Middle 'O Summer with Frogs and Fogs

Gratuitous green frog, just because I can

The mist is lying soft on the foothills this morning and tossing scarfs of itself all across the heifer pasture. It is creeping down across the old horse pasture as I type this, fading the trees to shadows of themselves and dewing up the grass.

Indigo bunting, cat bird, robin, mocker and who knows who else are singing up a dawn chorus as bright as the first of June. Last night the mother robin actually slept with the nestlings instead of standing on guard all night. Must be it was cool enough to brood upon them rather than over them. Chickadees are back from wherever they have been hiding and Alan rescued a baby yellow warbler from the path the other day. We have been blessed in the bird department this year.

No cows in the heifer pasture this early morning. They spent the night in the old day pasture. The grass is good and Bonneville had her bull calf there yesterday. She came down to the barn at milking time, but we wanted to let her go back to him so, despite wanting the cows to have a wagon of green chop in the heifer field, we sent them north and west instead.Sky is pink and gold and orange and it is still cool enough for comfort.

That makes two bull calves this week, one a fat, sleek, milking shorthorn cross and the other BV's Keeneland Astre Pat son. As time goes on we are not losing our liking for the good crossbred shorty calves. We sent a steer one to the processor for our freezer last week and I am much looking forward to having our own beef again. We raise it much, much leaner than store beef where there are high allowances for fat content. Ours has a very good taste and I love cooking with it. We have been without home-raised beef all winter, mostly eating game with an occasional store bought hamburger or hot dog thrown in. The menu is about to get a lot more extensive.

Liz starts her new milk inspector job today, with her first training trip with our regular inspector. Tomorrow she will be off to Cornell University for some formal class work. Most of that will probably be review as she did study in the field in college. I know this is going to be a challenging task, (the inspector comes to tell you what you are doing wrong, which is usually not anybody's favorite thing) but I suspect she will do it well. Meanwhile we will feed the pony and get the cows grained while she is gone and hope she has fun down in the other half of the state.

Enjoy the day!

PS, the boss heard a man on television last night, who said that there were detailed ingredient lists on cow feed long before they put them on foods for human beings!