Slow Start

This year has been a very good apple year for us.  The dry July/August coupled with a hot two weeks at the end of summer seems to have caused them to mature earlier than normal, but we still had a bumper crop.  We pulled out the Happy Valley Ranch Homesteader cider press and have made cider twice already this fall.  My special blend this year contains 5 different varieties of apples.  Much better than store bought!

We have started harvesting corn, but it has been slow to mature and dry down.  We have opened up 4 or 5 fields, but have only finished one so far.  We have dried enough corn to start feeding the pigs fresh corn.  The yields so far appear to be very good.  We have no soybeans ready to harvest yet, but hope to by the end of this week.

A couple weeks ago I went to a pre-harvest farm meeting and sat down by on old friend of mine that I don't see very regularly.  I had just recently heard that he had been sick this summer and I asked him what happened.  Jerry and I went all though school together starting in kindergarten, and were born less than a week apart.  He is friendly and hard working.  His back had been bothering him all through spring, but he refused to do much about it until all the soybeans were planted.  His elderly mother stopped in to check on him on her way to church one Sunday morning (he is single) and he looked so tough that she took him straight to the hospital.  The Doctor told him that if he had waited 2 or 3 more days he would have been dead.  I don't know what all of his medical problems are or the order they happened, but he shared that he has cancer in his spine and his kidneys have failed.  After a month in the hospital, and over a month at home recuperating, he is now able to be out and about.  He has Chemotherapy one day a week, kidney dialysis three days a week, and radiation treatments four days a week.  He said he looks at life a lot differently now and has a much greater appreciation for what he has and had.
I pray for healing, and I hope and pray that God will work in his heart and guide him so that whatever he has yet to face, he can do it with a peace that passes all understanding.

  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Phillipians 4:7