Friends

Scrolling through Facebook this morning when I realized how fortunate I am in the friend department. Some I have hugged and laughed with in person; others live thousands of miles away in places I'll probably never see.

They all have in common that they make me laugh, share tears, make up new words with which I fall in love, teach me things I would otherwise never know, and in any manner of other ways make my days better, happier, warmer, more human. A pretty big deal for a hermit like me.

So thank you....all of you..you know who you are. 

A Rainbow

For Linda

Who likes them....

A Day for the Birds

For some this could be a complaint....but for me it is more like this.

First, when the boss went to the barn this morning, what he says is a big hawk flew out of the barn cleaner shed. He swears it's a red-tailed. Could be. It was back later when he went over again. Hopefully it will hang around long enough for me to check it out.

Then the dear, sweet, gentleman who sometimes brings bird seed in the winter stopped.

Later as I walked into the office, passing through the living room where the big windows are, a huge flock of robins passed by. By huge I mean like probably more than a hundred.

They just kept coming in waves ranging from a few birds to twenty at a time. 

And then when I went to fill the feeders a little chickadee came right up to me and scolded as he grabbed a seed.Nice, huh? 

I hope the robins hang around. I have been so jealous of my dear friend in Ohio......

Wild Geese

Although the weather forecast around here is changing and often, we are obviously going to get something.

Heaven only knows what, although we have freezing rain, heavy snow accumulations and pretty much whatever else you might choose, including zombies on Zambonis, from the winter misery menu up for grabs.

The birds are confirming that something will happen although they aren't saying what either. Feeders have been bare for weeks. Not even the Sassenachs coming in to steal seeds. Then yesterday they were crowded with sparrows, juncos, gold finches, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, and pretty much everybody else in the neighborhood. More of the same today.

And the wild geese were so restless it was crazy. A friend took me to lunch yesterday, which was an amazing lot of fun, plus good food in the bargain. We stopped on the way home to check out the population on the river in town....nothing like traveling with a fellow birder..... and it was positively thronged with birds. Not just geese, but an exceptionally large flock of assorted gulls, ducks, etc. And oddly enough, instead of being mostly gathered on the bank as usual, they were floating all over the river, mostly facing west and for the most part evenly spaced. Looked like a net of geese....hey maybe it was a skein. 

Anyhow, all day long chunks of the flock kept breaking off and flying up, circling here and there, and then cupping back down in. Of course when I walked the dog without the camera they would fly low, right over the house, with the rays of the setting sun painting their breasts gold and pink. When I went out with the camera, they would circle way off to the east, well out of range. Then when I went out to haul firewood, obviously sans camera, back they came to taunt me happily.

They were beautiful, and I looked up every single time a bunch went over. I think they feel the stirring of the coming storm.

And I had a white-crowned sparrow this morning. He looked pretty out of place. 

Anyhow, once you get all stocked up on milk and bread and toilet paper...did I mention milk?....stay safe and dry and warm and have a good one.

Wings

Sheltering wings. Somehow it seems that they are always there when we need them most. Someone's word or touch or kindness beyond the call lends them when the challenges are the greatest and we take comfort in the care and caring.

Sometimes we are called to lend those wings ourselves...sometimes we are shielded beneath them.

I am most thankful in this month of Thanksgiving to all of you who have stretched out your wings over the rocky parts of my life. It has always meant more than I could say. I hope sometimes I do the same for you.

Tarda Tulips

Remind me of Linda

The Good

Northern mockingbird, following us around while we built fence.

Since July of last year I have been trying to track down an mp3 of the RW Hampton song, Donnie Catch a Horse for Me, without success. You could get it on a hard copy of an album CD, but if it was out there for single purchase I couldn't find it. RW put up a link to a file of the song on Facebook yesterday, so I gave it another listen.

Still liked it.

Shared the link.

Came in from chores last night to find that a particularly dear friend, who has been known before to surprise me in sweet and wonderful ways, had found the song and sent me an mp3 of it in an email. Bet you can guess what I will be listening to today.

I dunno about you, but I use music as a crutch to get me through the boring parts. I can even do dishes, my single most hated job, and not even notice that I am doing them, if I have my favorite play list running.

I named the list Little Niagara after a river in a story I read once and it is pretty eclectic in its make up. Chris Ledoux and Elton John. Todd Fritsch and Queen. Dire Straits, the Allman Brothers Band, the Eagles, Garth, Jason Aldean, the High Kings, Emerson Drive, Lonestar (I only like one of their songs, but I like that one a lot), Jimmy Buffett, Bach's Tocata and Fugue in D Minor and lots of other stuff that only fits together in my head (although now that we have a CD of parts of it in the barn, Beck has become a Doobie Brothers fan). Now it will have Donnie Catch a Horse too.

Grin.

Farmer Connect

Lemmie at the fair. She was reserve champion Holstein

We drove a couple of hours today to look at a bull that was advertised in Country Folks. He wasn't quite what we had in mind, but the folks had another one that we were crazy about and the dam was just as nice so we are negotiating on him.

Rose Magnolia at the fair.
She was grand champion milking shorthorn over a small,
but very nice quality entry. I was stunned and I don't mean maybe.

It was so cool talking to them. When we went into their kitchen we were total strangers. At first conversation was best-behavior-basis, a little stilted, feeling each other out, testing, one, two, three, will you understand what we are thinking? Will we "get" you?

After a few minutes cautious talk about hay and weather, the conversation turned to old cattle sale catalogs and we were off. It was a wonder we weren't next door neighbors or something so much did we have in common. They are good friends with our milk inspector. They like the old bulls, attended Backus auctions, kept big bulls, and on and on.

Alan and I were looking at one another with laughter in our eyes because although the two farmers had never met and looked nothing alike, they were like twins. We stood or sat in their kitchen for hours regaling each other with stories about big, bad bulls, nice heifers, amazing auctions and so on, each getting to know the other's ways and background.

We finally had to get going and they had to get back to fitting for their fair and chores so we said goodbye....several times, always another little story or thought. We liked them a lot. I hope they liked us too. I suspect we will be buying their little bull after a bit. I sure hope we get to meet them again. Nothing like a meeting of the minds.

Twin babies born at the Miracle of Birth Center at Altamont Fair.
Mama seemed quite taken with them.

Finding Friends in Far Places

I get great joy from writing Northview Diary and interacting with the people we have met through it. People have done us astonishing kindnesses that have truly changed our lives and shared our triumphs and tragedies. The world has so much more meaning when it is shared....

Now someone very sweet has sent me the loveliest gifts, a beautiful piece of her handiwork and some delightful seeds for summer gardening....(the cheerful cow is actually on a background of snowy white)

Thank you Dani, with all my heart!

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).

We have been fed again

And very well too! I thank our benefactor. Good stuff

Yesterday

Lot #1

Some friends of ours sold their cows after a lifetime of farming with purebred Holsteins. Health was the issue I guess. When the auctioneer asked them to speak to the crowd, they simply couldn't. I was almost in tears too, because I had a pretty good idea of how they felt. So many years, such beloved animals, and in a couple of hours it would all be gone. We know the auctioneers quite well after years of attending sales and now and then buying a calf or two....they were Dave Rama of the Cattle Exchange and the dean of pedigree readers in the Holstein world, Horace Backus. They spoke very highly of this farm couple and I have never seen them work as hard to get the money out of the cows. Usually auctioneers sell as fast as they can to get people bidding impulsively, but these guys announced right at the start that they were going to take as long as it took on every cow, until they brought what they thought they should.

Horace Backus

They were fantastic cattle, with real deep pedigrees, .... lots of old fashioned sires like Paclamar Astronaut and Paclamar Bootmaker up close. It was a pleasure to see them as we have done a lot of the same kind of breeding over the years. Just sold our last Astronaut a couple years ago and I milk a daughter of one of our Elevations. My favorite yesterday was an excellent 90 Encore daughter and her own daughter. ....great big, deep-bodied black cows with an obvious will to milk.


I would have loved to have bought one, had I the money or the facilities to keep animals of that caliber..we really don't have either. Our barn is probably a couple of hundred years old and we are real hard pressed to house big cows. Mandy has to have a special stall and she barely fits in it. Anyhow, I felt pretty bad for them, but there was a crowd of the top Holstein folks in the region there for a chance to buy their cows. I think that says a lot about how very well respected they are and what a great job they have done at breeding a top quality herd. We had to leave pretty early as our own cows had to be fed, but I hope they did well enough on the sale to take some of the pain out of seeing the cows go down the road. I wish them the best anyhow.