December 24, 2012
Pleasant but chilly today. Ross and Rhoda are departing for Winter Haven, Florida today. I just gave them their ‘goodbye hug’. Philip is coming home from Portland, Oregon. So, we are asking for travel safety for them all.
I am working in the office this morning, getting the late-December bills paid, and some invoices for CPS entered into the books. I make adjustments the cash flow information a couple times a week as new information becomes apparent. I hope Ross sells the remainder of the corn in the load-out bins soon. When that is done, I can complete the harvest information with complete accuracy.
When the crop insurance adjuster came last week, it was not an unpleasant experience. I had dreaded the complexity of it all, and the exhaustive amount of information that had to be documented because of the lower yields of this drought year. But Mr. Carr was pleased with the information I presented, it was in a format that made his work easier. Of course, there were a couple glitches in the information he received from the FSA –all the acre and planting date information must match exactly the information reported to FSA. I made a trip to the county office, and those were quickly resolved (they had some numbers transposed, like one field of beans was entered as corn. But not a criticism, the ladies there are great). It was good that all the soybeans had already been marketed, for then I had an exact number of bushels to report. Mr. Carr compiles his reports with a laptop, and submits them online. There is even a digital pad where we enter a signature. He got through with the process in just a few hours. We can expect the proceeds early next month.
The weather guys are predicting near-blizzard conditions for tomorrow night. It would be nice to have a “white Christmas”, but a blizzard? I hope we end up with a couple inches of the white stuff. Really, they are telling us that Wednesday will be the snowy day this week.
I have been watching the ‘administrative’ information for our website, and note that in the past few months, this site has been visited by folks from 55 countries around the world. Probably most of them just stumbled onto it, but I know we certainly have visitors in France and Ukraine. And there seem to be regular visits from Great Britain, Germany, Argentina, and the Phillipines. Who knows what they’re gleaning from this farm’s information, but I hope this message is getting through– We are happy to be farmers in southern Indiana, and we thank our Maker for that privilege.
Celebrate Jesus, not only on His birthday tomorrow, but find blessing in every day. All the best to you this Christmas…..from the Carnahan family of farmers
