It seems like the interval when I get to put a few observations down on paper gets longer. Actually, I am not putting anything on paper just a computer screen. It certainly isn't for lack of topics.

Saturday morning, Jim and I went to the slaughter house to pick up our beef. We are fussy about how we raise it and fussy about how we harvest it. The slaughter house is seventy five miles one way but he operation is inspected by the USDA and they flash freeze the meat and wrap it in vacuum sealed plastic. We use a bunch of coolers and bring it straight home. We will be trying something new this year. We are advertising word of mouth to the summer residents that we can be of assistance with their bar b ques. Grass fed beef is excellent for a cook out.

Last Thursday we finished planting a twenty nine acre soybean field on the next road down to the lake. It's kind of a loamy, silty soil and was dry and powdery. All that changed on Saturday afternoon when we had a rain of biblical proportions; over two and a quarter inches in less than twin hours. When the rain stopped, we went out to check our land and buildings and cattle. I had just turned two cows with their calves out into the pasture that morning. I was concerned about the calves. They were fine. We had water running through the barnyard like we've never seen before.

I went down to the bean field and knew we had trouble when I saw a fellow and his girl friend riding a half submerged ATV up the lane. Water was running off and through the fields up to a foot deep. The ATV folks told us the road was washed out. I knew there were summer residents on the far side of the washout. We own the land that the road runs on so we felt we better take some action to get it reopened. I called a friend and he brought a big dump truck load of bank run gravel. I dumped it into the abyss and got the road opened. There was nothing to do about the bean field at the moment so I went back to checking other fields. Everything else was a little ragged but otherwise okay.

After church on Sunday, I looked at the bean field. I remember learning in grammar school how the Nile River would flood and deposit silt over every thing. We now have a microcosm of the Nile River valley. As of today there are no signs of germination so we need to wait and see what happens. We can replant if necessary but that will destroy any hopes of a profit from that field.

Monday evening we had a calf out of the fence. She is sold and we have been waiting to wean her. I got her in the barn and locked her in a pen and went to get some supper. When I got back she somehow had gotten herself into a different pen. I decided this was a sign that it was time to wean her. When first separated the cow and calf bawl loud and long for each other. It is good they got this out of their system before all the summer residents arrived for Memorial Day. I would have had to do a lot of explaining about the self weaning calf.

We had another bull calf on Thursday. At seventy pounds he is the largest Lowline calf we've ever had. He is an excellent calf and is doing well. He is calf number fifteen of the year although we have only had fourteen calves. I'm not superstitious but skip number thirteen.

By Tuesday it had dried out enough to resume planting our other fields. As of writing this tonight all our beans and corn are planted. We'll still have to wait and see about the flooded field.

As Mary was driving down the lane Wednesday, a summer resident from the next road stopped her to tell her that there were three horses in one of our alfalfa fields. This can be a big problem. The alfalfa can cause the horses to founder if they eat two much. Fortunately one of the horses had a halter. We were able to walk up to it and grab the halter and walk to the neighbors barn. The other two followed nicely along. Our neighbor was away and very relieved that we were able to get them in when she returned. All in all getting the horses in had much fewer rodeo elements than gathering wandering cattle.

Now we are focusing on haying. We went this morning and picked up our bale wrapping supplies. We will probably be haying by this time next week if we have hay weather. The hay itself looks excellent both in quality and quantity.

We have gathered a huge pile of rocks from our fields. I am going to put a sign out advising that our Lake Breeze Farms organic rocks are free for the taking. We will transport them if necessary.

We had a nice email and phone conversation from a woman in Pennsylvania today. She is interested in starting a Lowline herd and had heard about us. We are looking forward to her visit.