Things have calmed down a bit so I thought I'd write a little. Last Friday, I flew to Nashville and Eileen picked me up at the airport. She had just finished her fall semester and was heading home with the car. She won't be using the car next semester as she will be studying in Aix-en-Provence, France.

We drove to Dayton, Ohio where we met Jim. He likewise had finished his semester and caught a ten hour ride from Ames to Dayton with a friend. We picked him up and spent the night in Dayton.

Saturday was pretty much an all day ride home in dreary conditions. Thankfully, we missed the big blizzard which was occurring simultaneously just to our east. Everyone was glad to be home.

The cattle continue to be content. We had a bit of a problem today when one of our waterers froze. We got the bulls a temporary supply and we'll fix their system tomorrow.

Things have been a bit livelier at the diner as some of the regulars get in their last licks before they leaver for a warmer climate.

I've mentioned that one of the diner regulars had opened a restaurant just up the lake. He has had to close it since New York State doesn't seem to be able to get around and do the paperwork necessary for him to get a liquor license. You constantly see the smug politicians on television patting themselves on the back for creating jobs. Here is a man that actually created a bunch of jobs and now has to lay off these people because government can't do its job.

We also have a bit of a mystery. Last year I built a gravel road through our barnyard to connect the two fire lanes that are part of the farm. Kiddingly, we've called it Begley Boulevard. When we picked up our mail yesterday, there was a long skinny package. Amazingly, it contained two very official Begley Blvd. street signs ands mounting hardware. We put them up today and they certainly look very official. I have no idea who sent them but thanks whomever you may be.

Speaking of putting up, when the morning sun shines it blasts right through the diner window and hits some of the regulars right at eye level. Our complaints weren't taken too seriously so yesterday one of the regulars hung an old beach towel in the window. When I got there today, the diner owner had bought a venetian blind and the regulars were busy installing it. Of course, the sun didn't shine today. hopefully, it will shine soon so we can all luxuriate in the newly manufactured shade.

The streak has finally ended. Syracuse had enjoyed 287 consecutive days with less than one inch of snow falling at the Syracuse airport. That's 41 weeks or longer than the gestation period of a person or cow for that matter. This morning we had four inches of wet white stuff. Not really enough to plow but I put it on the tractor and took a test cruise. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow is high winds with gusts up to 60 mph. I left the plow on for the season and I'm sure to use it again.

Today also marked the first official day of UPS refusing to drive down our road. You can't blame the driver but the company no longer subscribes to the rain, sleet, hail etc. theory if in fact it ever has. FEDEX on the other hand just drives on down and delivers. We now have to be careful when ordering to request FEDEX.

The cattle continue to be nonchalant about the whole thing. We have lots of feed and that's all they care about.

The diner has perked up quite a bit with the various stories about the golfer in Florida. I have observed very little if any sympathy for him.

Mary and I will be going over to the Beef Group meeting Friday. There is still a lot to discuss and learn about DNA. We both also enjoy the camaraderie of our friends over there.

Both Eileen and Jim will be home for Christmas in a little over a week. Jim had a snow day at Iowa State today as the blizzard roared through. He said it was just like home to see all the snow. The difference is Iowa tends to be pretty flat in places without many trees. The winds can really do a job blowing the snow. Eileen is snug in Nashville remembering that she never did like snow.

We hope everyone has had a pleasant and gratifying Thanksgiving. Our weather at the farm was remarkable. We can never recall such November weather. It's like October and November changed places this year.They said on the TV that it has been almost nine months since our last observable snow. It doesn't seem possible but they claim it is. When I first came to Syracuse in 1960, the natives talked about eleven months of winter with August being poor sledding. It must be global warming. I can remember snowmobiling being a part of several Thanksgivings.

Both Eileen and Jim are home from college. They have a lot of catching up to do with their friends. Jim has also had a chance to reacquaint himself with heifer feeding and fence building.

All our field crops are in and delivered. The soybeans were excellent on two fields and about average on the field that flooded. The corn was somewhat above average. However, we took a big deduction for high moisture. The optimum is 15% and we were 25%. They deduct for the cost of drying the grain. All in all, I'd rather pay the moisture penalty and have the crop harvested.

We have a steer calf and heifer calf ready to be delivered tomorrow. The new owner is a young lady two towns over. She borrowed a cow calf pair last summer to see how she might like to add cattle to her farm. She already has sheep and cattle are the next step. She plans on showing the cattle next summer.

Our cattle are doing well and just loafing around as they await winter. We believe that all the cows are pregnant. Some of them will be calving into the summer which is a little later than usual. The belties are over in their own area with Mc Leod their bull. They have a particularly nonchalant view towards the weather.

We have entered two of the four Lowline heifers we took to Minnesota in the Denver show. The other two will be sold by private treaty in Minnesota..

The diner remains calm and unremarkable. The politicians don't do much this time of year or actually much anytime. The level of diner indignation is a function of the politicians activity.

Our trip to Minnesota and the Midwest went well. We loaded the cattle on Sunday the 31st and had them at their new home the next morning. It was an uneventful trip but not one that I'd like to do every week or even month. 1200 miles is a long way even with two drivers.

The heifers were completely unfazed and walked off the trailer like they had just moved to another pasture. We looked over the cattle with their new caretaker and discussed the pros and cons of preparing them for to the Denver cattle show in January. After lunch and visiting for a while, we headed for the nearest motel. We were in the room by 3PM and sound asleep by 3:05.

We got up around 7 and went out to explore. Next to the motel was a giant Farm and Family store which is a Midwestern version of a Tractor Supply, Lowes, Walmart and probably some others all in one place. Apparently it is a family business and the family split up. So in some states, one side has Farm and Family and in other states the other side has Family and Farm.

The next morning we went off to visit my neighbor's son. He works on a crop farm about forty five minutes from where we dropped the cattle. They grow sugar beets, soybeans for seed and corn. His son was working so we went off to explore.

The son gave us directions to watch sugar beets be stockpiled. There were two piles of beets about the length of a football field and growing and tapered to fifty or sixty feet high. Trucks come in and get weighed and dump onto a moving conveyor which puts the beets on the pile. During the winter they reverse the process and move the beets about thirty miles to a processing plant in North Dakota. Sugar beets are about the size of a large turnip and weigh five or six pounds but look like a very large white beet.

Since we had time, we decided to drive to North Dakota. The neighbor is an ardent duck hunter and he wanted to see if there were any ducks. We didn't see any but did see a sign for a zoo. I offered to drive by but he said it wouldn't be necessary.

We headed back to town for lunch with his son. We noticed how every small town lists its population on their name sign. Invariably each small town looked neat and clean and prosperous.

After lunch, we had more time so we went duck touring to nearby South Dakota. We did see a bunch of ducks on a small pond thus giving hope for the upcoming season.

When we got back, we went to the neighbor's sons farm for dinner and the night. The son's wife is a school teacher and FFA adviser in the local school which expects to graduate six this year. Despite its small size, all amenities are offered.

After a good meal and good conversation and good sleep, we were ready to hit the road the next morning. One of my friends had emailed us directions to Lake Woebegone which was quite near. We wanted to get headed to Iowa State to visit Jim so we moved on.

After a six hour ride past unending corn and soybean fields, we arrived in Ames. Jim and the two classmates who had him visit their homes were ready for dinner. We were impressed at how knowledgeable each boy was and how well they represented their families and upbringing. There is still lots good to come from having a farm background.

We hooked up the trailer the next morning after breakfast with Jim and headed home. We spent the night in Ohio and were home Friday afternoon. After a fifteen minute rest and quick shower, Mary and I were off to our monthly beef group meeting. The intern from our host had to give her presentation. Her professor and thirty fellow students were present.

She did an excellent job. Likewise all the students were good representatives of their institution. I was tired so we went home early. When I woke up Saturday, I had a terrific head cold. Undoubtedly courtesy of almost 3000 road miles and several nights in a hotel with uncontrollable heating fans blowing on me.

I rallied in the afternoon when my combine friend showed up to do my remaining beans. We got around the one field Saturday and the other one Sunday. Yield on the first field was excellent and slightly better than last year which I attribute to the foliar feeding we did last summer. The Sunday field is the one we had to replant. I was pleasantly surprised that we were just under the county average.

I was able to round bale up some soybean stalks for bedding. Since the field was wet I had to leave a lot and kind of pick around the field. We washed up the round baler and mower and took them off to my neighbors barn to join the square baler for the winter.

The cattle have now begun to eat baleage which is a feed they relish. They have grown out their winter coat and are pretty much at ease with themselves and the world. The belties especially seem to be enjoying the cooler weather.

When we went on the trip, I was a little worried about having a flat with the cattle in the trailer but as noted the trip was uneventful. Monday night the electronic tire indicator in my truck went off and indicated low pressure in a rear tire. I checked it and it looked fine. Tuesday morning, I checked it with a gauge and it was down. I added air and by night it was going down slowly. The same thing happenned Wednesday. Thursday morning I decided to have it checked. I've owned lots of tires but I have never had one fail by becoming porous. The tire man put a soap solution on the tread and you could see bubbles forming all around the perimeter kind of like when you squeeze a soapy sponge as air oozed through the tread. The tires were getting close to their useful life so I wound up with a new set. There is a new charge of five dollars per tire for disposal. I wonder who gets the money and how the tired is actually disposed of.

We are also in the fourth day of excellent dry fall weather. All the leaves are down around home and chopped up and blown away. The weatherman says we will will have some showers by Saturday courtesy of the left over hurricane that has been inundating the middle Atlantic states all week.

My neighbor's son had called to report they had begun to combine corn since we left. The first field was two hundred seventy bushels. We are really happy to get one hundred fifty. They call the Midwest the Corn Belt for a reason.

The weather has continued to be wet and dreary. Not harvesting weather. We got the soybean yield results from our first field and were pleased. It's about fifty percent higher than the county average. The problem is that beans are worthless in the field and it's too wet to get them. We are getting anxious about those remaining to be combined.

The corn moisture is still very high so there will be no thought of combining it for a while. With the low prices available for corn, the cost of artificially drying it is unaffordable.

The cattle continue to do well. The calves are growing and well past weaning.

Mary and I took a day off Friday to go wine touring. For many years, we have gone with the same friends to visit some of the vineyards that abound near us. In the past, we have always gone on a Saturday. There is some difference on a week day. Yesterday, the wineries were very quiet and we had a chance to visit with the owners and ask questions. This compares with the weekend buses and stretch limos. Quite a large portion of the weekend clientele are there for a moving party rather than to enjoy wine.

We will be up early tomorrow for chores. After church, we'll go to the monthly pancake breakfast at the American Legion. This is a real pleasant opportunity to visit with friends and neighbors while eating pancakes with real from a tree maple syrup.

Since Tuesday is election day, there will be the usual crop of folks from outside the area running for some type of judge that we know very little about. It seems that their term is 10 years so they appear lperiodically ike some version of a locust. They don't eat much though as they table hop and exhort us to vote for them. It is very pleasant but bewildering since they are not local offices and we really don't tend to have much interaction with remote judges.

After that, we will load the calves and head for Minnesota. Since a lot of my blog seems like some version of Garrison Keillor, it seems fitting to take it on the roads to Minnesota. I don't know where Lake Woebegone is but we'll be about two hours north of the Twin Cities.

The diner has been very quiet lately. Probably the poor weather has dulled the conversation. One thing is for certain, the regulars don't think much of the new government health proposals or the politicians proposing them. It didn't take much effort today to decide we'd be better off to throw out the whole bunch and elect a new crop. The bad part was we all agreed that it wouldn't take long for even the most idealistic to become as corrupt and inept as the incumbents.

One of our regulars has a new business venture. He has started a restaurant. We all are instant experts and offer him lots of unsolicited tips. The bottom line is that we all wish him well and hope it becomes a great success.

We have continued on with our fall chores.

We have selected four fullblood lowline heifer calves to go to Minnesota and then on to the NWSS cattle show in Denver in January. A friend has a ranch there and he will fit them and prepare them for the show and sale. We sent one heifer last year and were very pleased. We have them in a separate pen and are working to halter train them.



We have purchased a herd of six beltie cows and a beltie bull from a farmer in the Northern part of the state. These are all exceptional animals that have had the same owner for years. Regretfully he has developed a health condition that required him to sell the cattle. We went and picked up the bull and three of the cows and brought them back to our farm.



We then delivered a lowline bull to north east Vermont. It was a wonderful location on a great day. The scenery was fabulous. The bull went into a pasture with a few steers to get adjusted to his new location. We heard later that he was now in with the cows and breeding them.



By coincidence, there is a belted galloway farm near where we left the bull. We were able to visit and look over the herd. There were about 70 belties together in one large field. It was a very impressive sight as we arrived as the afternoon sun was shining right on them just so. This farm specializes in breeding belties true to their original size. They clearly know what they are doing.



On the way home, we stopped and picked up our other three belties. Two of those are dun colored rather than black. The whole group is now reunited and in with our belties and doing well.



We have about one third of our soybeans harvested. The quality and yield look extremely good. We will be very happy when the rest are done. Then there will be corn to combine.



I have told you on other occasions of my part time job as a county deputy fire coordinator. Last Friday we had a very unusual call. An older barn had collapsed trapping about 100 adult sheep in the basement. Four fire departments responded and went to work. After eight hours of hard work, we had the last sheep out. Unfortunately about 10 had perished. The farmer was also glad that we were able to rescue his miniature horse. The men and women who responded worked hard, got the job done and showed a great deal of respect and care for the animals.



I will be away next week taking the heifers to Minnesota. So this week has been busy trying to get odd jobs taken care of before winter. We were actually able to cut some green hay for the cows today. They appreciated that taste of Summer past.

We are back from our road trip. We have been fortunate to be able to see lots of the country this fall. Between this trip and dropping Jim off at Iowa State, we have driven just over 6000 miles. We have taken our diesel pick up both times and averaged just over 18mpg which I think is quite good for a truck.

We never fail to notice how good the roads are and how relatively prosperous the areas we visit. It is amazing to see how little these states pay in tax in comparison to New York.

The cattle are doing fine as they switch from pasture to hay. We won't start baleage until later in the fall. The weather was apparently exceptionally wet and raw while we were away. It has been great yesterday and today. A neighbor cut some hay for baleage and we will be wrapping it for him tomorrow.

Several of our summer neighbors have left for Florida or will soon. It always takes a little bit to get used to the winter pace around here.

We have had very poor weather this past week. Almost four inches of rain in three days. Quite a contrast to the excellent weather all through September. Fortunately the ground was good and dry and the rained soaked in. We don't need mud for harvest season. The beans and corn are continuing to dry down. We are still a few weeks from the combine.


The fence line weaning went very well. There was the usual bawling but not as loud or long. We have begun to move the cattle around for winter. The brood cows will go into the pasture that allows them access to the coverall. Each group has their own shelter and dedicated year round water.

Mary and I have gone on a road trip to visit Eileen in college. She is doing well and is enjoying showing us around Nashville between classes. Jim has just returned to Ames from a road trip of his own. He plays on a club lacrosse team and they went to the University of Wisconsin last weekend.

We continue to get inquiries from potential buyers of our animals. We are also preparing to take at least two heifer calves to Minnesota to be prepared for showing in next January's NWWS show in Denver. When you are selling quality animals it is good to be able to show them at a high level.

I reworked our web site www.lakebreezefarms.com before we left. It is easy to let them get stagnant. Hopefully, I've freshened it up a bit.

We separated our fullblood calves on Monday and purebreds on Tuesday. Each group can see and interact with their dam through the fence. So far it has gone quite well. Before moving the calves, we checked the fences and cleared up a few problems. The noise from bawling is considerably less than when we physically kept them from seeing each others. The calves are eating and the cows have also adapted well.

This week we will move the cows to their winter location near the Coverall building. We have our chute set up there and we will preg check them.

Friday night we had a great turnout from our Beef Group. We gave a farm tour the we had a potluck dinner at our house. It was a successful evening.

The soy beans have turned color and dropped most of their leaves. The corn is denting well. We have had almost a month of good dry weather. We had rain overnight but it didn't amount to much. It would be good if it stays dry while we harvest.

Our tillage radishes are growing well. They are planted among rye grass. Hopefully, we'll have lots of organic material to plow down in the spring.

We have a hayfield about seven miles away in the village. It's too far to effectively and economically hay. I've decided to plant beans there next year. I'm waiting to hear from the government if we need to strip crop it. They list it as HEL or highly erodible land so they have say in how we work it.

Well, I've had quite a vacation from the blog but not the farm or family.

We took Jim off to Ames, Iowa to begin his freshman year at Iowa State. While we were there, we visited the Iowa State Fair and Lowline Show. It was our first State Fair outside of New York. It was a great fair. They specialize in food on a stick. We had our first stick pork chop and it was great. Jim went with us since school didn't start until a few days after his arrival.

We then continued on to the Black Hills of South Dakota by way of Nebraska. There is no question that the scale of agriculture is huge in those states. Nebraska is famous for its grasslands and now we know why. We saw fields that had just been baled for third cutting with thousands of round bales waiting to be collected.

South Dakota is a geologists dream. Everything from granite mountains to bad lands to prairies. We visited Mount Rushmore and the carvings are quite impressive. We stopped in the souvenir store and were surprised that the clerk at such an All American attraction was a young lad from Moscow, Russia.

We also visited ongoing mountain carving of Crazy Horse. Here they were proud to explain that this was all being done by donation and without government help of any kind.

We went to Minnesota and visited some friends who are Lowline breeders. We enjoyed touring their ranch. Mary especially enjoyed see a section of native prairie they have maintained. Friends from home have a son who works on a farm near our Minnesota friends. They had flown out to visit and we picked them up for the return trip.

We visited and toured Mackinac Island in Northern Michigan. It is a resort island only accessible by ferry once there transportation is by foot or horse as motor vehicles are not allowed. We came home through Ontario and saw my first roadside bear.

All in all a great trip.

Our cattle and crops have done well in our absence. Our yields look to be above average so we are looking forward to harvest since all bets are off until the crop is delivered to storage.

I have planted a new cover crop on some waste ground that I am trying to rebuild. Forage radishes grow quickly and put down a great big fat root. They then die over winter. The nitrogen they have stored then awaits the next crop and the organic material adds to the soil.

Since our return, we have concreted our barnyard. This will add immeasurably to the cattle's comfort and mine this winter. We also have two more all year watering locations and moved our small shelter into a new pasture. This winter we will be feeding our brood cows and a good sized group of weaned heifers and bulls as well as juvenile and herd bulls. So with Jim off to college, organization will be the key to success.

Jim visited a new dorm mate's ranch over Labor Day. They are in Northwest Iowa in a small town. Interestingly, the name is only known in two places Iowa and Donegal, Ireland. It is just across the lough from our ancestral location in Bellarena, County Derry. It was also a port for trans Atlantic steamers. I know my father came to America on the Cunard line California. I'll have to check from which port. Jim is named after his grandfather so it is interesting that he has been to both Movilles.

Jim sent us some photos and as noted above agriculture is on a lot bigger scale. They have a pasture that is considerably bigger than our whole farm and we have a medium sized farm by New York standards.

This week we will begin to wean our calves. This will led to a lot of bawling for both the cows and calves. We don't start pjust prior to the weekend so as not to concern the weekend visitors. We don't want them thinking there is a problem when they hear the noise.

Well, we continue to slog on in search of summer. We are continually plagued by heavy unexpected showers and plain old rain. You need three dry days to bale hay and it's just not happening. First cutting should be all done by the first part of June at the latest and I know some farmers who still have first cutting to do.We have done some second cutting hay but it really should have had another day to dry.

The dampness isn't helping the corn or beans either. They need heat to use up the moisture. There are lots of aphids on the soybeans. We are lucky that we have lots of their natural predators- lady bugs.

The cattle are enjoying the constant pasture regrowth and scarcity of flies. So I guess there are pros and cons.

Mary and Jim were in a really big 15K race. They both finished with excellent times. They ran with a group from the beef industry and got nifty running shirts featuring beef.

Things are quiet in town with one big exception. One of our diner regulars had a story he'd rather not have to tell. He woke up early one morning to find a burglar in his house. Fortunately, the intruder fled without a physical confrontation. The police have still not located him. We don't expect this sort of thing in rural America and are poorly prepared to deal with it. Most of us are from a mind set that remembers when there was no need to lock up.

Other than that things are quiet.

Here it is already the first of July. Today would have been my parent's 68th wedding anniversary.

Last week was a very busy week getting our square baled first cutting hay in. We worked together with Verne and between us had almost 3500 bales. We were very lucky to have three great haying days. We had to rush the unloading of the last wagons as we just beat the rain.

On Friday, we delivered a bull and a steer to our customer in the eastern part of the state. I had never met him before and was pleased to meet him, his wife and their three children. We also met his vet who was there looking over his other animals. Everything seemed fine and the cattle have an endless pasture of reed canary grass. This is a tall reed like grass that cattle really relish.

Our cattle are doing well and the calves are having a real growth spurt. We are about ready to break the herd into a few groups. We will put the bull in with the percentage cattle and AI the full bloods.

We have a problem with our flooded bean field. We replanted it but have seen very few new sprouts. The County Ag specialist came and dug around and feels that a pest called the seed corn maggot has eaten the seeds. I asked why it wasn't a soybean maggot or some such. He explained that they named a pest after the first species that it affected but they often have several plants they favor. At this point in the season, it is too late to replant and there are no other worthwhile crops to plant. So we'll have to see how it turns out.

On Monday, I went up to pick up a cousin's wife and daughter from Northern Ireland. They have been touring the East Coast and were in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I brought my passport to comply with the new rules and had no trouble getting into Canada. My parents had gone to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon so I thought it fitting to be there almost on their anniversary.

Coming back to the states, we had to go inside and meet with the immigration agency. The ladies have a British passport and there was no trouble, just a few questions and we were on our way. Mary brought them to see the supermarket where she works. People in our area are very fond of the supermarket and often bring visitors to see it.

We all had a nice visit and got to know each other. We will soon be leaving for the Buffalo airport so they can fly off to New York and eventually Belfast.

Last weekend, Jim and Mary were in Iowa for Jim's college orientation. All went well and Jim is looking forward to school. It seems strange that he will only be with us for about seven more weeks. Then we will see what it's like to have an empty nest.

As you may have noticed, my blog frequency if that's an acceptable term has diminished. It is not because I have nothing to report or have lost interest, it is because farming takes amazingly more time this time of year.

Since I have last written. we have finished our spring calving season very successfully. We have nineteen calves on the ground. Our one remaining pregnant cow isn't due until September. We have cows out in our various pastures giving the farm an enhanced pastoral atmosphere. The summer residents are back and they seem to enjoy the animals.

Our community garden is growing well except for some lettuce which might be serving as rabbit food. Along with the blog, I haven't had much time for the garden. Our wonderful neighbors planted our end for us. I certainly appreciate it.

In a bittersweet kind of moment, our big Brown Swiss steer Peter has moved onto a new home. Or rather returned to one of his earlier homes. A farmer from a few roads over came by to see if we would do some contract baling for him. He noticed the steer and asked where I bought him. When I told him, he laughed. He said that he had bought Peter at the sale barn when he was a baby and pail fed him and eventually sold him. He called a few days later and asked to buy him and I agreed to sell.

Jim and delivered him and when we let him out into the field he almost seemed to know where he was. It was nice to see him among cattle more or less his size although he is still the tallest by far. The farmer said his nieces had named him Goliath when he was with them because he was so tall.

The soggy soy bean field only germinated about thirty percent. A week ago Thursday I replanted all twenty nine acres. At least the seed cost less. There is a technology fee charged by the seed companies on the modern hybrid seeds. They waive that charge for a replant. As I write this, the weather radar shows heavy rain will soon be upon us. Hopefully we won't have a repeat washout.

The moisture has helped all our other fields and our beans and corn are excellent.

Jim graduated from high school last Saturday. It's hard to believe he has that all behind him already. Next week, he and Mary are off to Iowa State for orientation. Eileen really likes Nashville and has summer job there. Mary drove down with her and left her the car and flew back. Eileen is well along the road to emancipation and I suspect we won't be seeing much of her for some time.

We have completed first cutting on about 45 acres of hay. The last batch was very hectic as we just beat the rain. We have another big field in the village to do. The weather looks very favorable for next week. I hope we don't get too much rain so the fields will be too wet to hay. As the season progresses the hay looses a lot of its nutritional value and becomes tough if it isn't cut. And, of course, the really tender second cutting can't grow if the first cutting is still in place.

Our small town lost one of it's icons last week. Our village attorney passed away a bit unexpectedly. He has been there for everyone for almost as long as you could remember. He did everything from wills and property transfers to interceding for young drivers who might not yet have understood the ratio between accelerator foot pedal pressure and speed. He was the essence of the small town attorney and will be missed by one and all.

The Fire Department leases a field from us on the main road for horse and tractor pulls as a fund raiser. There is a horse pull tomorrow weather permitting. It is amazing to see the size and strength of pulling horses up close. The strength of their human handlers is pretty impressive also.

Time continues to march on. It's hard to believe it will be June in two days. I check our flooded soybean field every day or so. There are some sprouts but in general it looks pretty bleak. I'll have to decide this coming week if it needs to be replanted. We planted at the rate of 150,000 plants to the acre. If we have at least 100,000 plants we will be marginally okay. My wife is an accountant by profession.I explained the problem and told her I needed a bean counter and that would get her back to the roots of her profession. She demurred but I have another plan, find a hula hoop and randomly throw it into the field and count the plants it encircles. After several tosses you can reasonably estimate the plant population.

All of our other fields were planted after the deluge and have sprouted and look promising.

We now have had eighteen of this years twenty calves born including one this morning. There is one cow that should freshen soon and the other not until September. Eight mother cows and their calves are in our woods pasture. This is a transition area to get the calves fence trained.

We are about ready to move them to their summer pasture. This was a new seeding last year and has lots of volunteer clover. We're a little concerned with bloat so we have to get the cattle acclimated carefully.

Our hay equipment is ready to go but the weather is not cooperating. The forecast through at least mid next week isn't favorable. The crop looks great but is continuing to grow and mature. The secret to good nutrient value is to get it in the bud stage before it heads out. It can also get so heavy that it falls over into a tangled mat,

My friend who winters in Florida says he isn't coming back here until the long range forecast predicts ten seventy plus days in a row. He is a good friend and I enjoy his company but it might be quite a while before I see him him at this rate.

At least the weather has been good for rhubarb. Lots of pies and sauce are available. We started a community garden for some of the folks on the lane. We made a big raised bed which we filled with a secret blend of cow manure and topsoil. I am confident things will grow. Looking at the number of tomato plants already in the ground, it looks like a lot of spaghetti sauce will be made.

I've also assembled two upside down tomato growing contraptions like you see on late night television. They should be a curiosity piece if nothing else.

Today Jim participated in his last ever high school sporting event. The meet was about an hour and a half east of here. We stopped en route at a farmer's market. There was a farm that we know selling beef from their Belted Galloway herd. We visited for a while and traded information.

Jim placed fifth in two events at the regional level. He did well. Track meets are pretty much an all day event with a few bursts of activity. I took advantage of the down time to visit a fence supplier that I had heard about. They had a really nice store with about anything you'd ever need for cattle fencing. It was a pleasure dealing with them. Mary had to work but she made it in time for the Jim's last race. On the way home we stopped at a restaurant that we know that serves grass fed beef hamburgers. They were excellent.

It seems like the interval when I get to put a few observations down on paper gets longer. Actually, I am not putting anything on paper just a computer screen. It certainly isn't for lack of topics.

Saturday morning, Jim and I went to the slaughter house to pick up our beef. We are fussy about how we raise it and fussy about how we harvest it. The slaughter house is seventy five miles one way but he operation is inspected by the USDA and they flash freeze the meat and wrap it in vacuum sealed plastic. We use a bunch of coolers and bring it straight home. We will be trying something new this year. We are advertising word of mouth to the summer residents that we can be of assistance with their bar b ques. Grass fed beef is excellent for a cook out.

Last Thursday we finished planting a twenty nine acre soybean field on the next road down to the lake. It's kind of a loamy, silty soil and was dry and powdery. All that changed on Saturday afternoon when we had a rain of biblical proportions; over two and a quarter inches in less than twin hours. When the rain stopped, we went out to check our land and buildings and cattle. I had just turned two cows with their calves out into the pasture that morning. I was concerned about the calves. They were fine. We had water running through the barnyard like we've never seen before.

I went down to the bean field and knew we had trouble when I saw a fellow and his girl friend riding a half submerged ATV up the lane. Water was running off and through the fields up to a foot deep. The ATV folks told us the road was washed out. I knew there were summer residents on the far side of the washout. We own the land that the road runs on so we felt we better take some action to get it reopened. I called a friend and he brought a big dump truck load of bank run gravel. I dumped it into the abyss and got the road opened. There was nothing to do about the bean field at the moment so I went back to checking other fields. Everything else was a little ragged but otherwise okay.

After church on Sunday, I looked at the bean field. I remember learning in grammar school how the Nile River would flood and deposit silt over every thing. We now have a microcosm of the Nile River valley. As of today there are no signs of germination so we need to wait and see what happens. We can replant if necessary but that will destroy any hopes of a profit from that field.

Monday evening we had a calf out of the fence. She is sold and we have been waiting to wean her. I got her in the barn and locked her in a pen and went to get some supper. When I got back she somehow had gotten herself into a different pen. I decided this was a sign that it was time to wean her. When first separated the cow and calf bawl loud and long for each other. It is good they got this out of their system before all the summer residents arrived for Memorial Day. I would have had to do a lot of explaining about the self weaning calf.

We had another bull calf on Thursday. At seventy pounds he is the largest Lowline calf we've ever had. He is an excellent calf and is doing well. He is calf number fifteen of the year although we have only had fourteen calves. I'm not superstitious but skip number thirteen.

By Tuesday it had dried out enough to resume planting our other fields. As of writing this tonight all our beans and corn are planted. We'll still have to wait and see about the flooded field.

As Mary was driving down the lane Wednesday, a summer resident from the next road stopped her to tell her that there were three horses in one of our alfalfa fields. This can be a big problem. The alfalfa can cause the horses to founder if they eat two much. Fortunately one of the horses had a halter. We were able to walk up to it and grab the halter and walk to the neighbors barn. The other two followed nicely along. Our neighbor was away and very relieved that we were able to get them in when she returned. All in all getting the horses in had much fewer rodeo elements than gathering wandering cattle.

Now we are focusing on haying. We went this morning and picked up our bale wrapping supplies. We will probably be haying by this time next week if we have hay weather. The hay itself looks excellent both in quality and quantity.

We have gathered a huge pile of rocks from our fields. I am going to put a sign out advising that our Lake Breeze Farms organic rocks are free for the taking. We will transport them if necessary.

We had a nice email and phone conversation from a woman in Pennsylvania today. She is interested in starting a Lowline herd and had heard about us. We are looking forward to her visit.

We have several cow calf pairs that have been living in the barn. As Spring progresses and the pastures regrow, it is be time to get them out into the fields. This is always somewhat of a problem as the calves are not familiar with fences. Typically, you have to stay nearby and have sort of a rodeo event catching calves and putting them back in until they catch on.

Saturday, we moved two cows and calves into a small pasture next to the barn where they could be by themselves. The cows naturally started eating the grass and the calves made no moves toward the fence. That made for a pleasant day.

We went over to Verne's and brought his herd bull over to our place so he could let his cattle out to pasture. Verne is an AI technician. He breeds both his and my cattle with AI. As a result our calves have superior genetics since we have purchased semen from a variety of top line bulls. Our bulls are only used for cleanup work. The rest of the time they stay in the bullpen sort of like being a relief pitcher in baseball.

He told me a story while I was there. After visiting one of his customer's barns, he had to walk up to the house. He followed the path through the lawn. The grass in the path was extremely green near the barn becoming less so as he got nearer to the house and then blending into the rest of the lawn near the house. You could readily see the value of manure as a fertilizer. Walking up from the barn, the wet grass and snow would tend to clean your boots pretty well by the time you got home.

Jim had his Senior Prom so he had to take off early to get ready. He and his date came by the house for photos before they left for an enjoyable evening.

Sunday, we took Mary out for Mother's Day. We had an excellent meal at a very nice restaurant on a lake. She left early Monday to fly to Florida to accompany her mother on her drive back North.

The good weather continued so we are right into planting. It has been very dry so I have set the seed drill to put the beans in a little deeper than usual to be sure of soil moisture. Our oats have appeared and everything looks fine. It is raining as I write this and it looks unsettled through Monday. We have lots of time to get the beans in so I am not worried. yet.

This afternoon, we have to deliver three cows to the western part of the state. It is about a two and a half hour ride. We have two of the three in the pen and the third is in the pasture. Hopefully, we will get them loaded with no difficulty.

One of our summer neighbors is in the process of having a well drilled. This is always a nervous time wondering whether you are going to hit water and if it will be of good quality. In our area there are lots of wells that produce salt water if you go too deep.

This should be a one or two day event but some well drillers tend to drag out the process by not regularly appearing. There was a locally famous incidence of this. Some years ago a man was building a new home and needed a well. He didn't want to start the house until he knew he would have water.

The driller would come and go and after several days there was little progress. The owner discovered that the driller liked to shoot clay pigeons. He went and bought a hand operated device that would throw out the clay targets. He told the driller that if he would keep drilling he would periodically throw some targets for him. The driller really liked the idea and so periodically the sound of drilling would stop and change to the sound of a shotgun. The well was drilled in short order.

The driller eventually decided to pan for gold in Alaska. For several years he would work here in the winter and pan in the summer. Needless to say his drilling business suffered. I never did hear whether he found any gold.

We have been moving right along on our Spring work. We have installed some new drainage tiles to take care of some wet spots and fixed old tiles. All our bean fields have been chisel plowed and disced. Our soybean seed arrived yesterday so we are about ready to plant.

On Tuesday, one of our lowlines at Verne's had a nice heifer calf. I bought the mother at Denver two years ago. Last year she had a bull so this is her first heifer. Both the dam and the sire have outstanding genetics so we have great hopes for the calf. She is our 13th calf of 2009 and I'm not superstitious but I thought it best to call her W14. Sort of the way it's rumoured that there is no 13th floor in high rise hotels.

It rained today so I had some time to go to the diner. It's been quite dry and we could use the rain. Planting is well underway and the rain won't bother the schedule.

One of the diner regulars also has beef cattle. He was telling about how someone had abandoned a cat at his barn. It is not uncommon to find a cat that someone has dropped off. Since there is no ready source of milk from beef cattle for the cat, he drove it a way down the road to a dairy farmer who has lots of cats. He left it with the farmer and was quite surprised to see the cat back at the beef farm within a day. We all kidded that he should have blindfolded the cat. Apparently there is an old belief that if you put butter on a cats paws it can't smell its way back and will stay put. He has decided to forego the butter and keep the cat.

One of the other regulars let on that his children had given both him and his wife a gift certificate for a couples massage. As you might imagine in small town America there are not that many folks in the diner who know much about massages.

They apparently both went to the suburbs for the massage but it doesn't sound like he will be asking for another gift certificate for next year. He didn't offer many details but it didn't sound all that relaxing.

Along those lines my acupuncture treatment is still working. You wonder if the doctor actually did something or there is a strong power of suggestion.

When I was discing yesterday, I was able to stop for a bit and walk across the street to the high school. Jim's school was there for a track meet. He has managed to qualify for the Sectional Championships in both high jump and 800 meter race. I wonder where he got those genes. Those on my side of the family have never been thought of as fleet of foot or springy.

We flew home on Monday from Florida.. We are fairly close to the Syracuse Airport but flew from Buffalo about two hours distant. The flights to Florida include a non stop back and a considerable savings per ticket. Mary is originally from Buffalo. Part of our Buffalo routine is to stop and a hot dog stand which is a Buffalo institution located near the airport

Everything was fine when we got back to the farm. It is amazing how quickly the first promises of Spring in April have become early May. The calf born while we were away is excellent.

Tuesday morning we were right back into the swing. We continued to chisel plow our fields. Our hay supply is dwindling nicely so we should just have the right amount to last until the animals are all on pasture.

It's been pretty quiet at the diner. It looks like the swimmers have changed into golfers. The barber is an excellent golfer and needless to say quite competitive.

The good weather continued throughout the week with only one rainy evening. Our oats and grass seeding are all in and packed. When you do a seeding, you always wonder how it's going to look. You worry about whether the grain drill was working correctly or if all the seed was dropping. You get to find out in about ten days to two weeks depending upon the weather.

A friend of mine has an annual consignment auction of farm machinery in conjunction with another friend the auctioneer. Farmers from miles around bring over their surplus goods. It can be anything from an antique tractor part to a chicken coop with lots of other good serviceable equipment thrown in. I sent over a good hay rake that we no longer need.

I stopped at the auction on Saturday for a bit. There was a big crowd and everything was selling well. I decided to bid on a feeder wagon and wound up taking it home. Our hay rake sold well so we just sort of swapped pieces. It's a great rural outing to go to this type of auction. Lots of auctions are because of illness, injury or death with resultant sadness. This one is just fun.

Sunday we went to church then the pancake breakfast at the American Legion. This is a monthly event that we rarely miss. Not only is there lots of camaraderie but also real maple syrup. Both of which are becoming harder to find in modern day America.

There are no days off this time of year as we've got to get the crops planted. When we went up to the barn, Jim looked out into the field and saw a calf nursing with the mother silhouetted against the hill side. It turned out to be a nice bull calf. We went out with the tractor loader to fetch the calf. Jim grabbed him and sat in the bucket with the calf. The mother and Peter the steer accompanied us back to the barn. We got mother and calf all settled in a pen.

I finished plowing and we all had had a late supper of hamburgers from one of our animals. It is nice to know that we have a good reliable supply of our own grass fed beef.Around ten we all went to the Syracuse airport to pick up Eileen who was returning home after finishing her sophomore year at college. It's good to have her home.

I had an early start this morning when I was called to assist at an ATV accident and resultant transport of the victim to the hospital by helicopter. I hope it all turns out okay.

When I got home, it was just daylight. Standing in the barnyard was another new mother and calf. I just picked up the calf and put it into a pen. The mother dutifully followed along with the seemingly ever present Peter the steer. He seems to provide an escort service for new calves sort of like a proud uncle or possibly god father. I got them settled in. I'll check the calf's sex and weigh it later this morning.

He turned out to be a bull and weighed fifty pounds. Today was extremely busy. We got a good sized field disced in preparation for planting soy beans. We went to the farm supply and picked up a hay wagon. One of their customers had switched to a self unloading hay wagon and traded in a bunch of good conventional wagons. We traded our old one for one of them.

When I got back, we started putting in drainage tile in one of our wet fields. This tile had to be installed by digging rather than pulling. A busy and productive day and week.

Tuesday was a day of contrasts. We had two cattle to deliver. When I went up to the barn, both of them had wandered in to the holding pen. All I had to do was shut the gate. It was a beautiful day but the forecast was for a cold front.

We loaded up and left after lunch. I t was 65 degrees which is really excellent for us in April. We plugged our destination into the GPS and took off. Over the years I have traveled over New York State extensively and feel comfortable free lancing. This time I should have followed a road map. We went on the some of the hilliest territory I've ever encountered. Along the way the weather changed from beautiful to 42 and rain.

We found the farm and the new owners awaiting us. The farmer is a young man who is putting cattle back on his grandfather's farm after a hiatus from dairy. It is a wonderful setting with a great pasture. When we let the cattle out, one looked at the other as if to say we really lucked out with these new owners.

After a tour of the old stanchion barn, which was full of vintage green tractors, we headed home by main roads. One of the best part of our cattle business is bringing the cattle to their new homes and seeing their facilities.

We resumed getting ready for planting on Wednesday. I went and picked up forage oats and grass seed to plant next week. The rain yesterday moistened the ground enough to keep us off the fields. We have chisel plowed this Spring for the first time. We try too till or minimum till as much as possible.

One group of our fields are quite silty and almost sandy. It doesn't hold its PH very well so we relimed. We also put in some additional drainage tile. We also have field that's about five acres where previous owners stripped and sold the top soil. We keep planting green manure crops to plow under. Last week we ran some extra baleage through the processor so we could plow it in this week.

Friday we got up early to drive to the Buffalo Airport for our trip to Florida for our new grandson's Baptism. It's an easy flight and we arrived on time. Mike picked us up and we went off to his house.

My right heel and lower leg have been bothering me for a few weeks. Mike knows a combination acupuncturist/chiropractor. Home, I never would have gone. Being In Florida with an unlimited variety of doctors dealing with unique ailments, I decided to give it a try.

We got right in and he asked me what ailed me. Then he had me lie down and he stuck five tiny pins in my foot and told me he'd be back. He came back in twenty minutes and took out the pins and gave my foot a big yank. It felt better almost immediately and is much better as I write this two days later. Amazing the doctor wasn't oriental but Irish.

Saturday afternoon, I got a text message from the friend who is watching our animals. We had calf number ten and she's a heifer.

The Baptism went well and the guest of honor was very well behaved. They had a nice gathering afterwards. Later, we borrowed Mike's car and toured around. Amazingly, the temperature at home was higher than the 83 in Florida.

My friend has a winter home about two hours east of Mike. He has had major foot problems with unremitting pain. He had an electric device implanted Friday which he says works well. We hope so and hope to see him home at the lake soon.

We've been quite busy over the last few weeks. We now have nine calves born this year. All are doing quite well. Last week we delivered four lowline cows and three calves to their new owner in the eastern part of the state. The fourth is not due to calve yet. They settled right in and got accustomed to their new surroundings.

Jim was home all last week for Easter. The weather was incredibly glorious all week right through Sunday night. We have got a lot of our preliminary plowing and fitting done already.

We picked up our steer and lamb from the butcher. We have had an initial meal of both and they are excellent. It is nice to be a localvore and have a freezer full of good meat.We went to the beef meeting last Friday and visited with our new friends. As usual, we came away with a good meal and lots of new knowledge.

Several of our summer neighbors have reappeared as well as the sparrows. We put up several blue bird houses on our fence posts but the swallows have moved in. We also have a fox den in the hedge near our equipment barn. There are a mother and two kits. They appear quite regularly. We have noticed that our rodent population around the barn is down.

All our calves are tagged and tattooed and named. We've been keeping the calves and mothers in the barn because it has been so muddy. Now that it has dried up, we are slowly moving them out to a holding pasture.

Tomorrow, we will be delivering two Belted Galloway bred cows to the western part of the state. It's supposed to be cooler which is good for transporting cattle.

It rained and stormed and blew hard all Saturday evening and night. We had another calf born in the pasture over night. It's pretty difficult to tell when beef cattle are ready to calve to get the cows in the barn. Their udders don't always swell up or bag until just before calving. So as a result, we had another trip carrying a calf followed by the always attentive mother and Peter the god father. This time Jim got the honors.

The whole entourage walked down into the barn and we got them settled. The calf is a really nice 57 pound heifer called LBF W06 for now.

The sun came out and Sunday was a really nice sunny but cool day. Monday was back to rain and cold.

Tuesday, we woke up to snow and icy roads. There were lots of minor accidents in the area. Chores are still pretty minimal as we have everything pretty much ready for Spring field work.

We had a really good lunch today. Over the last number of years, lots of Mennonites have moved into the area and bought up farms. They are terrific workers and have established several farm related businesses. One of them sells seed. Today they had an open house for farmers to pick up their orders. They provided a lunch that used to be called "hearty fare." Lots of good food and conversation.

Today also marked the end of kind of a milestone in my life. Back around 1980, my firm was a subcontractor on the building of the Buffalo Subway. Part of our work was to remediate a problem allegedly caused by another contractor. This being America those folks and the owner all sued each other. This has been going on since then. We had a false start last summer when I was called to be a witness. It was put off until this Spring.

When you are called to be a witness, you receive a legal summons to appear. These summons are typically brought by private firms called process servers or the Sheriff. Apparently our testimony was requested by two firms so we've had a process server and a Deputy Sheriff visit over the last few weeks. Most often a summons indicates that you have a problem such as you are being sued etc.. In our case, we were simply asked to be a witness. Both delivery folks indicated that people are usually much less enthusiastic than I was about receiving a summons. For whatever reason ours each included a check although I don't think $65 would get me to Buffalo and home.

This afternoon I got an email from Buffalo that after all these years the case was settled without a trial. I imagine the money spent over more than twenty five years of legal wrangling could probably paid for a subway car or two for the folks in Buffalo.

We've got some stock in a pasture across the road that have been sold and the owners are ready to receive. The problem is that the laneway leading to the pasture has become a complete quagmire. If it doesn't dry up soon, we'll have to put some gravel down so we can get our cattle trailer into position.

I have been a little remiss in my blogging lately. I'll try to get it up to date

Last Friday, Mary and I went over to the Beef Producers meeting in the next County. We have been going once a month or so all winter. The people are great, the pot luck dinners are fabulous and we get to find out lots of interesting things.

Last week, we discussed the results of the group cattle DNA testing. The results just arrived prior to the meeting so we had to look at them on the fly. We decided that maybe we should give the other firm a try next time.

Mary and I met a young man who was visiting. He had graduated from Iowa State four years ago. Since Jim will be attending there next year we were interested to get his perspective. He gave us some very good information and we are quite confident Jim has made an excellent choice.

We haven't had any new calves for a few days. The weather has lived up to Central New York standards. If you don't like what you have, wait a day. In the last week it has ranged from almost 70 and sunny to 35 and rainy with snow intermingled with high winds for the last day or so.

The cattle have noticed that everything has begun to green up and are clearly looking forward to some nice green pasture. We are not at the Norman Rockwell pastoral stage just yet. These are what are known locally as the mud days.

We have a number of cows and calves sold. We had the vet come Thursday to check them out. He also did pregnancy checks on several cows. It also interesting getting the cattle down into the barnyard on our schedule not theirs.

On that note we heard about some cattle rustling one town over. It seems that someone came at night and backed up a trailer and loaded two full size cattle. I'm not sure how they were able to get the cattle loaded quickly since I don't think ours would be very eager to go in the middle of the night. We have increased our vigilance. I can't recall the punishment for rustling in the cowboy movies but I hope its as stern or worse when they are caught.

The boys at the diner are likewise looking to Spring. The golf course still has not opened due to the weather. The barber is ready and he went off to a neighboring course which is favored by drier conditions for his inaugural round. They are still swimming and elicit lots of laughs when you move your fingers like a scissor to mimic the move that synchronized swimmers make when they pop up.

We have had a big white hotel in our town. About the biggest thing I can recall ever happening is that it got a one line mention in a book called Blue Highways in the early 80's. Also there was the time that the man from the Weather Channel stood outside the IGA next door to report on a blizzard. All these years it has just kind of been there as a local watering hole.

It has been closed for the last several months for refurbishing. Talk about your basic transformation. On St. Patrick's day, it reappeared as of all things an Irish pub and restaurant. This is a pretty big change. Mary and I went to dinner last Saturday. The place was crowded with locals and we had a great meal. Talk about a pent up demand. We all hope that they can continue to succeed.

It's getting about time for our next round of calves. We hope they can hold off a day or so until the weather improves. On the other end of the scale, we took a steer off to market Thursday. He was joined by half a hog today that we got from a beef customer. We should be all set for meat regardless of the state of the economy. We've got the freezer all set and we'll be getting our meat in about two weeks after it is aged by hanging.

I like a garden but haven't had one the last few years. This year, I've got a new spot in mind. We certainly have the manure to assure that it won't be under fertilized. This just seems like a year to increase your self sufficiency. We are getting lots of calls from folks inquiring about lowlines for just that reason.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It started with a call from my neighbor. She has been having a lot of trouble lately keeping her horses in the pasture so I thought they must be out. There is a back part of our main pasture that we can't see from the road but she can from her house. She was calling to say that one of our lowlines was off in the corner calving.

I met her and we walked out. By the time we got there the calf was on the ground. I picked up the calf to carry him to the barn. The mother didn't object much so my neighbor and I and the mother started off. Soon Peter the steer arrived to walk with us. It would have been quite a sight to anyone watching. We got the cow and calf settled in a pen and weighed the calf and confirmed it was a bull.

We had identified the cow the day before as getting ready to freshen but we didn't expect it for a few more days. We like them to calve in the barn. Its a lot better for the calf and much easier on all of us.

Our dirt road had firmed up enough so that I was able to run the scraper behind the tractor to fill in some holes. This is an ongoing project. It looks pretty good now and I hope it stays that way.

The humidity was quite low and we had a strong wind in the afternoon. That led to a good sized grass fire. Someone had decided not to heed the no burning warnings and burned their trash. When the fire department arrived, the fire was alongside their house and melted their vinyl siding. A minute or two longer, they would have lost their house. You can't be too careful in dry times.

We have another cow that is due Saturday. She is in the barn where we can watch her. We know the due date of the ones that were artificially inseminated within a day or so. The ones that ran with the bull are much more of an unknown. We can just estimate from the day the bull went in the pasture with the cows.

It is quite dreary today with light rain. This should stop the brush fires.

I have mentioned in the past about how a few of the diner regulars swim at the school pool. It was suggested this morning that they might be practicing synchronized swimming. If they are, you can be assured that it would be quite a fund raiser to watch their performance.

This spring the golf course has a new owner. The previous owners had it from its origination in the 1930s through last fall. Our barber has been the most faithful player over the years. He must have logged several thousand rounds. He is also an expert at finding other players lost golf balls. He rarely if ever loses his own. He is also one heck of a golfer.

We hope the new owners invite him to hit the first ball this spring. Kind of like when someone throws the first pitch of a baseball game. It would be a great opportunity also to get some publicity for the course which all hope does well.

The last few days have been brutally cold at night, We have several cows in maternity pens and we were really hoping that they didn't calve just yet. The cold doesn't bother the newborns as much as the possibility of their ears becoming frostbitten.

We forgot to mention that we had a nice lowline purebred heifer calf born on Friday the 13th.. I need to come up with a good name for her.

Saturday, we hads a nice family group drive over from west. They are taking over his grandparents farm and they bought two belties. They have three young children including a 7 month old girl who did nothing but laugh and smile.

We have now moved several of the young heifers out to a new pasture to allow room for the other cows to freshen. They seem to be enjoying stretching their legs. There is no grass yet so we feed hay in the pasture.

I checked the cows this morning first thing and went to the diner. All is amazingly quiet there. The boys even seem to have become numb to all the financial scandals whirling around.

When I got back to the barn, we had a nice 60 pound bull calf waiting for me. He seems quite spry. The mother is calm and let me weigh him. They don't always let you near the calf and you have to be careful. 900 pounds of momma cow in close quarters could be disastrous. Some people refer to Lowlines as miniature cattle. I think of them as a smaller version of full size cattle with all the typical cattle attributes and recommend that you always keep your gaurd up.

We let out a beltie and her three month old heifer calf into the pasture. The calf obviously hadn't been briefed by her mother about fences. She went through the electric about six times before she appeared to get the message. We hope she has a good memory.

The weather is starting to moderate but everything is amazingly dry for March. There are several brush fires in the County each day.

The snow geese are on the lake. I think the correct term is a raft of geese. Whatever it is called, it is amazing. I would estimate that the geese take up about three acres packed quite tightly. Every so often, the ones on the periphery take off and move into the center. I don't know who choreographs this but it's quite a show. My wife has explained a theory that chaos is well organized. I think the snow geese subscribe to that theory.

Today is the first day of Spring. We have had a busy week since the last time I had a chance to write.

On Friday the 13th, one of our Minnesota cows freshened and gave us a nice heifer calf. The entire process only took a half hour which was terrific. She is an excellent calf.

Saturday was another busy day getting chores done.

Sunday was a very busy day. We had sold two bred heifers to a friend's sons. The cattle were at Verne's so we all trooped over to load them. The cattle seemed to have formed an unbreakable bond with Verne's farm. To say they were reluctant to leave would be quite an understatement.

When we got them to their new home which is a brand new barn with very nice accommodations, they did their best to leave. We finally got them settled in. Now a few days later they are eating out of their new owner's hand and allowing him to comb them.

Tuesday was a long day. We have a cow in the maternity pen due to freshen. About 3PM she started to show signs of labor. I had great expectation that she would freshen quickly like the cow last week. Being Irish, I was looking forward to a St. Patrick's day calf and then going out with Mary for corned beef and cabbage. By 6, it was obvious there would be no calf or corned beef. The cow was still showing signs of early labor so Jim and I started to watch her every two hours all through the night.

By morning, nothing had happened so I called the vet. He came over and examined her and said that it was a false labor. We were relieved that the cow was fine but now we will have to keep watch for her real labor.

This past week had some amazing Spring like weather including a blue sky day at seventy degrees. A little rain on Wednesday didn't do much to dampen things. The ground is actually quite dry and firm particularly for this early in the season.

Thursday we got an email from the man in the eastern part of the state we visited last week. He wants to buy four animals. We are delighted and look forward to delivering them. Then a man in the western part of the state contacted us about coming Saturday to look at some cattle.

Friday morning was quite cold and the ground was frozen. Jim had a day off from school. After some early chores, he and I and a friend went to a farm auction. There was a good turnout and things seem to go high. We bid on a few items but didn't have to write any checks or bring anything home.

In the afternoon, we went over to Verne's to move two of the cattle going to the east back to our farm to get them ready to move.

So we had a busy week. The outlook for next week is mild and dry. We are all starting to get excited about spring work. We moved our grain drill out of the machinery shed to the shop to get her greased and ready for work.

Wednesday was a busy day. The rains had stopped and we had a bright day with lots of wind. The road started out as a quaky, muddy mess. With the sun and wind, it dried out and firmed up.

We moved our herd bull in with the yearling bulls the other afternoon. This should clear the way to let our yearling heifers out to join the herd. I am not quite ready to do it until I feel he and his colleagues won't try to break through the fence.

On the other hand, one of our bred heifers is showing signs she will freshen soon. We moved her into the maternity pen. They calve wherever they are but its a lot better for all concerned if they calve in a nice clean pen. This means that we will soon be busy with lots of freshenings.

One of the true signs of Spring has now appeared. I had to go to a meeting last evening and I saw a large flock of snow geese. We had never seen them until about fifteen years ago. We have always had Canada geese but never snow geese until then. I am not one to write down annual events like these and wish I did. I am sure that the first time we saw them was mid April not mid March. Must be global warning. Like other migratory birds they will now come through in a few waves and be gone until next year.

The ice is still on the lake but much reduced in thickness. it just looks weak.

The diner is still pretty quiet. Today they were pretty happy that Mr. Madoff would be getting a big sendoff. We live in a small town remote from the financial hubs. Yet, two of the diner regulars have received letters from their unions to expect reduced benefits from the actions of this man. It is amazing how far the tentacles of these crminals reach.

One of the guys is someone that you would ask to accompany you if you knew you were going to be marooned on a deserted island. He is having snow goose for lunch. He says that there are so many that the daily take allowance is high and they are tastier than the Canadian.

Another is the commander of the Legion for the county. He was off to the school to recruit students for Boys State. Jim went last year and it was wonderful.

We were supposed to move some cattle that a man had purchased Sunday afternoon. The rain Saturday evening had totaled about 1.15 inches and made his lane to the barn too soft to proceed. We'll have to wait for a frosty morning or the ground to dry up a bit which doesn't look soon. A lot of farming deals with windows of opportunity which are often short.

We have had mild weather this past week. This has put an end to any spreading until the ground firms up.

Chores continue to be routine. We have looked over our hay inventory and we are confident that we will have enough until we turn the animals out to pasture. Just thinking of pasturing cattle must be a sign of Spring.

As you can tell, its been quiet quiet on all fronts and really nothing of consequence to report.
Yesterday, I took a day trip over to Lake Champlain about four hours distant. A man had come from there to see about buying cattle some weeks ago. We had agreed to go look over his farm. He works for a man downstate who has just recently purchased the farm.

I am glad I went. It is a beautiful farm with very serviceable buildings and excellent land. The land slopes down through nice hay fields from spruce forests right to the lake. I would have no problem really enjoying farming this land. We agreed that the buildings are ready to receive cattle and we will wait to see how many they might wish to purchase. Standing there you can readily visualize the Native Americans and revolutionary war soldiers that used the lake as their highway gliding by.

It was a long day as I left at 6AM and then had to return to be at the County seat for a County Fire meeting. I didn't get home until almost midnight.

We have had lots of rain lately with another inch predicted overnight. Years ago, a friend told me that a good early spring rain is needed to dry things up. Since this seemed counter intuitive, I asked him what he meant. He told me that winter freezes the ground and heaves things up and loosens the surface. The rain packs everything down and sets the stage for runoff and thus drying up. I have watched this over the years since and I agree that it does dry things up. I hope all the rain we are having will qualify as an early spring rain.

As I am typing that my fire department communication system just indicated a gale warning for tomorrow.

I went to the Farm Show not only once but twice. Friday I got chores done early and met a friend at the diner. We went off to the show. It is always about the same but this year there didn't seem to be many folks interested in buying. There was an interesting presentation on ultra sound imaging of cattle. We will try to make arrangements to have ours tested.

I went back on Saturday with Jim. He met a young man who is a freshman at Iowa State. Jim has been admitted there to study Agricultural Engineering. This man is taking the same major and gave Jim some real good first hand insights and really encouraged him to go. We got back after lunch and checked the animals. We have several that should be freshening soon. So we now check more often to make sure every thing is okay.

Around four or so we had a power failure. Our generator kicked on automatically. It is very reassuring to hear it start and better to hear it shut off when the power comes back. I had to go out and check with my fire departments as initial reports were that it would be off until evening. Fortunately it came back in about an hour.

Sunday Mary and Jim and I went to the monthly American Legion Pancake breakfast. It's a good chance to see people and they have real maple syrup and good food.

We had a flurry of calls and emails about buying some cattle. We expect some people to come next Saturday. We ordered some semen to be able to AI our cows after they freshen.

As near as we can see the air boat still seems to be stuck on the other shore. We have had absolute bone chilling cold ever since Saturday night but no real snow. It's supposed to get warmer by the end of the week.

There is very little new from the diner. Everyone continues to be aggravated about the great government giveaway. They all tend to be people who have handled their own finances responsibly and are upset at having to accommodate those who haven't or won't. Particularly galling is the ever lasting bank and insurance bailout which is considered as welfare for the rich.
,

The diner was busy this morning. One of the ladies had pictures of her great-great-grandson. That is a noteworthy achievement. The vibrating phone was still a topic of interest.

Thursday was a brilliant blue sky harbinger of Spring type day. It was a pleasure to work without gloves. We still have manure to spread so we got started on it. At the end of the first load, the spreader plugged on a chunk of baleage. It took the rest of the afternoon to get it out. Spreaders can deal with some stuff like that but occasionally they plug.

The cattle luxuriated in the sun all day. Some of them will lay flat out and nap briefly.

The phone was ringing today with questions from potential cattle buyers. In the late afternoon a family from the western part of the state stopped on their way home from the Farm Show. They seemed to like the cattle.

Just before dark, I heard a noise on the lake and looked out. I thought it was a snowmobile but it turned out to be an air boat just like the ones you see in the Florida movies. Jim and I went over to the next town to pick up a prescription. While there we had a call from one of our all year neighbors. She had heard a big commotion on the opposite shore and went out to investigate.

Apparently the air boat had broken through the ice and couldn't get back on top of the ice. She was able to yell over to them and they said they were okay. She was rightfully concerned so she called me.

We came back from town and went down to her shore. The boat was roaring mightily but it was obvious it was stuck. We had to wait until it stopped roaring to yell out to the people. It would have been nice to have a bullhorn like the one the next lane uses for the Fourth of July lawn mower races. Jim suggested having them yell back their cell number. Where they were there are no houses or access to the shore for several thousand feet. The lake is probably a half mile wide there but you could hear because there are no other noises like road noise etc.

We got the cell number and called. They assured us that they were safe and just stuck with help on the way. They also indicated that they were in no immediate danger of dehydration since they had brought plenty of beverages with them.

We were glad everyone was okay and went back about our business. When we checked later we couldn't hear or see anything across the lake so we assume everything worked out. Clearly the summer folks miss an entire dimension of life on the lake. Last week the shovel thrower now this.

Tomorrow is my turn to go to the Farm Show.

We had had only two inches of snow or so for the entire month of February through Wednesday. It all changed on Thursday with a major lake effect storm. We received a good eighteen inches or so. I had to get out and plow three times in two days.

As usual, the cattle were oblivious to the whole thing. They just continue on with their daily wants of hay and water. I don't imagine a cow has much of an ability to look wistfully forward to the green grass months. We did our chores as usual and all was good.

It is interesting how the temperature can now be warmer than January but you feel colder. It must have something to do with anticipation or the height of the sun or some other phenomenon.

Saturday we went off to the dumpster at the Town Barn to get rid of our waste agricultural plastic bags. It was interesting to note that some outlying counties have a system to retrieve the material at the farm and bring it to a facility in our county 15 miles from here. Due to the normal Byzantine rules of bureaucracy, ours goes to the dump probably because we are too near to a recycling facility.

Sunday, we sold some cattle to the folks that have come by from time to time. They will be taking two heifers fairly soon. the other two are calves that will wait until they are weaned later this spring.

Nothing new on the shovel throwing incident. All appears calm and serene on that front. As the road's homeland security director during the winter, I am looking carefully for any strange vehicles or similar signs. I have seen none.

The diner crowd is biding their time waiting for Spring. This morning one of the regulars was fascinated to discover that his cell phone could be set to vibrate when called. This is the same fella that fell out of his canoe in his garage. It shows that technology hasn't quite overtaken our world just yet.

Jim and I are in need of a haircut. Hopefully we will soon be able to catch up with the only local businessman who stands behind his work.

Tuesday was a full day. The snow cover is mostly gone for now and the continued cold has frozen the ground solid. Manure piles on the other hand don't freeze very much. So we took out the spreader and spread lots of manure. It's great to get it done without leaving ruts.

We went over to Verne's in the afternoon. Between us, we have 6 young bulls over at his farm that are getting mature enough to need to be segregated from the heifers. So we weighed them and moved them over here. We also brought over a steer that we have been fattening. He'll stay here until we can get him scheduled. With all the talk about eating local, an important step in the process has slowly been fading away and that is the slaughterhouse. We need to go 75 miles one way to get a USDA facility.

We often speak of the idyllic rural tranquility of our road. Today was not tranquil. There was a big burst of activity around noon. Some criminal type with some type of issue with a former summer resident decided to come down and vandalize his house. He actually picked the wrong house. The house he chose was occupied by one of the all year residents taking a shower. The perpetrator wasn't familiar with our icy road and managed to drive off the road as he was leaving the scene. The sheriffs men arrived soon after and dealt with him hopefully severely.

He was driving a car like you would see on the Sopranos. One of our summer residents from New Jersey is here this week. I asked if they had brought a Jersey mobster with them. The car left on a tow truck so wherever he is from, he might have transportation issues.

This past week has been a quiet one. We had our visitor from eastern New York. He seemed to like our animals. His boss from New York called the next day. He had had good reports on our operation. In talking with him, I had the germ of a new business idea. There seems to be a bit of a need for a person to consult with folks setting up a farm for the first time. There clearly are people getting into farming who view it as an opportunity for a variety of reasons. They don't have the benefit of a farm background to get them started. Since I have built my farm from scratch, I have a good idea of what it takes.

The weather has been quite calm. Almost every day has been blue sky and high 20's. The cattle have been just hanging out.

We put an ad online in the oxen community for Peter our steer. We have gotten an amazing number of calls. We have also learned something very important about oxen. They are supposed to have horns. Peter's were removed before we got him.

Historically, the horns kept the yoke in place when pulling a cart downhill. In modern times, they are just part of the look. So for now all thoughts of Peter leading an idyllic life in New England with other oxen seem to be on hold.

Over the weekend, both Jim and I had a good case of the flu. It was no fun doing chores but they need to be done. We are both on the mend now so I'm hopeful that we have seen the end of it.

Last evening, the folks who have come over a few times from the next county called to say they want to buy some animals. His brother raises hogs so a sideline is that I ordered half a hog from him. They are coming Saturday to place their order. Another party from Western New York is coming the following Saturday. Prospects look favorable at the moment.

Thursday was about the most unlikely day ever to try out a manure spreader. As promised, the dealer was there with the factory man to show us all the important features. It's pretty hard to focus on the salient features of a spreader at 0 degrees even if the sun is out. We got a few loads into it and it performed quite well. The tractor hooked to the spreader has a full cab with a heater and radio and about anything else except a cup holder. The tractor we use to load the spreader has no cab. I loaded.

We agreed to keep it and parked it waiting for better weather. We are starting to prepare for this years calves. We pretty much know when to expect the ones from AI; one week minus nine months. The ones that the bull participated in are more of an unknown.

The road has become pure glare ice almost of ice skating quality. Our fleet can handle a lot but we have nothing for ice. About the best we can do is hope for a sunny day and drive up and down in the big tractor and hope it roughens it up enough for a little traction.

Jim was off on Friday to visit his sister at college in Nashville. He called from the airport to say that the plane was changed from going to Atlanta to Cincinnati. I reminded him that I was born there. We moved away when I was one so I don't have well defined memories.

Later, he called to say he was in Detroit instead of Cincy. He did eventually make it Nashville and only a few hours late.

Saturday the weather was better and a friend helped me spread manure. The spreader worked exceedingly well. After we were done, I wondered if we should have left a path for the snowmobilers. We were also able to set up another maternity pen in the coverall barn.

Jim made it back late Sunday and this time by way of Cincinnati. I think he had chili on top of spaghetti at the airport which is a big thing there. I did a lot of book work to get ready for tax season. It is surprising how much paperwork is required for even a small farm our size.

Monday was another good day. The check came from our calf that was auctioned in Denver. It's always nice to get a check.

It's now daylight until at least six. Today was mid 30's and sun. I moved a bunch of round bales out of the fields onto the gravel pad near the barn. They are talking a big thaw later this week and there is no need of rutting up the field.

The phone has continued to ring. I had a call from the Eastern part of the state about our Lowlines. Hopefully, those folks will be out Wednesday to look over our cattle. They are apparently interested in buying some animals to raise and eventually slaughter Kosher. I assured him that he wouldn't be disappointed if he drives out here.

Tonight is my monthly County Fire meeting. I am on a committee preparing a report on the utilization of our county fire departments. At the moment, I am frustrated by the quality of the data we have. Hopefully that will change tonight.

Jim had Monday off because of last weeks snow day. This appears confusing and it is. He is a senior and had an exam scheduled on the snow day. It was pushed back a day. The under class folks still had tests to take and that caused a holiday on Monday for seniors. Whatever the reason, it is always good when he is home. He really knows his way around the animals and equipment.

We moved some hay in the barn to make room to create some additional calving pens. We are expecting about 25 calves later this spring so it is time to start getting ready. I much prefer that they calve in the barn.

We stopped at our local farm supply /welding shop to have some pins made that hold our pen panels together. Then we dropped off our fencer at a friends to be checked out. He and his family have been on the same farm for over one hundred years. That is quite an accomplishment. He still has a dairy herd of mostly Jersey cows just like you'd see in a Norman Rockwell painting.

When we got home, we finished chores and mailed out the tail hair samples. The farm equipment dealer brought out a replacement manure spreader for us to try. Jim hooked it up and I put in a test load. It worked quite well but we decided to see what other options we might have. The dealer agreed to bring a different brand later in the week for us to try.

Tuesday, we got right into pen cleaning. It was a bright sunny day but quite cold. We took out seven loads of manure and spread it on soy bean fields. By the end of the afternoon quite cold had become very cold and we were glad to be done. As usual, the cattle didn't seem to mind.

A few weeks ago, a family had brought their three young sons down and were talking about buying some cattle. They called and asked to come down again. So while we spread, they all walked around and looked at the cattle. The man's brother is an Operating Engineer as I was until I retired. I was in for 27 years and he is just 8 years now so our paths hadn't crossed on the job. He raises hogs and we got into a discussion about them and learned quite a bit.

I talked more with his brother about cattle but they are not quite ready yet. I gave him a beltie steak to try.

Tuesday night was our monthly fire department meeting. Everything is going well so it was a short meeting.

Wednesday, I went up to the diner first thing. Mid winter doldrums there and no big topics to resolve. One of the guys is getting his new teeth fitted so that's about the biggest news there. It was the coldest morning so far this year, minus 3 at 7AM.

After chores, I called up a friend and asked him if he wanted to ride over to the next county to pick up some feed supplies. He said he was going to take a nap but my invitation sounded pretty good. So off we went to the feed mill. He has never met a person yet that he doesn't like to engage in conversation. So it took quite a while to get the feed. We were quite chilly by then and I told him about a winery just down the road from the mill.

They offer samples so we were able to warm up. Then he started chatting up the owner about all the ins and outs of wine. By the time we were on the way, we had each bought a few bottles to bring home. When I got back, Jim had just come home and we put out the minerals for the young stock.

On the way back, the hog owning brother from yesterday called to say he'd left some pork on the tractor seat for us to try. There was no danger of it thawing any time soon as it was about 5 degrees when we picked it up and brought it down to the house. We have managed to meet and speak with some exceptionally nice people since we started our farm. That's a real dividend as far as I am concerned.

In the evening, I had a lengthy chat with a woman from a couple of hours west. She has no cattle and is interested in getting some. I was able to put her in touch with a customer from last year who lives about a half hour from her. I also suggested that she come down here and I'd show her what we have to offer. A lot of people have been calling and emailing, I guess that's another sign of Spring.