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.