We had a busy week. On Tuesday, we went downstate to pick up two new belted galloway heifers. These are red with a white stripe. We plan on breeding them with red Lowline semen from a bull named Bluey. Hopefully, if the genetics work as expected, we will have red belted lowlines in a year or so.

Speaking of pregnant, the vet came Friday and confirmed that all of our Lowline brood cows are pregnant. We expect calves to start around April 1 and continue throughout the spring and summer. A lot of farms like to calve all at once. In our business, I think it is better to calve over several months to spread out the ages of the animals as they mature. We are still waiting for the last two beltie cows to calve.

Also, on Friday we tagged and tattooed the four beltie calves. The tattoo paste is green. Needless to say, no matter how you grab them, the calves wriggle and squirm. They wound up with pretty visible traces of green here and there. They are ready for St. Patrick's Day.

Jim,arrived on schedule and tonight we will pick up Mary at the airport. Yesterday and today are rainy, raw and windy. You may be familiar with the expression that it takes a good spring rain to dry things up. This seems counter intuitive., However, it really works. The force of the rain tends to tighten up the ground which has been loosened by freeezing. Once, it is tight and the sun and wind come, it will begin to dry up. The forecast for the coming week is sunny and dry with temperatures in the fifties. That would be ten or more degrees above average.

It doesn't seem possible but we are only five or six weeks from beginning field work.