Here are the ones he's been able to identify:

• When two cows are due on the same day, the one left out in the freestall area will always freshen before one you put in the well bedded box stall.

• When sorting cattle, the one you want will always be cut off by the one you don't want.

• The cows are always down on milk on test day.

• The breeder only calls in early on the days you call in late.

• If your wife insists that you finish chores early for a special event, either the motor will burn up on the vacuum pump or some catastrophe will force you to call the vet. His "Peck's corollary" is: "If there is no deadline, chores will be uneventful and you will finish right on schedule.

• The wetter the lawn, the greater the chance the cows will get out during the night.

This is just one of the gems this Saratoga Springs, New York producer shares in a new book titled, "A Cow In The Pool and Udder Humorous Farm Stories." At $19 (which covers tax and postage), it's the perfect Father's Day gift - one guaranteed to keep Dad's eyes open when he relaxes in his recliner after evening chores. This 232-page compilation of over 100 entertaining tales and tractor musings by Joe is good medicine for those days when the price of milk drops, it rains on the hay and your highest producer steps on a teat.

Joe has spent a lifetime "working with and for cows." He's come to the conclusion that they're just like people - men in particular. "'How are they similar, other than being large, aimless animals with a huge appetite?' you might ask," he writes in his book.

"Cows are not inherently neat," he goes onto explain. "Like many men, cows appreciate a clean place to eat and sleep, but depend on others to pick up after them. Also, like men, cows don't ask for directions. Fortunately, they don't have to travel far!"

"Like some people with short attention spans, cows don't need much to entertain them," Joe continues, noting that "anything from a prowling cat to a windblown paper bag can keep cows occupied for as long as three minutes at a time."

He details that cows also "find it difficult to show appreciation for anything you do for them. They act confused much of the time. It is hard for cows to communicate their true feelings to those they know best, unless you consider staring, licking and kicking as signs of affection."

One truly wonderful thing cows do is chew their cuds. Joe, "as a public service" has taken on the task of explaining why in his book. What he can't answer is whether God designed "This system so these beautiful animals could produce so much meat, milk and glue merely by grazing on plants that humans couldn't or wouldn't eat, or just to give them something to do?"

He personally thinks their amazing digestive system evolved from those that could "sneak out of the woods long enough to gobble down enough grass for nourishment before being seen and eaten by a lion or shot by a hunter."

Joe writes that "this may explain why cows literally jump at any opportunity to get out. They are merely acting upon their instinct to survive. I'm convinced that the cows we are milking today are the descendants of a long line of rapid eaters and fast runners."

This life-long farmer doesn't just write about cows, however. He also flexes his pen about farm women, noting that "a real farm wife NEVER talks during the weather report." She never expects to get anywhere on time and "doesn't mind dropping off a bull calf at the livestock market on her way to a parent-teacher conference," he adds.

According to Joe, it's a prerequisite for farmwives to "learn to keep the chain from going slack when being towed." And they have to be able to pull jeans on over their nightgowns, slip into boots and be out the door in 30 seconds flat "when awakened in the middle of the night by the dreaded cry, 'The cows are out!'"

"Real" farmwives, he says, bale all afternoon on a cabless tractor without complaining and then fix supper for an entire 4-H judging team that evening. When faced with a choice between buying a new sofa or a monitor for the planter, they realize "the necessity of accurate seed population," even though the sofa "looks like a buffalo that has been dead for some time," he remarks of their reasonableness.

"She knows, when going for parts, that she must have the year, make, model and serial number of the machine and know, in advance, the answer to any question the most sadistic parts man could ask," he adds.

Folks are wolfing down Joe's book like hotcakes at a June Dairy breakfast. Maybe it's because of insights like these on why farmers are "different" from their nonfarm neighbors. For instance, Joe points out that while they definitely love their families, they measure time in relation to events on the farm. For instance, ask a farm woman when they build their heifer shed, and you might get this reply: "Let me think a minute. It was the year Scott was born and he was seven in August." Ask her husband and he'll say: "It was the year we bought the big tractor, and she's just seven years old now."

Joe stresses that farmers do take time to shop for Christmas presents for their wives, "but usually forget where they hid them until about the middle of March."

He is quick to point out, however, that there's something else that sets today's American farmer apart - he provides food and fiber for 128 people (94 in the U.S., 34 abroad." "Yes, he is different," Joe admits, "and we are all better for it."

This 63-year-old producer really hits it on the head when it comes to farming and the everyday things of life in the country. That's probably because he's been at it all his life. Joe and his wife, Pat, and their son, David, a 1987 Cornell University grad who's in partnership with them, milk upwards of 100 cows in a late-60s freestall/parlor setup.

Joe, also a Cornell grad (in dairy husbandry), started his farming career on his home farm in 1960 with 20 cows and a 14-acre apple orchard his dad had. Today, their all-registered herd of Holsteins has a rolling herd average over 23,000 pounds. They have one fulltime and two part-time employees. The Pecks' other children are Deborah, who earned a masters in environmental policy from UW-Green Bay and who's now working for the New York Senate, and Sharon, who has a doctorate and is now an assistant professor in education/reading methods.

In addition to packing dirt under his fingernails, Joe serves as president of the 1832-established New York State Agricultural Society. He's been writing a monthly column for an Extension newsletter that covers a good share of eastern New York. The book is a gathering of some of those columns, which he's been writing since 1990, on topics like "Mud," in which he stresses how much he hates mud.

Joe contends that "one of life's great mysteries is how a spot in a cornfield can be so wet in early April that a tractor and manure spreader can sink almost out of sight in it and yet, one month later, be so hard that a plow barely bites in more than a few inches." They have a spot like that they call "Devil's Hole," which Joe says "is within sight of the road."

When he's sunk his tractor, he admits he can't just trudge back for a chain and another tractor, nor could he "leave with that mud enshrouded monument to my poor judgment right there in plain sight." Joe says he sure wishes "God could fin another way to get needed moisture into our fertile soil."

Of all the chuckles in this book, this farmer's own personal favorite is "Genes and Germs." The inspiration comes from Deborah, who was helping milk on Christmas Day one year and suggested that if scientists could cross a cow with a cat, there wouldn't be so much manure to contend with. That off-hand remark inspired her father to do a thought-provoking piece on genetic engineering.

Joe writes that it'd be a crowning scientific achievement if the bioengineers could "combine the best characteristics of cows and cats into a super animal capable of keeping itself clean, keep the farm free of rats and mice and burying its own manure."

He goes on to admit "there is always the danger of producing a cow that sleeps 14 hours a day, runs away from home for days at a time and is hard to coax down from trees."

Always the optimist though, Joe concludes that "although problems like what to do with the huge hair balls they might cough up or how to keep them from jumping into your lap need to be solved, having a cow that can clean up spilled milk, purr when contented and sun itself on window sills would certainly be worth the trouble" of this biotech feat.

Joe says inspirations come to him at all odd hours of the day. Over the years, he's started looking for the funny side of farming and has learned in the process not to "sweat the small stuff" as much. What makes farming "so fun" is that you "can't predict it." "People with flat ground don't even know how to tip a wagon over," he points out.

Readers who'd like to order his book can do so by contacting the Pecks at: 178 Wagman's Ridge, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 (518-584-4129). Or they can order online at Joe's website: www.joepeckonline.com. This friendly farmer says he'll be happy to sign the book and include a personal note to Dad or whoever else the book is for. Joe, by the way, also speaks to farm groups, and is even willing to travel to Wisconsin to do so. A member of the National Speakers Association and Toastmasters, he's been entertaining farm audiences for years with his enlightened inspiration, homespun yarns and comedy, drawn from a lifetime of farm experience.

He may even tell you how a cow ended up in their pool. He quickly notes that it might make them sound real affluent, but it was actually quite a deal that came in boxes and that he dug himself - not without problems naturally.

Joe reports that on a farm there's good news and bad. The good includes statements such as "It's a heifer"; "It could have been worse"; and "I think we found all the pieces." The bad news is: "Grab the fire extinguisher"; "I can't find all the pieces" and "There is a cow in the pool."

When it happened, Joe thought "surely, there will never be another cow in the pool." But like he said, farming is full of surprises...