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.
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