Today was the day, Barry Richardson brought his trackhoe and we tore down the old farm house and barn.
Matthew got to run the machine for a while after a quick lesson from Barry on the joy stick controls. Now he knows how to run the dozer, backhoe and trackhoe. Note I said run, not operate………hes a long way from being an operator, but heck hes just 13!
A little more time behind the stick and he will learn to operate. Good skills to have!
Anyway, things are looking much better here in the country side……..
Had a great day today at Immanuel Baptist here in Benton. Had a great sermon this morning from Pastor Sammy and a great service tonight where we licensed two young men to preach and also had our Lords Supper service.
Then tonight when I got home in my online reading I got to read a great sermon from Frank James. Frank is a farmer, gun writer and TV star (at least he is on TV, Davidson’s Gallery of Guns show on Sportsman Channel). Frank has a blog that I link to as one of the sites I visit almost every time I am on line. Please take time to read the sermon that Frank delivered at his church today at this link: Sunday Message on Fathers Day
Two great sermons for the day……..
Big Foot the monster truck visited Benton over the weekend. Matt and Mo got to get up close and personal with it.
As a sign that I am getting old, I remember the original Big Foot #1 when it was the only monster truck. Saw it at the old Bush Stadium and even got the official 1983 Big Foot glossy promo picture from Midwest Four Wheel Drive Center………the highlight of that show was the bobcat driver who cleaned up after the truck pull and car smash. That guy could operate a bobcat!
Well I haven’t posted much lately, spring break was last week for the kids so we were busy around here doing family things and then it started raining and I didn’t feel like posting much of anything. Plus with the rain there is nothing going on.
The kids on the other hand took advantage of our new lake, or what was our front yard before the 8 plus inches of rain we have had so far, to practice their fishing skills. Then they just decided it was a good reason to get wet………….
Big 70 anniversary bash tomorrow plus a 96th birthday. Be three old people there whose ages total 279 years………not too bad.
Made the trip to Knob Creek on Saturday to see the machine guns go bang and to check out the gun show. I didn’t exactly what to go, the weather was nice and I was itching to plant corn. Well its good I went………first off I had a good time as always and second it kept me away from the farm and doing some thing stupid, like planting corn.
This year we went later in the day and stayed for the night shoot, or at least the beginning of the night shoot. It was a blast, as usual. Two thumbs up from myself and Matthew………there is just something about the smell of burnt gun power and burning targets that makes us smile.
Anyway here are some pictures of the festivities this spring………
Happy Anniversary Lori, we have made it 22 years……..28 if you count the years we dated!
I was going to post a picture of you on the site but know how much you would edit this page………..
I don t need a bunch of emails from the safety Nazis on this one. Sometimes you do what you have to do………….Just don’t do this one at home, we are what you call professionals.
Roy Lee ” Boss” Robertson, Jr
Benton, IL
Roy Lee Robertson, JR, 81, of Benton; died at 4:25 a.m. Thursday, February 24, 2011 at the Memorial Hospital of Carbondale.
Funeral services will be at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, February 26, 2011 in the Immanuel Baptist Church in Benton, Il with Pastor Sammy Simmons officiating. Burial will be in the Masonic and Odd Fellows Cemetery, Benton with Military Rites to be performed by the Benton American Legion Post #280, V.F.W. Post# 2671 and the Illinois National Guard. Visitation will be from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Saturday in the Immanuel Baptist Church.
Arrangements are with the Leffler – Poulson Funeral Home of Benton.
Mr. Robertson was born on April 1, 1929 in Franklin, Missouri, the son of Roy Lee “Jim” Robertson, SR and Mable Gertrude (Quinley) Robertson.
He was a retired over the road truck driver and had various other occupations including: horse trainer, farmer, and Permit Agent for the Seismograph Exploration Company. He was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War and a member of the First Baptist Church of West Frankfort.
Survivors include a son: Kelly Robertson and wife Lori of Benton, a daughter: Chelsea Halbin of Mt. Vernon; five grandchildren: Matthew and Morgan Robertson of Benton, T.J., Cayce and Kylee Halbin of Mt. Vernon; three sisters: Genevieve Griffin of Lyons, KS, Gertrude Odil of Gladstone, MO, Velma and husband Eddie Moore of Columbia, MO; two brothers: Howard Robertson and wife Norma of Franklin, MO, Carl Robertson of Shawnee, OK; and many nieces and nephews.
Mr. Robertson was preceded in death by his parents; and two sisters: Irene McQuitty and Helen Smith.
Memorial contributions may be made to the organization or charity of the donor’s choice.
Leffler – Poulson Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.
Well, I have had trouble keeping my blog up to date this last week. Its been pretty tough with me having the flu and trying to be at the hospital with dad. So as I sit here in the hospital waiting for his surgery I thought I would try a mobile update.
Grain prices keep going up and have reached an area where some are starting to speculate if they are good for agriculture. All I know is that it is making all of our marketing plans seem stupid right now. At some point there is going to be a correction to levels that are lower, I would assume.
One of the things about sitting here is that I am trying to finish up at least one of the five books I am reading. All of them are good and I will do a review of them when I get them finished. Plus I need to do a review of the two I finished before Christmas as well.
A speaking engagement tomorrow and two CCA meetings Wednesday and Thursday will keep any progress on that to a minimum.
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Changes Not Resolutions…..
Let me say first off that I hate New Years resolutions and all the attention that they get this time of year. Why you ask? Because if it takes a flip of a calendar for someone to get all excited about making a change, well then they are not all that eager to change in my opinion.
But that’s just me……….
So what am I going to do today, well talk about some New Years changes here at the Robertson Farms Blog………..but they are not resolutions.
I started a blog two years ago to let off steam, to give all that pent up frustration and feelings a place to go and if anyone read it, then fine, and if they didn’t, then fine. Looking back I went off the deep end a few times. OK more than a few times. Many times in fact, which means I must have needed to vent. It was very therapeutic.
Then a year ago I decided that I did care if anyone read it and I did care what I was saying and how it was taken so I upgraded to something a little more “professional” than the old Blogger account and stated this website. And I tried very hard to post things for my family who are not in this area, so they could see what we were doing. I also tried to post things from an Ag perspective to advocate for all of Ag, especially for Southern Illinois AG, and to educate as well on things of interest to me. Things like ham radio, agronomy, camping and shooting.
The response was 4 X in the first two months from the old blog to the new page and now in a year it has gone 4 X again. So thank you to all my readers and followers on this page, Twitter and Facebook. As of today about 1400 of you are regular followers now in some fashion. That is great and scary at the same time. Great that you care and also that what I put up is interesting; but scary in the fact that what I post needs to move up a notch as well.
The Changes……..
While I know I can’t guarantee what I am about to propose will go off without a hitch, I am going to give it a try. So for 2011 here are the changes you should see on Robertson Farms………
- Less venting, which means that I won’t be posting very much if anything about Civil Air Patrol or Politics. You know as well as I do that when the meter pegs I will have to throw something up but I hope it is very, very infrequent. To that end I have vowed to remove myself from most activities that put me in contact with CAP or politicians. We will see how long it lasts.
- More education which means doing some teaching or illustrations along with the blogging. I want to start some video blogs and talk about things more than write about them……….again working on the details.
- More Ag……as in more about my farm, agronomics, and growing crops…..and Ag related topics which fit with #2.
- More pictures and illustrations to help with #2
- Less block type so its easier to read, per the request of several readers
- More on camping, fishing, hunting, guns and outdoors stuff. Everyone seems to like that stuff a lot.
- Post on ham radio when there is something that is more unique than what is already out there or special projects. The web is saturated with the same old stuff and I don’t want to add to the staleness.
- More pictures and video including more Youtube videos…………
I hope this makes things better for the reader as well as those who drop by looking for advise on a topic. I hope it also keeps things fresh…………
I hope followers keep coming and we keep growing.
And to celebrate, I am going to take the rest of the year off………and rest up for the new challenges of 2011.
See you all Jan 02, 2011.
KR
Well, after about a three month dry spell, its raining. We have had an inch and a half in the last 24 hours. Two inches in the last 48 hours. Plus, there is another storm front coming tonight.
The rain has help lift my grumpy spirits, but the cold air is keeping them from getting too high. The cold air and wind go right through me anymore. But I am grateful for the rain.
Thanksgiving is tomorrow. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. Good crops, good prices, no major sickness, no major breakdowns or disasters, and that is just the big blessings, it doesn’t count the smaller everyday blessings we have had this year.
I hope to spend some time this weekend working on my Farm Futures speech and getting ready to hit the CCA self study classes to get my points out of the way.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Yesterday being a slow day farming wise here until the beans are a bit dryer and a slow day for soil sampling, yield monitor fixing, GPS questions and a whole host of other things that were generally slow going, we took off for Gorham Illinois to see the Union Pacific Challenger 3985 Steam Engine make an appearance the furthest east it has ever been.
We decided that the kids could skip school for an educational field trip to see some history. The Challenger is the worlds largest steam engine, if I understood correctly. I was not really sure I knew what that meant until we saw her up close and personal. That thing is huge! The other thing was the number of people who “chase” this train, some people in the crowd told me that they have been chasing it for four and five days, from stop to stop to get video and pictures at different places. Two or three people commented on the different trains that they chased over the last few years.
Gorham is in the Mississippi River bottoms just West of Murphysboro on Rt 3. There is a huge Y there that enabled the 3985 to turn around. The 3985 had started in Cheyenne, WY and was making it way to St Louis and then to Gorham to do the turn around. It was making stops along the way in different places, some over night and static others like Gorham where there was a 30 min stop.
The kids got to see it up close, climb around on the tracks around it, see them maintenance it before it took off again, hear and see the steam and watch the black smoke roll out when she took off. Both agreed that is was an excellent experience and they were glad we decided to do it.
Matthew shot a lot of video, when I get it edited I will post some more pictures and some of his video on here for all to see.
I spent Saturday at the Egyptian Rifle and Pistol Club outside of Marion, IL at an Appleseed Shoot. You may recall that Matthew and I went to an Appleseed at Carmi last year (link here). Once again, I had an absolute blast learning basic rifleman skills. There were about 23-25 shooters on the line at Marion on Saturday with a wide range of ages, guns and experience. We were instructed by three RWVA Appleseed instructors: Wurstmacher, Missouri Brigade and NoFoMoHo. Those are their call signs, handles, or board names form the Appleseed Forum, a discussion board for all things Appleseed.
Once again, I can’t say enough good things about the instruction given by the Appleseed volunteers. These folks come and give of their time and experience to help all shooters learn and grow as riflemen and also share the history of the Rifleman from April 19, 1775. The history is just as important as the shooting in my opinion. Being my second shoot, I figured I would hear the same stories, and to my surprise I didn’t. They were just as interesting and just as informative as the history I heard at the first shoot. I ordered a couple of the books that Wurstmacher referenced in his speaking when I got home so that I could read more in depth the history behind the shoot.
As good as the history is, the instruction on the shooting is top of the line. As related to us by Larry Morse with the Heartland Training Team, and I believe our host at the range, the level of instruction on shooting provided by Appleseed would cost one hundreds if not thousands of dollars at some of the big shooting schools. I would go just a bit further and say that it is better instruction than most of the big shooting schools. For two reasons if no others: 1) the kids, the next generation, are treated as equals and as important as any shooter on the line and 2) there is no “requirement” for a high dollar gun or scope or what ever, come as you are with what you got. You get the same attention to detail no matter how you’re equipped, that attention to the details of BASIC Rifleman Techniques, the 6 steps to firing a shot, is all that makes the difference. No gimmicks, no special equipment, no sales pitch for the latest and greatest whatever: just pay attention to the details of the 6 steps and you to can shoot like a Rifleman.
I improved greatly from my first shoot to this one and shot a 208 on the AQT, missing Rifleman by 2 pts. I have no doubt that I would have got it on Sunday but church activities prohibited me from being there. If farming allows, maybe I can sneak off to Evansville later in October and try it again. We will see…..
If you have never been to an Appleseed, want to teach your kids or learn basic shooting techniques, or have a great day as a family shooting and doing something outdoors, find an Appleseed and attend. Women, children under 21, and active military and guard shoot free. You can’t beat that price anywhere. Not for the FUN, HISTORY and SKILLS that will be given to you at the end of the day…………
Special thanks to Wurstmacher, NoFoMoHo and Missouri Brigade for the instruction, Larry Morse for being a great host and to the Egyptian Rifle and Pistol Club for the facility! You all did a great job!
See you on the line!
My new deer stand might be the back porch. This doe was eating apples off the apple tree not 30 ft from the deck in the back yard. The dogs didn’t scare her, but the chickens would cluck at her and half way charge her and ran her off.
As seen from the kitchen out the deck door……….
Recent Comments: