Ag Blogs

Here is a nice list of blogs dedicated to food and agricultural topics from Agriculture Proud.

Agvocacy..Worth the Effort

You know I'm nuts about you, right?

Dairy Carrie has placed a challenge to farm bloggers and tweeters to post about the topic above.

Is agvocacy, the practice of farmers both advocating for their businesses and explaining they whys and wherefores of what they do, worth the time and effort?

My answer would be a resounding 'you betcha'! The best antidote to contrived videos of alleged cruelty and hackneyed catch phrases like "factory farming" is to open a dialog with our customers and let them in on our world. Talk to them every day about what is happening on our farms and ranches and give honest explanations of farm activities. 

As I have read many times, it isn't about education, it is about communication. Not everyone wants to go back to school, but pretty much all of us love to chat, whether it is face to face over the back fence, at the coffee shop, or in our kitchens, thousands of miles apart geographically, but as close as the next heartbeat in our minds.

I suppose it could be considered a chore to sit down at the keyboard every day to "visit" with a bunch of wonderful folks like the ones I have "met" through Northview Diary. (And thank you all for visiting and commenting on the things that take your interest.) However to me it has become one of the greatest pleasures in my day.

And at least on a couple of occasions folks who visit regularly have set a person or two straight on one farming issue or another......

So, yeah, it sure is worth it.

Heifer Wrasslin'

**Alan took this last summer with his phone and I stumbled upon it yesterday while cleaning out my inbox. I believe it is the Kingpin daughter, Bayliner, down below the barn yard gate, having escaped in order to eat box elder trees. I don't know what it is with that family, but they all will do whatever it takes to get to the darned things and eat them....and personally they could eat every single one on the farm right down to the roots and I wouldn't get mad.

We had three springing heifers, Rosie, my milking shorthorn show heifer, and one open heifer to bring into the cow barn yesterday. (Well actually we had several open ones, but they didn't cooperate.) 


At first they didn't even want to come down off the hill at all. They didn't want to be driven. They didn't want to come when called. They wouldn't even come down when they heard the skid steer which brings their food to them.


After waiting for a while (in the bright, crisp sunshine, not too much of a punishment) I went and got a bucket of grain. 


That got their attention.


We kind of wanted to bring all of them down and put those that are not springing up to calve in a pen in the back of the barn where can keep a better eye on them. However, Shamrock, the Jersey, Rio, a milking shorthorn, Cevin and one other Holstein wanted nothing to do with us so they are still out.


Getting the others down to the barn was only part of the equation. Getting them first into the barn was one project, then getting them into stalls or the pen, depending on how close up they are to calve was another.


It was good to have Al home. He caught some with a halter and just pulled them in and put them where we wanted them, and tolled the others with that trusty grain bucket. Liz got back from work and helped too, so although it took quite a while it went pretty well.


 Nothing like young folks to make a job go a lot easier.


Now we will have to watch them close to make sure they can handle their new locations safely. Cows can be pretty godawful dumb sometimes. I'm glad they are in though, because we need to watch the close ups real closely.

Same Old, Same Old

It is kinda hard to find anything interesting to write about these days. We certainly keep busy...yesterday the boss fixed stalls to bring some heifers into the cow barn. We moved calves, cleaned as always, dragged in hay off round bales and fed it out. Bought another load of round bales (ouch), and prayed for green grass and soon.


Alan has some time home from his job...as the newest guy on the roster he has to wait his turn for work. He is handy to have around and helped the boss replace a stubborn stall divider the beef steer wrecked and rebuilt Mandy and Blitz's tie rail. Since Blitz had worked the rail loose enough that she could step right up into the manger and steal feed from Broadway and Dalkeith across the barn, it was a much needed repair.


These are all things that are engaging enough when you are doing them, but they don't exactly make for thrilling reading later....it's all right by me though. I would rather soldier along doing the boring jobs day after day than run around coping with crisis after crisis, which is a pretty normal situation on a farm, especially when there are animals involved.

Let NY Farm Act

The boss (in his mystery shopper outfit) and Bubba, headed for the barn

Sounds good to me. Read about it here.

Last Year's Weather

Northstar, a name the calf graduate, all grown up

Is still hanging around biting everybody right...well you know where. Even though we are enjoying this long spell of warmer than normal weather, what happened last summer is having lasting ramifications for farmers and ranchers from the southern borderlands to the far, far north.


Nobody has feed...well, some folks do, but there are a lot of shortages and staggeringly high prices for what is out there. We are about out of haylage, maybe a couple of days worth left, and buying round bales...spring and green grass can't come soon enough for me!


The guy we buy our crop seeds from called the other night...talked to the boss for quite a while. He wanted to give us a heads up that the seed we buy from him will nearly double in price for this year...drought in Texas wiped out most of the seed crop. He is big, successful farmer but he will be out of feed soon and told of dozens of customers who are feeding out their last bits. He thinks a lot of folks who have bought from him for a long while won't be in business this summer.


And yet, the big players are still manipulating the CME, while the milk to feed ratio drops like a rock. I am sure somebody will still be making milk come spring...the Chinese are buying dairies in New Zealand so their farmers can be trained how to do it right (first clue...leave out the melamine...it tends to kill people.) 


China has also become the world's number one nation for feed grain and oil seed production and yet they are still huge importers of food products and feeds....and ammunition or so they say.....


***Dad update. It has been a really tough haul for Dad and for Mom, who has been an amazing trouper through it all, but yesterday she reported solid progress. He is in rehab now and is doing stairs and getting around without the walker. Your prayers have been appreciated more than you could possibly imagine...thank you!

The Things You Learn While Moving Heifers

The electric fence gate is indeed "hot". If you touch it while wearing thick rubber boots and gloves and standing on snow, you won't get grounded completely and knocked on your *ss. However, liquid fire will run over your skin and you will cuss in the general direction of the guy who built such a tight d*** gate! Ouch!


When you worry and agonize for months over how you will move a certain recalcitrant heifer with big horns and a bad attitude, from heifer barn to cow barn....... When you sweat and plan and lose sleep fretting over what she will do......


She will walk quietly, almost exactly where you want her to go, and stroll into the barn and let you lug her into a stall with only the most minor of disagreements.


As if to say, "Ha, fooled you, didn't I?"


And the best cow moving item I have ever found is an old worn out canoe paddle. I always keep something on the porch with which to direct cow traffic. I can't count the number of times I have looked out the window to see cattle coming at me where they don't belong. Or heard hooves and moos out of place. It does not pay to chase them unarmed, as they will laugh and leap around you, kicking up their heels as they race away.


However, as with any tool sequestered by the lady of the house, all my fiber glass sorting sticks became "walking" sticks (as in walking away..I have a walking hammer too) and are over at the barn. When the time came to move an animal recently there was nothing on the back porch to choose from but a hoe and the canoe paddle.


 I chose the one that fit my hand the best and carried the fondest memories. Much to my astonishment cattle respect that paddle. And do not challenge me when I carry it. Must be because they can see it so well and it makes me look wider (amazing) and more dangerous.


Anyhow, farmers love to recycle and I am going to recycle that old paddle!


**Thanks again for your prayers and thoughts. Dad had a good day yesterday and took two walks and ate hit meals. I think that is excellent progress.

My American Farm

HT to Kim Komando for sharing this site, which shares lots of useful information on American farms and farmers. 

And here is another story about area cheese making.




****Please if you can, pray for my dad today. Major surgery taking place.

Cheese and Dairy in the Mohawk Valley

Area business people are making whey while the sun shines.


The boss and I are lucky enough to know all these fine folks and to have served with them on various boards of directors and such over the years (sometimes it was pretty exciting too).


 Kudos to them for bringing real economic development to the valley, while embracing its unique rural nature. Much of what little I understand about milk pricing I learned from Mr. Spencer back in the day......

And Yet, We Still Seem to Have Enough to Eat

"College majors that are useless" screams the headline on Yahoo news. The article contains a list of degrees that you don't need to bother with, no jobs in those fields, don't even go there. Move along, move along.....


Three of the five dead end, awful, bad, and pointless careers listed are agriculture related. In fact the number one worst degree to pursue, according to the pundit who wrote the screed, is agriculture in general (this from a guy, who, according to his Facebook page studied film and TV at UCLA). 


It's no secret that the number of folks actually farming has declined a lot over the years....partly I suppose because of increased efficiency in most aspects of food production, and partly because fewer and fewer people want to work that hard at such a challenging profession. 


However, a point seemed to have been missed by the author as he bandied about Department of Labor statistics on how many jobs were projected in each field. 


Agriculture is all about producing food and fiber. The population of the planet is growing by leaps and bounds. I suspect that all those new babies that are projected to arrive on earth in the next few decades will arrive here kicking and screaming for their first meal and wanting to be warm. I imagine they will continue to want to eat until their tenure on the planet comes to an end. Most of them will wear clothes. At least some of those clothes will probably be made from natural fibers.


Just who does the author figure is going to feed ad clothe all those new folks? (Not to mention the ones who are already here and eating and putting on shirts and pants on a regular basis?)




And then there is the no jobs myth.




Currently agricultural exports contribute one of the few positives to America's balance of trade. Here is a quote from a recent Farm Side, "Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack even mentioned this at the American Farm Bureau annual meeting in Hawaii, “Last year, American agricultural exports amounted to $137.4 billion, which led to a $42 billion farm trade surplus, and direct support for more than 1 million American jobs.”


Hmmm, a million American jobs directly supported by agriculture. Plus countless millions the world over, fed and clothed by American agriculture....with many more millions soon to be born, hungry and naked.......are those degrees really all that useless?


I don't think so, but then two of my three kids have ag degrees and are working in good jobs, which they got straight out of college....maybe that skewed my opinion a little.

****Here are some even better  numbers.
****And here is someone who actually knows what he is talking about, as opposed to the author above.

Shipping

Not far from the tree

A beef steer over to the processor today. And moving stock. And trying to get the Farm Side written. Should be an interesting day. Stay warm out there.

Organic Kids

Suppose we raised organic kids like they do organic cows. The slick marketers of organic goods will feed you all this stuff about better for the earth, (which considering that it takes more ground to grow organic stuff, seems like a bunch of bull hockey), etc. but what about the animals involved?


Organic cows do not get treated with antibiotics when they are sick. Their owners rely on topical, herbal, or homeopathic remedies. If cows don't respond to those treatments they die or are sold to someone who does use conventional medicine to treat them or sold for beef. (That's why they call farms like ours conventional...we do things the way regular people do.)


So suppose your "organic" little human comes down with a desperate case of pneumonia or some other serious bacterial illness, needs intensive care, and a conventional antibiotic, then what? Do you treat him with a herbal supplement...or do you sell him to the neighbor who feels it appropriate to treat children...or cows....with modern, tested, legal, safe medicines?


I know which way I would go, but then I am kind of conventional.


I try not to bash any kind of farming here on Northview, as there are far too few of us farmers left not to stick together. However, I am just plain sick of having organic dairy farming shoved in my face everywhere I look, as if it were the only answer to food production. I KNOW what happens to cows on organic farms that get sick. And if you have a pet dog or cat, you know that even the best cared for animals DO get sick  sometimes.......I would love to give you a quote on the topic from a trusted professional in the animal medical field with whom we regularly do business on what they think of the care of organic cattle but I don't have permission so I won't. 


However, we wouldn't think of expecting our children to get along in the modern world without modern medicine, so why do we act as if asking the same of dairy cows is practically a religious duty?


Every single farmer's bulk tank is tested for antibiotic residues every single time the truck from the company picks up milk. If there is a positive finding the FARMER pays for the whole tanker load of milk...not cheap! So there are no antibiotics in your milk no matter what kind of farm produces it. 


If you want to pay through the nose for organic products, which are generally chemically indistinguishable from conventional products, have at it, but you might want to think about the cows involved.

For the Love of a Cow

Liz and her retired show cow, Heather. Heather is 12 now. You can see that they are pretty good friends after all those years.

Living Closely with Cow Families

Not an Astronaut offspring, but he could have been

In the comments a good friend mentioned genetics and inheritances in folks. 


Which got me thinking a bit. In well over thirty years of living every single day with generation upon generation of registered Holsteins, a few Jerseys and a handful of milking shorthorns, it has amazed me, how very much of the makeup of a cow, her performance, and especially her silly little quirks are inherited.


Of course anyone who bred registered cows during the right time period remembers the Paclamar Astronaut daughters...they were long and black and sharp and gorgeous....


 However, they were also a little bit, (well maybe even more than a little bit,) on the "nervous" side. 


Flighty even. 


Oh, heck, let's be clear here...the ones we bred were downright psychotic. We had a little black one whose name escapes me***. When you tried to milk her she would kick right over the top of the divider. That is about chest high for those not familiar with stall dividers.


She kicked like that every single day from the first time she was milked until she died calving while the kids and I were at camp one year. She hated everybody with an equal opportunity loathing that was downright impressive.


Other traits also seem to be much more heritable than the sire summaries would have you think. Like eating box elder trees. As members of the maple family box elders have fairly bitter leaves I do believe. Cows will eat them when especially hungry, but they are certainly not high on their menu preferences. Except Balsam's family. Every one of them will climb up on the jersey barriers around the barnyard to prune the trees on the bank. We have seen some feats of bovine gymnastics that would downright amaze you, all in pursuit of low hanging leaves. 


Getting out of fences is another proclivity not measured in the stud books that seems to run in families. Inspecting windowsills on the way out of the barn (although that may be a breed-specific thing as it seems to be mostly Jerseys who find it necessary to stop and check every single windowsill every single day.) Stealing calves. We have had a family since I met the boss that all stole calves....we still have some of them.


You can keep your TPI and your PTA and your daughter averages and all. If the proofs measured everything we noticed running in families in cows there wouldn't be room on the page to list them all.


***Liz looked her up and her name was Apple Crisp...she was crisp enough all right.

Sunny Day

Still having heating issues but the sun is shining, it is really nice outside and not bad inside. The fan motor is in Albany awaiting pick up. Barn chores are done, cows out and eating, stalls bedded for tonight and everything tidied up.

Still awaiting our first calf of the year from Pecan, and as always hoping for a heifer. Pecan is bred to a bull we had years ago, a son of Whittier-Farms Ned Boy named Foxfield Doreigh NB Rex. Besides the Ned Boy he had some Triple Threat back there on the dam's side and threw a lot of black reds. We bought him at an auction when Liz was a baby, and although he is long gone, we still have a unit or two left of him. His daughters were always kind of round-boned more than we like and not the nicest-natured critters on the farm, but they were tough and lasted a long time.


We were all sad to hear of the passing of Gaige Highlight Tamara, a famous New York Holstein, bred and owned by folks the kids have often showed with over the years. In fact her owner let Liz take her in the ring a couple of times at the Cooperstown Junior show when there were more cows going in than there were hands for the halters. She was a spectacularly beautiful animal.


Tamara has sons in AI, 15 EX daughters and was scored 4-E 97 in her own right, about as good as it gets.....truly one of the great ones. So sorry to hear of her passing.




***Very sorry about the old photos. With the death of the desktop most of my photos are hard to get to, so......

Well-Meaning But....

Great article here on how ill-informed folks often make the wrong call on animal welfare situations. One of the best I have read.

An Addiction to Chewing and Swallowing

Mike Rowe on agriculture.