Just in time for Halloween

Spooky weather

Signs of the Season

The fall migration is in full swing

These are nearly gone now

I keep finding these in the washing machine.

I gather them when I am outside....stick them in my pocket...
and forget them.
Every time.

This is not just welcome now


It is plumb necessary

Hard frost last night

The TV news report says that it is the official end of the growing season....maybe.....I haven't taken the canvas off the tomatoes yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if we still get a few more. They ripened late and very slowly but we have had all we could eat plus lots to freeze.




The fire in the outdoor woodstove is very welcome these days. This old house is cool in summer and absolutely frigid in winter. (All you folks who have made us blankets and lap robes...you know who you are...we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Our toesies thank you too.)




As soon as all the geraniums I am giving up on (I normally bring in every single geranium and struggle all winter to keep them lush and nice. This year...just a few...I grow them from seed anyhow so I end up with a ridiculous number of them) actually freeze I am going to refill the pots with a little fresh earth and plant lettuce in them. We have grown lettuce indoors for a couple of years now and you can't beat it if you have a bright window.




Liz is off here for this today. Her favorite cowboy, Cord McCoy, is there to sign autographs and ride and her other favorite, Kody Lostroh is too. As of yesterday they were first and second in the standings, which was pretty cool.




It is a long drive to a different state. As the official motherperson I will worry all day and night until she is home. (It is my job and I take my work seriously.) She wanted me to accompany her and I would have loved to go, but it was felt in certain corners that I should stay home and work. So I did. No morning off this week, but it was a pretty morning and I didn't really mind all that much being out. I hope she has a great time and brings home lots of good photos. I hope she meets that nice cowboy that she talks to on the Internet. I hope she calls home soon........

And here is this week's

The Farm Side is a Friday column, so here is a link to this week's right on the heels of yesterday's.


Northview Diary is sort of an offshoot of the newspaper column, which I started writing ten years ago last March. At the time I was working on a novel (and no it never got published) and a friend was writing the Farm Side. He and his wife thought of the name when he was asked to do a farm column for the paper thanks to his excellent letters to the editor. He asked me to spell him once a month as he has a large and very busy farm and a batch of grandkids that need time with grandpa. After a while he asked me to write twice a month and then after a year he decided to call it quits and left the column in my hands (or at my mercy if you prefer).

I enjoyed the chance to write about farming and about life in the valley so much that three years ago in August I started this blog. The first photo here was taken with a disposable camera....how things have changed since then....I have enjoyed this just as much as writing for the paper, mostly because of the dialog with folks who comment. I feel that I have made friends from Canada to Mexico and Florida to California, as well as meeting new people just across the river from the farm. I am thankful for everyone who reads either the Farm Side or Northview Diary....it has been good to get to know you. Thanks for stopping by!

Remember yesterday

Better if clicked

The color of autumn

Better if larger...do click

Fog on the Pumpkins

LIke a mullet

You know...business in the front, party in the back. Liz and I, thanks to some heifers which got out about five times the past three days, have been cutting brush out of the electric fence.



It is in and of itself a miserable job. Even though it is crispy cool, after half an hour hacking wild rose bushes higher than your head out of the wires and cutting raspberries higher than they are you are hot.
Sweaty.
Itchy.




We forgot to take water so after the first hour we were thirsty to the point of misery.

We work with the electric fence turned on so we can find the shorts. You don't want to make a mistake in what you touch.

However, as in most farm jobs no matter how painful, there are compensations if you know where to find them.




I put the big camera in its case in a thick plastic tote and took it along for the ride. Here are some of the things we found while discovering that there was a bad clip holding two wires together so there was no charge at all on most of the fence.

First frost 08

A collage of fall colors from the ride yesterday.
All taken from a moving car, but you get the idea of how pretty things are these cool autumn days.

Sorry about no post yesterday. Seems we are so busy it is like we are hurtling downhill in a race to get who knows where or why and no time to stop for anything. I am having a hard time even getting all my comments answered and I apologize.

The first frost came night before last. Just a light one in some places but hard enough for ice in others. Any tomatoes that weren't covered are toast. I am going to have to pick all the rest...maybe today if I get the Farm Side done in time. It is 33 now so we will probably get another before dawn. I picked some sunflower seeds to save yesterday as the blue jays are mowing through them with amazing alacrity.

The boss and I ran over to Altamont to pick up a beef we had processed yesterday. It was a Holstein steer that didn't finish all that well so we had it all put into minute steaks, hamburger and stew beef. Tested the first last night...very tasty. Beck made gravy with minute steaks...very tender.




Picked up half a bushel of apples on the way. I have been craving apples and ours are still so green as to be barely edible for some reason. Most of the winesaps split from late heavy rains I guess so the best they will be is jelly...which I would like to make if they ever ripen. These are galas, golden delicious and Jonagold...all terrific varieties. The Delicious won't keep long, but you can't beat em at this time of year...especially chilled. I had the first one on the way over yesterday and it was icy cold from sitting outdoors overnight. Indescribable!

Off to the barn now. Have a good one.

Send this rain south

Or anywhere they can use it.









What we need are more days like these .

A look at Sundae on the Farm 08

Haunted mornings

This fog seems to be keeping first frost at bay. It is as if the earth has its feet in different seasons now, one firmly planted in summer and the other slipping over the edge into fall. We get freeze warnings and watches every evening, but so far, at least down here by the house, it hasn't frozen yet. Days the temp goes up near 70 and the sun is like a comforting beacon. It feels good to go outside and soak up the warmth.




Alan, our resident fisherman, is catching the gold fish from the garden pond for me....one by one. They are ellusive little beasts and don't seem to want to join us in the house. However, the past two winters I have kept them outdoors with a heater in the pond. First winter the heater failed and all but one froze. Second winter, heater worked fine and they all wintered over only to succumb (all but one again) to bacterial infection caused by stress in the spring. Enough already. We have a twenty gallon tank and a ten. They can join the guppies and the Betta and see if that works better.




We keep harvesting more sweet corn even though it is getting kind of tough. I am glad Agway keeps a record of whatever variety we buy because whatever this stuff is it is really good.Ike knocked a lot of it down but it is still easy enough to pick a couple of dozen ears in a few minutes. Tomatoes are ripening nicely. Some year I will realize that one or two plants of each cherry tomato variety is enough. I think I planted about ten currant tomato plants and discovered that even if you eat all you can stomach every time you go to the garden there will be hundreds (and hundreds) left. The grape tomatoes from last summer volunteered and produced well too. Never thought I could get sick of tiny tomatoes, but there it is.



Wish I knew more about harvesting sunflower seeds. I have been cutting the heads one by one (when they get low enough to bonk me on the head when I am digging potatoes....they remind me of giant showerheads. You wouldn't think it, but a sunflower head can deliver quite a thump). They remind the blue jays and chickadees of lunch counters. As we speak a whole flock of jays, silent all summer, are careening around the house, shrieking and beeping and barking.....I'll bet they are scarfing seeds up in the garden too. They will be welcome as soon as I get enough seeds saved to grow more next summer... I am hoping the ones I am picking are ripe enough to dry and plant. Some of them are the most amazing deep purple color...which rubs off on your fingers if you pick out seeds. It amazes me how much of our produce never makes it in from the garden. They are sure tasty.

Can you guess what this is?
NYV probably knows.

Sundae on the Farm

2006 Sundae on the Farm
at Hu-Hill Farm,
one of my favorites ever

The big event will take place this Sunday, 12-4, at the Conbeer Farm over across the river from us. If you live within driving distance, don't miss the giant free ice cream sundae, live animal demonstrations, horse-drawn wagon rides, live music and all kinds of opportunities to meet farmers and learn about farming. Some events are for fee, but most stuff is free and you sure can have a good time enjoying the beginning of the season.

Sundae on the Farm is always a great time for all involved.. An amazing amount of volunteer hours go into it and the results are worth the effort. I have attended a number of them, sometimes just for fun, and sometimes because I am on the Montgomery County Farm Bureau board of directors and have to do my part. This year I will probably be there and Liz definitely will be. If you are coming let me know and maybe we can meet up.





Here are directions to the event:
From Amsterdam - Rte. 5 West for 8 miles, go through downtown Fonda- about 1 mile, take slight Right onto Hickory Hill Rd. Farm 3.5 miles on right
From Rte 90 (Thruway) – Exit 28, turn Left onto Riverside Dr, at traffic light take Right, at next traffic light turn Left onto Rte. 5 West, 1 mile through downtown take Right onto Hickory Hill Rd, Farm is 3.5 miles on Right

Busy, busy

*The milking machines waiting to be washed after milking yesterday*

The various weathermen and women in the area seem to agree that it is going to get cold and storm over the next few days. Consensus is rare among them, so we are hustling around today getting ready. The boss is feeding the cows up right now; all the heifers are down from the hill and hanging around pestering him while he tries to work. I suspect that he wishes they were back out.

*The path to the orchard, made by Becky and Jack, but used by me in my woodquests*

I have been up in the old orchard gathering odds and ends of dry wood off the ground and from the old apple trees, which seem to shed dead branches like a dog sheds hair. A couple of wheelbarrows full of that stuff and the stove will really get cranking....and the kitchen will get nice and toasty. As soon as the cows are taken care of the boss is going out to get us some serious wood (as opposed to the frivolous little stuff I haul in with my trusty wheelbarrow). I am afraid we are going to need it.

*The wimpy wood I find*

It is a fine day for working outdoors, sunny...temps probably hitting the low forties. It doesn't really feel much like November, although there have been plenty of gloom and doom days to remind us of the season. Tomorrow however it is supposed to be much colder with northwest winds and snow...naturally, since, Liz is off on a school field trip to Ithaca tomorrow. Her class is going to tour the bull stud at Genex, which should be interesting. (In fact I am kind of jealous.) The boss and I went, or tried to go, to Sire Power down in Tunkhannock years ago, but we got lost, so it was closed by the time we got there. Oh, well, maybe some day.

Twas the day before.....

Dish washing, yam boiling, celery chopping, pie crust all over the table, onions blending their fragrance (pungently) with that of the three gifted kittens in crates in the kitchen. Liz went down to Gordie and Marie's yesterday and brought home two short haired calicoes and a long-haired black and white tom. Can you imagine a farm running out of barn cats? Me neither, but we only have four old cats and the two little yellow ones I got at Wal*Mart last year left. (Speaking of the scents of Thanksgiving preparations, I just remembered why I don't like cats in the house. Yowsa, tomorrow will be better on that front I hope.)

Liz is cooking the dinner this year (she did last year too because I had the flu) but I helped with the shopping and am helping with the clean up. We hit the stores at 6:30 this morning to miss the crowds and it worked out well. However, we had a touch of excitement on the way home. We were just leaving Johnstown when something black banged off the windshield leaving behind a mark. It made an incredibly loud CRACK sound and scared the heck out of both of us. At first I thought it was a rock from someone's tire and I looked around for a truck or car, which might have thrown it. There was nobody there! Liz thinks it was a spent bullet and I suspect that she may be right.We were right next to an abandoned farm. We didn't need any coffee after that I can tell you!

Would you believe kids over at school were really giving her a hard time yesterday because she is doing the cooking? I don't mind a bit doing it myself. However, she asked a couple of weeks ago if it was all right if she did it. The kids all learned to cook partly from their late grandmother, some from me and some from my mom. They all like to. However, her buddies think it is cruel that we are letting her undertake such a big meal. She says if she had been born just a couple of generations ago she would be married by now and cooking for her own family and doesn't care what they think.

Gee, I'm glad she's not (married and cooking for somebody else I mean). It is nice to lean back and watch someone else doing all the chopping and rolling and boiling. However, it is back to the salt mines for me I guess....well, actually, the kitchen sink. I am waiting for the woodstove to get some more water hot for me and then I will tackle more of those darned dishes.

A little randomness

Grandpa's gold finches

Blue jay inspecting the lawn for errant sunflower seeds

Oh, deer