Anniversary of Irene

This is what happens when you let the boys chalk tail heads

You remember her. She stopped in this time last year and left a legacy of devastation that still haunts much of the Schoharie Valley and even places right down the road. 

And this

We were personally very fortunate, but neighbors lost a lot. However, one of my most compelling memories of the time of trouble was the overwhelming spirit of help and cooperation that infused the center of Upstate NY. It's impossible not to be proud of the people who pulled together for their neighbors and who still, a whole year later, are fundraising and volunteering for clean up and rebuilding efforts.

It was just a little nerve wracking to hear the rain begin to thunder down again last night, but although things are mighty soggy, it seems to have stopped and the forecast doesn't look too bad. Hope it stays nice as we would like to get over to the fair a couple of times this week. Liz took the pony over so we are down two people for a good part of the week. Nobody here but Becky and the old folks.

This is what they were supposed to be doing

On the Egypt-BooBoo cow front, so far so good. I went outside when the cows were coming into the barn yesterday morning and made her stay outdoors. Then I milked Dublin and turned her out so Egypt couldn't get me and let Egypt come inside. At night the boss offered to do the squeezing in between and getting squashed. He is bigger than me and a darn sight tougher and Egypt didn't even give him any trouble.

Our Neighbors

Just down the road a piece. This is where we used to go for ice cream when we needed a summer break and bought sweet corn and peas and honey and met friends and socialized. I loved to sit in the car there and look across the green, green fields to the sandy cliffs along the Schoharie where the swallows nest each summer. It is a wonderful spot but the flood hit there hard.

This story offers a real tribute to the persistence, toughness and heart of this NY farm family. These are good people and I hope the road before them is smoother and easier than the one they have traveled this year.

Washing Down a Mountain

Quick run to Fort Plain yesterday for parts for the milkers (inflations for you who milk cows). We took Route 5 because they just announced that it had reopened after the flood and we wanted to see what had happened that the clean up took so long. Liz drove home that way one night and called me on the phone later. She was incoherent about what she saw.

Once we got to Big Nose, so were we.

Gratuitous mild profanity erupted in its own little flood, mile after mile. (Holy S**t was the most common epithet.) Ordinary words just couldn't capture our astonishment at what had happened. The vicious flood waters carved huge channels down the flanks of that whole mountain...just scored the earth like the claws of some great beast, many feet back into the mountainside, right down to the bone and even into it..

These photos do not do justice to the vigorous new streams and water falls that splash merrily down the sides of Big Nose Mountain now. They look as if they have always been there.

I wish my Grandpa Lachmayer, who took us on many road trips down the valley on the road that curves around its steep green sides, could be alive to see. He would have enjoyed the astonishment.

Nature is powerful beyond imagination and erosion apparently does not take centuries, just a lot of water.

The boss thought he counted seven or so of these gigantic gashes in the mountainside. They went many, many feet into its sides and stretched out of sight toward the top. Can you imagine all that rock and dirt and trees and debris dumped on the roadway below? I am impressed that they got it all cleared up before freeze up.


****Just a few weeks ago this whole area was smoothly rounded and covered with forest.....

Heartbreaking

This video features one of the farm families who lost the most in the recent floods.

The nice lady doing the narration has sat at our kitchen table a couple of times....they are hard working, highly-respected folks, who made a good name for farming wherever they went. The video will just break your heart if you love the land, the animals, and the people who care for them. It is long, but do watch.....

Hurricane Irene Aftermath: One Farmer's Story from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

Enough Already

This is the river the other day,

untimely empty because the locks are all open or just plain gone.
See the channel marker aground on the side?

Today it is full again and over flowing.

I am sure you are sick of me talking about the weather. (I am sick of talking about it too, as far as that goes. In fact, frankly I am downright sick of the weather in general, in particular, and in any other way you can be sick of it.)

It just keeps raining and raining and raining. By mid-afternoon Wednesday Alan's friends were texting him from SUNY Cobleskill and putting up videos on Facebook because of the incredible flooding there. Water was racing down the stairways among the dorms, feet deep and chocolate brown. These were the dorms on higher ground too...I hate to think what was going on lower down. At least some dorm rooms were flooded and kids were moved to higher ground. It was pretty scary.

Meanwhile towns that were evacuated during the peak of the Irene flooding were once again emptied because of still more flooding. I don't know how much more people can take...

Here at the farm we still live on the hill and are still glad of it, although the driveways are taking an awful beating and the milk truck didn't get in on Monday. Water filled one shed so we had to turn Rio out with the big cows. She is a pregnant milking shorthorn heifer that we have actually wanted to add to the big herd, but we have been waiting because we have the cows spending their days in a temporary pasture. Temporary electric fence and un-fence-broke heifers are not a good mix.

Sure enough she got out twice (all I can say is ouch because that fence is HOT!) but the first time she put herself back in and the second time Liz was right there to chase her. Hopefully over the next few days she will figure out where she belongs and settle down.

Also had to liberate Wally, the blue heeler guardian of the cow barn gate. The rain washed the ground out from under his dog house so he is now enthroned in Nick's chain link kennel. Hopefully he will stay there because he is essentially a very bad dog. The cats and chickens don't need his help on their way to an untimely grave.

So there you have it. Most of the news that's fit to print. We can't chop. Can't work on the tractor. Can't do much of anything except divert water and hope for the best. Take care.

****Update, reliable source says all roads in county are closed. Good grief! Been reading FB, mud slides all over the place, the water is up in Liz and Jade's back yard. I called her and told her to forget coming to work.

Kansas, We Have Your Weather

And Florida, California and Alaska too. Earthquakes (which I suppose technically aren't weather, but they can go away just the same) a devastating hurricane, and now a tornado.

Enough already. You can all have your weather and your seismological events back any time you want them.

Here at Northview we were just getting started milking, early, trying to beat the storm, which looked like a big one, and its potential for power failure, when the lights went out.

Fun, fun, fun. Thankfully the power was restored fairly quickly, although a couple of hours were added to evening chores, which were not much enhanced by the rain either.

September in upstate NY is supposed to bring warm, bright days and cool pleasant nights. Sunshine. Calm. Fresh vegetables.

What the heck is up with this and who has OUR weather? That's what I want to know.

Eleven Cows Found

I know some of you live where these are as common as sparrows,

but this is the first one we have seen in at least five years.

This hen pheasant is nibbling something on our soggy driveway...

I read somewhere that eleven missing cattle were found. 22 thoroughbred horses still missing.

Here are some info links:

New York Farm Bureau flood help link

NYFB Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, coming to Schoharie County dairy farm today.

How to help in flood-ravaged Middleburgh (our favorite place to collect brachiopods when the kids were small.)

Unsung

But heroes just the same.

The boss just spent a few minutes chatting with our milk truck driver while he was picking up the milk. He, his boss who is the owner of the trucking company, (a really sweet guy), and all the other drivers...and no doubt dozens of guys from other companies...have been going through H-E-Double Hockey Sticks getting to farms to pick up milk.

If the trucks can't get in, even if the farmers have generators and power to milk the cows (not to mention still having barns and cows, which many don't) then the bulk tanks fill up and have to be emptied somehow....usually by dumping milk. Having dumped milk when our market got mixed up a couple years ago, I know how painful that can be. It takes a lot of work to grow and harvest feed and grow cows and then feed the cows to produce the milk. Not much fun to watch the fruit of all that labor swirling down the drain.

Add to that the fact that some of the plants that take milk have closed temporarily due to the flood and you have a nightmare.

The owner of the company that hauls our milk just spent three hours just getting to two close together farms marooned by flood waters. One of his drivers drove all night to get to an alternate plant to offload milk. They have been having trouble even getting home at night when they are done.

Thankfully, these men know every back road, short cut, long way and detour in this part of upstate NY. If there is a way to get where they need to go, they will find it.

My hat is off to them. Thanks, Dale, and John, and all you other guys, you know who you are, who are working so hard to get our product to market. It means a lot.

Another Day, Another Detour

Katydid by Becky

Routing traffic away from flooded areas, un-inspected bridges, and such has snarled traffic like the wind will your hair when you ride in a convertible. It took Alan well over an hour to pick Becky up from work yesterday and she only works a mile from here. Worth every minute of it though, if keeps everyone safe from further disaster.

Folks are being so good about it too. If you need to pull onto what was once a thoroughfare, but is now a slow-moving parking lot, people let you in with a wave and wait as patiently as they can. As always there are a few bad actors and rude folks, but they are in the minority.

Most everyone from politicians to whom I never paid any attention before, news sources (can't say enough about the fantastic job media and ordinary people are doing at getting out information), volunteers and professional emergency folks, to the kids cleaning up the fair ground so the fair can go on albeit a bit late, are making me feel fortunate and proud to live here.

What a great region for neighbors and caring and community spirit!

I even talked to really, really nice people at the power company yesterday. The boss's elderly aunt is still without power and not getting her meals on wheels and such. (We packed a cooler and ran it up as soon as we knew, but she needs her fridge.) My first call about the power was routed to Boston for some reason, but the lady there was incredibly helpful and got me the numbers I needed for the local situation. The man I reached next was helpful too. Hopefully she will soon have power. Meanwhile Liz hit the grocery for imperishable edibles last night.

Anyhow, I really want to thank everyone who has worked and is working so hard to restore the upstate area. Great job! Great neighbors! Wonderful people, thank you, thank you, thank you.

***Update, amazingly 5 and the Thruway are open.

Flood Video

Here

Marooned, Incommunicado

Collage of just some of the things that were flying over the farm yesterday.

I missed the governor's helicopter, having run outdoors quickly to quiet the dogs

Collage of skies, from Saturday through yesterday

What you can see from our windows

"The wind makes me restless. I can't settle to normal Sunday pursuits. Dishes, laundry, chores galore, all done before the crew is finished in the barn. Judging by posts from my Facebook friends, it's the same all over. No one can be calm with all this going on."

That was written on Sunday before the main storm hit. at that point the storm looked unimpressive, but there was a gripping, ominous tension in the air...you just couldn't walk away from it.

Our senses were not wrong. The poor valley is devastated, the whole region damaged horribly. We were lucky, we are fine. We couldn't get out and no one could get in, but we never completely lost power, although phone, Internet and television were gone.

Entities far from this region complaining that the storm preparation was over done and over-hyped are full of it. Whole farms were swept away, whole towns inundated, people died. People are still in shelters, people still don't have power. Buildings that have stood everything that has happened since the Revolutionary War were badly damaged. Guy Park Manor

It is too soon for me to process it all, but here are some links and pictures.

Video of part of the extent of the flooding taken from the governor's helicopter, which flew very low over us several times. Drove the dogs totally crazy.

Leader Herald story

There is so much more...too much more. As I said, I can't process it yet. Prayers for people who had and have it a lot worse than we do and belated thanks to Grandpa Delbert for going against convention and buying land high on the hillsides instead of river flats. I sent him good thoughts all weekend.....

If you are on Facebook, look up WRGB, WENT, the Recorder, and Montgomery County Emergency Management, etc. There are some pictures that will chill you....