Farming

Is that puppy tied up?

We still are. Or at least the boss is. He mowed the first hay yesterday in the Old Spreader field and we are hoping for enough heat and wind to dry it so he can bale it. If not he will chop it. We've been buying feed for months and although the cows are at pasture the heifers still need to be fed. It would be nice to have our own.


The robins fledged this morning. Must have been very early as they were gone when I went out to sit on the porch and talk on the phone with my boy who is working in the city today. It sure is interesting to hear his tales of life and construction in the Big Apple. Whole nother world down there.


I guess I will keep this rural, bright green paradise of a world for now, despite the money to be made in the city. Our tire guy (who is a real nice fella, as is his whole family) stopped by to pick up a forgotten tool yesterday and remarked on how peaceful it was out among the green trees and fields and how much he would like to live here. Sometimes it is easy to forget all that when the snow is blowing and stuff is breaking down right and left. Takes somebody else's eyes to remind us.

A Sunday that was Monday

 Sassenach left over from Sunday Stills

Worked my morning off yesterday because of green grass and our too-small, inch-and-a-half milk pipeline. The girls are working hard with all the lush new feed and they make so much milk that they flood that skinny little line.


All the milkers fall off, and the cows kick and jump on them, and you have to dump the vacuum trap, and milk runs all over the floor, and there is a mess. 


On and on and on. It can happen several times per milking.


However, if someone spends the whole milking in the milk house, thumb on the pump switch, turning on the transfer pump every time a new surge of milk gushes into the receiving jar, you can get through milking without any drop offs.


I appointed myself Sunday morning pump switch engineer in chief and, with the company of my iPod, spent a fairly peaceful morning. However, the rest of the day was pretty much a Monday, only dressed up nice for the weekend.

Lucky jumped the fence Saturday night and bruised her udder, requiring much treatment both morning and evening. Plus Velvet finally decided that she can walk, but not well enough to make it out to a stall to be milked by machine. Thus the kids put a halter on her and tried to get one of the bull calves to take care of the job. However, the calf wasn't hungry and didn't cooperate, so they haltered her and hand milked her.

She is such a pet that she just let them do it, but with all the doctoring and all, we didn't get out of the barn til after nine PM. The boss was grateful that we did all the work on Saturday while he was off being an auctioneer, so he was going to buy everybody pizza for Sunday supper. However, by 9 they all wanted to go home or go in the house and crash.


So I made tuna sandwiches. Maybe tonight we will get the pizza.


Pretties seen for Sunday: Boss and I walked up in the day pasture to bring down the cows for night milking. Sun was on its way down and glinting off the river to the north, surrounded by trees like a sapphire on a sea of green. In all the years I have worked here and all the trips up the hill I had never seen it like that. It was blindingly beautiful. The land will surprise you that way ....new lovelies every day.


Then Jade and I were holding gate while the boss brought in bales. A set of turkey vulture septuplets sailed down over the barnyard and the same setting sun gilded the lighter parts of their under wings with golden fire. Who would think that a close up of such ugly critters could be so stunning? We stopped to watch them teetering back and forth until they headed west to their roosts on the mountain.


All in all it was a normal day of up and down and good and bad.....that's farm life for you. Insane but beautiful.

Pasture

The Kateri Shrine right across the river

Can't get enough of it. The grass is sparse because it has been so cold and dry, but we turned the girls out for the night last night just the same. How they are enjoying it, lined out all over the hill in the pink and gold of the morning sun. I love to watch them graze...I think any farmer or rancher gets a deep down satisfaction from watching their animals eat. I love to stand in the barn last thing on a winter night and listen to our ladies rustling through their hay...it brings a great sensation of contentment and comfort.

I keep one ear awake all night during pasture time though, when they are turned out, listening for hooves where they don't belong, the phone ringing, mooing in strange places or the sound of grass being torn up beside the garden pond....all signs that the cows are out. That is NEVER good news, but especially not at night.

And I forgot to do this the other day, but JB put up a really great post about a talk he heard that you really should read. It is right here. So much of what is drummed into us night and day about the food we eat is bull...and that is putting it nicely.

Now, off to invite the girls to come down off the hill and into the barn for some nice tasty grain and an appointment with the milking machines. Have a good one.

Farm Photos for the Week

 Ephemeral

 Phoggy

 Phar away across the river

Phirst light

Farm Side Finally Finished....Yeah! So here are some photos from around the farm this past week.

Fencing And Putting on Pants

Heifer pasture is done. They would have let the ladies out yesterday, but they didn't get it done until three. They figured, and probably rightly, that the lassies would prefer to stay out once let out, and we didn't want to be milking at midnight. Maybe today.


Then they started the big pasture fence. That has sat two years unused thanks to the horrific weather and the fact that it is a b***ch to  build, up and down ravines and slate cliffs and all. Gonna get built this year though, some how, some way. Our hay guy is out of hay; last load delivered this morning. We aren't out of cows and they have to eat something.


The wooden cowboy got his pants put on yesterday. They go pretty well with his bright red shirt and  blue bandanna.  Alan figures on painting him a nice rodeo belt buckle with a bronc in the center and we still have to paint his fence and boots and hat...oh, and finish up his face. He looks kind of silly with just a white smiley face.

And that's all the news that's fit to print. Have a good one.

Workin'

Some is workin' off farm jobs. Some is fencin'. Some is bookkeepin'.
All is workin' though.

'Cept for this little guy, who is havin' a stick.

And so...

My dear old Etrain died. She was old, but a favorite, the gentlest cow you could imagine. She has been written about here many times as you will find if you search for her name. I know, don't think, but know, that she liked me too. She looked to me specifically for food and petting and sweeping off of the old hair with the broom. If I brushed on her neighbor, Lemmie, she would swing her head at me, to let me know she wanted a turn. I am going to miss her a lot, no two ways about it. 


However, it is an incredibly beautiful day and I am going to go outdoors and look for something to do even if it's wrong, as the boss would say. 


The vet was here yesterday and she said that it has been a tough winter all around despite the mild weather. March and April are always the worst months, as the cows are the farthest away from green grass. One of our vets calls grass, "Doctor Green", and she isn't far wrong.


There were so many birds singing this morning that it took me a minute to separate out all the threads of sound to see who was who. I am so ready for spring I could capriole like a baby goat.

Sky and Rat

Spent the whole day and part of the night yesterday nursing a sick heifer. She is bit brighter today....


Anyhow being out at all hours gave me several chances to appreciate the incredible beauty of last night's sky. The moon was a gleaming waxing crescent with a couple of handy stars or planets clustered around it (Venus was undoubtedly one of them.) 


They looked surreal grouped together like that and early on all the stars were amazingly bright. You almost expected Merlin to step down out of the whirl of them.


This has been a great winter for stars and skies and we have much enjoyed watching.


As to the rat. We put the sick heifer in a sort of greenhouse in the woodshed. I was coming down from tending her, in the dark, with only the light of my fairly pathetic flashlight, when something chirped right beside me.


I thought, "RAT," and spun my light to see. There was a grey thing stretched up the barn upright as high as my hip. My heart leaped into frantic action, bang, bang, bang. The thing was the size of a cat.


Then it chirped again and dug its claws deeper into the wood of the post.


It WAS a cat.


Athena, the grey barn cat that Alan is so fond of.


I think she took a year off my life....maybe even two.

Same Old, Same Old

It is kinda hard to find anything interesting to write about these days. We certainly keep busy...yesterday the boss fixed stalls to bring some heifers into the cow barn. We moved calves, cleaned as always, dragged in hay off round bales and fed it out. Bought another load of round bales (ouch), and prayed for green grass and soon.


Alan has some time home from his job...as the newest guy on the roster he has to wait his turn for work. He is handy to have around and helped the boss replace a stubborn stall divider the beef steer wrecked and rebuilt Mandy and Blitz's tie rail. Since Blitz had worked the rail loose enough that she could step right up into the manger and steal feed from Broadway and Dalkeith across the barn, it was a much needed repair.


These are all things that are engaging enough when you are doing them, but they don't exactly make for thrilling reading later....it's all right by me though. I would rather soldier along doing the boring jobs day after day than run around coping with crisis after crisis, which is a pretty normal situation on a farm, especially when there are animals involved.

From Both Sides

People are such a various lot. Some of them do good beyond all expectations and some of them are terrifyingly not good. Talked to the boy early this morning and he had horror stories of subway platforms and slow death happening even to the harmless and the danger of standing near the trains....It twisted my heart right up. Such death and mayhem.........and then I read this story. One young American saw something awful happening in another country and reached out via social media to find help.


And found it, so much more than he had even imagined possible.


And last night I read another story, which on one hand was very moving, and on the other hand is so typical of the lengths farm folk will go for others. We have been the recipients, several times over the years, of help from unexpected directions, coming at the darkest hour, and lightening our lives, probably more than the givers imagined possible. I will try to wipe the subway images out of my mind for the day and think of the good people, and the new baby heifer that Magic presented to us yesterday and get on about the day.

Let NY Farm Act

The boss (in his mystery shopper outfit) and Bubba, headed for the barn

Sounds good to me. Read about it here.

Last Year's Weather

Northstar, a name the calf graduate, all grown up

Is still hanging around biting everybody right...well you know where. Even though we are enjoying this long spell of warmer than normal weather, what happened last summer is having lasting ramifications for farmers and ranchers from the southern borderlands to the far, far north.


Nobody has feed...well, some folks do, but there are a lot of shortages and staggeringly high prices for what is out there. We are about out of haylage, maybe a couple of days worth left, and buying round bales...spring and green grass can't come soon enough for me!


The guy we buy our crop seeds from called the other night...talked to the boss for quite a while. He wanted to give us a heads up that the seed we buy from him will nearly double in price for this year...drought in Texas wiped out most of the seed crop. He is big, successful farmer but he will be out of feed soon and told of dozens of customers who are feeding out their last bits. He thinks a lot of folks who have bought from him for a long while won't be in business this summer.


And yet, the big players are still manipulating the CME, while the milk to feed ratio drops like a rock. I am sure somebody will still be making milk come spring...the Chinese are buying dairies in New Zealand so their farmers can be trained how to do it right (first clue...leave out the melamine...it tends to kill people.) 


China has also become the world's number one nation for feed grain and oil seed production and yet they are still huge importers of food products and feeds....and ammunition or so they say.....


***Dad update. It has been a really tough haul for Dad and for Mom, who has been an amazing trouper through it all, but yesterday she reported solid progress. He is in rehab now and is doing stairs and getting around without the walker. Your prayers have been appreciated more than you could possibly imagine...thank you!

Wild

The weather that is. One minute it's pouring rain, the wind howling like a whole tribe of banshees, and the heifers are running for the stable. Next minute the sun is blazing down, it's as warm as April and all the fields are draped with dazzling, dangling, dripping water crystals like a million, billion shining gems. 


The heifers come back out to bask against the side of the barn, soaking up rays like girls on the beach. You can almost see them reaching for their Oakleys and slathering on the sun screen.


I have been spending my time today (when not doing bookkeeping and chores and writing this week's Farm Side) checking on the pony, Jack. Becky thought he was a tiny bit off this morning and she asked me to keep a watch on him.


I could see what she meant...he sort of had a contemplative look and was flicking his ears back and forth for no apparent reason. I got an inkling that maybe he isn't drinking like he should so I took him up a handful of delicious kosher salt from the kitchen.


He sure liked it, and scoured up every crumb. 


He is such a cool little guy. I really liked having an excuse to fool with him. This afternoon he seems fine...if anything ailed him, whatever it was (or wasn't) it seems to have passed.


***PS the boss says that he saw two rainbows between the storms. 

My American Farm

HT to Kim Komando for sharing this site, which shares lots of useful information on American farms and farmers. 

And here is another story about area cheese making.




****Please if you can, pray for my dad today. Major surgery taking place.

Chuck Jolley Nails it Again

Five Minutes with Animal Rights Extremism. Mr. Jolley includes an excellent reference list of animal rights groups. 

Shipping

Not far from the tree

A beef steer over to the processor today. And moving stock. And trying to get the Farm Side written. Should be an interesting day. Stay warm out there.

Living Closely with Cow Families

Not an Astronaut offspring, but he could have been

In the comments a good friend mentioned genetics and inheritances in folks. 


Which got me thinking a bit. In well over thirty years of living every single day with generation upon generation of registered Holsteins, a few Jerseys and a handful of milking shorthorns, it has amazed me, how very much of the makeup of a cow, her performance, and especially her silly little quirks are inherited.


Of course anyone who bred registered cows during the right time period remembers the Paclamar Astronaut daughters...they were long and black and sharp and gorgeous....


 However, they were also a little bit, (well maybe even more than a little bit,) on the "nervous" side. 


Flighty even. 


Oh, heck, let's be clear here...the ones we bred were downright psychotic. We had a little black one whose name escapes me***. When you tried to milk her she would kick right over the top of the divider. That is about chest high for those not familiar with stall dividers.


She kicked like that every single day from the first time she was milked until she died calving while the kids and I were at camp one year. She hated everybody with an equal opportunity loathing that was downright impressive.


Other traits also seem to be much more heritable than the sire summaries would have you think. Like eating box elder trees. As members of the maple family box elders have fairly bitter leaves I do believe. Cows will eat them when especially hungry, but they are certainly not high on their menu preferences. Except Balsam's family. Every one of them will climb up on the jersey barriers around the barnyard to prune the trees on the bank. We have seen some feats of bovine gymnastics that would downright amaze you, all in pursuit of low hanging leaves. 


Getting out of fences is another proclivity not measured in the stud books that seems to run in families. Inspecting windowsills on the way out of the barn (although that may be a breed-specific thing as it seems to be mostly Jerseys who find it necessary to stop and check every single windowsill every single day.) Stealing calves. We have had a family since I met the boss that all stole calves....we still have some of them.


You can keep your TPI and your PTA and your daughter averages and all. If the proofs measured everything we noticed running in families in cows there wouldn't be room on the page to list them all.


***Liz looked her up and her name was Apple Crisp...she was crisp enough all right.

Sunny Day

Still having heating issues but the sun is shining, it is really nice outside and not bad inside. The fan motor is in Albany awaiting pick up. Barn chores are done, cows out and eating, stalls bedded for tonight and everything tidied up.

Still awaiting our first calf of the year from Pecan, and as always hoping for a heifer. Pecan is bred to a bull we had years ago, a son of Whittier-Farms Ned Boy named Foxfield Doreigh NB Rex. Besides the Ned Boy he had some Triple Threat back there on the dam's side and threw a lot of black reds. We bought him at an auction when Liz was a baby, and although he is long gone, we still have a unit or two left of him. His daughters were always kind of round-boned more than we like and not the nicest-natured critters on the farm, but they were tough and lasted a long time.


We were all sad to hear of the passing of Gaige Highlight Tamara, a famous New York Holstein, bred and owned by folks the kids have often showed with over the years. In fact her owner let Liz take her in the ring a couple of times at the Cooperstown Junior show when there were more cows going in than there were hands for the halters. She was a spectacularly beautiful animal.


Tamara has sons in AI, 15 EX daughters and was scored 4-E 97 in her own right, about as good as it gets.....truly one of the great ones. So sorry to hear of her passing.




***Very sorry about the old photos. With the death of the desktop most of my photos are hard to get to, so......

PC

Oh, no, not that PC. Never on this blog. No we found a notebook computer for under three hundred bucks yesterday, so for a change I am not borrowing Becky's. (Thanks so much for sharing for so long Beck...)


Hopefully it will do all we need it to. We are going to have a go at installing the word processing software I need to use pretty soon. Hopefully it will handle it and I can get back to writing on the Farm Side whenever I want to.

Have a good one! And stay warm.

I Get Around

 Sunny Samaras

And today that is just what is going to happen. Shopping, meetings, all sorts of insanity. Some people...you know who you are...actually Christmas shop before the week of Christmas....not us.

Downy woodpecker in the spotlight

Got an updated map for the bird count this morning and I don't think it is right....it is like the whole count circle shrank. (Think I will just use the old map. lol) At least we have people to do the count as it looked like we weren't going to for a while. Now if that darned storm will just hold off.