As I write this, we are in the midst of an alleged big snow. So far we have had about four inches of a heavy , wet snow. They claim there are twelve more inches yet to come. We are at the time of year when daytime snow has little effect on the roads. They've been bare but wet all day. Apparently, the sun is out there somewhere adding enough light at its current angle to keep the snow off black pavement.

We have been very busy. We delivered the beltie bull. He impressed his new owner by breeding a cow within moments of walking off the trailer. I called a few days later and he had bred some other cows. Sounds like he will really fit in. His new cow friends could pass for twins of ours.

He got to see the first of his new offspring that were born last week before he headed off for his assignment. We had two heifers and a bull calf within two days. The bull is remarkable in that he is a smoke colored grey with a white belt. As soon as we get enough sunlight to take his picture, I'll put it on our website.

One of the heifers was having a hard time but is fine now. She refused to suck on the mother. The mother didn't reject her, in fact, she did all the motherly things but the calf just wouldn't suck. As a result she became dehydrated. We had the vet and she gave her an IV of dextrose which quickly fixed up the calf. We then started bottle feeding her milk replacer. First we gave her two bottles of colostrum to buttress her antibodies. The bottles are twice per day. She has now progressed to drinking or maybe I should say inhaling from a bucket. The milk disappears quite quickly.

The other two are fine and on their mother. We have three other belties ready to freshen. They are in the barn where we can keep an eye on them. The other cows and calves are just waiting for spring.

Mary has been off visiting her sister. Jim is getting ready for his Spring lacrosse. He has a game at Nebraska Friday, then games in Minnesota Saturday and Sunday. Eileen has returned to Aix-en-Provence from her semester holiday in Italy by bus along with five friends. They visited Florence, Rome and Venice among others. Their trip was delayed a day by heavy snow in the Alps. I guess global warming has taken a year off in Europe also,

I have been taking an on line class in Agronomy. I had my first test last week and the results were just posted. If you know the term a gentleman's C, you will know my grade. It has turned out to be much harder than I ever expected. It's a good thing I took Latin and Greek in school or it would have been a lot worse. The first lessons dealt with various plant parts and genus and species. The next section deals with soil and water. I have every expectation of doing better since that was the area in which I made my living. I also have high hopes that my lab score which was not yet posted will bump up my grade. The standards are quite high. The test was forwarded to our local library which proctored it and then mailed the test back to Iowa. It even featured the Number 2 pencil and putting your answer in a blacked out circle.

I went off to our Beef group meeting last Friday. It is still a very pleasant experience. Next month, we are going to deal with marketing.

I have been very busy in my fire department duties with meetings and a few weird fire calls. Progress is being made on a number of issues.

I also went to a meeting in our Town on Farmland Preservation. It's a little strange thinking about how the future might affect our right to farm.

I am in the midst of mid winter writers cramp. There isn't much going on so not much to write about.

I've updated the webpage to show our Denver award. We've gotten several calls as a result. We sold our Beltie bull yesterday. A farmer called from near Rochester. He has nine registered belties and was in need of a bull. Since we do AI, we really don't need a bull. Hopefully, by the end of the week Mc Leod will be in with his new herd.

It's quite amazing to see that Washington has had more snow this winter than Syracuse. We've only had nine inches so far this month. This in the snowiest major city in the US. We are also apparently the second cloudiest after Seattle and it doesn't look like we are in any danger of losing that distinction.

We are starting to get the cows sorted out so they can freshen in the barn pens. We hope to have twenty some calves.