Neighbors

Every year, around mid-May, we get new neighbors.  The hardest working farmer, Davey, brings some of his calves out of the barn and moves them to the pasture next to our front yard.  Like human neighbors, they sometimes overstep their bounds.  As I walked back from town today, they ran along the fence hoping that I was going to feed them.  Steers aren't terribly smart, but they can figure out when the electric fence isn't working.  That's when we have cattle in our garden and fruit trees.

Davey is a small-time farmer with only 40 acres.  Part of his operation is to raise steers.  He supplements the grass with silage from the corn he grows.  It's quite a contrast to some of the big farms out west with limited water.  Davey's problem is too much water.  Sometimes, he can't plant the corn until June.  I saw him with a stuck tractor in the mud earlier this week. 

We have new human neighbors too.  A nice young couple with a toddler. They commute to Madison and are quiet (so far) when at home. The former occupants ran a business out of the house with lots of truck and van traffic.  

Some may remember we had another neighbor further up the hill who spent some time in jail related to multiple OWI's.  His underage kids threw parties when dad was in jail.  All of that went away when Covid foreclosure rules expired. The bank took back the house and started fixing it up.