Our trip to New jersey went very well. We spent Friday night in Scranton. The hotel used to be the DL & W railroad station. The lobby was quite ornate. We were quite impressedwith Scranton. We had done a piling job across the street some years ago when Jim was younger. I bought him a train for Christmas one year at a store next to the hotel that billed itself as " the world's sixth largest Lionel train Store." It was sad to see that they had gone out of business with just the Lionel sign remaining.

Mary's sister lives in a home she rents on a farm. It's quite unique to find a several hundred acre farm surrounded on all sides by suburbia. They run grass fed Herefords and always have a Jersey dairy herd. They sell beef and make and sell cheese. They are completely surrounded by localvores so they were doing a brisk business while we were there.

It was 70 degrees with severe storms forecast.We went on further to visit my sister and her family. She had recently had unexpected major surgery. She seems to be doing quite well. We had dinner with them and headed home. We didn't run into any storms and were glad to be home.

Sunday morning, the weather had changed back to nasty grey clouds, cold and raw. Jim and I did chores and rearranged the bulls. We now have five yearlings all in their winter quarters.We got Rochester all set in a pen for Monday's vet visit.

Monday, the vet came and Rochester very amiably walked right into the chute so the vet could draw blood and give him the TB reactant. We had enough snow to cover the grass but not the road. Monday night, I had a County Fire Board meeting. It was snowing full bore on the way home.

Tuesday, I did chores and went through my first winter freeze drill. It had gotten down into the low 20's last night. I was glad to see that all the water works was working well except for one waterer. A piece of dirt must have gotten into the float valve and the waterer was overflowing. I took off the cover and flushed it out. The cattle all seem comfortable with the weather. All the weaning noise seems to have ended. It's snowing again as I write this with 4 to 6 inches likely by morning. By winter standards, that amount is negligible but at this time of year it's a good reminder of what's to come.