2008
January 1: 32 degrees at sunrise. Hay to cattle in back fields. Loaded three hogs for slaughter, easy load. At the other end, major problem, two walked off easily while the other refused. It took an hour and a lot of swearing and pushing to move him into a pen. Smarter than he looked.
January 2: Time to sketch out spring and summer gardens. 
January 19: 34 degrees at sunrise. Harvest remaining turnips and rutabagas.
January 20: 7 degrees at sunrise, high of 18 degrees.
January 21: 9 degrees at sunrise. Pipes burst in other building, what a mess. Bought shop-vac and spent morning cleaning up. Robby, our English Shepherd, while jumping off a hay wagon, caught his leg in the slat. Broken tibia/4-6 weeks in a cast.
April 19: Butchered 2 drakes and 3 roosters. Began incubating 33 Sussex eggs.
May 9: Chicks hatching. We are at that time of the year when there is more to do than time to do it. In the past week we bought four steers (250# each) for a $1000. And, 4 more (500# each) for $2100. (note from 2019: wow, those were the days)
June 6: Began baling hay in upper field, nine bales in and the disc mower burned up the bearings. #%$&-ing equipment! Hauled it to Beckler, our Mennonite neighbor. Went inside and finished reading Warren’s All the King’s Men. How did I get to this age and have never read this?
July 4: Cookout at neighbors. They sang old ballads and hymns until after dark. We walked home through the woods.
August 22: Rescued hog that got stuck in water trough. Heat has me down, at loose ends, I’m letting the daily winds blow me about without any course.
October 25: Call from Adrienne. Steer down on the ground in lower field. Walked down and found him up but limping. Cut him from herd and moved to barn. Vet can’t get out until after dark. Told him to leave it ‘till morning.
Oct. 26: Steer dead, blackleg. Bought plenty of the 15-cent vaccine and did rest of herd. What a waste.
November 8: Jack and Deb out for gumbo. He brought two new shotguns out for some shooting, both 12-gauge pumps. I thought we’d just take a casual stroll. Should have known it would be more complicated, involving the truck, plenty of water, multiple trips to his car for endless supplies, driving the truck a hundred yards, lots of fussing about, fifteen minutes of shooting at targets. Gumbo was good, of course.
December 8-10: Caught a cold, could feel it coming on. Used it as an excuse to finish 3rd Ways (Carlson), Restoration of Property (Belloc), Flee to the Fields (Distributist pamphlet) Six Degrees (Lynn) and very little farm work.
December 25: 32 degrees at sunrise. Traditional blueberry pancakes and corned beef hash for breakfast. Cindy back from Florida in the afternoon. Black Bart back up at the barn worrying our sheep. Took the .410, damn dog can sense me coming. One of these days, one of these days!
Cindy got home in time to fix us chicken and dumplings. Now, that is a great way to wind up a Christmas day.
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Reading this weekend: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy), 1177 B.C.: the year civilization collapsed (Cline).
Some memories improve like a fine pot of soup – better after having a chance to set.
Hey, Cousin!
Daddy used to tell me stories about black leg and other domestic cattle ailments when we were tending to our old scrub cows we had. He was in the FFA (Future Farmers of America) in High School. One time they took a field trip out to some local farms with the local vet. They arrived at this one old fellow’s place and they were instructed to inspect this cow standing in a stall and to diagnose her ailment. Daddy was the first and only one to get it right…Blackleg…he said it is an insidious and painful condition that is difficult to overcome. Thanks for the memories.
Rusty