Look at that layer of hard fat on Clyde! Cliff and I have finally figured out how to get good beef: Butcher a calf by the time he's a year old (Clyde was ten months) and leave him sucking Mom's milk until we take him to the butcher shop. He never had anything but milk and grass except for a rare bite of sweet feed, and a few protein bars in the winter.
Tomorrow they'll turn him into burger, roasts, and steaks, and by next Monday we'll bring him home. We found a cheap used deep freeze, so we won't be having to give any of that good meat away just to make room. I have, however, offered some of last year's ground beef to the grandson for a very reasonable price.
After checking out our beef, we went down to the Sni, where the water is touching the new bridge. The Sni Mini Mart folks are preparing for the worst in case the floodwaters threaten them.
Then we went to the Corp of Engineers park and watched the rising water of the Missouri River rush past.
The Missouri river bottom land has always been one of my favorite places to ride. Nobody lives there, there's seldom any traffic except for an occasional four-wheeler or farmer checking his crops, and it's fun to watch the corn and soybeans grow each summer, and see the harvest activity in autumn.
Early last month when it flooded down there, it was interesting, at first, to watch how high the water got, then to see it recede. 
But once the water went down, it wasn't a nice place to ride any more. The smell of dead animals and rotting vegetation was almost overwhelming, and nothing was growing. Blue wasn't too crazy about plodding through mud and sand.
Vultures circled me as I rode, seemingly expecting me to drop out of the saddle at any moment.
Ah, but yesterday, changes were taking place. Farmers have disked up the fields, getting ready to plant soybeans where corn grew last year. There'll be no corn growing on the river bottom this year; it's too late to plant it. Perhaps some farmers will slip in a crop of winter wheat this fall.
Yes, there's still flooding on the far side of the levee. I doubt any crops will grow there at all, this year.
But as I was getting at the far end of my river-bottom ride, I saw a farmer had his tractor down there spraying weeds, killing them in preparation for planting beans. He'd stopped his tractor and was visiting with another curiosity-seeker such as myself who, when I rode between the two vehicles, said, "You sure do get around".
He'd passed me back on the levee a half-hour earlier.
It'll be good to have my Missouri River bottom-lands turning green again.
Early last month when it flooded down there, it was interesting, at first, to watch how high the water got, then to see it recede. 
But once the water went down, it wasn't a nice place to ride any more. The smell of dead animals and rotting vegetation was almost overwhelming, and nothing was growing. Blue wasn't too crazy about plodding through mud and sand.
Vultures circled me as I rode, seemingly expecting me to drop out of the saddle at any moment.
Ah, but yesterday, changes were taking place. Farmers have disked up the fields, getting ready to plant soybeans where corn grew last year. There'll be no corn growing on the river bottom this year; it's too late to plant it. Perhaps some farmers will slip in a crop of winter wheat this fall.
Yes, there's still flooding on the far side of the levee. I doubt any crops will grow there at all, this year.
But as I was getting at the far end of my river-bottom ride, I saw a farmer had his tractor down there spraying weeds, killing them in preparation for planting beans. He'd stopped his tractor and was visiting with another curiosity-seeker such as myself who, when I rode between the two vehicles, said, "You sure do get around".
