Sun setting after an ice storm a few years ago. Sparkly and frigid like today.

It’s been awhile since posting — because I have not gotten out to take pictures of calves. Now I can go out and take pictures of calves and cold winter!

As always in Missouri, we are at the fringe of jet stream acrobatics. That means we never know what’s going on. Today, I could see a snow-cloud shelf heading north to northwest, but the sun was shining here. The farm is in the cold belt however. We expect -10 wind chill for the first second of 2018 — no bonfires that night!

Yeah, bonfires do warm things up, but on nights like this New Year, you can melt your coat trying to stay warm on only one side! Dancing around the fire is to keep rolling the warmth more than joy of dancing flame. There is that, too, though…

CowJam returned to the ranch after the inaugural event in 2012. Just so you know, it’s a chance to jam out in a space where no one cares about the noise, the bonfires or the bad-ish jokes… Purdue college friends get together to celebrate music and laugh about their lives before they really got out into the world… where they all fashioned quite different lives, unimaginable back then. We think the cows at least perked up ears for melodies and rhythms fronting the wind through hills and valleys during perfect cool afternoons and evenings at the farm.

Today my squash plant took a droopy turn and hummingbirds outside the office window seem to be sucking up to head south. Kids are getting the last squeeze of fun out of summer days before school starts.

Nights are cool now, but probably just an interlude before the last blast of Missouri heat — when the Fescue grass goes so dormant I won’t have to mow anymore. We had a city-size (read, small) bonfire last night just off the porch, watching planets and stars twink on in the rich blue-black of space that we see here on earth. A nice night to bookend the heat just last week…

Cows and calves like this weather, too. I could hear them calling to each other over the last couple of days — that means they’re either on the wrong side of a fence, or just happy for cooler mornings… Dennis checked all the waterers this morning and walked around with young heifers and older weaned calves, giving them a little protein to grow on.

Last week one of our bulls put a good size butt-dimple in my truck fender when he tried to crowd into the garage — and then decided he needed to turn around. He probably pushed the truck body up over the frame a few inches while imprinting his hind end into the metal. Drat!

That’s life here, some idyllic and some unfortunate…