On a farm the thing you notice when you are standing at the kitchen window, washing the breakfast dishes is that there is a ewe in heat and that the ram is following her closely with his lip curled. This means, if all goes well, a lamb or two in January. It is not the easiest time of year to be born but January lambs are just the right size for the girls to show in the 4-H fair next July. 

I took this photo a couple of days ago before the rain began. This wet weather isn’t helping  the victims of  hurricane Irene. In eastern New York entire towns  the size of Tully are washed away. I was talking to Harriet and Elisa’s piano teacher today, whose son is working there to repair electrical lines and he reports that it is devastating. He had to cut a dryer out of tree before he cut the tree down, and went to a place where there was once a house before it floated away and left nothing but one pole sticking out of the ground. He saw kids walking in unmatched shoes looking up in the trees and he asked what they were looking for. They had heard from someone that their book bags were spotted in a tree and they were hoping to find them.The girls and I talked all the way home about what we can do to help them.