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

 What a crazy year so far. Not only do we go through a summer time with no summer really. It made me laugh when I'd see ads for furniture that was designed for those hot sweltering days of August. We may have had one or two but not really sweltering. And now to add insult to injury, October, which used to be my favorite month of the year, has almost gone by with but maybe a couple of typical October weather. Remember the poem we read in school? I don't remember the exact words, Oh sun and skies and flowers of June together, cannot rival for one hour October's bright blue weather! I think we've had two or three afternoons that would fit that description. Maybe we'll have a long spell of Indian Summer in November.

 Had quite an experience last Sunday. After we'd had breakfast at the American Legion, John Legge, my grandson, who is a long-distance truck driver, started touring the back roads of Tioga County. Seems Kim, a woman who keeps horses down at the fairgrounds, has a farm that wasn't mowed this year and John, who also has some land that needs mowing, was looking for a piece of machinery to cut both pieces. Must be John knew about where to look for such a machine for we were on more little back roads, even traveled some miles of seasonal roads where they warn you that these roads will not be plowed in the winter. We didn't visit any second hand dealers, perhaps he had already checked those places. 

 I'll say one thing, the woods we traveled through were as beautiful as those in New England. Especially when you were on a little narrow road with trees overhead. I think we hit all the little narrow roads from Owego to Candor and finally ended up down near Waverly.

 Well, son-in-law Fritz had another calf given him down at the packing house in Wyalusing. Some time ago a shipment of cattle had come in and in the trailer were was a heifer with a calf hanging half out. The vet examines the cattle as they come in said, "You can't process a cow like that." So they put her in the suspect pen. Then as there was a lull in trailers coming in, two of the crew that unloads the cattle coming in went in the pen and pulled the calf on out. So the vet then said, "Now you can process her." So, they put her back in with the other cattle. 

 Fritz saw the calf lying there shivering in the cold. He asked what they were going to do with the calf and was told to put her in his trailer, took off his coveralls and covered her up as best he could. One of the workers helped carry her in his trailer. 

 When he got her home he got his salamander going and warmed her up and rubbed her with hay to get her circulation going. Worst of all she had not had any Colostrum, or first milk, which is insurance for a calf and without it a calf is in for an uphill time to even live. I had some Colostrum that had been in the freezer a year or more. Fritz thawed that out but she wouldn't suck a nipple so he put a hose down her throat and fed her that way for a couple days. She hadn't stood up yet so things looked pretty discouraging. On the third morning Fritz told Pat, "If she's no better now I don't think I'll bother any more." 

 He went to the barn and she was standing up. She came along good after that, has had a heifer calf, and is now a member of Lynn Bailey's milking herd.