Country Chatter

Let me tell you about today….it was a wonderful day with eleven people showing up to work on a corral on the farm. Earlier in the season we tried to load some beef cattle for butchering and the cattle went berserk and destroyed the catch corral. The corral was already in rough shape but after that fiasco it was rendered useless.

Rich, Micah, Kevin, Ivan, Rob, Karl, Joe, Wray, Mike, Jill, and Obe all pitched in. Micah brought his skid steer with a bucket, post digger auger, post driver and a bundle of posts. Obe did a lot of weedeating, and the rest worked on the electic fencing, pounded in posts, replaced a water hydrant, secured the catch chute, cut boards and built a very secure fence. Bill and Bertha brought a picnic lunch. By the end of the exhausting day, the corral is ready to catch and load cattle. There is still some more work to be done but the corral is now safe to use.

All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. We felt the love and it was a job we could not have accompolished without help.

This evening Obe, Jill and I went to the hospital and showed Gene pictures of the work. He was so pleased. I did several facetimes with him throughout the day but he wanted to be here so bad. We can’t wait to be able to bring him home and show him in person.

Gene is improving but it seems like a long, never-ending process. They are still trying to heal the leakage in the small intestine. They have him on TPN (a nurtritional diet through a pik line) with no food or water by mouth so that his gut can heal. Physical therapy is getting him up and he sits in a chair but he still has no strength to take more than the step or two to the chair.

So many have asked what can they do. The answer is go see him. He is in room 435 at St. Francis hospital. He will be in the hospital at least another week and the days get so long and lonely. He really appreciates visits and he needs lots of encouragement. (Just do not take him any food as he can not eat it).