I Love To See the Little Birdies

Especially around the house and barns and buildings.

THIS however, is ridiculous!

This is only part of the flock of turkey vultures that were perching on the barn roof and in the dead elm tree this morning when I went out.

Shoo! Shoo! Just get the heck out of here!!

Sunday Stills...the Color Yellow

So glad that Ed resolved his computer challenges and was able to continue with Sunday Stills.

Under this old hard hat, which has seen several states
and all sorts of jobs, is a brand new Carolina wren nest

A square in the quilt Grandma made for Alan

Becky's crochet yarn

Gold finch changing his colors
.

I have learned so much and greatly enjoyed the weekly goals in the game.

Here are a few yellow things from this week at Northview.

 

Quick, Quick, Go Watch This

Mallard ducks checking out a heron nest in front of a nest cam. Really funny....especially if you have Becky to narrate, which alas I can't share. 

I Had to Laugh

Can't complain about the birding. New for the year species almost every day
And they put on a fine show for my dear friend yesterday.
The Carolina wren came right down to visit

I was walking over to the barn to help with chores yesterday. Speaking of which, chores are absurdly easy now. As we get all the babies moved up into the "new" (think 1960s) part of the barn, and get a new routine established it takes less and less time and effort to feed, clean, and bed everybody and milk the one cow that is milking.

Anyhow, I was thinking how we, and everybody we have talked to about our change in circumstance, had this silly idea that we would have a lot more discretionary time after the cows went.

The Lord is laying on the lovely these days. What a great season!

Hah! Meetings, taxes, building things, cleaning things up, inventing those new routines, talking with officials about elderly relatives who have been having terrible issues with .....stuff....the days are as busy as ever, or maybe even busier.

 Only a few people have my cell number, but the house phone just rings and rings. And it is almost never the kids or my mama or friends I want to talk to for a while. Nope, it is lenders, and telemarketers, and people from the county about that home health care situation. 

Hopefully all this will level off when the taxes are done, and the upcoming Sprout Brook Auction done, etc. etc.  The boss is one of the auxiliary auctioneers for that one, and has to sell fishnets and hookers all day. (Well actually he sells farm stuff, but there is a long story about the f&h that we tease him about every year.)

Meanwhile, if this is retirement......please may I go back to work?

Even in the evening......

Working for Uncle Sam

....today, as thousands of folks across America are, particularly small business people.

 So far the phone has been out of order, the printer won't print, and there is a weird smell in the house..............which offered an excuse to at least open up the sitting porch to let in some fresh air. Been closed since last fall.

Robins were not thrilled to have me step out there, but they will just have to deal.

Spent a couple hours fighting with the printer. Old Windows XP computer, old printer, which has always been too complicated to do the simple jobs I need done. Finally got it to print if I only put one paper in at a time. Thank goodness our favorite bookkeeping person is patient with such foibles.

Wish us luck, cuz we are sure gonna need it.

Calling all Western Folks

Any insights on the rancher vs BLM story in Nevada? Already have some good friends helping educate me on this, but I could use all the help I can get. There are obviously a lot of sides in this complicated issue, and public grazing is not exactly a familiar concept in Upstate NY.

I'm planning on covering this for next week's Farm Side.

Thanks in advance.

Here's Lookin' at You

A̶b̶b̶e̶k̶i̶r̶k̶
Tequila

Lars

Neon Moon

Zipper

Bama Breeze

Castiel

There's one in every crowd....Cedar Key

Why Did the c̶h̶i̶c̶k̶e̶n̶

Very large oops.
Although you can't see it, that left tire is buried completely in mud

er....deer, cross the road?

We don't know, but it's a good thing I was with the boss yesterday. We were hurtling down one of those huge hills over on the very aptly named Corbin Hill Road....don't know of any Corbins, but they sure have hills....

When I saw a deer come bolting up the edge of the road down at the bottom...He didn't notice her.

All I could do was stammer, "Look out, look out, look out." (Do warnings in triplicate carry more emphasis?)

He heard me and reacted quickly enough to save us from would have been a certain collision with at least one of what turned out to be deer in triplicate. Looked like a doe and two of last year's fawns.

They were panicked, whirling and leaping in terror as they hurtled across in front of us. They were a lot more worried about whatever was behind them than they were about the road.

He barely got stopped in time by the way. And of course the guy behind us in the big white truck never saw them and was outraged about the way he hauled on the brakes and set the Durango's nose down like that.

Gotta tell you, besides being afraid of something behind them...it was noon....you expect them to be stupid at twilight and dawn, but not noon...they were starved right down to nothing. Their coats had faded from the usual dark grey of winter to the exact pale color of the dead Canary grass they popped out of. And shaggy. Fur hung in untidy swatches. 

If all the deer wintering down there look that bad I don't imagine there will be much of a fawn crop this year. I kinda wondered why they looked so poor. Although it has been a very prolonged and cold winter there hasn't been all that much snow and there are plenty of alfalfa fields, lots of leftover corn, and acres of woods for them down there. Maybe they were just having a bad hair day. Or maybe there was a pack of coyotes out in that grass.

Two trips to the Lykers pond in two days.
I have been off the farm more in the past week than I have in the past six months.

Anyhoo, although yesterday was not perhaps one of the best we ever experienced, whomever owns the backhoe above has worse problems than we do.

Timberdoodle or Conserving the Grasslands

A few smudges of low-lying cloud, curled and shuffled by daybreak breezes.

Almost-silhouette of a bold-singing robin, so dark yet, too dark for color or light. Still, I can find him by the denser darkness where he perches, not twenty feet from my head.

Off to the south in the old horse pasture, a soft, nasal peent! resonates gently.

It is so noisy here that it isn't easy to hear, but he's out there.......the timberdoodle.

Also known as the American woodcock, one of our favorite birds of early spring.

I think he actually returned the day before yesterday. Thought I might have heard a whisper of sky dance wings just before dawn. 

Yesterday I was sure. He whirled and whistled right above my head as I walked the other doodle, Daisy the Doodlebop dog, as Alan calls her.

Sheer delight. There is nothing else to name it. Like the deepest mystery of the wild woods come calling at our doorstep.He is so welcome to his little corner of our pasture and the tiny, icy pond.

 I have a friend who writes often, of the grassland farming of Upstate NY and what it has to offer birds and wildlife. Not too many yards...certainly not enough...from our eastern boundary looms a housing development, row upon row of matching houses on tiny lawns carved out of field and forest that was also once a farm.

Mention has been made over the years that Northview Farm would fit right in with the developer's plans, room for hundreds and hundreds more little boxes of humanity.

Imagine, should we be unable to hang on to this ground, or should the kids have to sell it when we are under it, what that would mean for the birds and animals that share it with us. 

As I sit here this morning, typing at my kitchen table, I hear robins, white-throated sparrows, chickadees, the woodcock, the Carolina wren and others that have slipped my mind. By the time the sun comes up many other species will join the list. 

Just here at the house, we have five kinds of woodpeckers, nuthatches, finches, a lingering list of the northern sparrows, and literally dozens of others. 

Well over sixty species are counted here on the farm each year. 

Just yesterday I saw something BIG! and white! And flapping across my view from the living room windows. Alas I didn't have my glasses on, but it was either a swan or some kind of heron. Did I mention it was big!

There are more kinds of birds out on the fields proper and a number of species I don't recognize yet, by call or flickering outline, flashing through the leaves. I am sure with more expert ears and eyes than mine the count would hit at least seventy...some breeding, some just passing through or stopping to grab a snack.

The decline of upland birds in America is marked and documented and drastic. A wildlife biologist sat at this very table a few years ago and linked the dramatic decline of the whippoorwill to the decline of small farms. And when is the last time you heard one?

As farms fail, bobolinks, night hawks, and many other once-common species continue to dry up and vanish. I worry.....The number of viable small farms that have given up and gone out has left an alarming panorama of vulnerable acreage just begging for development. Mile upon mile of it. Should the economy by some amazing sleight of hand, somehow recover....how fast will the houses follow?

Top twenty common declining birds...some of these used to be common here. Some of them still are.

Whippoorwill research, author of which told me about a lot of this.

I Miss Sunday Stills...

So here are some early Sunday morning shots from the pond up near Lykers. Never been there quite so early before.



Update!!! It's back!

Lookin' Out my Back Door

For those of you old enough to remember the song...we used to play it back in the band days. I do not smoke whatever engendered those lyrics, so we make do with the birds and wild things here in NY. It was always a happy, foot stomping good song, just the same. We played a lot of CCR...the boys were all good musicians, but three major chords suited me just fine.

Now the view out the back door is far different than in the music days.

A soft rain is falling. Warm, gentle, damp, and soggy. I keep listening for the woodcock, but no peent rings from the horse pasture yet. If you see him, tell him he's way late.

I was hoping to see a duck or two for my annual all-farm bird species count. When I was walking the delicate Miss Daisy, didn't a pair of mallards quack noisily right over my head. Nice of them. I see teal every darned day, but I'm not good enough on ducks to know which ones at the distance. Fast flying little bullets that they are.

And the turkeys are strutting out on the hill. Too dark and rainy for much of a photo, but you get the idea. Lots of ladies in the rose bushes, two big Toms flashing their wares, and a little jake puffing his tail when he thinks he can get away with it.

Spring truly has arrived and not a minute too soon.

Bossy Retrospective

Broadway on a grassy day

Rosie at the fair

 Here are some pics of Rosie, and her mama, Broadway, taken over the years.  I probably have more shots of Broadway than of any other cow we ever owned...I can't resist the red ones, and she sure is red.

Broadway with Bloomingdale. Don't know where the latter went

We found out last night that they both went to the same farm and are settling in well.

BDub as we called her, has been my favorite since the day she was born. By our Checkerboard Magnums Promise bull out of Alan's show cow, Bayberry, she born as red as a candle flame and she lit up the barn for all the years she stood there. The only reason I didn't keep her instead of Bama, my other favorite, is that Bama, as a three quartered cow, would definitely have gone for beef.

Rosie was sired by  Spungold Frolic Poker. Liz always loved her dark roan coat.  

Broadway, out in a hutch as a baby

Back when we were on test Broadway always held her own with, or surpassed, our best Holsteins of her age group in milk production.

She also always held her own in the barnyard when there was scuffling over the feed bunk. She was not a pet like Bama, preferring to be a bit more aloof, but she suffered my attentions calmly.

Rosie, during the name the calf contest that gave her her name

When we were loading out I was so proud of her. She stood in the first stall in the barn. The big noisy trailers were right behind her and she was one of the last cows loaded. Thus all the noise and movement and excitement of moving cattle was right behind her stall. At one point Betty and Asaki both ran up into the stall between her and Dalkeith.

Promise, just before we sent him to be drawn

She never reacted at all except to look around wondering what the heck was going on. I could have cried at the level of trust she had in us. We had never hurt her so she figured that we never would. The auctioneer said later that ours were one of the calmest bunches of cows he had sold. We never hurt them, handled them constantly from birth, and cared a lot about them. Guess they knew it.

I am delighted that both girls went to a good home where they will have a second chance. Many thanks to the young man who purchased them and was kind enough to let us know.

Gratuitous Peggy Pictures

Little Things

It was still dark when I walked our little dachsie this morning. Still, a grackle took off from the feeders. Couldn't see him, but I know his chirp. Up early....but then he's a bird, so I guess he should be.

A sleepy robin warbled contentedly from somewhere north toward the river. Such a fine, clear music to serenade up the sun.

Just now, a chickadee is singing his spring song, over and over, out behind the house.

And yesterday I was given a most amazing gift, a solid sign that, no matter how much snow or cold we get in late spring unpleasantness, winter is truly over.

Alan picked up his old yellow hard hat on the back porch. I am squirrel-like, or perhaps mother-like, in my picking up after people. It was stuck on the wall among the garden tools and bits and pieces of farm life I have accumulated there over the years. Fence handles, concrete trowels, springs and hinges, surveyors' tape, hoof nippers.....and lots of other astonishing treasure.

Inside was the framework of a Carolina wren nest. I know who built this little gem because I have heard them out there, chirping and twittering in their absurdly loud voices. Tried a dozen times to sneak out to see them, but they are too quick and wary.

The male sings and sings and sings from one of the mulberry trees to the east of the house...a spot with a good view of that bright yellow brain protector.

I will take this to be a sign. As the wrens made it through the winter...with help from fine people in Ohio and Tribes Hill....we will make it through the challenges. I hope we will sing...well, maybe not...I have a voice like a crow....I hope we will be as bold and brilliant as they are, when all is said and done.

And now, as I proofread and add photos to this little thing, the wren is on the back porch...just outside the kitchen door, singing and peeping and chattering. I am blessed....

Life Goes On

Spent a great deal of time yesterday working in the barn, rearranging and changing to better accommodate the little beef steers and bulls and attend to the comfort of Bama Breeze and Neon Moon. Bama decided that this would be a fine time to go dry, so I won't be milking her. She should calve back in June if all goes well.

Moon is doing well, and adjusting nicely to being milked by the short lady who always milked the other line. Wouldn't you know that the only remaining cow in milk stands in the only stall in the barn where I can't reach the pipeline?

I took Grandma Peggy's old plastic step stool over to the barn and hauled it up in the stall for last night's milking, after having the hose fall off the previous two, since I couldn't get it plugged in right.

Moon thought it was all good fun and wanted to lick the step stool and toss it around. I got her milked though. She is very gentle and will get used to me, I'm sure.

Thank you all for your kind words and deeds. We discovered that we have incredible friends and supportive family beyond anything we could ever have imagined. As the chaos recedes I will get my thanks to you all individually, but for now....... 

I will leave you with a couple of pics from Alan's phone. He has been boiling sap with a friend....plus one of Peggy Ann.

Life After Cows

One last pic of Broadway, my favorite cow, and probably the best one I ever bred.
I miss her the most.

People have been telling me, for years, ever since it got really hard to pay the bills running a small dairy farm in one of the highest taxed and most regulated venues in America, that there is life after cows. That you pick up, go on, do something else, and maybe are relieved not to have to worry so much, juggle so many balls, always be bound by the constraints of animal needs.

 Can't say as I ever believed it. I started milking cows for a living on someone else's farm 35 years ago. The job has been my compass, salvation, nightmare, and joy ever since. You can raise good kids on a farm....it's a great, if difficult life.

However, starting today I guess I am going to find out if what folks says is true. With my heart clanging in my chest like the clapper in an iron bell, I helped load our heifers on trucks on Saturday, and all but two of the milk cows yesterday. Saturday we had help from family members. Yesterday it was just Ralph, me, and a bunch of strangers. Can I just say that it was one time that I really, really wished that I was a girly girl and could sit in the house and do my nails or something

Yesterday ranks well up there in the top ten worst days in my life. There were many factors involved in our decision, high fuel and feed costs, several years of disastrous wet weather and flooding, the 08 and 09 dairy price disaster, and such, but paying several months worth of income twice a year in school and county tax was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

This year it was maybe lose the farm for taxes or sell the cows. And so.

If you want to buy them, they are hard-working pasture cows, that will make milk on low quality feed. They will run out to grass and graze all day and come in and fill the milk pail for you. They are over at Hosking's Sales. You can even bring home cows whose names are known around the world...thanks to Blogger and the Farm Side. Broadway, Carlene, Foolish, Cevin, Asaki...yes, I had to sell my cow, Asaki....Baja, Camry, Zulu, Scotty, Dalkeith, Monday, Betty, and Lucky and the rest are selling. All but two.

Friends in Ohio will buy Bama Breeze so she will stay. at least for a while. And Liz is buying Neon Moon to maybe breed a calf for Peggy to show when she gets bigger. We saved back a handful of small heifers that wouldn't bring what they are worth to sell so we can pay the damned school taxes this fall, and a set of dairy steers for the same purpose. 

I spent yesterday afternoon holding a sleeping Peggy, her sweet small hand curled around my finger, strong as a good milker's hand would be. Life after cows, right there in my lap.