Nice weather... in These titles mean nothing.

We’ve been having a beautiful fall. One perfect day follows another perfect day.

Today we brought the cattle home from rented pasture. I get asked to help. I don’t do much but it’s kind of a fall tradition. We have a dozen or so cows and calves and a bull on pasture that Jim rents along with some crop land from a man and wife who are good friends. It’s a good situation.

I almost always take pictures. They almost always look the same. I wonder if there is a name for taking the same photos over and over again. I don’t think I’m the only person who does it. There is a comfort in pointing the camera and clicking at the things you pointed at and clicked a year ago, two years ago, three, four, five....

I like this place. It feels like the old west to me.

This is the barn where we lure the cattle with square baled hay and ear corn. When they go in, we close the gates after them. The cows were already penned inside and the first trailer load had been taken home by the time I got the camera. So no photos of cows, just scenery.

Here is a panorama of the ice cream truck and trailer leaving through the neighbors’ CRP. CRP stands for Conservation Reserve Program and it’s a government program which pays farmers for not farming marginal land. It cannot be pastured either. I see if Jim knows the name of the tall grass.

I always wait with the cattle that are still there while he takes the trailer loads home. Today I sat in the shade of the tall tall pines and worked on An American Tragedy.

A detail. The plastic pail that held the ear corn that we brought over to entice the cows into the barn. And my black hooded sweatshirt.

I slid under the low barbed wire of the fence a dozen times to get back and forth from where the cattle were loaded to my reading spot under the tree. I think it counts for exercise. Be generous, please.

The grasshoppers that were tiny a few weeks ago are big now. This one posed for me quite graciously.

This was supposed to be a still photo of the fence and sky when I was shinnying underneath but it turned out to be a very short sideways movie. Note, though, how blue the sky is.

~~~

Otherwise. Besides the cattle on rented pasture being home, it’s been a semi-eventful few days.

• the silage bag is full. Gracie’s human uncle Craig brings his red tractor and his silage chopper and chopper wagons and chops the corn. We rent a bagger that packs the silage into a long white plastic bag. The cows will be grateful next winter. Note: the corn statistician says corn is 23 inches taller than it was last year. That is something to think about. The ears in the silo field though were about six feet from the ground and the corn was taller than the tractor which is usually is and taller than the wagon which is never is.
• the combine is home from its check up and has already started harvesting soy beans for our neighbor. His beans were planted earlier and for various reasons are ready to pick sooner. I haven’t seen anyone else combining soy beans yet.
• I stopped at an apple vendor on my way home from work Friday and got a pretty good supply of apples. Plus some really luscious pears.
• son John plans to be around more than usual during the month of October. That will be nice. Not sure how much of the time Hans will be here but I bet he will be here a lot of the time.
• Gracie got into burrs the day the silage bag was set up and she got them all our of her fur by herself. Dog of patience and skill.
• I gave my elliptical two minutes - it’s different than the ones at the gym - or I’m different than I was at the gym. But it felt good. I’ll try another two minutes in a bit. When I get up to three, I’ll let you know.
• oh and our phone is fixed. It was extremely noisy. It gets that way from time to time and the phone guy has to come out and figure out what is wrong. This time the problem was in a connection box about halfway between here and town. We have to have a land line - cell phone reception ranges from unreliable to non-existent.

I guess that is about all I have to say.
Wishes for good things for you all.
Have a good week.

Last updated September 27, 2015