In the Misty Morning Fog

With our hearts a thumpin'

Well, kinda sluggishly....but they are thumping. Alan rigged up his mini-boiler again yesterday. Too soon to know how much heat it will provide, as it has to be uncoupled and unplugged when not actually working....and no one wants to stay up all night feeding it. Time will tell.....hopefully it will tell us we are warm.

Shiverish but Sunny

It is. Down into the mid-twenties last night, making it a very pleasant thing to turn on the electric heater this morning. It is tiny and it labors mightily to take the edge off the cold in the kitchen. Just now it is my best friend.

Not much of great interest happening here. We milk the cows. We feed the cows. Then we milk the cows and feed the cows. Somewhere in between the boss cleans the barn and fixes a seemingly never ending string of broken water bowls.

Feeding them with wheelbarrows is getting old fast, but on the other hand it is getting the fat old lady into shape, being wheel-barrower in chief and all.

There is a big wheel barrow. There is a little wheel barrow.

The boss brings down a bucket load of haylage with the skid steer and dumps half into them. He takes the big one and I take the little one and we distribute largess to the ladies.

Then he dumps in the other half of the load and I feed out both while he gets another bucket full.. It is heavy. There are ramps. There are cow heads reaching and slamming and grabbing on all the corners and ramps as everybody wants theirs NOW.

However, I find a very positive side to me doing at least some of the feeding. I actually know all the cows, who is dry, who is milking hard, which are still growing heifers that need a little extra, and I adjust their dinners accordingly.

Scotty gets a great big pile.....

And Lemmie, and Camry, and Blitz and Mandy....Not so much Zinnia, who is almost dry and about the size of a pick up truck. I KNOW that when they get their morning feed outdoors she stomps around and grabs more than her share.

I won't say that this has increased milk production, but they were dropping really fast and now the slide has stopped and they are holding. Works for me.

That Ain't Chicken Feed

"This is my own tiny kitteh bed....to you it may be a paper towel,

but to me it is special..."

Photo by Alan

A representative of a local fish and game club brought me some bird seed today...read the Farm Side late in summer about the shortage of high price of sunflower seeds...and just brought me some seed. Isn't that the sweetest thing?

Thank You

Global Warming. Not too bad here so far, although it is supposed to chill later in the week. I will take every passing warm day we get and rejoice!

Been reading in the local paper about all the hooligans being arrested for assorted crimes against wildlife and private property.

Imagine what would happen if they really got out there after them. They could balance the state budget in a wink. The boys caught two trespassers in one hunting trip here, both in full cammo, and there are more every day...just can't chase them all due to the whole having to work thing.

Wish the DEC would catch our band of outlaws for us. Alan went up in the field to have a look around yesterday and found that some yahoo with a pick up truck rutted a couple of new seeding hay fields all to heck...big fixit job there I guess.

They had to drive over rocks and trees and through a whole darned hedgerow to get in, right past a posted sign. Guess they poached a deer off us and were too lazy to drag it out.

Remember Melamine?

There's a talking head on my lawn

Another pet threat from China...Pet treats killing dogs....

Conservation Reserve

Has anyone had experience with putting land into the CRP program for wetlands? Any thoughts? Any problems selling property later?

Thanks in advance.

Sunday Stills...Bokeh

I have used this before, but it is an accidental example I think

I did what I could with this, but it is a bit beyond my abilities....maybe more than a bit. Here is the definition of Bokeh. I actually have a few examples of accidentally getting this right in the past, but alas, they are on the dead computer in the dining room.

For more Sunday Stills......

Leftovers

Lichen, not leftover, but it could have been

Some people dread them and whine and complain about the too much food thing. Hah, no such thing. No way no how. Personally I am very fond of them. It is wonderful to finish up the day and know the only cooking I have to do is to pull those wonderful square plastic tubs the boss bought me out of the fridge, pile them on the table and point the family at the microwave.

Here is someone who has scientific ideas about how to handle them.

I really like his thinking......of course he is the editor of the paper that runs the Farm Side....but, still, I really like his thinking. Kind of on a been there, done that sort of level.

***Here is another just put up today. Pretty darned inspiring.

Farm Side Freebie Friday

Right here.

Outlaws

Yesterday while the bird was browning and the women were working on the side dishes, the younger men folk went a-hunting.

While perched in the pasture tree stand, Bubba had a close encounter of the turkey poo kind. See, Alan spooked them up and they flew right over him...they had been eating grapes by the way. Guess you could call it the purple badge or courage...or really badges plural.

They did see some deer, but mostly they saw poachers. One guy had innocently wandered across the property line so Bubba just guided him back out to where he actually had permission to hunt.

The other one saw Alan and took off running.

Uphill.

We are quite well supplied with uphill.

However, Alan's new job entails thousands of critters rather than a few dozen and he sees a lot of action every day.

What makes a forty-something guy think he can outrun a rake-skinny farm boy who wrestles beeves and calves and bulls and dairy cows for a living ?

He couldn't. He didn't. After the kid chased him up hill and down dale for a while, and hiding in the bushes didn't work out well for him, (he was in full cammo..clever lad) he finally stopped.

Then he claimed to be an officer of the law and thus had a right to sneak around our posted farm in cammo and run away from rightful landowners and all. Or so he thought. Our former student of the laws of fisheries and wildlife explained the realities of the game and trespass laws and escorted him to a convenient boundary line.

Th two of them flat messed up the hunting for the boys so they came home and ate turkey. Don't know where the "cop" went, but as long as it wasn't on our land it will be okay.

Thankful

Light of dawn, like silky smoke, slides in from all sides as if it has forgotten east.

Cats clamor. Sate them with kibbles.

Put out bird seed.

Dog dances, ear scratches,

Sunday morning silence on a Thursday in November.

Chores will soon be finished.

Rest and be thankful.

Wishing each and all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday from all of us at Northview Dairy Farm. Hope your day is all you wish it to be.

When the Going Gets Cold

Mappy in Shadow

The cold go shopping. It was just miserable here yesterday. Atmosphere and temperature both. So Liz took Beck and me shopping for a turkey and everything that goes with it.

It was warm in the store. People were remarkably friendly and smiley and nice.

And it was warm. I have never enjoyed shopping more.

Now there are yams in the oven and celery and onions on the stove and it at least smells warm in here.

Hope you all have a terrific day tomorrow.

PS a certain grumpy someone just came home with an itty bitty electric heater. Maybe I should smile at him.

Arggghhhhh

Nuff said

Twin Cousins

Susurrus Samaras

Out on the porch watching the dog, who knows better than to stray, better than to bother heifers, better than to harass horses or chase chickens, or fight with cats, but not better than to avail his delicate-tummied border collie self of deer innards, (which will be removed TODAY or my name isn't mom.)

Something makes a soft, sweet, swishing sound, like pattering rain drops falling down.

What could it be?

The sky is cool slate grey, with milky yellow undertones, not a drop in sight or sound.

Mr. Half moon is sliding through the branches of the box elder tree that is playing host to that same deer.

It is pretty out, and kind of warm too, all things (like November for example) considered.

What is that sound?

Barely a puff of breeze ruffling the samaras on the box elder as it whooshes by. How sweetly sibilant.

Sunday Stills....Portraits

Shavings and all

Not pigeon-toed, just frozen that way staring at something

People portraits proved impossible. Thus, Nick, being a border collie and Jack, looking for noms. Best I could do, sorry.

For more Sunday Stills.....

First

Doe permit=filled

Update

The good news is a couple of warm (ish) days in the offing. The not-so-good news is, that although at least the factory did not condemn the wood boiler, it will take around six weeks for them to get it repaired.

Maybe more.

Hopefully less.

(It is in Wisconsin now. If any of you live there and happen to see it, tell it hi for me and that I miss it.)

Six weeks ain't much in the grand scheme of things except when it is six weeks of November and December in the Northeast. Then the death of the oil burner becomes a bit of a crisis.

Only to us though. The boss has spent hours on the phone trying to track down a new firebox for the old wreck to little avail. Everyone wants to sell us a new furnace. Yep got those thousands of bucks sitting right here. Hard enough to find the cash to pay for repairs to the wood boiler, but dang, how are we going to do it twice!

Little brother had a thought. We have a small propane furnace in another location. Might could be that it can be installed in our living room or somewhere to hold off just the actual freezing thing for the next few weeks. Kind of hard to pursue it on the weekend but it is high on the agenda for next week.

Meanwhile, I have been reminded that I have been cold before. It is more comfortable to forget moving to an ancient farm house when I was 8 and heating with antique coal stoves. We were never warm, but we survived. I can remember huddling next to the stove in near darkness (lord only knows why we didn't have good lights, but it seemed like it was always dark there) reading and putting off going to bed in those icy upstairs bedrooms.

Then moving to my grandparents summer camp in January. Unheated. Sticking a stove pipe out the window for a little sheet metal stove designed to heat maybe a shoe box. "Burning" wet, dripping wood. (Burning is a euphemism for striking a lot of matches and trying to light the paper under the pile of soggy junk then watching it steam while we froze.) That was the cold of despair. I have never been so cold. I didn't know then how to get warm without proper heat.

That is when I learned to really build a fire though. When we bought the wood boiler the man who installed it was astonished how fast I got it up to operating temperature. Heck I had dry wood.

Anyhow, we are getting by. It stinks to be this cold and I fear for my house plants, but we are surviving. And it's warm in the barn.

This Week's Farm Side

Can't link to it this time, not on the freebie pages. However it is about one of my favorite authors, Ralph Moody.

And story (or storey) poles, both farmer version and government version. Gotta love the contrast. (be sure and scroll down on the latter to see the photos.)

Awakened

Got mud?

Yup...snow too, this AM

By a certain individual who has to arise at three to milk someone else's cows. Good that you are making money, but the rest of us don't need to get up at that hour ....just sayin....

I am actually comfortable though. Hot water bottle (two liter soda bottle heated in the microwave) in the back of my chair. Blankets in the chair too...nice and cozy. Oven on for about ten minutes with a pan of hot water inside (scented with cloves and cinnamon of course). Ran the shower for a minute to let out a bit of steam. Amazing how fast you get used to the cold. I worry about my house plants though.