And that did Too

These guys are.....or were....much bigger now

I'm thankful for a phone call this morning. Normally I just let Daisy out the back door and maybe stand on the porch while I wait, or possibly even come in and get her dog food ready.

However, this morning Alan called me to chat for a while before he went to sleep for the day, as he is on nights, way down in the big city.

Thus I went out in my bathrobe to enjoy the dawn, the talking with my boy, and just being alive.

Heard something wrong. Saw something out of the corner of my eye that didn't look quite right. The big chickens down in the barn were making a monotonous alarm call as if they had been at it for a long time. They sounded tired.

Then Pumpkin, the fluffy logger cat, ran up the driveway and I thought, 'Okay, they were alarming at the cat."

But they didn't stop. So mini Dachshund in tow I meandered down toward the heifer barn where the big hen flock is. Sneakers untied, eyes still blurred with sleep, not exactly at my best.....

Out of the barn sprang a huge, motley-looking red fox, literally licking his chops. This was a really big fox. Usually when I see one I am surprised by how small they actually are. Not this guy.

I hustled down to find the wire all mashed down on the brooder, some beady, terrified eyes looking up at me, and bodies mashed under the wire. 

Yep, he got the chicks Liz featured on her blog in a post she wrote just yesterday.

I called the kids out to look at the situation. The fox ate eight chicks, and killed a couple others, leaving only six out of sixteen. The six are now in a cat kennel in the dining room, Driving Miss Daisy plumb crazy. She came to us because she is a poultry killer herself and did much damage in a past life. She would like to finish what the fox started I fear. Thank goodness for the kitchen baby gate (which has been keeping dogs in the kitchen for over twenty years.)

So....although I am always glad when my boy calls me, but today I am extra glad. Now there are big jobs to be done before that son of a gun gets the big hens, or the coop full of guineas, turkey and a couple of chickens up on the lawn. 

Or Heaven forbid the turkeys.

Waiting for the Garden

Beans are in bloom. 

Squash and carrots are up. 

Peas are getting big.

So are the varmints.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A foggy full moon

Lots of Irish in our background....Great Grandpa McGivern came from the Emerald Isle himself....but no green to be seen just yet.

Varmints, though, we surely seem to have those. The kids both saw a big grey fox in the yard, in Becky's case in broad daylight, Saturday. 

Then Saturday night, Alan came back from taking his fiance home and sat in his car, just outside the back door,  for a few minutes. He heard something right behind the car, and turned his rear lights on to reveal six coyotes right there in the driveway behind the house. I mean right where we walk, right under the kitchen window over the sink.

Yow! Becky and I had been hearing them nights, and they did sound close, but surely not that close.

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but over the past few weeks I have several times thought something was following me to the barn at night. Before the time change we were still going over after dark and I heard little rustles in the dead, dried weeds, and little crackles in the snow.

I tried to convince myself that it was the wild grey tom cat or maybe bunnies, but it prickled the hair at the back of my neck and disturbed me enough to mention it to the family. It just didn't sound like a bunny at all. They tend to quick bursts not sneaky slinking. And the cat is terrified of me.

Now I wonder if maybe I had reason to be nervous. Sure am glad the days are getting longer.

However, corned beef and cabbage are on the menu for tonight.

And a little bit o' green

Plus a link here to a story about what our Irish ancestors put on the menu, back before the potato was imported from Peru. It explains a lot about our occupation.....

Luigi and Company

It is open hunting season on opossums here in NY. We should have dealt with Luigi when we had the chance. Or at least we should have been more thorough. 

I came in from chores the other night to find our Becky perched on the bank behind the house proclaiming, "I have named him Luigi, and I am not walking past him."

Once I got over wondering what the heck she was talking about and got closer to the house, I realized that the possum whose tracks we had seen off and on all winter was on the back porch.

I attempted to dispatch him with a shovel. This is almost impossible. The boss followed suit and when he seemed pretty dead we dumped him in the compost bin for morning disposal. (We do not shoot things on the porch-too much concrete.)

Before you label us cruel and inhumane, please understand that possums are death on poultry so we don't encourage their presence around the house and buildings. They can get through the tiniest openings....you wouldn't believe it...and they do not know fear. Something, probably a creature of Luigi's ilk, killed beautiful Mr. Peacock last fall. We still have the Missus and several hens and roosters, but his majesty is gone and much missed. 

Next morning Luigi was gone, leaving happy little tracks behind. The next night he brought his friend Mario. Alas they had moved along when the boss and I came in from the barn, so we could make no further efforts at their dispatch.

The next night quite late Alan came home from visiting his fiance, and lovely little Laura, our elderly, tiny, bantam Cochin was out in the yard, muddied and terrified. He caught her and put her in the hen house. Actually she is such a pet, as soon as she realized that he was not a possum she huddled at his feet to be picked up and carried to what is normally safety. Morning revealed the mangled and tattered corpse of one of the roos, scattered all around that edifice.

The kids put new latches on the door and boarded up the window, but I think a hunting expedition is in the offing. Danged varmints anyhow.

Ripe

And redolent and reeking. The air around Northview of an evening has a will of its own. I swear, you can almost see it. 

It wasn't enough that something is eating the cats (although Justin Bieber came back, battle scarred but alive....he won't come down in the barn any more though). 

It wasn't enough that a very large opossum is terrorizing Becky when she walks the puppy nights.

And the chipmunks and squirrels on the bird feeder. We NEVER had them before. Guess Sinopa was keeping them in their place. Without her they pillage at will.

No-o-o-o, even the coyote pup that is following the boss around every day while he mows and chops hay wasn't enough (it has discovered that the machinery uncovers a veritable banquet of mice and voles and is capitalizing on the largess).

No, now we have to have a nightly skunk. And from the way the stench rolls in through the open doors it is an old and belligerent one.

So Nick, who is old enough to know better and normally goes out alone to take care of his very sl-o-o-o-o-o-w geriatric doggy business, has to be carefully hand-walked with a flashlight and a prayer. Ah, the wonders of country living.....on the plus side, I am going to bed early these nights...the living room is the first point of attack.

Athena

Help! Who am I!

Not a cat person here. I like them, but I will never be a crazy cat lady or anything. (Well, crazy maybe....).

However, I do like them, and in the way of families when the young folks move away, all the kitties that they brought home over the years have become my responsibility. I spend my extra coins on cat food and get up early to distribute same.

The very day after the Sunday Stills Cats challenge something murdered poor Sinopa and her idiot son Justin Bieber. They were not big favorites, but still they were threads in the life of the barnyard, the butt of many jokes about white cat syndrome (not that they were white), and just there..... I don't know how to explain how it is with your barn animals. They are not like the cozy creatures that share hearth and home, but more like partners in enterprise. They work for and with you and in return you see to their needs. Part of farm life that goes unsung, but not unnoticed.

Justin wasn't smart enough to come to the house for food, but he got milk and table scraps in the barn, and spent his free time thinking up diabolical ways to trip us or run under a cow's belly with his tail upright so we could get kicked. We still liked his silly self and the boss spent years trying to pet him. He would have none of that.

Whatever got them wrecked them. Both were too wild to catch when they came home to say goodbye. We found Sinopa later; Justin is just gone. The barn floor is bare without them.

Then Athena vanished. Athena is different. She is an independent little spotted brown tabby that belonged to children before she came here. They filled her up with love and she hasn't run out yet. 

She is of the liquid cat genre. You can pick her up in any manner and she will flow into your arms and melt around your neck and purr til the foundation shakes. In the winter Alan tucks her into the hood of his sweatshirt and she rides there all sleepy and proud, peeping out every now and then to see what's up. We have come very, very close to buying a conversion kit and turning her into a house cat.

She is timid over porch food and hides under the car until Simon and Chain Saw are done, but she does come in in the morning to eat. I always give her a little extra.

She didn't show her face for three days. Sorrow reigned. Just a cat. Just a barn cat at that, but there is much fondness beamed in her direction.

You can imagine my joy when she was tucked under the big sink on the porch this morning awaiting her turn at the bowl.

We have got to get to the bottom of this killing thing. We have had coyotes for about twenty years, a fisher for two, foxes forever, ditto owls, although not so much any more. And raccoons. However, savvy cats like these know how to avoid those creatures or they wouldn't have lived as long as they have.

I am leaning toward the fisher, because the last time it came through it took Justin's sister, another cat wise in the way of the wild. 

There was something big and fast right in the house yard when we came home from the fair the other night. I miss the days when everyone hunted and varmints kept their distance.

***If any of you bird stars could identify the little warbler type critter above I would be wildly grateful.

Engulfed

Milkweed for Dani

In November. The air is like taffy, pull off a piece, crisp, bright, sharp, twist it up and enjoy....pumpkin pie flavored maybe. Just breathing is an adventure in brisk.

If I am slow to post it is the absence of usual help and the addition of feeding (and trying to figure out WHEN the boss is going to feed-the man is allergic to routine, won't tell me when he's ready and gets mad as a hornet if I don't show up on time...ten in the morning, four in the afternoon...arrggghhhhh) to my daily chores. I don't mind feeding, but it would be nice to be able to plan.

Most of the leaves are down, but the oaks across the river sport bright gold, and green and russet, layered like an expensive hair cut and shining in the angled sun.

Birds are bright too, hi chickadee from the clothesline, creaky, beaky, blue jays teetering on the tube feeder. Crows on high, very high this fall for some reason, and just a smattering of passing geese. Word is they are off to the west of here, scrounging through the harvested corn fields, gleaning up gold for winter.

Here and there a late monarch. Sometimes a few caterpillars.

Coyotes on the lawn, spooking the horses.

Yowsa! What!

Broad daylight, high noon. No wonder the cows have been acting strange and Wally the blue heeler has been barking all day. I don't like this.We have kitties and hens and beloved dogs, all just menu items to the grey and brown haunts of the hedgerows. They are welcome to around 300 of our acres, but they need to leave the vicinity of the house and buildings.

All week, I have been reading the comments of comfortably-insulated, non animal owning, smug urban folks on a friend's blog on this topic and seething. They know just how we should deal with the proximity of creatures that plot to eat our livestock.And their plans do not include lead projectiles. We should just find a way to get along with the cute little critters kumbaya....

I am not going to link and get into it, but damn Disney anyhow. They have a lot to answer for in my opinion. Once animals started walking on their hind feet, dressing in suits and talking and singing it was all over for common sense wildlife management.

Why would we not want a large predator in our back yard? Hmmmmm.....just can't imagine.

Old

Photo shamelessly stolen from Liz's blog

Liz had the vet in for her 30-ish years old horse, Tyler, yesterday. It was good to get the old boy looked over thoroughly and make sure that she was doing everything right with his care. Been hard to keep the weight on him.

It was decided that his teeth are excellent, no major systemic problems, getting all the good care that he needs, etc. etc.

He is just old.

The conclusion was that there isn't a thing wrong with him that being young wouldn't cure.

Guess you could say the same thing about me. ...probably about a lot of us.

Both horses got rabies boosters too. The darned fox was in the barn with them, in fact in the stall with Tyler the other night, and Tyler must have kicked him and broke his jaw. So better safe than sorry, although after getting a good look at him we think he was just young and mangy.

Never a dull moment around here.

Farm Side Freebie

Every now and then you don't have to pay to read it.

Right here.

Now I know

Seems last year's grey foxes have moved on.

How the fox ears look. From very close. Much too close. This week's Farm Side, should you choose to read it on Friday, deals with a visiting....or maybe permanent resident....red fox. He ate my yellow rooster, incidentally my favorite alarm clock, just the other day.

I had no more than finished the column and gone about other work when there he was again. Same place, next to the old horse trailer.

Different day.

He was gone as quickly as he appeared, but later when I went prowling with the camera, I heard the pea fowl alarming. They can only see outdoors through a window under the woodshed so I crept up there.

Quieter than I thought I could because I walked right up to the darned fox. Maybe six feet away.

He was snuggled down between Liz's bales of straw, staring at my poor beauties and making them honk. I raised the camera to take a shot (wishing that I had shells for my .22 and had brought that instead) but before I could click he was gone.

Bold bugger coming out in daylight like that.

Light as a puff of wind. Thistledown. Feather fluff. Air.

I am not pleased with him although I don't think he can get into the coop. No wonder the last old hen is being so careful when she comes out of wherever she is hiding.

Meanwhile, Nick, who was loose in the house, along with the cat, and who had come in for some bragging in the same column because of his general good behavior, had just cleaned the litter box for me.

What a lovely dog! I am all in favor of a working dog keeping busy but......damn, just damn

By the way, fox ears are fuzzy, black and gold, with little white spots to break up the outline.

Running Outdoors in the Dark

Both ends of the day, dagnabbit, and no choice about it. Thank the Lord for flash lights.

Last night we got done with chores fairly early. The boss was able to feed the cows from the wagon in the field so we could turn them right out at the end of milking. Thus I came to the house just as the moon was taking over sky duty for the night.

The sky was cobalt and gold with twenty jet trails stretched across it horizon to horizon. They were like a foggy fan, wide in the east, converging in the west, some wide and faded, some sharp and thin.

I puttered around building up the fire in the stove for overnight and soon I could also see live jets flashing among the contrails. Wow, there are a LOT of planes flying over this place. The phenomenon was much noticed and discussed on Facebook on a friend's page later in the night.

Then well after it was really dark (and I was lying in bed re-reading a Diana Gabaldon book) the chickens set up a fuss. I knew something had been bothering them as they have been trying to roost on the porch...this is not a development that I favor as they have been sending deer antlers, planting supplies and bottles of dry gas and chain saw oil treatment flying all over when they get up on the freezer. I ran out into the dark, barefoot with flashlight.

Not a sign of a thing, but the boss says possum. From the low key outrage they are expressing I'll bet he is right. Guess I need to put them back in the little coop.

Morning, still dark, back out to take Nick up to the run with his breakfast. Foggy, which is fine, as foggy beats rainy any day of the week and that was what was predicted when we retired last night.

I don't much like the dark, but one entertaining aspect is shining my flashlight down into the garden pond on the way in at night. Young froglets and crayfish trundle around doing what they do among the plants and sleepy gold fish. It is fun to get a look at their secret world.

***Incidentally the blog roll crashed this weekend. I have done my best to reconstruct it from memory, but if I missed you, please let me know so I can add you back in. Thanks!