Passings

 My early corn started tasseling on June 27.  Most of the corn is behind, but doing well.  We have had regular rains and all the crops are looking good right now.

We watched fireworks at Ron and Kary's as has become our new tradition.  Most of our family was out in Grabill for the big family vacation.  We stayed home this year because we will be taking quite a bit of time off later.  

One day the old farmers wife yelled to come look out the kitchen window.  There was an egret sitting in our yard!  Naturally it flew away before I could get a picture.  One recent morning a doe was walking down the lane behind our buildings. It didn't spook until Gus took after it.  It disappeared into a corn field.

A long time friend passed away a couple of weeks ago.  Marvin Wieland moved to Washington and was in the young group when I was.  We spent a fair amount of time together before I up and got married.  Besides young group activities, we traveled together, hunted together, and even tried to make some wine together.  We hadn't spent much time together for many years as he moved all over the country, mostly out of the central Midwest.  I was saddened by his passing.

We laid Uncle Roy to rest this week.  He died just six weeks after Shirley.  Roy was Dad's only brother and he farmed near Goodfield.  He gave me my first paying job.  He would hire us boys to help catch and hold pasture pigs so that Doc Steffen could vaccinate and castrate them.  They were big, wild pigs compared to the ones we had in farrowing crates at home!  Then Roy would hire me to help bale hay during the summer.  Roy liked LP gas tractors and always had a couple on his farm.  We never owned one.  He also had the only Sheppard Diesel tractor in the area.  The Sheppard was the first diesel tractor manufactured in the U.S. Roy had a combine before Dad did, so he would harvest our small grains.  He also owned a baler, so he would bale our straw for us.

Dad and Roy had lots of stories to tell us about their younger years.  They got in some trouble together, shared a car, double dated, fished in Minnesota, boated in Lake Geneva, played in a dance band together, fell asleep driving and hit the square in Washington, and many other stories.

Growing up we spent a lot of time with Roy's family, including birthdays, holidays, picnics at his lake, and some camping trips.  Roy loved to swim, and in nice weather, he swam in his lake just about every day.  In later years when we would fly to Florida to drive Dad and Mom home the end of February, we would go out to eat with Dad and Roy to celebrate their birthdays.  He had been in the nursing home for awhile with dementia.  He was ready to go, and the family was ready to let him go.

But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land:                                                      Acts 27:43