Welding in the Kitchen

Dinner anyone?

Last night Beck and I and the pup were sitting here in the kitchen waiting for some sausages to finish baking for our dinner. They had been doing so all through milking....


Suddenly the oven element made a sound just like an arc welder and a big orange flash began to occur inside the stove. I shut it off, but it just got brighter and brighter until it glowed a brilliant white that embossed itself on the eyeballs just like a welder would. 

The boss hurried out and helped us pull the stove out from the wall and unplug it.

The flash darkened.

All was well although it took a while for our eyes to get back to normal. Thank God it did its bad thing while we were sitting right here so we still have a house!

We let the sausages finish cooking on what heat was left....

But, but, but......I have a turkey all thawed in the fridge, which I was planning to roast today.

Now what do I do?

Thank You Milk

I'm not sure how many sixty-year old women could withstand a full force, apex of the swing kick from a 1300+ pound cow, without significant damage...... I did just that this morning though, and although I have a dent and a bruise and they heard the crack all the way over on the other side of the barn and came running, I think I will be okay. At least I finished milking and chores and am not limping much more than usual.

I blame the milk I have drunk at almost every meal, almost all my life. I also thank the kind Lord that she caught me in the best possible spot, mid-way up my thigh, so no joints or tender bits were damaged. She even missed my cell phone.

I am not too happy with the cow though. She has always kicked out behind at men, although not usually women and we handle her accordingly, not scraping up behind her or working on the gutter chain without putting her outdoors first. 

However, Becky and I have milked her for years....she is seven years old...and always been kind and gentle with her. I spoke to her as I was walking behind her. I was watching for her so I wouldn't get kicked, staying close to the wall, but she spun sideways and nailed me for no obvious reason other than that she could. 

The boss will be milking her for a while I guess.

Athena

Help! Who am I!

Not a cat person here. I like them, but I will never be a crazy cat lady or anything. (Well, crazy maybe....).

However, I do like them, and in the way of families when the young folks move away, all the kitties that they brought home over the years have become my responsibility. I spend my extra coins on cat food and get up early to distribute same.

The very day after the Sunday Stills Cats challenge something murdered poor Sinopa and her idiot son Justin Bieber. They were not big favorites, but still they were threads in the life of the barnyard, the butt of many jokes about white cat syndrome (not that they were white), and just there..... I don't know how to explain how it is with your barn animals. They are not like the cozy creatures that share hearth and home, but more like partners in enterprise. They work for and with you and in return you see to their needs. Part of farm life that goes unsung, but not unnoticed.

Justin wasn't smart enough to come to the house for food, but he got milk and table scraps in the barn, and spent his free time thinking up diabolical ways to trip us or run under a cow's belly with his tail upright so we could get kicked. We still liked his silly self and the boss spent years trying to pet him. He would have none of that.

Whatever got them wrecked them. Both were too wild to catch when they came home to say goodbye. We found Sinopa later; Justin is just gone. The barn floor is bare without them.

Then Athena vanished. Athena is different. She is an independent little spotted brown tabby that belonged to children before she came here. They filled her up with love and she hasn't run out yet. 

She is of the liquid cat genre. You can pick her up in any manner and she will flow into your arms and melt around your neck and purr til the foundation shakes. In the winter Alan tucks her into the hood of his sweatshirt and she rides there all sleepy and proud, peeping out every now and then to see what's up. We have come very, very close to buying a conversion kit and turning her into a house cat.

She is timid over porch food and hides under the car until Simon and Chain Saw are done, but she does come in in the morning to eat. I always give her a little extra.

She didn't show her face for three days. Sorrow reigned. Just a cat. Just a barn cat at that, but there is much fondness beamed in her direction.

You can imagine my joy when she was tucked under the big sink on the porch this morning awaiting her turn at the bowl.

We have got to get to the bottom of this killing thing. We have had coyotes for about twenty years, a fisher for two, foxes forever, ditto owls, although not so much any more. And raccoons. However, savvy cats like these know how to avoid those creatures or they wouldn't have lived as long as they have.

I am leaning toward the fisher, because the last time it came through it took Justin's sister, another cat wise in the way of the wild. 

There was something big and fast right in the house yard when we came home from the fair the other night. I miss the days when everyone hunted and varmints kept their distance.

***If any of you bird stars could identify the little warbler type critter above I would be wildly grateful.

Spiking Cannons

We hit a couple of farm stands yesterday over in another county. They were lovely places, with a mouth-watering assortment of fruits and vegetables, all lush and lovely and tempting.

When we arrived at the first stand a very "big city" sort of fellow was giving the cashier a hard time. It was embarrassing to even witness, he was so off-the-charts rude and abusive. As we shopped for sweet corn to freeze, he and his party continued to harass the poor lady.

Then one carload took off while the other distracted her. 

They neglected to pay for some of what they took.

I think we were as upset as she was. There is no need for people driving a car that fancy to team up to steal from farm folk. There is no need to bring nasty-rude out to the sticks and spread it around thick as slurry on a hay field.

We commiserated while we paid for our veggies, then headed a ways away to another spot. And there they were again.

It took a few minutes to edge up to a managerial looking person and drop a whispered aside about what we had witnessed a few miles earlier, but I don't think they got out of that place with anything that didn't belong to them. I was irritated all afternoon though.

Go Ahead and Kiss Him

He will turn into a prince...trust me on this one....and health insurance is about to become affordable and available to all.

Same Stuff

Different day. With pointless and expensive breakdowns sprinkled in there just because. (It is never wise to let the three point hitch arms engage with the power shaft on the manure spreader. Better to keep them up out of the way) At least, even if it does rain in one form or another, hard and/or soft, solid and/or liquid, every single day, it does make for pretty on the rare occasions when we see that thing that was out yesterday for a while.

NYC Soda Ban

It's all over the Net. Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban sales of sugary drinks over 16 ounces in his little fiefdom to the south of us. 

The arrogance, the intrusiveness, the overstepping of the reasonable purpose of government, not to mention the utter stupidity of this.  After all, what is to stop folks from buying two sodas anyhow? It's mind boggling. Political smoke and mirrors at its lowest.


And consider this.


The good mayor's personal worth is estimated at $19.5 billion. I suspect that he drinks what he wants to and that such a concept as "economy size" (or economy in any form) never cross his mind. What could he possibly know about how the other 99% live?

I have never paid much attention to the regulatory infrastructure of NYC. Despite the whole state being identified by its excess and attitude, we live far away from there, both geographically and culturally. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have visited there, with quite a few fingers left over.


However, as of late last year, our boy works there. 


Or maybe I should call him a man now. Yesterday in the course of his job, he picked up, carried, opened, and poured seven and a half tons of bagged cement over the course of a 12-hour work day.


In the hot, blazing sun.

What gives Hizzoner and his pals the right to tell that kid that he can't have a large soda if he wants one? Certainly the not the Constitution. Certainly not any moral high ground where they perch omnisciently over the peons. In fact nothing gives them the right. They are just taking it....but only if New Yorkers let them. Maybe they should call up some of that famous attitude and cry foul nice and loud. Meanwhile.....

I don't even like soda, never drink the stuff. But this ticks me off. 

How to Gut a Small Town

Is our goose cooked?

Somebody in Cleveland has it in for tiny Fultonville.
 Key Corp. is closing our little hometown bank. This particular bank has won national awards for customer service and is a wonderful, friendly, and comfortable place to do business. The folks who work there are competent and caring, always helpful, and darned good at their jobs.


Fultonville itself is a neat little village, composed of around 700 folks, and it has a lot of home town, small town character. We lived here for a few years when I was a kid and I have always loved it. I was delighted to move back when I married the boss some 27 years ago. It has survived massive multi-year construction projects that shuttered stores and choked traffic for months.


 It has gotten by when its industries closed their doors and moved away. It managed to continue after being split in half by the passage of the Thruway, suffered through the closing of the railroad tracks, and dozens of other metamorphoses that might have killed a weaker place.


It is a town surrounded by dozens of farms, powered partly by the machinery dealers that support them, and a central hub to a rapidly growing Amish population. For such a small place it is pretty darned vibrant.


The bank, which has metamorphosized a time or two itself, has always stood strong in the center of town, right next to the post office and a popular diner. My first bank account was held by that bank. Our kids have had accounts there since they were born...literally....We do all our business there now.


However, somebody in Cleveland decided that we can now drive to Johnstown, a city to the north of us....a nice enough city, but not home, through still more construction (it is nothing to sit in Fonda for an hour waiting for a flagman) to do business with strangers. 


People in town are horrified, angry, and hurt by this cavalier decision to tear the heart out of the center of our town. If the way our phone was ringing yesterday is any indication, this is not going to be forgotten quickly. There is talk of protest walks and plans for irate phone calls to a certain city in Ohio.


Shame on Key Corp for not taking a closer look at the importance of the bank to the surrounding community and acting accordingly.

Hezekiah

Hi, my name is Hezekiah Yoder. (Not only am I a garden gnome, I am an Amish garden gnome.) 


And the kids in this family are BRATS, brats I tell you. They bought me for the lady of the house who just happens to hate garden gnomes. (She thinks they are kinda creepy like Mickey Mouse and clowns, not sweetly tacky like pink plastic flamingos.)


Anyhow, even though they showed me to her when I came home last night, and warned her that she was going to be surprised by my grinning countenance when I showed up all unexpected, she brayed like a jackass when she opened the microwave this morning to make coffee.


It was great! The boss came running out of the living room to see what was wrong and she almost fell on the floor laughing.


However, there is a certain irony in all this as the perpetrator of the crime and purchaser of moi was out turkey hunting with his buddy and missed all the hysteria. 


I wonder where they are going to hide me next.

Just Ducky

Trip west to get some needed farm supplies yesterday. Discovered that yet again a medicine we rely on regularly is being discontinued. It is so hard to manage around that scenario.

But aren't these common mergansers we saw fishing the Mohawk just ducky? It was fun to watch them hunt an area then just let the current sweep them downstream to go fishing somewhere else...so effortless.

Bird Snob

I'm not too bad a one I guess.


I don't care for the way imported starlings nest in any opening they find in a building and make a big mess, but I can tolerate them.


 Not too crazy about rock pigeons (, which are really just plain old pigeons, the ones that you see in the park and also nest in barns) but they are beautiful fliers when they fling themselves across the sky just bursting with joy...and they can be kind of pretty tootling around on the ground too.


However, I hate, hate, HATE, English sparrows, or house sparrows if you prefer to be more PC about it. Personally I call them Sassenachs.


The drab little brown interlopers are very different from native birds though....and sneaky old bird snobs can use that to advantage. 


For example, they know I don't like them and they don't linger at the feeder when I go outside. Even the timid little titmice don't fly far, but the Sassenachs are much more wary. If I tap on the window when there is a huge assorted flock at the feeder, only they fly.


However this year a band of them has been marauding the feeders like nasty highwaymen stealing from the chickadee gentry. (Stand and deliver that sunflower seed). 


Being a busy little being I didn't deal with this situation until yesterday. It was sunny and pleasant so I hung the line full of clean laundry. Darned sparrows kept perching in the lilac bushes and then flying straight down that same clothesline to raid the feeder.


You know where that kind of thing leads.


I puzzled for a bit about how to stop them, since I am not fond of doing the laundry twice. Aha! An idea!


I keep a plastic great horned owl swinging in the breeze in the back porch door to keep the little $%%##@ from nesting on the porch.


I took it down and lugged it outside with a bit of old shoe lace and approached the lilac bush where they were perching smugly, waiting for me to go back inside so they could befoul my laundry.


Then they saw the owl. You never saw (or heard) such a commotion. They fled to the top of the tallest cedar tree where they set up an outrageous racket of alarm.


And once I had it swinging merrily in the lilacs, tethered at the top by the shoelace, they left and haven't come back.


I know they will become habituated to the owl and I will either have to move it or think of something else. But for now, revenge is sweet.


And best of all, a steady string of little native birds has continued to use the feeder all day. One bold chickadee even went over to the lilac bushes and sat two feet from the owl, scolding with all its might. Every so often he would glance over at me where I was hanging out more clothes as if to assure me that he had the threat in hand and I was safe from the nasty predator.


***Update, by yesterday evening some of them had figured out how to fly around the house the other way to get to the feeder, so my respite was short if sweet. At least they weren't using my laundry as a flight path.

January Rain

Seems with our changing weather patterns we get at least one damaging rain storm in January. Every single year.

Yaktrax Tracks

Seems that this is it. Everything is awash in water running over the ice and frozen ground. Not very nice for walking. Can't say enough about those Yaktrax (and no they don't pay me.) Gotta get the boss a set.


There is little of interest going on...the boss keeps working on the furnace, making it a little warmer at least. We keep milking cows and feeding cows and cleaning out the stables...picking things up and putting them down. Dad is having kind of a hard time, but I guess he is progressing....and that is about all the news that is fit to print.

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.

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.

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'.

Thank You

Global Warming. Not too bad here so far, although it is supposed to chill later in the week. I will take every passing warm day we get and rejoice!

Been reading in the local paper about all the hooligans being arrested for assorted crimes against wildlife and private property.

Imagine what would happen if they really got out there after them. They could balance the state budget in a wink. The boys caught two trespassers in one hunting trip here, both in full cammo, and there are more every day...just can't chase them all due to the whole having to work thing.

Wish the DEC would catch our band of outlaws for us. Alan went up in the field to have a look around yesterday and found that some yahoo with a pick up truck rutted a couple of new seeding hay fields all to heck...big fixit job there I guess.

They had to drive over rocks and trees and through a whole darned hedgerow to get in, right past a posted sign. Guess they poached a deer off us and were too lazy to drag it out.

Remember Melamine?

There's a talking head on my lawn

Another pet threat from China...Pet treats killing dogs....

Arggghhhhh

Nuff said

Boom

Our furnace just exploded.

No one hurt.

No fire.

No heat either