A few bits and bobs and other things

I vowed I wasn’t going to do it---but I did---i had to---it had to be done! I went round and round on my mean green machine and mowed the lawn wearing my winter coat! I tried just wearing a sweatshirt, but after one long trip around my yard I was freezing, so I added my winter barn coat and a warm head scarf. With water standing in my yard I considered wearing boots! The grass has been growing so fast that waiting to mow would have resulted in the need for a haybine! I did manage to get it done without putting on mittens!

Last Saturday morning I arose to a rainy, windy, cold, dreary and dark day. It was the day of the Kentucky Derby. I enjoy watching horse races, especially the famous ones, however I have never been to a racetrack or placed a bet on a horse. I decided I was going to curl up in my easy chair with a warm blanket, some coffee and snacks, turn on the TV and enjoy the day-long happenings and all the races leading up to the Kentucky Derby race. The stories about the horses and the people who work with them are interesting, the horses are beautiful and the hats are fun. If you missed the big race, it was a battle to the finish line and a stunning and surprising victory for the winner. No one had heard of “Rich Strike”! His owners just found out the day before that he was going to be in the race, due to one of the horses scheduled to run being “scratched”. He became number 21. The announcers barely mentioned his name! I’m sure they are talking about him now! He cost his owners, Eric Reed and Rick Dawson, $30,000 in a “claims race”, not the millions of dollars that some of the horses in the race cost. He earned $1.86 million dollars! His jockey, Sonny Leon, is a leading rider at Mahoning Valley Race Track at Youngstown, Ohio. The betting odds were 80 to 1. They were the second highest odds in the history of the race. Donerail was the longest of long shots in Derby history, pulling off 91-1 odds in 1913. Had I been betting I might have put a couple dollars on Rich Strike ---I like to support the “underdog”. An unknown horse and an unknown jockey won the 2022 Kentucky Derby! That combination has given hope to every owner, every trainer and every jockey who dreams of winning the race with their horse!

Here in Ohio the Ohio Holstein Association held their Ohio Spring Sale on Friday, April 29, 2022 at the Shelby County Fairgrounds at Sidney, Ohio. The sale averaged $2235 on 63 registered Holsteins of all ages. The top selling consignment was a yearling heifer consigned by Conner Erbson, Lanark, Illinois. She sold for $7900 to Adolf Langhout, Damwoude, Netherlands. Many of the consignments sold were show age calves and heifers that will be exhibited by youth at shows and fairs all over the country. Cattle sold to Indiana, New York, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, as well as Ohio.

While inflation has caused the price of milk and dairy products in the grocery store to go up, dairy farmers are still only receiving approximately $2.00 a gallon for their milk. While the price they receive for their milk has increased, so has the expenses of everything they must buy to keep their dairy farms running. The latest information I found said that on average dairy farmers receive $1.45 per gallon for milk that costs $2.00 to produce. The average price for a gallon of whole milk in the store as of April 2022 was $4.21. A gallon of milk weighs 8.6 pounds. However not all milk jugs contain a gallon these days! The most recent average price I found for 100 pounds of milk (that is how the farmer is paid) was $25.90. There are approximately 12 gallons in 100 pounds of milk. Do the math!

I finally saw my first hummingbird today. They are late getting here this year! Some of my friends already saw birds last week. I look forward to feeding and enjoying them this summer!