The Bluebird

I was worrying yesterday on several fronts, family illness, frozen stuff, stuff that is going to freeze if that stove doesn't hurry back from Wisconsin, and just in general because it is my nature. I am a gloomy cuss especially in winter. 


Went into the parlor, which is where I dry my laundry on laundry bars....a slow process without the furnace.


I was dismayed to see that some geraniums I started from seed last spring are pretty frost bitten around the edges. Was debating whether to move them out into the living room or just let them go and start new next spring. 


Suddenly there was a bright flash outside the window.


The mockingbird.


 Mobbing somebody who dared trespass on his hallowed territory, which takes in the long lawn, the entire driveway, the field below the driveway, the other side of the house and pretty near any place he feels like being a tough guy.


 I paused to watch and there it was...a lovely bluebird perched in the little poplar by the driveway. It hunkered down a bit under the mocker's onslaught, but you could tell it wasn't daunted by all the flare and flash. My heart flew with it as it pumped its wings on down to the sumacs.


That's my daddy's bluebird there. It came to tell me to be hopeful and prayerful and positive and that he is okay at least this time. Love you dad.

This morning I am dragging plants out of the parlor and putting them wherever I can find a spot. It may look kind of funny to folks who visit, but it is just too cold for them in the unheated parlor.

PC

Oh, no, not that PC. Never on this blog. No we found a notebook computer for under three hundred bucks yesterday, so for a change I am not borrowing Becky's. (Thanks so much for sharing for so long Beck...)


Hopefully it will do all we need it to. We are going to have a go at installing the word processing software I need to use pretty soon. Hopefully it will handle it and I can get back to writing on the Farm Side whenever I want to.

Have a good one! And stay warm.

Judge Denies Dairy Farmer Suit

You probably have to have a dog in the fight to be interested in what is going on here, but this is pretty big news on the dairy farm scene.

Phone Call

At not quite midnight. "Why are there cows on the lawn?"


"Cows? What cows?" (The cows are all but a couple indoors).


"Well, heifers then, it's dark, I can't see what they are, but they are all over the lawn.


"Must be the heifers off the hill pasture. All right, your dad is still up and dressed and I'll be right down."


Rustle from the bed beside me. "Oh, wait, he's not up after all. I never heard him come upstairs."


Race downstairs...well, gimp and limp...as fast as we can. Throw Jade's Carhartt on over my robe and sweats. (Thanks Jade, it is really warm.) Add rubber boots, umbrella and flashlight. Good to go.


My main contribution was to tell the guys I think there are seven of them to find and hold the flashlight. Actually there are supposed to be eight, but we couldn't really count them in the dark and rain anyhow. 


Thanks to their instinct to stick in a herd, unless we missed the stupid Jerseys, any that didn't get caught in the round up will be standing by the gate waiting to be let in. The two Jerseys are the most Godawful bunch quitters I have ever seen. Whenever I do a head count, there will be the requisite number of black and white ones, two bright red milking shorthorns and no little brown cows.

Anyhow, we are not sorry the boy got laid off for a week and stopped off at his girl friend's place on his way home from Jersey and the Big City. His timing was perfect. The escapees were just heading down the driveway when he arrived and stopped them with his truck. 


***Photos are still from the Friday bird count. We sure are lucky to have such pretty territory to count over.

Something Fishy Going On

While indulging in the Christmas bird count last Friday, we stopped by the Hale Creek Field Station, where there are often small birds, ducks and maybe an occasional heron to be counted. Nothing but a few chickadees this year, but there sure were trout!

Where the Boy Works

Each day. Don't these remind you of the first scene of the second Crocodile Dundee movie? He is right down there by the East River pumping concrete grout to stabilize the ground.

Merry Christmas from Northview

Best wishes from all of us here at the farm. The spirit of the season has been in evidence more this year than I have ever seen before. So many folks doing wonderful things for others, even total strangers. You read of this in other places, but even right here in the neighborhood stories abound of random acts of wondrous kindness. I applaud the kind and caring people who have done so many things for others.

30th Anniversary

Of the Johnstown Christmas Bird Count yesterday. The weather was not so hot and the traffic was horrendous, but we saw a huge number of geese on farm fields and in the sky, a few mallards, and a nifty red-bellied woodpecker, among a bunch of the usual suspects. (Those are robins in that tree)

I was tickled to be able to pish the wood pecker out of hiding right from the front seat of the truck. He was doing gymnastics trying to see what was making that funny noise.

 The Mallard mob

Thanks to mom and dad and the brothers for making it possible, by driving, navigating, providing a warm, welcoming home base (complete with homemade spaghetti, which was mighty fine) and all the stuff that makes the count go smoothly.




The poor economy and the high cost of sunflower seeds was made very evident by the dozens of empty bird feeders, some of them ones that we have counted for years and years. I am sure the birds aren't much inconvenienced, as there is really no snow yet and lots of natural food, but it was a bit of a handicap for count folks.

Audubon Christmas Bird Count Today

Raining, supposed to snow...gotta go milk my string first. brrr...

I Get Around

 Sunny Samaras

And today that is just what is going to happen. Shopping, meetings, all sorts of insanity. Some people...you know who you are...actually Christmas shop before the week of Christmas....not us.

Downy woodpecker in the spotlight

Got an updated map for the bird count this morning and I don't think it is right....it is like the whole count circle shrank. (Think I will just use the old map. lol) At least we have people to do the count as it looked like we weren't going to for a while. Now if that darned storm will just hold off.

Jack, Just Because

This is an old pic, but one of my favorites, so here it is again.

Yippy Skippy

When I came indoors from yet another trip to fill the tiny little pseudo stove yesterday there was a message on the answering machine.


Our real stove will loaded on the stove-moving truck next Tuesday. No idea how long it will take to make it east or for our stove guy to get it on HIS truck and haul it down and hook it up, but the days of freezing are finite or so it seems.


I am happy. Even my eyeballs are getting cold.

Kateri Tekakwitha

This story is probably a little off-topic for a dairy farm blog, but we grew up Catholic and Kateri was born just a little bit down the road from here. Her shrine is right across the river and we pass it often, when we head up west for supplies and groceries. 


Her name was as familiar to us when we were school kids learning area history as those of Sir William Johnson and Joseph Brant. To read that she is finally to achieve sainthood seems fitting and proper and maybe even a little personal. She feels kind of like an old friend.


She was a lady of this valley a long time ago, but still....if she had looked South across the river from the Mohawk village or "castle" of Caughnawaga where she lived part of her life, she would have seen the hill where our house and barns sit today.

Nice Christmas News...NOT

So we get a call today that a person, who shall remain nameless (nobody you know) messed up the milk checks and we have to give back some of this month's pay.




 This tiny little clerical error will be nice Christmas news for hundreds of farmers in the region. Some of them make a lot of milk and probably owe back thousands. Which, because of high input costs, is certainly already spent.


 Everyone makes mistakes, but this is a big one.

Sunday, no Stills...until maybe later

This is my morning....noon, night, in between.... starting fires and filling this thing, which Alan built, which is hooked up to the piping for the outdoor wood stove...which is in Wisconsin. I have to keep the piping from freezing so when it gets back from its tour of duty we can hook it back up and it wil work.


This morning it was really cold, so I started the day at 4:15 to turn on the little electric heaters and get this thing going. There were still a few coals left from last night and the water was running as it should be, but there was also snow on top of the barrel.


It took a long time to start the fire. Certain individuals are very stingy about cutting me kindling....and although I am a sort of harbor chick, I don't run the chain saw.


It is going now, hissing and banging, as the hickory is wet and takes a while to get warm enough to just burn...hopefully in an hour or so I can turn the furnace fan on for a little while and warm the place up a bit.


Sure was pretty out this morning though. It snowed between dog out time and me out time, so I made the very first tracks of the morning. No traffic so I could hear the businesslike chatter of the creek..not frozen yet.


Woke up a bird which chirped irritably at me before going back to sleep. I have an old pine pallet I am chipping up..not much left of it...for kindling. The scent of it was as strong as turpentine, but sweet too, as the newspapers singed its stubborn edges and teased it into ignition. It was kind of nice in an Amish pioneer sort of way.


I will try to get something for Sunday Stills when the sun comes up but no guarantees. Tried to get a pic of a random Santa waving by the road side yesterday, but traffic was just too busy.

Murphy Was Here

Our dairy supplier was due Thursday and didn't show. We were out of the powerful liquid cleaner we use for the pipeline and bulk tank. Not good...or wait, maybe it was....

You see, there are no substitutes, and the equipment must be cleaned and sanitized every time it is used, so we made a road trip up west to get a small jug to tide us over.

While we were at it we shopped.

I don't get out much. Kind of need to be here most of the time...so when I do, watch out.

People were looking at us funny in Price Chopper I can tell you, as we perused the ham and jam and spam and bought...well. a lot....

But the cupboards were pretty bare and now they are not so much and that is always a wonderful feeling. Plus I bought some goodies at the bakery outlet for the boy to take back south with him.....yeah...if that big bundle of blankets is any indication, he is home for a couple of days. He was out with that certain special and very sweet young lady so we didn't get to see him last night....

And, of course, while we were gone, the dairy supplier stopped....of course he did. So we won't run out of pipeline soap any time soon. I wonder if his name is Murphy.

But, it's all good...

Shivery Brr...

Howling wind today and all last night too.

I have a heavy metal lawn chair, the old fashioned, nice and sturdy sort, out in the yard. Guess it is time to bring it in as the wind picked it up and whirled it around and left it a good long way from where it belongs.

It's All Relative

Here in the USA we are continually bombarded by animal rights messages. This is cruel, that is cruel, the whole keeping of animals business is cruel....even though most management methods have evolved over generations of time, since farming and livestock keeping began. Remember veal? AR groups convinced folks that it is cruel to eat veal, so no one does. And bit by bit the vegan beat goes on....

One of the big buzz makers is confinement housing for sows. It is done to manage the potential for disease and to keep big pigs from crushing little pigs, but AR groups have used our anthropomorphic feelings about how we would prefer to live to change the face of hog farming.

Several states (usually states with very few pigs and not too many farmers) banned the practice, thanks entirely to animal rights groups' media campaigns.

Meanwhile, in other countries, where such anthropomorphism is a luxury too expensive in the face of real hunger, things like this are going on. People hungry enough to willingly and knowingly eat pork from pigs that died of a contagious disease probably aren't worrying too hard about the housing system where they were raised. They just need food.

It is all relative.

Simple

But smart. Here is a great idea from a farmer/rancher guy that is so simple it seems obvious and yet I had never seen it done or thought of it and I'll bet many other folks hadn't either. He simply floated an old basketball in his water tank so he could see if it needed to be filled. Brilliant!

Golden Love

Straight from Florida

Van Gogh Skies

Rain coming in. Warmer than it has been but it feels cold. Oh, well.

Talked to my boy last night, which made me feel much better. He has left the farm for a job in the BIG city (yes, that big city) working construction. The dairy economy is ugly and the money is there, not here. I comfort myself knowing that farmers like us feed them all, all those busy, scurrying city folk, crammed together down there, hurrying around.....every pizza, every coffee with half and half, every French Fry or Big Mac....wouldn't be there without the people who work the land. It helps to know.

And so on we go.

New Milkers

Cold and sunny. Much better than normal for December so I won't complain even though I would love to. (Now I know why winter baths were so unpopular back in the day.)

Cows are holding milk production at an even keel. I would prefer that they were going up, but steady is a lot better than down. Can't wait to get Carlene and River in the tank. They are both milking well.

River had a little mastitis problem when she freshened so has been being treated appropriately. Will be off her milk withhold (as in dumped down the drain) pretty soon. Another test to be sure her infection is all cleared up and then she will go in Liz's milking string again.

With Carlene we just have to wait until her colostrum is all gone (it goes to her baby calf, Carolina) and then she will have a test to make sure her milk is clean and good. Then she will be added to my milking string. Which is pleasing indeed.

With some cows you just rejoice when they dry off for their annual six to eight week dry period (vacation from milking while waiting to have a new calf.) Others you can't wait to get back in your line. Carlene is one of the latter.

Stay warm and dry!

It's a Beautiful Morning

Bad news first. Alan built us a nifty heating device, which although it doesn't really warm the house, does allow me to get the chill off a couple of times a day and to dry the place out a little.

The 55-gallon barrel, upon which its function is based, sprang a leak this morning. Not a bad leak so I am going to try to get one more warm up out of it before we drain it so the hoses don't freeze or the pump burn out...he is in NJ so he won't be able to repair it. Frustrating.

Now the good part. It is blissfully sunny and still for a cold December day. Every animal that is outdoors is standing with their sides turned to it, just soaking it in. Cats. Cows. Every single heifer, all just loving the sunshine, among the frosty everything.

Basking.

Reveling in their quiet, comfortable way.

I basked a bit myself while watching a Northern Mockingbird sneak around the yard, thinking I couldn't see his secret self. What a wonderful bird...funny how flamboyant he is in summer time when he is guarding his territory and now so silent and hidden. He would slap his long tail from side to side and peer down at me from various perches, here in the spruce, there in the lilacs. He was sure that I couldn't see him.

Silly critter. I am the same me that he landed right next to all summer, and practically posed for the camera begging to be photographed. What's up with that?

All the other birds are out as well and have been since daybreak when I went out to see to that little stove. At one point geese were flying one way, a clutch of brown-headed cowbirds another, robins everywhere, juncos, titmice, chickadees and a handful of gold finches all hurrying around grabbing breakfast. A few crows were shuttling back and forth and the red-tailed hawk sat fluffed on his feet in the cottonwoods down by the river.

My heart is warm even if my hearth is not. Have a good one everybody.

PS, one of my favorite cows, Carlene, a Duregal Astre Starbuck daughter, had a heifer calf by Leadfield Columbus yesterday. Can't wait until her milk is ready to go in the tank and I can start milking her again.

Update: the boss says it is just frost melting off the barrel. Since it isn't dripping at the moment he may be right. Sure hope so!

Sunday Stills...Happy Anniversary

This turned out to be a very hard one, not because of the subject matter, which is one of my favorites, but because of goings on around the place. However, here is Simon the Seismo-cat, perched on the garden pond looking for a drink.

For more Sunday Stills......

BTW, a big thanks to Linda and Ed for keeping this going for three wonderful years! I spend every single week thinking about how I am going to meet each challenge. Some are really hard, some are fairly easy, but one thing they all are and that is fun!

Mom

I know I have written a lot about my dad's influence on the direction of my life...it has been great and significant and I love him for it. (BTW he is facing a serious health issue right now and your prayers would be much appreciated.)

However, I don't think I have ever said enough about my mom. Her influence was different. Rather than leading us to who we were going to be, she saw who we already were and supported us in our directions...helped us become who we needed to be.

Christmas was a big time for that. Mom always loved Christmas. I shudder to imagine how hard she had to look to find middle brother that first guitar...but he was and is and always will be a music guy and she helped him on his way there...didn't say too much...didn't take any bows for her cleverness, just did it.

And when we were small she worked at Sears. Thus, the natural sciences kid...that was me...got a microscope and dissecting kit one Christmas (along with life-sized ready to paint bird models...gold finch for me and barn swallow for brother I think.)

I can remember the kitchen table at the old house on 5S (another frigid farm house like this one where we learned all about cold too)with all that stuff spread out all over, probably making a huge mess that someone else (mom no doubt) had to clean up.

I can't remember which critter I dissected first...sloppy job, hadn't a clue...or what we peered at through that microscope...but they were part of a wide open door to today and meant a lot to me. And when it came time in college to dissect this and that I was the only girl in the class not bothered (of course working for a veterinarian from the time I was fifteen may have had something to do with that too.)

It was always thus. Mom did try a few dolls on me. Barbie mine rode Michael's race cars down the ramp in the garage. But mostly she got the whole horse thing and I had dozens of plastic ones to love.

I guess if dad was the rock star of our youth, then mom was the back up singer....and ever the rock...where we all were anchored. Love you mom and dad...hope everything turns out fine and happy.

Change

Can be for the best...but it is almost always painful. Hard things can be the right things...but they still hurt.

Liz had to put her old gelding down yesterday, the right thing to do, the right time to do it, but so hard for her. It hurt just to know how sad she was....is....

I didn't want to watch or know about the taking off of the halter and the hurtful, sad, goodbyes, but it was all right there.

Poor Liz, who loved him.

Poor Jack who is devastated without his buddy.

Poor sad, old horse.

RIP Tyler. You were a beautiful boy.

Poetry

This dog "hates" cats...can't you tell?Old Mike used to have to punish him for trying to kill them. Either he has learned his lesson or mellowed with old age.

I can remember being a kid, sitting at a hard wooden desk in a classroom over in Fonda, and meeting Kipling for the first time. Still love Kipling, the Maltese Cat being my favorite....though not a poem.... Anyhow, I ended up loving at least some poetry, fashionable as it was to hate it back during those school days.

I especially love this kind of poetry. Don't know what the form is called, having been more interested in the stories in school than in the rules and regulations (haven't changed much I fear.)

But I love those firmly marching poems that pull you right in and bring you along to the end and leave a satisfied smile on your face. Go, read about a ranch Christmas, and smile your own self. (Thanks, Jinglebob)

And have a great day!

Blue Jay

Came across this really neat link while reading Cornell's bird stuff on FB. Isn't this guy just the coolest thing you ever saw?

There's a Full Moon Over Tulsa

I hope that it's shining on you....."

Well, actually it's a waxing gibbous and it's raining and it's NY, but I still love the song. Sold a couple of cows yesterday, very painfully, as one was Alan's old show cow, Bayberry, who has been a fixture here since he was thirteen. We let him choose when or if. She was nearly two years in milk and we just could not get her bred no matter what we tried. She was getting mean and beating up on the other cows.....

It was hard, but so is the economy. The cows that stay behind have to eat and be cared for and every input has tripled in price over the past few years We used to use $200 a ton as the top price we would pay for premium grain. Hah! Them days are gone.

Would be nice to just have kept her forever, but we couldn't. At least beef prices are indeed as crazy-high as word on the street has been saying. A lot of farmers were selling as the line of trucks stretched all around the auction barn and down the road. Reminds me of the stories I was hearing of sale barns down in the drought area a couple of months ago.

Thanks to drought in Texas, and Oklahoma a severe shortage of feed, problems in several South American countries etc. beef may turn out to be in short supply in a bit.

Any road, we are keeping our bull calves and steering them. We are going to be real short of feed ourselves, but for dairy farmers we raise pretty good beef. We are thinking we will sell a bit, retail, USDA inspected, cryovacced, real good stuff. We have in the past and folks have liked it real well.

Got a steer ready to go right now. Anybody interested?

Lyme Disease

Watch out this fall. It is warm and wet and ticks abound. So far our boy was bitten by three ticks...at least...while hunting and is on doxycycline for it. Now the dog has the disease and it taking it too.

Lyme is no joke...bad, bad stuff. Thankfully that dreaded bulls eye rash left the boy within a day or two after he began his meds. Alas it is none too kind to his tummy so he is dealing with that, but worth it.,

Nick, the dog, got a tick, was limping a little on the front leg one day and could barely stand by the next. I had to help him out of his crate and balance him to go outdoors. He would just collapse and look sad, he hurt so bad.

Fortunately within a day after he began the medicine he was back to walking a bit and now he is just a bit lame.

Meanwhile he has become outrageously spoiled. Someone felt sorry for him and carried him to a spot in front of the electric heater. As soon as he could walk again it became his favorite venue.

And treats. He wouldn't eat...too much pain I'm sure. So he was plied with animal crackers and potato chips and biscuits (the baked, fluffy people kind, not the hard crunchies for dogs). Now he scorns the dog food....ah, well, he'll get over that soon enough.

(Can't thank the fine medical professionals who prescribed the meds enough.)

Meanwhile, please watch out for those awful ticks!

Danger

My parents' next door neighbor was tragically killed by a car a couple of weeks ago. Shock waves rippled through the area....he was a fixture...someone everyone knew and liked and his kids were best friends with my younger brother when we were young. We all visited a lot when we were kids and played backyard football and all and ran in and out of each other's houses tame. The accident was horrible and made worse by some pretty tasteless newspaper coverage.

There were phrases like "pedestrian error" and such bandied about, but those of us who visit that area or grew up on that awful road know better. Cars fly along that straightaway like they were climbing the curves at a speedway.

Just getting the mail at my folks' house or pulling out of their driveway is an exercise in fear (yeah, all right I AM kind of timid but still....)

Now this happened to the very house where my folks' neighbor lived. And the house is not real near the road or anything.There are rumors of drag racing.

I think it's time for some folks in uniforms to enforce the speed laws out there....just sayin'.

Sunday Stills...Backlit

For more Sunday Stills......

Sneak Attack

Sneak attack! Look out!!!! It's a deadly, dangerous, eyes-in-front predator!

Get her!

The cows were all turned out and waiting by the gate to be let up into the field to eat. I was just finishing up pushing up feed to Scotty, who stays in, and the bull and the steers and the big calves, when the dreaded Athena trotted down the barn aisle working hard at rat patrol.

Milwaukee saw her first. A predator! Oh, noes, and right in the barn too.

Big M lowered her head and hooked and snorted at the deadly threat so close before her. Towanda took up the cry, storming and stomping her feet and kicking her heels at the ceiling.

Next Cinnamon, Boondock, Brianna and Bling. Chrome and Lamborghini, Corolla and Pumpkin, all dashing, all dancing, all banging stalls and cupboard doors. Crash! Clatter! Kaboom and kabang.

Athena paused by the big pen and looked back in disgust. She is just an old barn cat and about as dangerous to those silly calves as air .

Meanwhile, they all shook their heads and snorted happily and stood around puffing and blowing. Another enemy vanquished and before breakfast too. Tuff girls one and all.

With the Sun

Come pictures