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.

Our trip to Denver was a great success. We had some extra time Tuesday morning so we took a side trip to Colorado Springs. We were able too see the Air Force Academy from a great vantage point along the highway. It has a great location spread out with the Rockies in the background. Colorado Springs is only about 45 minutes from Denver.

The National Lowline sale was on Tuesday afternoon and both of our heifers sold extremely well. In the evening, Jim and I attended the Lowline Association Annual Meeting. It was typical of most organization meetings. Election of officers and plans for a great future.

It was getting time for Jim to head back to school. We got an early start on Wednesday and headed for Grand Island, Nebraska. This is where Case-IH makes combines. Our local dealer had maned arrangements for us to tour the plant. Jim and I both agreed that it was an impressive plant with lots of hard working dedicated people.

After leaving the plant, we stopped for a Runza. This is a Nebraska and only Nebraska with one or two locations in adjacent Iowa fast food. It is basically like a large dough pouch filled with steamed beef and onions and a few secret spices. If you like a pirogi you like a Runza. otherwise it is definitely an acquired taste. Jim had a hamburger.

We then headed off on the last leg of Jim's trip to Ames and we got there around 9 after a very full day. Jim went off to his dorm and I headed to the hotel. I got up early Thursday and headed for home. Home turned out to be 1016 miles and 16 and a half hours away. I got in just after midnight. The trip in total was just under 4000 miles and my diesel truck averaged 18.4 mpg.



Friday, we had the vet coming for regular herd health checks. All is well except for a few cows that have had trouble getting pregnant. We took some blood samples to see if we could find a problem.

We had to leave Denver before the cattle show. The way it works is you sell the animal on Tuesday and show it on Wednesday. Even though it's no longer yours, you get bragging rights and any awards. My friend from Minnesota had agreed to show my two animals. So I called him to see how it went.

You might imagine that I was very pleased when he told me that our heifer, Mae, was Reserve Grand Champion for Lowline calves. The way this works is that the calves all compete against their peers in age. Then the winners of those groups compete again. The winner is Grand Champion and runner up is Reserve Grand Champion. Our other heifer did fairly well in her peer group but not well enough to move on.

Here is the picture of Mae getting her award:

I've gotten back into the rhythm here. It's been pretty easy weather wise since I got back. No storms and mostly milder days and not all that cold at night. It's pretty quiet at the diner. Several of our main contributors, conversation wise, are off to the not so sunny and mild South.

We are starting to get geared up for this year's calves. Our belted galloways were pasture bred so we don't have a precise way of knowing when they'll calve other than knowing when the bull was turned into their pasture. We don't expect any activity until March but it's a good time to get things ready.

Yesterday, Mary and I were part of a panel discussion at the NY Beef Producers Annual Meeting in Syracuse. Our group discussed how our Beef Group obtained a grant for DNA analysis of our herds and how we can use the information to better our herd.

Well, we made it to Denver. We got Eileen all situated in Detroit and headed off. She called the next day to say she was at home in the south of France. The airline had told her to expect to be delayed in France by a vigorous snowstorm. Sometimes you can't get away from the stuff.

Jim and I drove right into the snow. We have a diesel truck and were a little concerned about fuel gelling in the cold. So we decided to take the southern route to Denver. We dropped down to Dayton and headed west. The first night we made it to Highland, Illinois.

The weather became extremely cold but we got out of the snow as we crossed Kansas. We stayed in Manhattan the home of Kansas State, a Big 12 school like Iowa State. When we left the next morning it was negative 13.

As we continued across Kansas, the temperature gradually rose until it was just freezing as we got into Colorado. For the trivia fans, mile 381 on I70 in Colorado is at 5280 feet or one mile. It was an easy ride the rest of the way to Denver.

On Sunday, after church, we checked out the NWSS cattle show. It is certainly impressive. Our two cattle looked like a million bucks although I doubt they';ll bring that in the sale. The whole open area is like a giant beauty and barber shop for cattle. Everyone is blowing and clipping and trimming to show the cows to best advantage. Now we understand why our hometown barber reminisces about learning to cut hair with cattle clippers.

Then we drove up to Boulder about 45 minutes NW of Denver. We saw the University of Colorado. Jim says we are on a tour of Big 12 north division schools.,

Last night, there was a cattle sale in the hotel ballroom with about 20 animals. There was lots of plastic on the carpets and sharp eyed folks with manure scoops. The sale is somewhat controversial as it was put on by a splinter group of our Association. I think there will be lots of discussion about this sale at the Annual Meeting.

Monday, we did the grand tour. We are very impressed not only with the natural beauty of the area but the obvious prosperity. All without benefit of our Albany politicians.

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.

Things have calmed down a bit so I thought I'd write a little. Last Friday, I flew to Nashville and Eileen picked me up at the airport. She had just finished her fall semester and was heading home with the car. She won't be using the car next semester as she will be studying in Aix-en-Provence, France.

We drove to Dayton, Ohio where we met Jim. He likewise had finished his semester and caught a ten hour ride from Ames to Dayton with a friend. We picked him up and spent the night in Dayton.

Saturday was pretty much an all day ride home in dreary conditions. Thankfully, we missed the big blizzard which was occurring simultaneously just to our east. Everyone was glad to be home.

The cattle continue to be content. We had a bit of a problem today when one of our waterers froze. We got the bulls a temporary supply and we'll fix their system tomorrow.

Things have been a bit livelier at the diner as some of the regulars get in their last licks before they leaver for a warmer climate.

I've mentioned that one of the diner regulars had opened a restaurant just up the lake. He has had to close it since New York State doesn't seem to be able to get around and do the paperwork necessary for him to get a liquor license. You constantly see the smug politicians on television patting themselves on the back for creating jobs. Here is a man that actually created a bunch of jobs and now has to lay off these people because government can't do its job.

We also have a bit of a mystery. Last year I built a gravel road through our barnyard to connect the two fire lanes that are part of the farm. Kiddingly, we've called it Begley Boulevard. When we picked up our mail yesterday, there was a long skinny package. Amazingly, it contained two very official Begley Blvd. street signs ands mounting hardware. We put them up today and they certainly look very official. I have no idea who sent them but thanks whomever you may be.

Speaking of putting up, when the morning sun shines it blasts right through the diner window and hits some of the regulars right at eye level. Our complaints weren't taken too seriously so yesterday one of the regulars hung an old beach towel in the window. When I got there today, the diner owner had bought a venetian blind and the regulars were busy installing it. Of course, the sun didn't shine today. hopefully, it will shine soon so we can all luxuriate in the newly manufactured shade.

The streak has finally ended. Syracuse had enjoyed 287 consecutive days with less than one inch of snow falling at the Syracuse airport. That's 41 weeks or longer than the gestation period of a person or cow for that matter. This morning we had four inches of wet white stuff. Not really enough to plow but I put it on the tractor and took a test cruise. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow is high winds with gusts up to 60 mph. I left the plow on for the season and I'm sure to use it again.

Today also marked the first official day of UPS refusing to drive down our road. You can't blame the driver but the company no longer subscribes to the rain, sleet, hail etc. theory if in fact it ever has. FEDEX on the other hand just drives on down and delivers. We now have to be careful when ordering to request FEDEX.

The cattle continue to be nonchalant about the whole thing. We have lots of feed and that's all they care about.

The diner has perked up quite a bit with the various stories about the golfer in Florida. I have observed very little if any sympathy for him.

Mary and I will be going over to the Beef Group meeting Friday. There is still a lot to discuss and learn about DNA. We both also enjoy the camaraderie of our friends over there.

Both Eileen and Jim will be home for Christmas in a little over a week. Jim had a snow day at Iowa State today as the blizzard roared through. He said it was just like home to see all the snow. The difference is Iowa tends to be pretty flat in places without many trees. The winds can really do a job blowing the snow. Eileen is snug in Nashville remembering that she never did like snow.