Christmas Letter

Hello one and all…
Good evening from the warm confines of the Zehr household. The night is very dreary. It is raining again. Why, I do not know. We have had more rainfall this fall then I can ever remember. Unfortunately, this really doesn’t mean much. As the years continue to slide by I realize my memory seems to have been left behind on some path in the past. I am hoping it will catch up with me here soon. But enough useless chatter about the weather and my lack of grey matter. I will try to bring you up speed on the many wild happening of the past year.
My wife continues to teach our children here at home. This seems to take up a lot of her time. When you mix in the cooking, cleaning, laundry, husband, and all the other things she does, she is a very busy lady.
Sierra, turned 9 in Sept. and is in the process of becoming a 21 year old. This past year she has started helping her mother with most of the household chores. Such as a little cleaning, some cooking, most of the baking, and a lot of laundry. She loves taking care of Kaiden and continues to prop him on her hip. She enjoys singing and she enjoys school until math becomes involved. She must get this trait from her father. He seems to have very little joy in his life where math is concerned.
Aleya is in first grade and is learning to read. School is a little more difficult for her. One reason for this is her energy level. She loves doing things and we have been amazed at her ability to imagine things. When I came in this evening she was a turtle… Where this comes from I do not know… She loves animals and enjoys feeding a calf twice a day, unlike her sister who doesn‘t enjoy the chore.
The Boys. It is hard to mention one of the boys without the other. Jayden and Jackson are 4 1/2. They are always doing something. This summer they spent a lot of time wandering around the shop watching dad work on trucks and other pieces of equipment. It was very common to see them poking a screwdriver in this and sticking a piece of metal in that and in most respects fixing things about as well as dad was…
Kaiden is our youngest and is just over a year old. He endured quite a bit of trauma in September. He burned his mouth very bad with an electrical cord. He was in a hospital in Richmond for 5 days, and then a couple of miserable weeks recovering from that. The doctors were pretty certain he would need plastic surgery, but he amazed us all, and it looks like we will be able to avoid that. We have an appointment in June to make a decision, but the dr’s are very hopeful! Praise the Lord!
I am still farming, singing and trying to balance this with family life and church life. This seems to be a very difficult thing to accomplish. The farm continues to grow. We are currently milking 140 cows and it looks like we could easily be milking 150-160 by spring. We desperately need another barn. I am trying to be patient and let things play out before I rush in and make some silly decision. I have two men working for me. They are doing a wonderful job and I am thankful I have them on the payroll. They make it possible for me to be involved in Voice Of Praise.
VOP was rather busy this year. The highlight of which was a 10 day tour to the NW. We flew out rented/borrowed a van and drove around this beautiful corner of the world. It was good to meet new people as well as reconnecting with some old friends. We are currently working on another album. Hopefully it will be available by the summer of 2010.
Life continues to be one of joy and trials. It is so easy to wonder at times what God’s plan is and why he allows things to happen. The truth is, Jesus probably wondered the same thing. I am thankful Jesus was faithful. That He carried through with God’s plan. Without His life my life would be a complete shambles and full of depression. So, may we all realize anew the reason for the season. May we rejoice in the coming of the Messiah and eagerly await His return.
May God richly bless you
The Zehrs

Kaiden Update

I noticed in church this morning, while he was sleeping, the hole is shrinking. It would be hard to slide a straw between his lips without him opening them now.

Kaiden Update

For all you pondering folks. Here is the updated photo's...

The Annual Tradition

So, we took our family pictures this morning before church. Actually, my brother came down and shot us all with a cannon. (That is a brand name you know...) Oh what joy and fun was had by all... The sun was playing games with our eyeballs and was wrinkling our faces into the same general shape of a prune... This is NOT one you will receive in the mail...

Update

Well folks, here is what we learned today. First, the Dr. was amazed at how well he has healed. "The way he has healed is a miracle." Is basically what she said. Second, if they decide to do a surgery it would be for speech purposes not for looks. The muscle in the lips goes from the lip to the nose, that is how wide it is, and is that wide for the entire circle of the mouth. If the muscle was severed and the scar tissue is to great he will have trouble with his speech. However, he is not drooling out of the injury which means his lips have healed well but also means it may not have severed the muscle at least completely. That was very encouraging. So, we wait. We are suppose to go back in six months for another visit. Hopefully in six months he will be talking or trying to talk and we will then know how much his speech has been affected. The overall idea we got was this: The Dr. doesn't think they will need to do surgery but she can't really say that. She was very optimistic. We were pleased to hear that she isn't worried about his looks. In other words, she isn't going to do surgery just to do surgery. She is more worried about his speech. Oh, she also said that the lips should start too relax now. It usually takes three months for the injury to reach it's worst point. If you notice his lips are pulled to the left. She is saying this should start to relax and in a year you may not be able to tell anything happened by looking at him. Time will tell. We are very thankful tonight for God's care and His healing touch...

Why My Anger Turned White Tonight

We had three heifers calve in the last 36 hrs. Life was all "cool" until the low cows arrived in the holding pen. These heifers were firm believers in the first shall be last, or maybe it was the last will be last. Actually they didn't want to be there to begin with so after holding a committee meeting they decided to open the gate and get out. I heard them do it and raced out as fast as I could, which is not very fast. I managed to find some nice choice words to hurl in the general direction of the ears and sent two of them back into the fold. The other one suddenly had the desire to travel and crawled through my board fence ran wildly through the dry cow lot before taking down an electric fence. My anger was now turning a shade of red and I sent the heifer careening back toward the barn. She was still feeling her independent spirit and tore down the electric fence on the other side of the dry cow lot. At this point I cut my losses and hurled many vocal epithets her way before heading back to finish milking while she went hiking around the farm yard. I finally get to milking again when I hear the gate opening again. (Oh I am really getting mad) I dash wildly out to cut them off. This time one of the two crawled under a fence and got in the high group. Not big deal but highly annoying. I brought her back and went to milk. Would you believe it? She did it again, same thing. (Man I am really getting mad now) I bring her back again. By now I can empty a side of the parlor and put these annoying creatures in the barn. So, I make an attempt at this. Cows are such idiots. Well, one of these heifers opened the gate again while I was trying to get them in the parlor and every cow in that hadn't been milked headed back to the barn. I was so hopping mad.... Man I was mad... Did I mention I was mad.... I was so mad I wanted to kick something. ( this is so childish....) I was stomping back down into the parlor and I spied a five gallon bucket of towels and gave it a vicious kick... I had towels all over the front of the parlor. It was great... Well, not really but ....
If I would have been watching somebody else doing what I was doing I would have laughed so hard.... I decided enough was enough and I wasn't going to fool with it any more. So I milked waht I had and went to the house....
So I have a heifer that apparently has mad cow disease.... (not really, just stupidity or something...) I also have decided I am having an allergic reaction to one of my spider bite meds. I am itchy. I wonder if I am like flea bitten dog....
Anyway and so forth.....
Good night...

Oh Crumbs....

So, I noticed this spot on my finger. It was feeling and acting like a pimple that was ready to pop. But, being the man that I am, I tried popping it anyway with very little success. It kept hurting so I starting putting stuff on it. Within 24 hrs I was able to "pop" it. But this didn't fix the problem. It didn't really get worse but it wasn't getting better. Then today the back of my hand started hurting and by 7 this eveing my finger was so swollen. I couldn't believe it. So I was told in no uncertain terms I needed to go see a Dr. So I went. And, what do you know, it's infected. DUH...
Anyway, I finally figured out what actually happened. While I was washing down after helping Marshal finish up the milking tonight, I noticed a major spider web. This spurred some spot in my mind and I recalled an incident on Thursday morning, a week ago, where I was walking through a bunch of spider webs on my way to get the cows. I also remembered that one of the pests lodged in my hair. I also remember a sting on my finger and I distinctly remember giving it the shake. So, apparently this is a spider bite gone bad... Or good if your the spider I guess....
I am currently on antibiotics and I feel better already. Allthough I have enough Ibuprophen in my system to feel good until late March so maybe that doesn't mean much....

Another One?

The Zehr Dwarfs

Updated Photo

Kaiden is doing so well. Here is an updated picture of his lips. I don't know what all I have posted but if you notice his lower lip is starting to pull back together. If you take the mouse pointer and draw a line where you think the lip line is you will notice how much lip is missing. The big question is how much of this will regrow without surgery. Nobody knows. The people we have talked to have never seen anything like this. His upper lip doesn't look as bad to me or not as deep. So, time will tell...

Updated Photo

We feel like he is doing better. The pain has definitely diminished. We keep wrapped up as much as possible. This keeps his lips moist and reduces the pain etc. He was very happy when he woke up this morning.

Trucking Silage

Jack was pleased as punch...

The Facts Of The Case

For those of you who do not know what happened and don't understand what happened here is what happened. It all began several years ago with our struggling sweeper cord. It had developed a short in the cord which I fixed. Here is how I fixed the cord. I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a plug. I then cut the wire and used the plug to reconnect the wire. So, now we have a plug to plug the sweeper into the wall and another plug close to sweeper. When I wired the plug I put the male end on the wall side and the female end on the sweeper side. So, when Kaiden was playing with the cord he managed to pull it apart and put the male end in his mouth. Unfortunately, it was still plugged into the wall. He had pulled apart the plug where I had fixed the short. If I had used the female end on the wall side he probably would not have been burned as bad but I don't know for sure. Hopefully this will clear up any confusion on how this actually happened. He wasn't playing with bare wires. I had trouble figuring out right at first. This makes sense. If you look at the early pictures you can see where the prongs touched his lips. He put it in his mouth upside down which explains why the upper lip is in worse shape then the lower lip....

Kaiden loved riding around the unit in his little fire engine.

He received some balloons and a teddy bear from our church. Thanks! He loved the balloons, and the teddy bear did a wonderful job of distracting him while the nurse changed the dressing on his IV.

He spent some time looking out the window, lots of activity to watch. He giggled when I took him over there.

Kaiden is looking and feeling lots better today. This pic was taken this morning. The dr is saying he can maybe go home by Monday but maybe not til Tues. They will evaluate Monday. They are keeping him because of the risk of infection until the lip scabs, and also their is an artery in our upper lips, and if he would start to bleed it could be a big bleed. So we are just waiting for him to scab over basically. They are saying surgery won't be for a couple weeks. The good news is the plastic surgeon said she doesn't think his lower lip is going to need anything, but his upper lip will.
He is happy.. when he is being entertained... otherwise he is very buggy. He would love to get down and crawl around and explore, unfortunetly his mother won't let him.
He is supposed to be going to sleep, but is playing in his crib right now... His nurse decided to hold off on pain meds.. so he hasn't had any since about 5:00... he really doesn't seem to be in any pain.
Thanks so much for your prayers!

The Deal At This Point

Ok folks,
Here is what we know. Kaiden will be here through the weekend. The pediatric plastic surgeon was in this morning. She said, "we will be good friends before this is over." The muscle on both lips has been damaged which means he will not be able to control his lips like before in regards to controlling drool and things. It could very well affect his speech and who knows what in the future. They will not do anything until next week. This would, I think, be a consultation with the pediatric plastic surgeon. I am assuming she will put together a game plan for the future.
We are very thankful his life was spared. We are somewhat nervous about the future. Fear of the unknown. Will he always talk funny? Will his face look funny. Things like this are what goes through a parents mind. Yet we realize God is in control and I keep asking myself what God is trying to teach me through this. One thing I realized is think I have become the dreaded work all the time kind of man. I have not been home much for the last several months. Home and awake at the same time...
Some thing needs to change. Surely God could have used something else to teach me this. Maybe it has more to do with trust in Him. The Father. The one who died for each of us.
We appreciate your prayers...

Kaiden

Another view.

Kaiden

I think this is still in ER in Lynchburg.

Kaiden

In the ER

Frank's Slide

Huge rocks. If I am correct they never tried to rescue anyone. It was pretty much hopeless I guess. They put a memorial up and left it at that. More information would be grand if anyone has some.

Frank's Slide

At some point in history a mine collapsed in the middle of the night. This caused the side of the mountain to slide into the valley burying the whole town in the process. I don't know how populated the town was.

Kootenai River Valley

Here the Kootenai river is actually flowing N back into Canada. One of very few rivers in the US that flow N. If I remember right, there is only one other river that flows N and I believe it is in OR.

On The Rocks

Chad took this picture for us. What a bunch of a goof balls... This was taken N of Bonners Ferry...

Silver Butte Pass

We wondered if we were going to make it across Silver Butte Pass. The road was worse then a lot of my access lanes to my fields... Notice how close the branches and things are to the van.

New Truck?

Here is the newest member of the Airy Mont Fleet. We spent most of the day yesterday trying to get the body the box off. There is a huge winch centered directly behind the cab and attached to the frame. A very tight fit. Something is still somewhat attached. So far we have had one minor issue. The boom rocked out of it's cradle and landed on the cab which ruined the windshield. Hopefully we can get it off today, maybe.... I really want to get it off before I leave....

Stuff

I think I have every thing loose on the truck. Hopefully we can take the body off next week.
(I will try to post a picture so you know what I am doing. A picture will tell the story much better than I) The milk tester was here this afternoon. Cows tested at 74. I was surprised and pleased. For as hot as it is they are doing quite well....

A Truck Load

You can a haul anything with a dump truck....

Fish Feed

We were tossing bread out to the carp.... I thought this was worse then cramming cows into a free stall barn...