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.