Chicken dinner with a side of cow stomachs

*There be mountains*
*Even if they are kind of small*

*A pretty red train that was parked along the road*

*Beaver house on Route 7 near Oneonta*
*Photos by Alan*

When I hear the bugling of north bound geese I can just lean over here at my computer, look up and out the window, and watch them winging over the barns and house headed for the Arctic tundra. Any other time of year they pretty much seem like pests, gobbling crops and hanging around parks eating and excreting, but in the spring their calls are stirring. Electrifying even. They make you want to get up, get moving, and go out doors and do something.

Therefore yesterday Alan, Becky and I did a bit of gallivanting. We headed off to Oneonta after chores in search of the elusive Brook's Barbecue chicken dinner. As it happened that is just what was being served at a farm information meeting presented by the company from which we purchase our cow grain, Pennfield Animal Feeds. Since this week's Farm Side is going to be about said meeting I won't spoil it for local folks by telling you all about it. However, it was a pretty trip as you can see from Alan's photographs. We sang all the way down and all the way back. With Alan's steady (not to mention on key) bass to help us along, even Becky and I could get by. We actually discussed the possibility of just driving right on by and singing some more, but the lure of that wily chicken was just too strong. We gave in.

At the dinner we learned important facts about raising calves, including all sorts of stuff about esophageal grooves, abomasums, reticulums, rumens and rabies. I also won door prize of a nice hat and Alan won a tote full of goodies and tools. He traded me the tote for my hat, shared the cookies and crackers with everyone, and snagged the ruler and work gloves right quickly (before some a certain nameless individual could get HIS hands on them).

It was a valuable meeting especially in that the program information could be used by small farmers like us, even though it applied to just about any size farm. All too often we may learn something new at a farm meeting, but it is something almost impossible, or at least totally impractical, to implement on a fifty-cow dairy. I was grateful to bring home information on raising babies that I could put into practice this very morning, rather than talking about it while milking, then letting it fade from my memory because it was a thousand miles out of reach for little old Northview.

I have to thank the geese for the inspiration and Pennfield for prime poultry and super schooling. I had a real nice time!