Friday February 16, 2018

Friday February 16, 2018

Blog time 1030 at Panera

We both slept in today until 0700.  Nancy is not going to MVP because she has book club at noon.  I am not going to the Y but did all my routine including a 2K row at home.  Tom Moleski and I are going out to lunch today.

Last night at midnight I looked out the window and three deer were eating the corn I set out yesterday.  With all the snow I think they are hungry.

Temp was in mid 20s when first went out.  I left home at 0830 and biked to Panera in bright sunshine.  I had an oatmeal breakfast.  

My how times have changed.  In the 1940s we used to have a butter and egg man.  He was usually a small farmer who would churn their own butter and gather eggs.  Each week he would stop by our house and walk into the kitchen.  My mother if she was not home would leave a note on the kitchen table saying the quantity of butter and eggs we needed for the week.  The farmer would leave the produce on the kitchen table and take the money my mother had left.  Our butter and eggs man was a Mr Bartz who owned a small family farm.  In the 50s the bureaucrats in Lansing closed these operations down saying they were unsanitary.  I do not know of anyone who got sick.  It was the start of the end for small family farms.  Sad!

Today’s Alpena News had an article on a large dairy farm in Alpena County.  The farm had their dairy herd infected with bovine TB and it had to be restored.  The farmers rebuilt their herd to where they now milk 450 cows.  Everything is computerized.  Even the cows have a chip in their ear that monitors temperature, digestion and when they are ready to breed.  The farm has five full time employees.  I think our Mr Bartz had about 5-10 milk cows.

I did not have much of chances to read the news this morning because our old realtor stopped by Panera.  We had a nice talk and he brought me up on the current real estate market.  The average cost of a home in GR has gone up $65,000 since we sold four years ago.  

Biked home, changed clothes and waited for Tom and Linda Moleski to arrive for book club.  Tom and I each had a beer and small pizza at Uccello’s.  Uccello’s was crowded with folk coming for their all you can eat lunch buffet.  Tom told me about their recent cruise to Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. 

At home we watched some Olympic Curling before Book Club ended.  Nancy said everyone was at BC.  The food she served looked good.  I know more because I am having the leftovers for dinner.

I put out more corn for the deer and took a walk around the block.  Finished the afternoon with a short nap.

After dinner and the news we decided that the Olympic evening lineup did not look interesting.  Instead we watched an episode of Inspector Lewis on Amazon.  I love Inspector Lewis especially the bantering between Lewis and Hathaway.