Lake Breeze Farms

2010-12-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe it's mid-December. Unless you look out the window. In the last week or so, we have had over 60 inches, that's five feet, of snow. Fortunately it was all lake effect. This is kind of our local phenomenon. When the wind blows from just the right angle over Lake Ontario, it picks up moisture and then drops it immediately as soon as it hits land. It is very light and fluffy. Snow storm snow has about one inch of precipitation per ten inches of snow. Lake effect about one inch per forty inches. As soon as the sun comes out, it settles considerably. You still have to shovel and plow it.

I've been a little late getting out this blog since I've been in my tractor plowing a lot. Like fourteen hours last week and about six so far this week. It's really only a great inconvenience but we can handle it. When it gets really bad the Weather Channel comes by and broadcasts from in front of the Cato Hardware. It has been a few years since they were here so maybe we're due.

We have the cattle all set int their winter groups. Now that they are on their winter feed, we are using 4 to 5 tons per week of baleage. We had a steer and the two pigs leave this week. They moved up further into the food chain.

Jim is on his way home by truck. He has a classmate who lives east of here and Jim is riding along. As I write this they are in Indiana just west of the Ohio line.They hope to be here by 2AM. The other fellow will spend the rest of the night here and continue on in the morning. Eileen is flying home Sunday afternoon. It will be nice to have everyone here.

I have been trying to figure out how to link Lake Breeze Farms to Facebook. I haven't had much luck. I think that will improve when the Facebook experts arrive home. Standby for further developments.

2010-11-28T17:38:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving is over. We had a great week with both Eileen and Jim home from school. As a real bonus, my daughter Maureen and her husband and two young sons came for a few days.

We are in the fall chores season. The cattle need to be fed and watered which is pretty easy. The pigs continue to grow. They are really quite large. They have their own porcine charm. I'd hate to fall into their pen but on the other hand they seem to like us. The goats are still quite amusing. One was in heat the other day and attracted the attention of a young Lowline bull . That was interesting.

Jim and I went on two major trips over the vacation. I picked him up at the airport at midnight on Wednesday the week before Thanksgiving. By 9 the following morning we were on the way to Indiana. We had purchased a combination corn and soybean planter. We took our fifth wheel trailer. It was a long but successful trip of 1218 miles. We were home Saturday afternoon around 4.

The following Tuesday we went with our friend Verne. He had purchased a 1953 Chevrolet pickup in Connecticut almost to Rhode Island. This trip also went well and we were home Wednesday morning at 1AM after 650 miles. That will be the last of our major outings for this year.

Eileen visited with old school friends and did a great deal of the preparation necessary for a successful Thanksgiving dinner. I had purchased a turkey from a neighboring farmer earlier this fall. I was surprised that it dressed at 23 pounds. You can really taste farm raised food. You don't need all the salt etc you put on non farm food. It just tastes healthy.

Mary and Jim entered a 5k race along with 2000 others on Thanksgiving Day. Jim ran with Mary as a pacer. Mary was delighted to be 2nd in her age group.

We broke in Maureen's boys on chores. They did very well for 4 and 7. They are sure quick learners and eager workers.

I took Jim to the airport Saturday morning for a 6AM flight and he was back in Iowa by 10AM. Eileen joined Maureen and her gang to see the Boston College- Syracuse football game. The whole group had their BC Eagles outfits and were pleased that BC won since Maureen is an alumna of Boston College.

We got Eileen to the airport for a 7:15 flight to Nashville and she was in her apartment before midnight.

So for myself and Mary, it's back to empty nest and her job and my farm chores. It won't last for long as Jim and Eileen will be back in three weeks. I can't wait.

2010-10-31T11:56:00.004-04:00

We finished harvesting our beans. This year we tried a new variety and were very satisfied. Our overall yield was 45 bushels per acre. This is a very good yield for New York.

We have purchased back some belted Galloway's that we sold a few years ago to a local Mennonite farmer. He called a few days ago and said that he and his family were undertaking a mission to Guatemala and he was selling his farm and cattle. I bought back cows that I had sold as calves who now had calves of their own. A good customer of mine who has bought belties previously bought the three original mother cows. They are related to some of the cattle he had already purchased from me. We all wish the Mennonite farmer and his family best wishes for success in Guatemala.

I am going to be busy the next week or so delivering cattle. Before I left, I sold our herd bull Remote Control and a purebred cow calf to a gentleman from Massachusetts. So I have to get my new/old belties and deliver the mother cows as well and then go to Massachusetts.

I also have to go to Northern New York to pick up some trees I ordered. I want to plant them along Begley Boulevard between the road and the fence. I'd like to recreate the old time lane way look with maples. I also got two horse chestnut trees for Mary. She had them in her yard as a child.

We had a full blood bull calf born on Jim's 19th birthday. We number our calves in birth sequence and this one was number 19. I saw an omen there and gave Jim the calf for his birthday. He named it Cyclone for the Iowa State Cyclones.

Mary and I have just returned from Florida. While I was away our last calf of 2010 was born, a bull. We had originally planned that Mary and her mother would drive to Florida and I would fly down and meet them. They had a little car trouble in West Virginia. The easiest solution was for me to drive Mary's car to West Virginia then drive Mary's mother's car to Florida while she and her mother drove in Mary's car. We had an uneventful trip. Mary's mother enjoyed both Mexican and Bar-B-Que along the way.

We had dinner in Florida with my sons Brian and Mike and their wives and three sons. It was very pleasant. It reminds you how fortunate grandparents are who have their grandchildren nearby.

The next day, we continued on for lunch with my college roommate and his wife. They normally live next to us during the summer but couldn't make it north this summer due to his health. I was glad to see he is in go0d spirits and still has his Irish sense of humor.

Since we were in the neighborhood, so to speak, and had Mary's car, we decided to go home via Nashville so we could see Eileen. She took us to a wonderful restaurant and we had a pleasant evening. We all met for breakfast the next morning, then Mary and I headed for home. We made it a leisurely drive and made it back late Friday afternoon.

Saturday afternoon, we went to a Baby Shower for a friend. The idea was to get both men and women to go. It was a first for me.The theme was country redneck so I got out my black Stetson hat and Carhartt vest and Mary her farm equipment dealer cap. We had a fun afternoon visiting with friends.

Earlier in the afternoon, I watched two of my heifers sold via liveauction.tv in Minnesota. I had originally taken them to a friend's farm there last fall with two others. We selected two to go on to Denver and these two stayed in Minnesota. He had a large scale auction and included my cattle. I am happy with the price. It is sort of amazing to sit at home next to the lake watching some of your cattle sold on the Internet. We have certainly come a long way in technology.

As I write this, I have just finished chores. The pigs seemed to have grown a lot in my absence and the goats continue to sit on top of the round bale feeder surrounded by munching cows providing amusement for the remaining few summer residents.

The weather forecast is for snow showers. Some contrast to the 90's in Florida just a few days ago,. In a last minute update just before I post this, it is now sleeting.

2010-10-17T12:26:00.002-04:00

Despite my best intentions to write more, its been a month since my last blog. We have been very busy but making lots of progress.

Half our soybeans have been harvested and shipped off to China. With any luck the rest will be done by Tuesday. We are near the Port of Oswego and we really deliver the beans to a ship bound for China.

We have had a few more fall calves and we have the last two cows waiting to freshen. Our new Belted Galloway bull has made himself at home with his herd. His name is Bucky.

The goats have decided that they are small cows. They travel with the Lowlines and try to imitate them.

Our forage radishes have had an almost unbelievable growth spurt. They look like one of those 1950's horror films like the Blob that Ate Brooklyn. I am talking about white radishes 3 inches in diameter and a foot long. They have an amazing amount of vegetation over a five acre field. Probably several million giant radishes..

We sold our grain drill and loaded it on a trailer for Canada yesterday. We have purchased a a combination soybean and corn planter in Indiana. Jim and I plan on driving out there over Thanksgiving to get it.

Mary and I are taking a short trip to Florida later this week. She is driving down with her mother and I am going to fly down and then we'll visit relatives and friends for a few days and fly back together.

Speaking of Mary, she did extraordinarily well in her first half marathon. 13.1 miles in a little over two hours is a Herculean feat by my standards.

Eileen is finishing up her senior year and contemplating what to do next year.

Jim is finding out about Iowa scale agriculture in his spare time. He is working on a farm that feeds 1000 steers and crops several thousand acres. His school work is going well and he is now getting into some really interesting courses.

Things are pretty quiet at the diner. There isn't much election interest. The consensus is that the present bunch will get voted out and replaced by a new bunch who will act just like the current bunch within two weeks of election.

One on my friends has been getting encouraging news about his health and we are all very hopeful.

2010-09-16T14:36:00.004-04:00

We're back. It was an extremely busy summer and something had to give and it was the blog. There are days when you wonder how you will get through all that needs to be done but it always seems to work out.

We are now in full fall mode. Jim and Eileen are both back at college. I drove out to Iowa with Jim and flew back. We spent a few days touring equipment dealers looking for a combined corn and soybean planter. Iowa agriculture is certainly on a grander scale than New York.

Mary has really gotten into running. She and Jim did the 15K Boilermaker in Utica for the second year. They are with a group that promotes beef in the race and have pretty nifty beef running shirts. Mary has been training hard for a half marathon. She's pretty amazing.

We are finished haying and glad to be done. Mary mentioned that she saw more of Jim and I during haying this year than usual. I told her it was because the balers were actually working this year and we weren't messing around fixing them. We now have a New Holland square baler and a Kuhn round baler and I'd recommend them to anyone who would listen.We took three full cuttings and could do a fourth if we wanted. I feel it's better to let the plant rest and get its reserves in place for the winter. The hay was excellent and we have all that we need for the winter. We started feeding some baleage to supplement the pastures on September 10.

We have planted forage radishes again on our conservation area. This is ground that we are trying to restore to fertility after a previous owner sold he top soil. I inter seeded them with winter rye and clover. We'll take the rye for straw in the spring and see if we can plant something then with economic value.

The soybeans have grown very well and are now losing their leaves and drying down for harvest. We are hoping for an excellent harvest but lots can go wrong between now and when they are in the truck heading for the bin.

The cattle are also doing well. We delivered two steers last week to one of good customers. We also have several other steers coming along so that we should be able to keep up with meat orders.

We have added two Boer goats to the farm. They are presently living in the barn until I am satisfied that they think this is where they live. Then they will head out on the pasture to follow the cattle eating the leftover plants.

I went last Sunday with our Beef group to tour the Genex facility in Ithaca. They showed us the entire process of semen collection and preparation for distribution. They now have the ability to distribute the semen by sex. It was an amazing contrast of the virile bull and high technology.

Things have been pretty quiet in town. No major issues to be decided in the diner. The barber is still standing behind his work. Two of my friends have been battling some serious health issues. Our hopes and prayers are with them.

2010-06-28T16:14:00.002-04:00

June 28th already. It has been a pretty soggy last few weeks. We are one of the very few that got our first cutting hay in and that's only because we have a bale wrapper. We now have lots of baleage for next winter but very little dry hay.

The cows are on pasture but even with the wet weather they are getting ahead of the pasture. I am going to build some more fence. I have a nice hayfield that I'm going to fence in. I will still take the first cutting off it and then let the cattle in for the rest of the year. That should stretch out my pasture time.We do strip grazing and that helps a lot.

We are now at the breeding time of year. We have just put a bull in with the belties and he seems to know why he's there. We will be putting a bull in with the lowlines soon. In the past we have just used artificial insemination. We are beginning to see our market change with a steady demand for grass fed animals rather than pedigree.

We are AI'ing our two red belties to a red lowline. I think that cross will make an excellent grassfed animal and a very attractive one at that.

Our soybeans have been sort of spindly and wimpy due to all the moisture. There is an old saying that a "wet year will scare you to death and a dry year will starve you to death." All in all I'll take wet.

It is almost time to begin second cutting hay and the forecast for the end of the week through early next week looks very promising.

Jim is away in Wisconsin this week at his company's headquarters. He is shadowing various engineers to get a feel for what they do. Eileen is with the BMW in St. Louis soon to head for Indianapolis. She always has good observations. Last night she texted that Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, was having a seminar at her hotel.

Things are pretty slow with the diner crowd. Unfortunately, others have targeted the diner. Last night they were burglarized. It is hard to believe that there are those sort of people right here in proximity. I hope they get caught soon.

My friend in Florida is still unable to get back here due to health issues. I wonder if we borrowed an RV if we could get him back.

2010-06-12T20:56:00.002-04:00

Well here it is June 12 already. It's been a long time since I last blogged on May 2. During that time we have finished planting our field crops and first cutting hay. Now I have time to sit down and write. It is never a good idea to plan on doing much other than farming in May and early June.

Planting and haying are long hours in the tractor days. This year we switched a hay field to soybeans. The field is up in the village and it was just too time consuming to hay it by the time we moved the mower and baler and hay wagons etc. both ways.

We barely finished planting before the previously outstandingly good weather deteriorated into some pretty bleak days. There were a few consecutive good days which enabled us to take off some square bale hay for our horse hay customers before Memorial Day. We loaded the last of our 2009 hay on a truck for Florida the same day we baled our first 2010. That was cutting it too close.

We were able to put up 275 wrapped round baleage bales. We call this one day hay. You can cut it in the morning, let it wilt for a while then wrap and bale it. Dry hay takes usually three consecutive sunny and dry days.

The cows have been on easy street with good pasture. We bought two bred beltie heifers this Spring and one calved. It was a huge bull calf weighing 85 pounds. We had to help the mother by pulling the calf. She's a good mother but the calf was a little dense at first. He managed to get out of the fence and we found him sleeping among the round bales. He has now caught on to the fence and is growing fast.

Both Jim and Eileen have interesting summer jobs. Jim is working as an intern for a French company Kuhn. They are the world's largest manufacturer of farm equipment that is pulled by a tractor. They make everything but the tractor. His job is about an hour away but he gets to travel various farm shows out of state. He also gets to work in the Parts Department, go out to help setup equipment on farms and otherwise do whatever might be asked.

Eileen has a very unique job. She is driving a brand new deluxe edition BMW car throughout the Midwest for two months. She is part of an eight person team that has five BMW's; two Mercedes and an Audi. They go to BMW dealers and give test drives and point out the sales features. Then they stay in a nice hotel and continue the cycle. She is just completing two weeks in the Chicago area. Then it's off to Minneapolis followed by Kansas City and beyond.

I have written before about some of our recent cattle delivery sagas. Today was quite a bit different. Last year, we delivered two Belted Galloway heifers to a farm in the Southern Tier. The farmer was setting up an operation to feature strictly heritage animals.

Earlier this Spring he called to get some additional stock. We agreed to sell him a mature dun cow with heifer calf and a bred black and white cow and Lucky the half Lowline, half beltie bull. Jim and I and my other traveling buddy took them down today. It was quite a pleasure to release the cattle into a well fenced pasture with everything cattle look for in a pasture: grass; shade and water and lots of room.

He has also added Dorper sheep and Tamroc pigs; all of which are heritage breeds. When we went last year, he was just getting into Buckeye chickens. These are also heritage and renowned for being the survivalists of the chicken world. We had lots of room in our empty trailer so two Buckeyes joined us.

When we got home, they walked off the trailer and started surveying their new home. They went into the barn and checked out our straw bales. When we did evening chores, one was out picking and the other roosting on the drawbar of a hay wagon. It will be interesting to see how they get on.

Our next project is to make more fenced pasture. I haven't had much of an opportunity to go to the diner lately so I don't have much to report there.

I have been waiting for my college roommate to return from Florida.He has had some health issues which have delayed his return. We hope he gets them behind him soon and can join us on Cross Lake.

We sold our jet ski this week. As noted above, our two main jet skiers are otherwise occupied. A man came to look it over and we agreed to let him take a test cruise on the lake. We became a bit concerned when he hadn't returned in almost an hour. We had gassed the jet up so we knew that wasn't the problem. When he returned he told us he just enjoyed our lake and got interested in watching a big bird. He was surprised when we told him that it was probably our resident eagle. He liked the unit and bought it and we liked that.

2010-05-02T20:18:00.004-04:00

It's hard to believe that today is May 2nd. The weather has continued dry. Yesterday and today were mid 80's which is rare for here this early.

We had a new lowline heifer calf this week. She has the same dam and sire as the one that won in Denver this year. We hope she has a great future.

We also have what appears to be the world's longest imminently freshening Belted Galloway. This cow was preg checked a month ago and the thought was soon. She's bagged up good and shows a big calf on her side. Talk about how a watched pot never boils. All this waiting hasn't hurt her appetite.

We have heard from the new owners of our last two cattle deliveries. They both report that the cattle are staying home and doing well. That is certainly good news.

I have started Spring tillage. I also bought a used chisel plow at an auction yesterday. It will double our speed in plowing. The auctioneer and the auction host are good friends of mine. They have had a spring equipment auction for five or six years. It's a great opportunity to visit with friends and see all kinds of farm equipment bought and sold. It is definitely part of Norman Rockwell's America. Nothing plastic or artificial here.

Mary got back safely from France and Spain and had a wonderful trip. She walked 102 miles in 7 days along the Camino del Santiago pilgrim's path. That's like walking from here to Binghamton in a week. Then she visited with Eileen in Aix en Provence for a few days and enjoyed the south of France.

Eileen flew off to Dublin for the weekend on Ryanair. As I have mentioned before, Europe is pretty small by jet plane. She toured Jameson's Irish whisky distillery which should have made a memorable 21st birthday. I went to Wanda's bar down the hill from college on foot when I was 18 which was the legal age then.

Jim has his exams this week and we'll meet up next Saturday in Omaha and head home.

I finally have the upper hand on my cold. I truly didn't think I was ever going to shake it. A lot of folks around town have had similar symptoms. None of us can remember such a severe or long lasting Spring cold.

Things are pretty quiet around town. We haven't had a chance to dissect the oil spill at the diner. It sounds like the government is working hard to solve this problem. I hope they know more about oil wells than most other problems that they tackle. The fire department has been quite busy. We were saddened today to hear of the death of a former across the street farm neighbor.

Today was pancake breakfast Sunday at the American Legion. They have really good food and real, not chemical, maple syrup. They have already attracted their first election candidate for the year. A woman running for national office stopped by. As I said, the food is really good which must be why these politicians come by. It can't be to meet the locals since they scrupulously avoid any contact of that type.

The closest we ever got to conversation with these folks was a few years ago. A fellow running for State Assembly sat next to us. All we ever got out of him was " pass the syrup" not even please pass the syrup. We notice he has gotten elected and gone on to greater thongs in Albany where he joined with the rest of his colleagues in being unable to agree on a budget.

It is really hard to understand how all these candidates are going to be champions of the people when they don't even talk to the people. It must just be that their handlers tell them there is good food at the Legion and show up but do not under any circumstances talk to the locals..

2010-04-25T09:21:00.002-04:00

Time really flies. Here it is the 25th of April already. As usual, we've been busy and time has just slipped by.

The weather continues to be way ahead of schedule. It is quite dry and cool . We could be planting but I think the soil is still too cold.

We have delivered a few animals the last few weekends. I now have decided that I am not going to unload animals into people's pastures or any place other than a secure barn. We have had two opportunity to chase animals that went through unsecured areas at their new homes. Fortunately, in both cases we were able to get them back and caught for the new owners.

No new calves lately but we have two cows that we expect to freshen shortly. We are still feeding hay while we wait for the pastures to grow out. The dryness and cool temperatures are not making grass grow rapidly. Still, we are two or three weeks ahead of when we would normally return to pasture.

Mary left for France and Spain just before the volcano. While waiting to meet up with Eileen, she walked 102 miles across Spain. Eileen was in Morocco with her school group. Mary and Eileen met up yesterday and will have a chance to relax together for the next several days. Mary is due home Thursday, volcano willing.

Jim is off for his last two lacrosse games. He'll be headed home on May 8th. He has a summer internship with a French manufacturer of farming equipment. They are a several hundred year old company and the largest manufacturer of plowing and hay making equipment. They have their US distribution center about an hour east of us and that's where Jim will be working. His duties will include working in the warehouse, dealing with customers and going to outdoor farm equipment shows and setting up the displays. It all fits in perfectly with his Agricultural Engineering major.

The French connection is interesting. Mary and Eileen are both able to converse easily in French. The highlight of Jim's French to date is when he said excusez-moi to the waiter when he sneezed in a Paris restaurant at age 10.

I have had a bad Spring cold for the last several weeks. It is finally going away. I have stayed away from the diner so I don't have a report on news from the four corners. I did make it to Bull and Heifer Auction. I am also glad to report that I have finished my on-line Agronomy course. It was challenging to say the least. Now comes the wait to see what grade I got.

2010-04-08T20:31:00.002-04:00

Our early Spring continues. Today was another record breaking day. A storm is brewing and the temperature dropped almost 30 degrees in an hour earlier this evening. The forecast for Saturday morning is cold with possible snow flurries.

We have had a busy week with the Lowlines. We've had three calves; two heifers and a bull. All were delivered without any assistance and are excellent calves. We are preparing to send some of our bulls to sales. This requires giving them a hair cut and getting them all spiffed up as much as possible.

We are continuing to move our equipment out of storage and get it prepared for planting. We sold a load of hay last weekend and this has freed up some space in the barn.

Things are pretty quiet at the diner. No earthshaking developments now that health care and basketball have been decided.

I have a bull calf to deliver out to the western part of the state. A farmer out there has a Beltie herd and wants to develop a new herd sire. Our calf has excellent genetics and is unrelated to his herd so that makes him a good fit.

Mary is getting ready to go off nexr=t week to visit Eileen. It should be a great trip. Jim is getting close to the end of the school year and will be home in less than a month. Time really flies. As you farm, you certainly realize that the whole year is a series of cycles; all of which revolve around the weather and people.

2010-03-31T22:35:00.003-04:00

Monday night was a long night. One of the belties went into labor around supper time. Since she is an older cow we expected no difficulties. When she hadn't yet calved later in the evening, we thought it was time to intervene. After getting her where she couldn't move around, we did a pelvic exam and found she had a small upside down calf. We pulled the calf and it clearly had been dead for several days. Because it was quite small, we were concerned that there might be another. We probed as far as we could reach and found nothing else. She is a large cow and apparently we couldn't reach far enough. I went to check her later and she had delivered another dead calf. They were both bull calves and lacked any of the typical beltie hair that is present at birth. We believe that they had been deceased for quite some time before she aborted.

Everything else went well and we left for our visit with Jim on Thursday. We drove his new to him Dodge diesel. Due to some airline fare quirk, we found it would be $300 cheaper to fly back to Erie, Pennsylvania rather than Syracuse. Erie is about 4 hours along the way to Iowa. Mary found a hotel near the airport that had shuttle bus service. We stayed at the hotel and saved the parking which was considerable.

You can imagine our surprise when we pulled into the hotel and saw that the eating/ drinking establishment next door shared its name with my college roommate and lakeside neighbor. We went over and watched some NCAA basketball and got some photos for him.

We made it to Iowa in time to take Jim out for dinner. On both Saturday and Sunday, we watched him in his lacrosse games. Somewhere along the line, I came down with what must be strep throat or something similar. I am just getting over it now and Mary and Jim have it as well. Apparently lots of folks around home have it. I'm glad to be getting rid of it. Every time I go to Iowa, I am impressed with how industrious the college students are. It would take a lot to convince me that their farm background hasn't been a real positive force in their lives.

With Spring, we have had lots of people calling inquiring about cattle. We are lining up farm visits for prospective cattle buyers. I firmly believe that if you are interested in our cattle that it is well worth your while to drove here and see our animals. I don't want to sell animals to anonymous buyers. I feel that it is important to know that the buyers can care for the cattle.

It has been damp and 40ish since we returned. Starting tomorrow, it is supposed to be in the 70's and sunny though the weekend. I checked my peas today and saw nothing. Maybe the upcoming warm weather will get them out of the ground. I am also about ready to plant some onion sets.

I have also arranged to buy two feeder pigs. We have an ideal location to raise them and it will be interesting. I'll bring them home in a few weeks when we can depend on the weather.

It is also time to start preparing our planting and tillage equipment. It won't be long before we are out on the land. The cattle have access to a small winter pasture and they already are finding some new grazing. This is the beginning of our busy season. We also expect several of the lowlines to begin calving. We hope for eighteen more calves this year.

As part of her semester in France and tour of contiguous Europe, Eileen is off to Sardinia for Easter. It is amazing how places you can fly cheaply to around Europe on Ryanair which is an Irish absolutely no frills airline.

I spoke to her today and mentioned that I had read about an underwater volcano between Sardinia and Italy, Mount Marsili. It is apparently poised to have an underwater Mount St. Helen's type eruption. This could lead to a massive tsunami in that area. I recommended that she be alert. Sometimes, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hopefully the volcano will remain dormant and she'll have a great weekend.

2010-03-20T21:17:00.002-04:00

We picked up Mary at the airport early Monday morning. She had a great ski trip to Utah. The combination of a two hour time change going east in conjunction with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time gave her some jet lag.

We have had an amazing weather week. Every day has been blue sky and warm always at least mid fifties and a couple approaching seventy. With Jim's help, we got a real head start on spring work. We were able to clear a hedgerow between two pastures giving us a great spot for the cattle to get shade. All we did was clear the low brush leaving the trees etc. We also found an old abandoned barbed wire fence. Obviously our pasture was pasture once before. It is important not to have an old fence where the cattle are since they could easily get tangled or cut.

No new calves this week. The ones we have are doing very well. The red belties have been moved in with some black belties. They certainly are eye catchers.

We planted some garden peas today. I had always heard that it will bring good luck to plant them on St. Patrick's Day. I thought it was a little wet then but the conditions appeared perfect today. I have a friend who planted some on St. Patrick's Day a few years ago. He says that they really did bring him luck. They didn't come up and he thought that it was lucky since he doesn't like peas.

Things are pretty quiet at the diner. The big topic at the moment is the NCAA basketball. The marina restaurant has made it through their first winter and it looks like they will have a busy spring.

The ice went bout on the lake this week. The paper says that we had the driest winter ever. So I guess that explains how a few warm days did in the mud season at least for the moment.

Tonight, Mary and I went to a neighboring Fire Department Awards Banquet. It is always a pleasure to share this dinners and recognize the good works of our neighbors.

Jim goes back to school tomorrow by plane. When he was about eight years old, he always spoke about getting a Dodge, diesel engine , extended cab pick up. This week he got one. A 2001 just exactly like he always wanted. Mary and I are going to drive it to Iowa at the end of this week. He has three lacrosse home games next weekend that we look forward to watching. Then we will fly home. He'll have the truck at school for a month or so and then he'll be home.

He is very excited to have made it into the second round of interviews for a internship this summer with a major farm equipment manufacturer. They have sent him technical questions such as what would you do if this part failed etc. He has to get them the answers and they use them in their final evaluation.

Eileen is continuing to do well in France when she is in France. She has also been to Spain and Italy. She will also get to Tunisia, Ireland and Greece before returning home. In my junior year of college, I did get to see an away basketball game in Canton, New York.

2010-03-14T11:10:00.002-04:00

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.

2010-03-07T09:35:00.002-05:00

We did have a reasonably "big snow." About eighteen inches total of a very heavy wet snow. I spent the better part of a day opening up the road and areas around the barn. It's a good thing that I started while it was still falling because I wouldn't have been able to move it all in one push. Even six inches at a time was plenty for the tractor.

The calf that wouldn't suck must have decided that she really would prefer mother's milk to calf replacer. One evening when I went to do chores so was there sucking away and hasn't stopped since.

We had another beltie calf late yesterday afternoon. The mother wasn't disposed to let us get close enough to determine the sex. The calf immediately bonded and was nursing normally.

I was up very early this morning to take Mary to the airport. She is going skiing along with some other friends from our area. Jim will be home late Friday night for a week. Eileen is still in France. Both hope to hear soon about summer internships.

The last few days have been ideal for maple syrup production. Clear blue skies with nights below freezing and days around 40.

2010-02-25T17:36:00.002-05:00

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.

2010-02-14T19:31:00.002-05:00

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.

2010-01-24T11:32:00.003-05:00

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.

2010-01-11T18:04:00.003-05:00

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.

2010-01-02T16:41:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-12-23T17:17:00.003-05:00

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.

2009-12-09T20:18:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-11-26T15:38:00.003-05:00

We hope everyone has had a pleasant and gratifying Thanksgiving. Our weather at the farm was remarkable. We can never recall such November weather. It's like October and November changed places this year.They said on the TV that it has been almost nine months since our last observable snow. It doesn't seem possible but they claim it is. When I first came to Syracuse in 1960, the natives talked about eleven months of winter with August being poor sledding. It must be global warming. I can remember snowmobiling being a part of several Thanksgivings.

Both Eileen and Jim are home from college. They have a lot of catching up to do with their friends. Jim has also had a chance to reacquaint himself with heifer feeding and fence building.

All our field crops are in and delivered. The soybeans were excellent on two fields and about average on the field that flooded. The corn was somewhat above average. However, we took a big deduction for high moisture. The optimum is 15% and we were 25%. They deduct for the cost of drying the grain. All in all, I'd rather pay the moisture penalty and have the crop harvested.

We have a steer calf and heifer calf ready to be delivered tomorrow. The new owner is a young lady two towns over. She borrowed a cow calf pair last summer to see how she might like to add cattle to her farm. She already has sheep and cattle are the next step. She plans on showing the cattle next summer.

Our cattle are doing well and just loafing around as they await winter. We believe that all the cows are pregnant. Some of them will be calving into the summer which is a little later than usual. The belties are over in their own area with Mc Leod their bull. They have a particularly nonchalant view towards the weather.

We have entered two of the four Lowline heifers we took to Minnesota in the Denver show. The other two will be sold by private treaty in Minnesota..

The diner remains calm and unremarkable. The politicians don't do much this time of year or actually much anytime. The level of diner indignation is a function of the politicians activity.

2009-11-12T20:21:00.003-05:00

Our trip to Minnesota and the Midwest went well. We loaded the cattle on Sunday the 31st and had them at their new home the next morning. It was an uneventful trip but not one that I'd like to do every week or even month. 1200 miles is a long way even with two drivers.

The heifers were completely unfazed and walked off the trailer like they had just moved to another pasture. We looked over the cattle with their new caretaker and discussed the pros and cons of preparing them for to the Denver cattle show in January. After lunch and visiting for a while, we headed for the nearest motel. We were in the room by 3PM and sound asleep by 3:05.

We got up around 7 and went out to explore. Next to the motel was a giant Farm and Family store which is a Midwestern version of a Tractor Supply, Lowes, Walmart and probably some others all in one place. Apparently it is a family business and the family split up. So in some states, one side has Farm and Family and in other states the other side has Family and Farm.

The next morning we went off to visit my neighbor's son. He works on a crop farm about forty five minutes from where we dropped the cattle. They grow sugar beets, soybeans for seed and corn. His son was working so we went off to explore.

The son gave us directions to watch sugar beets be stockpiled. There were two piles of beets about the length of a football field and growing and tapered to fifty or sixty feet high. Trucks come in and get weighed and dump onto a moving conveyor which puts the beets on the pile. During the winter they reverse the process and move the beets about thirty miles to a processing plant in North Dakota. Sugar beets are about the size of a large turnip and weigh five or six pounds but look like a very large white beet.

Since we had time, we decided to drive to North Dakota. The neighbor is an ardent duck hunter and he wanted to see if there were any ducks. We didn't see any but did see a sign for a zoo. I offered to drive by but he said it wouldn't be necessary.

We headed back to town for lunch with his son. We noticed how every small town lists its population on their name sign. Invariably each small town looked neat and clean and prosperous.

After lunch, we had more time so we went duck touring to nearby South Dakota. We did see a bunch of ducks on a small pond thus giving hope for the upcoming season.

When we got back, we went to the neighbor's sons farm for dinner and the night. The son's wife is a school teacher and FFA adviser in the local school which expects to graduate six this year. Despite its small size, all amenities are offered.

After a good meal and good conversation and good sleep, we were ready to hit the road the next morning. One of my friends had emailed us directions to Lake Woebegone which was quite near. We wanted to get headed to Iowa State to visit Jim so we moved on.

After a six hour ride past unending corn and soybean fields, we arrived in Ames. Jim and the two classmates who had him visit their homes were ready for dinner. We were impressed at how knowledgeable each boy was and how well they represented their families and upbringing. There is still lots good to come from having a farm background.

We hooked up the trailer the next morning after breakfast with Jim and headed home. We spent the night in Ohio and were home Friday afternoon. After a fifteen minute rest and quick shower, Mary and I were off to our monthly beef group meeting. The intern from our host had to give her presentation. Her professor and thirty fellow students were present.

She did an excellent job. Likewise all the students were good representatives of their institution. I was tired so we went home early. When I woke up Saturday, I had a terrific head cold. Undoubtedly courtesy of almost 3000 road miles and several nights in a hotel with uncontrollable heating fans blowing on me.

I rallied in the afternoon when my combine friend showed up to do my remaining beans. We got around the one field Saturday and the other one Sunday. Yield on the first field was excellent and slightly better than last year which I attribute to the foliar feeding we did last summer. The Sunday field is the one we had to replant. I was pleasantly surprised that we were just under the county average.

I was able to round bale up some soybean stalks for bedding. Since the field was wet I had to leave a lot and kind of pick around the field. We washed up the round baler and mower and took them off to my neighbors barn to join the square baler for the winter.

The cattle have now begun to eat baleage which is a feed they relish. They have grown out their winter coat and are pretty much at ease with themselves and the world. The belties especially seem to be enjoying the cooler weather.

When we went on the trip, I was a little worried about having a flat with the cattle in the trailer but as noted the trip was uneventful. Monday night the electronic tire indicator in my truck went off and indicated low pressure in a rear tire. I checked it and it looked fine. Tuesday morning, I checked it with a gauge and it was down. I added air and by night it was going down slowly. The same thing happenned Wednesday. Thursday morning I decided to have it checked. I've owned lots of tires but I have never had one fail by becoming porous. The tire man put a soap solution on the tread and you could see bubbles forming all around the perimeter kind of like when you squeeze a soapy sponge as air oozed through the tread. The tires were getting close to their useful life so I wound up with a new set. There is a new charge of five dollars per tire for disposal. I wonder who gets the money and how the tired is actually disposed of.

We are also in the fourth day of excellent dry fall weather. All the leaves are down around home and chopped up and blown away. The weatherman says we will will have some showers by Saturday courtesy of the left over hurricane that has been inundating the middle Atlantic states all week.

My neighbor's son had called to report they had begun to combine corn since we left. The first field was two hundred seventy bushels. We are really happy to get one hundred fifty. They call the Midwest the Corn Belt for a reason.

2009-10-31T18:57:00.002-04:00

The weather has continued to be wet and dreary. Not harvesting weather. We got the soybean yield results from our first field and were pleased. It's about fifty percent higher than the county average. The problem is that beans are worthless in the field and it's too wet to get them. We are getting anxious about those remaining to be combined.

The corn moisture is still very high so there will be no thought of combining it for a while. With the low prices available for corn, the cost of artificially drying it is unaffordable.

The cattle continue to do well. The calves are growing and well past weaning.

Mary and I took a day off Friday to go wine touring. For many years, we have gone with the same friends to visit some of the vineyards that abound near us. In the past, we have always gone on a Saturday. There is some difference on a week day. Yesterday, the wineries were very quiet and we had a chance to visit with the owners and ask questions. This compares with the weekend buses and stretch limos. Quite a large portion of the weekend clientele are there for a moving party rather than to enjoy wine.

We will be up early tomorrow for chores. After church, we'll go to the monthly pancake breakfast at the American Legion. This is a real pleasant opportunity to visit with friends and neighbors while eating pancakes with real from a tree maple syrup.

Since Tuesday is election day, there will be the usual crop of folks from outside the area running for some type of judge that we know very little about. It seems that their term is 10 years so they appear lperiodically ike some version of a locust. They don't eat much though as they table hop and exhort us to vote for them. It is very pleasant but bewildering since they are not local offices and we really don't tend to have much interaction with remote judges.

After that, we will load the calves and head for Minnesota. Since a lot of my blog seems like some version of Garrison Keillor, it seems fitting to take it on the roads to Minnesota. I don't know where Lake Woebegone is but we'll be about two hours north of the Twin Cities.

The diner has been very quiet lately. Probably the poor weather has dulled the conversation. One thing is for certain, the regulars don't think much of the new government health proposals or the politicians proposing them. It didn't take much effort today to decide we'd be better off to throw out the whole bunch and elect a new crop. The bad part was we all agreed that it wouldn't take long for even the most idealistic to become as corrupt and inept as the incumbents.

One of our regulars has a new business venture. He has started a restaurant. We all are instant experts and offer him lots of unsolicited tips. The bottom line is that we all wish him well and hope it becomes a great success.

2009-10-27T19:09:00.003-04:00

We have continued on with our fall chores.

We have selected four fullblood lowline heifer calves to go to Minnesota and then on to the NWSS cattle show in Denver in January. A friend has a ranch there and he will fit them and prepare them for the show and sale. We sent one heifer last year and were very pleased. We have them in a separate pen and are working to halter train them.

We have purchased a herd of six beltie cows and a beltie bull from a farmer in the Northern part of the state. These are all exceptional animals that have had the same owner for years. Regretfully he has developed a health condition that required him to sell the cattle. We went and picked up the bull and three of the cows and brought them back to our farm.

We then delivered a lowline bull to north east Vermont. It was a wonderful location on a great day. The scenery was fabulous. The bull went into a pasture with a few steers to get adjusted to his new location. We heard later that he was now in with the cows and breeding them.

By coincidence, there is a belted galloway farm near where we left the bull. We were able to visit and look over the herd. There were about 70 belties together in one large field. It was a very impressive sight as we arrived as the afternoon sun was shining right on them just so. This farm specializes in breeding belties true to their original size. They clearly know what they are doing.

On the way home, we stopped and picked up our other three belties. Two of those are dun colored rather than black. The whole group is now reunited and in with our belties and doing well.

We have about one third of our soybeans harvested. The quality and yield look extremely good. We will be very happy when the rest are done. Then there will be corn to combine.

I have told you on other occasions of my part time job as a county deputy fire coordinator. Last Friday we had a very unusual call. An older barn had collapsed trapping about 100 adult sheep in the basement. Four fire departments responded and went to work. After eight hours of hard work, we had the last sheep out. Unfortunately about 10 had perished. The farmer was also glad that we were able to rescue his miniature horse. The men and women who responded worked hard, got the job done and showed a great deal of respect and care for the animals.

I will be away next week taking the heifers to Minnesota. So this week has been busy trying to get odd jobs taken care of before winter. We were actually able to cut some green hay for the cows today. They appreciated that taste of Summer past.

2009-10-11T19:27:00.002-04:00

We are back from our road trip. We have been fortunate to be able to see lots of the country this fall. Between this trip and dropping Jim off at Iowa State, we have driven just over 6000 miles. We have taken our diesel pick up both times and averaged just over 18mpg which I think is quite good for a truck.

We never fail to notice how good the roads are and how relatively prosperous the areas we visit. It is amazing to see how little these states pay in tax in comparison to New York.

The cattle are doing fine as they switch from pasture to hay. We won't start baleage until later in the fall. The weather was apparently exceptionally wet and raw while we were away. It has been great yesterday and today. A neighbor cut some hay for baleage and we will be wrapping it for him tomorrow.

Several of our summer neighbors have left for Florida or will soon. It always takes a little bit to get used to the winter pace around here.

2009-10-06T10:02:00.003-04:00

We have had very poor weather this past week. Almost four inches of rain in three days. Quite a contrast to the excellent weather all through September. Fortunately the ground was good and dry and the rained soaked in. We don't need mud for harvest season. The beans and corn are continuing to dry down. We are still a few weeks from the combine.

The fence line weaning went very well. There was the usual bawling but not as loud or long. We have begun to move the cattle around for winter. The brood cows will go into the pasture that allows them access to the coverall. Each group has their own shelter and dedicated year round water.

Mary and I have gone on a road trip to visit Eileen in college. She is doing well and is enjoying showing us around Nashville between classes. Jim has just returned to Ames from a road trip of his own. He plays on a club lacrosse team and they went to the University of Wisconsin last weekend.

We continue to get inquiries from potential buyers of our animals. We are also preparing to take at least two heifer calves to Minnesota to be prepared for showing in next January's NWWS show in Denver. When you are selling quality animals it is good to be able to show them at a high level.

I reworked our web site www.lakebreezefarms.com before we left. It is easy to let them get stagnant. Hopefully, I've freshened it up a bit.

2009-09-27T16:29:00.002-04:00

We separated our fullblood calves on Monday and purebreds on Tuesday. Each group can see and interact with their dam through the fence. So far it has gone quite well. Before moving the calves, we checked the fences and cleared up a few problems. The noise from bawling is considerably less than when we physically kept them from seeing each others. The calves are eating and the cows have also adapted well.

This week we will move the cows to their winter location near the Coverall building. We have our chute set up there and we will preg check them.

Friday night we had a great turnout from our Beef Group. We gave a farm tour the we had a potluck dinner at our house. It was a successful evening.

The soy beans have turned color and dropped most of their leaves. The corn is denting well. We have had almost a month of good dry weather. We had rain overnight but it didn't amount to much. It would be good if it stays dry while we harvest.

Our tillage radishes are growing well. They are planted among rye grass. Hopefully, we'll have lots of organic material to plow down in the spring.

We have a hayfield about seven miles away in the village. It's too far to effectively and economically hay. I've decided to plant beans there next year. I'm waiting to hear from the government if we need to strip crop it. They list it as HEL or highly erodible land so they have say in how we work it.

2009-09-20T12:58:00.002-04:00

Well, I've had quite a vacation from the blog but not the farm or family.

We took Jim off to Ames, Iowa to begin his freshman year at Iowa State. While we were there, we visited the Iowa State Fair and Lowline Show. It was our first State Fair outside of New York. It was a great fair. They specialize in food on a stick. We had our first stick pork chop and it was great. Jim went with us since school didn't start until a few days after his arrival.

We then continued on to the Black Hills of South Dakota by way of Nebraska. There is no question that the scale of agriculture is huge in those states. Nebraska is famous for its grasslands and now we know why. We saw fields that had just been baled for third cutting with thousands of round bales waiting to be collected.

South Dakota is a geologists dream. Everything from granite mountains to bad lands to prairies. We visited Mount Rushmore and the carvings are quite impressive. We stopped in the souvenir store and were surprised that the clerk at such an All American attraction was a young lad from Moscow, Russia.

We also visited ongoing mountain carving of Crazy Horse. Here they were proud to explain that this was all being done by donation and without government help of any kind.

We went to Minnesota and visited some friends who are Lowline breeders. We enjoyed touring their ranch. Mary especially enjoyed see a section of native prairie they have maintained. Friends from home have a son who works on a farm near our Minnesota friends. They had flown out to visit and we picked them up for the return trip.

We visited and toured Mackinac Island in Northern Michigan. It is a resort island only accessible by ferry once there transportation is by foot or horse as motor vehicles are not allowed. We came home through Ontario and saw my first roadside bear.

All in all a great trip.

Our cattle and crops have done well in our absence. Our yields look to be above average so we are looking forward to harvest since all bets are off until the crop is delivered to storage.

I have planted a new cover crop on some waste ground that I am trying to rebuild. Forage radishes grow quickly and put down a great big fat root. They then die over winter. The nitrogen they have stored then awaits the next crop and the organic material adds to the soil.

Since our return, we have concreted our barnyard. This will add immeasurably to the cattle's comfort and mine this winter. We also have two more all year watering locations and moved our small shelter into a new pasture. This winter we will be feeding our brood cows and a good sized group of weaned heifers and bulls as well as juvenile and herd bulls. So with Jim off to college, organization will be the key to success.

Jim visited a new dorm mate's ranch over Labor Day. They are in Northwest Iowa in a small town. Interestingly, the name is only known in two places Iowa and Donegal, Ireland. It is just across the lough from our ancestral location in Bellarena, County Derry. It was also a port for trans Atlantic steamers. I know my father came to America on the Cunard line California. I'll have to check from which port. Jim is named after his grandfather so it is interesting that he has been to both Movilles.

Jim sent us some photos and as noted above agriculture is on a lot bigger scale. They have a pasture that is considerably bigger than our whole farm and we have a medium sized farm by New York standards.

This week we will begin to wean our calves. This will led to a lot of bawling for both the cows and calves. We don't start pjust prior to the weekend so as not to concern the weekend visitors. We don't want them thinking there is a problem when they hear the noise.

2009-07-17T20:27:00.002-04:00

Well, we continue to slog on in search of summer. We are continually plagued by heavy unexpected showers and plain old rain. You need three dry days to bale hay and it's just not happening. First cutting should be all done by the first part of June at the latest and I know some farmers who still have first cutting to do.We have done some second cutting hay but it really should have had another day to dry.

The dampness isn't helping the corn or beans either. They need heat to use up the moisture. There are lots of aphids on the soybeans. We are lucky that we have lots of their natural predators- lady bugs.

The cattle are enjoying the constant pasture regrowth and scarcity of flies. So I guess there are pros and cons.

Mary and Jim were in a really big 15K race. They both finished with excellent times. They ran with a group from the beef industry and got nifty running shirts featuring beef.

Things are quiet in town with one big exception. One of our diner regulars had a story he'd rather not have to tell. He woke up early one morning to find a burglar in his house. Fortunately, the intruder fled without a physical confrontation. The police have still not located him. We don't expect this sort of thing in rural America and are poorly prepared to deal with it. Most of us are from a mind set that remembers when there was no need to lock up.

Other than that things are quiet.

2009-07-01T08:31:00.003-04:00

Here it is already the first of July. Today would have been my parent's 68th wedding anniversary.

Last week was a very busy week getting our square baled first cutting hay in. We worked together with Verne and between us had almost 3500 bales. We were very lucky to have three great haying days. We had to rush the unloading of the last wagons as we just beat the rain.

On Friday, we delivered a bull and a steer to our customer in the eastern part of the state. I had never met him before and was pleased to meet him, his wife and their three children. We also met his vet who was there looking over his other animals. Everything seemed fine and the cattle have an endless pasture of reed canary grass. This is a tall reed like grass that cattle really relish.

Our cattle are doing well and the calves are having a real growth spurt. We are about ready to break the herd into a few groups. We will put the bull in with the percentage cattle and AI the full bloods.

We have a problem with our flooded bean field. We replanted it but have seen very few new sprouts. The County Ag specialist came and dug around and feels that a pest called the seed corn maggot has eaten the seeds. I asked why it wasn't a soybean maggot or some such. He explained that they named a pest after the first species that it affected but they often have several plants they favor. At this point in the season, it is too late to replant and there are no other worthwhile crops to plant. So we'll have to see how it turns out.

On Monday, I went up to pick up a cousin's wife and daughter from Northern Ireland. They have been touring the East Coast and were in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I brought my passport to comply with the new rules and had no trouble getting into Canada. My parents had gone to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon so I thought it fitting to be there almost on their anniversary.

Coming back to the states, we had to go inside and meet with the immigration agency. The ladies have a British passport and there was no trouble, just a few questions and we were on our way. Mary brought them to see the supermarket where she works. People in our area are very fond of the supermarket and often bring visitors to see it.

We all had a nice visit and got to know each other. We will soon be leaving for the Buffalo airport so they can fly off to New York and eventually Belfast.

Last weekend, Jim and Mary were in Iowa for Jim's college orientation. All went well and Jim is looking forward to school. It seems strange that he will only be with us for about seven more weeks. Then we will see what it's like to have an empty nest.

2009-06-20T09:14:00.002-04:00

As you may have noticed, my blog frequency if that's an acceptable term has diminished. It is not because I have nothing to report or have lost interest, it is because farming takes amazingly more time this time of year.

Since I have last written. we have finished our spring calving season very successfully. We have nineteen calves on the ground. Our one remaining pregnant cow isn't due until September. We have cows out in our various pastures giving the farm an enhanced pastoral atmosphere. The summer residents are back and they seem to enjoy the animals.

Our community garden is growing well except for some lettuce which might be serving as rabbit food. Along with the blog, I haven't had much time for the garden. Our wonderful neighbors planted our end for us. I certainly appreciate it.

In a bittersweet kind of moment, our big Brown Swiss steer Peter has moved onto a new home. Or rather returned to one of his earlier homes. A farmer from a few roads over came by to see if we would do some contract baling for him. He noticed the steer and asked where I bought him. When I told him, he laughed. He said that he had bought Peter at the sale barn when he was a baby and pail fed him and eventually sold him. He called a few days later and asked to buy him and I agreed to sell.

Jim and delivered him and when we let him out into the field he almost seemed to know where he was. It was nice to see him among cattle more or less his size although he is still the tallest by far. The farmer said his nieces had named him Goliath when he was with them because he was so tall.

The soggy soy bean field only germinated about thirty percent. A week ago Thursday I replanted all twenty nine acres. At least the seed cost less. There is a technology fee charged by the seed companies on the modern hybrid seeds. They waive that charge for a replant. As I write this, the weather radar shows heavy rain will soon be upon us. Hopefully we won't have a repeat washout.

The moisture has helped all our other fields and our beans and corn are excellent.

Jim graduated from high school last Saturday. It's hard to believe he has that all behind him already. Next week, he and Mary are off to Iowa State for orientation. Eileen really likes Nashville and has summer job there. Mary drove down with her and left her the car and flew back. Eileen is well along the road to emancipation and I suspect we won't be seeing much of her for some time.

We have completed first cutting on about 45 acres of hay. The last batch was very hectic as we just beat the rain. We have another big field in the village to do. The weather looks very favorable for next week. I hope we don't get too much rain so the fields will be too wet to hay. As the season progresses the hay looses a lot of its nutritional value and becomes tough if it isn't cut. And, of course, the really tender second cutting can't grow if the first cutting is still in place.

Our small town lost one of it's icons last week. Our village attorney passed away a bit unexpectedly. He has been there for everyone for almost as long as you could remember. He did everything from wills and property transfers to interceding for young drivers who might not yet have understood the ratio between accelerator foot pedal pressure and speed. He was the essence of the small town attorney and will be missed by one and all.

The Fire Department leases a field from us on the main road for horse and tractor pulls as a fund raiser. There is a horse pull tomorrow weather permitting. It is amazing to see the size and strength of pulling horses up close. The strength of their human handlers is pretty impressive also.

2009-05-30T20:39:00.004-04:00

Time continues to march on. It's hard to believe it will be June in two days. I check our flooded soybean field every day or so. There are some sprouts but in general it looks pretty bleak. I'll have to decide this coming week if it needs to be replanted. We planted at the rate of 150,000 plants to the acre. If we have at least 100,000 plants we will be marginally okay. My wife is an accountant by profession.I explained the problem and told her I needed a bean counter and that would get her back to the roots of her profession. She demurred but I have another plan, find a hula hoop and randomly throw it into the field and count the plants it encircles. After several tosses you can reasonably estimate the plant population.

All of our other fields were planted after the deluge and have sprouted and look promising.

We now have had eighteen of this years twenty calves born including one this morning. There is one cow that should freshen soon and the other not until September. Eight mother cows and their calves are in our woods pasture. This is a transition area to get the calves fence trained.

We are about ready to move them to their summer pasture. This was a new seeding last year and has lots of volunteer clover. We're a little concerned with bloat so we have to get the cattle acclimated carefully.

Our hay equipment is ready to go but the weather is not cooperating. The forecast through at least mid next week isn't favorable. The crop looks great but is continuing to grow and mature. The secret to good nutrient value is to get it in the bud stage before it heads out. It can also get so heavy that it falls over into a tangled mat,

My friend who winters in Florida says he isn't coming back here until the long range forecast predicts ten seventy plus days in a row. He is a good friend and I enjoy his company but it might be quite a while before I see him him at this rate.

At least the weather has been good for rhubarb. Lots of pies and sauce are available. We started a community garden for some of the folks on the lane. We made a big raised bed which we filled with a secret blend of cow manure and topsoil. I am confident things will grow. Looking at the number of tomato plants already in the ground, it looks like a lot of spaghetti sauce will be made.

I've also assembled two upside down tomato growing contraptions like you see on late night television. They should be a curiosity piece if nothing else.

Today Jim participated in his last ever high school sporting event. The meet was about an hour and a half east of here. We stopped en route at a farmer's market. There was a farm that we know selling beef from their Belted Galloway herd. We visited for a while and traded information.

Jim placed fifth in two events at the regional level. He did well. Track meets are pretty much an all day event with a few bursts of activity. I took advantage of the down time to visit a fence supplier that I had heard about. They had a really nice store with about anything you'd ever need for cattle fencing. It was a pleasure dealing with them. Mary had to work but she made it in time for the Jim's last race. On the way home we stopped at a restaurant that we know that serves grass fed beef hamburgers. They were excellent.

2009-05-22T20:13:00.002-04:00

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.

2009-05-14T07:05:00.002-04:00

We have several cow calf pairs that have been living in the barn. As Spring progresses and the pastures regrow, it is be time to get them out into the fields. This is always somewhat of a problem as the calves are not familiar with fences. Typically, you have to stay nearby and have sort of a rodeo event catching calves and putting them back in until they catch on.

Saturday, we moved two cows and calves into a small pasture next to the barn where they could be by themselves. The cows naturally started eating the grass and the calves made no moves toward the fence. That made for a pleasant day.

We went over to Verne's and brought his herd bull over to our place so he could let his cattle out to pasture. Verne is an AI technician. He breeds both his and my cattle with AI. As a result our calves have superior genetics since we have purchased semen from a variety of top line bulls. Our bulls are only used for cleanup work. The rest of the time they stay in the bullpen sort of like being a relief pitcher in baseball.

He told me a story while I was there. After visiting one of his customer's barns, he had to walk up to the house. He followed the path through the lawn. The grass in the path was extremely green near the barn becoming less so as he got nearer to the house and then blending into the rest of the lawn near the house. You could readily see the value of manure as a fertilizer. Walking up from the barn, the wet grass and snow would tend to clean your boots pretty well by the time you got home.

Jim had his Senior Prom so he had to take off early to get ready. He and his date came by the house for photos before they left for an enjoyable evening.

Sunday, we took Mary out for Mother's Day. We had an excellent meal at a very nice restaurant on a lake. She left early Monday to fly to Florida to accompany her mother on her drive back North.

The good weather continued so we are right into planting. It has been very dry so I have set the seed drill to put the beans in a little deeper than usual to be sure of soil moisture. Our oats have appeared and everything looks fine. It is raining as I write this and it looks unsettled through Monday. We have lots of time to get the beans in so I am not worried. yet.

This afternoon, we have to deliver three cows to the western part of the state. It is about a two and a half hour ride. We have two of the three in the pen and the third is in the pasture. Hopefully, we will get them loaded with no difficulty.

One of our summer neighbors is in the process of having a well drilled. This is always a nervous time wondering whether you are going to hit water and if it will be of good quality. In our area there are lots of wells that produce salt water if you go too deep.

This should be a one or two day event but some well drillers tend to drag out the process by not regularly appearing. There was a locally famous incidence of this. Some years ago a man was building a new home and needed a well. He didn't want to start the house until he knew he would have water.

The driller would come and go and after several days there was little progress. The owner discovered that the driller liked to shoot clay pigeons. He went and bought a hand operated device that would throw out the clay targets. He told the driller that if he would keep drilling he would periodically throw some targets for him. The driller really liked the idea and so periodically the sound of drilling would stop and change to the sound of a shotgun. The well was drilled in short order.

The driller eventually decided to pan for gold in Alaska. For several years he would work here in the winter and pan in the summer. Needless to say his drilling business suffered. I never did hear whether he found any gold.

2009-05-07T21:06:00.002-04:00

We have been moving right along on our Spring work. We have installed some new drainage tiles to take care of some wet spots and fixed old tiles. All our bean fields have been chisel plowed and disced. Our soybean seed arrived yesterday so we are about ready to plant.

On Tuesday, one of our lowlines at Verne's had a nice heifer calf. I bought the mother at Denver two years ago. Last year she had a bull so this is her first heifer. Both the dam and the sire have outstanding genetics so we have great hopes for the calf. She is our 13th calf of 2009 and I'm not superstitious but I thought it best to call her W14. Sort of the way it's rumoured that there is no 13th floor in high rise hotels.

It rained today so I had some time to go to the diner. It's been quite dry and we could use the rain. Planting is well underway and the rain won't bother the schedule.

One of the diner regulars also has beef cattle. He was telling about how someone had abandoned a cat at his barn. It is not uncommon to find a cat that someone has dropped off. Since there is no ready source of milk from beef cattle for the cat, he drove it a way down the road to a dairy farmer who has lots of cats. He left it with the farmer and was quite surprised to see the cat back at the beef farm within a day. We all kidded that he should have blindfolded the cat. Apparently there is an old belief that if you put butter on a cats paws it can't smell its way back and will stay put. He has decided to forego the butter and keep the cat.

One of the other regulars let on that his children had given both him and his wife a gift certificate for a couples massage. As you might imagine in small town America there are not that many folks in the diner who know much about massages.

They apparently both went to the suburbs for the massage but it doesn't sound like he will be asking for another gift certificate for next year. He didn't offer many details but it didn't sound all that relaxing.

Along those lines my acupuncture treatment is still working. You wonder if the doctor actually did something or there is a strong power of suggestion.

When I was discing yesterday, I was able to stop for a bit and walk across the street to the high school. Jim's school was there for a track meet. He has managed to qualify for the Sectional Championships in both high jump and 800 meter race. I wonder where he got those genes. Those on my side of the family have never been thought of as fleet of foot or springy.

2009-05-04T06:34:00.003-04:00

We flew home on Monday from Florida.. We are fairly close to the Syracuse Airport but flew from Buffalo about two hours distant. The flights to Florida include a non stop back and a considerable savings per ticket. Mary is originally from Buffalo. Part of our Buffalo routine is to stop and a hot dog stand which is a Buffalo institution located near the airport

Everything was fine when we got back to the farm. It is amazing how quickly the first promises of Spring in April have become early May. The calf born while we were away is excellent.

Tuesday morning we were right back into the swing. We continued to chisel plow our fields. Our hay supply is dwindling nicely so we should just have the right amount to last until the animals are all on pasture.

It's been pretty quiet at the diner. It looks like the swimmers have changed into golfers. The barber is an excellent golfer and needless to say quite competitive.

The good weather continued throughout the week with only one rainy evening. Our oats and grass seeding are all in and packed. When you do a seeding, you always wonder how it's going to look. You worry about whether the grain drill was working correctly or if all the seed was dropping. You get to find out in about ten days to two weeks depending upon the weather.

A friend of mine has an annual consignment auction of farm machinery in conjunction with another friend the auctioneer. Farmers from miles around bring over their surplus goods. It can be anything from an antique tractor part to a chicken coop with lots of other good serviceable equipment thrown in. I sent over a good hay rake that we no longer need.

I stopped at the auction on Saturday for a bit. There was a big crowd and everything was selling well. I decided to bid on a feeder wagon and wound up taking it home. Our hay rake sold well so we just sort of swapped pieces. It's a great rural outing to go to this type of auction. Lots of auctions are because of illness, injury or death with resultant sadness. This one is just fun.

Sunday we went to church then the pancake breakfast at the American Legion. This is a monthly event that we rarely miss. Not only is there lots of camaraderie but also real maple syrup. Both of which are becoming harder to find in modern day America.

There are no days off this time of year as we've got to get the crops planted. When we went up to the barn, Jim looked out into the field and saw a calf nursing with the mother silhouetted against the hill side. It turned out to be a nice bull calf. We went out with the tractor loader to fetch the calf. Jim grabbed him and sat in the bucket with the calf. The mother and Peter the steer accompanied us back to the barn. We got mother and calf all settled in a pen.

I finished plowing and we all had had a late supper of hamburgers from one of our animals. It is nice to know that we have a good reliable supply of our own grass fed beef.Around ten we all went to the Syracuse airport to pick up Eileen who was returning home after finishing her sophomore year at college. It's good to have her home.

I had an early start this morning when I was called to assist at an ATV accident and resultant transport of the victim to the hospital by helicopter. I hope it all turns out okay.

When I got home, it was just daylight. Standing in the barnyard was another new mother and calf. I just picked up the calf and put it into a pen. The mother dutifully followed along with the seemingly ever present Peter the steer. He seems to provide an escort service for new calves sort of like a proud uncle or possibly god father. I got them settled in. I'll check the calf's sex and weigh it later this morning.

He turned out to be a bull and weighed fifty pounds. Today was extremely busy. We got a good sized field disced in preparation for planting soy beans. We went to the farm supply and picked up a hay wagon. One of their customers had switched to a self unloading hay wagon and traded in a bunch of good conventional wagons. We traded our old one for one of them.

When I got back, we started putting in drainage tile in one of our wet fields. This tile had to be installed by digging rather than pulling. A busy and productive day and week.

2009-04-27T08:41:00.004-04:00

Tuesday was a day of contrasts. We had two cattle to deliver. When I went up to the barn, both of them had wandered in to the holding pen. All I had to do was shut the gate. It was a beautiful day but the forecast was for a cold front.

We loaded up and left after lunch. I t was 65 degrees which is really excellent for us in April. We plugged our destination into the GPS and took off. Over the years I have traveled over New York State extensively and feel comfortable free lancing. This time I should have followed a road map. We went on the some of the hilliest territory I've ever encountered. Along the way the weather changed from beautiful to 42 and rain.

We found the farm and the new owners awaiting us. The farmer is a young man who is putting cattle back on his grandfather's farm after a hiatus from dairy. It is a wonderful setting with a great pasture. When we let the cattle out, one looked at the other as if to say we really lucked out with these new owners.

After a tour of the old stanchion barn, which was full of vintage green tractors, we headed home by main roads. One of the best part of our cattle business is bringing the cattle to their new homes and seeing their facilities.

We resumed getting ready for planting on Wednesday. I went and picked up forage oats and grass seed to plant next week. The rain yesterday moistened the ground enough to keep us off the fields. We have chisel plowed this Spring for the first time. We try too till or minimum till as much as possible.

One group of our fields are quite silty and almost sandy. It doesn't hold its PH very well so we relimed. We also put in some additional drainage tile. We also have field that's about five acres where previous owners stripped and sold the top soil. We keep planting green manure crops to plow under. Last week we ran some extra baleage through the processor so we could plow it in this week.

Friday we got up early to drive to the Buffalo Airport for our trip to Florida for our new grandson's Baptism. It's an easy flight and we arrived on time. Mike picked us up and we went off to his house.

My right heel and lower leg have been bothering me for a few weeks. Mike knows a combination acupuncturist/chiropractor. Home, I never would have gone. Being In Florida with an unlimited variety of doctors dealing with unique ailments, I decided to give it a try.

We got right in and he asked me what ailed me. Then he had me lie down and he stuck five tiny pins in my foot and told me he'd be back. He came back in twenty minutes and took out the pins and gave my foot a big yank. It felt better almost immediately and is much better as I write this two days later. Amazing the doctor wasn't oriental but Irish.

Saturday afternoon, I got a text message from the friend who is watching our animals. We had calf number ten and she's a heifer.

The Baptism went well and the guest of honor was very well behaved. They had a nice gathering afterwards. Later, we borrowed Mike's car and toured around. Amazingly, the temperature at home was higher than the 83 in Florida.

My friend has a winter home about two hours east of Mike. He has had major foot problems with unremitting pain. He had an electric device implanted Friday which he says works well. We hope so and hope to see him home at the lake soon.

2009-04-20T20:35:00.002-04:00

We've been quite busy over the last few weeks. We now have nine calves born this year. All are doing quite well. Last week we delivered four lowline cows and three calves to their new owner in the eastern part of the state. The fourth is not due to calve yet. They settled right in and got accustomed to their new surroundings.

Jim was home all last week for Easter. The weather was incredibly glorious all week right through Sunday night. We have got a lot of our preliminary plowing and fitting done already.

We picked up our steer and lamb from the butcher. We have had an initial meal of both and they are excellent. It is nice to be a localvore and have a freezer full of good meat.We went to the beef meeting last Friday and visited with our new friends. As usual, we came away with a good meal and lots of new knowledge.

Several of our summer neighbors have reappeared as well as the sparrows. We put up several blue bird houses on our fence posts but the swallows have moved in. We also have a fox den in the hedge near our equipment barn. There are a mother and two kits. They appear quite regularly. We have noticed that our rodent population around the barn is down.

All our calves are tagged and tattooed and named. We've been keeping the calves and mothers in the barn because it has been so muddy. Now that it has dried up, we are slowly moving them out to a holding pasture.

Tomorrow, we will be delivering two Belted Galloway bred cows to the western part of the state. It's supposed to be cooler which is good for transporting cattle.

2009-04-07T17:20:00.003-04:00

It rained and stormed and blew hard all Saturday evening and night. We had another calf born in the pasture over night. It's pretty difficult to tell when beef cattle are ready to calve to get the cows in the barn. Their udders don't always swell up or bag until just before calving. So as a result, we had another trip carrying a calf followed by the always attentive mother and Peter the god father. This time Jim got the honors.

The whole entourage walked down into the barn and we got them settled. The calf is a really nice 57 pound heifer called LBF W06 for now.

The sun came out and Sunday was a really nice sunny but cool day. Monday was back to rain and cold.

Tuesday, we woke up to snow and icy roads. There were lots of minor accidents in the area. Chores are still pretty minimal as we have everything pretty much ready for Spring field work.

We had a really good lunch today. Over the last number of years, lots of Mennonites have moved into the area and bought up farms. They are terrific workers and have established several farm related businesses. One of them sells seed. Today they had an open house for farmers to pick up their orders. They provided a lunch that used to be called "hearty fare." Lots of good food and conversation.

Today also marked the end of kind of a milestone in my life. Back around 1980, my firm was a subcontractor on the building of the Buffalo Subway. Part of our work was to remediate a problem allegedly caused by another contractor. This being America those folks and the owner all sued each other. This has been going on since then. We had a false start last summer when I was called to be a witness. It was put off until this Spring.

When you are called to be a witness, you receive a legal summons to appear. These summons are typically brought by private firms called process servers or the Sheriff. Apparently our testimony was requested by two firms so we've had a process server and a Deputy Sheriff visit over the last few weeks. Most often a summons indicates that you have a problem such as you are being sued etc.. In our case, we were simply asked to be a witness. Both delivery folks indicated that people are usually much less enthusiastic than I was about receiving a summons. For whatever reason ours each included a check although I don't think $65 would get me to Buffalo and home.

This afternoon I got an email from Buffalo that after all these years the case was settled without a trial. I imagine the money spent over more than twenty five years of legal wrangling could probably paid for a subway car or two for the folks in Buffalo.

We've got some stock in a pasture across the road that have been sold and the owners are ready to receive. The problem is that the laneway leading to the pasture has become a complete quagmire. If it doesn't dry up soon, we'll have to put some gravel down so we can get our cattle trailer into position.

2009-04-04T17:12:00.002-04:00

I have been a little remiss in my blogging lately. I'll try to get it up to date

Last Friday, Mary and I went over to the Beef Producers meeting in the next County. We have been going once a month or so all winter. The people are great, the pot luck dinners are fabulous and we get to find out lots of interesting things.

Last week, we discussed the results of the group cattle DNA testing. The results just arrived prior to the meeting so we had to look at them on the fly. We decided that maybe we should give the other firm a try next time.

Mary and I met a young man who was visiting. He had graduated from Iowa State four years ago. Since Jim will be attending there next year we were interested to get his perspective. He gave us some very good information and we are quite confident Jim has made an excellent choice.

We haven't had any new calves for a few days. The weather has lived up to Central New York standards. If you don't like what you have, wait a day. In the last week it has ranged from almost 70 and sunny to 35 and rainy with snow intermingled with high winds for the last day or so.

The cattle have noticed that everything has begun to green up and are clearly looking forward to some nice green pasture. We are not at the Norman Rockwell pastoral stage just yet. These are what are known locally as the mud days.

We have a number of cows and calves sold. We had the vet come Thursday to check them out. He also did pregnancy checks on several cows. It also interesting getting the cattle down into the barnyard on our schedule not theirs.

On that note we heard about some cattle rustling one town over. It seems that someone came at night and backed up a trailer and loaded two full size cattle. I'm not sure how they were able to get the cattle loaded quickly since I don't think ours would be very eager to go in the middle of the night. We have increased our vigilance. I can't recall the punishment for rustling in the cowboy movies but I hope its as stern or worse when they are caught.

The boys at the diner are likewise looking to Spring. The golf course still has not opened due to the weather. The barber is ready and he went off to a neighboring course which is favored by drier conditions for his inaugural round. They are still swimming and elicit lots of laughs when you move your fingers like a scissor to mimic the move that synchronized swimmers make when they pop up.

We have had a big white hotel in our town. About the biggest thing I can recall ever happening is that it got a one line mention in a book called Blue Highways in the early 80's. Also there was the time that the man from the Weather Channel stood outside the IGA next door to report on a blizzard. All these years it has just kind of been there as a local watering hole.

It has been closed for the last several months for refurbishing. Talk about your basic transformation. On St. Patrick's day, it reappeared as of all things an Irish pub and restaurant. This is a pretty big change. Mary and I went to dinner last Saturday. The place was crowded with locals and we had a great meal. Talk about a pent up demand. We all hope that they can continue to succeed.

It's getting about time for our next round of calves. We hope they can hold off a day or so until the weather improves. On the other end of the scale, we took a steer off to market Thursday. He was joined by half a hog today that we got from a beef customer. We should be all set for meat regardless of the state of the economy. We've got the freezer all set and we'll be getting our meat in about two weeks after it is aged by hanging.

I like a garden but haven't had one the last few years. This year, I've got a new spot in mind. We certainly have the manure to assure that it won't be under fertilized. This just seems like a year to increase your self sufficiency. We are getting lots of calls from folks inquiring about lowlines for just that reason.

2009-03-26T10:27:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It started with a call from my neighbor. She has been having a lot of trouble lately keeping her horses in the pasture so I thought they must be out. There is a back part of our main pasture that we can't see from the road but she can from her house. She was calling to say that one of our lowlines was off in the corner calving.

I met her and we walked out. By the time we got there the calf was on the ground. I picked up the calf to carry him to the barn. The mother didn't object much so my neighbor and I and the mother started off. Soon Peter the steer arrived to walk with us. It would have been quite a sight to anyone watching. We got the cow and calf settled in a pen and weighed the calf and confirmed it was a bull.

We had identified the cow the day before as getting ready to freshen but we didn't expect it for a few more days. We like them to calve in the barn. Its a lot better for the calf and much easier on all of us.

Our dirt road had firmed up enough so that I was able to run the scraper behind the tractor to fill in some holes. This is an ongoing project. It looks pretty good now and I hope it stays that way.

The humidity was quite low and we had a strong wind in the afternoon. That led to a good sized grass fire. Someone had decided not to heed the no burning warnings and burned their trash. When the fire department arrived, the fire was alongside their house and melted their vinyl siding. A minute or two longer, they would have lost their house. You can't be too careful in dry times.

We have another cow that is due Saturday. She is in the barn where we can watch her. We know the due date of the ones that were artificially inseminated within a day or so. The ones that ran with the bull are much more of an unknown. We can just estimate from the day the bull went in the pasture with the cows.

It is quite dreary today with light rain. This should stop the brush fires.

I have mentioned in the past about how a few of the diner regulars swim at the school pool. It was suggested this morning that they might be practicing synchronized swimming. If they are, you can be assured that it would be quite a fund raiser to watch their performance.

This spring the golf course has a new owner. The previous owners had it from its origination in the 1930s through last fall. Our barber has been the most faithful player over the years. He must have logged several thousand rounds. He is also an expert at finding other players lost golf balls. He rarely if ever loses his own. He is also one heck of a golfer.

We hope the new owners invite him to hit the first ball this spring. Kind of like when someone throws the first pitch of a baseball game. It would be a great opportunity also to get some publicity for the course which all hope does well.

2009-03-24T20:00:00.002-04:00

The last few days have been brutally cold at night, We have several cows in maternity pens and we were really hoping that they didn't calve just yet. The cold doesn't bother the newborns as much as the possibility of their ears becoming frostbitten.

We forgot to mention that we had a nice lowline purebred heifer calf born on Friday the 13th.. I need to come up with a good name for her.

Saturday, we hads a nice family group drive over from west. They are taking over his grandparents farm and they bought two belties. They have three young children including a 7 month old girl who did nothing but laugh and smile.

We have now moved several of the young heifers out to a new pasture to allow room for the other cows to freshen. They seem to be enjoying stretching their legs. There is no grass yet so we feed hay in the pasture.

I checked the cows this morning first thing and went to the diner. All is amazingly quiet there. The boys even seem to have become numb to all the financial scandals whirling around.

When I got back to the barn, we had a nice 60 pound bull calf waiting for me. He seems quite spry. The mother is calm and let me weigh him. They don't always let you near the calf and you have to be careful. 900 pounds of momma cow in close quarters could be disastrous. Some people refer to Lowlines as miniature cattle. I think of them as a smaller version of full size cattle with all the typical cattle attributes and recommend that you always keep your gaurd up.

We let out a beltie and her three month old heifer calf into the pasture. The calf obviously hadn't been briefed by her mother about fences. She went through the electric about six times before she appeared to get the message. We hope she has a good memory.

The weather is starting to moderate but everything is amazingly dry for March. There are several brush fires in the County each day.

The snow geese are on the lake. I think the correct term is a raft of geese. Whatever it is called, it is amazing. I would estimate that the geese take up about three acres packed quite tightly. Every so often, the ones on the periphery take off and move into the center. I don't know who choreographs this but it's quite a show. My wife has explained a theory that chaos is well organized. I think the snow geese subscribe to that theory.

2009-03-20T20:14:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day of Spring. We have had a busy week since the last time I had a chance to write.

On Friday the 13th, one of our Minnesota cows freshened and gave us a nice heifer calf. The entire process only took a half hour which was terrific. She is an excellent calf.

Saturday was another busy day getting chores done.

Sunday was a very busy day. We had sold two bred heifers to a friend's sons. The cattle were at Verne's so we all trooped over to load them. The cattle seemed to have formed an unbreakable bond with Verne's farm. To say they were reluctant to leave would be quite an understatement.

When we got them to their new home which is a brand new barn with very nice accommodations, they did their best to leave. We finally got them settled in. Now a few days later they are eating out of their new owner's hand and allowing him to comb them.

Tuesday was a long day. We have a cow in the maternity pen due to freshen. About 3PM she started to show signs of labor. I had great expectation that she would freshen quickly like the cow last week. Being Irish, I was looking forward to a St. Patrick's day calf and then going out with Mary for corned beef and cabbage. By 6, it was obvious there would be no calf or corned beef. The cow was still showing signs of early labor so Jim and I started to watch her every two hours all through the night.

By morning, nothing had happened so I called the vet. He came over and examined her and said that it was a false labor. We were relieved that the cow was fine but now we will have to keep watch for her real labor.

This past week had some amazing Spring like weather including a blue sky day at seventy degrees. A little rain on Wednesday didn't do much to dampen things. The ground is actually quite dry and firm particularly for this early in the season.

Thursday we got an email from the man in the eastern part of the state we visited last week. He wants to buy four animals. We are delighted and look forward to delivering them. Then a man in the western part of the state contacted us about coming Saturday to look at some cattle.

Friday morning was quite cold and the ground was frozen. Jim had a day off from school. After some early chores, he and I and a friend went to a farm auction. There was a good turnout and things seem to go high. We bid on a few items but didn't have to write any checks or bring anything home.

In the afternoon, we went over to Verne's to move two of the cattle going to the east back to our farm to get them ready to move.

So we had a busy week. The outlook for next week is mild and dry. We are all starting to get excited about spring work. We moved our grain drill out of the machinery shed to the shop to get her greased and ready for work.

2009-03-12T14:57:00.004-04:00

Wednesday was a busy day. The rains had stopped and we had a bright day with lots of wind. The road started out as a quaky, muddy mess. With the sun and wind, it dried out and firmed up.

We moved our herd bull in with the yearling bulls the other afternoon. This should clear the way to let our yearling heifers out to join the herd. I am not quite ready to do it until I feel he and his colleagues won't try to break through the fence.

On the other hand, one of our bred heifers is showing signs she will freshen soon. We moved her into the maternity pen. They calve wherever they are but its a lot better for all concerned if they calve in a nice clean pen. This means that we will soon be busy with lots of freshenings.

One of the true signs of Spring has now appeared. I had to go to a meeting last evening and I saw a large flock of snow geese. We had never seen them until about fifteen years ago. We have always had Canada geese but never snow geese until then. I am not one to write down annual events like these and wish I did. I am sure that the first time we saw them was mid April not mid March. Must be global warning. Like other migratory birds they will now come through in a few waves and be gone until next year.

The ice is still on the lake but much reduced in thickness. it just looks weak.

The diner is still pretty quiet. Today they were pretty happy that Mr. Madoff would be getting a big sendoff. We live in a small town remote from the financial hubs. Yet, two of the diner regulars have received letters from their unions to expect reduced benefits from the actions of this man. It is amazing how far the tentacles of these crminals reach.

One of the guys is someone that you would ask to accompany you if you knew you were going to be marooned on a deserted island. He is having snow goose for lunch. He says that there are so many that the daily take allowance is high and they are tastier than the Canadian.

Another is the commander of the Legion for the county. He was off to the school to recruit students for Boys State. Jim went last year and it was wonderful.

2009-03-10T15:27:00.002-04:00

We were supposed to move some cattle that a man had purchased Sunday afternoon. The rain Saturday evening had totaled about 1.15 inches and made his lane to the barn too soft to proceed. We'll have to wait for a frosty morning or the ground to dry up a bit which doesn't look soon. A lot of farming deals with windows of opportunity which are often short.

We have had mild weather this past week. This has put an end to any spreading until the ground firms up.

Chores continue to be routine. We have looked over our hay inventory and we are confident that we will have enough until we turn the animals out to pasture. Just thinking of pasturing cattle must be a sign of Spring.

As you can tell, its been quiet quiet on all fronts and really nothing of consequence to report.
Yesterday, I took a day trip over to Lake Champlain about four hours distant. A man had come from there to see about buying cattle some weeks ago. We had agreed to go look over his farm. He works for a man downstate who has just recently purchased the farm.

I am glad I went. It is a beautiful farm with very serviceable buildings and excellent land. The land slopes down through nice hay fields from spruce forests right to the lake. I would have no problem really enjoying farming this land. We agreed that the buildings are ready to receive cattle and we will wait to see how many they might wish to purchase. Standing there you can readily visualize the Native Americans and revolutionary war soldiers that used the lake as their highway gliding by.

It was a long day as I left at 6AM and then had to return to be at the County seat for a County Fire meeting. I didn't get home until almost midnight.

We have had lots of rain lately with another inch predicted overnight. Years ago, a friend told me that a good early spring rain is needed to dry things up. Since this seemed counter intuitive, I asked him what he meant. He told me that winter freezes the ground and heaves things up and loosens the surface. The rain packs everything down and sets the stage for runoff and thus drying up. I have watched this over the years since and I agree that it does dry things up. I hope all the rain we are having will qualify as an early spring rain.

As I am typing that my fire department communication system just indicated a gale warning for tomorrow.

2009-03-04T17:02:00.002-05:00

I went to the Farm Show not only once but twice. Friday I got chores done early and met a friend at the diner. We went off to the show. It is always about the same but this year there didn't seem to be many folks interested in buying. There was an interesting presentation on ultra sound imaging of cattle. We will try to make arrangements to have ours tested.

I went back on Saturday with Jim. He met a young man who is a freshman at Iowa State. Jim has been admitted there to study Agricultural Engineering. This man is taking the same major and gave Jim some real good first hand insights and really encouraged him to go. We got back after lunch and checked the animals. We have several that should be freshening soon. So we now check more often to make sure every thing is okay.

Around four or so we had a power failure. Our generator kicked on automatically. It is very reassuring to hear it start and better to hear it shut off when the power comes back. I had to go out and check with my fire departments as initial reports were that it would be off until evening. Fortunately it came back in about an hour.

Sunday Mary and Jim and I went to the monthly American Legion Pancake breakfast. It's a good chance to see people and they have real maple syrup and good food.

We had a flurry of calls and emails about buying some cattle. We expect some people to come next Saturday. We ordered some semen to be able to AI our cows after they freshen.

As near as we can see the air boat still seems to be stuck on the other shore. We have had absolute bone chilling cold ever since Saturday night but no real snow. It's supposed to get warmer by the end of the week.

There is very little new from the diner. Everyone continues to be aggravated about the great government giveaway. They all tend to be people who have handled their own finances responsibly and are upset at having to accommodate those who haven't or won't. Particularly galling is the ever lasting bank and insurance bailout which is considered as welfare for the rich.
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2009-02-26T21:26:00.002-05:00

The diner was busy this morning. One of the ladies had pictures of her great-great-grandson. That is a noteworthy achievement. The vibrating phone was still a topic of interest.

Thursday was a brilliant blue sky harbinger of Spring type day. It was a pleasure to work without gloves. We still have manure to spread so we got started on it. At the end of the first load, the spreader plugged on a chunk of baleage. It took the rest of the afternoon to get it out. Spreaders can deal with some stuff like that but occasionally they plug.

The cattle luxuriated in the sun all day. Some of them will lay flat out and nap briefly.

The phone was ringing today with questions from potential cattle buyers. In the late afternoon a family from the western part of the state stopped on their way home from the Farm Show. They seemed to like the cattle.

Just before dark, I heard a noise on the lake and looked out. I thought it was a snowmobile but it turned out to be an air boat just like the ones you see in the Florida movies. Jim and I went over to the next town to pick up a prescription. While there we had a call from one of our all year neighbors. She had heard a big commotion on the opposite shore and went out to investigate.

Apparently the air boat had broken through the ice and couldn't get back on top of the ice. She was able to yell over to them and they said they were okay. She was rightfully concerned so she called me.

We came back from town and went down to her shore. The boat was roaring mightily but it was obvious it was stuck. We had to wait until it stopped roaring to yell out to the people. It would have been nice to have a bullhorn like the one the next lane uses for the Fourth of July lawn mower races. Jim suggested having them yell back their cell number. Where they were there are no houses or access to the shore for several thousand feet. The lake is probably a half mile wide there but you could hear because there are no other noises like road noise etc.

We got the cell number and called. They assured us that they were safe and just stuck with help on the way. They also indicated that they were in no immediate danger of dehydration since they had brought plenty of beverages with them.

We were glad everyone was okay and went back about our business. When we checked later we couldn't hear or see anything across the lake so we assume everything worked out. Clearly the summer folks miss an entire dimension of life on the lake. Last week the shovel thrower now this.

Tomorrow is my turn to go to the Farm Show.

2009-02-25T11:19:00.002-05:00

We had had only two inches of snow or so for the entire month of February through Wednesday. It all changed on Thursday with a major lake effect storm. We received a good eighteen inches or so. I had to get out and plow three times in two days.

As usual, the cattle were oblivious to the whole thing. They just continue on with their daily wants of hay and water. I don't imagine a cow has much of an ability to look wistfully forward to the green grass months. We did our chores as usual and all was good.

It is interesting how the temperature can now be warmer than January but you feel colder. It must have something to do with anticipation or the height of the sun or some other phenomenon.

Saturday we went off to the dumpster at the Town Barn to get rid of our waste agricultural plastic bags. It was interesting to note that some outlying counties have a system to retrieve the material at the farm and bring it to a facility in our county 15 miles from here. Due to the normal Byzantine rules of bureaucracy, ours goes to the dump probably because we are too near to a recycling facility.

Sunday, we sold some cattle to the folks that have come by from time to time. They will be taking two heifers fairly soon. the other two are calves that will wait until they are weaned later this spring.

Nothing new on the shovel throwing incident. All appears calm and serene on that front. As the road's homeland security director during the winter, I am looking carefully for any strange vehicles or similar signs. I have seen none.

The diner crowd is biding their time waiting for Spring. This morning one of the regulars was fascinated to discover that his cell phone could be set to vibrate when called. This is the same fella that fell out of his canoe in his garage. It shows that technology hasn't quite overtaken our world just yet.

Jim and I are in need of a haircut. Hopefully we will soon be able to catch up with the only local businessman who stands behind his work.

2009-02-18T20:55:00.003-05:00

Tuesday was a full day. The snow cover is mostly gone for now and the continued cold has frozen the ground solid. Manure piles on the other hand don't freeze very much. So we took out the spreader and spread lots of manure. It's great to get it done without leaving ruts.

We went over to Verne's in the afternoon. Between us, we have 6 young bulls over at his farm that are getting mature enough to need to be segregated from the heifers. So we weighed them and moved them over here. We also brought over a steer that we have been fattening. He'll stay here until we can get him scheduled. With all the talk about eating local, an important step in the process has slowly been fading away and that is the slaughterhouse. We need to go 75 miles one way to get a USDA facility.

We often speak of the idyllic rural tranquility of our road. Today was not tranquil. There was a big burst of activity around noon. Some criminal type with some type of issue with a former summer resident decided to come down and vandalize his house. He actually picked the wrong house. The house he chose was occupied by one of the all year residents taking a shower. The perpetrator wasn't familiar with our icy road and managed to drive off the road as he was leaving the scene. The sheriffs men arrived soon after and dealt with him hopefully severely.

He was driving a car like you would see on the Sopranos. One of our summer residents from New Jersey is here this week. I asked if they had brought a Jersey mobster with them. The car left on a tow truck so wherever he is from, he might have transportation issues.

2009-02-16T18:09:00.002-05:00

This past week has been a quiet one. We had our visitor from eastern New York. He seemed to like our animals. His boss from New York called the next day. He had had good reports on our operation. In talking with him, I had the germ of a new business idea. There seems to be a bit of a need for a person to consult with folks setting up a farm for the first time. There clearly are people getting into farming who view it as an opportunity for a variety of reasons. They don't have the benefit of a farm background to get them started. Since I have built my farm from scratch, I have a good idea of what it takes.

The weather has been quite calm. Almost every day has been blue sky and high 20's. The cattle have been just hanging out.

We put an ad online in the oxen community for Peter our steer. We have gotten an amazing number of calls. We have also learned something very important about oxen. They are supposed to have horns. Peter's were removed before we got him.

Historically, the horns kept the yoke in place when pulling a cart downhill. In modern times, they are just part of the look. So for now all thoughts of Peter leading an idyllic life in New England with other oxen seem to be on hold.

Over the weekend, both Jim and I had a good case of the flu. It was no fun doing chores but they need to be done. We are both on the mend now so I'm hopeful that we have seen the end of it.

Last evening, the folks who have come over a few times from the next county called to say they want to buy some animals. His brother raises hogs so a sideline is that I ordered half a hog from him. They are coming Saturday to place their order. Another party from Western New York is coming the following Saturday. Prospects look favorable at the moment.

2009-02-09T16:52:00.002-05:00

Thursday was about the most unlikely day ever to try out a manure spreader. As promised, the dealer was there with the factory man to show us all the important features. It's pretty hard to focus on the salient features of a spreader at 0 degrees even if the sun is out. We got a few loads into it and it performed quite well. The tractor hooked to the spreader has a full cab with a heater and radio and about anything else except a cup holder. The tractor we use to load the spreader has no cab. I loaded.

We agreed to keep it and parked it waiting for better weather. We are starting to prepare for this years calves. We pretty much know when to expect the ones from AI; one week minus nine months. The ones that the bull participated in are more of an unknown.

The road has become pure glare ice almost of ice skating quality. Our fleet can handle a lot but we have nothing for ice. About the best we can do is hope for a sunny day and drive up and down in the big tractor and hope it roughens it up enough for a little traction.

Jim was off on Friday to visit his sister at college in Nashville. He called from the airport to say that the plane was changed from going to Atlanta to Cincinnati. I reminded him that I was born there. We moved away when I was one so I don't have well defined memories.

Later, he called to say he was in Detroit instead of Cincy. He did eventually make it Nashville and only a few hours late.

Saturday the weather was better and a friend helped me spread manure. The spreader worked exceedingly well. After we were done, I wondered if we should have left a path for the snowmobilers. We were also able to set up another maternity pen in the coverall barn.

Jim made it back late Sunday and this time by way of Cincinnati. I think he had chili on top of spaghetti at the airport which is a big thing there. I did a lot of book work to get ready for tax season. It is surprising how much paperwork is required for even a small farm our size.

Monday was another good day. The check came from our calf that was auctioned in Denver. It's always nice to get a check.

It's now daylight until at least six. Today was mid 30's and sun. I moved a bunch of round bales out of the fields onto the gravel pad near the barn. They are talking a big thaw later this week and there is no need of rutting up the field.

The phone has continued to ring. I had a call from the Eastern part of the state about our Lowlines. Hopefully, those folks will be out Wednesday to look over our cattle. They are apparently interested in buying some animals to raise and eventually slaughter Kosher. I assured him that he wouldn't be disappointed if he drives out here.

Tonight is my monthly County Fire meeting. I am on a committee preparing a report on the utilization of our county fire departments. At the moment, I am frustrated by the quality of the data we have. Hopefully that will change tonight.

2009-02-04T20:25:00.002-05:00

Jim had Monday off because of last weeks snow day. This appears confusing and it is. He is a senior and had an exam scheduled on the snow day. It was pushed back a day. The under class folks still had tests to take and that caused a holiday on Monday for seniors. Whatever the reason, it is always good when he is home. He really knows his way around the animals and equipment.

We moved some hay in the barn to make room to create some additional calving pens. We are expecting about 25 calves later this spring so it is time to start getting ready. I much prefer that they calve in the barn.

We stopped at our local farm supply /welding shop to have some pins made that hold our pen panels together. Then we dropped off our fencer at a friends to be checked out. He and his family have been on the same farm for over one hundred years. That is quite an accomplishment. He still has a dairy herd of mostly Jersey cows just like you'd see in a Norman Rockwell painting.

When we got home, we finished chores and mailed out the tail hair samples. The farm equipment dealer brought out a replacement manure spreader for us to try. Jim hooked it up and I put in a test load. It worked quite well but we decided to see what other options we might have. The dealer agreed to bring a different brand later in the week for us to try.

Tuesday, we got right into pen cleaning. It was a bright sunny day but quite cold. We took out seven loads of manure and spread it on soy bean fields. By the end of the afternoon quite cold had become very cold and we were glad to be done. As usual, the cattle didn't seem to mind.

A few weeks ago, a family had brought their three young sons down and were talking about buying some cattle. They called and asked to come down again. So while we spread, they all walked around and looked at the cattle. The man's brother is an Operating Engineer as I was until I retired. I was in for 27 years and he is just 8 years now so our paths hadn't crossed on the job. He raises hogs and we got into a discussion about them and learned quite a bit.

I talked more with his brother about cattle but they are not quite ready yet. I gave him a beltie steak to try.

Tuesday night was our monthly fire department meeting. Everything is going well so it was a short meeting.

Wednesday, I went up to the diner first thing. Mid winter doldrums there and no big topics to resolve. One of the guys is getting his new teeth fitted so that's about the biggest news there. It was the coldest morning so far this year, minus 3 at 7AM.

After chores, I called up a friend and asked him if he wanted to ride over to the next county to pick up some feed supplies. He said he was going to take a nap but my invitation sounded pretty good. So off we went to the feed mill. He has never met a person yet that he doesn't like to engage in conversation. So it took quite a while to get the feed. We were quite chilly by then and I told him about a winery just down the road from the mill.

They offer samples so we were able to warm up. Then he started chatting up the owner about all the ins and outs of wine. By the time we were on the way, we had each bought a few bottles to bring home. When I got back, Jim had just come home and we put out the minerals for the young stock.

On the way back, the hog owning brother from yesterday called to say he'd left some pork on the tractor seat for us to try. There was no danger of it thawing any time soon as it was about 5 degrees when we picked it up and brought it down to the house. We have managed to meet and speak with some exceptionally nice people since we started our farm. That's a real dividend as far as I am concerned.

In the evening, I had a lengthy chat with a woman from a couple of hours west. She has no cattle and is interested in getting some. I was able to put her in touch with a customer from last year who lives about a half hour from her. I also suggested that she come down here and I'd show her what we have to offer. A lot of people have been calling and emailing, I guess that's another sign of Spring.

2009-01-30T21:22:00.002-05:00

We had sort of a typical mid winter week. Mary went off to Florida to visit her mother and the new grandchild. She reported both to be doing quite well. The young lad is reported to be a great sleeper already. This is certainly an admirable trait which will soon lead to the new parents being much more rested than they might have expected. Mary had the experience of walking bare foot on the beach in the morning and coming home the same day to great piles of snow.

The animals continue to be quite content. Other than looking after their food and water and bedding there is not much to do. We are now at the time when we start to do oil changes and such on the tractors and think spring can't really be that far away.

We had a pretty good snow storm on Wednesday. Jim got yet another snow day. This is his mid term exam week and that caused his English exam to be delayed a day. For some reason, it has also enabled him not to have school Friday or next Monday. There was quite a lot of plowing to do Thursday morning to get the roads passable again.

Thursday night, Jim and I went over to the neighboring county to the beef meeting. The group is trying to reach consensus on which vendor to select to DNA test our collective herd. Each meeting includes a great pot luck supper so it's also a great time to meet and visit with new friends. We stopped on the way over at a feed mill in that county. We don't have anything exactly like it in our county. We bought some lickable mineral supplements. These are made in the bottom half of 55 gallon barrels. The minerals are mixed into a hard molasses base which the cattle lick. We put them out Friday morning and it didn't take the cattle long to find them.

Friday afternoon the weather was pretty good so Jim and I decided to corral our and Verne's bulls and get a sample for the DNA test. As I might have mentioned previously, the sample requires catching the bull in our chute and yanking out some hairs from his tail. They have to be yanked because the important DNA information is in the hair follicle.They seem oblivious to the hair yank. It's important that the hair but as uncontaminated as possible. The hair follicle end first is put into what looks like a match book with sticky clear paper. The DNA lab uses this sample to predict a number of traits such as tenderness, marbling, grade and several other parameters. It's pretty hard to understand the science behind analyzing a tail hair but it seems to be a reliable indicator. We also weighed them and they all show steady gains.

2009-01-25T19:30:00.002-05:00

It was a quiet week. The weather was typical upstate New York mid winter. We had our January thaw on Friday when it hit 41 degrees. The snow settled and slid off our roof. Basically everything got a little break and reconfigured for more winter. By Saturday morning we were back to cold and blowing.

We finished building a small insulated room in our pole barn. This will give us a small area to put away tools and hang up a hose. The cattle continue to shrug off the weather. We expect to have to feed them until May 15th which is the typical date for return to pasture. I've counted our baleage and dry hay inventory and we should be fine. Our new used manure spreader seems to have a few problems. The dealer will be picking it up in the morning for repair. They seem to be very good about standing behind their product; I mean figuratively because you do not want to stand literally behind a manure spreader.

Friday, my second oldest son called from Florida to tell us they he and his wife were proud parents of a fine new son; 10 pounds 6 ounces. I was 10 1 and Jim was 10 4 so we have a new family best. We soon had pictures and he looks great. Based upon our experience with Jim, people seem to be incredulous when they look at the new baby and find out he is a new born not several months old.

Saturday, I took one of my lake neighbors up to the diner. He used to live in a small town and he knows about small town diners. This is his first winter at the lake and all is going well. He got a propane fueled generator installed this week.One of the regulars has the same generator. He also has a well earned reputation for knowing how to squeeze a penny hard enough to make Lincoln cry. He told the new arrival how to remove a fuse that allows the generator to self test weekly and save 13 cents a week.

My wife's mother lives within a few miles of the new baby. Her mother had a same day operation last week and Mary is off to Florida in the morning to see her mother and the baby. Jim and I picked up some John Deere baby socks at the tractor store to send along. I'll bet he is the only baby in that area with JD socks. I'll look forward to getting a picture.

One of the swimmers will be away from the pool this week as he has some work scheduled with our good dentist. We are fortunate to have such a good dentist.

We had a fire in a small horse barn Saturday afternoon. Fortunately the horses were out doors at the time. It was about 10 degrees with a brilliant sunshine so it wasn't too bad to be outside. When I got back, one of our summer neighbors came out to check their camp. We had a nice visit. Their visit and the thaw and the longer day gives us our first hopes of Spring to come.

In the evening we went to one our friends for dinner. It is a pleasant evening when you can spend it with friends.

2009-01-20T20:09:00.003-05:00

It has been relatively quiet. The weather has moderated a bit and it's nice to get a few extra minutes of day light at the end of the day. We were able to rework the fence wiring so that the lower wire will only be hot when we switch it on. It has raised the charge considerably in the other three wires.

Things are quiet at the diner. Everyone was kind of waiting for the inauguration to be over. The whole presidential election process seems to have been going on forever. Consensus was that it would be better to have a lot fewer inauguration galas and get to work on fixing the various problems facing the country. The rumoured $150 million to inaugurate a president in a democracy seems unconscionable.

We had our visitors from Massachusetts today. They seemed to like our operation and are trying to figure out how to integrate some lowlines or belties or maybe some of each with their dexters. We appreciate them taking the time to drive over to view our farm and animals.

2009-01-17T19:25:00.004-05:00

The cold weather arrived on schedule. The animals appear not to have noticed. They are eating a bit more than usual but otherwise they seem oblivious. We seem to be at the end of the real cold part although it hasn't been really cold here. We have a recording thermometer and the lowest this week was minus 1. It just hasn't gotten much above ten. Tomorrow we are supposed to begin a week of 20's. I told our Minnesota cattle that they should be happy they moved to New York. The air temperature this week at their former home was minus thirty four. That is noticeably cold.

We had all the usual problems with the water that cold brings but no real problems. We found that our fencer was putting out an anemic shock and we replaced it while ours is repaired. We got all five yearling bulls back in their pen. Verne's likes to associate with the main herd so he worked his way through the fence. Tomorrow, we are going to rework the fence so the bottom wire is out of the circuit. We think we are losing some jolt where the snow covers the lower wire.

Thursday, I went to another DNA vendor seminar with the beef group to the west. The presentation was excellent. Jim couldn't go because he had a track meet. He did his personal best in the mile which is great. On my best day, I was never a runner.

We have had contacts from some folks from Massachusetts who are coming out next week to look at our animals. Hopefully, the weather will be good.

I went to the diner this morning. Apparently, the swimming went well for the boys. There was some mention that one wasn't a good floater. He thought that maybe they had slipped him weighted floaties. Those are those long plastic log type things that kids seem to enjoy. There was also lots of talk about canoes. One of the guys has a real fondness for canoes. He has to be the only we have ever heard about falling out while standing up in the canoe in his garage.

The lake is frozen. There are several folks ice fishing on the northern end. We never see any activity on our end. There has always been talk that our ice is treacherous due to springs.

2009-01-14T20:30:00.003-05:00

We got the ice storm as promised. It didn't affect the trees or the wires but made a big, sloppy mess out of everything. We had to postpone the visit from the folks looking at the Lowlines. The weather then turned colder. We had to decide whether to plow all the mess off or leave it to freeze so we would have some traction when it snowed. We decided to leave it and it worked out well.

Thursday night, Jim and I went to the beef meeting over in the neighboring county. It was held in an equipment barn that had an unusual feature. Apparently the owner was a great supporter of 4H. They built a very nice meeting room right into the barn, complete with a kitchen and fireplace. It was a great venue for a farmer meeting.

The speaker dealt with DNA testing of cattle. In anticipation, we had sent in samples from two of ours and one of Verne's bulls. We were delighted to find out that they scored about as high as possible on feed efficiency and tenderness. There is another meeting this week from a different vendor on the same topic.

The hereford folks came on Friday with their three young boys. The boys were well behaved and obviously oriented towards the outdoor life. It seems like they might want to buy a few animals a little later this winter. We hope they do as I am sure they will be good caretakers for the animals. The wife fell in love with Peter the Brown Swiss. He has now grown to the size and shape and color of your basic bull moose. I just got my subscription to Rural Heritage magazine. It deals with oxen and draft horses. I am hoping to find someone who would like to put to work as an ox. I am sure he would be wonderful and enjoy it immensely.

Saturday morning, Jim and I took the plastic bale wrap waste to the Town dumpster. Apparently, there is no market for it to be recycled. Some counties have a mobile baler that they bring to the farm. We wish our county would. We know of some farmers who burn the plastic but that doesn't seem like a good idea.

In the afternoon, I drove Jim to an indoor track meet at a college about 75 miles east. His event wasn't until 3 so it worked out well. He won his heat which was even better.

Chores have been pretty routine. Both winter calves and their mothers are doing well. Now that it has been a steady cold, the whole herd seems to be enjoying the weather.

On Tuesday, we had a calf in the National lowline Sale in Denver. She did very well. We got her when we bought the Minnesota lowlines earlier in the fall. We decided to leave her in Minnesota and enter the sale. Her sister who is a year older but we don't own did extremely well. We have the mother here and she is bred to a great bull. So hopefully we'll have a fancy spring calf.

The weather man has been all worked up the last few days about Arctic weather. Yesterday was a decent day and a cold front came through with some snow in early evening. We have taken all precautions to give our animals extra bedding and access to the barns. They still seem to prefer to be out in the fields.

I made it to the diner this morning for the first time in a few days. Two of my buddies were just heading out the door to go swimming. One of them has had an artificial hip and then a knee this year. He swears by going to the pool at the high school. He has been working on my other friend to go and he finally agreed today. It will be interesting to get the report tomorrow. I think their is also an element of socializing involved here.

When we went to the Adirondacks to get the larch wood, we bough a used manure spreader. It came today and we got it put away. Zero days are not when you want to spread. We compost our manure but there comes a time when you have got to make room in the pile.

We have been having a little trouble with the yearling bulls going through the fence of their pen to join the herd. There are no open cows so there is no reason for them to do it. We checked the fencer and it seems a bit weak. I went over to the dealer and borrowed a new unit. It seems to be working somewhat but one of the five still went through. I'll probably have to fine tune the fence wiring so the bottom wire is not hot. A lot of it is covered by snow and I think it is grounding out the fence.

They are talking highs of around zero for the next few days so we'll see how it goes.

2009-01-06T21:24:00.002-05:00

Monday was a calm day. The Lowlines who live in the woods pasture have taken very nicely to their new lean to. We blew in soy bean waste for bedding and they moved right in.

I went to the diner and visited with the regulars. One of the fellows belongs to a construction workers union. He said he had received a letter that a lot of their pension money had been lost since they had invested it with the man in New York City who had embezzled 5o billion dollars. Another fellow who is involved in trucking mentioned that he didn't feel that his union had likewise invested since the reputed embezzler was still alive.

The barber went over to use the pool at the gym. He claims it keeps him limber. That is a good thing because before long it will be golf season and he'll want to be right out there.

Tuesday was likewise an excellent blue sky day. We were able to move the new beltie and her calf from the maternity pen to an inside pen near the other cow calf pair. We were able to separate the cow and calf long enough to tag the calf and confirm she is a heifer.

We had an unexpected call in the afternoon from some folks in a neighboring county who have herefords. They are interested in downsizing their cattle and came to look at the lowlines. They seemed to like them and hope to return tomorrow with their children. The weather isn't promising as it looks like we might have an ice storm overnight and into tomorrow.

We had our monthly fire meeting tonight. Our new truck has been in service for a month and all is going well.

2009-01-04T19:59:00.002-05:00

New Years Eve was very cold with snow and wind. We took care of our chores and pretty much had an easy day. Jim was invited to an overnight party with some friends he had met at Scouts. I decided to drive him since the weather was very poor. I made it back safely and had an early start on being well rested for 2009.

I picked him up New Year's morning and we stopped and bought some lumber. I was surprised to see that the big box stores were open. We didn't need quality lumber and it certainly wasn't. One of the 2 x 4 x 12 broke in half when we picked it up. The lumber was to finish up our new cow shelter.

Friday I got up early to meet my friend and his truck and go pick up some baleage I had purchased earlier this fall. I thought we had put up enough of our own hay but having the ten Minnesota cows as extras has put a dent into our supply. We have a calf from one of these cows in the National Lowline Show in Denver on January 13. The sale flier just came out and we have an email as a result. A man who grew up in our town saw the flier in Florida where he lives and raises Lowlines. I don't know him but was certainly clad to make a connection.

I was going to do back to get a second load but had to ask my friend to go by himself. When I got back with the first load, one of our belties had begun to freshen. This is her first calf and I wanted to watch her closely. After about two hours, she produced a fine beltie-lowline calf.

We think it's a heifer but we are not yet totally sure. Belties are famous for being over protective mothers. She and the calf are in a pen and she is sending out strong signals that she does not want visitors in the pen. We were able to get a fleeting glance when the calf was born and its looks like it might be a heifer. It is very difficult to get a birth weight on a beltie calf. We won't name the calf until we're sure of the sex. We think matters should calm down tomorrow and we'll move them to another pen and tag the calf. it will be LBF W01. W is the letter for 2009. This should be our last calf until April. Verne's bull is the father.

Saturday and Sunday we finished the cow shed and got it into position. This is about the time the Wise Men visited the Christ child in the stable. This shed bears an uncanny resemblance to a Christmas Creche. I don't expect to see any wise men on the farm but the cows have already found it to their liking.

The weather has been cold and clear. There is talk of ice later in the week.

2008-12-30T20:54:00.002-05:00

We are back from a mini vacation.

Christmas Eve we went to Mass as usual. Each year there is a pageant put on by second graders as part of the Mass. For as long as we can recall, this program has been put together by one family. We can recall when the daughters of that family had a role in the pageant and now their children have parts.

The pageant tells the story of Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem to find that there is no room in the inn. My wife, Mary, especially likes the ancient wooden donkey on wheels who follows Joseph down our church aisle. Our son, Jim, had the great honor of playing Jesus when he was a few months old and he reappeared several years later as the Emperor. Eileen was an angel one year.

We have a new priest this year. He is from Kenya and he clearly enjoyed the pageant. Just another wonderful reason to live in small town America.

Christmas morning we drove to Vermont. We had rented a house near a ski area for a few days with my sister and her family from Arkansas. My oldest daughter and her family came over from New Hampshire.

A young lady who is a family friend has been taking care of our cattle while we were away. She does a great job with them.

I used to ski but don't anymore. So I went to see some cattle. There is a farm with excellent Lowlines about an hour from the ski area. I visited with the owner and really enjoyed looking over his operation.

Then there is a world famous Belted Galloway farm near the ski area. Jim and I had met some of their people last year. So we went over to visit. It is a world class operation.

My daughter and her husband and two boys and I went to tour a farm that has become a National Park. It goes back to 1869 and the most recent owners were the Rockefellers. As part of their arrangement in giving the farm to the government, they must continue to maintain a herd of Jersey milkers. The cows are immaculate and they ship milk just like everyone else. It is really hardly different than the farm a friend has about ten miles from here. He and his ancestors have been milking cows in the same spot for over a hundred years. He also has Jerseys.

Jim and I had to come back early for a meeting about the Naval Academy. He has received what is called a competitive appointment from our Congressman. This doesn't mean he is in but certainly moves him closer.

Today we went to the Adirondacks to pick up our larch wood. There was one area of Lake effect snow along the way that was troublesome but we made it safely.

There was a huge thaw and high winds over the last few days but it looks like we came through unscathed. It is supposed to snow again overnight with lake effect later tomorrow. It would be better for the cattle and us if we could just get a steady temperature range instead of these wild swings. I am believer in the theory that you need a period of good cold days to knock down the various germs etc.

2008-12-27T10:15:00.001-05:00

We have gone away until Monday 12/29 and have very limited access to computer. I will resume blog then.

2008-12-23T21:02:00.002-05:00

It snowed some more over night so I started the day out by plowing. Things are pretty quiet at the diner. Must be all the problems of the world are on hold for the Christmas season. The wind died down and it was a pretty nice day.

We've been having trouble keeping a water trough open for the heifer calves so we installed a new heater. When I just checked it, it seems to be working. It's 24 which is a lot better than 4. They're talking some light snow followed by ice then plain rain for the morning. I've been wanting to go up to the Tug Hill to pick up my larch wood but the weather hasn't cooperated. Tug Hill is not a place to go during inclement weather.

I went off to my consulting job in the afternoon. We've drilled some more wells and it looks like we've got the water problem pretty much under control.

We went in the evening to a Court of Honor for Jim's Scout Troop. It came as a bit of a surprise when the Scoutmaster mentioned that two of Jim's contemporaries will be eighteen in a few weeks. Eighteen marks the end of your career as a scout. Jim is good until next fall.

ThenI had to go to a Town Planning Board to see about adding a parcel I bought to my commercial parcel. It is amazing how you can live and work in small town America but have to deal with a rather elaborate bureaucracy worth of a big city.

We live in the part of New York where the Erie Canal is located. You can envision our leaders of the time saying " get your shovels and mules, we're going to build a canal." The President Elect is talking about a massive Public Works program. I can envision him saying " get your permits and remember that you are not allowed to build anything until all paperwork is place." This, I suppose is today's definition of progress.

2008-12-22T19:52:00.002-05:00

The weatherman was correct. We had snow Friday. A lot of snow and the beginning of lots of days of plowing. Jim had a snow day so he was around to help. Eileen was due home from college but had to stay overnight in Detroit when they closed the airport.

Saturday, the weather was clear and cold. We worked on our new cattle lean to shed. Eileen made it home in the afternoon but her luggage didn't.

It snowed again Saturday night and we plowed again Sunday morning. Eileen was able to pick up her luggage at the airport.The last two snow events have been wide area snow storms.

The wind picked up Sunday evening and blew quite hard. They had to call out the fire department overnight to block off the state highway while they towed several cars out of drifts. Monday morning we had another foot of lake effect snow. Jim had another snow day. They usually allow for five in the school schedule and he has had three already and it's not Christmas yet.

Monday afternoon, I plowed again. We reconfigured the pens in our coverall barn to move the cow and calf over against an inner wall. We put down more bedding. The cattle all seem healthy and well adjusted to the weather, Some of the Minnesota Lowlines are starting to look a little chubby. They are all assumed pregnant for March delivery. The baleage seems to agree with them.

The weatherman is now predicting rain and mild for Christmas.

2008-12-18T20:32:00.004-05:00

Snow arrived on schedule Wednesday morning. By our local standards, it didn't amount to much. The school felt they better delay things for two hours to get a handle on it. It has been quite unusual to have several regional snow storms as compared to our usual highly localized lake effect snow.

The cattle didn't mind much. I went with a friend to the green dealership. The battery in my four year old tractor has become weak. The dealer didn't have one but promised to deliver one tomorrow. We then went to the lumber yard so I could order materials for my new cattle shed. My friend's son works there. I'd much rather deal with someone local than the big box stores.
We got everything ordered and headed back home.

Thursday morning my friend was at my house by 7AM. We were going to take his blue tractor back to his dealer on my fifth wheel trailer. We got everything loaded without any difficulty and went off to the dealer. We had a lot of fun bantering with the salesman on the relative merits of various tractor colors.

I got home in time to unload the lumber I ordered yesterday. One benefit of dealing locally is the lumber tends to be straight rather than twisted up like a snake at the big name stores. The battery arrived and the tractor started right up.

I need siding for the shed. Cattle are not respectfulul of metal siding. We have some nearby goats that live in a hut that had plastic siding when new. They've eaten it off as high as they can reach.

My friend's son told me about a sawmill in the foothill of the Adirondacks that saws larch. It is also called tamarack. I fell out of a tamarack tree when I was a kid so I figured I'd finally get even by ordering some larch wood. It is supposedly highly resistant to cattle waste which will be abundant in and around their shed. I hope to go get it next week which should be another adventure.

They are talking a big snow for tomorrow. We put out extra bedding and got everything ready just in case the weatherman happens to be right. We'll see what the morning brings.

2008-12-16T21:33:00.003-05:00

I've fallen a bit behind in my writing. Sunday was a pretty calm day. We did chores and went to church. In the afternoon, we went over to Verne's to help him work the cattle.

Monday was another unusually warm day. It was in the low 50's at lunch time. Our electrician came and I am happy to say that the work is done. In the afternoon, I went back to the sewer pumping station to resume being a consultant. We installed another deep well and it seemed like that would take care of the problem. Being a consultant is a little different than being a contractor which I was for many years. Contractors sign checks on the front and consultants sign checks on the back.

It was still mild in the evening. It turned colder overnight and it was about 27 Tuesday morning. The weather man is getting everyone warmed up for another snow beginning late Tuesday night

One of the diner regulars surprised everyone this morning when he announced that our group was "unevenly yoked." When we got over the initial surprise of the rather unique remark, we asked him what he meant. He alluded to the Bible. A little research showed the source to be "2 Corinthians 6:14: "Do not be unevenly yoked with unbelievers."

This remark is almost as memorable as the time my college soccer coach announced while standing at the front of the chartered team bus that he sensed a dichotomy. It took quite a while to figure that one out as well.

After we got the yoking figured out, a new arrival with documentable experience behind a horse announced that they invented eveners to deal with uneven yokes. So today's trip to the diner was quite educational.

Not to be outdone, our barber announced that he was one of the few businessmen around who could categorically state that he stood behind his work.

After I got through all that, I went home and did chores. Then I had to go to a meeting about a new radio system for the county emergency services. They've created a committee and hired a consultant. Like all consultants, he seems unwilling to listen to what we think we might need and plowed ahead with a lengthy presentation on what he thinks we need. I was very glad when it was time for lunch.

No snow yet but they're getting pretty worked up on the TV.

2008-12-13T20:27:00.002-05:00

Thursday was a pretty calm but busy day. Verne wanted to work the cattle. We went over to his place and ran a whole bunch of calves and cows through the chute. We got their weights and checked them over.

The snow was here on Friday morning. Jim's school closed for the day. We had about six inches of non lake effect snow. I plowed the road and worked around the farm. Jim went over to Verne's in the afternoon to help Verne.

In the afternoon, I went off to help on a construction site problem. A contractor friend is responsible for building a sewer pumping station nearby. They have an excavation that will go about thirty feet deep which is about twenty feet below the water table. They have tried unsuccessfully to lower the water table. I had made some recommendations and my former company had brought in a drill rig to construct a test well. I went to observe. I had forgotten how cold you can get when you are watching but not working. We got the well installed and I'll go back on Monday to see what to do next. I enjoy these assignments.

Saturday was a big day for Jim. He had his second interview for the United States Naval Academy. The interview panel is selected by the local Congressman to advise him on whom to appoint. Jim hopes to hear by Christmas.

It was the coldest day of the winter so far but everything worked. We started to assemble a prefabricated lean to that we will use as a pasture shelter.

2008-12-10T21:17:00.002-05:00

Wednesday was a busy day. It had turned very mild over night. It was 53 and raining when I got up. As the morning went on it got colder and the rain changed to snow. It didn't accumulate much, just enough to make the roads slippery.

We had a little excitement on the next road. A ready mix concrete truck got tangled up in an overhead power line. The line dropped on the cab. The driver knew to stay in the truck until help arrived. The fire department came and everyone waited a while for the electric company to arrive and shut off the power.

In the afternoon, I went over to Verne's to help work some cattle. The weather wasn't too bad and the cattle were fairly cooperative. So, it wasn't too bad a job.

In the evening, Jim and I went to get a haircut. The barber is a friend. Being a small town, he built a little barber shop wing off his house. He holds court there a couple of nights a week. It's a family business as his daughter cuts hair also. Now, his son has decided to take up the trade and is learning under his father's watchful eye.

The barber is one of our diner regulars. He is trying to be able to read this blog on his computer but seems to be having technical difficulties. Jim gave him a few tips and I'll see in the morning if he was successful.

They are still calling for a major snow storm to begin tomorrow afternoon. I'll see how it looks in the morning and adjust our schedule as necessary.

2008-12-09T22:04:00.002-05:00

Sunday was quite a cold and snowy day. A weather front blew through around 9AM and the temperature dropped sharply and lake effect snow set in. After church, we went to the American Legion monthly pancake breakfast. You can't beat the food with real maple syrup. We always get to see lots of friends and neighbors. The politicians have mostly faded away for another year although a few continue to come because they seem to like the food.

Chores are pretty routine by now and the animals have become accustomed to the weather and they have developed new routines to deal with it. It is always interesting to see how they prefer to remain outside even though they have ready access to shelter.

By Sunday evening, I thought I had better plow the road. We don't notice the wind too much by the lake as we are sheltered by a hill to the west. It must have blown pretty hard up on the roads because there were pretty good sized drifts and patches of windblown bare road.

Monday morning was quite cold but everything worked including the troublesome yard hydrant. A friend stopped by and we went off and ran some errands. I had to go to the bank and he wanted to check out a tractor battery. When we got back, I fluffed up the cattle bedding and everything was fine.

Monday evening, I had my monthly County Fire Board meeting. I enjoy the meeting and going out afterwards with colleagues for typically some chicken wings. It was still cold and windy when I got home.

I was surprised to wake up Tuesday to a few inches of snow and a little ice. The local school was running a two hour delay. That didn't do much for Jim as his school was on time and he had to be here. He said the roads weren't too bad.

Tuesday afternoon, we brought out the bale processor and built up the cattle mounds and cleaned the pens. I had to go to the city again to give a report to the County Legislature on our Fire Boards activities. That was early and I was able to get back in time for the regular monthly meeting of the local fire department.

There was an email from the Weather Bureau when I got home advising that we might have a good storm Thursday. We'll see. I think it is better to wake up in the morning and deal with the weather at hand rather than have a several day build up for a storm that may or may not happen. Every time they give early warnings, the grocery stores get mobbed and everybody goes into a panic shopping mode.

Still not much good to be said by the diner crew about all the government bailouts.

2008-12-06T20:59:00.002-05:00

It's Saturday evening and it has been a quiet week. On Thursday, it looked like the weather was going to turn cold. I scraped the mud more or less level in the barn yard and our gravel roads and pads. Sure enough it did turn cold and everything froze solid but fairly level. So at the moment we have no mud or snow to deal with. Rough ground is tough on the snow plow blade.

Thursday evening we took the governor from our old AC over to the mechanic. He was puzzled as to the cause and said he'd look into it and get back to us. It will be interesting to see what caused the problem.

Friday, a friend came by and we moved two trailer loads of soybean waste round bales over to Verne's to use as bedding.

Saturday, Jim and I got a lot done. We have a yard hydrant that intermittently freezes which causes a problem. The way it works is that when you shut it off, the water drains back below ground through a little hole in the valve. The valve is three feet deep and surrounded by gravel to let the water weep away. Last week, we blew compressed air back trough the stand pipe and we thought we had the problem solved. It was frozen again yesterday and we had to thaw it with a torch. Today we bought electric heat tape and insulated it and plugged it in. We'll see what happens tomorrow morning. We also blew a bunch of waste hay and bean waste onto the cattle mounds. They really like to burrow into it.

The new calf is doing well and the cow is an excellent mother. Calves really grow quickly and this one is quite lively. We plan on putting an ear tag on her tomorrow. We'll have to think of a name pretty soon.

It's 28 tonight but supposedly quite a bit colder with lots of lake snow tomorrow. We hope we have the hydrant problem under control.

The boys in the diner are discussing the automakers problems. Not much sympathy there. We also got in a conversation about some of the figures of speech that the old farmers used. We agreed that they were all based upon not taking chances and being careful. Apparently the bankers and automakers were not familiar with many of them.

My all time favorite which was directed at an errant plow horse is " Hold her, Knute, she's headed for the buckwheat."

2008-12-04T06:58:00.003-05:00

Tuesday and Wednesday were quite nice by early winter standards. No sun but no wind and highs around 40. As I have mentioned before, we are now into our winter chores. They are quite simple and repetitive: feed baleage, take care of the bedding, remove manure and make sure the water works. All our bales are now over at the barn from the fields down the road.

Tuesday, the technicians came by from an Ag Consulting firm we've hired. They will be taking soil samples, map the farm and provide a Nutrient Management Plan. Hopefully, this will give us a good baseline of where we are and some idea of what we need to do to get the most out of our land and animals.

I was surprised to received my soybean check within four days of calling the grain elevator and asking them to sell the beans. It is amazing how interconnected agriculture is. The beans were at an elevator in western NY which is owned by a Pennsylvania COOP and the check came from Perdue Chickens.

I mentioned that we had gotten our turkey, as usual, from a rather famous farm across the lake. It looks like it will be our last. They were bought out last year by a big conglomerate. They announced yesterday that they were moving the operation to Pennsylvania. All the usual talk about how difficult it is to do business in NY. They are laying off 90 people here. They claim they are going to start up again here in the Spring doing Kosher turkeys. We'll see what happens. We liked buying a non frozen local turkey. If we want a mass produced frozen turkey, there are lots in the grocery store.

The warmer weather was a bit of a bonus for the new calf. She has had a few days to get accustomed to her surroundings without having to worry about staying warm. She is doing well and the cow seems to be a good mother.

Wednesday night, Jim and I went over to a neighboring Counties Beef Producer Meeting. This is a monthly potluck supper at a farmer's house. We each bring a dish to pass and then talk about beef. Our County is sorely lacking in this regard. They just don't do much for the beef farmer.

Last night, they had a local vet present to pass out a checklist and lead a discussion on things to work on and think about through the winter. She recommended giving animals tetanus and rabies shots as a preventative measure. I am going to speak with Verne about this and get his opinion.

Interestingly, the farmer that hosted the meeting does small scale turkey raising. We spoke with him a bit and we might try raising our own turkey next year along with a few for friends and neighbors.

When we got home, I had an email from a good friend's wife that he had a hopefully successful surgery in Florida. They are from here but winter down there. He has gone through a lot with his ailment and we all hope that he will soon be his old self and pain free.

2008-12-01T20:02:00.002-05:00

Sunday started out with a surprise. When we came back from the diner after church, we had visitors. One of the buyers of our Angus had stopped by with his wife. It turns out they are third generation on their farm. But the farm was originally purchased from someone named Galloway. The wife thinks they ought to have a Galloway. While we were talking cattle, we walked over to our Coverall barn.

Surprisingly, there was a newborn calf with the cow we brought over yesterday. We didn't expect her to freshen for a few weeks. Our guest is a Holstein man and was amazed to see a 37 pound calf. It seems like Verne's young bull Natemin had been feeling his oats last February. We were glad it was fairly mild in the mid thirties. We mounded up some straw and stretched a tarp to provide a windbreak. They seem fine.

In the late afternoon, we took Eileen to the airport. She texted at 1AM to say she was safe at home in her dorm.

Monday had a nice start. I walked into the diner to be greeted by a chorus of Happy Birthday by all the regulars. A nice surprise. They suggested that this might be a nice year for to explore Route 66.

A friend stopped after chores. He is a great mechanic and he came by to see if we could find the source of a noise in our restored Allis Chalmers B. It looks like the weights in the governor are traveling too far and hitting the inside of the housing.. There is a real motor doctor in a neighboring town. I'll take the parts over to him for his examination.

I've been pretty worked up over an email from Coop. It seems that the EPA thinks cow flatulence needs regulation. Their idea is to charge $175 per dairy cow and $87.50 per beefer per year. This is real. Like they say you can't make this stuff up. I intend to tell everyone I know or run into to call or write or whatever to protest this asinine tax. You can relate to the folks in Boston.

The heifer calf is doing well. Fortunately it was 40 again today and should be for a few more days.

Mary made a nice dinner of Beltie beef and made my favorite grape pie. She topped it off with a fruit cake. A real treat.

2008-11-29T18:00:00.004-05:00

Friday was a busy day. Jim and I got an early start and went up to the village. The usual crowd was in the diner. The topic of discussion was whether the school board really feels that their proposed modernization will be accomplished without cost to the taxpayer as they indicate on the expensive brochure they've mailed to every resident. Consensus was that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

We went back to the farm and hooked up the cattle trailer. Rochester walked right in and, after a few safety checks, we were off to Pennsylvania. Fortunately we had enough diesel to reach Pennsylvania since fuel is always cheaper there. It was $3.35 here and $2.66 in PA.

We used the GPS to route us to our destination. There were no problems and the farmer was waiting. Rochester walked off the trailer into his new home like he was at home.

It is a very nice farm on top of a hill. They have excellent cattle and I'm sure Rochester will do his best to increase the size of the herd.

We came back by a different route suggested by the GPS. We were glad that we didn't bring the bull that way as he would likely have become trailer sick.

There was some very slippery snow first thing Saturday. We had a rescue call for a car overturned up on the main road. Hopefully, the drivers injuries weren't very serious. After the call, I came back to the farm. Jim and I took our weekly load of baleage wrap to the town dumpster. It is amazing how a roll of plastic wrap 12 inches in diameter by three feet long turns into a full truck load of trash each week.

We blew bedding materials into the pens and took care of our usual chores. The weather cleared up and it was a fairly decent 36 degrees and cloudy,

Verne came over and we loaded his bull Natemin for the trip from our place back to Verne's. Nate will now do clean up duty on his home farm. This is not exactly the same as in baseball where they have a cleanup hitter.

After dropping Nate, we loaded one of our cows. It took quite a while as she really didn't want to go into the trailer. We wanted to get her back here as she is due within a few weeks. We also loaded another of Verne's yearling bulls for the trip to our farm.

They were very cooperative on this end which was good because we were on a tight schedule. Jim is an Eagle Scout and knows two young men from the southern part of the County who are being inducted as Eagles tonight. Another of Jim's friends is also an Eagle and he drove Jim to the ceremony. A very nice part of the Eagle ceremony is when any Eagle Scouts in the audience are asked to stand and join in. At Jim's ceremony, several of his guests were Eagles from years past.

Mary and I expect to have a quiet evening. Eileen is out doing last minute visiting with friends before she flies back to Nashville tomorrow evening.

2008-11-27T17:28:00.002-05:00

This is Thanksgiving Day. Since Tuesday we've been stuck in a damp, raw weather pattern. Day and night, it has stayed about 35 and murky. Hopefully, tomorrow, we might get a little sun.

Chores are now routine. The cattle are just hanging out passing the time. Eileen had three wisdom teeth out on Tuesday. She is feeling better now. Not much of a way to spend a school vacation.

As usual, we have a turkey from a farm just across the lake from us. Over the years they have become a mammoth operation. Last year, they sold out to a conglomerate. We hope the turkey tastes as good as usual.

There's a lot of shooting. A neighbor got an eight pointer just up the road.

Today is a good day to reflect on how truly fortunate we are. All of us have good health. Eileen and Jim are doing well in school. We hope this finds you well also. Happy Thanksgiving.

2008-11-24T19:02:00.009-05:00

Sunday was off to a cold start. We had another four inches of snow and we wanted to plow the road so the neighbors wouldn't have any trouble. Being it was Sunday, a lot of summer camp owners come out to check their camps. A few of them sometimes don't realize that our dirt road drives a little differently in winter. I plowed and Jim did chores. We don't have a sander to deal with ice and slippery conditions. So, we have to think ahead before we plow. Sometimes it's better to leave the snow to get rutted for a little traction if we expect icing.

The sun came out after lunch and the snow on the road pretty much melted away. I was able to get the long promised picture of Peter our tame steer. We weighed him the other day and he is finally starting to do something other than get taller. He's up to 1015 pounds. We think he is about 15 months old.

We went off to the airport get Eileen later in the afternoon, had her hoped for Chinese meal and were home by 7:30. She seems happy to be back but college certainly seems to agree with her.

I had to take Jim to school this morning since Eileen needed the car for errands and catching up with friends. It was a lot warmer this morning when I got back which makes chores a lot easier. After a lot of vacillating, I sold our soybeans today. The price was up a bit and you really wonder where the economy is headed. So I went on the bird in the hand theory.

I had an unexpected email from a friend this morning. He said he was watching TV and there I was. The show was about a murder that took place in our County in the early 90's. One of my positions back then was as a County Fire Investigator. The victim was found near the ruins of her burnt out home. It didn't bring back fond memories. I remember how sad we were at the terrible end that befell the victim.

A light, wet snow started at supper time. This is a storm as compared to Lake Effect. It looks like we're on the periphery so it shouldn't be too much bother. Eileen still has the car so Jim took my truck to his Order of the Arrow meeting. It's an organization within the Boy Scouts.

2008-11-22T19:49:00.002-05:00

The over night snow wasn't as bad as forecast. We only had about 4 inches. Nonetheless, I thought it would be a good idea to do a trial plow run. Everything worked well.

We are not quite ready for the man from the Weather Channel to stand in front of the hardware to do his broadcast as happened a few years back. That one really got the folks in Florida buzzing.

Jim and I continued to work on bedding. The cattle really seem to appreciate the bedding mounds. It seems a little early to be dealing with winter. Spring seems a long way off. We also worked on neatening up the shop.

I came home from the diner with an excellent pie. A friend came in and said he had to wait until the bank opened at 9. He said his wife had asked him to bring down some blueberry pies for the Historical Society fundraiser. I told him that it would be a lot easier for him if he had one less pie to carry. We always enjoying supporting the Historical Society.

We went to Mass this evening as Mary has to work early tomorrow. They were having a bake sale as well and Mary got us a banana nut loaf. Just another facet of small town America.

We have to pick up Eileen at 4 tomorrow afternoon. She has asked us to take her to her favorite Chinese restaurant after she arrives. The weather looks like we'll still have a little snow. When you live in upstate New York you expect to have snow so it shouldn't be a problem.

2008-11-21T21:20:00.003-05:00

It has been snowing off and on all day. As I write this evening, it's coming down about two inches per hour. The weather forecast is for it to continue through Sunday. Typical lake effect storm. We are south of Lake Ontario and the cold wind is blowing over the relatively warm water. The lake is 48 degrees and the air 21 degrees tonight. This causes moisture to be wicked up and then dumped as snow over the land. If you are scientifically oriented, it is called orthographic lifting.

We used our bale processor to blow mulch hay and straw into a big mound for the Minnesota Lowlines. They are all snuggled into it just like a feather bed. They must be tired out from frolicking in the snow all day. They must think they're back in Minnesota. The pens in the Coverall are open for the others to come and go but they are outside eating. The bulls are all in their shelter.

The vet called to say that Rochester passed his Brucellosis test and that he was mailing the health papers. We'll probably take him to Pennsylvania the day after Thanksgiving.

Our daughter Eileen is on her way home from college for Thanksgiving. She has stopped in Baltimore to see some friends and we pick her up at the airport Sunday afternoon. It will be good to see her.

Today would have been my father's birthday. He was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1907 making him 101 today.

2008-11-20T20:48:00.004-05:00

Winter like conditions continued with no respite in sight. Tomorrow's forecast is for considerable snow. I mounted the snow plow on the 6415 so we're ready for heavy weather if we get it.

I usually check the animals first thing in the morning and then head up to the Village Diner. There is a group that has been meeting over breakfast for years. We manage to discuss all matters of importance ranging from local to global. I'm sure that there are similar groups in every small town in America. It's strange when you consider that we feel that our solutions to a problem are practical and almost always different from those posed by the politicians.

During winter things slow down. The main project is to get the animals fed and check that the water hasn't frozen. We're just about finished moving the baleage over from Fire Lane 11. This is deer season and there are lots of hunters around.

The vet came after lunch to check Rochester's TB test. He passed. We expect to get the Brucellosis test results tomorrow. So, hopefully, we'll have the health papers by the first of the week. It looks like we are about 4 plus hours from his new home. While he was here he preg checked a few cows. We have had one cow that has failed to settle for some time. She was in heat yesterday and Remote Control worked diligently to insure that she gets pregnant. The vet checked her and couldn't find any apparent internal problems. We'll watch her carefully to see if she cycles again in three weeks. If she does, she might be facing a future in the food industry.

Our neighbor continues to work with the pet steer. She has him wearing a halter again. He is literally head and shoulders over the others. They eat through the spaces in the sides of the feeder and he eats over the top. I'll try to get a picture of him posted.

2008-11-19T20:46:00.003-05:00

Well, I think you can say winter is here. It was snowing right along when Mary and Jim came home last night. This morning, there was the better part of eight inches on the ground.

You might have read recently that some scientist has determined that cattle like to face north. When I went to check them this morning, they were,in fact, all facing north except for those eating. There is always an exception to every rule.

It takes longer to do chores when it gets cold. But everything started and worked.

Our summer neighbors stopped by unexpectedly and we enjoyed morning tea with them. He is a retired farmer and his wife a retired school teacher. They are looking forward to going to Florida for the winter. They are not looking forward to it being cold in Florida as it apparently was today.

The vet is coming back tomorrow to read Rochester's TB test. I have two cows that I'd like to preg check. They were not interested in coming down to the main barn. I'll have to try again in the morning. Our bull was very interested in one of them so I think it is safe to say she is open at the moment

After lunch, the sun came out and I was able to clean up a bunch of manure and hay from a feeding area. I like to keep these areas clean since I don't like it to look like I have short legged cattle.

We had an excellent dinner tonight of our own grass fed beef. It's nice knowing where your meal comes from. We also had a nice bottle of wine that our friends brought from Minnesota when they brought our most recent group of Lowlines. Living in the Finger Lakes wine region, it's a little different to be drinking wine from Minnesota. We don't usually think of it as a wine state. It was excellent and we thank them for it. We do have a friend down the road whose daughter is married to a wine maker from Minnesota. There might be something to this Minnesota wine.

The forecast for later in the week is lots more lake effect snow. I think I'll take the loader bucket off the 6415 and put on the plow tomorrow. Winter can get old real fast. We are just under a mile from the main road and there are five other families on our road. Between my tractor and an neighbor's old town plow truck, we are able to keep the road open all winter.

2008-11-18T16:15:00.003-05:00

Our trip to New jersey went very well. We spent Friday night in Scranton. The hotel used to be the DL & W railroad station. The lobby was quite ornate. We were quite impressedwith Scranton. We had done a piling job across the street some years ago when Jim was younger. I bought him a train for Christmas one year at a store next to the hotel that billed itself as " the world's sixth largest Lionel train Store." It was sad to see that they had gone out of business with just the Lionel sign remaining.

Mary's sister lives in a home she rents on a farm. It's quite unique to find a several hundred acre farm surrounded on all sides by suburbia. They run grass fed Herefords and always have a Jersey dairy herd. They sell beef and make and sell cheese. They are completely surrounded by localvores so they were doing a brisk business while we were there.

It was 70 degrees with severe storms forecast.We went on further to visit my sister and her family. She had recently had unexpected major surgery. She seems to be doing quite well. We had dinner with them and headed home. We didn't run into any storms and were glad to be home.

Sunday morning, the weather had changed back to nasty grey clouds, cold and raw. Jim and I did chores and rearranged the bulls. We now have five yearlings all in their winter quarters.We got Rochester all set in a pen for Monday's vet visit.

Monday, the vet came and Rochester very amiably walked right into the chute so the vet could draw blood and give him the TB reactant. We had enough snow to cover the grass but not the road. Monday night, I had a County Fire Board meeting. It was snowing full bore on the way home.

Tuesday, I did chores and went through my first winter freeze drill. It had gotten down into the low 20's last night. I was glad to see that all the water works was working well except for one waterer. A piece of dirt must have gotten into the float valve and the waterer was overflowing. I took off the cover and flushed it out. The cattle all seem comfortable with the weather. All the weaning noise seems to have ended. It's snowing again as I write this with 4 to 6 inches likely by morning. By winter standards, that amount is negligible but at this time of year it's a good reminder of what's to come.

2008-11-15T09:41:00.002-05:00

Friday was another amazing day, 67 degrees and blue skies at lunch time. We had a flurry of phone calls and emails with a gentleman in Pennsylvania who has agreed to purchase , Rochester, a full blood yearling bull. He comes by the name in an odd way. The day he was born, I had some surgery in Rochester, NY, thus the name.

I was looking over his weight records. He sure has gained on baleage and looks great. his picture is on the sale page of the web site.

Since the bull will be going out of state, the vet is coming Monday to do a TB and Brucellosis test. He'll have to return Thursday to read the TB test site. If everything is fine, as we certainly expect, he'll give us health papers to bring with us when we deliver.

Mary and Jim and I will heading off in the afternoon to visit both of our sisters who live near each other in New Jersey. A friend will come by to feed and check on the cattle. Feeding is pretty basic for grass fed animals. Just make sure that there is hay baleage in the feeders so they can feed free choice.

2008-11-13T20:02:00.002-05:00

Today was a typical fall day: heavy , cold rain in the morning and clouds and blue sky in the afternoon.

We moved several pieces of equipment indoors for the winter. The calves and cows have pretty much stopped bawling and decided to get on with their lives.

I went to Syracuse in the afternoon and met Mary and Jim for dinner. My oldest daughter called from New Hampshire to discuss her new job. Then, my youngest daughter called from college to talk about her new found interest in geology. Then, my second oldest son called from Florida.

All in all, an easy but satisfying day.

2008-11-12T20:31:00.004-05:00

The weather was somewhat better today, partly cloudy and around 50.

We moved baleage from the next lane. We don't own the land between us and our next fields. So that means we have to go out and down the main road . When the weather is decent, we bring over wrapped bales. There are only about fifteen left there now. We are feeding two bales a day plus some square bales to the bulls. We will probably be feeding until early May unless global warming really kicks in. It looks like we will have enough.

Our neighbor really enjoys Peter the Brown Swiss pet steer. She stops every day to pet him and give him a treat. She has horses and keeps kidding about putting a saddle on him. I see that he now is sporting a red halter. Maybe the first step in getting him saddled up. We have heard of people saddling a cow but never seen one. I'm trying to figure out how to include a picture. When I do, Peter will be one of the first to appear.

The calves and cows are quieting down a bit. They were quite loud all day as they become used to being weaned.

Late in the afternoon, a friend stopped by to look at an Allis-Chalmers Model C that we restored last year. The picture shows Jim getting ready to hook it up to tow to our shop. it's a little hard to see details but the tractor was really ready for a makeover.

It's an excellent tractor now but a little small to play much of a part in modern agriculture. It has a sickle bar mower and we used it a little to mow under the fences. It's kind of fun to operate.

You have to know that this tractor bridged the gap between horses and today. It must have been quite a thrill for a farmer to take off plowing with it after walking behind a horse or mule. Lots of older farmers have told me that this model was the first tractor they ever drove as a child. Imagine that they used to let youngsters drive a tractor. Hard to imagine in the context of today's society where there is always some government agency looking after your welfare.,

2008-11-11T20:47:00.002-05:00

The dingy weather continued today. We are located just south of Lake Ontario. This time of year, the lake is relatively warmer than the air. When the wind blows over it, it picks up moisture which drops out over the land. Now it's rain, later it's snow and lots of it.

Jim had a day off from school for Veteran's day. When I was in school, it was called Armistice Day. My father was a World War II veteran so we always celebrated the day. It was also my aunt's birthday 11/11.

We went and looked at some concrete bunk feeders. We found a good bargain and ordered some. We'll get them next week. We stopped at the Walmart of the farm world to see about having some feed through panels made so we can attach them to the bunks.

Soybean prices took a good sized drop today. We're going to continue to store ours and hope the price goes up.

In the afternoon, we finished weaning the calves at the farm today. We are doing something similar to fence line weaning. The calves are in pens and their mothers are free to come and go in the barnyard. The theory is that it is less stressful for both if they can see and smell each other. It doesn't seem to cut down the noise as the calves are bawling for their mothers as usual. It should quiet down in a day or two.

Cattle sales are picking up. We have a man coming next week who has a serious interest in a bull. We also spoke to another man that is interested in a few young cows and heifer calves.

2008-11-10T19:08:00.005-05:00

Sunday was a dreary and chilly day. We did our chores in the morning and relaxed a bit. We moved out our old washing machine and hooked up a different one. Mary thinks the old one died from doing our barn clothes. It would probably help if we did a better job of cleaning our pockets. There was an amazing assortment of coins and bolts and nuts and even a small jack knife in the innards of the old washer. We have taken a vow to make certain our pockets are empty. The way the economy is going, they will be empty anyway.

Mary had to work until 2PM. We decided that all three of us would go to Mass in a nearby city at 5PM. This is a special Mass for this region to allow those who have had to work etc. a chance to go late.

Before going to church, we had an important duty. As I mentioned earlier, a neighboring farmer had died late last week as a result of a farm accident. His calling hours were scheduled from 3 until 6 on Sunday.

We got there about three twenty and had to park way down the street. The line ended by the NAPA store. We happened to be in line with a husband and wife that have alpacas. Mary has had a Christmas sweater from their store but had never met them. She was wearing it and was glad to have waiting in line. It is apparenty quite warm. I had also sold them a manure spreader that was a bit too small for our cattle. Apparently, it works quite well for the more dainty alpacas.

We have been going to calling hours at this funeral home for years. This is only the second time that we can recall the viewing line this long. What a wonderful tribute to the deceased and his family. We are glad that we live in small town America where basic values and traditions like these remain intact.The weather was quite chilly and damp but the mist hold off until we were inside. The line wound all around the various rooms of the funeral home in a serpentine fashion. It was odd when we saw people who had been considerably ahead in line now standing along side.

We offerred our condolences. A son-in-law had made up a unique green and yellow handout with details of the deceased's life and lots of pictures of him on his green tractors. It was six thirty by the time we left. The line was almost as long as when we got there. So we missed Mass but hope that God didn't mind since the 5th Beatitude is "Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted."

The weather wasn't much better on Monday. I went with a friend to the equipment dealer to look at our square baler. After lunch, the buyers came and we loaded the six Angus and sent them off to their new home.

I was supposed to go to a County Fire meeting tonight but it was postponed a week. It feels good to have an unexpected night off.

2008-11-08T20:39:00.002-05:00

Today was more like a typical late Fall day. It rained heavily all morning and then the sun was in and out of a grey sky. It stayed reasonably warm around 50 degrees.

The electrician was back and we finished our water project. Since we started to build this farm, we have installed over 1200 feet of water line; two wells and two all weather Jug waterers and 6 yard hydrants. We have all season water wherever we might need it.

We got the cattle pregnancy reports and all eight tested pregnant. That is certainly good news. I called our buyer and he will be here Monday afternoon to pick up all six full size Angus.

2008-11-07T21:40:00.004-05:00

Today, Friday, looks like the last of the good weather.

We've just been continuing on routine chores. We're waiting to hear about the pregnancy test on the Angus. Verne overnight mailed the samples Wednesday afternoon and was assured by the Post Office that the lab would be sure to have them by 3PM Thursday. Well, they arrived this morning and it takes a day to get the results. So, hopefully, tomorrow, we'll know.

Yesterday was not a good one in our town. An older farmer who was an acquaintance of ours was killed in a farm related accident. We don't know the details but we offer our condolences to his family. Today, several neighbors worked to get the rest of his crop in. It is nice to live in a communiuty where people have old fashioned values of helping a neighbor in need.

The Farm Agent came out this afternoon to look over our operation. We had a nice visit that was cut short when I had to go on a fire call just down the road. Thankfully, it was just a burnt out appliance motor.

I also got copies of our farm maps from Farm Service Agency. I was pleased that my estimate for soybean acreage was within a half acre of the maps. I also spoke to the grain elevator folks and confirmed how many bushels we have stored.

So, lots of little things done. The electrician came last night and tonight to trench in some electric and water lines. He seems to be busy in the day light with other work. We worked late both nights. He promised to be here tomorrow morning to finish up. If he does, it looks like we'll be working in the rain.

2008-11-05T21:16:00.000-05:00

The amazing weather continued. It was probably a first to be outside working in a tee shirt on November 5.

Verne came over and we drew the blood for the cattle pregnancy test. We got the samples mailed and should have results Friday. The prospective buyers came as well. They are nice folks and it looks like we can build an ongoing relationship. I've always been relationship rather than transaction oriented so that is good.

I received the weigh slips for our soy beans. We had a good crop. Now I need to decide whether to hold them or sell. The price was up yesterday but dropped a lot today. It's hard to understand how an election can influence the price of soybeans. I called the Farm Service Agency to get my field maps. Then, I'll be able to compute our actual average acre yield. It will be around 43 bushels which is a good yield.

I got 15 bales of soy waste on the neighboring field done and there is probably enough waste for 15 more.

Our daughter called from college in Nashville. She has plane reservations for Christmas. Particularly in light of the weather it is hard to realize that Christmas will soon be here.

2008-11-04T19:01:00.000-05:00

Our beautiful weather continued with another almost 70 degree day. I got our Kuhn mower conditioner all pressure washed and ready for storage. There's an amazing amount of gunk that accumulates under the hood.

I also moved a round bale feeder and brought over some gravel to create a better pad. We fed the cattle baleage through the processor and they continue to really eat it up.

The electrician reappeared to finish up some plugs and get power to our new cattle waterer so the heater will work when needed.

Late in the afternoon, one of our friends came to combine his beans. This is land that we surround on all sides that is owned by an absentee owner. He is not interested in selling and our friend has rented the land for several years. It's a new red combine which is quite a break from tradition since our friend has had an all green farm for many years.

While we were looking over the combine, a man and his wife and a colleague came to look over the six full size Angus. We made a deal but he wants them pregnancy tested. We think they are all bred but we will use a test that is new to us. It involves drawing a small amount of blood from the cow's tail vein. The vial is then sent to a lab which guarantees 97 percent accuracy. We will get the samples tomorrow and should have results by Friday.

Verne arranged to have our friend set the combine to windrow the bean waste. I'll bale them tomorrow and we can truck them to Verne's at our convenience.

2008-11-03T18:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Sunday, was an unusual day. I unexpectedly had an opportunity to go to Buffalo to see the Bill's football game. Mary and Jim had planned on going but Mary felt a little off Sunday morning and decided not to go. Jim and I rushed around and got chores done and took off for Buffalo. It's about two and one half hours down the Thruway to the stadium.

We stopped in a Thruway rest area. While waiting for Jim, I ran into, almost literally, a college classmate and his wife. They live about two hours east of us but we don't see them often. They were on their way to Florida. We had a nice but brief visit.

The Bills lost. It is quite an experience to see the game in person. Many of the fans are a little rough in their speech and don't appear to be dehydrated. As the game went on, some of them became even more hydrated and vocal.

Today was a dreary but dry and warm day. Verne says that we have someone coming tomorrow afternoon to look at the six Angus. I moved around some equipment to get ready for the electrician who is supposed to be here tomorrow to finish up.

It's supposed to be almost 70 and sunny tomorrow. I'll get the pressure washer going again to finish cleaning up equipment so we can put it away until Spring.

2008-11-02T07:57:00.000-05:00

Saturday November 1, 2008 was another beautiful day. Brilliant sun, blue sky and 50 degrees. Being Irish, I have somewhat of an awareness of old Irish customs. In the Druid world, today would be the first day of winter.

Jim and I continued to get ready for winter. We are still experimenting with the most efficient way to feed. The bale processor works well. We chopped up a bunch of straw for bedding and blew it into the pens.

We took our dog, Patches with us up to the barn today. He is a mostly, we think, Jack Russell Terrier. Mary says he is like a pogo stick with ADD. He likes to run around around the outside of fence. On a previous trip, he find out how electric fences feel. The cows mostly ignore him or just look at him as though wondering what does that foolish dog want. He likes to ride in the tractor. We have to be careful because if we take our eye off him he'll look for barnyard substances to roll in. This is not good.

We went to mass in Jordan and got takeout subs for dinner. Later, we went over to our neighbors and watched the Syracuse football game. Amazingly, they won.

2008-10-31T20:24:00.000-04:00

Today is a beautiful Indian Summer day. It looks like it might stay this way for the next week.

It's a second chance for getting things prepared for winter. One of our friends was able to get his soy beans combined. He came by and borrowed our dump wagon to help move his beans from the combine to the bin. When we checked this evening, he was still going. Kind of the bean equivalent of make hay when the sun shines.

Soy bean prices are up a little over the last few weeks but still much lower than earlier this year.

We got our grain drill all cleaned up ready to be put away. We also did some fine tuning to our new fences. It's a lot nicer doing it at 65 than 25 degrees. The new cattle have settled in well. They pass time visiting over the fence with the other cattle when they are not eating.

I took advantage of the good weather to backblade manure away from areas where they congregate. I recently found out that this is not my barnyard but a high impact area in government speak. We're also working to develop a more efficient way of feeding. Tomorrow Jim and I are going to look at some precast concrete bunk feeders.

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2008-10-30T20:12:00.000-04:00

The weather improved today. There was brilliant sun and bright blue skies. It was only forty five but it felt terrific after the terrible weather earlier this week. The forecast looks good for the next few days. All our soybeans are combined but a lot of farmers still have a lot in the field. The good weather hopefully will last long enough for them to get their beans.

My fire department duties continued to take up a lot of time. I had to go to the county seat at Auburn to get a title for our new pumper. The woman at the Motor vehicles was very helpful but it still took a while to get all the forms figured out.

In the afternoon, we moved six big full size Angus cows from Verne's to our woods pasture. Two are mine and four are Verne's. These are fifteen hundred pound three and a half year old cows that are bred back AI to registered full size Angus for next springs calves. We thought we had them sold but the deal fell through. We had originally purchased them as virgin heifers and implanted Lowline embryos. They are nice cattle but too big to be running with the Lowlines. They are prime animals and we don't want to take them to the sale barn. We'll keep working on trying to sell them by private treaty.

I stopped by our local farm store to pick up a few items. It has only recently been opened by a young couple. As it continues to grow, we jokingly call it the Walmart of farm stores. It's nice to be able to buy locally. It's also a welding shop so we see our neighbors there getting things fixed up.

We finished up our chores and continued to feed baleage. The animals all like it and they are doing well on it.

2008-10-28T22:41:00.000-04:00

The weatherman was only partially right. Today was a thoroughly miserable day but we didn't get any snow here. It rained hard and the wind blew steadily. We had 1.1 inches of rain.

We live on a lake. A neighbor had purchased a sailboat earlier this fall and left it tied to a mooring. The mooring let loose around lunch time and the boat floated over to the opposite shore and grounded. Unfortunately, there are no boats in the water at this time of year to go rescue it. Late in the afternoon, the owner brought over a motor boat to go get it. We haven't heard any more and we hope it all turned out successfully.

It was a great day to do paperwork. I worked on trying to get some of our calves registered. The Lowline Association was having an Internet cattle auction from the American Royal in Kansas City. I watched it for a while.

When you live in a small town you have many hats. In addition to serving with our local volunteer fire department, I am a deputy Fire Coordinator for the county. This means I am a liaison to eight departments in the northern part of the County. The County Association had their monthly meeting at my department so I went to attend.

Mary serves as Treasurer for the Boy Scouts and sits on their Board of Review. She had to interview candidates for advanced ranks in scouting tonight. Jim, who is an Eagle Scout, went to his regular scout meeting.

The cattle didn't like the weather but they chose to stand out in it rather than going into the barn. They'll be happy when the wind and rain die down. Just east and north of us there is snow on the ground making travel difficult.

2008-10-28T06:45:00.000-04:00

The fine weather continued on Monday but it looks like it will be the last good day for a while. Rain and then measurable snow are forecast to start by Tuesday morning.

I had a meeting which took up the whole morning. I am the VP and Trustee of the Volunteer Fire Department. We have a new insurance company this year and I had to go over lots of questions with their representative. The Chief and President also came by to help. We were very pleased that the insurance company found that everything was in excellent shape and our paperwork was in order. There's a lot more to be a volunteer fireman than going to an occasional fire these days. Like everything else, the government has gotten involved and created lots of rules and paperwork.

Earlier this fall, we baled a number of round bales from our soybean residue. They seem to be best when we follow right behind the combine. We made them 42 inches in diameter to make them a little easier to use as bedding. They tend to unroll like a blanket three or four inches thick and are an excellent under layment for straw. Late in the afternoon, we took a number over to Verne.

We stopped in the Village for pizza on our way home from Verne's.

2008-10-27T06:58:00.000-04:00

Sunday was another beautiful fall day. We moved the two yearling bulls into their new winter area- the " bull pen." It's a roomy fenced area with their own shed. They'll have some new residents as soon as we wean this years calves this week. The young weanling bulls will move there as well.

We weighed the new Lowlines from Minnesota and moved Verne';s bull Natemin in with them. We think they are all bred but we'll let Nate make sure.

Remote Control moved over to the main herd, taking over for Nate. We likewise think they are all in calf except for one. She has not calved since we got her. We're going to have the vet check her. She might have a cyst.

Right after dark, an impressive round of lightning came through but very little wind or rain. The weatherman is predicting measurable snow by Wednesday.

2008-10-25T08:29:00.000-04:00

We have fallen a day behind in our blog. Yesterday, Jim had a school holiday. We finished up our fence to partition the barnyard for winter quarters for the bulls. It was a beautiful day again.

We had to finish early so Jim could get to his interview for the Naval Academy. It was very interesting as the interviewer wanted Mary and I there as well.

We all then went out to celebrate Jim's birthday.

Today it's very rainy. Mary and I are going off with friends for our annual tour of Finger Lakes wineries. Before we go, we've got to get our chores done. One of our 3/4 cows is in heat this morning and we've been discussing which semen to use.

2008-10-23T21:56:00.000-04:00

Today was a beautiful sunny fall day and about 50 degrees. The cattle seem to be enjoying the good weather as well. I had a meeting in the morning so I was away until after lunch.

After I got back, I went over to our friend Verne Montana's farm to work on the cattle. We have some of our cows and young stock at Verne's. He also has Lowlines and we have his bulls at our farm. Jim came after school and his help was greatly appreciated. We did a herd health checkup and separated this years calves to be weaned. I 'm sure it will be quite noisy at Verne's tonight.

We also separated six full size Angus cows that we have for sale. We have a prospective buyer that is expected in the next day or two so we wanted the cows where he can look them over. They are excellent animals but a bit too big to live comfortably along with the smaller Lowlines.

We got done late and came home and got our chores done.

2008-10-22T21:49:00.000-04:00

Well, we didn't get any snow but it sure was a rainy, raw day. The electrician was here finishing up a few odd details.

We have started feeding haylage that we have stored over on Fire Lane 11. This means a trip down Jordan Road for a half mile then carrying a round bale back. The tractor heater was on for the first time and it sure felt good.

In the evening, Jim and I went over to a beef producer meeting and potluck supper in the next county. They did some hands on work measuring cattle and developing ratios for fitness etc. The cattle were very calm Charolais who didn't mind being measured.

It is also Jim's 17th birthday. He will always remember it.

2008-10-21T21:00:00.000-04:00

Today is October 21, 2008 and will likely give us our first taste of snow for this winter. We have had a cold front come through with a cold rain and wind and there will probably be a little snow by morning.

Our cattle are getting accustomed to the change in season. It will soon be time to wean this years calves. All of our new cattle have settled in well. We have been feeding haylage for the last week.

All of our soybeans have been harvested and initial yields look very good.