coulda, woulda, shoulda

Please bear with me as I am kinda new at blogs, but here is my first attemp.

Why the name "Bob's back 40"

Most people, (me included) remember a lot of the good times of farming and can relate to some sort of nastalga with the way of life of the farm. "The back 40" will quite often be something we like to remember. I believe we need to remember where we have been, to see where we are now, and to look to the future of where we are going. How often we look at what "could of", if only we "would of" because now we know we "should of".

Life is all about choices. Thinking back we all make choices everyday, most matter not the outcome, but there are a lot that make a significant difference in the future.

To give you one example about Bottens Famlly Farm and how it came about.

In 1965, I remember reading in the Praire Farmer about a new college opening up in Mt Carmel, Illinois with a course in Agricultural Mechanics. Not interested in a four year school, I enrolled at Wabash Valley College. I thoroughly enjoyed those two years, learned a lot, and got a Associates Degree. With the Vietnam War in full swing, I was drafted, and because of that degree and experience pulling wrenches at a IH dealership, I was assigned as a mechanic. Let me tell you being a mechanic carrying wrenches beats the tar our of carrying weapons in the jungles.

Best of all with that knowledge, that is how I met my wife. My uncle needed his tractor tuned up after my tour of duty, so when invited in for lunch, I saw this picture on their TV set. I asked my aunt "Who is that?" she said, "I would like for you to meet her" and I quickly said "When". She lined us up for a blind date, we were engaged 6 weeks later and married 9 months later. I did not know that I could meet anyone who I could feel so comfortable with in such a short time.

That was the start of Bottens Family Farm, because of a choice made 5 years earlier.