. For this I am grateful... Sonny and I are about ready to give up the ghost.
I have never had more than one person working for me full time so I am sure there will be a learning curve on my part.
I managed to disk 30 some acres of land today. Hopefully we will get some barley sowed tomorrow.
I think I am getting a cold...
Our school sale is this weekend... I always enjoy this and look forward to it.

Ooo Yuck

Why do children, when they turn 6-7 or so, start saying this when they see parents hug or even kiss. I remember saying this to my folks. I have noticed though, when my oldest daughter says "Ooo Yuck" she is always smiling... I always felt secure at home when I witnessed something tender between my parents. So, why the Ooo Yuck?

Still Analyzing

I downloaded the final mix of Drummer Boy last night. I am currently listening to it. I must say, Jon is sounding really good. I don't know if he has ever sung this good on an album that I have recorded with him. Jerry told me while we were recording that Jon was singing really well. He was and I am proud of him...
Oh, Jon and his wife were married 14 years yesterday... Happy anniversary...

Still Mixing

As I mentioned in yesterday's post we had several more songs to mix. They were all "big" songs and would be time consuming. I have been checking in with Jon all day and following the progress. The progress seemed to be quite slow. I was told the song was sounding really good. That is encouraging. We have photo shoot scheduled for tomorrow late afternoon and early evening, whatever that means. The album has to go to the production by this weekend for us to have it for our tour in Nov.

Stuff

After going to bed at 1:00 Sat. morning. Rising at 7:20. Mixing all day and knowing I had promised to milk Sunday moning, I was hoping to leave Alive Studios by 8:00 Sat. evening. That would have put me to bed by 10:00 or so. We left Alive around 10 wihich put me to bed about 12:15. Up at 3:30 and will be leaving in a few minutes for a program at Evergreen Baptist Church in Appomattox. I was scared to lay down after milking. I was afraid I would feel really bad if I slept for an hour and woke up feeling groggy. We still have three more songs to mix on Monday. However, I am not planning on going up. I think some of the other guys will be. I think the album is sounding very nice. If you are interested in ordering a copy you can email me at glen.dairyfarmer@gmail.com I try to check this several times a week. You can also use our website and send an email. However there is no information concerning the album up yet.

Mixing

Well, it has been a long day. We finished three songs today. We spent a long time figuring out EQ's. Then we spent a long time talking about all the different people Jerry knows and the people he has worked with. Very interesting... But, I think tommorow will be better. I think it will be more productive. We all hope so. I don't think we will finish so someone will have to be here on Monday. I can't come back, much as I would like to. Till later today, maybe...

Sprinkles

It is sprinkling this morning. I am glad. I have three loads to go to finish the field I am working on. I will try to get that finished this morning. I have to be gone this evening and the rest of the week. I will be back Sat. night and will be milking Sunday morning. I then have to be in Appomatox to sing Sunday morning and will be following that up with a program in South Boston at Faith Mennonite in the evening. This is a lot of running around. Friday and Saturday will be spent back in the studio mixing the Christmas album, Tiny King. I should be available for you to purchase by Thanksgiving. So, I hope it rains while I am gone becuase I wouldn't be able to work if I was at home so it would be nice if the rain would fit into my schedule so nicely...

Work

Well, well, well. Thanks to Sonny we got some hay baled today. Thanks to the folks renting our house we picked two-thirds of it up and on the trailer. We didn't unload it though. I managed to cover roughly 20 acres of ground with manure...
Lots to go yet and I am wore out...
Till next time...

Aleya

Aleya turned five on Sept. 27. It is hard to believe it has been five years since we headed to FL to pick her up. This picture was taken Sat. Oct. 4. I was taking her to McDonalds for breakfast for her birthday. I was planning to take her on her birthday but I was delayed at the barn and by the time I got in the house she had already eaten. She has always been one to eat the minute she wakes up.

VOP News

We have Ben's replacement. After close to a year we have found someone. We are looking forward to moving ahead. However, Ben will be sorely missed. I have high hopes that in a year or two Ben will be ready to return to the fray. But, for now, we are excited to announce the arrival of Joe Miller. His first singing engagement will be a laldies conference around South Boston some where...

Kaiden

Aleya & Kaiden

Dairy Do List

Here is what is going on today....
First, I need to meet with Shannon Wisecarver. He is chipping some new ground land and I need to discuss some driveway options with him.
Second, I need to go to Rustburg and pick up Delvin's manure pump.
Third, I need to locate a tractor that will run the manure pump.
Fourth, I need to work on the manure pump.
Fifth, I need to fix some tires on the manure truck.
Sixth, I need to milk this evening.
Seventh, Finish up some feeding for Sonny.
Whew, I didn't realize there were that many things to do today...
I wish now I hadn't made the list...
Oh well....

Chopping

I said i would post a picture and here it is, finally. Unfortunately this is not my truck or chopper...

Feed

We finished chopping my corn today. I have more feed on hand than I have ever had. The trench is piled way up, probably 10-12 feet over the top of the ground. Meaning the face from the floor will be pushing 20 feet tall. The new trench is full. I have, roughly, 250 tons of triticale piled on the ground. I have a 40 by 100 bunker silo full of triticale. I am feeling very blessed. I can't believe it. We just started feeding the corn silage we cut the end of August. I am anxiously awaiting the cows response. Hopefully they decide it is time to stop playing about making milk and start making some. I would love to see them run the tank over....
Time will tell.... By the way, we cut 106 acres of corn in 13.25 hrs...

New Dimension

It is fun to watch how the baby has affected our family, Sierra probably the most. She is three years older then she was when the twins arrived. She is alot of help. What strikes me how much of a mother she is. Maybe all girls are this way, I don't know. The way she carries him, taks to him, and so on. Very neat. The boys want to hold him more than I anticipated. Aleya, has shown a maternal side as well. However, it is not as noticable as Sierra's. This is due partly to her age, I assume, it could very well be her personality... What do I know...
Life is good...

JoAnna

Kaiden meeting JoAnna...

Settling In

Well, let's see, we are home... Trying to get settled back into the routine of life, or make a new one. It is kinda cool to have a baby in the house, especially a good one... It's neat watching the children relate to a baby. Jackson yanks Kaiden's socks off everytime someone shows up. He likes to show them Kaiden's toes. Jayden loves his fingers and the girls, they just like having a baby to cuddle.
On the farm front, Surge is still trying to figure out why the ID system isn't working properly. It ID's all the cows but won't send activity information on all the cows. Right now it is missing 20 cows a milking. Not good...
Sonny is gone so I am holding down the fort. Next week we finish chopping corn and then we need to get serious about spreading manure and planting small grain.

Home

We, surprisingly, received clearance to go home at 10:30 yesterday morning. We left at 12:30 stopped in Savannah and sold my old van for $200 dollars. Disappointing but I couldn't see any other solution to the problem. We got home at 10:00 to a house full of children. Rachel's parents brought the rest of the tribe home. They will be leaving about lunch time today. I need to take the rental vehicle back by noon. I think we will be purchasing a 2003 Astro. I have always wanted one so now I get to try it out.
Kaiden is amazing. We have never had a baby this good. He eats and sleeps and looks around, fussing only when he is cold or something. Anyway, much different then our other children...

Sierra

Sierra is happy as a lark...

Small

Little Guy

Kaiden

I told you he was small. His head fits in one hand...

Wow

We met Joy, Kaiden's foster mom, at Heart Of Adoptions about 10:30 yesterday morning. I was shocked at how small Kaiden is. I must have been expecting something the size of Jay & Jack. Silly of me I know. But Kaiden is so little. Like a new born not 3 weeks old. Also, he is so good. Sierra fed him just before we left the agencyat 11:30 and, except for two squeeks he made no noise until we were at the hotel which was 4:30. Then last night he ate about 10:30 and slept till, I think it was 5, however, I can't remember. I do remember waking up at 2 and asking Rachel if he was okay. She told me she had just checked to make sure he was alive. He is something. Joy said he was like this but we were somewhat skeptical...
Sierra is in her glory. She is alwayas wanting to carry him everywhere. She is such a little mother. I think it is great. She is growing up.
The van... My van was towed to the mechanic to tune of $70, he went a block and a half. Must be good money in towing, at least in the city of Savannah. The mechanic towed it for me and he seems like a very honest man. He told me it would cost me $1800-$2000 to fix the transmission but he thought they may be able to change the oil and filter and it might get me home. This would cost me $100. So I told him to check it out. He also told me that if they drop the pan and find a bunch of metal shavings they won't fool with it. So, I think he is treating me fair. He could really take me for a ride if he wants to.

Hmmm

Well, I am currently sittitng in a Double Tree Inn west of Tampa. They just ripped me off 10 bucks to use the high speed internet. Needless to say we won't be staying here tonight... Here is the big discouraging or annoying, or what is God doing news. We were on I 95 toolilng merryily along when we decided to switch drivers. (Rachel was driving while I ate.) After settling in the drivers seat I put it in gear. Nothing happened. I restarted the van, still nothing. After trying this method several times it started moving. So I sped up until I reached the high speed of 30 mph. After which the engine kept picking up speed and the wheels didn't. So I pulled over onto the shoulder. Thankfully we were at an exit and I rolled down the exit. The van started working again but was continually getting worse. We were able to limp into a GATE parking lot. I made a few phone calls and we decided the van is not worth me putting a new transmission in (It has 200000 miles on it). We took a taxi to the Savannah Int. Airport and rented a car. So, we finally got to our motel at 3:00 this morning. We are leaving here in about 30 minutes to find a bank. Then we pick up the baby. Then we figure out what happens next....

Plans

Sonny is gone to the annual youth camp this weekend so I have weasled my brother and his sons into helping chore. Korwin rode his bike down and helped me finish milking this moring. Very nice of him. Our plans are to leave for FL as soon as I am done feeding tomorrow. I am hoping to leave by 1 or so. Plans are to pick the little fellow up at 10 Monday morning. Sonny's family is heading for IN on Thursday so I need to be home Wed. night sometime. We are praying we will get clearance to come home on Tuesday or Wednesday by noon. Thanks for your prayers...

Home

Jon and I left Hburg at 3:30 AM this morning. Got home about 6. I slept till about 9:30 AM before heading out to work. I have been reaclimating myself all day. I milked this evening. I will be milking mornings till we leave for FL to pick up kaiden. Not sure what these plans are for sure. I will be sure to keep you posted. As far as the mixing on the new album. We didn't get anywhere near finished. We actually only mixed one song. There is a reason why Jerry has won 10 Dove awards over the years. He is very good which means he is also picky. He wants it to sound muscial and wants the reverb and eq's to be right. So it tool awhile to get some of those things figured out....

Still At It

Well, I finished Sleep Sleep about 1. Then we ate lunch. We are now giving my voice a rest before I finish One Small Child. While I rest we are in the process of mixing. This is taking far too long and I really need to get home. I was planning to milk in the morning... I may be showing up in time for milking (3:30 AM). Whew... Exhaustion rules...

Uh Oh

It looks like I am losing my voice. I have a solo and one other song to finish. I tried to finish the other song tonight and I sounded so bad we decided to wait until in the morning. Hopefully a night of sleep will improve this dilemma.

News

Kaiden James Zehr
Born Aug. 26 In Tampa Fl.
Wt. 6lbs 10 ounces Length 21 inches..
He is currently in foster care...

Moving On

Well, here are the plans. I am leaving with the guys in about thirty minutes. We sing at Rivermont tonight. Service starts at 6:30 after which we are headed back to the studio. If we get there in time and Jerry is still there we will probably do some recording yet tonight. We will be there till late tomorrow night. Whatever we get done in that amount of time is what we will have on the album. We will be coming home tomorrow night and then I will be trying to get back in the groove on the home front.

Day, What is it?

It always amazes me how easily time disappears. The world disappears time stops. We have been in the studio, everyday this week, from 8:30-11-11:30 at night. So, we have come to the conclusion we will not be able to get all the songs done we had originally picked. We have dropped two hard songs and added several easier songs. We also may record several songs around one mic as a group. We will see....

Whew!!!

Let'd see. I went in the studio at 2:00 and finished at 6:00. Jon is working on his now. I hope his goes faster than mine. Anyway, just a brief update...

Moving On

So, finished First Light last evening and moved forwards. We finished uup Tiny King before heading for sleep. Ben has been laying down both of his bass parts for our first Rumsey piece, Good Christians Now Rejoice. He has been sinign since 8:30 this morning... He should be finished in about 15 min. Then I will begin laying down my tracks. Looks like we may only get one song down today. We really need two so we shall see...
I love recording.... Seeing these songs come together and hear them all put together...

By The Way

If you want to hear a clip of some songs, you can visit Bool's Blog by clicking on the link on the side bar...

More Stuff

Well, yesterday was discouraging. We were working on In The First Light. We never finished the song. It is an 11 part song so it is very long as far as studio time. We worked on it for 12 hrs yesterday and got about two thirds finished. Consider we are stacking each voice 4 times, meaning we will have 44 voices on this song. The song is going to be an awsome song. The problem is getting all the songs done we want to get done. Hopefully today will go better. We still have 3 more tough songs to do. We shall see....

Long Days

Well, we are striving forward. It is a very time consuming process. We are recording in amuch different manner than we ever have before. It is much more relaxed in one sense but is taking longer per song in the studio. We are recording each person individually. We go in as a group and put down one track which we use as a guide. Then we each go in by ourselves and put down our parts. It is fun and I am enjoying it. After everyone has laid down their part the song is pretty much finished. Jerry Yoder, the enginer/producer, is editing and mixing as he goes so we there will be very little if any post recording work. Jerry Yoder has quite a resume. He has 10 dove awards and is a drummer. He lives in Nashville, however, his roots are Grantsville MD. In fact, I think he is related to me. He has been fun to work with. Well, time to get some more food or something. We finished two songs yesterday and are just now finishing up our first song for today. WE have to get two a day or we won't get all our songs done this week. It will be a long evening....

Plans

My wife and family are leaving in the morning for Her parents. I need to chore in the afternoon and then I will be leaving with Jon and Ben for Harrisonburg. We will hook up with Josh at the studio Monday morning at 8:00. We will be attempting to record this album in an entirely new way for us. I will fill you in on those details next week. We would appreciate your prayers.

Bi-Focals

Did you know Benjamin Franklin invented bi-focals? I didn't know that. He also said "A man who sleeps with dogs will wake up with fleas."

Rain Facts

One of my neighbors had five inches of rain. Another had six inches of rain. Another neighbor said he had 3 inches of rain. I wonder who is right?

Rain

It started sprinkling yesterday afternoon. It started raining sometime during the night and by 2:30 this afternoon we had received 2.5 inches. It is still raining.... We needed it in the worst sort of way...
So, now we wait for things to dry out and then we will get back in the saddle. Of course I will be gone next week so I won't be doing much saddling as far as work goes.

Didn't Happen

Well, what I wanted to do today didn't happen. Mainly hauling manure. I did get some calves vaccinated, a month late but it is done. Dwayne, the neighbor who is building our pond, and I went and found the pond site this morning. The fellow is there chipping timber and wanted to know where the site was. I got a load of wood and delivered it. We also got the stalls bedded. They were badly in need of some attention. So, we had a profitable day but it wasn't in the area I was hoping for. We try again tomorrow....
Oh yes, it is drizzling this evening. We have not had rain for a month. Hopefully it will rain all night...

35

Today I turned 35. It strikes me that I am nearing 40. Five short years and I will be 40. Being 40 doesn't bother me at the moment. I do wonder what and where life will take us, my family, in the next five years.
Tomorrow I start hauling manure, hopefully. I am hoping to cover the land the chopper finished before I leave for recording. Next week I will be in the studio all week. I am excited about it. It has been a long time, two years, since we recorded...

Good Feeling

We started in again yesterday morning about 9:00 and we finished about 5:00. We had some truck trouble which slowed us down. So in 9.5 hours we cut roughly 980 tons. We finished covering the trench about 7 or 7:30. Man I slept so good last night. I have never had so much fun chopping. Very stress free way to harvest. I am contemplating doing something in the spring with my small grain. We shall see. It will be about two weeks till the rest of the corn is ready.

Let The Games Begin

We started chopping at 4:00 last evening. We quit about 7:45. In that period of time we cut close 50 loads and covered 25 acres. I love it. We are just a rolling with Joe Motley's machine. I will post pictures in the very near future....

Topic Notes

Here are my topic notes from my wed. eve. topic.
Facing Evil
Facing The Devil
Facing Opposition
In The Face Of The Devil

1. WWII people faced evil. People were willing to face evil and die. Folks put themselves in grave danger to aid the Jews. Civil War was similar. Maybe every war…
2. Do we face opposition today? How do we face opposition? How would I react?
3. Am I/you so complacent we would fail the test?
4. How can we combat complacency?
5. How did Jesus face opposition?
WWII
Pull facts out of the Nazi Crimes against ethnic Poles paper….
Examples of people who faced opposition and lost.
Judas: Matt. 26:14 Judas offers to betray Jesus.
Peter: Luke 22: 54-62 Peter denies Christ. Why?
Pilate: Matthew: 27: 24 The closest Pilate comes to winning is washing his hands of the affair.

I have a few examples of people who won. People who were resolved. People who were determined to live the life they felt God had called them to. There are lots of examples of people who faced opposition and won. Stephen, Paul, Peter, John the Baptist…
Examples of people who won.
Read some of the Martyrs Mirror accounts of people who were killed. People who were resolved.
John The Baptist:
John The Baptist had told Herod it was not proper or lawful for him to have his brother Phillip’s wife. Acts 12: 2 John the Baptist is murdered
James the Son of Zebedee Page 13
Phillip: Stoned with his head to a pillar.
The Ebonites, denied the trinity of Christ and worshiped idols, continued obstinately in their blasphemous doctrines and idolatry, and did not listen to this pious apostle of Christ, but apprehended him, and, having made his head fast to a pillar, stoned him.
James the Lesser
A cruel young man, being the high priest, summoned him before the judges. The goal was to compel him to deny that Jesus was the Christ. They wanted him to renounce the Son of God and the power of His resurrection. So they placed him on the pinnacle of the temple at the time of the passover so he could make his denial publicly. However, he proceeded to boldly confess that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah. Because of this testimony people praised God and magnified the name of the Christ. Then the enemies of truth cried: Oh, the just has also erred; let us take him away for he is unprofitable. So the threw him off of the temple roof and stoned him. But neither the fall or the stoning killed him. Having only broken his legs, he lying on his knees prayed for those who stoned him. One of the priests begged for James’s life. However another man had a fullers stick and struck him over the head with it, so that he died.
Barnabas:
Barnabas was badly treated by a sorcerer who stirred up the Jewish population. They decided not to take him before the judge because they were afraid Barnabas’s innocence would be discovered and he would be released. They put a rope around his neck and dragged him out of the city and burned him.
Mark Page 18
John Bunyan
John Bunyan was put in prison for preaching without a license. At one point they told him that if he would agree not to preach he could go home. He had a wife and 5-6 children. Bunyan would not compromise. He was stuck in prison. In fact Pilgrim’s Progress was written while he was in prison. Bunyan didn’t die in prison. The government changed the law and he was freed. While John Bunyan was in prison he wrote many books. He had written 60 books by the time he died at the age of 60.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Pages 3 and 4
So how do we face opposition? Evil is a scary thing. Pain is a scary thing. How do we face it? The Bible says we will not face anything we are not able to bear. Is this comforting?
Are we facing opposition today? Is the evil we face today more subtle? It is pretty obvious what the Nazis were doing was wicked and evil and I assume we would agree that helping those who are being persecuted would be a good thing. However, it may be harder to stand up for Truth, the Gospel, for Jesus Christ then to stand up against the Nazis.
How do we go about resisting evil without using carnal force? How do we stand with others against evil? We, Mennonites, try to keep peace by avoiding the issues. Then, when an issue needs to be dealt with, typically, people have bad attitudes and can’t function or relate to each other in a way that would resolve the issue. The Bible talks about resisting evil with love. This is how Jesus did it. Of course, they killed Him. HE won.
To win spiritually could mean death or “premature” death. It could mean persecution of some kind. We need to realize that living for Christ could or will lead us into painful territory. Friendships may be affected, family ties may need to be severed or changed. These are things that are painful and possibly could be referred to as “emotional persecution“. Acknowledging Jesus as our Lord and living for Him will bring trials and struggles. If we are going to win in the spiritual sense we need to be firmly resolved to the fact that Jesus is who He said He was. If we are firmly resolved to this fact nothing will deter us from our goal. The goal of living a Christ like life. Living the life we believe God has called us to live. The goal of doing the Father’s will no matter what.
Jesus:
John 5:16 The Jews continued to persecute Jesus. This was not an isolated incident. This was a continual action. The Jews were determined to keep Jesus from accomplishing his mission. Jesus was resolved.
Luke 6: 9-11 Jesus knew the scribes and Pharisees wanted a reason to accuse Him. Anything, they were looking for ways to accuse and condemn Him. Jesus knew this yet He remained resolved in the face of opposition. He heals the man and tells the scribes and Pharisees that refusal to do good on the Sabbath was completely opposite of God’s design. Because Jesus revealed or showed them this evil concept they responded with anger.
Mark 12: 38-40 Jesus tells the Jewish leaders the facts. Facts they don’t want to hear. He condemns them and ultimately this is why they crucified Him.
Jesus was victorious over death…
Those who have put there trust in the Father will also be victorious. Rev. 19: 17-21 Rev. 20 4-10

A Discovery

I had a phone call from Joe Motley this morning. He is a neighboring farmer and I have known him for quite some time, ten years at least. Well, he called this morning and told me he was coming to cut my corn this week. This made me rather weak in the knees, so to speak. We have two working days left until he is planning to arrive on Thursday morning. I feel like we have a good weeks worth of work to do before he gets here.
The trench is not finished. They are hoping to pour the floor Wed. afternoon.
The tractor is not ready. 4-150 broke a gear in the reverse department. It is apart and ready to go together.
I found a snowplow this morning that we have to have to push silage with. However, it needs to be reconfigured to fit the front of the tractor.
Also, the big dump truck needs one good day of personal attention...
Such is life. I am sure something will happen but I don't know what....

Tripping Home

We arrived at Baltimore's Inner Harbour around 11:45 yesterday morning. We then walked down to the food court and patronized Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Our tickets for the aquarium were for 1:00 PM. So, after eating we went directly to the aquarium entrance. After entering the first thing on the agenda was the dolphin show. The children loved it. They were wowed by the dolphin's leaps and splashes. I, however, was disappointed. It was a very lame show in comparison to the Sea World show I saw in Orlando. Of course there is a big difference between a dolphin and Shamu the great white whale. But it was an enjoyable day. The children really enjoyed it. They were feeding this turtle a truck load of lettuce. That would have been a miserable job, in my opinion.
We left Baltimore about 4:30 and headed home. We went down to DC and got on 495 W. We then went around DC and got on I 66 W. We traveled west on 66 to rt. 29 S. Everything went well for a while. We traveled S on 29 until we hit this detour for some reason. We were sent N at the rapid pace of 10 mph for probably 10 miles, well it felt like 10 miles. But they sent us right back to 66 W. If I would have known that I would have stayed on 66 to start with. So we took 66 W to 17 S. This brought us back to 29. We did arrive home about 9:30-10:00 or so.

Baltimore MD

Rachel's parents, Carla and our tribe are headed to the Baltimore Aquarium today. We have tickets for 1:00. I have always wanted to go. I hear it is a fantastic venue. I am currently sitting in Grandpa Kauffman's living room. The sun light is streaming through the window. I have a feeling if I would step outside it would be a very crisp morning. Last night I was reunited with Sierra, she has been here with Grandpas for about ten days. We had a picnic, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows as well as making elephant ears on top of the fire. I am rather partial to elephant ears. Much better than marshmallows.
Also, I must mention the grand discovery I made last evening. When I turned on the computer the mouse touch pad thing did not work. I could not figure it out. I finally discovered this button at the top of the touch pad. This button allows you to turn the touch pad on and off. I was so excited. When I try typing with the touch pad on I end up with my cursor some place else without my permission or knowledge. Anyway, now I won't have that annoying problem anymore....

Ice Cream

I am currently listening to the ice cream machine churning its way round and round in tight circle. I think it is slowly slowing... How many of you make ice cream? What flavors do you make? Are you a hand crank kind of ice cream guy/girl?

Trench

The fellows came today and started forming the walls for the trench. I don't know if they are planning on pouring the one wall tommorow afternoon or not. It looks like we will be chopping a week earlier than I anticipated. Which is good because I am scheduled to be in the recording studio the first week of September. It is hard to be in two places at once, I have noticed....
Anyway, I was getting a little nervous because they hadn't showed up yet this week...

Dress Up

Dressing up, or down as the case may be, has become a normal occurance. Lately the boys have gotten into the act as well. I must say, these boys make fine looking girls... If that is a possibility....

Crazy Cats

We have had two litters of cats this summer by two different mamma cats. We have found and lost them several times. We found a batch of four this afternoon. I was able to catch one, poor sod was scared spitless. Well, I guess not because it spent a lot of time spitting, biting and scratching. Wild eyed little monster... I like cats as a general rule. I held this one for five minuets or so and by the time a let it go it was relaxing a tad. It will be interesting to see if it starts to calm down and how long it will take to do so...

Trench

Well the trench took a turn towards finished today. The poured the footer this afternoon. Took 20 yards for the footer. Turned out the trench is only going to be about 30 foot wide. I decided to make it as long as possible so it will be 200 ft. long.

Riverville Trip

I am headed to Riverville today. There is a factory there that has huge belts in it. (What a poor sentence...) Anyway, they replace this fabric or felt every so often. It is free for the taking. We have been running a tad short so I will be making a trip to get some today. I am taking the goose neck trailer so we can get as much as possible. When we get these fabric belts they are in 20x30 or 30x30 pieces. We use them when we cover trench. You don't need near as many tires. Which means less work.

Trimmed

Hoof trimmer was here today and trimmed 70 cows. I was pleased with his efforts. The cows feet were very healthy. We had a few problems but not very many....

ID System Update

Friday I decided to do some research. I was wondering how many cows I had bred in the month of July. So I found a report in PCDart/DHIA that showed me the last twelve months. In July of 2007 I bred 12 cows. In July of 2008 I bred 32 cows. This is a huge improvement. I am still having some issues with the ID loop. It needs to be reconfigured. It is currently set up as a feeder. So it will ID the cow but not always send activity information. I feel fairly certain this is because a feeder doesn't really need to do anything but ID the cow. We will be setting it up as sort gate in the coming week, I hope. Hopefully this will fix the problem. A sort gate is designed to send a lot of information at one time. Nastitus cows or sick cows or lame cows or cows in heat would all be sorted out through a sort gate. My milking equipment is so outdated I cannot use any of this technology. This is why they set it up as a feeder instead of a sort gate initially. Ok, I will stop before I confuse you further....

Repairing

Sonny has been working on the dump truck. He has the new engine and transmission in and bolted together. It appears that we will be using this truck in the near future. I am planning on pulling the 150 towards the shop tomorrow. We need to get a blade mounted on the front of the tractor. This will allow us to move and pack silage in the trench much easier. We will move forward...

Site Plan

Here is a picture of our most recent site plan. This will probably be tweaked some but overall I like it. I realize this is rather small but it will give you an idea of what I am looking at doing. The building on the left, the rectangle with no lines in it is the existing free stall barn which holds 100 cows. The set of pens in the middle are for special needs. Sore feet, calving, sick cows, etc. The next building is the new free stall barn. This barn would hold roughly 280-300 cows. The facility closest to you is the new parlor and

holding pen and all that good stuff. We downsized the parlour to a double 16 because of room. It is now a 16/32 swing, parallel, rapid exit. I can still milk close to 150 cows an hour in this parlour.

A Tad Depressed

I lost a really good cow this morning. Sat. evening/afternoon she got all hung up in a free stall. Messed her back and her neck up. She was really in a bind. I removed two of the free stall loops so we could get her out. We put her in the bed pack barn and then she got up. She was extremely weak but once a cow gets up she usually gets better. Not this one. She laid back down and never got up again. I think the swelling in her back got worse and she ended up paralyzed. She died this afternoon. She was in her 8th lactation and had 253,000 some odd lbs of milk in her lifetime. She has also given me three or four heifer calves. Oh well, such is life. May she rest in peace. The other depressing thing is my SCC or mastitus. We were doing so well for so long and now it is rediculously high and I can't seem to get it down. Aggravating. This too shall pass but it is extremely annoying. You try to improve the technique and things get worse. Doesn't make sense to me.... Sigh

After

Much more better... (I was fairly certain I could find a before picture but I was unable to locate one. Trust me, it looked awful. It was depressing...

Lap Top Date

I am currently sitting in Main Street Cafe pecking on my lap top. My wife is browsing the web on her computer. What brought on this little escapade was our pitiful dial up service. I have been trying to put AVG 8.0 on her lap top but couldn't. This became very annoying. The phone was tied up all night and it still didn't get the job accomplished. I decided enough was enough. So, we are having a lap top date. How cool.... Her computer in now up to date and the process was quite painless.

Rain, Or Was That Sweat...

Those of you know me and have played a game of hoops with me, know how much sweat doth poor from my pores, if you know what I mean... This afternoon around three I was making salt while picking up hay. In other words I was sweating profusely. I was drenched, like I had been running through a sprinkler or had fallen in the river. We finished the hay by five. The truck and two trailers are still loaded but they were backed under a roof just in case it rained. Which it did soundly. Lovely beautiful thunderstorm.

Test Day

The milk tester was here this evening. It was a pathetic test but I was encouraged by the fact that everyone else is doing as poorly as I am. Unless you look at the Virginia Dairyman. When you look through this lovely magazine you realize how pathetic your cows are doing. Oh well. I knew they were not going to hit 60 lbs and I was right. They topped off at 57.5 lbs. Ach vell....
I could spend the next few minutes of your precious time giving you all of my grand excuses but I guess I will spare you those mind boggling facts or fiction as the case may be...
We raked our hay this afternoon and now I hear thunder pealing in the distance. Oh well, the corn needs water worse than I need the hay. Plus it doesn't really make any difference what I would like either it will rain or it won't...
Well, so long from Airy Mont
Have a goood nite everybody...

Hot

Today was rather hot. It is also a tad dry. However, I hate to complain or grumble. This afternoon the corn leaves rolled up. This is a sign of moisture defincency. However, this is only the second time I have the corn roll this summer. So, like I said, I am not complaining.
I mowed some hay today. Maybe we will rake it tomorrow.
Tonight was our first of summer Bible School. We have a two week Bible School and the girls are really excited about it.
We found some more kittens today. There are two sets around here now. One of them is a set of five and the other has a set of four.
Well, I have run out of ramblings so I shall stop/
Till next time....

Wild Life

I was crossing the bridge that spans our grand tributary known as "The Seneca" when I saw a huge hairy dog crossing the road a 100 yards in front of me. As the dog entered the brush I realized this was no ordinary dog. In fact it wasn't a dog, it was a black bear. This is the first bear I have ever seen that wasn't behind bars and fed by the local zoo man or lady. Based on my vast knowledge of bears and amount of time I saw the animal, a brief 20 seconds, I would say he was in the 2-300lb range. I contemplated getting out of the truck and traipsing into the brush with my trusty hands as a weapon. (I was feeling very much like David Crocket.) In the end common sense prevailed and passed by. I consoled myself with the joy of seeing such an animal in the wild.

Skin Color and God

This is an excerpt from one of my wife's emails to her family.
we had our 1st conversation about skin color today... and also the 1st convseration about God that he (Jayden) initiated.

We were outside and he said my hand is blue.. I said no your hand is brown and he said is your hand brown mama? I said no mine is white and yours is brown... and i showed him our hands beside each other.. I said isn't that cool?
Then he said mama where is god? I said he lives way way up in the sky.. He said, but i can't see him... I told him we can't see him but we know he is there.
cute eh... he is growing up.

VOP Practice

We are really gearing up for our Christmas album. We are scheduled to record the first of September and we due to our scheduling we oly have three more practices scheduled. Tonight, for the first time in the groups history, we recorded ourselves. To put it bluntly, it was awfull. To put it nicely, it wasn't very good. So, now we are wondering if we should be trying to record these songs. I am of the opinion we are always this bad and the recording engineer has the amazing ability to fix most of our mistakes by using modern technology. Time will tell if we will be fixable once again....
It was a fun practice....

Try Again

Farmer Girls

During one of our rains the girls decided to venture forth. They managed to squeeze into the boys fireman rain suits. They appear to be having a deep discussion. I hope they found the answer to their farm management puzzle...

More Of The Same

We had another half inch of water yesterday evening. That puts us at close to 2.5 inches this week so far. So far, since we finished chopping this spring, we have had about an inch a week. The early corn is over head tall now and is looking really good. I am humbled when I look at it. I have done nothing different this year than I have any other year. Water makes all the difference. I am very thankful...

Farm Touring

Bruce and I spent the day looking at three different farms. One is a prototype which I am not suppose to talk about yet. The second farm is a parallel double 15 rapid exit. The third was 12-24 para-bone swing parlour. I didn't really like anything I saw. Not enough to say I want this exact setup. I did see a combination of things and I now have an idea which Bruce will quote for me in the near future. What I am looking at doing would be a parallel 20-40 rapid exit swing parlour. I would like to use the prototype stall and put the swing parlour in it. This makes me really excited. Theoretically we could milk 200 cows an hour in this parlour. That would be awesome....

More Rain

More rain fell on the greater Marysville area this evening. There was some hail at one point in the storm. It appeared to be three different storms. The second storm hit thirty minuets after the first. The third seemed to swing in directly on the heels of the second. Of course I may be wrong. It may have only been two storms. Anyway, what difference does it make? It rained, end of article...

Church Picnic

We didn't have a church service tonight. Instead we met at Grandaddies pond and had a picnic. I really liked this. Alot of interaction with other folks. I wish we would do more of it....
How often does your church have a picnic or something of that nature?

McDonalds

This is the port the milk man is suppose to use for the milk hose and electrical cord that runs his pump. The children like nothing more than pretending to be at McDonalds and ordering things. Someone will be inside taking the orders and handing something out the window. Here Jayden is receiving an item or returning it, I am not sure which.

Trench

A fellow by the name of Art is coming to start digging my trench today. I think we will go 40 foot wide. I am unsure of the distance or length at this point. Rachel's parents are coming today and will be here for the weekend. I will be taking off tomorrow to work on Rachel's list. What are you doing tomorrow?

Chatting

My wife wondered if Sonny and I were talking to eachother... We weren't but we were both talking on our cell phones...

Gatorade For Cows

I bought a powder that you mix with the cows feed. Essentially it is gatorade for cows. The recommendation is to feed it through the hot spells. I decided to try it and see if it makes any difference. The cows are suppose to drink more water which does several things. More water intake would keep the cow cooler. Cows do not have the ability to sweat so they will stand around blowing or panting. Also, more water intake means more milk. I was surprised to see them continue eating well the last couple days even when it was 90 degrees and somewhat humid. Their feed intakes held steady and they were up in milk. All good things. I don't know if it can be attributed to the Gatorade or not....

Today's Activities

My parents are here for the day so we will be having lunch together, the Zehr clan. Vop is singing at Chesthill Baptist this evening at 6:00. We were scheduled there in January the day Jon got sick and ended up in the hospital. Obviously that was cancelled. So here we are six months later and trying again. The pastor from the church, Randy Bower, actually took the time to come into the hospital one evening for an hour or so. Very thoughtful of him.
After the service they will be serving homemade ice cream. Randy told me to invite all my friends so consider yourself invited. The church is located on Wards Rd. across from Waffle House in Lynchburg...

Jackson

Three years ago today, about 7:00 this morning, we were asked if we wanted another little feller to play with Jayden. We were given 30 min. to decide. Hard to believe he is turning three today...
Happy Birthday Jack....
Dad

Rain

It is hard to believe how much rain we are getting this summer so far. Everytime we need some we get some. This afternoon around 2 it rained about half an inch. Then from about 5-7 it rained fairly steady. A very nice slow drizzly rain. So, I am guess we had about an inch of rain in the last two days. (It rained last evening also.) Corn is looking good... I am blessed...

Vacation

Sonny and his wife are leaving today for a short but needed and well deserved vacation. He deserves a few days of R&R.
I need to make a run to Don's with some calves this morning. Jon will be helping me chore the next few days which is nice. Rachel and I are going dating tonight...

Summer To Do List

Here is the list of things we need to do in the next two months.
1. Spread Manure
2. Change the transmission in the big dump truck.
3. Put together another dump truck
4. Finish Manure pump
5. Work on the 4-150
6. Build a trench
I am sure there are several more things but this is the majority of the things that really should happen on the farm. Along with milking and choring and all those other little things we try to do...

Weed Pulling

My wife and I were pulling some ornery weeds out of a flower bed this evening. My wife has an aversion to dirt. She always weres gloves when she is working with or in the dirt.
Sierra was playing with Aleya and she must of tired of their project, washing the swing set, because I heard her tell Aleya she was going to go help Daddy and Mamma. Sierra went in the house for a few seconds before coming to help us. When she arrived she was proudly wearing a pair of my wifes gloves. So I went on this little schpeal(sp?) about how much more fun it is to weed when you can get your hands all dirty and you can play in the warm dirt. Before I finished talking she was pulling here gloves off and gleefully pulling weeds... Rachel said Sierra told her that "I am gong to go wash my hands. I don't like the feel of dirt under my finger nails..." So, how many of you wear gloves when pulling weeds

Last Wedding

This afternoon at 2:00 Nathan Swarey and Elizabeth Gilbert will be tying the knot. Liz is a first cousin of mine. 14 years ago she was scared and nervous about being a gift reciever at my wedding. Wonder if she is scared and nervous about getting married...
Which makes me wonder this: Have you ever been at a wedding where either the bride or the groom has changed her mind? Changed his or her mind during the ceremony? That would be awful. Allthough, that would be better than getting married and then having the marriage be a shambles.
Anyway, I am sure that won't happen today.
Nate and Liz, enjoy your day in the sun and have fun....

Twisted

The vet was here today and we had him look at a sick cow. He was sure she had a DA but he couldn't here it. So I drove her over to his place this evening and we had some serious biology going on. We discovered she had a twisted abomasum (sp?) instead of the normally twisted stomach. The part that was twisted was about the size of a 30 gallon drum and was packed full of feed and things of that nature. Because it was twisted nothing would pass through. So we decided it was not worth trying to rectify this situation. I called a fellow from church and he and his brother are, as we speak, turning her into hamburger. Such is life...

ID System

The ID system is working. I am very excited about it. I spent all day on the computer at the barn. I was on the phone with Dairy Plan support getting help with some reports. I can enter everything in the computer now. All my herd check information, calvings, dry dates, cull cows, everything. So that is cool. I still have a few questions about how to do things but I think I will get it figured out with time.
Dr. Gardner comes in the morning so we will see how herd check goes....

Stuff

I finished planting corn today. I feel so relaxed now... I can move onto other less stressfull projects.
We also think we have the ID thing working. We will try it in depth in the morning...
Tootaloo

Weekend Report

I must say we had a very good weekend. It is always good to meet new people and renew old friendships. Let's see, I ran into Byron Smucker and his father-in-law, Ernie Weaver. Saturday evening we were in York and sang at Tidings Of Peace. This was great fun. Though the crowd was small they were very enthusiastic. Sunday we sang at Pleasent Valley in Ephrata. Some people are very easy to visit with and Stanely Fox and his family would fall into this category. We ate lunch with them and had a very good time. Last evening we sang at a Brethern church in Chambersburg/Greencastle area. After the service the other three guys headed home. I am currently sitting in my father-in-laws living room. My family and I will be leaving here shortly. It rained at home Saturday so I need to get home and plant my last 50 acres of corn.

Tour

We leave at 8:30 in the morning for a weekend tour. We were asked to sing at a reception in PA. A good friend and cousin of mine is getting married. Lowell Yoder is his name. Anyway, we are turning the weekend into to a tour. Check the VOP site for more information. Look forward to seeing you at one of those locations...

Finally

We finally finished chopping....
Next year this is going to need to be different. Some how, some way, it cannot take us so long to get the spring work done. I cannot finish planting corn till we get another rain. Tomorrow I have some odds and ends I need to get finished up. Changing inflations, cleaning out some calf pens and the prefresh pen...
I am so relieved to be finished with field work I could weep...
Today the reverse quit working on the 4-150 White. We finished packing trench with another tractor....

Still At It

We are still cutting silage. It is really drying down and will be straw and stubble soon. I don't think we will finish today but we will come close.
I am headed out for breakfast with a buddy of mine here in about one minute...
Tonight we have a birthday party for the Zehr cousins....
I am singing at a wedding in two weeks and we practiced for that last evening.
Well I better run or I will be late...
Have a good day everybody...

Fans

With the help of my two nephews, Korwin and Marcus, I got my 60 inch fans hung yesterday morning. They move alot of air and the cows really like them.
This evening we have cottage meetings. So our group will be going to visit an old black gentleman and his wife. I need to make a list of songs to sing for them this evening. Perley is a very nice and friendly fellow. He thinks the world of my father since he donated some land to his church. Their cemetary is beside one of our fields and is about a mile from the church. Well, it is not often you get a post as diverse as this one. I hope you enjoyed it... I must run or I will be late for church. Stay cool, drink lots of water, sit under a fan....

Half Way

We arrived at tha half way point in our triticale/winter peas removal. We will start again on Monday making a pile on the ground somewhere because my trenchs are full. This is a good feeling. However, everyone is ready to be finished...
This has been an incredibly long and tiring spring. We, well Rachel really, is having a yard sale again tomorrow. I will be helping them set up before heading home to help cover trench. I need to work on hanging some fans for the cows also. It is suppose to be brutally hot this weekend... It was very hot and muggy today....

More Progress

Due to the rain shower we had last evening we were unable to start chopping till noon. We did manage to cut 20 some loads. The peas smell like garden peas. They remind of shelling peas when I was a child. Hopefully we make a large stride tomorrow.
On an entirely different note: My wife went to the eye Dr. today and discovered her glasses were too strong. The Dr. wondered if she was pregnant when she went to the Dr. the last time. The answer was no. Anyway, makes you wonder if Wal-Mart knows what they are doing when it comes to eyes...
Her new glasses should be ready tomorrow. This may explain why she has had so many headaches...

Progress

Well, some progress was made today. The new well is hooked up and running. This is great. We started cutting the triticale and peas. There will be a lot of it. I think it will be good feed. It is raining as I peck on this keyboard. I am not sure what this will mean for tomorrows game plan. We won't grumble about the rain. I refuse to do that....
The ID system is not finished. The antenna wasn't working properly. The couldn't get it tuned for some reason or another.
Have a good evening everybody...

60

Daddy turned 60 today. It is hard to believe he is really 60. 60 isn't very old any more. We had a big party for him last night. People told stories about him. Very interesting. VOP had our first full program since Jon Alan's battle with sickness. It was an honor to have Daddy present. It went very well...

ID System

I have been slowly putting on the legbands or Rescounters as they are officially called. I have successfully attached 50 of these so far. I have 90 more to go. The antenna should be installed on Monday and then I will be able to know more things about my cows and how active they are. Today I plan to plant 40 some odd acres of corn. The early corn is up and is looking good...

FInished Wheat

We finished the wheat this evening. We cut 122 loads total. The trench is full so we will be doing something else with the triticale. It still is not ready. Very little grain in the heads. So, we will chop some hay tomorrow and then cover the trench. They may be coming to install the Electronic ID system tomorrow and the well man will be coming also... I hope. We are currently out of water and I seem to have trouble cleaning up without it....

Look Back/Look Ahead

Yesterday we cut 40 more loads of wheat. I was very pleased. I hope to finish the wheat tomorrow and start on the triticale. We may not get that far but you never know. We have cut 100 loads of wheat so far and have roughly 35 more to go. I have no idea how many loads of triticale there are. At least 100.
Tomorrow is Jayden's birthday. He is three. I can hardly believe it. Wed. is our anniversary. You tell me how many years we have been married... Bet you can't unless your family or were at church this morning...

Wheat

We have been chopping wheat the last two days and will be starting again here in a half hour or so. We have cut 60 loads so far. This has come off of 26 acres. It is producing more than I anticipated and I am not sure we will have enough room for it. We may have to make a pile on the ground...
So, how will you be spending your holiday weekend? If you need something to do let me know... I can put you in a truck for a day....

Water System

My well driller, Tommie Moore, called me yesterday morning and told me we had two options. We could go with a conventional well system or we could install a constant pressure system. The constant well system is relatively new. It has only been available for a year and a half or so. I don't know if you are aware of this kind of system or not but here is how it works, I think...
First, I told him before he started we needed 20 gallons a minute. He thought we would be doing good to hit 5. So he knew we were looking for a lot of water. If memory serves me correctly we are going to set the pump at 500 ft with a 1 inch line, it may be an inch and quarter line. From the top of the well to the pressure tank we are going to run a 1.5 inch line. This, according to the book, should carry 25 gallons a minute. The pressure tank will hold 180-200 gallons of water. The pump will be a variable speed drive 3 horsepower pump. If the well is full, 65-70 feet from the top, it will pump 30 gallons a minute but as the water level drops so will the gallons a minute. At 500 ft. it will still pump 20 gallons a minute. However, if we are pulling two gallons a minute off of the system the pump will only pump two gallons a minute instead of running wide open like a conventional well. Also, by using the constant pressure system with the variable speed drive pump you can cut the wire size back 3 sizes which saves us about $1000 dollars. We have the ability to set this pump at the amount of pressure we want in the system. 40 or 50 lbs. Oh we will be dropping a 1 inch line out of the pressure tank to tie into the old system. When we build the new facilities we will go back and drop a bigger line out of the tank so we can get the amount of water we need. Very cool, I think. The cost is something else Over all this well will run us about $12,000. This due mainly because of how deep we had to go. But in comparison to a the conventional well system it is still $1100 cheaper....
Such is life...
Donations will be accepted....

640

Well, it is a deep subject....
640 feet and 30 gallons a minute... I am in shock. I couldn't believe it... 30 THIRTY Three Zero amazing...

500

The well driller came today. Not good news so far. We hit 500 feet this evening and had a whopping 3 gallons a minute. This is a stressful predicament to be in. The driller told me the rock had really changed in the last 40-50 feet he drilled and he thought we should go another 100 feet and see what happens. He said he picked up some more water in the last 40-50 feet also. I was hoping to find 20 gallons a minute. Maybe tomorrow we will hit a lake down there somewhere....

Bored Wife

I have a very bored wife and buggy wife... She had to stay home from church this morning because several of the children have the throw up bug. So she is now feeling somewhat house bound and buggy. Cheerful but buggy none the less. How do you deal with a buggy spouse....

Fisrt Bank & Trust

We have officially changed banks. Well, we are in the process of changing banks. The bank we are switching to focuses on the ag industry. So, we should fit in a little better....

Planter Troubles

I have a John Deere 7000 corn planter. Every year we have had a different set of problems to work on. This year a belt has decided to malfunction. This planter is a six row planter so, naturally, it has six planter hoppers. Each box has one of these belts and yesterday they started breaking. I made three trips to Phillips Equipment for parts. I don't know why they are breaking... Wore out I reckon. Another belt broke today but I finished the field anyway. I pretended I was using a five row planter instead of six. The hopper that wasn't working was on the outside of the planter or one on the end. Another trip to Phillips before I start planting again.

Corn Planting

I have managed to plant 55 or so acres before getting rained out. I planted in the rain till 9:00 last night but I was unable to finish due to the falling darkness. Hopefully I can finish this evening or tomorrow. It rained this morning, however, the sun is suppose to shine this afternoon. We are having the wettest spring I can remember. Let me rephrase that. We are having the wettest spring since I started managing the farm.

Poll

It is time for another question.
What is your favorite scripture or passage and why?

Plans

It is always good to have plans so I try to make some on rare occasions. I plan to plant some corn tomorrow. At least I plan to try. It may still be to wet but all I can do is try... Next week we may start chopping again. I need to check and see what stage the grain is at...

New Well

Those of you who read my little updates are aware of our dwindling water supply. We have decided to drill a well and do it soon. I am unsure how soon but as soon as they, the health department, can give us the permit...

Burial

The girls have just finished burying the little mouse MIL was referring to in her comment on my last post. I am unsure when the mouse died but it has received a royal burial. The ladies are currently looking for a flower to grace the grave. I remember burying many cats in my time. How about you? Have you buried your pets?

The Boring Life I Live

I am currently sitting in a hotel room at Holiday Inn near Carlise PA. I just checked our email and we a 66 emails in our inbox for the last 24 hrs. About half of them were weather related. These emails were in regards to tornado and thunderstorm warnings. Out of the remaining emails there was one, 1, ONE email for myself. And this one email was in regards to work. It was my milk quality reports. If that isn't a boring life I don't know what is...

Gone

I left this evening for Grandpa Kauffman's. We, my wife and I, will be going to a homeschool convention this weekend in Harisburg, PA. Should be fun. I am exhausted and am loking forward to relaxing a little before a crazy week next week.
We have discovered we need another well also. Did you know it takes 4 lbs of water to make 1 lb of milk. Which means we were using at least 36,000 and some odd lbs of water a day. Our two wells were not and are not keeping up so a new well will be drilled soon...

Quick Word

A quick word here. I am sure you are all dying to know what is going on at Malfunction Junction. We are still hauling manure. I think 15 more loads will finish this task. Corn to plant. Might get to that Thursday...
Sierra and Aleya think the manure smells good. Isn't that funny? Most people hate it. I love my farm girls...

Work

Let's see, first I will mention the cows. Cows are interesting animals. They thrive on consistency. Since we have been feeding the rye we chopped this spring they are slowly gaining ground or milk in this case. We added 25 more milking cows and on cow calved this morning so we are milking exactly 130 cows. I am on an everyday pick up because I am afraid the cows will run the tank over. If we were not on an every day pick up we would have shipped 17546 lbs of milk tonight. The tank holds 17,717....
Now for this weeks working schedule. I need to cover50 acres with manure and plant 70 acres of corn before 6:00 Thursday evening. We also need to help Dwayne, neighboring farmer, finish chopping. Next week we plan to start chopping the wheat and triticale. Then we need to immediately finish planting corn....
I had off this afternoon and feel somewhat ready to face the new week. This past week was an exhausting one for everyone involved. This week looks exhausting as well. Time will tell...

Yard Sale

Our annual yard sale is tomorrow. She has more stuff than she has ever had before. The neighbors gave us a bunch of stuff and her mom gave her lots of stuff. We shall see...

Jayden

Jayden came up to me last evening and told me My fever hurts...
He didn't have a fever though and I think he was in a pouting mood.

More Purchases

What a day it was yesterday. A very long one... I arose at 3:30 AM and milked before heading to Harrisonburg. Walter McClure and I went to the herd sale of Daryl Heatwhole. A fine looking herd of cows it was of which we bought 28. We had them loaded and headed toward the home ranch by 5:30. We finally had them unloaded and headed toward the parlor by 11:30 PM. I finally headed to bed by 12:30 AM. I am nervously excited about this turn of events. Well, I better go make sure they are still alive....