Warm Weather

Well I am going to admit that I am ready for warm weather. If it had stayed cold I wouldn't have minded however after these last few days of the beautiful weather. I'm ready for it to get warm. Today was awesome, it was warm enough to drive with the windows rolled down and the music blaring it was a good day. The warm weather also has some drawbacks though. I spent all afternoon welding on Sunday and it was to hot to wear long sleeves and my left arm is sunburned. It isn't actually from the sun but since it was to warm for long sleeves the arc from the welder "sun burnt" my arm. It looks a little funny because my left arm is bright red, because it is closest to flame, and my right arm is fine.
Also with the warm weather, work on the farm is picking up so I've started working again. Quite a bit of stuff has been going on since the beginning of December. The guys have been building a new corral and cattle working facility and the last time I saw it, it was just a bunch of posts. Now it has wire, gates, and a new set of alley ways and working chutes. For those who don't know, to have a corral that work wells you have one main alley that comes off of a large pen. This alley way has smaller pins opening off of it. When you haul the cattle in from the pasture you unload them from the trailers into the large pen. Then you drive them into the alleyway where they are sorted, because of the small pens you put one group in one pen and the others in a separate pen. For example when working calves we have to separate them from their moms for a little while while we give them shots. Once the cows are sorted into their separate pens we take the group we want and drive them back into the alley way toward the working chutes. In the working chute we have two options, one run them into a trailer or two run them through the squeeze chute. The squeeze chute does exactly as its name says. One cow at a time enters it and their head is locked into a head gate. We can then clamp the sides down, or squeeze until the cow can't easily move. This doesn't hurt them, actually it helps keep them safe because if they are allowed to thrash, they can injure themselves. Once we have finished working the cow, it is released forward into another pen and the next cow is ran into the squeeze chute. This isn't an easy concept to explain or understand without actually seeing it however I hope it makes sense a little bit. Anyway that is what the guys have been doing, they have built a new alley way and working chutes in the last few months. It isn't quite complete however and I am looking forward to getting to work more now that it is getting warm.

Seasons

I've been hearing alot about how people really want spring to get here and that they are tired of winter. I'm one of the few who doesn't wish this to happen. I don't have any firewood cut for next year and if I'm not able to get some cut I will have some customers who won't have any wood. It's not that I'm averse to it getting warm actually I just wish it would do one or the other. I don't enjoy cutting wood when it is warm however I will do it if I have to. However with it getting warm and then getting cold the ground isn't drying out nor is it frozen. So if it was to get warm I would be alright with that. Anyway enough about winter. I have been thinking about it and I don't really think I have a favorite season. It's true I do enjoy winter and the cold however I like spring because it means farm work will start picking up it also means school is getting closer to being over for the summer. Then comes summer which I also enjoy because of wheat harvest and haying. It is when I work the most which as most of you know I really enjoy. Last of all is fall. I like fall because of football season, fall harvest, and since I really like wearing hoodies I like it when I can start wearing them all day but it is still fairly warm out. I know this post is kind of short but I just wasn't sure what to write about but this is why I don't really think I have a favorite season, I like them all.

Christmas Break and a Little More

I haven't blogged anything for awhile although not a lot has gone on over Christmas Break except for cutting firewood and some other miscellaneous stuff except for when Bethany, myself, Isaiah, and Eli took our Grandparent out for their anniversary. Bethany and I left Riley at 8:00am and arrived in Abilene around 9:00 and picked up Isaiah, Eli, their stuff, and figured out our exact plan.  After we left, my Aunt Annie would call grandma and tell her we were on our way to take them out to supper for their anniversary, which was the next day, and a rough estimate of when we would be there. We would have liked to surprise both grandma and grandpa but grandma is one of those people who doesn't always like surprises so we thought we would let her know. The trip out there was a lot of fun time with our cousins and since it is a five hour drive we got quite a bit of time together. We stopped for lunch in Hays and then continued on our way. Grandma and Grandpa used to live in Lacrosse, ks and we have many fond memories of their house there so we drove by it and recalled stories from their time in Lacrosse. We arrived in Garden City around 3:00 and we were going to surprise Grandpa when he came in their apartment however we were to busy talking to grandma and didn't hear grandpa unlocking the door, so he surprised us about as much as we surprised him. Anyway we set around and talked for awhile and then grandma and grandpa drove us around and showed us some of the sights of Garden City and after that we took them out to supper.  After we got back to their apartment we figured out where the four cousins were sleeping which we ended up pretty much filling their apartment. We left the next morning to head back to Abilene because Grandma and Grandpa were coming to their house in Palmer so Grandma could do some cooking for our family Christmas. Although we didn't stay very long we all had a very special time and their were some tears shed but I won't say by whom.
The rest of my break wasn't anything to spectacular I cut quite a bit of wood and thanks to Weddles I was able to cut dry so I could continue selling this year since I had sold out of all of the dry wood I had. Blake and I did have some mishaps but nothing to major besides both of us getting our trucks stuck. Also we were cutting at Weddles on that first day that the high temperature was like 2 degrees and they thought we were crazy. We aren't really sure why, something to do with the fact it was freezing cold and we were there before 9:00am and didn't leave until after dark. Also something about the truck being crazy full or something.

Another thing I have done over break is construction. John Condrey is framing the hotel on Bluemont near Aggieville and he first called to help shovel the snow out of it so it wouldn't get icy however since then I have built safety rail and done some other miscellaneous tasks, plus shoveled it out a couple more times.  I'm not sure I would ever want to be a framer but it has been fun to do something different besides farming.

The thing I'm most excited about though just happened recently, actually it was Thursday evening. I bought a pickup. I think most of you knew that the motor in my truck went bad sometime in September and I have been using my uncles since then, when I needed a truck. That is his old ford pickup 'Red' as it is named in the picture above. However on Monday I found a truck on craigslist that was priced pretty well, looked to be in good condition, it didn't have any rust visible in the pictures, and didn't have a crazy amount of miles. So Thursday I went and looked at it, bought it, and drove it home.

It is a 1999 Dodge Ram 2500 v10. I didn't buy it for its fuel mileage, everything I have read said it will get between 8-10 mpg no matter what I am doing. However, my old truck was a 1989 Ford F250 with a straight 6 cylinder motor and it only got ten miles per gallon. So I'm getting the same mileage pretty much but now I have a really big motor to boot. And this truck isn't perfect however the problems I have found are cosmetic problems and they're mostly on the interior which doesn't bother me. But the best part about it is that when mom saw it out the window for the first time she said, and I quote "That one doesn't look like a piece of junk, I won't mind having it parked in the driveway."  I'm pretty excited.

That's pretty much what has been going on with me since my blog nothing to spectacular in the middle however the beginning and the end were pretty cool and a lot of fun.

Anybody who reads this probably read the post that Bethany wrote on my blog. When she first mentioned that she might have actually published a post, I didn't really believe her because she can say just about anything and keep a straight face while doing it. I opened my blog though and noticed she had left up a post with some ideas concerning how to make my blog more interesting for others to read because she cannot stand that all I talk about is farming, firewood, and welding, as she puts it.  Well when I saw her suggestions, that is what I thought she meant about her writing a blog post on my blog and I quit looking. After awhile though she asks if I looked at my published posts, which made me suspicious and I looked. When I saw that she had actually published a blog my first response was "I'm going to kill you" and she said I should comment on the blog and say that. However then I read the post, and after reading it I decided I would feel a little bit bad if I commented that on the post. So for any of you who think I'm heartless, this might just prove that I do have a heart.
Anyway enough with the post that doesn't involve farming, mechanics, or firewood. This summer the motor in my truck went bad and since my dad really likes the truck we traded trucks, he took mine and I took his old chevy to sell and then he is going to put a new motor in my truck. Well we started that project yesterday and my truck is know sitting in the driveway with the bed, cab, and hood sitting on pallets with only half of the motor and the transmission left in the frame. It is just a little bit sad. Dad and I are going to spend Christmas swapping motors and putting the new cab on my truck which will ironically be half green and half red once we are done.

Memories- A Guest Post

I'm not really sure who all reads Tyler's blog. But whoever you are, I hope this amuses you.


In our family, there is an unspoken rule about leaving your account open on the computer. It goes something like this: If you leave it up, open, or logged in, you are immediately qualified for a good, creative hacking.

I have to admit, I am the one who has the most fun with this. BUT, I ALWAYS ask one of my parents before I hack anything. So don't think I'm a horrible meany. ;)

Anway, Tyler left his blog up. So he now gets a guest blog post... that he didn't exactly authorize... :) But I'm going to be nice... mostly ;)

5 of My Favorite Memories with Tyler

All those days we've spent playing in the woods. There was the Star Wars stage. You know, complete with "jedi cloaks" Grandma made us and light sabers. And the pioneering. You would leave the playhouse with your trusty hatchet and "work" all day, while I cooked, cleaned, and did laundry. I remember when we got some old carpet for the playhouse. It was SUCH an improvement :) Oh, and I can't forget the Narnia phase. It must have been right after dad read us the first book and we saw the movie in theater. I was always slightly bummed there wasn't four of us. How can you play Narnia with only 2 kids and NO Cair Paravel?!

When we had bunk beds (before Stormy and Kota) and you listened to me chatter every night. I don't remember if you ever did any talking. Seems a little crazy that I was the one talking when you were trying to sleep...

That time when dad tried to jump us over the tree when we were "hooding" in the snow. That memory is so vivid to me. After we ran through all those branches and I opened my eyes, I seriously thought you were dead. I just saw you laying there all covered up in snow. I was pretty scared and shaken up after that. Hooding in general is just a bunch of good memories.

Okay, that time during the ice storm (whatever year that was... I think we were 9 and 11) when mom and dad left us home by ourselves and we made scrambled eggs over the fire. :) We were so proud of our ingenuity. Seriously, cooking over the fire, like dad had been doing, all by ourselves! And scrambled eggs, nonetheless! :) Crazy idea.... it's a miracle we didn't set something on fire.

The last one I'll write about was just last spring. I doubt you even remember it. It was that week when I wasn't eating any refined sugar, just for fun, to see if it really is an addiction. I was going somewhere with you and you bought some gum. When you asked me if I wanted any, I said, "Nah. No thanks." You responded, "I got the sugar free kind." I wrote about it in my gratitude journal, it meant so much to me. I love seeing the sweet, thoughtful side of your nature. It doesn't show very often, but I know you truly do pay attention to other people's feelings.

I could write more and more and more of my favorite memories with you. Just writing these has made me think of so many others that are so special to me. Seriously, you appear in most of my favorite memories. I am truly grateful I have you as my best friend, and am so thankful God gave me YOU as a big brother.

~Beth

Bethlehem Revisited

Bethlehem Revisited of 2013 is officially over. Even with the cold weather things went rather smoothly and a lot of people went through. There were no major mishaps as far as I know however we did have some small problems that we were able to solve quickly. I've been helping with BR for five years and this was the coldest year I have been apart of, there have been individual days in past years that were colder however this year all three nights were freezing. Then on Sunday in snowed. This makes everything really pretty, especially while it was still snowing and with all of the lanterns and other lights made the falling snow really visible. The snow also made things a little more challenging. Walking up the trails isn't the easiest task to begin with but once you had snow to them they get slippery and it becomes even more difficult. BR also provides four-wheelers pulling carts with seats mounted on them for those who won't be able to make it up the trails walking. Without snow the four-wheeler have trouble pulling trailers up the hill, then you add snow and it can be a little bit of a rodeo. We have two four-wheelers with carts and I was one of the drivers, and we never needed both four-wheelers out on Friday or Saturday, so I never drove. However Sunday the first group that went through needed one and I had been using my four-wheeler so it was warm, meaning I drove for that group and it was snowing. I have drove a four-wheeler up those trails a million times pulling a trailer however only once with somebody riding that I don't know. I was a little nervous. Thankfully everything went great and I didn't wreck with a passenger. Even with the cold weather and snow, Bethlehem Revisited was a lot of fun again this year, and I can't wait until next year.

Not much going on this week, we finally finished fall harvest at work. We started cutting corn the second to last week of September, then took a break from corn to cut beans, which is what we had the most of, then we went back to corn and we finished the week of October 20. We were working on these two crops for over a month. Last we had 70 acres of milo to cut but it still had to high moisture content so we left it for a couple of weeks before we cut it. It took us over a week to cut even with only 70 acres because we were also trying to wean calves at the same time. Lets just say there was a lot going on. Now we just have to chop silage.
I also got to do something last Monday that was rather interesting. Floyd Dowell, a friend of our family runs the charity Planting Hope International, and one of the things they do is send grain bins overseas to Laos. You might remember me talking about this in a blog from last year. Anyway on Monday Blake, my dad, and I went to Genesios, Ks and help tear down a couple of grain bins. It was fun. There were a lot of bolts and it took awhile however not near as long as we thought it would. It wasn't the best of weather circumstances, with a cold wind and rain/snow but we managed to get it done. So I can now check, tear down a grain bin, off of my bucket list.
Blake and I are going to start cutting wood this week so you will probably get to hear some stories about that in the upcoming months. Hopefully none of them will end badly. I need still deliver 4 loads of hardwoods which is a problem because I probably only have half of a load that is split and seasoned enough to sell. So Thursday that is what we are going to do. We will have to find dead trees we can take down I'm praying I can find enough to finish out my deliveries this year. That's about all that is happening in my life over the last couple of weeks. It seems kind of slow and boring now that football and volleyball is over. We never go anywhere.

Football is officially over for the year for the rest of guys. Sadly we didn't have a very good year and didn't win any games but it was a fairly good season if you think about it. During the third game of the season we lost the two most experienced players on the team but the guys came back from that and fought hard. A couple guys really stepped forward and played some good football.
This Saturday we had the first workday for Bethlehem Revisited and began setting up for that. We will have another one not this next Saturday but in two weeks and then the actual dates of BR are December 6,7,8. I will spend all day on Friday helping put finishing touches on the settings for the three nights. This will be my fifth year helping and it is pretty awesome. We have a tech crew that knows what we are doing. At the workdays those of us who are there have all been helping and we hardly have to be told what to do or where to go. We know what needs done, where it needs done, and what we need to get it done. I heard a couple of times on Saturday how nice it is that we are able to do this and it's nice to know that myself and the other tech guys are trusted like that.
I'm also almost sold out of cut firewood for this year. I have one more load to deliver and that will pretty much wipe me out. I'm going to have to find dead trees to cut up so that I can keep selling. I think people got scared last year when we had those winter storm warnings and they didn't have any wood. So this year they are stocking up which is awesome for me. I hope to start cutting soon but I would like it to dry out and then get cold but I may have to put up with it being warm when I start cutting cause I need to get some more wood.Well that is about all that is happening to me for the week. Maybe this week will be more exciting.

Special Days

When Bethany, my two oldest cousins and I were younger my grandparents on my mom's side, Grandpa Dave and Grandma Elaine, did this thing where they would take us on a special day(s). Each of us would get a day or a few days and they would take us somewhere he had never been or we just did things we didn't get to do very often. My very first special day was in 2002 and had a special day each year from then on until 2004. It was this year that Grandma and Grandpa decided to do a group special day and take the four oldest cousins to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, together. At that time there weren't near as many cousins as there is now. It was just Isaiah, Eli, me, and Bethany. We thought this was great because we didn't get to see each other as often as we would have liked. After this special day we decided that every third or fourth year we would do a group special day. Our next group special day was in 2007 when we went to Branson, Missouri. During this trip we decided that we did a bunch of different stuff including spending a day at Silver Dollar City, it was a lot of fun to get to hang out with my cousins, and I suppose my sister. The next year in 2008 we did a guys special day in June. Grandma and Grandpa took Isaiah, Eli, and myself to Minden, Nebraska to Pioneer Village.  Then in July of 2008 we all went to Branson again and didn't do anything similar to the year before. Actually Grandpa had bought a timeshare in '07 and this was the grandkids first time to try it. We went to the Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It was this year that we believe we set a record for how many buffets you can eat at in a week although I don't remember what the grand total was. It seems like we ate at them for every meal. In 2009 we took one of our longest special days yet. We went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. That was a long drive. We did a lot of stuff while we were there too. My grandpa has this thing where he makes it so you need a vacation, to recuperate from your vacation. It is incredibly exhausting but tons of fun. While in Tenn. we went to Dollywood which is similar to Silver Dollar City, went to a comedy show, and stopped and played in a stream along the road, which is actually fairly common in Tennessee. They actually have parking areas and steps leading to the streams. In 2010 Isaiah and I graduated from eighth grade and Grandpa Dave took us to the AGCO plant in Hesston, Ks, or for those who don't know what AGCO is. He took us to a plant that makes tons of farm machinery. Isaiah loves farming more than I do for those who are wondering why we went there, we loved every minute of it. We saw how they made balers, planters, swathers, combines, headers, and more. Also in 2010 Bethany and I went to Wisconsin with Grandpa Dave our uncle Josh and younger cousin Gracie. Grandma Elaine wasn't able to go on this trip because she had just started a new job and Isaiah and Eli weren't able to as well. We went to the Wisconsin Dells and since it is the waterpark capital of the world. We went to a water park. We also went on a boat tour of the Upper Dells, which was beautiful and we got to see some really interesting rock formations. On the way home from this trip we stopped in Illinois at the John Deere Pavilion, which I thought was neat, although I don't think Bethany and Gracie thought it was.

2011 was kind of a sad year. We had our last special day. We decided to go back to Wisconsin but this time Isaiah and Eli were able to go. We went over Spring Break and the whole family had been at Grandma and Grandpa's on Sunday to have dinner. Then the four cousins spent the night and when we woke up on Monday morning of spring break, there was eight inches of snow on the ground. It was gone by the time we got to Nebraska though. When we got into Wisconsin, they still had feet of snow on the ground it was awesome. We had intended to go skiing but for some reason they close the ski slopes at the resort the week before spring break. So instead we slid down the slopes on our feet and we also rolled snow balls down them. We would make a big snow ball and then see how much bigger it would get when we rolled it down the hill. Once again during this trip we went to a water/amusement park although this one was inside and it was huge. We had a lot of fun on this special day but because we were getting older and our lives were getting busier we decided this would be our last special day. It was a hard decision to make.

Fall

Firewood season is underway. Blake came out Thursday morning and we split three loads of wood and delivered one of them. We managed to get this all done before 2:30. It was pretty good days/mornings work. Blake bought his splitter and we started out with me running the lever and him handling the wood, because of my collarbone, however not to long into it we switched. Since I know how small I want the wood split and which logs I want to split it is easier if I handle the wood cause Blake doesn't have to ask about every log. I couldn't lift the biggest logs onto the splitter so Blake had to do those and anything that was two big for him to lift we split down with an axe to a size that was handleable. It didn't hurt my collarbone much yesterday but I could definitely tell Friday that I used it a lot, because it is sore again. I think I'm going to try and deliver the other two loads of wood tomorrow afternoon after class.
We are still cutting corn at work I bet we get done by the beginning or middle of next week. We have been cutting fall crops for nearly a month. After we finish corn then we have 70 acres of milo to cut which will only take a couple of days. The other guys have been working a new calf pen so we can start weaning calves here shortly. That is always a fun time of year although it will be really loud around the farm for a week or two. The calves don't like being taken away from their moms and will walk around the pen balling for awhile.

This a picture, which I thought was neat, that I took Saturday night while we were cutting corn at around 9:00.

Cutting Firewood! Can it be considered a hobby.

As many people, who know us or drive by our house, know we cut firewood and lots of it. Before we moved to Riley I don't really remember my dad using a chainsaw much he always owned one but because of where we lived they hadn't really ever been a need to cut firewood. The first time I remember working with firewood was on a mission trip in Canada. We helped many people stack their firewood and there was a lot of it because they get it delivered in dump trucks. The firewood they burn is the scraps that the saw mills throw out. It was also the first time I'd ever used an ax. I hit on the same long for a very long time and only managed to criss-cross the top of it with ax marks. I never got it split. However when we moved to Riley our house only had two forms of heat, a small propane stove in the living room and a fireplace in the dining room to heat the rest of the house. We had to cut wood or we were going to be really cold. For the first couple years of us living in Riley, I didn't enjoy any part of cutting firewood. I wasn't big enough to run a chainsaw, and although I tried to split, the only thing I managed to do was turn logs into toothpicks because of how many times I hit the same log. Dad says he would give me a log and I would work on it the whole time he split the the rest of the truck load. Oh, and let me stop here and say that we don't own a log splitter, at that time everything we cut was split by hand. Even though I didn't find much enjoyment in cutting firewood I did enjoy playing with my ax and cut down many trees with it. I believe the biggest I ever cut down like that was roughly eighteen inches in diameter. For a nine or ten year, that big of tree takes a long time to cut down.
I think cutting firewood became an enjoyment for me around the age of twelve or thirteen. My uncle Justin was selling wood but he didn't have a place to keep it because he lived in town, so he stored it at our house. He would come out to our place in the evenings after work to split wood and I would go out to help. He started showing me how to "read" a log so it is easier to split. For those who don't know how to "read" a log there are things to look for. The rings of tree not only tell the age of a tree they also let a person know how that the grain of that piece of wood is. If they are nearly perfectly round the grain is smooth and the log will split easily. If the rings are round on one side but they bubble out on the other it means there is probably a not or old branch that has been grown around and the log will not split well on that side. Or sometimes a log will have two sets of rings that have their own center starting point. This means that the tree had a crouch or another branch there. When you have these logs they are very hard to split unless you know just what you are doing. After Justin had started pointing these things out to me it became easier for me to see them on my own and I was able to actually split wood. This made firewood cutting more fun because I didn't just have carry and stack, I could do something else. When I turned fourteen, once again cutting firewood became even more fun, I got my farm permit and was able to take my truck when we cut. This meant I got to help haul as well as split. I was also running a chainsaw by this point but not very much yet. I remember when I began running a chainsaw a lot. It started at our house, dad would bring 15-20 foot long logs and then I would cut them up. This gave me practice running a saw, was in a fairly obstacle free area, and was close to the house if something happened. Thankfully nothing did. Once I had cut like that for a while dad let me cut some when we were in the woods and it just grew from there until I was running a saw just like everybody else. Then last year dad just let me go cut as long as a friend was there just in case. The stories from those cutting trips were the subjects of several blog posts last year and you can see the amounts of wood we cut.
Firewood cutting is dangerous and I have been a part of and witnessed some close calls over the years. I think the first I can remember was when I was in seventh grade. Justin had just gotten married that fall and Lenay his wife had come when we went to cut wood, because my dad and uncle often cut together. Dad was getting ready to cut a tree down and had looked around for my little siblings to make sure they were clear, but he hadn't remember Lenay was there. He made the last cut and the tree started falling when everyone noticed Lenay was in the path of its fall. Justin yelled and Lenay crouched over and covered her head. CRASH! The tree hit the ground and Lenay stood up, not hurt. The tree was dead and didn't have any small branches and had two main branches that forked out several feet above the ground. Lenay was standing in the middle, between the two big branches.
The next close call I can remember actually the next two both happened to me in the last couple of years. The first one happened when I was cutting. I had just made a cut and picked up the saw, the saw I was using had this problem where it wouldn't stop the chain from spinning, and I had the saw hanging at my side when I felt something tugging at my coveralls. I looked down and the chain had cut through my coveralls and started on my jeans. It was a little close for comfort. The second was similar however I was actually cutting on a log and my hand slipped jerking the saw up into my boot and taking a notch out of the sole. That again was a little too close.
Even with how dangerous it is and how much work it is. I enjoy cutting firewood and hopefully always will live in house where I can burn wood. Can cutting firewood be considered a hobby or is it a little strange?

Football

My football playing career has come to an end a little sooner than I would have liked. I broke my left collarbone at our game on Saturday night, four minutes before halftime. We were on offense and I was running the ball and when I got tackled my left shoulder hit the ground first and there was a pop and a bolt of lightning shot across my chest. I've been thinking about it and I don't know what was different about the way my shoulder hit this time compared to the million other times it has hit the ground and I will probably never know.
I've been playing football for nine years, this year was the tenth. I started in third grade playing flag football for Manhattan parks and recreation. I played flag for fours years. My first year I had an awesome coach who really knew what he was doing and how to explain stuff to a group of rowdy third graders. It was this coach that started my playing quarterback and this wasn't because of my great athletic ability. It was because I was the only kid who would stand there and listen to what he had to say. My second year of flag football I had a group of college guys for coaches and they were not good coaches. They just wanted to have fun and didn't teach us anything, which is what led my dad to coach my team for the next two years. He got my uncle to help and we went undefeated my fifth and sixth grade year except for one tied game, since you don't do overtime in flag football. Those were two awesome seasons.
Next came seventh grade and my first year playing tackle with the Manhattan Eagles, a team started a few years before by a Manhattan C.H.I.E.F. dad.  That first year I didn't really know what to expect, although both my dad and uncle came to help coach. My uncle helped coach high school though and I didn't see him much. I ended up starting at quarterback for most of the games, because our first string quarterback had messed up his shoulder. We however didn't win any games that year. When football season started my eight grade year I was excited because I had grown some and was a little bigger than the 90lb seventh grader I had been the year before. We had a rough season that year because of the lack of big guys however we had some close, hard fought games we just weren't able to pull out. For me personally it was a pretty good season, I figured them and at one game that season I rushed for over 300yards. At the end of the season, it was actually at the last game, just before halftime I tackled a guy and broke my right collarbone so this is not a new experience for me I seem to have a way of finishing seasons. At least in eighth grade I broke it at the last game of the season, instead of the third game of the season
Next, came high school and I can honestly say that going into my freshman year and sophomore year, I was nervous. I wasn't very big and although I'd been one of the bigger guys on the field during eighth grade, now as a high school player I was no where close to big. I didn't play a ton those first two years of high school and to be truthful I was kind of a wimp, it was my junior year that I really started to see playing time. Actually I can count on my hands the number of plays I got to take off for the entire season that year. Last came my senior year. I was nervous about this year because instead of looking up to someone, I was going to be the one people where looking up to. Things started out rough, first we didn't have very many players however we had enough. We lost our first game, and we lost bad because we didn't play well. We also lost our second game however we played hard and it was because we couldn't stop one guy that we lost. The improvement from our first game to our second was huge, we had also got a couple more players so things where beginning to look bright. Then came our third game, and a team we knew nothing about. We had never played them before. Things started out okay and we actually scored first but then they started going downhill. First on our our other running backs probably tore his ACl and then just before halftime I broke my left collarbone. We did end up losing the game although even after losing two skill players, and we only had a few. We had more size this year than before which is awesome except we had fewer ball handlers and less speed and after the game Saturday we have two less ball handlers. Even with these setbacks I saw some guys really step forward and take leadership. The team did an excellent job adjusting.
I'm pretty disappointed that this is how I had to end my senior year of football. This wasn't how I thought my last game would be but I'm thankful I've been able to play as long as I have been and that my dad and uncle I have been there pretty much every step of the way.

This is from my first year of flag football in third grade. I'm the one closest to the camera with blonde hair.

 These two are from my last game of my senior year. In the bottom one I'm caring the ball.

Well this week is rather exciting or at least tonight is. The Eagles first football game is tonight playing Blue Valley at Randolph. I am pretty nervous though because we only have ten players who can suit out and one of those has been sick all week. Even with those small complications I believe we are ready for this game.  Tuesday however I will probably come into class black, blue and, hardly able to move, I'm going to take a beating tonight as well as every Friday night between today and the end of October and I pray I make it through the season without any serious injuries.
On a different note I just finished a small welding project. My grandpa mows yards in manhattan and needed his trailer ramp rebuilt. It was broken in half on one side and then was built heavier than it needed to be. It almost took a tractor just to lift the ramp. It took me longer to build then it should have just because I never seem to have any spare time.  It didn't take much to do. It was a lot easier than the ramp I built for my trailer. This ramp is just a square covered in expanded metal with hinges on one side that attach it to the trailer. My ramp was a bifold. It was two pieces on four foot long and the other three foot long. These were attached with hinges so that the ramp folds out to seven feet long or can be used at only four feet long.  The only problem with the design of my ramp versus the one I built for my grandpa, is that mine is incredibly heavy. Someday when I am old I won't be able to lift it that is for sure.

Not a lot going on this week. Actually every week for the next couple of months will be pretty close to the same for me, school, work, football. That is pretty much all I do.  Football this year is going to be interesting, we only have ten players and only a few skill players which means we are pretty thin in the ball handling department.  We are having trouble practicing because of the so few players. It is hard to do hitting drills because when you don't have very many players you hit over and over again which is bad because it makes it easier to get guys hurt. Actually, our running back broke his collarbone just last week during a hitting drill. Not only are hitting drills tough but normal practice, like when we are just running through plays, is hard because we don't have enough players to have an offense and a defense which means we are just playing against air. It makes it hard to want to go full speed and give it your all when there is nothing to motivate you.
When I'm not playing football or doing school I'm at work and I don't get to work near as much as I would like to but I do when I can.  Right now we are just finishing up baling prairie hay and the third cutting of alfalfa we just have to finish hauling it all back to the farm. Which is a fun job or at least I think it is, especially when it is hot. Hauling hay involves sitting in a air conditioned cab with a radio and shifting gears. The hardest thing to do is get out and unhook and hook up the hay trailers. We are also getting close to gearing up for fall harvest. It is still a few weeks out but we are all looking forward to it. With all of the rain we had this year and a lot of it coming at very key times during the corn and bean growth cycles this years fall harvest is hopefully going to be really good. We are trying not to count our chicks before they hatch however.

Summer

It had been quite a while since my last post and a ton of stuff has happened although none of it was really anything spectacular. The main thing I've done though is work however since this summer has been sort of strange which has made doing some things rather difficult. With all of the rain we have had it has been hard to do certain things because it was either too muddy or because there was another chance of rain.  When it wasn't raining or to muddy I swathed, raked, and baled hay. Then once all of the brome hay was baled I spent around a week straight hauling hay. I counted one day and figure I hauled somewhere in the area of 250 round bales by myself.  This may not sound like it is very many but when you figure that each baled weighs roughly 1400 lbs. each. Which works out to be 350,000 lbs. of hay. Then once most of the brome was baled it was time to start wheat harvest which thankfully went without any serious breakdowns. Harvest had to be the highlight of my summer and not just because harvest is awesome and lots of fun but because I got to drive one of our semis on the road. I was able to upshift without too much trouble but downshifting and stopping I had trouble with which is probably a bad thing. Well that is a little bit about what has been going on and I will continue to tell you about my summer and what is happening over the next few weeks.

Well I have to say this has got to be one of the weirdest springs ever. One day it is 80 and sunny and the next day it is 32 and snowing.  I love snow and the cold but after a certain point it is time for it to warm up.
This Saturday I'm headed to Nebraska to pick up a couple of grain bins with a friend of my family, Mr. Dowell. He runs a charity called Planting Hope International. This charity ships these grain bins overseas to a guy in Laos.  This man, Kirby Rogers, is part of a company that sets up grain bins as harvest centers, which are basically like our co-ops. The goverment doesn't mind them setting up churchs with these harvest centers because the centers are helping the country make more.  We are leaving around 8:30 Saturday to go pick up several bins which will later be shipped to Laos. I'm looking forward to it. We should get home around 6ish Saturday night.  A couple of my friends are going as well so it should be a lot of fun.

Not a lot going over these last couple of weeks.  Blake and I did get the siding taken off the outside of my new bedroom on Friday, got it sheeted, house wrapped, and the new windows put it.

 

Just last week we did have some excitement. My sister Bethany went out to check on her goats and found a baby. Then while we were out there one of the other goats went into labor and my little siblings got to watch a baby goat be born

This one(Larkspur) was the one that was born while we were out there.

This one (Lilac) was the one Bethany found when she went outside.

 

 This has been pretty much the extent of whats going on. I've started working Saturdays though so I will probably start posting pictures of what is going on there. 

 
 













I started gutting my new bedroom two weeks ago. Blake and another friend, EJ Swihart, came up and in one morning we managed to gut nearly the entire room.  It was a mess. The room we were gutting was built just after the Civil War so there no insulation and over 100 years of dust inside the walls.  We actually had a neighbor point out to us that in the places that the dust is inches thick, the 1930s(the dust bowl) probably had a major role in the amount of dust.

Before is on the left. After on the right.

Here is a picture of some of mess. Believe it or not this isn't all that bad. At one point the entire floor looked like the right side of this picture.

 

 

We managed to do the nearly complete destruction in just a few hours. We had to get it done so we could go move a play set. 

My dad and I have been working on the room some over the last week and have managed to get more done. We have drywall on the ceiling and the slopes and we have the carpet ripped up.  We are ready to put the floor down but we have to wait because dad wants to put lights in the ceiling in the dining room. That is why there are holes in the floor in the below picture.  We also framed for the new window but have to wait for a nice day to put them in because we have to take the siding off the outside to do that.

If look at the floor you can see the hole in that we are going to use to put lights in the dining room and you can also see the drywall on the ceiling and the slope on the right side of the picture.

 

Here is the new window frame

I'm not really sure why this didn't post but this was a blog post that was supposed to publish a few weeks ago.



A friend of mine, Blake Bowman and I got hired to move a swingset and this wasn't your run of the mill swingset. It was 17ft wide and 33ft long. We took the slide and monkey bars off of one side and the swings off of the other. We were than left with the main tower. We hauled the swing, slide, and monkey bars to the house and unloaded them and then we went and borrowed a skid steer from a neighboring farmer. Then we went back to get the tower. Our original plan was to lift it up and then take the stairs and rock climbing wall off and set it on the trailer.  However when we got back it was getting late and we wanted to get it moved before dark, so we just set the whole tower on the trailer. As can be seen in the picture below. Even though we were hoping to get done before dark we didn't and it was dark when this picture was taken.

This tower is between 12-15ft tall when sitting on the trailer and there is a beam that sticks out around four feet on the otherside, it is what is holding that rope ladder. After it was loaded we put the skid steer back on my trailer and strapped the swingset down. We had around ten miles to travel and it was going to take awhile.  We made it to the driveway of the house we were delivering it to without any mishaps but then things started happening. The first thing was that we hit a small tree and broke the beam off the side. Not a big deal that is fixable.  However when we hit the powerline, that was a little bigger deal.  It didn't break but I had to climb up onto the roof of playset and pick the line up and hold it above the roof while Blake drove out from underneath it.  Thankfully we learned later it was a dead powerline and of no importance. After that everything went great and we got it unloaded. Also we were able to fix the powerline and are in the process of fixing the beam.

Here is a picture of the full swingset, after we reassembled it.

 

I haven't had a chance to post for a while, I got really sick two weeks ago and I have been busy trying to catch up on school and some other stuff and my blog kind of got pushed off to the side. Otherwise not a lot has been going on. I was able to help a friend put a hitch on the pick up he just bought. That was a nightmare, what I though would be a two or three hour project ended up being a a seven and a half hour project, although we did get it done.  This picture was taken at about dark as you can see which was about four or five hours into working on it. (I'm the one bent over grinding.)
 


I am planning on remodeling a room in our house fairly soon. My dad said I can have it as my own bedroom but I have to be responsible for gutting it, putting in insulation, and hanging drywall.  I'm not into carpentry but it would be nice to have my own room so I've recruited a couple of friends and we are going to gut it this Saturday.  I'll be sure to take some pictures so you can see all that is going on.