Hello everyone.  I’ve had a short absence from this website while Pat and I took a couple weeks’ vacation in Florida.  We visited with Ross and Rhoda in Winter Haven, and saw our friends Sylvan and Janis Ice and Sam and Sandra Baker.  We spent a weekend with Renee Klein, Pat’s step-mom in Jacksonville.  And, of course, we spent several days at Disney World getting reacquainted with Mickey Mouse.  The Florida weather was pretty well perfect, maybe even a bit too hot in the afternoons; it got up to 87 a couple days at WDW.  But the mornings and evenings were perfect, t-shirt and shorts weather.

On the return home, we spent the weekend at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, visiting Nick and Tessa Defore and their beautiful young daughters, and we also spent an evening with Steven and Lisa Williams and their teenagers Zeke and Isabel.  What fun!

It was a special and relaxing time for Pat and me, the biggest decisions we had to make was ‘where to have supper’.   We kept telling ourselves, “Hey, we’re on vacation, it’s not a worry!”  But back home in Indiana, John and Philip kept busy with farm activities.  They even traveled to Waterloo, Iowa to experience the Gold Key event at the JD tractor factory, and they observed the building of our new 9360R tractor.  They also delivered some corn to market, and repaired a few shingles that blew off the house roof.   Our storm damage was nothing in comparison to other southern Indiana folks in Henryville and Marysville.  Those tornado-wrecked places are about two hours east of us in southeast Indiana.  Our hearts were drawn to those folks as we saw the pictures and heard the stories on TV.

So, today, I’m back in the office, catching up the bills and correspondence, and planning for a full week of paperwork.  I really like to have that ‘on top of things’ feeling, and that will return in a few days.

When we arrived at home last evening, the ground was covered with snow, quite a contrast to our experience for a couple weeks.  But this evening the snow is gone, it’s 60 degrees out there and pretty windy.  Maybe that’s the last snow of this winter/spring.  I think we are ready to go to the field the first day it gets dry enough.  One last task is for me to write the prescriptions for the ammonia application and the planting prescriptions for corn and soybeans.  That’s probably 1 1/2 to 2 days office work, and I’ll begin that as soon as possible.

“Back home again, in Indiana….”