All's Well that Ends Well

The following is an account written by our oldest grandson, Matthew:


Yesterday night (10/13) we had a big scare.

Lucas Gudeman, who goes to our church and is the son of Brad, is our auger cart man this fall. Yesterday afternoon his family (his wife, Diana, and three little kids, the oldest is named Collin) came to ride with him. Well, our dryer and wet tanks were full and we were done with the field so we decided to quit just then. Pretty soon Diana decided to leave, and we were done with Lucas. But soon Lucas came up to me and asked me, "Have you seen Collin?" I said, "No, but I'll look for him". First I looked around a little bit and didn't see him. Andrew was standing in the waterway so I asked him, "Where's Collin." He pointed to the corn and said, "He went in there to hide." At that point I didn't really belive him, I thought maybe he went in for a couple minutes to see what it was like and then came out. Pretty soon though, it became apparent that he was not on the farm or in the house. I ran through some of the corn looking, and yelling Collin's name into the corn from the waterway. After a while Lucas and I decide he must have been in the field so we decided to "comb" through it. Lucas went in one row until he could just barely see the waterway, and I went in the same row until I could just see him. Then we crossed the rows looking both directions and yelling for Collin. Finally we decided to go out and see where we were at. We found we were near the end of the waterway, by the culvert. By that time Brendan and Bill were here and Brendan was driving the four- wheeler down the waterway yelling Collin's name. So Lucas and I had Diana and Brendan help us do the same thing we were doing earlier. We covered a lot more of a swath and went a lot further west into the field. After we got to a certain point we decided that he wouldn't have crossed rows any farther than that as it was hard work even for us. Common sense told us he chose a row and followed it north. But which row? As we walked back towards the house we saw Tyler and Bill's hired man, Eric Olson from Black Hawk, come down the road in the pickup. Brendan flagged them down and told them to help us. We got back to where we thought he went in, and they decide have someone go in every eight rows and head west, and then swing around to the north following the rows of corn. I was too tired to do much more. Dad told me, "There'll be a Sheriff coming so you can wait for him." I had known it was serious all along but that is what really woke me up. Then they headed into the field and told Brendan and I to search the waterways of that field with the four- wheeler. The Deputy pulled in about that time, Grandpa and Dad talked to him, and Brendan and I took off for the waterways. We didn't see anything and when we were done searching Brendan called Bill on his cell phone and asked if they had found Collin yet. Brendan hung up and said, "They found him!" We zoomed back up to the farm. Later we got the facts. I guess he was found about just as the Deputy arrived. The Deputy had a German Shepherd Dog lined up to sniff out Collin's trail and find him, but there was no need for that. I guess Tyler was in his row heading North when he decided to cross some rows over. Just then he heard Lucas yell Collin's name and then yelled it himself. A little ways away he heard a small, "I'm over here", and he followed the voice right to Collin. Then he yelled, "I've got him," and brought him out of the field. The others didn't totally know he was found until they were all out of the field. All's well that ends well, but Collin was way out in the field and I belive it was all the prayers that helped Tyler find him. Everybody said a small prayer of some kind.

It was a huge scare but God made it work out O.K.

Rainy again today.

~MoreLater Rainwatcher

P.S. I forgot to say that when Collin was lost my first thought was to climb the bins and look out into the field and see if we could spot him out there. I did climb up a small distance to look out but I couldn't see anything. So my Sammy last name is Binclimber as well as Rainwatcher.

P.S 2 We shut off the dryer so we could hear better, as it is very noisy. Also Grandpa was honking the horns of the semis, as they are extremely loud. They were hoping Collin would hear it and follow the sound. He later reported he did hear them but didn't know what they were.