The Archives - January 2008
January 26
January continues to be a month of moody weather. Two nights ago, I saw -13° on the car thermometer about 9:30pm, and the next afternoon, it was up to 27°. We still have snow-covered fields all around, which is beautiful and makes it feel more cozy (inside!) somehow. The cold has been hard on the animals this winter, however. Most of the cats have had running colds and one of the goats is looking puny, too. The chickens seems to be weathering things the best.
We had a nice drive up to Wisconsin last weekend to visit Beth's sister as well as a short visit with a missionary family (to Romania) - the wife with whom Beth went to Bible college back in the day. Both visits were very joyful!
The trip back home was anything but, however… We left Sheboygen, WI about 3:30pm Monday, in a steady snowfall (they already had 4-6" on the ground from a previous storm). It took over two hours just to get through Milwaukee, and the bridges were solid sheets of ice - the van kept slipping (we were only creeping along, thankfully), and we saw numerous cars in the ditches along the way, including a semi that had jackknifed across the whole highway (on the other side). It ended up taking about nine hours to make what is normally a five hour trip, all of it in snow. The last 20 miles were the worst, as we were on secondary roads that were not plowed well, if at all. Thank the Lord for His safety!
January 7
Today’s high temp was 65°, but believe it or not, that's only 4° different from the previous hign on record of 61° in 1907.
All the snow (except in ditches) is gone, and the ground is mushy and muddy. Never fear, I suspect we'll see temps under zero before too long...
Healing Hands
The following photos show progress of my hand after getting it caught in a New Idea No. 300 Corn Picker on November 10, 2007.
Week 9 Photo (two months) - the Doctor said "don't come back" (woohoo!). Future updates will monthly… The Doc also said it will take about a year for the hand to completely heal.
Week 8 Photo - fingernail about halfway grown back
Week 7 Photo - I can almost make a fist again!
Week 6 Photo:
Week 5 Photo:
Here's the hand about 4-1/2 weeks after the accident (note the fingernail is finally off with a new one growing in already):
Three weeks of progress - the hand specialist said it looks really good, and that I should regain close to or full functionality over time - Praise to the Lord!
Two weeks:
One week after:
The day after:
Ya'll drop us a line when you can, now!