Wedding #1

Wedding #1 is upon us. Karlin Schrock & Susan Martin. Tonight is rehearsal. I am somewhat scared of this. Jon Alan was going to help until he got sick. He still tires quickly and will not be joining us. Half the singers are from a different state which means we haven't sung together. Twill be interesting....

Funeral

It was a very large funeral.
It was sad...
It was hopeful...
I cannot possibly empathize with the family...
I can only imagine how rough it is...
I can only imagine the pain of trying to adjust to life without one of my daughters present...
Lori told me she hopes I never have to experience this pain. The death of a child or my wife. I hope I don't also... Don't we all? I wish sometimes I could see God's blueprint or his plan. You know, the big picture. The picture that shows me why the pain we face or endure is a good thing...

Funeral

We will be leaving this afternoon for Melanie's funeral. The funeral is Wed. morning at 11. We are planning on coming home Wed. evening sometime...

Aleya

I took six steers to market this morning and when I returned home to eat breakfast Aleya told me this little story.
"Mamma put my Sunday school papers in the fire! I wasn't mad but I was a little frustrated!"

Sad News

I learned that Melanie Miller passed away this morning at 11:30. I was thinking about how young she was, 13, and how she had her whole life ahead of her. I pondered the pain her parents, siblings and cousins are facing and was trying to put myself in their shoes. I trust they see God in this time of sorrow. I feel quite certain they do....

Feed Consumption

I have been nervously watching my silage pile disappear all winter long. We have incorporated dry hay into the ration to slow down the rate of corn silage consumption. However, I have a strong feeling my supply of corn silage could dry up in the next ten days. I was hoping I would have some rye to chop before this occurred. Now I am not sure. I am afraid feed will need to be bought...

PR Trip

My in laws are on a PR trip for Heralds Of Hope, HOH. I am wondering if any of you have gone to hear what he has to say. HOH has quite a ministry using a 30 min. radio program. I am not sure of all the details but I do know they have to pay for all the air time they use. So I am wondering if: One, are you familiar with HOH?
Two, have you heard the radio program?
Three, did you hear dad on his current PR trip?

DHIA

The milk tester was here this morning. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered the cows tested at 76 lbs. This is the average for 94 cows. I asked her what the deviation was like. I was expecting it to be off quite a bit. She said it was right on. You can't get much closer than it was. The goal is 100 and ours was 100.9. To find the deviation they enter the last three milk pick ups in the computer. Then the computer tells you how close the test results are to what you are actually shipping. I like these kind of surprises...

Herd CHeck Results

I always get nervous when I haven't bred many cows and herd check day rolls around. I assume I have missed many heats and all the cows I have bred will be open. Well, today, we preg. checked 15 out of 20. Not bad if I do say so myself. Of course this doesn't count the cows I managed to catch in heat and rebred....

Clean Up

More clean up occurred today, although you probably couldn't tell. I started hauling block away from the old shop. I am hoping to make a good stride at this project this week. Sonny is attending SMBI's Minister's Week. Tomorrow is herd check and then Wed. or Thur. I need to make a run to Don's and drop off some heifers as well as pick some up.

Wal-Mart

We are bored! We decided, at the last minute, to go to Wal-Mart! We are bored! We have been stuck in the house for a week. Haven't felt like going anywhere. So, it is off to Wal-Mart. How many of you go to Wal-Mart when you are bored?

Expansion

I went to Rustburg today and met with the NRCS fellow. Don Yancy is his name and he is a very nice guy. Anyway, their is a federal program and a state program and both of them deal with manure storage. I think the state program is a little better then the federal program. Now I need to figure out where I want to put stuff and how many head I can have. After this Don will bring an engineer out and we will look things over and decide what needs to be done. What a process....

Clean Up

I spent most of the day cleaning up. I moved my salvaged parts into my storage facility in the shop. We saved a bunch of axles, some corn chopper header parts as well as some chopper parts. I am also in the process of cleaning up where the old shop was. I have some stuff to go through. I need to take some more junk to cycle systems. They pay more for copper, aluminum, and stainless steel if it is separated. Tomorrow morning I go meet with Don Yancey, he is the NRCS representative. I want to find out what kind of cost share programs are available to help with expansion. These cost share programs would have to do with waste management. Manure pits or lagoons...

Valentine's Day

So, what you doing for your sweetie this year?

Expansion

Let's see, on Feb. the 7th I had a meeting with Westfalia/Surge representative. Bruce Thompson, Darrell Carol, and Rick Warren came. My dad was here as well. We met for 2-3 hours in the afternoon discussing what my goals are and what I want to do. In a perfect world where money isn't an issue what would I do? Well, I said, I would milk 4-500 cows and put in a 24-26 stall rotary parlor. They say rotary parlors cash flow very well. They made a few suggestions and I liked what they had to say. Going into debt doesn't scare me too much but it could. It will be a very interesting process. I haven't decided what I am doing for sure. I know now that if I expand I will have to buy cows to support the expansion.

Home & Still Sick

Jon is home tonight. It has been a long 16 days or so. So far we have canceled one tour and several local programs. Today I called the studio and told them it didn't look like we would be able to record the beginning of April. Such is life....
Here in our Zehr house I thought I was doing so much better till this morning but before I could blink twice I was running a fever and feeling extremely ill. My wife has decided to join me in this feverish journey. She has been quite ill today also. The children are improving and bouncing off the walls and things of that nature....

Sickness

What a sad looking bunch. High fevers for the kids, mine was running as high as 101.5. very miserable. Hopefully I will be feeling good tomorrow...

More Improvement

Jon was moved out of ICU into the Step Down Unit yesterday. I spent the night with him last night. Well, sort of, I spent quite a bit of time in the surgical waiting room stretched out on beautifully long sofa. They are sending him home tomorrow sometime.

Still Improving

Last night about 11 Jon called and told me he wanted two pieces of pizza. I told him I would bring him some this evening. Daddy called and asked Rachel if I was really coming. Jon was really in need of pizza and daddy was getting quite hungry also. So I arrived with the pizza and found Jon vastly improved over last night. I was with there close to two hours and I could tell he was getting tired by the time I left. He wasn't talking as much and his head was starting to hurt some. He was suppose to be moved today to a step down unit but a room never opened up for him. Perhaps tomorrow. He may be coming home by the weekend...

Exhaustion

When I was in to see Jon this evening he seemed extremely tired. The MRI was clear which means his seizure did no damage or the damage is so little it didn't show up. I haven't heard the results of the EEG but they must be good also. They are planning on moving him out of ICU some time tomorrow.

Slowly Improving

It is becoming apparent that Jon is slowly rejoining us. He talked a couple times yesterday but each time he talked it was in regards to something negative. He didn't want something or something was scaring him. One time his IV was leaking and he told Laureen or Daddy I am getting wet. He knew something was wrong and needed attention. Other than this he said nothing. This morning when Daddy and Mama arrived at the hospital he was talking to the nurse. He was answering questions. He is very weary and exhausted but is recovering. He is still in ICU. They may move him to a step down unit tomorrow. At one point he was in pain and Mama finally got the nurse. The nurse asked him if his head hurt. He replied My head hurts all the time! So they gave him something stronger than Tylenol but not Morphine. I will be leaving here in a few minuets too go see for myself what kind of improvements have taken place... He did have a seizure this afternoon. The neurologist came and put him on a medication to take care of this. The Dr. said 40% of Meningitis patients have a seizure. The Dr. also said he probably won't have another one. To my knowledge he hasn't. Yes, he is still talking....
More later

Confusion

After having an extremely difficult day yesterday Jon was moved back into ICU. Apparently he stopped responding to the antibiotic. Once the Dr. had determined what strand of meningitis Jon had they had discontinued some of his meds. When they did this he started slipping backwards. Thursday afternoon the ran another MRI and did another spinal tap. The biggest concern was slurred speech or no speech. He was showing the symptoms of a very slight stroke. Naturally we were very concerned. So last night they moved him back into ICU and put him back on all the meds. He had a really rotten night last night however his day today was really good. Here is an email I sent to our church family.

Good evening folks,

I was in the hospital till 10:30 last night and was on the grounds again this morning by 7:15. So, here is what I know. He had a very bad night last night. Didn't get any sleep or very little. When we arrived this morning he was sleeping. He roused at one point and Daddy told him good morning and Jon replied Good morning Daddy. I thought I should try it also so I said good morning and he turned his head and spoke to me also. Saying good morning Glen. I was so relieve I started to cry and he then started to laugh. After this he promptly fell asleep. He slept until 12 noon. He ate really well, Laureen fed him, and then he slept most of the afternoon. They are still giving him morphine for pain but not as often. The MRI came back clear on all counts. No sign of stroke or any permanent damage. The Neurologist had them run an EKG on his brain too make sure he wasn't having seizures. This too came back clear. It appears that what he needs is lots of sleep. So, in short it appears that all of his cognitive functions should return to normal with time. He is very sick and in serious condition but things are looking much brighter than yesterday evening this time. I will give you more details as they arrive.

Thanks for praying

Glen