Sunday Stills...Potluck- Sassafras

Forsythias along the trail among the trees

Part of the college beef herd

One of the college ponds

It took a while...a couple months in fact, but I sold my sheep clipper set on Craig's List to a very nice lady, whom we met yesterday in a parking lot in town. Alas we have no more sheep, so I had no more need of them.

Then Alan took me grocery shopping. On the way home we made a side trip we have been wanting to do for a long time to the arboretum and ski lodge at SUNY Cobleskill (which the powers that be, in their infinite wisdom recently closed because of budget cuts. Great asset-short sighted administrators).

He wanted me to know what sassafras smells like. Rumor is that the crushed twig smells like Fruit Loops. However, the article says rootbeer, but I say, just nice...tangy...woodsy, outdoorsy. We brought my twig home, dusted it with rooting hormone and stuck it in a pot. Maybe I will have a sassafras tree in while.The pics are him running up the hill to get the twig and running back down in the rain and cold and miserable that has marked our weather this weekend.

Meanwhile I had a lot of fun and got some rain-darkened photos of the coolest college around. Where else can you find canoes and trout and rare trees and cows and sheep and horses and...and...and greenhouses and streams and so much stuff I want to go back to college just to play with it all?

For more Sunday Stills.....

Weekend

Liz set up and manned the Farm Bureau booth at John Deere days on Saturday. I helped her for a couple of hours, got to talk to a few area folks and Matt and Lisa who stopped by with their son. It is always a very nice program with wonderful food and very welcoming, friendly folks, but this year we heard enough bad news to last the whole year.

An area icon, familiar literally since my childhood, is gravely ill and missed the affair for the first time ever I guess, there has been another self-inflicted death on the edge of the farm community, someone we knew a little, and some dear friends, of whom we are terrifically fond, have had enough of this ridiculous price situation and are selling their cows. All such sad news...none of the stories we heard were mine to tell, so I won't, but they were pretty awful. I wish the anti-trust investigations that are supposed to be going on now, would get it in gear and actually stop the market manipulation that is driving prices down artificially. I don't think the big processors are a bit afraid that anything is really going to happen to them, as manipulation on the CME goes on apace....

And for you dairy farmers who wonder where your money is going, here is a link (caution, pdf) from John Bunting's blog, to a story in the Milkweed, that will probably floor you. (Take time to read it all if you can.) It sure shocked me. Dang, here we dairy folks are losing our farms and wrecking our credit and letting our families go without stuff that would probably surprise you if you knew about it and these "promotion" execs and "cooperative" execs are making money that would look good on Wall Street. There is a skunk in the woodpile, I'm telling you, and I hope they smell it in Washington soon.





Alan is no longer studying fisheries and wildlife over at Coby. He realized that jobs in the field are nearly non-existent and switched into the ag-engineering program, which is mostly a study of diesel engines. He has always had an amazing aptitude for mechanical work and is doing very well so far.

I took a couple pics of this gigantic tractor Saturday, because it is one of the ones he is learning to work on over at the college..(it was just visiting Hudson River Tractor for JD Days and the FB booth was right in front of it.) People actually stopped to ask us (we must have looked as if we would know) what farmers do with such huge tractors.....we told them that they work huge fields.

Happy Sunday, Mom and Dad

The Things

Visited the brother and sister in law yesterday
and the wind was darned near blowing this chicken away! Thanks for a great time guys!

Up with which I have to put.....including kids and stubborn cows

Exhibit A) One of them (kid, not cow) practicing calling coyotes while using MY computer...IN THE DINING ROOM. If you have not heard a predator call go here.
After suffering through that, bear in mind that my personal distressed rabbit uses no call, but sounds much more like an actual rabbit than the guy in the video. I thought turkey calls were bad but....

Exhibit B) Large people playing catch with a seventeen-pound bag of dog food...in the kitchen.
Okay it didn't break, but it could have. What was up with that anyhow?

Exhibit C) Cows that won't have their calves and get it over with. I did both last-at-night and first-in-the morning checks and dang, my eyes feel like a sandbar. And no babies yet. Broadway looks as uncomfortable as heck and seems a little off, but she is eating and getting up and down fine...and NOT having that baby despite being more than ten days overdue. Now Magic is bagged up and about ready, Cider is getting there and Armada is going on the night check list...all I can say is ARGGGHHHH,,,

And last night I was just falling asleep when a bunch of coyotes tuned up, really close...close enough to be heard inside our room, which has a lot of plastic on the windows, and over the din from the Thruway, which offers a never-ending counterpoint of humming, roaring and rumbling. The boss jumped out of bed and went out on the landing to see if he could see them, but despite a small moon and a scattering of stars he couldn't see anything but darkness. I suspect they were on the creek between the house and barn. It serves as a highway for everything from the fisher to beavers to foxes and those pesky brush wolves. It was a while before I fell back to sleep....

At least this morning is dawning clear and pretty with the eastern sky peaches and fire against the deep, dark blue of the zenith. The early barn check offered a river of crystal stars pouring across the sky like liquid diamonds.... and no snow or mud to trudge through, just frozen bare dirt. It has been so cold and windy for so long that five degrees felt warm.

I may whine about all this cow and kid stuff, but putting up with it all is always worth it.

I rest my case.....

Sweet

My daughters are singing together in the kitchen. The men are in the milkhouse yarning...Chores are done...it isn't too cold, there is a soft breeze blowing instead of a gale force wind. The sky to the north is lit up by the cities and looks like an Easter egg from the dark side. Things are calm and gently peaceful...what could be sweeter?

2010

Sometimes a piece of yarn is a mighty fine thing

Good morning all, and Happy New Year. Not much to say yet, beyond those things.....
I hope for all of you and for our nation and our struggling world that this just-born year with the neat name...twenty-ten, I like that...will be better, kinder, sweeter in the savoring, than this one just past was.

Good things happened last year though, in between the struggles and problems. Mom made it through chemo and is her wonderful self again...and maybe it is good that all of us learned to appreciate just how wonderful that self always has been. She is such an enthusiastic, upbeat, happy and loving person, always able to see and enjoy the bright side of every single thing in life. We have been so darned lucky to have her as our mom all those years, anchoring, negotiating peace and making really good soup. Nowadays, I at least, know just how grateful I need to be for that.

Brotherly peace and love found our family this year in so many ways...... I will be grateful for that forever I expect. I wish that my whole life I had appreciated the folks in my family. They sure were and are good folks.

Scrolling back through the photos here on Northview this past week in the course of writing my year end retrospective for the Farm Side, I got to see and remember just a little of the amazing beauty that was put on parade for us day in and day out. I hope this upcoming year I remember to stop and savor all that a little more, in between worrying about bills and breakdowns.

Thanks for visiting! Best wishes to every one of you from all of us at Northview Farm

Our Bird Count Totals, Day of the Jay

No "ooh-ah" birds this year, although I guess team Mayfield South counted the only horned larks. There was a neat little flock of them feeding in the up and down way they have near a horse pasture we passed.

We saw:

1 sharp-shinned hawk
7 Red-tailed hawks
1 Unidentified hawk species...see below




4 Downy woodpeckers
1 Hairy woodpecker
6 White-breasted nuthatches

6 American goldfinches
1 House finch
1 Northern cardinal

1 Mallard duck
4 Unidentified duck species...probably more mallards, but they got behind a tree in high speed flight
134 Rock pigeons

7 Ring-billed gulls
167 Starlings
14 Tufted titmice

157 Common crows
19 Dark-eyed juncos
14 House sparrows (Sassenachs)

4 Tree sparrows
137 Black-capped chickadees
55 Mourning doves

24 American Turkeys
25 horned larks
And 97 Blue Jays

I doubt that 97 is the highest count we have had with jays, but it is certainly the most in a while. They were everywhere in flocks of as many as 25 at a time. Guess they have recovered from West Nile and are having a good year.

It was certainly a weird day. We have been counting MFS for a very long time, probably over twenty years. In that much time you learn where the birds are likely to be, droves of chickadees on Maloney Road, lots of everything good on Ashler Road if it is passable, etc. Yesterday, the good spots were virtually all bereft of birds. Instead we found them in weird places, like a large mixed feeding flock in the parking lot of a tractor trailer place where we have never seen a single bird before. Strange...also strange is not seeing a single Canada goose. There are still hundreds of them down here on the river just a few miles from our territory.

As always it is fun to get out with the family and count the birds. The brothers and I are the second generation to work this territory and we all three of us have kids that will probably keep up the tradition in the future. I for one am grateful for those sharp young eyes when they ride out with us.

What Do You Give

BEFORE the storm yesterday

The girl who has everything....except enough feed to go through the winter?

It has been such a bad year here. The boss was still haying two weeks ago as we had rain almost continuously since last May....and still there isn't enough out there in the ag bags...now we have snow and there will be no more.

So my dear younger brother and his kind wife bought...and delivered...eleven huge bales of baleage for us yesterday. It was snowing and then freezing, soaking rain, and Lisa is sick with a nasty cold...but they still worked out in the weather to get that feed to us. They also took the time to drive back home...and they don't live close by any means...to pick up Matt's homemade, but really cool three-point-hitch fork lift attachment when our skid steer proved unequal to the task of unloading. So Alan got them off Matt's friend's trailer after a while....

Last night Liz and Alan and I tore open a bale and unwound it and fed a couple of wheelbarrows to the girls.

They devoured it. I went around after milking and fed an armful to each of the high producers and they devoured that too.
I was happy to know that they had that good stuff to fill them up.

Thanks guys! What you did was well and above and beyond the call of duty. I am very thankful and so are our ladies. That went right to the top of the list of the best Christmas presents ever!

Nippy

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.

In Retrospect

This is about how I felt after dinner yesterday.

I hope you all had as good a time as you could yesterday, with family, friends and a fine festival of foodiness.

And thankfulness.

We did...we have so much to be thankful for and yesterday was no exception. Thanks go to Liz for cooking a fabulous feast all by herself. How many 23-year-olds can cook and serve an entire traditional Thanksgiving dinner? Six pies...including a mince pie just for me because I am the only one who likes it. I will freeze individual slices and have pie for a long time to come....plus peach for Alan and apple and pumpkin for everybody. And she got the dressing just right and made a lot of it, without frying the microwave like I did a couple of years ago. The turkey was just right too....and the potatoes and every other thing as well. She worked at it for three days.....I am so proud of her....and it all was so very good.

I am thankful that our Breezey 375 is home. It feels complete and right here now. And she is a great help in so many ways. We missed her a lot. It is going to be miserable to take her back on Sunday.... Can't wait for the next break.

And I am thankful that those &%#** Jersey heifers that jumped the fence didn't get any farther than the 30-acre lot before Alan and his friend happened upon them while out hunting and brought them back in.

I am also thankful that the friend, who lost his very expensive cell phone way up in back....way, way, way up in back under the power lines....was able to find it, after his dad gave him a firmly worded ultimatum on that topic. (Along the lines of get back there and look for it and don't come home without it. lol) They looked and looked (finding in the course of the search my gun sling, which Alan lost a couple of deer hunts ago) and finally stopped to talk. Alan asked the friend something about looking for the phone, the esteemed young friend looked down between his feet...right where he was standing...and there it was! I suspect he was even more thankful that I was.

We had a wonderful day yesterday...food, family, friends and peaceful contentment. (Not to mention Sunday chair naps for the old folks.) Today it is back to sweating the finances and trying to do right...but the interlude was fine and I liked it.

Apple A Day

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.

Salt Rising Bread

How many of you western NY folks are familiar with it?

Do you like it?

Around here if you have Montgomery blood having someone bring back a loaf (or two) from Hornell is like Christmas, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July rolled into one.
And one of those wonderful brothers I have and his lovely wife, did just that day before yesterday.
After a brief meeting at the bottom of our washed out canyon of a driveway, Alan conveyed the precious loaves to the kitchen where we looked on in wonder.

We have had salt rising bread for breakfast
Supper
Snacks
General occasions of irresistibilty.
There is still some left......maybe I should hide it.

Happy Birthday Mom

We don't dare come see you because we are all still sick, but we will be thinking of you and will call.

Love you!!!

Hope you have a great day!

Happy 58th

Wedding anniversary to our mom and dad.
Congratulations on having what it takes.
Love from all your "kids".

Chicks...Coming and Going

Our middle chick is leaving the nest today, so perhaps it is fitting that this little guy and a small black one showed up yesterday.

Hopefully our big chickie will learn a lot, make wonderful friends, have a great time....and remember where home is. And with any luck I will have some pics of the 'Dacks for you tomorrow, because if we take the route Alan has planned we will be driving right through the Adirondack State Park. KoTF anyone?

Longing

I knew it would be hard.

And I knew it would happen. Must happen. Always happens in every life that is blessed by healthy offspring. Who ever thought that it would be our no so adventuresome middle kid to leave home first?

However, Becky leaves for college on Friday.
Five hours away.
She did two years at Coby, but to continue in anthropology and archaeology she must go far away.
She is ready.
Me not so much.

We already have one college graduate with all kinds of honors, and one second year student, but they commuted so although they were gone they were here too....that was bad enough.


I didn't know it would be so hard. I miss her already.

Homecoming Week

Being back from camp is always a challenge. I don't think we quite realize just how busy we are until we let it all go for a week. Then homecoming hits like a two by four to the head. This year it is worse than usual because of the dairy situation. The point of can't do it any more is rapidly approaching on farms all over the country and ours is no exception.

Alan has jumped into finishing up 1st cutting. They finished Hickory Tree Field yesterday, with one more big field and one small to go. It is still too wet to put a tractor in any of the new seeding, but we are praying the ground firms up enough to get that in.

We are so glad we only planted a little corn this year. The cost of putting it in is ridiculous since the advent of wonderful, wonderful (insert sarcasm) ethanol. And with this lousy weather, what they did plant looks two months behind. If they can get the first cutting finished up I guess there is some nice second to go after too. And that new seeding weather permitting.

The boss was worrying about buying corn meal this winter to replace the corn we didn't grow. I pointed out to him that the cows are doing pretty well on cheap (ish) grain and green chop. They ought to do just as well or better on fermented green stuff and the same grain this winter...so why worry?

Liz is tired from filling in for the rest of us for the past week. I feel bad for her. Alan came down several times and helped her milk, but the boss doesn't exactly leap into the fray during milking. She is planning her fairs....decided to show her Blitz daughter at Altamont and Fonda. She got a Roylane Jordan daughter from her, which is some solace I guess for being left with all the work. Her vacation will be the shows... Not my idea of restful contemplation but then I am a whole lot older than she is. I can remember dragging the ponies over to Fonda...and the cart...harnesses...hay...weeks, months, years of training. For a couple of little slips of ribbon (usually red, although Major Moves and I once brought home the blue for open driving.)

Becky will be off to Potsdam in 31 days. I think she is getting nervous. I know I am. She will be the first one of the kids to leave home....I am not sure just how folks deal with that phenomenon, but I guess I will be finding out pretty soon.

While we were away my Trixie family heifer gave birth to a one-half milking shorthorn heifer calf. It came as an amazing surprise to me as it is the loveliest carrot red you could imagine. I simply didn't suspect that Encore was a red carrier, despite her mama being a Citation R Maple daughter. Kind of neat anyhow. I am looking forward to seeing the folks who bought some semen from her sire from us last year. Wondering if they have any nice calves. Ours are amazing looking things. Wish we saw a rosier future, as I think we could make some pretty nice milking shorthorns with a little practice. The one we are milking isn't much of a tester, but she makes as much milk as a Holstein.

We are buried in calves right now. Liz has over twenty of them on buckets. Normally when milk prices are so low and we have such a barn full of heifers we would send five or six of them over to the heifer sale and pay some bills. Now they aren't worth anything. We got fourteen bucks for two nice bulls again last week. I have no clue how we are going to pay our taxes this fall as we count on heifers to fund that. Sorry to be so negative, but this is historically about the worst time dairy farming has EVER seen. I am tired.

On that note, I stumbled upon a good blog just before we left for camp. John Bunting is a well-known dairy speaker and his blog offers some insight into what is going on behind the scenes to create the current crisis. Check it out if you have a minute.

Dad

Our upbringing was unconventional to say the least.
We were raised in an antique and book store. Reading the merchandise. Learning to refinish fine furniture. Playing with relics of days gone by, like horse drawn sleighs, dummy training rifles and clay marbles. We read books from long before our lives. Talk about a different perspective than just reading current literature. ( Mary Lasswell? Tarzan. Tom Swift. Roy Chapman Andrews.)

Dad's carving of King Tutankhamen, with some others in the background

As kids we dug for Indian relics. Fossils. Amazing mineral specimens. Watched birds. Camped. Fished. Read and read and read..... hundreds of books. Thousands of books. We all still read. A lot.

Rose quartz I found while mineral collecting with dad

Dad was president of the local Audubon Society. Mineral Club. Carving Club. There is a rare mineral he found in a place it had never been seen before sitting in a display in the state museum in Albany. He won many, many awards for his carvings over the years and even taught some classes. He was a mover and shaker in Clan Montgomery and still is. He and mom have been married for 57 years after meeting on a blind date. They are still dating.....

Painting of Liz by Mom, who was much encouraged in her art by Dad over the years.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Thanks for the adventurous mind and the interests to go with it. We all love you!

If By Chance You Are

Here is a picture of a whole batch of Montgomerys...including my parents, some favorite aunts and uncles and all sorts of other related folks. They gather in Harpursville every year to celebrate being family. This year they had a speaker on the participation of the regiments of a number of ancestors in the Civil War. (Help me out here Mom, I never remember them).