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.