So, yesterday morning I sat down to write a column for the paper. I got a call from my Bride. She said she just got a text message (from Dan our son) that said they didn't 'induce' the delivery as planned because she had just started labor on her own right then.
Twenty minutes later Marilyn called back to say "It's a Girl!" She had a twenty minute labor attended to by nurses. The Dr had gone across town to his clinic for a while. He missed it. When the baby arrived the nurses said, "we said don't push." The reply was "I didn't push."
Well, off to lincoln we went.


This is a pic of my lovely daughter in-law a couple of weeks ago.

This is what we found in the hospital. The little one is Georgia Kay.

Grandpa reported that he was pulling for Cliffetta or Ralph-ina for a name. The look on Marilyns face means, "you're not serious?"

Great Grandma went along to hold the baby.

Cousin Hudson brought Dad along to see the babe also.

Congrats to Julie and Dan and a big welcome to Georgia Kay!!

Okay, now I'm past deadline on the column. It was going to be about Thanksgiving and having a grateful heart. It will be easier to write now.

Big Announcement To Follow

Check back a bit later today. I have four appointments today. Between numbers 2 and 3 I'll make the big announcement with pictures.
A hint: It involves adding members to our immediate family.

This Farming Game Is Not For Sissys

The combine broke down again today. One of my brothers drove 45 minutes north to a John Deere dealer and I drove 45 minutes south to a John Deere dealer to pick up one part the first dealer didn't have in stock.
My parts man brought out a 5 inch long machined pipe with a small gear on the end. It was small enough to easily hold in one hand.
"Should I bill this to the other dealer?" he asked.
I said "Yes."
He said, "Wow, it doesn't look like it should cost $340 dollars does it?"
I quietly said, "You can't scare me."
He said "Pardon me?"
I said, "I've owned John Deere equipment for a lot of years so nothing you could say about price could possibly scare me."
He smiled and said, "I'll bet not."
He's right.

THE HIT MOVIE

BROKEDOWN MOUNTAIN
Starring CLIFF'S COMBINE. Four sizable breakdowns in two days. I didn't pay for a new combine but I'm buying one Johnny Cash style. One Piece At A Time.

Glub, Glub

We've had 2 and 34/100 inches of rain over the last few days. Before that we couldn't really get much corn picked because it was too wet. Now we have a lot water standing.
We are now in the dugout on an official 'rain-delay'. Which means I get to sit back and watch Nebraska play on tv this afternoon and also the series tonight. :) Life is good.
***********
I was doing some reading on Plains Feeder where he quoted Orson Scott Card as having said...
~"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherder every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."~
Thinking about the polls today and this quote really got me to laughing. It is certainly one of the most profound statements I've read in a long time.
My problem is both men running for President are carrying a slop bucket. I will admit that Obama has one in each hand with helpers following.
**********
This morning, our phone rang at 6:30 am. It was our son Dan. We were watching the morning news on our big screen and his name and number appeared in big letters on our tv. He's an early riser but not on Saturdays. Knowing our lovely daughter in-law is about to give birth in 4 weeks and that she usually delivers 3 weeks early we both said "Baby!"
We didn't get to the phone in time, he only let it ring twice. Marilyn quickly called him back to find out that his oldest daughter had stepped on the phone and it redialed the last number from last night. He said "I knew what you were thinking and that you would call me back."

Could You Do Something For Me?

Although I really want you to come back and read my post below this one, I would like you to click here and read a post I put up on July 24th, 2005. It was about a 'Mary'.
In that post I lied a little in the interest of protecting her identity. Her real name is Marla and she has just begun blogging. She is very good at it and she only has a few posts up right now so rather than me telling you about what has happened in her life as of late, why not read the the July of 2005 post above, it gives you a good insight into the kind of person she is and then go over to see Marla. Start at the bottom with her first post read your way up.

Ralph Came To Help With Harvest!

But it rained the whole time he was here. He is a good friend and I hope he wasn't disappointed that we couldn't run. Thanks Buddy! He said it was okay and that he wanted to get grounded again and sure enough Marilyn grounded both of us while he was here.
ALSO: we got a heavy frost last night. We needed that to finish killing the corn stalks that just wouldn't give up the ghost. It will help with the dry down of the corn.
THIS REALLY HAPPENED:
At a party Saturday night, I talked to a friend who had hosted a 'frog leg' party. He got some of the frogs on our place. I had turned down his invitation to his party. I kind of told a little fib. I told him eating frog legs always makes me jumpy.
Anyhow, I had asked about exactly how he hunted for them. He then went off into this true story from about a month ago. He and a friend had pulled into a vacant lot directly across the road from Summit Lake. It's west of Tekamah. They were drinking beer and putting on their equipment consisting of hip waders and miners lights. One of our Sheriff deputies drove up and said, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" The reply was "We're finishing our beers since we can't take them across the road onto state property and we're putting on our equipment to go frog hunting."
The very serious Deputy then asked, "Do you guys really thing it's a good idea to drink beer and then walk into a lake and go frog hunting?"
My friend leaned on the police car and said, "Officer, do you really think we'd be going frog hunting if we hadn't been drinking?"
The officer drove away. There are some patterns of thought that can't be argued with.

The 2008 Soybean Harvest...

for this farm is now history. I had a meeting late this afternoon and so two of my brothers finished it up in my absence. The results for the entire harvest haven't been tabulated yet but the words 'pretty darned average yields' will doubtless be used somewhere in the final description.
I talked with Ralph a bit ago. We began talking politics as we are want to do on occasion and I told him I thought that this election was like trying to decide which you would rather have. Your stomach pumped or an enema. He replied, "That's right Cliff, either way we get hosed and it's going to end up hurting a lot."
Our country needed a President who could grade in the 95 to 100 percentile in leadership and we will end up with a 30 to 40 percenter either way. Hurry up 2012!

It's Early Sunday Morning...

We're in the middle of soybean harvest but we'll take the time to go to church and then travel to Lincoln for Hudson's first ever Birthday Party. He plans to make this an annual event.
Being so short on time I decided to put up two posts at once. One big one and one small one.
Here they are: UPDATE: The host family in Lincoln had the flu and so Hudson isn't one year old, yet. I sent Marilyn to represent me at church and we continued harvest. We have rain on the way so we are under the gun a bit. We are down to 80 acres of beans left to harvest. There isn't any hurry I guess because the corn isn't dry enough to harvest.

Traveling With Women

Grand Rivers, KY

I just got back from a long trip with three women. There was my bride of 37 years, my mother in-law, and Lena. I only had real trouble with one of them.
I think everyone has disagreements while traveling but my wife and I do okay. She lets me think I’m right. And I had very little trouble with my mother in-law. I would have to occasionally remind her that “You know, we’re a long way from home to be saying stuff like that.”
Then there was Lena. Lena is the name we’ve given to our GPS device. She can talk, and we have begun to think of her as another person in the car. Lena is fairly reliable, she’s opinionated and she is not always correct when we’re on the road. Unlike myself.
For instance there was the time in Amarillo when she directed us to a J. C. Penney store. When we arrived at “Your destination on right” I couldn’t help but notice it looked similar to a single story ranch home complete with stucco and a tile roof and a two car garage. It looked just like every other house for as far as I could see. I parked in the driveway and began to get out. My wife asked me what I was doing and I told her “I thought we were going to buy a dress.” “Stay in the car, you know darned well that that’s just a house.” Well, I had just about had it with our fancy little device that day but we later found out someone’s thumb had brushed the screen and changed the address that Lena was looking for. But the aggravating thing for me was that she knew that we were looking for a clothing store and should have known better than to take us into a residential area. She can even talk for crying out loud.
On our recent trip we were in the Grand Rivers, KY area, we had just eaten dinner and we were headed to our hotel. Darkness was upon us and as I got back out to the highway I began to turn right when Lena and my wife and my mother in-law all said to turn left. We were trying to find our hotel. A ’debate’ began about where our hotel was located. I said “there is nothing south of here but trees, it’s a state park, and we were just there two hours ago, our hotel is north of here up on the interstate.”
I lost the ‘debate’ and we went south until we heard Lena say “arriving at destination on right.” I pulled off the highway and up to a tree. Well, actually it was several hundred thousands of trees. I said “Hold that thing up to the window and show her the trees and ask her if that looks like a hotel to her.”
When we checked into our hotel my wife mentioned to the lady that we had had trouble finding the place. The lady behind the counter calmly said, “You must have one of those GPS devices, they don’t have our location correct, they think we’re in the state park south of town.”
All of this takes me back to when times were simpler. To when all we had was an out of date map and I could wonder aimlessly until I succumbed to one of my wife’s requests to please stop and ask directions. But I know we must advance with the times and these little mapping devices are pretty handy. However ours has been wrong a couple of times and so we question everything she tells us. However she does add a touch of uncertainty and excitement to an otherwise long, boring drive.
But then again, so would diarrhea.

~From the Midwest Producer Magazine and the Burt County Plaindealer. ~