Thank you all. Every prayer helps!

At this point, we plan to stay put. Stan will do the cropping, probably selling hay with our two sons-in-law, and may eventually work into a beef herd, but we aren't really planning that far out right now. Josh loves our barn, but isn't too impressed with the clay soil.

All the docs are excited that Stan is so "young and healthy". Gives you a little perspective as to what they are used to seeing.

Hope everyone had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as we did. It started out a very small family party that grew into a slightly bigger family party, but there were still plenty of leftovers, so that was good. It was almost warm enough that we could have had a picnic, but instead we opened the windows. Of course, last night it started snowing. We've had a few inches, but there was time enough between cooking and snowfall that I got my miniature trees covered. It sounds like we might have some winter now. I hope it isn't stormy next week when Stan's in Erie in the hospital, or I might have to sleep in the waiting room.

We did have a wonderful Thanksgiving with our daughter and her family visiting from across the state. They are on their way home now. The weather was nice except for one drizzly day which was more of a bother to us than it was to them because they live with it! We all stayed up too late, ate too much and were busy from morning until late into the night. Last night after a late dinner 5 of us gals built our first grapevine basket. One of the granddaughters and I pruned some grapes just before dark, and even through the vines were freshly cut, they were still quite dry, resulting in a few broken ones as we wove. The basket is big, it could be a bed for a medium sized dog! However, I think it will end up on a table at the farmer's market, overflowing with produce. We think it looks ok considering that none of us ever made a basket before. It has character! The handle leans off to one side, so it is tied to the side of the basket with baling twine to dry where I want it.

Kathleen, I'll be thinking of you both and praying that all the right things and none of the wrong ones will happen.

Thanks, Mary, I appreciate that.

Stan's surgery has been put off until next week. The doc had an emergency come in that he needs to put in Stan's spot tomorrow. the doc actually called twice and apologized!

What a disappointment! But it sounds like you have a good doctor.

Sorry about that Kathleen, but these things happen.

Yeah, they warned us that this might happen, so it wasn't too hard to take. Yeesh, another week of 'getting ready'. He has given up on replacing the transmission in the loader tractor, though, so that's all right.

New month, new thread. Join us here: The thread "December long cold nights short bright days" in Farming forum