With Liz away in Pittsburgh we are somewhat short handed. We are gettin' it done though.
The boss is fixing up the barn for winter, replacing stall dividers that the cows tore out, putting in windows etc. We fixed up the water hose too, where that idiot trespasser with the trailer tore holes in it. It wasn't leaking too bad for a while, but went completely south this weekend.
Frost last night, trucks are coated. I took the camera to the barn to try to take advantage of the incredible light. With the sun so low in the sky and sunrise so late it slants like a big spotlight, picking out all the subtle colors of the oaks, poplars and sumacs that still have leaves. I didn't get too many as I had to work...sigh....but I will look at them pretty soon and see if any are worth saving.
Cows are getting so shaggy. They do not look one bit like their elegant summer selves. Even Mandy is growing a thick warm coat. I hope this doesn't promise an extra cold winter, although if it killed off the darned ticks I would put up with it.
Sometimes it seems as if we work for BP here at the farm. The Birdie Pancake stop and shop that is. We are awash in migrating robins, on their down from the far north and heading south to visit our good friends in the warmer states.
They are all business, chirping earnestly and hurtling from sumac to Virginia creeper to river bank grape (our equivalent of hard rolls with butter, donuts, and plum Danish), intent on getting breakfast, before they rejoin the caravan of voyageurs rolling south for winter. Their behavior is nothing like their tentative manner in spring, when they test out this perch or that for is acoustical properties, singing a few warbling notes from each before choosing the finest for their dawn and evening concerts. Now they are on the move and in a hurry. A flash of white underpinnings, a hint of russet breast feathers and they are gone.
We still have a few singers though. White-throated sparrows toss off half of an off-key "old Sam Peabody" as they glean the bushes and hedgerows. Chickadees chick and titmice whistle. Gold finches chink and cheer. Jays shriek, crows crawk.....And the other morning early when I was out seeing to Nick, the last BC in my world, I got my own personal serenade. One of the male mockingbirds must have been sleeping in the red delicious apple tree; I must have startled him awake (it was o'dark thirty as usual). He burst into short but vibrant song, just a few lush phrases before he woke up enough to realize that it was fall and he needn't bother with all that. His song was like a golden apple glowing in the dark, so sweet and strong and lovely. I was much richer for the experience and thanked him kindly for his efforts as he winged away down the old orchard.
As fall segues relentlessly into the sleeping iron of winter we must take the wonders where we find them. Mockers and robins do it for me.
Both ends of the day, dagnabbit, and no choice about it. Thank the Lord for flash lights.
Last night we got done with chores fairly early. The boss was able to feed the cows from the wagon in the field so we could turn them right out at the end of milking. Thus I came to the house just as the moon was taking over sky duty for the night.
The sky was cobalt and gold with twenty jet trails stretched across it horizon to horizon. They were like a foggy fan, wide in the east, converging in the west, some wide and faded, some sharp and thin.
I puttered around building up the fire in the stove for overnight and soon I could also see live jets flashing among the contrails. Wow, there are a LOT of planes flying over this place. The phenomenon was much noticed and discussed on Facebook on a friend's page later in the night.
Then well after it was really dark (and I was lying in bed re-reading a Diana Gabaldon book) the chickens set up a fuss. I knew something had been bothering them as they have been trying to roost on the porch...this is not a development that I favor as they have been sending deer antlers, planting supplies and bottles of dry gas and chain saw oil treatment flying all over when they get up on the freezer. I ran out into the dark, barefoot with flashlight.
Not a sign of a thing, but the boss says possum. From the low key outrage they are expressing I'll bet he is right. Guess I need to put them back in the little coop.
Morning, still dark, back out to take Nick up to the run with his breakfast. Foggy, which is fine, as foggy beats rainy any day of the week and that was what was predicted when we retired last night.
I don't much like the dark, but one entertaining aspect is shining my flashlight down into the garden pond on the way in at night. Young froglets and crayfish trundle around doing what they do among the plants and sleepy gold fish. It is fun to get a look at their secret world.
***Incidentally the blog roll crashed this weekend. I have done my best to reconstruct it from memory, but if I missed you, please let me know so I can add you back in. Thanks!
Today is our payback for yesterday's warmth and beauty. Rain. High winds. General yuckiness....incoming. I am hoping we get the cows in before the rain starts. Milking wet cows is not such a pleasant chore. Several of mine think it is just peachy to lean on me when I wash their udder and put the milker on. Bad enough when they are dry, but when they are dripping...ugh.
Milk Weed is not open yet. I love the silvery lining of the pods when the fluff pops out
Bonanza of box elder bugs. I didn't get time this summer to photograph the amazing egg laying party they threw in the big box elder behind the house. Everything about them is pink and black...even the eggs are pink!
Walking up to the field is a sensory banquet. I don't smell the cows, but I am sure you would if you walked along.. It is not an offensive odor, just warm and earthy. I do catch the sweet odor of the sorghum silage, which smells sugary just like fermenting corn. It is a nice scent and comforts me with the knowledge that the men are putting up feed to keep the cows secure through the winter.
A flaming candle of ash
I don't know what possessed me to take a hike up back this afternoon. I had to go to the barn to check on Scooter who is not doing so well again. His extreme prematurity has compromised so many of his systems that if it isn't one thing it is another. Anyhow for some reason I just took off hiking after I looked in on him...maybe the need to get some red and green photos for Sunday Stills...maybe the knowledge that bad weather impends and there may not be many more warm fall days like this one. If you walk the farm roads you can smell poplar trees, a passing skunk, the fruity bouquet of river grapes and the lush green scent of crushed grass as you walk along.
Grasshoppers will rattle against your boots and butterflies, question marks (thanks Dani) sulfurs, cabbage whites and a little blue one I think is a Melissa flutter around your feet. Bees buzz. Dragon flies hum as they hunt. Of course there are always a few overly friendly flies and hungry mosquitoes too.
The grass is such a brilliant green that you would think it was August. However, scarves of yellow river bank grape flung with abandon across leafless trees give lie to that theory, as does the purple-red Virginia creeper festooning the hedgerows everywhere.
I stopped to pish a little brown bird out of the hedgerow between the 30 and 60-acre lots. It came right out to show me its stripey-spotted breast.... a song sparrow. A white-throated sparrow was singing lazily just down the way when I caught a slight movement to my left. There, right next to me, was a cat bird, peering to see what was making that funny noise. Too slow with the camera, but I will cherish the memory of his bright, inquisitive eye and lush grey plumage.
I thought to go up and visit the boss where he was chopping but he had changed fields and I was too lazy to hike the rest of the way up there. Just as well because by the time I got back down the hill he was right behind me. With high wind advisories for tomorrow, I am grateful for this one warm, sweet fall day.
There were tracks everywhere, of deer, raccoons, and possibly the fisher again.
Of the season...it has been a bit dry even here at monsoon-plagued Northview, so I suppose I shouldn't complain about the rain. The girls and I did chores yesterday morning so the boss could do most of his outside work before it hit. Now everything is black and grey and gloomy....and drippy..I think I need to migrate.
The moon came up in a swirl of color, punkin' yaller, almost-orange, trailing fog like gypsy scarves all around her.
Of course I was out in the barn lane, putting cows up the hill, no camera, but eyes too see and marvel.
By the time I got in it was past the horizon and sailing forward and I am lousy at moon shots. But it was still a lovely thing, though not much more exciting then a lemon.
And then this morning the sun came up yellow too with the trees all fogged and dew dropped lit up dusty green. Fine weather for the harvest served up daily.
It matters. Sudan Grass/sorghum develops a poisonous acid after stress like frost. We are feeding and ensiling it right now. First step-stick head out the door (pet the dog for a minute too) and listen for crickets. They usually get it right.
Nope, not a one chirping. Still doesn't either feel or smell that cold ...and yes, you can smell cold, although I can't exactly explain how.
Second step, swipe a hand across the stuff on the car. Nope, not hard and crispy,just wet.
Finally, get high tech. Turn to the computer and check out weather stations. 41 at Albany airport. Probably didn't freeze here either. Okay, another day of bringing in plants, cleaning up garden and turning grapes into jelly. Why oh, why, did the boss's late father plant the grape vine right next to the standard apple tree? Most of them are up about thirty feet on teeny, tiny little branches. We won't be getting them, alas.
Paul at Salt Creek Life has the nicest poem about the season that I have read in a good long while. It had me smiling and reading out loud. Go read...enjoy.
Like you really can't carry an egg in your pocket. Even your shirt pocket. Even if you go right straight to the house. Go ahead, try it. I have.
An egg in your pocket that doesn't make it to the house has truly nasty side effects. Really.
I found a nice egg this morning hidden in the neatest little cubby among the straw bales that Liz had left from the fair. A little rectangular tunnel back between the bales, just a comfy size for a chicken, dark, and nicely padded. I could just see how very tempting it must be for a hen to snuggle down in there for her daily confinement.
In fact the crook leg hen was in there when I went to get a couple slabs of straw to bed Nick's dog house up for the cooler nights. She clucked at me in irritation, I grabbed the fat white egg that was sitting there...and stuck it in my shirt pocket.
I tended to making Nick's bed without mishap, other than that Nick wanted to be in the dog house when I wanted to stuff it with straw.....then I went to the stove to chuck in some of the nine thousand pound blocks of oak that the boss provided me for heating water. I am sure you are guessing what happened next.
But no, I have been, more times than I care to admit, that farm person will the ill-fated egg in the pocket. One time it was five eggs, but I won't bore you with the details of that debacle.
I set the egg carefully in the grass, filled the stove, and grateful for years of experience with the perils of egg production, sauntered in for breakfast.....with no egg, either on my face or in my pocket.
That the sun was coming up near the neighbor's spruce tree. Now it rises way to the south and is usually a sadly pale version of its summer fiery self. Unless we get some pretty unlikely weather we are done baling for the year. Days are too short and dew is too heavy for the hay to dry so it is back to chopping for the ag bags
At the Farm Bureau meeting last night our Cooperative Extension rep was telling folks to be checking their corn for maturity. As in the past couple of years a lot of it is way ahead of the norm. Since we didn't plant any this summer it won't be an issue for us.
The birds are sure making themselves scarce. A few passing killdeers, a lot of starlings and the odd chickadee or two are about it except for blue jays. Those gorgeous blue devils have found the giant sun flowers and are denuding them apace. I hope they scatter a few seeds like they did last year so I have some volunteers next year. This year's monsters were volunteers and they are the biggest I have ever grown. I really should cut one down and just save a few seeds, but the task daunts me. They are that big.
Sadie, the guard dog here at the house...mostly an anti-deer-in-the-garden device...barked all night last night. Finally at one AM I got up and went out to see what was troubling her.
Flashlight, dark night, cold barn walk. Wally the barn guard was sleeping, so he wasn't worried about whatever was up. Ditto Nick up in his kennel.
All was well at the barn, no cows in the yard, cold enough for the house windows to be all steamed up and as quiet as it ever gets. Waste of time getting up, but I couldn't just ignore her. There have been a lot of odd things going on around here during the fair...salesmen who weren't really salesmen showing up at the door, trying to barge right on in (I sent them packing) dogs barking during the day when there was seemingly nothing to bark at. The boss was accosted by thugs over at the fair....there are some pretty questionable folks around and I worry....and lock things that are normally not locked. Still I hate getting up in the middle of the night.
But, ah, the stars. We live near a village with lots of night lighting. You can rarely see much more than the brightest of stars, a mere sprinkling compared to what is visible in the Adirondacks. Just too much light for them. However, last night most of the lights in town were dimmed. Thick trees, still heavy in leaf, screened the rest. Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, right down against the hills...horizons usually white from city lights. Across the entire sky the path of the Milky Way was clearly visible. Because of light pollution that is something I have only seen a few times, mostly while camping among sheltering mountains up north. It was like a blazing white ribbon, stretching East to West, glowing brighter than I could even imagine.
I stood in the driveway south of the heifer barn among the sleepy crickets, the urgent cry of a passing night bird echoing loud, the huffing of the heifers on the other side of the fence, comforting and cozy...and just watched the stars for a long time.
This morning I was kind of worse for wear, what with the limited hours of sleep I managed to get, but I wouldn't have missed the show for anything.
And as I came back to the house, way across the river I saw a little bonfire. I'll bet somebody was fishing and maybe partying just a bit and in the incredible stillness (holiday weekend, the Thruway was silent) Sadie could hear the voices of the revelers.
The musical brother and me at that family get together a while back Photo shamelessly stolen from niece's Facebook
Gettin' nippy here in the North Country. All was frosted this morning, with the heifers blowing smoke rings as they huddled against the south wall of the barn soaking up thin, early sunlight.
Sure pretty like that. When it is sharp and cold you can see for miles and hear the geese calling about that far too. The moon was so bright on its way down this morning that you could see that it was not just a round, flat disc in the sky, but rather a big, fat, sphere. Wish I had had time to go back in for the camera, but the cows were waiting, along with Liz who went out early to get a good start on the day.
Missed some amazing shots on the trip to take Becky back last Sunday as well. The mountains around Indian Lake were covered with a thin coat of wet, icy snow. It was grey and cloudy, but narrow spotlights of sun brought them into blazing focus, with threads of fog flowing off them and merging with fuzzy-edged snow clouds like chilly silver. On the way home it was actually snowing up there and it was like a curtain going up and down as they came briefly into view and than vanished in whirling clouds. The mountains never disappoint us it seems, although we still haven't seen a moose. We keep staring into every bog and swamp and tamarack-spiked little black lake, but alas no alces alces to be seen.
Went to our favorite orchard yesterday to pick a bushel of apples to store. (If we get a chance I am going back for more before they close.)
We had the place to ourselves as the season is winding down. It is so beautiful up there. There is no place like home, but Bellinger's Orchard is sure a close second. There was no shortage of apples either. The trees are still weighed right down with varieties ranging from standards like Ida Red to new ones I had never encountered before like Ruby Jon.
We almost filled our half bushel bags with Northern Spies and Ida Red. Then came the fun part...wandering among the trees looking for tasty looking apples to test drive this fall to see if we want a larger quantity next time. Alan nibbled a dropped Empire that he picked up and was sold immediately. He probably picked half a peck of them just for his own entertainment.
We also grabbed a few Pink Ladies, a couple of the aforementioned Ruby Jons, some Ambrosias, Granny Smiths and some Winesaps. (It does look as if our tree in the yard is a Winesap as the apples look just right.)
To me a couple bags of good hard apples in the front hall is like money in the bank. No, better than money in the bank...it is apple snack season. We have been making applesauce whenever we get any apples. There is still time for more spiced apple jelly.......Liz bakes a mean apple pie. Alan has suggested expanding his pumpkin bar franchise to include apple bars....
Yeah, I think I do need to run up and grab another bushel before they close...which might happen this week.
(After all the gloom and doom I figure I owe them to you) Ever since we started showing at the Altamont Fair I have wondered about some night calling insects we first heard there. By the French Fry booth in fact...just down from the cider house...They make a scritchy, scrapey sound that is quite loud, but I never could pinpoint one to see what it was.
Then a few years ago I started hearing them here too. Probably they were here all along, but I didn't notice...maybe the multitudinous crickets drowned them out. Soon I found myself standing outside for a few extra minutes on late summer's evenings, listening and wondering. What the heck was making that noise?
I thought for a long time that they might have been katydids, but the songs in online catalogs were never exactly right. It was frustrating.
The other night I was coming to the house in the early darkness, listening as usual, when one tuned up his song about three feet from my head. I spun around, flashlight probing, and there he was in all his green and buggy splendor, a gigantic katydid. So that mystery is solved.
Then there is the morning sun slanting across dew-soaked Queen Ann's lace...spotlighting the red six-bar gate and making it look like it was written in fire against its cowey background. Geese zig-zagging north, south, east and west, barking like a world full of beagles and turning the tame sky wild.
Finding dozens of minute orange, red, and gold crab apples adorning the tiny tree that volunteered along the driveway. Their colors are more vibrant than the sugar maples even, like delightful Christmas balls decorated in fresh fall colors. (They will show up tomorrow in the Sunday Stills post.)
An odd white caterpillar that wiggled so fast across the grassy ground that it was hard to get a picture of him. The wild turkey that for some reason visits the wood stove every morning. Chipmunk striped baby chicks in the calf pen. Mama is so funny, keeping them behind the gate by pecking at them amazingly hard. I think baby chick is the lightest substance known to man. They seem to move by levitation....especially when dodging that stabbing beak.
George and Laura, the fluffy white banty chickens Teri gave to Liz last year as baby chicks. They are always together and look so striking, like bright white feather flags everywhere they go. And tiny George, who could sit in the palm of my hand crowing the sun up (and down and all day in between) is king of all he surveys. Woe betide Mr. Fluff, or the speckly rooster or the brown ones if they step in his way or look crosswise at his precious Laura! He is one tough cookie for all his dainty appearance.
Every walk to the clothesline, trip to the cow barn, visit to the woodstove, or jaunt to feed the pony brings a wealth of sweet surprises to every passing day. Bright sides everywhere you look.
Shrieking cicadas in the honey locust right next to the kitchen window. There are so many and they are so loud they drown out even the Thruway.
Gold finches in droves, tinkling from thistle to thistle. There are hundreds and they do the baby raising gig now when the seeds they like are plentiful....the other birds have gone silent, even the mockingbird....
Shrinking days....summer days are like wool sweaters. They are hot and itchy but you love them anyhow...and the hotter it gets, and the soggier, the more they shrink, until they are just too short to be good for much of anything. We are getting there fast, alas.
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