We had sort of a typical mid winter week. Mary went off to Florida to visit her mother and the new grandchild. She reported both to be doing quite well. The young lad is reported to be a great sleeper already. This is certainly an admirable trait which will soon lead to the new parents being much more rested than they might have expected. Mary had the experience of walking bare foot on the beach in the morning and coming home the same day to great piles of snow.

The animals continue to be quite content. Other than looking after their food and water and bedding there is not much to do. We are now at the time when we start to do oil changes and such on the tractors and think spring can't really be that far away.

We had a pretty good snow storm on Wednesday. Jim got yet another snow day. This is his mid term exam week and that caused his English exam to be delayed a day. For some reason, it has also enabled him not to have school Friday or next Monday. There was quite a lot of plowing to do Thursday morning to get the roads passable again.

Thursday night, Jim and I went over to the neighboring county to the beef meeting. The group is trying to reach consensus on which vendor to select to DNA test our collective herd. Each meeting includes a great pot luck supper so it's also a great time to meet and visit with new friends. We stopped on the way over at a feed mill in that county. We don't have anything exactly like it in our county. We bought some lickable mineral supplements. These are made in the bottom half of 55 gallon barrels. The minerals are mixed into a hard molasses base which the cattle lick. We put them out Friday morning and it didn't take the cattle long to find them.

Friday afternoon the weather was pretty good so Jim and I decided to corral our and Verne's bulls and get a sample for the DNA test. As I might have mentioned previously, the sample requires catching the bull in our chute and yanking out some hairs from his tail. They have to be yanked because the important DNA information is in the hair follicle.They seem oblivious to the hair yank. It's important that the hair but as uncontaminated as possible. The hair follicle end first is put into what looks like a match book with sticky clear paper. The DNA lab uses this sample to predict a number of traits such as tenderness, marbling, grade and several other parameters. It's pretty hard to understand the science behind analyzing a tail hair but it seems to be a reliable indicator. We also weighed them and they all show steady gains.

It was a quiet week. The weather was typical upstate New York mid winter. We had our January thaw on Friday when it hit 41 degrees. The snow settled and slid off our roof. Basically everything got a little break and reconfigured for more winter. By Saturday morning we were back to cold and blowing.

We finished building a small insulated room in our pole barn. This will give us a small area to put away tools and hang up a hose. The cattle continue to shrug off the weather. We expect to have to feed them until May 15th which is the typical date for return to pasture. I've counted our baleage and dry hay inventory and we should be fine. Our new used manure spreader seems to have a few problems. The dealer will be picking it up in the morning for repair. They seem to be very good about standing behind their product; I mean figuratively because you do not want to stand literally behind a manure spreader.

Friday, my second oldest son called from Florida to tell us they he and his wife were proud parents of a fine new son; 10 pounds 6 ounces. I was 10 1 and Jim was 10 4 so we have a new family best. We soon had pictures and he looks great. Based upon our experience with Jim, people seem to be incredulous when they look at the new baby and find out he is a new born not several months old.

Saturday, I took one of my lake neighbors up to the diner. He used to live in a small town and he knows about small town diners. This is his first winter at the lake and all is going well. He got a propane fueled generator installed this week.One of the regulars has the same generator. He also has a well earned reputation for knowing how to squeeze a penny hard enough to make Lincoln cry. He told the new arrival how to remove a fuse that allows the generator to self test weekly and save 13 cents a week.

My wife's mother lives within a few miles of the new baby. Her mother had a same day operation last week and Mary is off to Florida in the morning to see her mother and the baby. Jim and I picked up some John Deere baby socks at the tractor store to send along. I'll bet he is the only baby in that area with JD socks. I'll look forward to getting a picture.

One of the swimmers will be away from the pool this week as he has some work scheduled with our good dentist. We are fortunate to have such a good dentist.

We had a fire in a small horse barn Saturday afternoon. Fortunately the horses were out doors at the time. It was about 10 degrees with a brilliant sunshine so it wasn't too bad to be outside. When I got back, one of our summer neighbors came out to check their camp. We had a nice visit. Their visit and the thaw and the longer day gives us our first hopes of Spring to come.

In the evening we went to one our friends for dinner. It is a pleasant evening when you can spend it with friends.

It has been relatively quiet. The weather has moderated a bit and it's nice to get a few extra minutes of day light at the end of the day. We were able to rework the fence wiring so that the lower wire will only be hot when we switch it on. It has raised the charge considerably in the other three wires.

Things are quiet at the diner. Everyone was kind of waiting for the inauguration to be over. The whole presidential election process seems to have been going on forever. Consensus was that it would be better to have a lot fewer inauguration galas and get to work on fixing the various problems facing the country. The rumoured $150 million to inaugurate a president in a democracy seems unconscionable.

We had our visitors from Massachusetts today. They seemed to like our operation and are trying to figure out how to integrate some lowlines or belties or maybe some of each with their dexters. We appreciate them taking the time to drive over to view our farm and animals.

The cold weather arrived on schedule. The animals appear not to have noticed. They are eating a bit more than usual but otherwise they seem oblivious. We seem to be at the end of the real cold part although it hasn't been really cold here. We have a recording thermometer and the lowest this week was minus 1. It just hasn't gotten much above ten. Tomorrow we are supposed to begin a week of 20's. I told our Minnesota cattle that they should be happy they moved to New York. The air temperature this week at their former home was minus thirty four. That is noticeably cold.

We had all the usual problems with the water that cold brings but no real problems. We found that our fencer was putting out an anemic shock and we replaced it while ours is repaired. We got all five yearling bulls back in their pen. Verne's likes to associate with the main herd so he worked his way through the fence. Tomorrow, we are going to rework the fence so the bottom wire is out of the circuit. We think we are losing some jolt where the snow covers the lower wire.

Thursday, I went to another DNA vendor seminar with the beef group to the west. The presentation was excellent. Jim couldn't go because he had a track meet. He did his personal best in the mile which is great. On my best day, I was never a runner.


We have had contacts from some folks from Massachusetts who are coming out next week to look at our animals. Hopefully, the weather will be good.

I went to the diner this morning. Apparently, the swimming went well for the boys. There was some mention that one wasn't a good floater. He thought that maybe they had slipped him weighted floaties. Those are those long plastic log type things that kids seem to enjoy. There was also lots of talk about canoes. One of the guys has a real fondness for canoes. He has to be the only we have ever heard about falling out while standing up in the canoe in his garage.

The lake is frozen. There are several folks ice fishing on the northern end. We never see any activity on our end. There has always been talk that our ice is treacherous due to springs.

We got the ice storm as promised. It didn't affect the trees or the wires but made a big, sloppy mess out of everything. We had to postpone the visit from the folks looking at the Lowlines. The weather then turned colder. We had to decide whether to plow all the mess off or leave it to freeze so we would have some traction when it snowed. We decided to leave it and it worked out well.

Thursday night, Jim and I went to the beef meeting over in the neighboring county. It was held in an equipment barn that had an unusual feature. Apparently the owner was a great supporter of 4H. They built a very nice meeting room right into the barn, complete with a kitchen and fireplace. It was a great venue for a farmer meeting.

The speaker dealt with DNA testing of cattle. In anticipation, we had sent in samples from two of ours and one of Verne's bulls. We were delighted to find out that they scored about as high as possible on feed efficiency and tenderness. There is another meeting this week from a different vendor on the same topic.

The hereford folks came on Friday with their three young boys. The boys were well behaved and obviously oriented towards the outdoor life. It seems like they might want to buy a few animals a little later this winter. We hope they do as I am sure they will be good caretakers for the animals. The wife fell in love with Peter the Brown Swiss. He has now grown to the size and shape and color of your basic bull moose. I just got my subscription to Rural Heritage magazine. It deals with oxen and draft horses. I am hoping to find someone who would like to put to work as an ox. I am sure he would be wonderful and enjoy it immensely.

Saturday morning, Jim and I took the plastic bale wrap waste to the Town dumpster. Apparently, there is no market for it to be recycled. Some counties have a mobile baler that they bring to the farm. We wish our county would. We know of some farmers who burn the plastic but that doesn't seem like a good idea.

In the afternoon, I drove Jim to an indoor track meet at a college about 75 miles east. His event wasn't until 3 so it worked out well. He won his heat which was even better.

Chores have been pretty routine. Both winter calves and their mothers are doing well. Now that it has been a steady cold, the whole herd seems to be enjoying the weather.

On Tuesday, we had a calf in the National lowline Sale in Denver. She did very well. We got her when we bought the Minnesota lowlines earlier in the fall. We decided to leave her in Minnesota and enter the sale. Her sister who is a year older but we don't own did extremely well. We have the mother here and she is bred to a great bull. So hopefully we'll have a fancy spring calf.

The weather man has been all worked up the last few days about Arctic weather. Yesterday was a decent day and a cold front came through with some snow in early evening. We have taken all precautions to give our animals extra bedding and access to the barns. They still seem to prefer to be out in the fields.

I made it to the diner this morning for the first time in a few days. Two of my buddies were just heading out the door to go swimming. One of them has had an artificial hip and then a knee this year. He swears by going to the pool at the high school. He has been working on my other friend to go and he finally agreed today. It will be interesting to get the report tomorrow. I think their is also an element of socializing involved here.

When we went to the Adirondacks to get the larch wood, we bough a used manure spreader. It came today and we got it put away. Zero days are not when you want to spread. We compost our manure but there comes a time when you have got to make room in the pile.

We have been having a little trouble with the yearling bulls going through the fence of their pen to join the herd. There are no open cows so there is no reason for them to do it. We checked the fencer and it seems a bit weak. I went over to the dealer and borrowed a new unit. It seems to be working somewhat but one of the five still went through. I'll probably have to fine tune the fence wiring so the bottom wire is not hot. A lot of it is covered by snow and I think it is grounding out the fence.

They are talking highs of around zero for the next few days so we'll see how it goes.

Monday was a calm day. The Lowlines who live in the woods pasture have taken very nicely to their new lean to. We blew in soy bean waste for bedding and they moved right in.

I went to the diner and visited with the regulars. One of the fellows belongs to a construction workers union. He said he had received a letter that a lot of their pension money had been lost since they had invested it with the man in New York City who had embezzled 5o billion dollars. Another fellow who is involved in trucking mentioned that he didn't feel that his union had likewise invested since the reputed embezzler was still alive.

The barber went over to use the pool at the gym. He claims it keeps him limber. That is a good thing because before long it will be golf season and he'll want to be right out there.

Tuesday was likewise an excellent blue sky day. We were able to move the new beltie and her calf from the maternity pen to an inside pen near the other cow calf pair. We were able to separate the cow and calf long enough to tag the calf and confirm she is a heifer.

We had an unexpected call in the afternoon from some folks in a neighboring county who have herefords. They are interested in downsizing their cattle and came to look at the lowlines. They seemed to like them and hope to return tomorrow with their children. The weather isn't promising as it looks like we might have an ice storm overnight and into tomorrow.

We had our monthly fire meeting tonight. Our new truck has been in service for a month and all is going well.

New Years Eve was very cold with snow and wind. We took care of our chores and pretty much had an easy day. Jim was invited to an overnight party with some friends he had met at Scouts. I decided to drive him since the weather was very poor. I made it back safely and had an early start on being well rested for 2009.

I picked him up New Year's morning and we stopped and bought some lumber. I was surprised to see that the big box stores were open. We didn't need quality lumber and it certainly wasn't. One of the 2 x 4 x 12 broke in half when we picked it up. The lumber was to finish up our new cow shelter.

Friday I got up early to meet my friend and his truck and go pick up some baleage I had purchased earlier this fall. I thought we had put up enough of our own hay but having the ten Minnesota cows as extras has put a dent into our supply. We have a calf from one of these cows in the National Lowline Show in Denver on January 13. The sale flier just came out and we have an email as a result. A man who grew up in our town saw the flier in Florida where he lives and raises Lowlines. I don't know him but was certainly clad to make a connection.

I was going to do back to get a second load but had to ask my friend to go by himself. When I got back with the first load, one of our belties had begun to freshen. This is her first calf and I wanted to watch her closely. After about two hours, she produced a fine beltie-lowline calf.

We think it's a heifer but we are not yet totally sure. Belties are famous for being over protective mothers. She and the calf are in a pen and she is sending out strong signals that she does not want visitors in the pen. We were able to get a fleeting glance when the calf was born and its looks like it might be a heifer. It is very difficult to get a birth weight on a beltie calf. We won't name the calf until we're sure of the sex. We think matters should calm down tomorrow and we'll move them to another pen and tag the calf. it will be LBF W01. W is the letter for 2009. This should be our last calf until April. Verne's bull is the father.

Saturday and Sunday we finished the cow shed and got it into position. This is about the time the Wise Men visited the Christ child in the stable. This shed bears an uncanny resemblance to a Christmas Creche. I don't expect to see any wise men on the farm but the cows have already found it to their liking.

The weather has been cold and clear. There is talk of ice later in the week.