Happy New Year from Lake Breeze Farms.

We have been very busy the last few weeks since our children came home from college. We have been to dinner, celebrated Christmas and Mary's and my 25th wedding anniversary.

When I was a kid, in the infancy of television, there was a show I believe called I Remember Mama. It was about a Norwegian family living in urban America. They always did a Christmas show reminiscing about life in the homeland. A big part of it was when the father went out to the barn to give his animals an extra treat for Christmas. This was long before I knew I had any agricultural genes. So every Christmas Eve, I too go to the barn and give the animals some extra feed and a few words of encouragement.

This year the cows gave me a little something back. In mid afternoon on Christmas day, Jim and I had gone somewhere with the truck. When we got back near the barnyard, we saw some of the Lowlines running rather exuberantly. It just didn't seem like a running sort of day. When we got to the barn, we saw why they were running. They had managed to open a gate and several were over on the other side of the farm visiting with some bulls across the fence while trying to put their heads through to eat the bulls hay. They were remarkably easy to catch and before long everyone was back where they belong. When you catch wayward cattle and put them back they almost seem relieved to have been caught. They are creatures of habit.

The weather until today has been quite mild with only nuisance amounts of snow. That changed today. As I write this it's 10 degrees with the wind blowing and close to a foot of lake effect snow. I have already plowed twice. The cattlee are doing fine and all the waterers are working.

Eileen is leaving Wednesday for France. Her flight is from, Detroit to Amsterdam then Marseilles. The Amsterdam leg is the Europe bound version of the flight that that lunatic tried to blow up on Christmas. Neither Eileen or us are concerned since we feel that that flight will be especially safe.

Jim and I had planned to drive her to Detroit to avoid problems with weather etc flying from Syracuse to Detroit. We got looking at a map and Denver is only 20 hours from Detroit. You might recall that I took some heifers to Minnesota in November to prepare for the Denver show and sale.

We have decided to go. Lots of people from Jim's college go to the show so we think it will be a good one. Ames is about 10 hours on the way back on the direct route from Denver home. So after we leave we'll head for Ames. Case-IH makes their combines in Grand Island, Nebraska which is also along the way. We have spoken to our local dealer and he has been kind enough to arrange a factory tour. We toured John Deere's Waterloo, Iowa factory a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed. The combiner factory should be quite interesting to Jim as he continues his studies in Agricultural Engineering.

It has been a busy year for driving. Lots of our friends have now gone off to Florida. I have told them driving from Detroit to Denver is about the same as driving from here to Florida. It's just not South. The diner is pretty much deserted. Our friend up the lake had a wonderful Christmas Eve when his liquor license arrived. We are going to dinner tonight to his place and we hope the heat is working.