Thirty Year Milestone!

We know we are very blessed to be as equipped as we are to do what we do.  That's a wordy way of saying we have plenty of machinery to farm effectively without worrying about how we're going to get a certain job done.  Josh and Loren take great strides in caring for their equipment, keeping it shedded, oiled, greased, repaired, maintained...whatever it takes to have good stewardship of the equipment that has been acquired over the many, many years of good stewardship of resources through the generations of Josh, his father and his father's father.

It occurred to us as we were eating lunch in the field today that the combine that we use is on its thirtieth crop!  Josh's Grandpa Elmer bought it in 1981 and it has been used every Fall since!  Josh's dad purchased it from his father and Josh will one day purchase it from him.  We've always thought it was super neat that Caleb is the fourth generation to be part of the experience, but this year has cause for special recognition -though I sadly doubt Caleb will be purchasing it from his dad one day...no matter how well one cares for something, everything has a life span.... and sixty years will be pushing it by the time Caleb takes over!

There she is!  She looks good in her old age, huh?  Josh remembers riding home with his Dad as a little boy and smashing into the front window when they went downhill as they brought it home thirty years ago!