January Journal 2010

Well, a new year. We can hope it's a better one. We had a very quiet New Year - stayed home and went to bed early, as usual.

Sad news in our little town, a younger farmer and his wife sold off all but 6 of their cows and all the young stock to pay off some of their debt. The 6 cows are to meet the part of the loan that says for it to continue, there must be cattle on the farm. He'll go to work for family as their insemenater, which means the Select Sires guy has lost 4 or 5 farms. The farm that was selling him feed has lost a customer along with the feed mill and the milking equipment dealer. We are all hoping he can come back into it, but that is a long shot.

I don't think I mentioned the four Border Collie puppies earlier. Mitzi finally had a litter in a reasonable size. Having fed as many as 10 in the past, she is fattening the four up to the point that they look like good sized sausages. Zeke, the puppy left from the June litter has found a good home with a farm boy who's selling parts at the John Deere dealer presently, but yearns for a dairy of his own. All of the adult dogs had a sad moment and then breathed a sigh of relief that that whacko adolescent was finally gone. The puppies slept through it.

We are having a snowy winter. Today and tomorrow we are warned of significant lake snows and it has been snowing to some degree for two days now. Stan's thinking about moving the outdoor girls down below the barn where the snow is a bit less deep and they can get behind the barn or shelter up next to the neighbors' evergreens if they need to. Lately, they have been finding some grass to eat and the hay has been lasting longer, but if this keeps up, it will be a trick to get to the grass.