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Ehmke Diaries December 28 We did manage church today even though the roads are pure mud now. Worked at putting away presents and forever cleaning up the kitchen. The boys are enjoying a movie plus this Internet stuff. Louise and Vance went over some year end tasks. Louise wrote the checks to pay the final bills for 1997 and tried to balance the checkbook. A horrible task! December 29 Part of our farm plan is to buy a seed cleaner. Today Vance, Cole, Marit and Louise drove to the Warner Feedyard in Cimarron to see their seedcleaner. Clear bright day to see the country. We might buy one like the one we saw to clean our seed wheat and the triticale. It was great to visit Sid Warner, the owner who always has an interesting thoughtful outlook on what is coming in agriculture. We are all worried as the price of wheat has gone down a lot due to this Asian market collapse. So have other grains and livestock. We absolutely depend on exports. It is important to talk to visionaries like him who help you get a perspective of what we are doing and where we are going. Plans were also made to visit the Cimarron Dairy, which milks about 2800 head of cows. Our dairy group will see it in a couple of weeks. Also made some plans for Kansas Day for our museum celebration. Kansas Day is actually on January 29 but we will celebrate with educational activities for kids on January 27. Our plan is to have kids look at all the byproducts of the grains grown in this county as well as byproducts from cattle. One of the major employers in this county is Lane County Feeders, which has a capacity to feed 42,000 head of cattle. December 30 One of the mules has a sore hoof. Cole clipped the sort hoof as well as the other ones to see if that will help. These mules sure eat the bales of feed we had delivered---more than the grain Vance gives them every morning. Continue to do year-end check writing and planning. After much discussion, we will be the new home for the exchange student, Marc, who is from Spain. He was with a different family last semester. He will join us January 4. It has been too cold to ride mules so we hope next week it is better weather. We are all anxious now to cheer for KSU at the Fiesta Bowl tomorrow!! December
31 Fiesta Bowl Day!!!!! What a game. We were all a little worried in the third quarter that we could let the game get away from us. Best New Year's ever is KSU on top!! January 1 Gott Nyt Ar as they say in Swedish or Happy New Year. The Ehmke clan headed to Wichita to visit Grandma Ehmke. It is a 4-hour drive and with 6 of us it can be crowded and irritating. But we all survived making sure we stopped in Great Bend for a car wash break. Our car was covered with mud from the ice, snow of the previous week. The Forrest Ehmke family joined us at Grandma's for a warm family visit, laughs, catching up including family photo sessions since we were all there except one brother and his family. Of course we ate black-eyed peas at dinner for good luck next year. January 2 First on the agenda was to see the Wichita Art Museum's latest exhibit of paintings. Then on to Botanica to see the photo exhibit of flowers as a cousin was one of the winners! It was great too. In the afternoon we shopped for jeans, shirts, got haircuts. Watched the video "Austin Powers" what a crazy movie. January 3 Before heading back to the farm, the boys and Vance really wanted to visit a gun and knife show. It was something to see all these people buying and selling guns and historical type items at this show. Smooth sailing home with no ice and lots of patience with 6 people in one car. Once home, we started moving stuff and rooms preparing for Marc to come tomorrow.
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