Some Observations from the Hill
by H. H. Hub Brown

 Just had quite a conversation with one of my friends. For more than a year, she had what seemed to be a bad cold that had settled in her lungs. One doctor told her and her husband that she had lung cancer and had only a short time to live. Then another doctor told her it wasn't lung cancer, was a lung condition that was treatable. After a couple more opinions they finally concurred that she had Lymphoma. They sent her to a government hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The treatment she is getting now is to insert a needle between the vertebra of her spine, extract some fluid and then inject medicine back into her spine. She says that along with the chemo treatments, she isn't confined to her bed but often feels she should be. Gets real hungry, but because of the medicine nothing tastes good. 

 The old timers used to say if you could get your hay in by July you were alright. Of course, if you have much orchard grass in your hay that should be in the barn before the first of June. Many dairymen this year, because there was so little hot dry weather, cut their hay wilted it and wrapped it airtight. It then ferments and becomes haylage. Cows really relish this. Some big dairymen depend on old fields of dead hay for bedding for their cows but I'll bet because we had so much rain this summer there will be lots of second growth hay in their bedding.

 Because we've had so many cold nights this summer, I felt sure we would have an early frost but here it is getting close to October and I still have summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, besides all the later planted stuff such as carrots, turnips, rutabagas, endive, and some beets.

 Fritz says because they found one Canadian cow with Mad Cow Disease, the U.S. along with some other countries stopped all shipments of live cattle and then later they detected a cow in the state of Washington that had come from Canada previously. So, a lot of the biggest beef buyers have stopped buying U.S. beef.  Australian beef producers are having a hay day. Fritz has talked with drivers that have hauled cattle from as far away as Texas and Okachobee, Florida. We've watched as many as three Canadian trailer loads of cattle before the Mad Cow scare follow each other in to unload. So now the packing houses are really short of the cattle they'd like to have come in.

 Driving at night or even after daybreak on some of these foggy mornings is really dangerous. Some of the deer act as though they wait for a car to come along to use their lights to see to cross the road.

 Tom has been observing a pair of coyotes. He says one is almost white on his head and front end and grows progressively darker as you get back toward his tail. Probably they are one of the reasons whey we've seen so few young turkeys this summer. They would be easy picking for a varment if they had just been hatched and then started off in the cold wet grass.