Signs

Of the end of summer

Did it Freeze Last Night?

It matters. Sudan Grass/sorghum develops a poisonous acid after stress like frost. We are feeding and ensiling it right now. First step-stick head out the door (pet the dog for a minute too) and listen for crickets. They usually get it right.

Nope, not a one chirping. Still doesn't either feel or smell that cold ...and yes, you can smell cold, although I can't exactly explain how.

Second step, swipe a hand across the stuff on the car. Nope, not hard and crispy,just wet.

Finally, get high tech. Turn to the computer and check out weather stations. 41 at Albany airport. Probably didn't freeze here either. Okay, another day of bringing in plants, cleaning up garden and turning grapes into jelly. Why oh, why, did the boss's late father plant the grape vine right next to the standard apple tree? Most of them are up about thirty feet on teeny, tiny little branches. We won't be getting them, alas.

Dairy Politics

In the 122nd District. Read about it here.

Working the Curve

College kids...they present quite a challenge to us old fogies....we want to be able to converse with them as if we actually knew what we are talking about and sometimes that ain't easy. When I had offspring in Animal Science, Anthropology and Fisheries and Wildlife, the learning curve for conversation was fairly shallow. They brought home veritable fountains of fascinating new information but at least I had a foundation upon which to build my knowledge. I have lived animal science since I could toddle around with puppies and kittens. Anthropology is just history with science thrown in. Fisheries and wildlife, yeah, fish and fascination, I could do that. I already knew half of those tough Latin names from another college experience in another life time...and from learning them just for fun.

Then along came Agricultural Engineering, which is a fancy name for Diesel Technology. Suddenly the curve looked (and sounded) like Everest on a bad day. I more or less, kinda, sorta, get it about gasoline engines, having dated a mechanic back in the day, and having driven a lifelong series of clunkers (without cash, alas) which taught me just about every single thing that could go wrong with one... Diesels, not so much. I can drive a tractor, but my knowledge stops right there, and that is just fine with me. I like Esox and Sylvalagus, phooey on injectors and turbo chargers.

However, to survive the nightly after-class sermons in the barn I have been forced to learn things I didn't want to know. I now know what a common rail is and can draw one on the barn blackboard. Pumps, bench tests, PTO horsepower. I can listen to all that diesel-Greek with the best of them (I won't lie and say that I get it yet, but I guess I am going to learn whether I want to or not).

Now the turbo charger on the 4490 has gone bad and the kid is trying to replace it with the one that came off the engine that the same tractor blew a couple of years ago. With all the men clustered around that tractor all through milking last night and Becky making pancakes so we could test drive the new grape jelly, Liz and I ended up milking pretty much alone....fun, fun, fun. Will all that classroom learning bear fruit and the tractor arise from the dead, yet again? I surely hope so.

In the meantime let me draw you a common rail.

Sundae on the Farm Report

Here is an excellent report on Montgomery County's 10th annual Sundae on the Farm.

Sunday Stills....Flags

For more Sunday Stills.

A Valiant Trouper

You have probably read about Gael's ongoing issues with old dog vestibular disease. This is a syndrome that supposedly clears up in time, but Mike had and she has almost constant recurrences, which are a misery. Gael was so bad just a few days ago that she simply couldn't eat or walk and we were thinking that the time had come. She hadn't had a good day in weeks and it was obvious that she was miserable.

Then from one day to the next she got just enough better to eat again and to do silly things that she has never done before.

Like Thursday afternoon when Liz and I were heading out to pick up Becky from work. We were just leaving the back of the house in the Durango when Liz said, "Mom, Gael is following us."

I said, "Speed up quick and get out of her sight. She'll stop."

I mean the dog has cataracts so bad she can see about three inches in front of her nose and you have to bellow to call her from a yard away. How could she follow the car?

"She's still coming."

"Quick, go around the corner out of sight. She'll go back."

"She's still coming."

"Drive down between the big trees and wait. She'll go back.

"Uh, ma, look back."

"Oh, all right. Pick her up and put her in the back. She can go with us."

So the old dog who used to live for rides in the car (yeah, the same dog that chased the rear windshield wiper and then ate the rear seat belts in frustration when she couldn't catch it), got an unexpected ride yesterday. She was too tippy to stand and watch out the window like she used to...and can't really see anyhow...but she curled up in her tiny little ball, which seems to give her the most relief from the ODVD and lay there all comfy until we returned. Liz lifted her out of the back and she toddled up on the porch smug as can be.
She knew.

What can I say? What a dog!

Paul has a Poem

Paul at Salt Creek Life has the nicest poem about the season that I have read in a good long while. It had me smiling and reading out loud. Go read...enjoy.

Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm

Is on Farm Side Fridays this week. Directions are included if you are attending. Looks like it is going to be a great event!

The Farmer gets Older

Happy Birthday to the boss!

First Day on the New Feet

Pecan had a new baby girl this morning. First day on the new feet, first breakfast, second breakfast, nuncheon, high tea......

Wordless Wednesday

Cow Housing

Another pic of Moments, since everybody liked her

A lively debate has sprung up in the comments and I thought maybe I should address it from the point of view of 32+ years of caring for and milking cows in both styles of stabling, freestall and conventional barns with pasture. I can assure you from personal, long-term experience that cows are fine in both kinds of barns. Sure they like pasture, but they also race to get into the barn in summer...that is where the fans are and fly control is better. And in winter that is where it is warm and comfortable. Although they can withstand amazingly adverse weather conditions they like to avoid them just as any creature would.

I am not sure that the terms that we use to describe our own emotional states apply to cows in the same way as they do to humans. I admit I am as anthropomorphic in my language as anyone, but I think a cow's sense of well-being runs more to comfortable vs. uncomfortable, hungry/not hungry, frightened/secure rather than abstracts like happy or sad. They are not predators, but rather prey animals, and as such they devote most of their energies to survival. If we make survival easier for them, rather than being what we conceive of as "unhappy" because they are not outdoors, they are contented with having what they need to live and feel safe and comfortable.

Most free stalls are designed with the cow's comfort in mind, with ventilation systems and sprinklers in summer and side curtains to keep out the weather in winter. Cows can walk about freely, eat when they want to and lie down in stalls that are scientifically designed after much research (which is still constantly ongoing with better ideas coming out every year) to fit their needs as perfectly as possible. I am sure you heard about Temple Grandin, whose life story won a boat load of Emmys this year. She is a perfect example of the kind of expert who designs animal handling and care systems so that they serve animals as well as their caretakers..

Not unlike house cats, which might have a heck of a lot of fun hunting birds in the neighbor's back yard, but are much safer indoors, cows inside stables may not look as natural, but the key thing is care. They are well-cared for, their wants and needs attended to and they do just fine. If I were to try to define a "happy" cow, I would describe one that is lying down on a firm but comfortable surface, chewing her cud, calm rather than alert, at a proper temperature for her species (cows like the fifties). There is no reason she can't experience all those things, as much as she wants to, in a free stall barn as well as in a pasture.

Cows look pretty grazing out on a nice green hillside, and under the right conditions that is a fine place for them to be. I like pasturing our cows because it is a very economical way to care for a herd of our size, and they do thrive in summer. Winter is another story. I would love to have a nice modern free stall barn for them in winter. The cows would like it I'll bet. Inside a stable that was painstakingly designed, after much research and trial and error at universities and on farms, to cater to their every whim, is a fine place for them.

A Great Farm Safety Resource

NY State has a wonderful resource when it comes to staying safe on the farm. The New York Center for Agricultural Medicine provides a broad range of safety and health related services to the state's farmers.

An especially handy tool is their list of farm safety articles, which can be found here.

If You Like Monty Python

Go listen to this clip that Dickiebo has up on driving on the left.

Having a son who can do ten minutes of the Holy Grail at a time...and being more familiar with the air speed velocity of swallows with coconuts than with European geography (although I did know the answer to the question...without the taxi) , I laughed so hard that my coffee was hazardous to my keyboard.

Home Girls of Northview

On Parade

***Well, actually on their way down to the barn for morning milking

Traffic jam, NY style...upstate NY that is

Detroit

Bonneville and friends

Moments,
we were hoping she was pregnant
and the other day when I walked by her, her calf to be was poking its fanny against her side
and I got to feel it kicking and wiggling, hooray for Moments!

My favorite cow, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, thanks Alan for giving her to me!

B-dub as I call her gets three pics just because she is so special.
Can you believe her amazing color?

Sunday Stills....Glass

For more Sunday Stills....

Not Just Another Saturday

When the boss watched the news last night I had to walk away from the television and go upstairs. As is I am sure the case with most of you, my memories of September 11 are still as sharp as if it happened yesterday. I shuddered to be reminded so strongly and needed not to be in that room.

On the other hand we need to remember.

I think we have been encouraged to let the horror slip from our collective consciousness and to move along into our usual round of national guilt for anything and everything that happens anywhere in the world. We were attacked in a cowardly and horrific manner.

It was not our fault.... No matter what the American-haters would have us think. The people who died were just living their lives as best they could not bothering anyone.
We should not forget that.

My beloved brother works long weeks and hours, alone without his family far below the site of the horror, laboring to fix parts of what was broken. I worry about him every day. A few years ago a large number of bloggers joined together to remember each person who died in the assault upon our nation for the 2996 project.

Carl DiFranco, an innocent young man just doing his job, who died that day was my assignment. Here is a link to his story as best as I could find it.







Here at home, it was sirens and Sadie all night again. It is worrisome to hear them screaming up and down the valley especially with 9-11 on my mind. So far no news reports to tell me what was going on with the sirens, but the state of the porch gives me a Sadie suggestion. Gael had a bad night with her old dog vestibular disease; the porch is a mess with a chicken feed bag torn up all over the place and who knows what else. She wouldn't eat when I put out her food.

This is just heart-wrenching. Yesterday she had a great day and even trotted out to meet us when we came in from the barn. With her balance problems trotting is not exactly an every day thing. Now today she is terribly bad off again and can barely walk. Poor old girl. We lavish pets and praise on her and feed her treats and tasty foods but....It is different than with Mike. He lost himself long before he passed away. There was no Mike there, but only a shell of dog. With Gael, the body is weak, but the doggy girl, the Wissa Queen, Beanie dog, Queen Bean is still inside her fragile old body. Mike was my special boy but losing Gael is hurting a lot harder.

The windows were fogged solid this morning. For a minute I was worried that we had had a frost last night. Most of the house plants are still outside and the garden isn't done and I am so not ready for frost....although I suppose that I really should get ready. However, I had forgotten that the boss opened the plenum on the furnace yesterday, allowing a little passive heat to seep upstairs. The house has been damp and dismal and that tiny bit of warmth is welcome. No frost either.

State Fair

A kind friend sent me this link to a lovely article about agricultural fairs...which are among my favorite things that there are.

The author neatly synopsizes all that makes up a fair from carnies to funnel cakes and camel rides to giant cucumbers. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

There are Things Every Farm Kid Learns

Like you really can't carry an egg in your pocket. Even your shirt pocket. Even if you go right straight to the house. Go ahead, try it. I have.

An egg in your pocket that doesn't make it to the house has truly nasty side effects. Really.

I found a nice egg this morning hidden in the neatest little cubby among the straw bales that Liz had left from the fair. A little rectangular tunnel back between the bales, just a comfy size for a chicken, dark, and nicely padded. I could just see how very tempting it must be for a hen to snuggle down in there for her daily confinement.

In fact the crook leg hen was in there when I went to get a couple slabs of straw to bed Nick's dog house up for the cooler nights. She clucked at me in irritation, I grabbed the fat white egg that was sitting there...and stuck it in my shirt pocket.

I tended to making Nick's bed without mishap, other than that Nick wanted to be in the dog house when I wanted to stuff it with straw.....then I went to the stove to chuck in some of the nine thousand pound blocks of oak that the boss provided me for heating water. I am sure you are guessing what happened next.

But no, I have been, more times than I care to admit, that farm person will the ill-fated egg in the pocket. One time it was five eggs, but I won't bore you with the details of that debacle.

I set the egg carefully in the grass, filled the stove, and grateful for years of experience with the perils of egg production, sauntered in for breakfast.....with no egg, either on my face or in my pocket.

Seems Like Only Yesterday

That the sun was coming up near the neighbor's spruce tree. Now it rises way to the south and is usually a sadly pale version of its summer fiery self. Unless we get some pretty unlikely weather we are done baling for the year. Days are too short and dew is too heavy for the hay to dry so it is back to chopping for the ag bags

At the Farm Bureau meeting last night our Cooperative Extension rep was telling folks to be checking their corn for maturity. As in the past couple of years a lot of it is way ahead of the norm. Since we didn't plant any this summer it won't be an issue for us.


The birds are sure making themselves scarce. A few passing killdeers, a lot of starlings and the odd chickadee or two are about it except for blue jays. Those gorgeous blue devils have found the giant sun flowers and are denuding them apace. I hope they scatter a few seeds like they did last year so I have some volunteers next year. This year's monsters were volunteers and they are the biggest I have ever grown. I really should cut one down and just save a few seeds, but the task daunts me. They are that big.

Well, off to the salt mines...have a good one.

Poor Doggy

I wonder what would happen if we sent a drug sniffing dog through the halls of national government....Congress, the Maison Blanche, etc. I'll bet he would wear his nose out in the first half hour.

Thunderstorm Last Night

Alan took everybody's favorite rocker over to the fair and it won a blue ribbon!

And I slept right through it. Guess it was a humdinger though.

The hay elevator broke down at about dark-thirty last night. Alan went up in the mow to fix it and fell in a hole in the hay and jerked his shoulder half out of joint. It popped back in when he got out of the hole, but it hurt a lot. There were only about thirty bales left on the wagon he was unloading and they just left them there. Too dangerous to be doing what they were doing in the dark. We will feed the wet bales up to the young stock or give the cows a treat.....second and third cutting fine mixed grass, clover, and alfalfa. They will like it I think.

If you live in the area make sure to save Saturday the 19th of September for Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm. This year it will take place at Stowdale Farm in St. Johnsville. It is always an amazing event and well worth visiting, if only for the free ice cream sundae.

Sustainability and Moo Juice

Milk came out on top in a survey of nutrients vs climate impact.

And it does a body good!

Detonate Me

Deputies blow up stuffed pony.

Watch it happen here

Six-Horse Hitch

And a tiger just for good measure.

Stars and Guard Dogs

Sadie, the guard dog here at the house...mostly an anti-deer-in-the-garden device...barked all night last night. Finally at one AM I got up and went out to see what was troubling her.

Flashlight, dark night, cold barn walk. Wally the barn guard was sleeping, so he wasn't worried about whatever was up. Ditto Nick up in his kennel.

All was well at the barn, no cows in the yard, cold enough for the house windows to be all steamed up and as quiet as it ever gets. Waste of time getting up, but I couldn't just ignore her. There have been a lot of odd things going on around here during the fair...salesmen who weren't really salesmen showing up at the door, trying to barge right on in (I sent them packing) dogs barking during the day when there was seemingly nothing to bark at. The boss was accosted by thugs over at the fair....there are some pretty questionable folks around and I worry....and lock things that are normally not locked. Still I hate getting up in the middle of the night.

But, ah, the stars. We live near a village with lots of night lighting. You can rarely see much more than the brightest of stars, a mere sprinkling compared to what is visible in the Adirondacks. Just too much light for them. However, last night most of the lights in town were dimmed. Thick trees, still heavy in leaf, screened the rest. Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, right down against the hills...horizons usually white from city lights. Across the entire sky the path of the Milky Way was clearly visible. Because of light pollution that is something I have only seen a few times, mostly while camping among sheltering mountains up north. It was like a blazing white ribbon, stretching East to West, glowing brighter than I could even imagine.

I stood in the driveway south of the heifer barn among the sleepy crickets, the urgent cry of a passing night bird echoing loud, the huffing of the heifers on the other side of the fence, comforting and cozy...and just watched the stars for a long time.

This morning I was kind of worse for wear, what with the limited hours of sleep I managed to get, but I wouldn't have missed the show for anything.

And as I came back to the house, way across the river I saw a little bonfire. I'll bet somebody was fishing and maybe partying just a bit and in the incredible stillness (holiday weekend, the Thruway was silent) Sadie could hear the voices of the revelers.

Sunday Stills....Shoes and Boots

Becky's old flip flops....most of the shoes around here
are either nondescript sneakers or too nasty to share.

Aluminum racing plate (technically it is a shoe) from the filly Lighthearted.
She was the star of the stable at Saratoga where I worked as a hot walker for Henry S. Clark when I was in my early twenties. When we went to the racing hall of fame we found her name listed in one of the rooms there. She won the Go For Wand and the Molly Pitcher Stakes in 1973.

And this is Charlie Daniel's cowboy boot

And this is its owner. Becky took me to the concert last night.
Wow!

For more Sunday Stills.......

Charlie Daniels

Last Night

Pretty Corny

Last night just at chore time
I heard a great clatter
and sprang to the porch to see what was the matter.

It was three Amish boys with a quick little trotter....oh, heck, enough of that nonsense..I'm too lazy to rhyme today.

Yeah, three Amish lads with a wagon drawn by a snappy little brown horse showed up peddling sweet corn last night. We have been been bamboozled persuaded into purchasing field corn for our dining pleasure by some other members of the group, so I asked to examine an ear before purchasing.

It was clearly sweet corn, so at a mere two dollars a dozen I bought a bag.

The cheerful youth in charge of sales then asked if the "old man" that his dad had met previously when looking at the hay loader was around. He wanted to sell him some corn too. I explained that said old man was my husband and would be eating the corn I had just bought.

The boy ducked his head a little as if thinking and then said, "If you'd like I'll give you another half dozen for free."

I agreed that this sounded like a real good deal. If I had had more money on me I would actually have bought a couple more dozen for the freezer but I don't trot around the farm with much. He chose another small bag of fat green ears and said sheepishly, "If we go back home with this corn we have to can it all tonight and we don't want to do that."

Kids...guess they are the same all over. I laughed and thanked them and they spun that little brown around like an English kid doing donuts with his truck and were off down the driveway with a rumble of heavy wheels.

Friday on the Farm

Crossing fingers here for another dry, sunny day. The boss has been baling up hay apace all week and has put in some really nice second cutting. He has another field just about dry and if rain holds off today he will probably get it. He needs to get us some late first cutting that they left up in the corner of the 60-acre lot too, so the pony will have groceries this winter. (Fat ponies and second cutting don't mix.)

Pale touch me not

He thought the whole fence thing was very funny by the way. And the kids and I have him playing our favorite little free farm game these days. That is popping touch me not seed pods. We love the way they explode like little bombs if you touch them when they are ripe. There are dozens of them by the gate...by the stove....etc. Every now and then you see him looking guilty and popping them when he goes down to close the gate.

Brassy sunrise, already hot

Nippers

As you might deduce from the previous post, yesterday was one of those days. After our adventures in rodeo, dairy style, we went in to breakfast.

Liz went to work, Alan was already at college, so it was just the boss, Becky and me. As the boss passed by he asked Beck, "How handy are you with the nippers?'

Since the cows got out through a partially shorted out electric fence and since brush nippers are the usual remedy for that ailment, I thought he wanted someone to cut the brush out of the fence. Becky told him no she wasn't handy with nippers, but the request lingered in the back of my mind.

Man, it was so hot. I put it off and put it off, doing all manner of normally unwelcome indoor chores, but I knew that brush needed nipping.

Finally I tucked my trusty iPod into my snap-down shirt pocket, sprayed some WD-40 on my nipper head and went out to nip. I tend to spend my non-milking hours in flip flops. Nettles soon convinced me that, as miserable as it is to wear rubber work boots in ninety+ degree sunshine, I had no choice but to change footwear. It probably didn't take me much over an hour and a half to get the fence all cleared out but I was so disappointed that I didn't get any compliments from the boss on my self-imposed industry.

Then about half way through evening milking I realized. He didn't expect either me or Beck to trim up the fence. He was hinting, in his obviously far too subtle manner, that he wanted me to give him a hair cut.......which I had already done, long before the brush nipping nirvana portion of my day...as a means of further delaying the latter job.

I love it when I completely outsmart myself.

Running After Cows

Not my thing.....but done as needed. Yesterday a small but determined cadre of cows (towards whom I am harboring unkind thoughts) pushed down the electric fence and just ran. Normally if they get out they just eat the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side and you can round them up. Not this bunch.

They gathered just outside the fence girding their loins for flight. I tried to ease through them and point them back toward the pasture. Instead they took off running.

Not in fear. They just knew they were out and wanted to play.

I raced around the house to try to head them off (circle driveway you see).

I almost made it too.

But not quite. They were on a hot jog headed for a busy state highway, another busy highway, and a major interstate, depending on how fast they ran or which way they turned. I took off across the long lawn, (so called because it is long), hoping once again to get ahead of them. At the end of that yard is a head-high wilderness tangle of brush and brambles and who knows what. The only way down to the driveway to head off the cows is through it. To even go a foot I had to put my stick on top of it, stomp it down and proceed.

I tried but I am about as athletic as an elderly broody hen. And it was very thick. I fell down a little bank and got stuck under a mass of raspberries vines. I had to slide back up the hill on my fanny to even get out. I couldn't see or hear a cow.

I was praying hard and I'll make no bones about it. In our state the farmer is liable if cows get in the road. We have insurance but.it is never enough.

Finally, sobbing with frustration and fear and raspberry cuts I tumbled out onto the driveway. Incredibly, just below me stood the cows, milling in a confused pod of black and white. I knew I could never get between them and the road so I called and coaxed and walked away trying to get them to follow.

To my utter amazement they did and I soon saw why. Liz, who uses her head for something besides to keep her ears apart had jumped in her truck (far behind the ravening mob), got her dad to open the gate at the barn, went down that driveway,and up the highway to the bottom of the house driveway where the little b&&*((rds were. (We have two driveways, quite some distance apart with lots of gates.)

I don't know how she did it. I was way ahead of her and she had to go in the other direction, open a huge pair of gates, drive at least a quarter mile, when they only had a few yards to go to the road. She said later that corners on two wheels and the speedometer reading eighty had something to do with winning the race.

Doesn't matter. She saved our bacon...or should I say, beef? And believe it or not those darned sons of guns went up in the pasture where they belong, gathered up all the rest of the cows and came tearing down the hill for another go round. Fortunately Liz and I were both standing there waving sticks.

Soon they were closed up where they belong. I have no idea what possessed them to run. I also have no idea what possessed the boss to leave us to chase them while he went back to the barn to finish chores. It was an emergency and a big one but beyond opening the gate he just ignored it. Did he not get what was going on? I don't know and I am not going to ask, but we sure could have used some help.

However, being tough farm women (and one of us is even smart) we got it done.

Ag at the Fair

A friend and colleague is in charge of this building at the fair and, along with a group of incredible volunteers, she does an amazing job of ag promotion every single year.

No Michigan State Fair This Year

From the same governor who likes to play meatout day comes the decision that it is too expensive for the state to subsidize the fair. (Despite the fact that it makes a profit). Thus ends a 160 year tradition, leaving Michigan one of the few states in the nation without a state fair.

Ag is Michigan's number two industry but I guess Granholm isn't a big fan.

Update on the Strange Accident in Fonda

Here