Wedded 37 Years Ago Today...

~picture is circa 1971~

I've heard and read that the greastest gift you can give your children is to show them how much you love their Mother.

Even though you would probably also enjoy something with a bow and wrapping paper, for now let me just say that I still love your Mother and that's the way it is going to stay. I'd do it all again.

Marilyn is different than all of the girls I've ever known. She would go out with me.

Looking at the picture I know what you're thinking, Yes, I should have been arrested. Somehow we have this picture taken when we were in junior high and we didn't meet until we were in college. I know that is about how I look now but Marilyn has aged ever so slightly.

Football Saturday

Our daughter was playing the organ for a funeral yesterday so it fell upon us to get our oldest grandson to a flag football game about 2o miles from the farm. The football player is 10 years old and is in no way a smart alec so the following conversation was particularly funny at the time. We were on the road and:

Grandma: So, what's your number?

C: We don't have numbers.

Grandma: You don't have numbers?

C: No.

Grandma: Well how can we tell who the players are:

C: By our faces.

They don't wear helmets it turns out.

In the 'as luck would have it' department, He carried the ball only one time but I had my Rebel in my hands and already turned on so I got the following picture.

To Kentucky and Back

We've been on a trip to find the location for our next family reunion. Marilyn and her Mother and I got home yesterday having driven from Hannibal, Missouri where we spent Saturday night. We were fortunate to have stopped in Hannibal. It was raining the last couple of hours whilst driving into the town and so we found a motel and hunkered down.
Yesterday morning we started out across Northern Missouri on highway 36. About half of that trip was through flooded farm ground. At one point they detoured us off of our side of the interstate that was under flood waters. All of this was the result of the remnants of Hurricane Ike.
I'm anxious to hear how Jim and Mrs Jim and Lucy have weathered the storm. Even if they didn't sustain substantial damage they surely will have been without things we've all grown accustomed to, like electricity. We've been through long spells without electricity a couple of times ourselves here on the farm because of ice storms. Once with 150 head of cattle in the feed yard. You can't help but come away with bad memories.
We'll keep checking on you Houstonites. Good luck.
Oh, the reunion, the big announcement to the family has yet to be made but it looks like The Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky and Tennessee is a likely favorite. Besides the narural beauty of the area it is brimming with a rich history.
We won't be far from Fort Henry and Fort Donnelson. They were civil war forts put in place to keep the Union forces from bringing supplies by boat into the south. It didn't work. A very young Gen U.S. Grant defeated a college friend of his at Fort Donnelson, a General Buckner. They had become friends at West Point Military Acad. Buckner had at one time helped pay Grants bills for him when he was in need.
During the battle, Buckner sent a messenger to see what "Terms" could be arranged for a surrender. Gen. Grant returned, "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." After that it was said the U. S. in U.S. Grant stood for Unconditional Surrender. He later did accept some 'terms' at other surrenders.
Well it was 38 degrees here this morning with a high of about 70 with bright sunshine expected. The weather for the next couple of months is why we live in Nebraska and why I won't be wondering far from here again for a while. Well the weather... and the upcoming harvest.

A Farmer: Out Standing In His Field

My Dad liked to play with words. He would make fun of newspaper articles that were incorrectly spelled or had the wrong meaning of the word. If we were driving through the country side he would say: "There is a farmer who is out standing in his field, he also is outstanding in his field. Here my eldest grandaughter is with me as I check for soybean aphids. The picture was taken a while back. We are both out standing. In the field.

The bottom pic is of another of our grandaughters, she is on the birthday present that Grandma and Grandpa gave to her a few weeks ago.
We should have kept this horse. It was the only equine on the farm that wasn't burning hay.

ALSO: I have a tree that has grown up enough to be in the way of my computer's view of the satelite. That is what I'm using as an excuse for not blogging enough. I'll try to do better. Anyone wanting to help sacrifice a tree in the name of technology, contact me. It's a siberian elm so don't worry, I can grow another fifty footer in two years.

One Must Have Principles

I’ve always believed that one must be principled. You must have a doctrine, or set of personal rules that you follow in this life. One of my rules is that I don't take money from people who need my help or who need me to fire up a farm tractor and extricate them from a high centered predicament. Exceptions would be, it's the middle of the night, it's raining, I'm on a tractor with no cab, and some guy, (it's always a 'guy') is acting like I owe it to him and he holds out a $20 bill, I'll probably take it. But, generally, I don't accept anything because I'm thinking that maybe some day I'll be in the same position. You know, lost and stuck on a road I have no business being on (remember I still have dementia to go thru) and then I might be the one needing help. Also I would never, in a million years accept anything from someone local or a neighbor just for helping them out. After all, I do have my principles.A few years ago, in the spring, my neighbor called. They own a small acreage on the banks of the Missouri River. She had contracted with some landscapers out of Omaha to come up and work around her house. She instructed them not to back their tandem axle truck into the veggie garden because the ground in the garden was very soft. They did anyway and found out she was right.She called me on the phone, "Could you come over and pull them out?” “It will take a big tractor.”Well my big tractors were also buried; as in buried deep in my machine sheds so I got on my John Deere 4020. An old reliable, no cab, but big enough to do the job I thought. Turns out it was just barely big enough to do the job. After digging the 4020 down a few times I finally pulled them out and they went on their way back to Omaha. My neighbor wanted to pay me. It was nice of her to offer but an idea that I of course scoffed at as I put the tractor in gear. Remember, I do have my principles.
Then she yelled over the noise of my tractor, “Wait, I've got something you might like.” Before I could stop her she ran inside and when she reemerged carrying a box, I thought, 'oh good', fruit cake. She opened the box and there lay, in all their glory, 6 frozen Omaha Steaks, fillet mignon's to be exact.Remember I have a hard and fast rule about not accepting gratuities from neighbors.Well I had to hold the steaks on the tractors platform with my feet while I drove the 2 miles back home.I should have mentioned that I have more than one principle.
~Cliffs Note~ this is from the current edition of the Midwest Producer Magazine.

Farm Kids Never Get To Play With Anyone...

So I was pleased when I heard Hudson was coming to play with me. (Grandma too) We had a good time but our mistake was eating dinner at a restaurant the next night in Council Bluffs, Ia. We ran into his parents and they wanted him back. So rather than make a scene we let him go. Next time we'll be more careful.

I Offer This As Solid Proof...

Women hate to have their picture taken and that it starts at an early age.

This Should Explain My Absence

I haven't been by your blog to visit and know that I owe some kind of explanation.

The truth is that it came to pass that I suddenly needed a new background picture for my computer.

So we had to go a few hundred miles to take this one. Ol' Captain 'Hook' took the crew to Harlan County Reservoir on the Nebraska-Kansas border in center of the state.

The decision to do this meant that my stock went up with my wife. She loves fishing.

Since our return the stock has returned to pre-trip lows because of some 'profit taking.'

All of the kids and grand kids were there. We took a boat, this sled, and rented a pontoon.

One never knows when you might run out of watercraft.

This little lass likes to fish. But like the rest on this '3 hour tour', can't quite remember how to clean a white bass.

Mrs Hook caught these two wipers among many other fish. A wiper is a hybrid stocked into many Nebraska lakes by the Game and Parks commission. They are a cross between a white bass and a striped bass.

They get much larger than the white bass. The one on the left weighed in @ 4 1/4 pounds while the other one wasn't weighed but went at least 3 pounds.

I truly would like to have seen the one that got off of my line. He came half way to the boat and then ran. He straightened the hook out.

More pictures to come.

A sign at the marina: ~God does not subtract the hours spent fishing from a mans life.~

Two Posts at the Same Time! How About That?

Even though you won't want to miss the post below about Blogstock, I wanted to point out my latest article in the Midwest Produce.

Jamie Dawn Gets Hers!

Even though they had just met each other, the three bloggers shown here, Jerry, Jamie Dawn, and Rachel, were having a discussion. The meeting was called by J. D. and she's shown here explaining how much she will miss her daughter Courtney when she leaves home for college.
Here JD motions "how tall" she is willing to accept for a replacement child but that she would prefer a baby. In an effort to show how serious she is, she is offering some of her truffles to anyone who will help her.
She explains here that she has spotted a suitable child and wants these two to help with the dastardly deed.

Thanks to Rachel's quick thinking (and distaste for truffles) she informed me of the plot that was directed at my youngest grandchild.

Here JD is ready to get into her car and make a quick get away. Immediately after this picture was taken I snatched the babe and saved him from that fate feared by every grandparent. That of having an offspring become a Razorback.
Right after this picture was taken, Rachel wrestled JD to the ground and made her eat mayonnaise. Rachel was yelling "Here, eat this you hitonious baby thief!" It was really quite ugly.



This last picture shows the result of the despicable act. John and Terah were terribly frightened and refused to let little Jacob out of their sight until Jamie Dawn left for Arkansas.
You can sure see the tension on the toddlers face although John and Terah seem to be taking the incident in stride.