Mom

The (very happy) farmer's wife

Wanted me to post this. (Let me know if the link doesn't work for you.)

The upshot is that the paper that runs the Farm Side did good at the New York State Associated Press awards.

The Venner Vox, a really cool blog that I miss every day, won a second place award, which is no surprise to me at least. It was always interesting and at times pretty highly charged.

The Sideline Guys won first place in their division, the niche website category.

And in the under 25000 circulation column category, the Farm Side came in third. I was pretty tickled.

Hearty congratulations to Charlie Kraebel and to the fellows who write the Sideline guys....

Morning on the Farm

Sun coming up red.

Cottontail rabbit lolloping down across the lawn, up to his ears in dewy green. Cows grazing on the hill side with wild turkeys strolling among them. Foggy around the edges, quiet, clear and calm. Just another day in our personal paradise.

Of course, as good as all that sounds, you have to add in a continuous string of breakdowns, every single day without fail and the dog barfing up the new dog food before he even got done with breakfast etc. etc.

It's a great life if you don't weaken.

Good to the Last Toothpick

My folks bought their first home when I was in sixth grade and my brother in fifth.What a thrill to live somewhere that was all ours. No landlord to appease, no fear of moving on to another house, another school, a new set of friends...or maybe no new friends and lasting loneliness. We moved a lot before they bought that house.

It was a nice little place.

There was a teen-aged Norway maple in the front yard and a medium-sized silver maple in the back. He claimed the front tree and I chose the one behind the house.

We were arboreal kids. (And eagerly aquatic and active land mammals as well. No computers, no TV most of the time. When we played, we played outdoors.)

We climbed those trees. A lot. Hung tire swings from gnarly old ropes. Swung upside down by scabby knees; played Tarzan. Remember that wonderfully satisfying Tarzan yell?. Listened to our first cardinals, learned about bugs and squrrels, and dreamed our dreams. Who needs playground equipment if they have a good tree?

I read books up in my tree...that one branch was the perfect height for a not so tall, scrawny kid to grab hold and swing up to perch out of sight and out of mind among the limbs. There was a good spot to sit and a better one to belly sprawl, arms and legs hanging down like a lounging lion.

The tire swing was a horse....many horses....all kinds of horses. I was born with an admiration for all things equine, and suffered from acute horse envy for many years.....who knew I would end up with cows?

My mind has been full of stories since I first learned words so when I ran out of books the stories played out in the tree or on the swing.

I loved that tree.

However, as kids tend to, we grew up, outgrew trees, tire swings, and childish fantasies and turned to other things. Got jobs and cars and real horses and new lives.

The trees grew huge. The Norway tangled the power lines and finally succumbed to whatever kills heavily pruned roadside maple trees.

The silver maple morphed into a staggeringly huge monster tree. Even if I were still 11 and skinny and agile there were no more inviting limbs, calling me to climb. Instead it began to shed limbs in ice storms and wind storms and even just at random. It overshadowed the folks' yard like a deadly wooden thundercloud.

It had to come down. And a couple of years ago, courtesy of a tree service, it lost its last leaves, shed its final samaras, and died the honorable death of an old tree.

There was so much light, fluffy wood after the brother and family split it up that the folks yard was half buried in it. Finally a couple of weeks ago, it was decided that there would be a wood lift. All day trucks run by family members shuttled piles and piles to our side yard.

Then the boss and Alan and I loaded the skid steer with buckets full and shifted most of it up to the stove.

I built a fire the next morning and since that day I have always had hot water. For someone who heats water with wood and hardly ever actually has any wood, it has been the most amazing luxury imaginable. Hot showers, hot dish water...all I can use....it boggles the mind.

And all I have to do to have it is to pile about two bushels of the soft, light wood into the stove each morning and walk away.

Each morning I am thankful. To mom and dad for letting me have the wood. To brother, family and everyone who spent a whole Sunday dragging me wood. They had better things to do, but did it anyhow.

And I am thankful too, to that old tree, which has given its all to me for nearly fifty years....good to the last toothpick. What a grand old plant it was.

Pickle Pirates

We started digging garlic this week

We love Refrigerator Dill Pickles We made some last year from a great online recipe and then we lost it.

Today, after hours of searching, we found a substitute and made a batch from cukes Jade's grandpa sent down.

The house smells so good. Garlic, vinegar, dill and cucumbers........they sure go good together. It reminds the boss and me of when we were kids and our mamas canned. Do you remember coming home to the scent of bubbling jam, or new-made pickles or hot, sugary peaches? My mom made such wonderful stuff when we were kids and I love it when something we cook brings those memories back.

These pickles look good too.

They are supposed to season in the fridge for 24 hours, but an infestation of sneaky pickle pirates has been creeping around poking grabby fingers in the bowl.

I must confess, I am not immune to that syndrome, and besides, you really do need to check to see if a new recipe is as good as the old one.

I also admit to never actually following recipes, or at least not too closely, so there is no mustard seed in our batch, I used dried dill and cut the sugar a lot. Didn't have any of the first two and didn't want the pickles to be too sweet. Didn't bother with bay leaves either.

So far they fall on the irresistible side of the nomming scale and had to be securely wrapped up and hidden in the bottom of the fridge so that it may be possible to see how they taste tomorrow.

The best part is that I still have half a bag of cucumbers, so if the pirates capture these I can make more tomorrow.

Peacocks

Ours are just beginning to molt a few feathers. I pick them up if I can reach them without going into the coop. The rooster does not like me in the coop and bates and bounces off the walls if I go in.

We may get a couple more from the same source....it has been mentioned.....I said, okay...I really like them!

Gift of the Day

Mountain ash berries are getting ripe

How could I not be grateful for a life that lets me work outdoors? Bringing in laundry yesterday just before a storm..... These humid summer days, seems like nothing wants to dry.....

I had just put out some grungy old oranges to see if the orioles wanted a free lunch when it showed up....A huge butterfly flip-flopping round the yard, fluttering more like a bat or a lame-winged bird than a butterfly.

It was so big, seeming almost too heavy to fly...and so beautiful it gave me cold chills to watch it flapping by.

It would not sit still, and although it flew around me for at least ten minutes while I fed chickens and pea fowl and puttered at my other jobs, the minute I went inside to get the camera it made itself scarce.

However, I vaguely remembered seeing one, once before...just once...up on the top garden. I looked it up when I came in later and, sure enough, it was a giant swallowtail (the name sure fits.)

It flew right around me, so close it almost touched me. I think it came to visit me when I was cutting oranges because the larvae feed on citrus leaves. I was covered with orange juice and probably smelled delightful from the butterfly point of view. Here in the north my stale oranges are probably about as close as it is going to get to anything even remotely citrus.

Lucky me to share the yard with it for a while.

Operation Dumbo Ear

And that bee...or actually wasp...stung look on the hand.

Fog Light

Up way before the light today, disturbing dreams of animals that need care, and dogs gone by, calling out for me to save them. It was so real and then to wake and find that Two Bears does not need to be fed, hasn't in twenty years or more, and never will again. A grand dog of history but gone, long, long gone.....

Two Bears, taken in Colorado, many moons ago

Nick though, Nick is glad of my early morning and his hours-before-normal breakfast time. Glad too that Liz picked up some samples of fancy dog food at TS the other day and he can have a taste...and a spoon of last night's meat loaf gravy....nom, nom, nom.....

Rooster crows at 5:06. Indigo bunting tunes up at 5:32 and does not stop. At all. I want some of what he's drinking. I could use that much energy.

Fog is soggy grey right now, drooping and dingy like it needs to be bleached and hung on the line in the sun. S'okay, when the sun gets around to getting up it will light up like a pearl and glow with silver warm light. The fog muffles the sounds of trains and traffic and makes them seem mysterious and cool....rather than just noisy and annoying....

No cows; couldn't milk if I wanted to. The fog shelters them from prying eyes, sleepy out there somewhere on the hill. They will not come down any more without being pursued, not even for their tasty tithe of morning grain and the water in the big blue tub. They are not liking the mud that ALL THIS DARNED RAIN has made. It hurts their poor feet. Old Mandy cow is being kept in the temporarily vacant heifer pen so she doesn't have to make the trudge to pasture. She does not much appreciate the gesture and leans her long, black, self over the high, red gate, calling sadly and sticks her nose in the window at me....OVER the plywood that keeps heifers from ripping out the window. She is one tall cow I'll tell you!

This much water from ONE rain....there have been many others

We put the two young jerseys out with the cows a couple of weeks ago. What a pair of sixes! They travel together as if yoked like oxen, brown on brown, and always in trouble. Quick to it too; they can dart in the barn door and run around like dervish fools in less time than it takes old folks to hurry to close the door.

We are the walking wounded here, alas. After all summer of being the broken-footed, useless gimp, I am surrounded by folks in worse shape than I am. Becky is laid low by a vicious summer cold, that is dripping and gripping its way through the house. Liz sprained her ankle while feeding her horse and is having a miserable time milk inspecting, working here and trying to get ready for the fairs. Alan went out to change a tire yesterday and put his hand in a wasp nest...just as he was finishing up. His ear was stung eight times and his wrist three. Oh, my the swelling... Yow!

How I hate those nasty mixed vespids. Sting first and ask questions later. And they build their nests in the damnedest places and defend them to the death...no matter whose.

Well, as we listen to the sucking sound of our economy going down the drain, I leave you with good wishes for the day. Enjoy the indigo buntings and good dogs in your world, while the great ones in Rome fiddle to the tune of the flashing flames.

From the Weekend

A Wee Guest who spent some time on the sitting porch...sitting...and chirping VERY loudly

My Aunt's fabulous water garden

Cousin Mark at the book signing, which was lots of fun, with cookies, punch, hugs and the signing of books.

Sunday Stills....Sunrises and Sunsets

Almost every morning and evening this week provided us with warmth and color.....so I put them all together in a collage. Spending mornings on the porch snapping away at the sky provided many close encounters of the hummingbird kind (although no pics of them). The male is so tame he flew past my face close enough to ruffle my bangs. What a bold little guy!

For more Sunday Stills.......

Dogs

Dickiebo nailed it.

Book Signing Today

For my cousin's wonderful book, Driving Excellence. He is a pretty amazing guy and should be president...simple as that.

Find it here on Amazon. It is something everyone who works in public service or any business owner or manager should read...more than once. The best part of the whole reading thing is that it is a pleasurable read along with being informative.

The Reason for the Uproar

Home, sweet, too-noisy, home

I waited to ask if it was all right to tell what was going on Wednesday and it is so....

The call from economic development was about Universal Pictures wanting an old house for a location for an upcoming movie. I am assuming that the highway and train noise cancelled out our chances of being chosen, but we had a representative of the studio here taking pics of the place, which was really pretty much fun.

Except for the cleaning part, of course. If I liked to clean, we wouldn't have had to clean, if you get my drift.

Had Northview been chosen we would have had to deal with moving out for two months and assorted attendant hassles. Considering how much stuff we own, and little matters like dogs and cats and running a business which requires our continuous presence, that would have been a pretty staggering prospect, so I am cool with the too-much-noise conclusion.

I get to tell a fairly amazing (and amusing in retrospect) story while staying in my messy, but comfortable home. I can live with that.

Housekeeping Triage

Or how I spent my day.

I was in hot pursuit of the Farm Side deadline, (which I never did make, sorry boss), writing about apples, which I love, and having a grand old time.

Phone rang. Unknown name. Unknown number. Almost didn't answer.

But I did. Yowsa. Complete strangers wanted to visit and take photos for reasons I will let you in on later.

I am probably not the world's worst housekeeper, but I'll bet I could hold my own against some pretty serious competition. (One reason I keep border collies is to herd the dust bunnies.)

I cleaned.

Emergency style. However, the first visitor arrived well before I accomplished anything of note. Thus there are photos floating around somewhere of the dining room table weighted down until its poor oak legs cringe with half of NFO's national paperwork (I swear) because Liz stores it there. Photos of curling wall paper, and the boss's giant piles of newspapers and farm magazines.

Pics of clutter, clutter, clutter, two families, the boss's folks and us, worth of accumulated what not and who knows what not. Not neat that's for sure. Argggghhhh......

Visitor number one left, with visitor number two still in the offing. Liz came home and pitched in like only a young person who does not have a broken foot can. We dusted, we swept, we shifted junk from one place to another. I boiled some vanilla and cinnamon on the stove to try to cover up the pervasive aroma of dairy air, which I am sure city folks notice when they stop by.

Visitor number two arrived, camera in hand, and took pictures of even more places, including our bedroom, which is neat but dusty.

Alas, all our labors were probably for naught. The Thruway is too noisy. The trains are too noisy. Noisy, noisy, noisy.

Tis true dat. They are annoying as all get out, and supply a constant susurrus, often ramping up to din, of horns and tires and engines and Jake brakes and train whistles, day and night.

When we know for sure (if we ever do) I will tell you who our visitors were and what they wanted. I'll bet you will be almost as surprised as I was.

Meanwhile the house looks half way decent, so if you want to stop, by give me a call. I'll put the vanilla and cinnamon on to boil and brew up some instant coffee. Maybe even some cookies?

Nature's Silly String

A flowering cucumber made its way up onto the porch

Foundation for the Future 2

The more I read about this program the less I understand it and emphatically the less I like it. Seems as if Kozak is assuming there is a consensus among farmers that this is a good program. That is very much not the case. Have yet to meet a singe well-informed farmer who wants any part of it.

Still no on/off switches on cows, to help us through the supply management periods, when we either produce less milk, or just don't get paid for it.....(dang it, if there were on/off switches weekends would be a lot happier around here!) And if folks just kill cows when supply management kicks in...well, I'll bet that will go over big with beef growers, not to mention how the cows will feel about it.

And I flat love the idea of sending money to the Treasury.

Dreaming of Cows

Cows all day....nightcows capering through all the hours of sleep and dreams (who needs mares anyhow?). I dreamed of Balsam last night; Alan's old show cow. Dreamed she was held hostage in a warehouse somewhere in the city, ready to have a calf. Unkind men were trying to put her in some kind of squeeze chute, but they kept missing and catching her in the middle instead of by the neck.

She was all riled up and panting and frightened and I was mad about it all. I walked up to her where she was hiding in the warehouse corner, put my arm around her, and led her wherever she needed to be. She was glad of me and wrapped her neck around me and stretched out her mile-long tongue to pull me closer.

And you know, I don't think anyone is ever going to kidnap the old girl and hold her in a warehouse, but she is just that lovely dovey. Whenever she is turned out of her tie stall to go to pasture she waits to be petted before she leaves. And she loves Alan and will wrap her big neck around him if he walks up to her outside to hold him there.....

I'm glad that with the coming of the dawn the dream let go of me and the bad guys let go of our poor hostage cow...... now she is back in her pasture asleep in the woods or gobbling down haylage, oblivious entirely to her adventurous affair of the night.

Dangerous

No, not this guy. Becky found him in the yard and called me over from the barn for a pic. We figure some of you knowledgeable folks will know what kind he is.

No the danger came from an old steel tube gate, tossed up side down in a spot where a heifer was climbing out of the fence.. It had been sitting there for years. Then the other day, Alan opened the regular gate and a cloud of wasps poured out of the old one.

Turns out the entire gate was so full of wasp nest material that it was sticking out the top in places. Although she has had allergy shots for bee sting allergy, we are real careful with Liz. Too many past trips to the hospital. Her horse tossed her in a ground bee nest once, which was not fun for anyone involved.

So the gate has been filled with hot water, there are wasp sprays on hand now, and we will be getting some Great Stuff to fill any other gates that have openings...something we usually do every year, but this cooler year caught us looking.

****Update, Cathy has a very interesting answer on Becky's butterfly here.

The Iron Eagle

Photo via Alan's cell phone. We milked early last night so the guys could go to the pull at Boonville....which meant starting early this AM so the cows were comfy.....does this mean we can start (and thus get done) early tonight?

****Update, a full pull at the Broome County Fair, then won the pull off.

Registrations and Thunderstorms

See that thundercloud...just floating there, placid and pretty, but threatening all sorts of interesting weather? I'm starting to get phone calls about the current NYS increases in all the fees and such on various state registrations, boats, snowmobiles, trail fees, launch maintenance fees......(and technically these aren't even tax increases). I've had folks call just to vent about their school tax bills down in Amsterdam too. NY voters are getting nailed every time they turn around.

In fact, I only bought a seven-day fishing license this year because the price had gone up so much.

I am thinking that the NY voting public is kinda like that thundercloud, just hanging around all calm and innocent right now. However, when the actual tax bills do come in this fall, I think there are going to be some interesting reactions then too. I don't imagine the weather will be too nice in Albany.