James Herriot

I have noticed in my brief time spent browsing blogs that quite a number of folks have James Herriot listed as one of their favorite authors. I am wondering why? What does he do in his writing that makes him so good? Is it the humor? Is it his humaneness? Is it his honesty? Or is it only because he is, or his editor was, a literary genius?

Cousins

Grandpa and Grandma Kauffman were here for the weekend. They brought a couple of my nieces with them, Kassie and Lyssa. They spent 90% of their time outside riding bike, feeding calves and playing in a mud puddle. Well the mud puddle only happened once. I believe the weekend was success. Tears were rolling out of little eyeballs when little girls had to part ways. I guess it is better that way then being glad they will be parting ways.

SMBI Quartet Retreat

Some of you may be aware of this fact but for those of you who are not, VOP was asked to put together the SMBI Quartet Retreat which is scheduled for the last full weekend in Sept. For some odd reason I was delegated to doing the calling. We came up with the topics we wanted addressed and are trying to find people willing to talk about them. Anyone but us of course. It is very difficult to line things up when people won't return phone calls. I have contacted 10 people for this one topic and will be calling number 11 today. This same phenomenon occurs when trying to line up programs. It is very discouraging.

Fire Wood

A fellow from church has decided to give me fire wood. He thinks he will have a two ton dump truck load every couple weeks. This wood is scrap from his business. He, Myron Yoder, makes mats for loggers to use when it is muddy. The logger lays them in the drive and then drive on them. He has just recently started to make mats for pipe companies. They lay them down in the mud when they are laying the pipe line and then drive their track hoe over top of them. So he will have lots of scrap wood. He told me I could sell what we can't use. We figure one truck load is worth $250-300. I think this is great. We will see if we can drum up some customers. You need some?

Future Operator

I am hopeful Aleya will one day be very efficent on this machine as well as others we have around the farm. She enjoys riding along...

Dairy Farmers?

How many of my daily readers, or otherwise, are dairy farmers?

Renters

Our house was rented a month ago or so. They are moving in Sat. We are very glad to say the least. The couple has retired from the daily grind. They have a 40 year old son who will be living with them. He has health problems. He has had open heart surgery. They also have adopted a son and I believe he is in 7th grade. They are very nice people, very respectable.

My Day

I went to pick up my equipment purchases today. Several things happened to add excitement/anger to my day. Okay, that sounds rather strong lets say frustration. First I couldn't get the truck in reverse. It is an old Ford road tractor and the linkage is real loose. It is an interesting vehicle to drive to say the least. I left about 45 min. later then I was planning due to the reversing malfunction. I arrive at the farm about 1:15 and am greeted by no one. I spend an hour trying to find someone who will give me permission to run the tractor with a loader. It was a very nice John Deere 6300. I finally talked to some on the phone at 2:00 and they informed me they would be their in ten minuets. I got the impression they didn't really want me driving the tractor. I was loaded by 3:30 and hit the road. I was about an hour from home when a tire lost it's cap or the rubber casing. I manged to get roughly fifteen more miles out of the tire before it blew. I then found someone at a service station to put my spare on for the high price of $20. Took him about 10 min. I arrived home about 6:45. What a long day. I hate hauling equipment because I am always worrying about chains coming loose and items falling into the road or on top of some poor little Volvo....

Sale Results

Well, let me think....
I purchased a mix wagon for $500. Fairly decent Van Dale 285. I then purchased a manure pump that was sold for parts for $200. I think we will be able to turn this into a working pump without much difficulty. I also bought a three point hitch whirligig. I am unsure what they are called. We used one to broadcast our small grain last fall. The one I bought has a few parts on which were missing on the one I had. I paid $50 for this. I had decided I wasn't going to spend more then $3000 total. OF course everything I wanted went for more than that. The pump I wanted sold for a tad over $3000. Interesting sale and I will need to continue to watch the sale papers.

Todays Activities

In roughly 30 min. I am headed to a sale just east of Richmond. A fellow farmer is going out of business and is selling his equipment today. Their are several items which interest me greatly. The first of which is a Calumet 30 foot manure pump. Their is also a 21 foot manure pump listed as a parts machine. The second item is a pull type manure spreader. Their are two of these listed and I believe they both have 3350 gallon tanks. The third item is a very nice looking pull type, Gehl, dry manure spreader. Item four is a Gehl dump wagon in lovely condition. The Gehl has a cousin listed as well. A Fargo for parts. And fourth they have a Culti-mulcher listed. A culti-mulcher is a cross between a culti-packer and a harrow. This is used after disking and before planting. It will leave the soil looking like a ball field, supposedly....
Due to money issues I very well may come home empty handed. But, you never know, they maybe giving stuff away. We shall see.

Flower

What is your favorite? Which one do you like to grow the most?

An Odd Discovery

Several weeks ago we were working in a flower bed by the house and found this small hole. It seemed rather shallow and I assumed something had dug a little hole. When I was coming in from the barn Monday morning I noticed the hole opening was larger. I took a shovel and stuck it down in the hole expecting to hit bottom. When my arm was buried to the shoulder I thought I had found the bottom. That evening I decided to see how deep it actually was. I took my flashlight and shone it down into the murky depths. My flashlights beam was unable to find the bottom of this hole. So next I dropped a rock down the hole. I discovered that it is almost two seconds deep. However, I am not sure how to convert that to feet... This past weekend we had between two to three inches of rain which caused the top of this hole to cave in. We have since decided that this has to be an old well. The odd thing is that no one has any memory of it ever being drilled. It is not a hand dug well it is to small. The house was built in 1962 and my grandfather has no memory of this well. I think they must have dug this well for the barn only they didn't find water and they capped it off. we have done some earth moving around the house in the past few years and slowly took the cap off. Here is what scares me. When you leave the house via the basement the path is about 6-12 inches from the top of this well. I shudder to think about some child getting off the path to smell the flowers and suddenly they are 40 feet down... I need to figure out how to fill it. Yes, I have a big rock covering it at the moment...

High Wind

We had a high wind advisory today. These high winds were also causing some newly laid shingles to flap in the breeze at my rental property. I breezed, literally, over to the house and scrambled up the ladder where the full force of the blast met me. While I was fixing my problem I felt the house shudder from the mighty blast. These winds are suppose to blow until noon tomorrow.

Jesus Love

Last night Sierra asked me how much I love her. I stated that I loved her a lot. She then said "I bet you love me more then Jesus." "Well, no" I replied "Jesus loves so much more then I am able to love." This really confused her and then she wanted to know how much Jesus loves her and how much and how much and so on and so forth. I tried to wisely answer her questions but for some reason I got the impression I was not making a lot of sense. How do you explain to a 6 year old that Jesus loves much more intimately or deeply then I even know how to love?

Man-Child

Jayden has some asthma trouble. Here he is getting a breathing treatment. Isn't he sitting their like a man?

My Wife The Saleswoman

I was a little surprised my wife would write something like this. When I asked her about it she said it's all true. The people that have bought them from her love them. If you want one after you read this please let her know...


My sister gave me an Ultimate Cloth when she was here visiting. I used it to clean my windows the next day and fell completely in love with it. It is awesome. I called my sister the next day and told her I am going to buy some and sell them as a fundraiser for our adoption expenses.

Since I started selling them I have sold 25 cloths, and it has only been 2 weeks.
As soon as people try one they buy several more to use and to give as gifts.

ALL you do is wet the cloth and wring it out very tight, then wipe your windows, mirrors or whatever. It cleans them and leaves them lint and streak free!

You have to see it to believe it.

It cuts your cleaning time in half and saves money for you as you don't have to buy all those cleaning chemicals. And for all of us adoptive mothers I know we don't have time to clean or money to spend on chemicals. :-)

It is chemical free! So is not hard on your health.

It has 100's of uses.... and cleans everything with a streak free, lint and spot free clean.

All you do is wet it, wring it out TIGHTLY, and wipe. With ‘vacuum power’ it removes oil, grease, dirt, fingerprints, soap scum, hairspray, dog nose prints, bugs, tar, and lots more from anything.

If you are interested in buying one of these cloth, or are just interested in knowing more about them, email me at rgzehr@brookneal.net

They cost 6.00 plus .50 cent shipping per cloth.

Just an additional note, it is nice to have a separate one for windows and dusting. I have found if I use my dusting one on my windows it does leave some lint behind.

Thanks, and have a great day everybody!

Rachel

http://precioustreasures.bravehost.com/

Another Question

It hit me this morning while I was milking that this would be a great question...
Are you ready????
What is your favorite candy bar?
Mine used to be snickers but I have navigated more towards the Resee cup in the last several decades..
By the way, why is a snickers called a snickers? Do they make people snicker?

Click Track

We have been using a click track to learn our music for the last several albums. We are beginning to work on our next album and Jon is suppose to drop off my click track this afternoon. I am so excited. I love learning new music. This is the first Christmas album I will have had a part in making and this makes it more exciting for me. We were hoping to have it available by Christmas of 07 but I don't think that will happen. But you should be able to get one before the next Christmas season....

Another Restaraunt QUestion

Is it wrong to eat at places that sell liquor/beer? Such as Pizza Hut, Applebee's, Olive Garden or other such places...

Poll

How many times in a month do you eat out? Now, I ain't talking about no fast food joint, I mean a nice sit down place. A place like Denny's, Bob Evan's, Cracker Barrel, or some other sort of spot...

Easter

What are your Easter traditions? Family gatherings, sunrise services, egg hunts, or nothing really.
Do you think God poured out His wrath on Jesus the day Jesus was crucified? This is a very prevalent teaching in some circles. Is this teaching based on the words Jesus screamed while hanging on the cross? My God my God why hast thou forsaken me. Was Jesus really forsaken? Was He all alone?
If God forsake His Son what kind of a God is He? It is hard for us to understand how Jesus was human and divine. I believe Jesus felt alone, forsaken, maybe even forgotten. I do not believe God poured out His wrath on Jesus. God does not pour out His wrath on His people. God is a God of mercy. True, their will be a judgement and if it were not for God's mercy we would all end up in hell. This is why I celebrate Easter...

Rotten Apple

Tonight my wife found a slightly rotten apple under the kitchen sink. This apple was in the sort mushy stage. She then cut it open so the girls could see what it looked like. After this she smelled it. She got this amazing look on her face, a very contorted look. Then she wondered if I wanted to smell it. To which I responded, Are you kidding me?!? She called this science but I am not sure what they learned. I guess that things which are mushy and rotting stink...

Child Like Faith

Sierra has asked Jesus to come and live in her heart. This makes me very happy... It is also a huge responsibility. This thing of your children's souls. Their salvation. It never ends, does it? They will always be my responsibility. Even after marriage. Hopefully to a much lesser degree but still my responsibility...

Reading

This evening I discovered a rather interesting thing. Aleya seemed to want me to read her a book and she wanted me to start in the back of the book. So I did. However, I read it all backwards. For the first little bit it was quite funny then it became long and boring so I then read one sentence properly and the next one backwards and this too added humor to the story. Have you ever tried this or something like this?

Finished

Finished the rye today. Cut 14 loads on 27 acres, not so good. Now it is on to other things. Haul manure and plant corn...

Field Work

We started chopping rye this morning around 10:00. By 6:45 this evening we had covered 25 acres and cut 32 loads. I was real pleased. That is very good tonnage for small grain.

Play House

For those of you who don't know, this is an old cattle hauling box. We took it off of the truck I put my ash spreader on. The other day Sonny propped the wooden ladder up against the box. The wooden ladder used to be the gate on our deck. My good wife then made some furniture out of old paneling and firewood. The girls have been playing in the house for hours the last 4-5 days. In this picture Aleya was sad because I told her she couldn't go with me on the tractor. She is being comforted by her older sister. Looks like they are sitting on their front porch...

Radio Advertising

Every week men are given a gift called Sunday. Every week this gift is wasted on things like yard work, running errands and loved ones. This week pick up the remote and watch the best bowlers in the league square off for a chance at greatness....
It appears to me that our culture is being slowly and almost imperceptibly being taught that laziness is something we as humans should strive for. Their is also the fact that church is something that isn't even worth mentioning. (Maybe that is a good thing. They didn't say Sunday's are wasted going to church.) I am somewhat surprised someone hasn't jumped up and down and screamed over adds such as this. Maybe the bowling league is so desperate for people's interest they have to glamorize it to an amazing extent to catch someones interest. Have you heard adds such as this about other products? Such as beer, wine, or glamorous vacations?
Disclaimer: I have paraphrased the add. I cannot remember the exact words but I believe I am fairly accurate in the intended meaning or gist of the add.