Yoder 2.0

It should be no wonder if Grandma gets an occasional sense of déjà vu.  (Top photo is Clay, bottom photo is Shane taken almost four years later.)

Writing is therapeutic, right?  Right???  It has to beat yelling at everybody.

So, it's November 2nd.  I am hosting my family for Thanksgiving in exactly 24 days.  I don't mind, really, it gives me a goal to get things cleaned up and everything.

Shannah worked the opening shift at the bakery and was home by 8am.  She decides she might just paint the kitchen today.  Fine.  Great.  I'm glad.  She opens the can of paint I bought for this weeks a

It's that time of year again when black walnuts come rolling in....I was going to say by the truckload, but that hardly describes the conveyances with which people bring their walnuts.

The Milk Spilled and I Cried.

Awhile back, Shannah went to get some bags and containers from a wholesaler in town.  When she presented my credit card to pay for the items, the lady behind the counter eyed her in a mock suspicious way and told her to tell her how many siblings she (Shannah) had.  Shannah, of course, said she had twelve.  The lady laughed and told her she'd passed the verification process for the use of my credit card.

Whenever I go to that place of business, they always ask me how the family is, sometimes joking there are twenty-five of us, sometimes randomly selecting another number.  It's all in fun.  They've called me the local Michelle Duggar.

But no.  I'm not.  On so many levels.

Well, one time one of them suggested that I must be a very organized person.  No.  Actually, that is a jump in logic to suppose that because one has many children that they must be uber organized.  I'm proof positive.

Anyway, yesterday was "one of those days".  The evening before, some of my darlings were watching a movie on my official laptop---you know, the one with my farm order program and Quickbooks. What I realized a nano-second too late was that one of the darlings hadn't quite finished drinking the milk  in the cup that was sitting on the desk right next to my laptop.

All I wanted to do was tidy up a little.  I was just collecting stray dishes to take to the kitchen to wash.  Having to do it over again, I would've at least taken that stupid cup on another path away from the desk.  You know, like not right over the top of my laptop.

Who knew that a tablespoon or two of milk sloshed out of a cup could create such a big problem? Trust me.  Don't try this at home.  You will be sorry.

I immediately freaked out and grabbed the nearest towel to attempt to dab up what I could.  It was too late, I knew, as I saw the last of the little white droplets disappear into the cracks beside my keys. Oh brother.  The keyboard was thus rendered useless.

Let's just say that the whole episode has caused me to question whether God answers prayers after tantrums.  As Brady so sagely summed it up, "Mom, even if you did know who left the milk in that cup, would it really change anything?"

Long story short, I found a place to take my computer to.  It felt weird handing my laptop off to some guy I don't know who looked to be about the twins' age.  But...so it goes.

I should've been more forward thinking when the guy asked me if there were any other files besides Quickbooks that I needed him to copy onto my second laptop.  It had briefly crossed my mind that I would also be needing the order program that I use for the farm as well, but I dismissed it thinking I could get what I needed online.

Hey, don't blame me.  I never claimed to be a computer whiz.  I just use computers, and half the time I can't even find the files I save.

So, I get home and finish loading Quickbooks onto my auxiliary laptop, which takes a r-e-a-l-l-y long time.  I decided to go clean up the butcher shop in the meantime.

I guess I got a little carried away with the pressure washing and everything, because the next thing I knew it was after 6 o'clock and Shannah was home from work and had come to the shop asking me where the laptop was so she could fill customer orders.  Oh yeah.  That. She obviously hadn't gotten any distressed texts from her siblings who might've alerted her that Mother was not in good sorts about the spoiled laptop.

 I told her I would have to download the order program and that she shouldn't worry about the orders, so she left to go see a friend.

I was about as soaked as I could get as I aimed the pressure washer hither and thither to give the butcher shop a thorough washing.  About that time a car drove in.  I greeted my visitors like a drowned rat.  I gave my sopping wet t-shirt a couple of hopeless tugs to make it droop less off my shoulders.

I didn't get to spend much time with said visitors as I had to tend to the order program thing.  I called up our friend Don so he could coach me through putting it on my computer.  Uh oh.  It was then that the realization struck that I was hung.  I actually needed a file off my milky laptop after all!!  I could've been spared the dread call to the computer fixer people had Paul not taken a certain flash drive to Pennsylvania with him for the weekend.

The guy on the phone wondered if I realized that I would be charged the emergency rate for doing that for me, after hours and all.  I told him I didn't even know what his usual rate was, but I guess I would be paying the emergency rate if he was willing to help me out.   I was supposing whatever they were going to charge me was going to be cheaper time/money wise than driving 16 hours round trip to get the flashdrive from my husband. I had somewhere around 60 families depending on me having the proper order program for today's orders.  I told him I would jump into my car and be there as fast as I could.

I slogged into the computer place with my wet shoes desperately hoping I wasn't going to leave puddles.  My face probably had spatters of dirt and stray chicken feathers plastered on it from pressure washing. I had at least changed my shirt and skirt, but there had been no time for primping.

Twenty-eight mile round trip later, I was in business by 8:30PM.  Only by then, the children (you know, the children that I have???) needed their mother.  The littlest ones were flung on the couches watching Sue Thomas FBI dvds.  I boiled up some hot dogs, read them a story, and we all went to bed.

I did manage, with some help, to pull off the orders (mostly) on time this morning, even taking a brief break to lead the new Jersey cow home from the neighbor's.  That silly cow was a pet of the family we got her from.  She doesn't associate with the likes of our other cows, but she will go walk down the road and stand politely outside the neighbor's fence to"talk" to his cows.  Go figure.

Well, I've learned a few things.

1. Don't let children eat or drink near expensive pieces of office equipment.  
2. It really doesn't matter who did it.  Get over it.  
3. God still does loves us even if we mess up and get all mad at everybody. 
4. My children are very gracious.  It doesn't kill a parent to be the one to say, "I'm sorry."
5. Back up all computer files.  Always.

~Colleen

Out of the Blue

No offense intended to anyone who might've told me something incredible lately, but I've been sitting here wondering if I've become the clearing house for all things odd and interesting.

Like last night.  I was in our (mechanic) shop sitting on a chair attempting to calculate just how many more hours it was going to take me to finish cleaning that monstrosity of a warehouse (and wishing that by just thinking of it it would commute my sentence of actually doing it).  I heard a truck rattle into the lane and stop.  After a few moments of inactivity on the truck's part, I obliged the driver by checking to see what he wanted.

Chickens.  He wanted chickens. We have chickens, but none to spare.  He assaulted me with some vocabulary I am not partial to, but my discomfort was lost on him as he meandered through some pretty far flung (and--- might I add---unrelated) topics.  Hereby I learned that cancer is not caused, as some say, by GMOs in grains.  No.  It's caused by drinking water that has stood overnight in pipes.  Toxic water he called it.  Unsuspecting mothers mix this stuff with formula and give it to their innocent little babies.  That's why, he opined, there are so many bald two year olds in hospitals getting chemo treatments.  He has advised the National Cancer Institute about this, but they are hiding this information from you, ya'll.

There's more, but I'll leave that for now because it would be hard to tie in the stuff about parachute jumps to blow up bridges during the war, cows with milk fever, urinals, and corrupt local government officials.  You had to be there really.

This is but one slice of life.  I have an amazing swath of people and experiences in my life that I don't know if I could tell you about believably.

Another thing that has haunted my thoughts and literally kept me up at night is the idea presented to me by a friend that the Earth isn't, as I've always thought, spherical but flat.

We were driving down the road, heading off into the sunset, when my friend volunteered something about the supposed distance and size of the sun as opposed to what it really is.  Huh?  I'm not a science girl, but I was mentally scratching my head.  What did she just say?

She told me more, and after she left I sat mesmerized at the keyboard for quite some time trying to make sense of it.  Out of respect for my friend, I wanted to at least try to understand what she was trying to tell me.

Like I said, I am not a sciencey person (at all) but:  my oh my.  This is really a geocentric universe with a very small sun and a moon of an equivalent size, neither of which are hardly further away than California is from Ohio???  Have we been as duped by "them" as they (the other they....not to be confused by the evil "they") are saying?  Oh have mercy.  I might as well box up the science books I bought for my children and rid my kitchen wall of the maps that have been hanging there for years.

I feel like pulling a Vinnie Barbarino: "I'm so confused!!!"

I'm not really confused in the sense of not knowing what I believe or think.  I'm baffled that the topic came up.  I guess I thought "The Flat Earth Society" was sorta just a joke.  It's all been an unexpected twist.

But back to the shop clean up thing I mentioned earlier.  I have this whole big life staring at me in the face.  I am having trouble keeping the kitchen floor swept, the customers all happy, and orchestrating huge building rearrangement projects.  I wake up with a dread some days, my first waking thoughts going to whether I should first clear a spot in this building for that huge pile of stuff or should I start some other huge thing instead.....all the while realizing that none of the ginormous outside cleanup projects is laundry, dishes, and food for my children (all of which scream for my attention as well).

Life looms large. Then I have people randomly suggesting I might want to rethink drinking water and telling me the Earth is flat.  I don't have time for the Earth to be flat.  If it's just the way it's always been to me, I don't have to give it another thought.  It can just keep turning and I can just keep doing what I was doing. I don't have to really know or care about Agartha or whatever else popped up while I was trying to get a rudimentary grasp of "flat earth" (because just googling "flat earth" doesn't just give you a strict set of factoids....no, you wind up hearing about secret diaries of dead men, spooky new worlds and conspiracies galore).

I really just don't want to be astonished with anything Earth stopping right now. Does that make sense?  I want to just trudge to the house after a long day and cook supper.  And eat it. And go to bed.  And read bedtime stories to my children.  And thoughtlessly drink of glass of water.  One of these days I want to just be in the house and not have to trudge back to it after a long, hard day of doing all that "other" stuff.

Some day.....some day....

~Colleen

Chop 'Til Ya Drop

It's finally dawning on me that I have no fashion sense and no hope of ever getting any.  This evidenced by the fact that my purse is dusted with diatomaceous earth right now.  What, you may wonder, is that???  Fossil flour.  Does that help with the definition at all?  I didn't use to know what it was either, don't worry.  It really doesn't even matter that much for this discussion.  In short, it is pulverized little skeletal animals that have microscopically small, sharp edges.  It is suppose to deal the death blow to those pesky little chicken mites that vex us all so much.  I am still waiting for it to work...

Anyhow.  I was standing in the driveway with the aforementioned purse slung over my shoulder trying to decide which vehicle to jump into to take a quick trip.  My handy-dandy little cell phone rang.  It was Paul from the milking barn asking me to please make sure there were eggs available for the people who were about to arrive.  Okay. Trip cancelled.

I rush to the shop on foot to get an egg basket and go in search of the Kubota RTV.  Oh there it is, right where someone left it in one of the cattle raceways.  I settle the wire basket in among the many sundry things that filled the RTV bed.  Oh my purse.  I whisk it off my shoulder and fling it into the empty egg basket.  Trevor joined me on the seat, and off we went, bumpity-bump back the dusty lane to see if we could rounge* up some more eggs from the chicken bus aka chicken house. (*rounge isn't a word???  really???  MOM!!  DANIELLE!!  Haven't we ALWAYS said that word when we wanted to find something??  I had to invent the spelling because, I come to find out, there doesn't appear to BE a spelling for this word!!)

Eggs gathered, chicken mites not withstanding, we race back to the buildings so I can get them washed up and put into cartons in time for customers.  Mission accomplished.  Those eggs are now on their way to Columbus, Ohio and I am sitting here with a dusty purse.  There must've been a partly used bag of fossil flour back there in the Kubota bed and it, mixed with dust from the raceway, plumed up in a cloud over my purse.  My open purse.

The purse wouldn't actually be mine if Shannah hadn't bought it for herself.  When I told her I liked it, I think she took a quick glance at the one she had supplied me with the previous year and decided it was time I had a new one.  She was all casual about it and everything, telling me she bought it with my credit card anyhow and how she could just get another one next time she was out and how it was a little too big for her liking anyway.  She's sweet like that.

I do like the purse.  It's so roomy.  Not that I even carry anything in it.  Sometimes I like to put in homeschool catalogs.  Those do take up space.  There are other things you would just never know you'll end up carrying.  Once I checked in there and I found a metal ball valve for a water line.  My mother thought this was ridiculous.  I don't even know how it got in there.  I was sort of freaking out that maybe somehow one fell off a shelf when I was at the hardware and wound up in my purse by mistake. 

So back to the fashion thing.  I try.  Not hard, but I try.  

One time I attended a ladies' meeting.  I was out getting tires for the skid steer anyhow and the meeting happened to be in the same neighborhood, so I rolled up to a parking spot in my old farm truck and joined in.  The speaker was talking about summers and autumns and colors and making sure things matched your skin tone and stuff.  Was she serious?  I glanced around and everyone else seemed to be taking notes, so I guess she was serious.  I went home and said to my girls, "Remind me again, am I a summer or a winter?"  Even now I can't remember what they said.  They said summer, right?  No, wait.  It was winter.  I think.

Not that it matters.  I go to the store, often alone and often Kmart, and look at stuff on bargain racks.  Hmmm.  This is my size, and it's 20% off.  I toss it into the cart and move on to the next sale rack.  Sometimes I click a selfie in the dressing room mirror and send it to the girls to give me their opinion.  If they protest too much, I put it back.  

See, most of my "occasions" are really not that snazzy.  I butcher chickens a lot.  Dead chickens don't really care what I'm wearing.  Such is my life.  I spend an awful lot of time with dead chickens.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am actually really good at it.**  Shop 'til ya drop:  no.  Chop 'til ya drop:  yes.  I guess you can't be good at everything. 

** One time Paul and I and another guy were asked to do a chicken butchering demonstration in front of a crowd of people interested in doing small farming.  The host of the event announced Paul and the other guy with a flourish.  I was standing there, too, but I turned out to be the unnamed mystery woman with the knife.  Nobody ever did tell the crowd who I was.  Oh well.  It was probably my outfit....

It is now time to feed my ravenous little boys.  I guess I will need to rounge*** up some food for them. (***It's really scrounge, isn't it?  I feel so betrayed....).

~Colleen

Our Grandson Shane

People ask about this little guy fairly often.  He is doing great! 

I went to see him just last evening.  He was fine as long as I had him outside or if I took him to watch Blake and Logan work in the shop area.  As soon as I took him into the office area he began to pucker up and cry.  They say he bores of the office and likes to be where he can see the guys working!!  

His mommy is learning to multi-task like crazy and often has him sitting in his little Bumbo seat on her desk in the shop office so he can watch her talk on the phone to customers. I've been there to see guys walk up and go all soft when they see his baldy little head sitting there when they look down over the the counter top.  lol.

He's a keeper!

~Colleen (aka Proud Grandmother)

Preemie Calf

Very likely this is *the* SMALLEST calf any of us have ever seen that is actually surviving.

Fortunately it is taking well to colostrum feedings several times a day by way of bottle.

I don't know what its gestational age was at birth, but it is very tiny.   It is too short to reach her mother's udder to nurse!!

Clay gave the calf's mother the name of "Roanie".  We name our milk cows when they have their first calf unless they get named something beforehand---usually due to some outstanding feature or characteristic.

For size reference, the photo below is Clay and Miles feeding a normal size newborn calf:

Shane Anderson Yoder

One seriously cute baby!

In case anyone was wondering how our grandson Shane is doing, here is a photo of him and his daddy Blake.

~Colleen

A Very Happy Birthday, Garth!

The other day Garth came into the room laughing and proceeded to tell the story of what had just happened to him. (Yes, I know, the pictures of him generally show him really sober and as if he must never find humor in anything.  It's all a facade.)

He was driving the tractor down a state road when he came upon an Amish buggy that was driving on the wide berm. He began to pass the buggy when suddenly it swerved left directly in front of him. He stomped on the tractor brakes, narrowly missing said buggy. The buggy drove on to the nearby crossroad and made a left.

Garth also made a left onto the same road and noticed the buggy was wildly careening. He thought whoever was driving the thing was doing a bad job of it. About that quick, the horse exited the roadway and went bumpity-bump on through someone's yard. As it made a wide sweep through and started back toward the road, Garth discovered the buggy had no occupants.

He parked the tractor and chased down the horse. Having it securely in hand, he led it---buggy and all---back up to where he first saw it, assuming it had probably been tied to the hitching rail at the corner store there.

He went into the store and found the 2 girls he figured it belonged to and told them what had happened. They hadn't missed their horse yet.

This boy thinks quick on his feet (and in his tractor seat)!  And he is mild mannered, conscientious, and kind to boot!

We love you!
~Colleen (aka MOM) 

P.S. The randomness of my birthday posts have nothing to do with---well---anything....

I Haven't Written for a Long Time

"...(A)nd nobody knew so well
how to frighten Miss Clavel.

In the middle of one night
Miss Clavel turned on the light
and said, "Something is not right!""

~from Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans 

And so this is why I am sitting up at the computer at like 2 a.m. instead of being in bed asleep like I ought to be. One of my darlings wasn't feeling well, it turns out.  Not that I actually *did* anything about it. (Shannah really doesn't need so much Mommy assistance anymore....).

But now I am awake.

It isn't that I didn't have a busy day.  I really should be tired. I have a blister, in fact, on my hand even now from having weeded the strawberries with a little shovel.  As nearly as I can determine, the chief value of weeding strawberries might well be "think time".  Otherwise, strawberries are TOO MUCH WORK!!!
 

I am aware of the fact that realistic dialog makes a story more interesting.  I really ought to concentrate better on the stuff that gets said (verbatim) at our house that creates the sudden turn of events that often happens here.  I can't quite replicate it.  Like, over the hasty lunch that I was serving when I finally decided to quit weeding my mad tangle of berry plants in order to nurse my blistered hand....

It was there at the lunch table that I learned that three of my sons were going to be running an evening convoy of tractors up to a trailer park near where Blake lives to settle a house trailer into place....after the mud that hampered the same maneuver earlier in the day dried.  I am not sure how they even came to have the job---a job that had tripled since the initial use of ONE guy and ONE tractor.  I think Garth said something to the effect of wanting to tell Blake a thing or two (lovingly, of course....).  Personally I think our family has a weak "NO" gene.  We just can't seem to say no...

And with the talk of moving house trailers on a lovely spring day in May, we also discussed our old friend--- who for the purpose of this post we will call Bob.  Yes, old both in that we've known him for some time and in that he is advancing in years. Anyhow, he calls frequently because he is, as I said, advancing in years and essentially has not many other people to call.  Paul is a patient, patient man.  

We may never know if Bob always was as Bob is now (for we have always known him as he is now), but his mind seems to play tricks on him sometimes and he gets a little confused and overwhelmed.  Even given that, the first lawn mowing of the year when you've waited a smidge too long to tackle it can be overwhelming to anyone. 

Garth says, "I can go, if we leave RIGHT NOW."  He had to be, afterall, available for "operation-house-trailer-relocation" in exactly 4.5 hours.  The drive to Bob's is a solid one hour from our house.  The boys sat estimating that the actual mowing would take approximately 45 minutes.  One hour to drive there.  One hour's work mowing.  One hour drive home.  

I, meanwhile, was suddenly the designated driver co-pilot. I never get to drive when Garth is there.  He only needs me for my driver's license....I feel so wanted!  I thought, "Hey, if I am going to wind up in that neighborhood, I am going to go shopping!"  So, I let the rest of the family decide how the thing was going down while I cleaned up and donned a more presentable outfit.

As it happened, time slipped away while Paul got a food order ready to send up to Bob.  When I was finally settled behind the steering wheel of the pick up with the Skag lawn mower loaded in the bed, it was Brady who was jumping into the passenger seat. Garth determined he no longer had enough time to go.

So, up we drove to mow Bob's lawn.  Brady is an interesting traveling companion.  He keeps his index finger poised on the radio button and listens to the most annoyingly SHORT snippets of songs before advancing to the next one.  And I do mean ANNOYINGLY short snippets.  He can "name that tune in just 4 notes" (or not....).  It's all good.  If he selects one I don't particularly want to hear, I just brake, accelerate, or shift gears so his finger bumps the "seek" button to change the stations.

At one point as we were driving, Brady says with feigned concern, "Mom, I was hesitant to tell you this until I was sure, but I've been noticing that there's been a lawn mower following us the whole time."  Lol.  Indeed, the thing unmistakably hogged up our rear view the whole time.

   

I let Brady unload the mower and made sure he was situated before I left for my mini-shopping trip.  All told, factoring in the traffic and everything, I made it to ONE store before I got the text to go back and collect him!

I am one terrific shopper in a town with a plethora of options.  I chose a Salvation Army Thrift Store.  (Aren't I boring???).  I really just went there because I wanted to look at the children's books.  That's what I do when I am bored.  I scan the titles on the spines of  books to try to find one I don't already have.  It's like a treasure hunt, a hobby that lets me share something with my children.  Sometimes I even buy books I already have just so I am armed with gifts to give my friends.  

I was in the line waiting to check out just behind someone who was obviously conveying the message to all that she was a woman in a hurry.  Her body language was more of a dance, shifting from one foot to another.  She was sighing.  She was complaining to a worker that the line was moving too slow.  She brought to all of our attention that there were two cashiers working one register.  To a fellow customer she brusquely inquired of a loaded cart that was parked in the way.  And this.  And that. I had nothing else to do but take it in.  I mean, I was right behind her and there were a bunch of people behind me.

It was when she placed her items on the counter to be checked out that I had trouble maintaining composure.  The book that she was buying was called, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff".  

I come from a family that has to fight mightily to keep from laughing at inappropriate moments.  My poor children possess this same weakness (weakness?  I'm not sure if it's a weakness exactly....it's just the ability to find humor where some may not, right?).  I totally had to distract myself from thinking about the irony of what had just happened so as not to make a laughing fool of myself!

The lawn done, we sped home (did I say sped?  Figure of speech, figure of speech...). When we got off the highway exit ramp, I momentarily thought I was going to be a player in one of those weird stories on the evening news.  Just as I was a good way up the ramp a fancy black car whipped around the corner and was coming the wrong way down the ramp (straight toward me!).  I've never had that happen to me before.   I think they must've been foreigners and were maybe confused by the highway signs or something because they stopped and started haltingly a number of times before they eventually turned around.  No harm done.

And so the rest of my day and evening waxed and waned with activity.

In the course of writing this blog post, I heard boots clomping down the steps from the upstairs bedrooms.  (Remember, I said it is like 2 in the morning...).  It was Garth with gun in hand headed out to the chicken house, gallantly on his way to rescue the flock from whatever was causing their distress.  He came in asking, "Mom, do I smell like a skunk?"  Yes.  He does.  And the skunk got away with it.
 

I really do need to go to bed.  I have another day's worth of adventure awaiting me in just a few short hours....

~Colleen, who is sadly remembering that one of my friends won't be reading this post---or any post---as she was in the habit of doing to keep herself current with our family.  Marci passed away on April 22, 2015.  She will be missed.

Several life events are converging for me right now (not the least of which was cleaning out my attic for the insulation work we were having done).  This is causing me to reflect on something (I mean the life events, not the attic insulation).

Motherhood.

Yeah, yeah.  It's almost Mother's Day.  Of course everyone thinks about mothers on Mother's Day.  I have a great mother.  I've learned a ton from her.  I always get the feeling she never purposely set out to teach me anything, though.  No, she was far too sneaky for that.  And practical.  My mother was the type who would be folding clothes on the bed while listening to me yammer on and on about my school day.  She really didn't say that much, she just listened.

She would likewise sit at her sewing machine mumbling out occasional responses to me while keeping a row of pins pressed between her lips. She saved the really poignant things to say until she used up all her pins and could finally open her mouth all the way.  Yes.  Good old mom.  Only she isn't really old, I guess.  She isn't even 70 yet.

But this isn't even what I was going to say.  I was going to talk about my own motherhood.  If you are expecting an expose on how to do it "right" or, really, any "advice", look somewhere else.

When I was going through some of the stuff that had been sitting in the attic, I came across a box that I used to keep in my closet.  I came to think of it as my treasure box.  It was really simply a small plastic tote with a lid into which I would quickly stow little notes and pictures my children gave me (or ones I saw lying around that I found to be especially cute).  It was a solution born out of guilt for throwing this sort of thing away.  I figured I could use the box as a bit of a time capsule and reminisce on days gone by....someday.

We are now at someday.  I actually really didn't even remember I had the box.  And I actually didn't even spend a lot of time reminiscing through it when it occurred to me what was in there....yet.  BUT.....I did happen upon a couple of "I Love Mommy" type note in childish scrawl.  Awww.  I'm touched.  One little picture was signed, "For Colleen, From Logan".  He was probably 5 when he did it.

Anyhow, another little note in there made me laugh.  It was written by Maria.  I had made a notation on the note that indicated that Maria had sent the note via Shannah out to the butcher shop  where I was butchering chickens. She had included a pencil for me to write to her a response.  The note said (spelling and punctuation intact from the original):

 "Brady sounds croaky and he smells funny I took his shirt of and wiped his face but he still smells what should I do?"

I have no recollection of what I advised. 

It all started when Trent announced, "Hey, Dad.  Look at this tractor I found on Ebay."

When someone says something like that at our house, I can pretty well figure I am up for another adventure.

I was right.  We had the winning bid, and we were now slated for an 8 hour trip to southern Tennessee to haul 'er home.

So, yeah.  That wasn't the *only* thing going on in life just then.  Christine and baby had just adverted an eminent medical emergency on Tuesday.  Whether it was the prayer chains that lit up that morning or the second set of doctors really having a better handle on a treatment plan, I don't know, but everything quieted down by the end of the day.  We tend to take these things for granted, thinking perhaps it wasn't as bad as we thought they were or something.  I tend to think God uses ordinary circumstances to surprise us and catch us off guard.  At any rate, somehow, someway things quieted down enough that we were pretty much guaranteed a two day reprieve until "Operation Baby Day" (Thursday).

I had never intended to the mother (mother-in-law?) hovering outside the room (or worse, IN the room) waiting for my grandchild's birth.  No.  That just seems intrusive to me.  BUT....

But, we were still being told all sorts of scary things that we had no idea if they would happen or not.  Clearly, *if* any of those scary things happened, it was going to be advantageous for *someone* to be the circulating standby at the hospital "just in case". They chose me.  Me!  I was delighted!  BUT.....

But, the tractor needed to be picked up.  I reluctantly agreed to go along to go get it.  Afterall, what could happen?  We drive the rig down there on Wednesday, load it up, haul it home.  We were slated to be back in plenty of time for the baby's birth on Thursday.  "Plenty of time" for us is actually NOT a comfortable margin for most people, but I digress.  I'm used to it.

So, we a bunch of "good-byes, be-back-soon's", we were off.  After one stop for speeding (for which we weren't ticketed....) and a flat tire (so nicely pointed out by a kind, elderly man on the freeway), I was beginning to feel uneasy about getting home in time.

We made it to our destintion as "Jolly, round Mr. Sun was going to bed behind the purple hills" (Thank you, Thornton Burgess for that line).  The young fellow loading us up reminded me of my own sons.  Willing to take a dare, but certainly not willing to die over it.  It took a little creative thought, but we had the thing loaded and strapped down eventually.

We began to retrace our steps back north toward home.  Things were going so well, we started counting our chickens before they were hatched began making plans for how the rest of the trip would go.

The first sign of trouble was a

Our First Born's First Born

Join us in welcoming Blake and Christine's wee little bundle of joy, Shane Anderson Yoder. He is doing a stint in the hospital NICU, but is expected to be just fine.  The new mommy is recouperating well after a really tough week.

 The dear little child weighs a full 5 pound less than his daddy did at birth!  Shane was born yesterday (4-2-2015).  At 3 weeks early, he tipped the scales at 4# 9oz.

I will have to write a post later on my foray into grandmotherhood! The journey (literally) was worth it!

~Colleen