Life on a family farm
in the wilds of
Upstate New York
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Things You See
********Or love in the great outdoors....
It is spring.
Spring is a good time to make babies if you are a bird, an insect, mammal or herptile.....or plant, as far as that goes...you wouldn't believe the pollen.
Thus I end up feeling like a voyeur whenever I go outside. When I came in for breakfast, Mr. Fluff, the big white rooster, was cut-cut-cutting, over a pile of chicken feed, as he lured the little black hen, Michelle, in for a hot date. He looked like a Matre D, spreading his bright, white wings and bowing and sweeping before her. He also looked kind of silly, but I guess he can't help being a chicken.
There are millions of mosquito wigglers in the garden pond....evidence of an assignation I truly don't need to know about. I put the sunfish back out to take care of that situation...she will get fat and they will get gone.
The big flocks of geese are breaking up into twosomes now and making plenty of noise about it too. I was just finishing up prepping Pecan to be milked this morning when a pair flew right past the barn window behind her. They were lovely against the light of the rising sun and their calls were purely haunting.
I was even nearly an unwilling participant in some of the lusty spring activities this morning. I bent over to prep a little black Holstein named Magic and she threw her chin on my back and started to just hop right up. (It's nice to be loved, but dang.) She isn't a very big cow, but even a little bitty cow in the mood for love is more than I want to tangle with. I jumped right out of that stall in a heck of a hurry and let the boss finish prepping her. (AI service has been attended to. We bred her to a bull from the eighties, Woodbine Ellason. He throws nice big, framey daughters, so maybe if she has a calf from this service it will be a somewhat nicer-looking cow than she is.)
And yesterday morning...I was out in the barnyard just at the break of day, sending ETrain, Encore and Bayberry back up the hill after milking. The sky was bright orange, fading to clear ice blue; the air was as fresh as ice water melting off a glacier. I heard killy killy killeeeees call coming from right over my head. I looked up and there was the kestrel pair, performing their mating flight against the brilliant sky. They swooped and fluttered in huge circles and figure eights, chattering excitedly, then landed in the dead elm to actually mate. I was awed to be standing there in the swelling morning light and seeing their wonderful flight...and I am so happy to have them still nesting in the barn.
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Hooray for spring!It was a long dark winter. Linda
I'm so happy spring is here! The barn owner mentioned that Jet has been doing some "special events" as of late with our mare Kali. I guess he hasn't figured out that he's been a gelding for a very long time.
I've got to read this again. You experience more light and life in one morning than most of us do in a year. And that's being generous with us city folk.
Heck. If I ever got an amorous hug from a cow I'd have conversational material for a lifetime.
Funny and lovely writing, TC.
You bring us along with you - as in Robert Frost's Poem:
Linda, and the darned winter is back again...wish it would find its way to wherever it is going and stay there until Christmas.
WW, well, I can only report what I see. lol
joated, oops...I just couldn't help it. lol
JB, guess it turned out that way. lol
cTG, lol, my old gelding was like that. When I boarded him back in the day, he was boss of all the mares and took care of all their interests with great enthusiasm. He certainly WAS a gelding, but no one let him in on the secret I guess.
Linda, read your post on the weather you folks are suffering under and I am so very sorry about it. I hope it gets better really soon
Cathy, thanks. I was glad Magic was in a stanchion and I was fast or I would have been flattened. lol Beautiful poetry. Frost was surely one the greatest. When poetry learned in grade school is remembered in late mid-life...like so many of his are by so many of us..then you know he had something to say and incredible skill at saying it. I can't remember the poem...stopping by the woods on a winter's night or something like that, but I have never forgotten the image of the foal with its foot curled to its breast, afraid of the weather and wanting its mother. What amazing talent to put something in our heads that stays forever to be taken out and savored through our entire lives!
8 comments:
Hooray for spring!It was a long dark winter. Linda
hmmmmm... you seem to have a one track mind today...Now I'm gonna see the birds and bee's everywhere I go today....See what you started!
Willow Witch said...
"hmmmmm... you seem to have a one track mind today...Now I'm gonna see the birds and bee's everywhere I go today"
And probably blush at what you think you've witnessed all becasue threecollie planted the seed in your mind...and mine. ;-)
Hmmm, farm country porn, huh....? LOL
I'm so happy spring is here! The barn owner mentioned that Jet has been doing some "special events" as of late with our mare Kali. I guess he hasn't figured out that he's been a gelding for a very long time.
Nice to see somebody has a bit of spring! Watch yer back girl!
I've got to read this again. You experience more light and life in one morning than most of us do in a year. And that's being generous with us city folk.
Heck. If I ever got an amorous hug from a cow I'd have conversational material for a lifetime.
Funny and lovely writing, TC.
You bring us along with you - as in Robert Frost's Poem:
The Pasture
I’M going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
Linda, and the darned winter is back again...wish it would find its way to wherever it is going and stay there until Christmas.
WW, well, I can only report what I see. lol
joated, oops...I just couldn't help it. lol
JB, guess it turned out that way. lol
cTG, lol, my old gelding was like that. When I boarded him back in the day, he was boss of all the mares and took care of all their interests with great enthusiasm. He certainly WAS a gelding, but no one let him in on the secret I guess.
Linda, read your post on the weather you folks are suffering under and I am so very sorry about it. I hope it gets better really soon
Cathy, thanks. I was glad Magic was in a stanchion and I was fast or I would have been flattened. lol Beautiful poetry. Frost was surely one the greatest. When poetry learned in grade school is remembered in late mid-life...like so many of his are by so many of us..then you know he had something to say and incredible skill at saying it. I can't remember the poem...stopping by the woods on a winter's night or something like that, but I have never forgotten the image of the foal with its foot curled to its breast, afraid of the weather and wanting its mother. What amazing talent to put something in our heads that stays forever to be taken out and savored through our entire lives!
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