Mars pet food recall

Gael hates the camera, but she likes Pedigree

Here is the website with codes for the new recall.


I am sure everyone remembers the horrible round of petfood recalls. at Menu Foods last year, which resulted in numerous deaths of pet dogs and cats. Now Mars company has recalled some pet foods too apparently because of salmonella contamination.

When I heard the TV in the other room announce the recall my ears perked right up. Mars makes Pedigree and we have fed the small crunchy bites since Mike was a puppy. He had a lot of health problems when he was a young dog and it seemed to be the only thing he could eat. Now he eats pretty much anything, including nasty vegetables he steals out of the compost bin, but we had success with the food so we continued to feed it.

I went right to the Mars website to check out the codes on the 40-pound bag in the pantry. Sure enough the UPC was right there on the list.

Oh, good. We have five dogs. There is about five pounds of food left in the bag.

Now what? I kept perusing the site, hunting for more information. Finally I found it. Besides the particular UPC that was on our food there also was a small three letter code, which indicated the bad batch. Our bag doesn't have it. I was not terribly worried as it takes quite a while for the mutts to munch their way through 40 pounds. If they were going to get sick I figure it would have already happened......still.......

Froggie pause

During the great laundry epic.....

Moose like sprinkers too.

HT to Windyridge who saw it first. I found this video too amazing to pass up

Amazing Balancing Frog

Trained using ancient methods discovered and perfected by the Honorable Order of Hibernian Herpetile Handlers and brought to Northview Dairy Farm for your amazement and pleasure.





***Or, wouldja believe he was sitting on the net float my mother gave me and the frogs have become so tame this summer that he stayed right there while I ran for the camera?

When is a peeper not a peeper?

....when it's a sneaky green frog

Mountain lions

Are not something I even want to contemplate.
This story of one taking a dog right out of a house, right out of someone's bedroom, flat makes me shudder. Even if the door was open. (HT to A Coyote at the Dog Show)

Right now, even though we haven't seen one, we suspect we have a black bear hanging around the place. Little things have tipped us off to the possibility of something unusual going on around us, such as the behavior of the cattle. Last night the men left us women to milk alone. No biggie; we do it all the time. However, this time it turned out to be simply a nightmare. Cows knocked milkers off. Cows crowded and thumped on us. Cows that NEVER kick, such as little Camry, who seems to appreciate Alan's efforts in saving her life this spring, kicked and kicked and kicked.

Then, when we turned them up the hill, as we always do while we finish up the last few cows, they bolted back down to the barn and all came right back inside. It is is not unusual for one or two to wander back in to look for spilled grain or just to pester us, but my whole south line ran back in at once, jumped into their stalls, then the heifers, which stay outside and don't even HAVE stalls, came in and crowded up between the cows.

It was nuts. We didn't get dinner until almost ten.
They were fine this morning.
If it was a bear, I hope it has moved along. We thought we had one last summer, because of some similar weird goings on, but we never actually saw it. After a while the strange things just stopped happening and the cows calmed back down to normal. As far as mountain lions go, I hope I never, ever see one....especially not in my bedroom. Especially not eating my dog.

And I don't want to see one in my garden either.

Froggy Bubble Bath

More Fun with Foxes

Went out on the sitting porch at daybreak to take yet another sunrise photo. I know they all look alike, but I can't resist. It is my favorite time of day and we have a straight shot east to the horizon through the big windows....too pretty to pass up.

Anyhow, I was standing there, camera in hand, when a faint movement caught my eye half way down the driveway.

A grey fox. We have been seeing one regularly, although not getting many photos. It jumped into the bushes and I was lamenting the missed opportunity when another one trotted up the hill. then both of them began to dart in and out of the shrubbery, pouncing and bouncing, like dogs when they get into that "cracker dog" frenzy (that's what we have always called it) racing in circles, mouths open, tongues lolling, tails J-hooked behind them. They seemed spring loaded and light as dandelion fluff. I simply was not quick enough in the low light to get any shots of all that fun, especially since I was laughing so hard. I think these were a pair of half grown pups from the video fox, as they were slimmer and less fluffy than she was (not to mention considerably less dignified).




Suddenly they vanished.
Just that quickly.
Up the driveway lolloped a cottontail rabbit, bobbling merrily along, ears waggling lazily. I set the camera on video and waited to see what might happen. It hesitated, ears up, peering alertly around.
Came a little closer.
Paused again.
Then it whirled and fled willy nilly, scut flashing bright behind it. I didn't see the foxes again...simply couldn't wait for more to happen as it was milking time, but it was a neat bit of early morning drama.
I actually hope the little vulpines catch some of the darned bunnies. It seems like a fair trade to have them to protect my garden for me since they ate all our black caps so we couldn't make jam.

Grey fox surprise

I was picking up the living room, not my favorite job, but necessary, when I glanced out those bullet pocked windows. There on the lawn was what I saw as the tom cat we successfully sloughed off on the neighbors. He isn't a favorite either and I started to go out to yell at him to take it on down the road.



I couldn't make him look right though. Then in an instant he resolved himself into this unexpected creature (actually it looked like a she). They have passed through before, but they are normally shy and not something you see every day.




We have been blaming the birds for the dearth of ripe black caps but this critter was hoovering them up at an amazing rate (sorry birds). While I took stills through the window, Liz crept out on the sitting porch to take some video. This bold little fox went right on sucking down berries while Mike blundered blindly by not forty feet away from her. I suspect like the deer, she lives out in the hedgerow and is used to our noise and dogs and commotion. Anyway it was pretty neat to be able to get pictures of her.







Video by Liz

Another show girl

Potential summer yearling class heifer, Maqua-kil Blitz Neon Moon, sister to Blitz, daughter of Mandy. For her first birthday yesterday she got her first bath of the 2008 show season. She isn't looking too pulled together yet, but some practice leading will bring that along.
Summer yearling is an awkward class. Heifers rarely look their best at just that age. Moon herself has looked better than this in the past and probably will again in the future. At least she isn't dragging Liz around. Any time she has gotten loose in the barn she has towed the boss or me around like a barge with a dingy.

Busy week

Not two sides of the same calf...nope these are two different bull calves, one a Citation R Maple out of Liz's show heifer Blitz, the other a Rain out of my Bubbles. If we weren't so busy I would advertise them as potential oxen. They sure are a pair. Wish they were both heifers...oh how I wish!





A baby Holstein/Milking shorthorn heifer calf. Born yesterday and up trotting around behind mama in a few hours. Wish they were all that easy.



By Myrik out of my dear little Etrain cow. This is what I did yesterday...watched E and then pulled this huge heifer, then took care of both later in the day. I am thrilled to get a girl and so far E is doing pretty well. We are working on names. In the hat so far are Texas, Email, Pizza, Flamingo and a couple others that are funny as heck and begin with e (this is my e family and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for names...thus the potential for names beginning with other letters) but are simply not suitable for this particular blog. If you have any preferences among these potential names, or others as far as that goes, let me know please.

TNT Hattie, one of Heather's three milking daughters. Hattie is far and away my favorite Jersey on the place. Not that we are friends or anything, as she would love to hook me with her head when I lock up her stanchion (I think she thinks I want her grain). She is just a pretty, elegant, little thing and I like to look at her.

Sorry posting and writing are sparse, late and lame. These are not all the calves we have had in the past couple of weeks with more to come and problems too numerous to mention. Some years things work out well and you feel lucky and all. And then there are the other years....like this one.

Redneck traffic jam

In upstate New York

Dreamroad Extreme Heather
the lead cow

Some days just get out of hand

Fox tail fern

Last night we worked through supper time. This morning we worked through breakfast time too. It all started when Liz's show heifer, Blitz, started to calve just at the beginning of milking last night. She was still at it when Alan, Becky and I came to the house when we finished chores at about eight-fifteen. The boss and Liz stayed with the cow. It was a real good thing that they stayed. They did need to intervene a little as the calf was a great big boy, but both mother and baby came through fine. (Alan mowed lawn through the whole affair, although he did get to meet the police officers at the end. Yes, I did say police officers. And they were the nicest, most helpful, thoughtful, kind and dedicated to their job officers you could imagine too.)


As I peacefully waited for the soup to reheat, a little worried about Blitz, but aware that she was in good hands, Liz ran in to get the phone to call the police. Seems some very strange characters showed up between the two sets of barnyard gates and got their van stuck...half in and half out of the manure spreader shed. So the boss closed the lower gate and sent for reinforcements. They were scary guys I'll tell you. Several police cars and a tow truck later we finally came in for supper....at like ten thirty. Didn't get much sleep either as the creeps with their belligerent ways scared the heck out of me. We have been through this before. Our driveway is deeply rutted, there is a sign at the bottom that says it is a farm. These weirdos claimed they wished to come up to view the sunset. They were both guys. With a pit bull. A big one. They were not a bit nice.




Then this morning one of our two-year-olds, Camry, didn't come down with the cows. The rest of the crew (I started milking alone as it is tanker day) went to find her. She was having problems calving and either the other cows rolled her down the hill or she scrambled down herself because she was in pretty tough shape and the grass was matted down in a long aisle leading from her up the hill. They lost the calf, sadly, but Camry may make it. She is at least sitting up now and was holding her ears up when we went back up to check her after milking. Meanwhile we were late for the tanker, although not too bad, and really late getting in. We went out again so the boss could bury the calf before the coyotes come and we could doctor on Camry a little more. I hope she makes it. She is wild as heck, but she is out of a good Mansion Valley Delaware cow and by Ocean View Extra Special. She is a real pretty little thing. Any how, I hope she gets up pretty soon. We left the rest of the herd in the barn for an extra hour so they won't bother her. I also hope to never see those guys again. They just radiated something that scared me....a lot. Mostly Liz, but sometimes other ones of us, go out to the barn often at night to check the springers, of which we have at least seven right now. If the boss hadn't been out there with her last night, I hate to think what might have gone on.


***I did get to take some pictures between coming to the house and returning for the fun with freaks follies.

New calf pens

Lately we have had SO many calves in the barn. They were tied everywhere they shouldn't have been, from in the manger, to in stalls that should hold milk cows, to all over the north side walkway....just everywhere. Years ago we built some free standing pens outs of cattle panel somewhat like these. As far as growing calves they turned out to be fantastic. The calves we had out in them that summer grew like crazy and wound up large, productive milk cows.



However, having never done anything like this before that first year, we made them too small. Too hard to get into. Too hard to clean. We had to feed and water the calves inside them, which led to spoiled feed and dirty water. And messes from them spilling the water.


We had to tear those down to clean them and we never rebuilt afterward However, the idea was there. The place was there....although it all looked like this.




So the boss cleared it off with the skid steer. We bought some new cattle panels on sale. We bought some new t-posts, not on sale. We all went out with cable ties and baling twine and old canvas (and my wood canvas, which may be a bit of a problem) and we built these and populated them with about half of the calves we need to get outside.

Honeysuckle

We have enough panel to build at least two more and enough calves to fill them. However, the guys are going to put the post pounder on and use some old locust posts we have lying around. The t-posts are just too darned expensive and not made nearly as well as they used to be.

This boy is pointing to his custom sun shade, which he swears will stand up to the wind

Whadda ya think? Will it? Or won't it?

The calves are delighted to be out in the new pens and run and tear and eat through their new feeder and drink their nice clean water. We are hoping to be able to clean these properly as they are much bigger than our originals so we don't have to tear them down every year.

She looks contented to me...in fact they both do.

Fog horns and a butterfly

We don't live on a bay or a coast, just a medium sized river. However, if our cows had horns, this morning they would have been fog horns. The air was crispy cool and sweetly fresh when the sun was just starting to come up. We had to go out early to get the cows in as it is tanker day and for the first time this season we put the cows out in the Dimond farm pasture at night. They have been going there days, but we haven't trusted them out at night in a field they are not so very used to. However the pasture they have been grazing nights has gotten depleted and needs a rest. Milk production has been suffering because of it. This morning they came happily when called, ready to be milked I guess, but for some reason most of them were bawling as they wandered down the lane. It was cool enough that puffs of steam billowed as they bellowed, like big bovine steam engines. It was a strange sight.... long, narrow cow heads pointing in every direction, muzzles open wide, like trumpets at a jazz festival, with unlikely clouds of warm, moist, and suddenly visible air crossing above them. As happens all too often, I wished I had brought the camera. There is no fence on part of the lane they must use to get to that field, so four times a day I get to stand by the horse trailer and "be" a fence. I make a darned good fence too and so far none of them have gotten by me....not that they have tried very hard.


The butterfly above got caught between the screen and the stained glass door the other day. I only noticed it because the Sassenachs were harassing the house wrens again and I went out to chase them away. The wrens nest in the porch pillar every year and we get a great deal of enjoyment from them. Amazingly they know we aren't going to bother them and pretty much ignore us when we go out to chase the English sparrows out of their nest hole. I think the latter want to kick them out and the male tries to get into the nest about fifty times a day.

As I was opening the door I noticed the butterfly fluttering against the screen (which doesn't open). We couldn't reach it so Liz stuck the fly swatter in front of its feet until it finally climbed on. It paused for a fraction of time while I took a picture, then floated away down the hill. There seem to be a bunch of these around this year as I see them in the upper garden where I have been planting this week. I believe it is a Milbert's Tortoiseshell. In the course of tracking it down I FINALLY found a decent butterfly identification site, after looking for a couple of years for one that is easy to use.
I have never seen so many butterflies as there are this year so it is going to be wonderful to able to come inside and look them up.

Milk snakes and gorgeous mornings

We have gone from frost nine days ago to temps in the mid nineties. It takes some getting used to. so I guess we will just get used to it. The corn loves it anyhow, and what with all the frigid weather, it needs it. Cows don't like it much. We have been keeping them in nights and feeding them hay, because the pasture they are on has temporary fence. (Not to be confused with permanent fence, which is, in theory at least, more reliable.). However, last night with every fan in the place running full speed they were panting and hanging their heads. We took a gamble and let them back out. I went over with the boss and Liz this morning, to help get them back in even though it is my morning off, because the two-year-olds have yet to learn where their stalls are. They didn't bother much though, for which I was most grateful.

Yesterday must have been milk snake day. Liz caught the itty bitty one above yesterday out on the bridge between the farms. It was so cute and perfect, right down to the egg "tooth"
Some of the photos I took actually show the tooth, but are otherwise blurry, because I was in a big old hurry to get Liz to let the little thing loose again. The boss thinks he turned a nest of them out when he was moving earth getting a lane ready to put cows in another pasture.


Then last night, while we were finishing up Alan caught a great big one in the same spot. The second one was as long as my leg from knee to ankle and as big around as a finger. When he let it down and it poured itself away over the ridges and bumps in the barn yard its beauty was amazing and indescribable. Milk snakes are my favorite of the slithery clan. They remind me of the Oriental carpets my dad used to get in the antique store sometimes when I was a kid. Wish I could have photographed the big one, but we were getting done real late last night (dump run, house work, fence building, Liz made spaghetti and homemade bread and garlic bread, shopping for a new string trimmer to get weeds out of the fence...all in all a long, busy day) and I needed to finish helping with the cows.

Then this morning the sun came up amid solid HHH. The weather is going to be a major source of misery for the next few days, but it is still pretty. Alan has gone to the big tractor pull in Dansville today with his big brother. I will worry...it is my job. He will have fun...that is his job...and he took the little camera so hopefully he will have some nice pictures of the big rigs for you tomorrow.

Fun with French Fries

Note to boss...never bet against the cheap help (who are the same folks who spend the week at the fair with the show calves every year).

Yesterday Liz just had one of those feelings....something wrong with the heifers and dry cows. She went out to the pasture where they are stationed and sure enough River had had a calf and had pushed him down in our deepest ravine (which has a creek at the bottom.) Liz got them both out and came on down to report. Calf was a week early, tiny (you can pick it up under one arm) and a bull. Oh well.

Anyhow, while we were bringing him and his mama in to the barn we decided to bring all the close up dries in too and get them up to speed on grain feeding. (We have a serious selenium deficiency in the soil in this area and they can get some in the cow grain we feed. Selenium is a major aid to successful calving and the passing of the placenta afterward.)

After that nifty little rodeo concluded we were admiring last year's show heifer, Blink, who was running with them. Liz and I were joking about how she probably could walk right up to her and feed her French Fries. She loved them SO much last summer. The boss thought we were nuts and bet that she couldn't.

Well, now, it just so happened that we had French fries with our party dinner the night before. And it just so happened that we didn't eat them all., So....nothing would do, but Liz run over to the house and grab a handful to test the theory.

Blink was a little hawky after running wild since last fall. She let Liz get semi, sorta, kinda close and then stretched her neck out very, very long to sniff.....very long, giraffe neck...standing on tippy hoofs, ready to bolt away with her tail up.

And then she scented the French fries. Out came the tongue, down went the heels, and she gobbled them all up like the fair was yesterday instead of last year.
We roared with laughter.
Too bad we didn't put any meaningful stakes on our bet though.

Thunder boomers, koi and calf relocations

The first right while we were milking last night. Nothing serious, just got us wet with a good rain. We needed it. One upshot of that was a toad serenade last night. (I think they were partying down in the garden pond.) Amphibians, except for red backed salamanders, have been mighty scarce this spring. Dry weather I guess. Anyhow, it seems wonderful to me that something as homely as a toad has such a lovely song.

Actually right from the get go we had an amazing day yesterday. Thanks to Teri at Farm Life we discovered Craigslist. Now we check the local farm and gardens listings several times a day. Thus we discovered that someone over by Mariaville Lake had baby koi for sale for two bucks each. We all made the trip over and bought seven. However, the nice lady whose front yard pond is apparently teeming with little orange, silver, white and black fishies, threw in three extras.

Now if they will just stay IN the pond. We have had a terrible time with koi jumping out in the past. I am hoping they grow and thrive.

Only four of our old gold fish made it through to warm weather, although they all survived the winter. They contracted a terrible bacterial disease just as the weather warmed up though and died in droves. I am sure we would have been fine, but the spring fed watering trough where we have kept most of them for the past twenty years or so dried up and we had to put all those fish in the garden pond last fall. Not good. Way too crowded.

This is Carlene. We needed to get this door open for ventilation
so we needed to move her to a big stall

Then we went out to help the boss clean the barn. We took calf registration photos, cleaned stalls and moved some older calves into regular stalls. One the was tied in front of a door we needed to open to get some air into the barn. It was so much more comfortable last night with it open.

Carlene's other side. These photos will go on her registration papers

At night we had an "end of internship and two kids graduating" sort of party with pizza, calzone, grinders, French fries and the new National Treasure movie. (Grumpy old party pooper mom read a John Grisham novel, but stayed in the vicinity.)

It was nice. A really great day. I feel lucky. Maybe it is was the koi

This is the herb garden, honey locust tree
and part of the flowers around the garden pond...which you can't see.

Clan Montgomery and how to tell boy cats from girl cats

My mom and dad
Happy Mother's Day, mama!!!

The camera wanted to get a picture of my folks and they were right down in town for Heritage Day, so it led me down there yesterday. I was hoping they would be in full Scottish regalia (my dad cuts a fine figure in a kilt) as they often are when representing Clan Montgomery, but alas no kilt.




Which brings us to how you tell a boy cat from a girl cat. (This is much simpler than most folks believe btw.) Simply give the little critter the remote control and watch its reaction. (This one is obviously a boy don't you think? He hogs the remote even when there isn't any baseball to watch.)

And please excuse the blur. He doesn't ever seem to sit still.

Not a tall tale

Brand new driver's license hot in his hand he betook himself shopping for shells and a new turkey call. (Lost the old one). This super-duper dandy new call is better than the old one anyhow and he was good enough with the old one to call in turkeys and occasional trespassers who mistook him for a strutting tom. (Do you have any idea just how crazy a kid practicing with a box call can make you?)

He left this morning at daybreak, chose his spot and sat down on his little turkey hunting seat to test the new call. Soon some hens responded, coming so close he could hear the frost crunching under their little turkey feet. No toms though and that is all that can be taken here in the spring season.

So he moved toward where he could hear some toms gobbling. As he was walking a deer bolted out of the woods not far away, and curved away when it saw him. Before he had time to really wonder why it was running, a coyote burst out of the woods behind it. It turned toward him and began to approach. His mind was full of the six shots his twelve gauge holds, when it stopped just out of range.

And looked at him funny.

Real funny. As he puzzled over why it was peering at him in such a strange manner he heard a faint crunch behind him.

And whirled to find the OTHER coyote twenty or so feet away, crouched down in the grass, stalking HIM. He couldn't get the gun around fast enough to disabuse it of that notion. It ran off over the hill where it would not have been safe to chance a shot.

I thought it was only where there are no hunters that coyotes are getting just a little too bold. Guess I was wrong.