Catching Up

One morning while we were in Florida, we received a text from Son #2.  "Is Gus up to date with his shots?"  We worried that he had bit someone, but it turns out he had cornered a big raccoon in a shed and got bit and scratched in the ensuing fight.  Son #2 dispatched the 'coon  and Gus was healed up by the time we got home.

For Christmas I had asked for, as a gift from my children, an iPod with all of our music CD's on it.  I did receive the iPod, and while we were in Florida Son #1 loaded every CD (and some cassettes) he could find in our house onto it.  After we got home, we loaded the ones we had with us in our car onto it.  We now have an iPod that contains 319 albums of music!

A few nights after we were home we had the opportunity to sing on the Zion's Harp recording project.  The recording was held at the Roanoke church.  It was a blessed and enjoyable evening.

We got to babysit all three of our grandchildren at times in the last two weeks.  I'm starting to feel more and more like a grandpa.

The packing plant that we ship most of our hogs to had a customer appreciation meal/meeting last week.  I came home with a free package of Farmland bacon and a package of mesquite marinaded pork loin.  The Smithfield Farmland plant in Monmouth processed over 3 million head of hogs last year.  They can process 8,000 pigs in an 8 hour shift, which produces, along with other cuts, 1.3 million pounds of bacon per week.  All of the offal (heads,ears, tongues, tails, feet, etc.) gets exported to China where it is in high demand.

On the farm we are getting ready for spring; trying to get machinery ready, fixing tile holes and waterways, hauling manure, and finishing up book-work and taxes.  And getting all our documents and financial information rounded up that are needed to renew our operating loan.


Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.
Proverbs 17:6

Florida '16

It was sunny and 75 going through Nashville this year, compared to last year when we went through in an ice storm.  We made it all the way to Macon Georgia before stopping for the night.  That even included a stop at Cabela's North of Atlanta.  We made it through the heart of Atlanta easier than Nashville or Chattanooga.
There are a lot of friendly people in the rural South.  At one Tennessee McDonald's, everyone we crossed paths with visited with us.  One old gent came up to me and said, "I can tell you are a believer by your wife's appearance."  "I have been a preacher since 1962 and have seen a lot of changes; the good are going bad and the bad are getting worse."

We stayed in a quaint old resort, Suntan Terrace, on Casey Key just North of the jetty that separates Venice from Nokomis. We enjoyed a relaxing week on the beach, visiting bookstores, fellowshipping at church, walking, shelling, sleeping, and eating out.  We spent a day at Casperson Beach, but actually found more shark teeth on Casey Key.
We had decent weather all week.  It rained one morning, otherwise it was mostly sunny.  Several days were very windy, which made for some of the biggest waves we have seen in a long time.  One of the windy days, we watched a surfing club or class wetting their boards.
We saw lots of shore/water birds this year, including egrets, herons, gulls, skimmers, terns, osprey, and of course a lot of pelicans.  We also saw dolphins at the jetty and on the inland waterway.
We also enjoyed lots of seafood again.  My meals included grilled salmon, stuffed hogfish, alligator, Okeechobee frog legs, crab cakes, seafood pasta, and seafood stew.  The pasta and stew both contained mussels, clams, scallops, and shrimp.

Our quaint old resort on Casey Key.

Our front yard.

Our back yard.

The Casey Key beach from the jetty.

 The birds.

Osprey nest on a traffic signal.

 One of our favorite places for seafood.

Fresh seafood on the dock at the Star Fish Co.

Looking for shark teeth on Casperson Beach.

We had an uneventful trip home and had time to stop in Forsythe, IL at the Old Book Barn.  It is one of my favorite used book stores.

We are back in the saddle here at home.  Thankfully, the weather has been mild, and spring is on its way.

Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?

Jeremiah 5:22