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.