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....