Winter Storm Watch

Classic example of red neck engine repair

Noon today, yep the global is definitely warming and fall is lasting longer and ending later......not.....I should have known when everybody got crazy wanting to bake that bad weather was sure to follow. We aren't much different than wild animals when it comes to that, gather in the nuts, fluff up the nest and get ready for the bad news.

And so the scurry to get the barn ready begins. Big job and it is about two weeks earlier than we like it to be. I watched a weather demon yesterday all wink, wink, nudge, nudge about the weather and wanted to take out the TV...(He couldn't say whether it would be mildly cloudy or we would get a foot of snow. Dang, talk about a job where you can be wrong every day and still get paid. They should all run for Congress.)

I didn't though because the guys enjoy it, although how they can is beyond me. I just asked the boss to bring me up a skid steer bucket of driveway sand to bed the stalls with. It is really comfy for the cows, stays where I put it and gives them good traction to get up and down.

At least yesterday was gorgeous. The cows dried out and were fluffy....or fluffy-ish at least. Brought in the last of the water cannas. I was going to let them freeze, and indeed the tops did freeze down to the roots, but when push came to frosting, I didn't have the heart. Thus my kitchen is awash in huge pots of cannas, water cannas and grown-from-seed amaryllis.

It is like a jungle in here....a particularly favorite old friend stopped by for a short chat the other day (is there anything on earth more enjoyable than one of those friends you can not see for months or even years and pick right up where you left off) and remarked at the amount of greenery.

I can't help it. I love plants...and animals....and rocks.....herptiles....birds...I think I would curl up and blow away if I had to live in a city separated from living and growing things. Spent fifteen years in a small town once and it about drove me crazy. And even there I had gardens and flowers and dogs and cats. I think maybe I was born to be a farmer....even though I was born in the city.

Skies

The view from the porch

During this year long adventure in Hell weather, or really, even longer than that, one constant has been the drama of the skies.

Poplar tree or Ferris wheel?

Crazy clouds, wild winds whipping them around, rainbows, sun dogs, you name it, we look up a lot. These occurred last Friday in between sets of soggy storms. It looked a lot like this back on the tornado day, but I didn't get good pics then.

I'm not sure if you can see it but this little rainbow was caused by the sun shining through a gap in the clouds.

After the Flood

Here is a long, but informative article, which offers some conclusions on what happened during the recent floods, including where some fingers of blame might be pointed. (Suddenly some reasons why this flood was so much more horrific than any before have ever been become clear).

It also offers some predictions of future disaster if changes aren't made. It doesn't look as if certain government entities have any intention of making those changes though....let the houses wash away, they have to protect the precious stream beds (!) As mentioned, it is long, but really worth a read.

Speaking of storms, that little tornado that formed right out behind the barn....the boss went out there the other day and there were sheets of roofing steel thirty feet up on the trees right outside the back windows. Thank you again to all the folks who called with the tornado warning. It really was there! Right there! It was just small enough not to do much. Wow.

Not Again

A huge thank you to friends, family members and caring neighbors who called us about the tornado warning. We had no idea....

We ended up spending around 45 minutes watching the skies to the west and south, ready to hit the cellar if we had to. We got an outrageous lot of rain and some pretty wild winds and rumor has it that something did some damage just a tiny bit to the south of us, but we are fine. Now it is raining hard and thundering wildly.

The boss just got the driveways half-way fixed up so the milk truck can get in all right and we can get the trucks and the Durango up and down. Guess he is looking at a couple more days on the skid steer. Guess I had better shut this down before the storm gets any closer.

Enough Already

This is the river the other day,

untimely empty because the locks are all open or just plain gone.
See the channel marker aground on the side?

Today it is full again and over flowing.

I am sure you are sick of me talking about the weather. (I am sick of talking about it too, as far as that goes. In fact, frankly I am downright sick of the weather in general, in particular, and in any other way you can be sick of it.)

It just keeps raining and raining and raining. By mid-afternoon Wednesday Alan's friends were texting him from SUNY Cobleskill and putting up videos on Facebook because of the incredible flooding there. Water was racing down the stairways among the dorms, feet deep and chocolate brown. These were the dorms on higher ground too...I hate to think what was going on lower down. At least some dorm rooms were flooded and kids were moved to higher ground. It was pretty scary.

Meanwhile towns that were evacuated during the peak of the Irene flooding were once again emptied because of still more flooding. I don't know how much more people can take...

Here at the farm we still live on the hill and are still glad of it, although the driveways are taking an awful beating and the milk truck didn't get in on Monday. Water filled one shed so we had to turn Rio out with the big cows. She is a pregnant milking shorthorn heifer that we have actually wanted to add to the big herd, but we have been waiting because we have the cows spending their days in a temporary pasture. Temporary electric fence and un-fence-broke heifers are not a good mix.

Sure enough she got out twice (all I can say is ouch because that fence is HOT!) but the first time she put herself back in and the second time Liz was right there to chase her. Hopefully over the next few days she will figure out where she belongs and settle down.

Also had to liberate Wally, the blue heeler guardian of the cow barn gate. The rain washed the ground out from under his dog house so he is now enthroned in Nick's chain link kennel. Hopefully he will stay there because he is essentially a very bad dog. The cats and chickens don't need his help on their way to an untimely grave.

So there you have it. Most of the news that's fit to print. We can't chop. Can't work on the tractor. Can't do much of anything except divert water and hope for the best. Take care.

****Update, reliable source says all roads in county are closed. Good grief! Been reading FB, mud slides all over the place, the water is up in Liz and Jade's back yard. I called her and told her to forget coming to work.

Kansas, We Have Your Weather

And Florida, California and Alaska too. Earthquakes (which I suppose technically aren't weather, but they can go away just the same) a devastating hurricane, and now a tornado.

Enough already. You can all have your weather and your seismological events back any time you want them.

Here at Northview we were just getting started milking, early, trying to beat the storm, which looked like a big one, and its potential for power failure, when the lights went out.

Fun, fun, fun. Thankfully the power was restored fairly quickly, although a couple of hours were added to evening chores, which were not much enhanced by the rain either.

September in upstate NY is supposed to bring warm, bright days and cool pleasant nights. Sunshine. Calm. Fresh vegetables.

What the heck is up with this and who has OUR weather? That's what I want to know.

Unsung

But heroes just the same.

The boss just spent a few minutes chatting with our milk truck driver while he was picking up the milk. He, his boss who is the owner of the trucking company, (a really sweet guy), and all the other drivers...and no doubt dozens of guys from other companies...have been going through H-E-Double Hockey Sticks getting to farms to pick up milk.

If the trucks can't get in, even if the farmers have generators and power to milk the cows (not to mention still having barns and cows, which many don't) then the bulk tanks fill up and have to be emptied somehow....usually by dumping milk. Having dumped milk when our market got mixed up a couple years ago, I know how painful that can be. It takes a lot of work to grow and harvest feed and grow cows and then feed the cows to produce the milk. Not much fun to watch the fruit of all that labor swirling down the drain.

Add to that the fact that some of the plants that take milk have closed temporarily due to the flood and you have a nightmare.

The owner of the company that hauls our milk just spent three hours just getting to two close together farms marooned by flood waters. One of his drivers drove all night to get to an alternate plant to offload milk. They have been having trouble even getting home at night when they are done.

Thankfully, these men know every back road, short cut, long way and detour in this part of upstate NY. If there is a way to get where they need to go, they will find it.

My hat is off to them. Thanks, Dale, and John, and all you other guys, you know who you are, who are working so hard to get our product to market. It means a lot.

Another Day, Another Detour

Katydid by Becky

Routing traffic away from flooded areas, un-inspected bridges, and such has snarled traffic like the wind will your hair when you ride in a convertible. It took Alan well over an hour to pick Becky up from work yesterday and she only works a mile from here. Worth every minute of it though, if keeps everyone safe from further disaster.

Folks are being so good about it too. If you need to pull onto what was once a thoroughfare, but is now a slow-moving parking lot, people let you in with a wave and wait as patiently as they can. As always there are a few bad actors and rude folks, but they are in the minority.

Most everyone from politicians to whom I never paid any attention before, news sources (can't say enough about the fantastic job media and ordinary people are doing at getting out information), volunteers and professional emergency folks, to the kids cleaning up the fair ground so the fair can go on albeit a bit late, are making me feel fortunate and proud to live here.

What a great region for neighbors and caring and community spirit!

I even talked to really, really nice people at the power company yesterday. The boss's elderly aunt is still without power and not getting her meals on wheels and such. (We packed a cooler and ran it up as soon as we knew, but she needs her fridge.) My first call about the power was routed to Boston for some reason, but the lady there was incredibly helpful and got me the numbers I needed for the local situation. The man I reached next was helpful too. Hopefully she will soon have power. Meanwhile Liz hit the grocery for imperishable edibles last night.

Anyhow, I really want to thank everyone who has worked and is working so hard to restore the upstate area. Great job! Great neighbors! Wonderful people, thank you, thank you, thank you.

***Update, amazingly 5 and the Thruway are open.

Flood Video

Here

Marooned, Incommunicado

Collage of just some of the things that were flying over the farm yesterday.

I missed the governor's helicopter, having run outdoors quickly to quiet the dogs

Collage of skies, from Saturday through yesterday

What you can see from our windows

"The wind makes me restless. I can't settle to normal Sunday pursuits. Dishes, laundry, chores galore, all done before the crew is finished in the barn. Judging by posts from my Facebook friends, it's the same all over. No one can be calm with all this going on."

That was written on Sunday before the main storm hit. at that point the storm looked unimpressive, but there was a gripping, ominous tension in the air...you just couldn't walk away from it.

Our senses were not wrong. The poor valley is devastated, the whole region damaged horribly. We were lucky, we are fine. We couldn't get out and no one could get in, but we never completely lost power, although phone, Internet and television were gone.

Entities far from this region complaining that the storm preparation was over done and over-hyped are full of it. Whole farms were swept away, whole towns inundated, people died. People are still in shelters, people still don't have power. Buildings that have stood everything that has happened since the Revolutionary War were badly damaged. Guy Park Manor

It is too soon for me to process it all, but here are some links and pictures.

Video of part of the extent of the flooding taken from the governor's helicopter, which flew very low over us several times. Drove the dogs totally crazy.

Leader Herald story

There is so much more...too much more. As I said, I can't process it yet. Prayers for people who had and have it a lot worse than we do and belated thanks to Grandpa Delbert for going against convention and buying land high on the hillsides instead of river flats. I sent him good thoughts all weekend.....

If you are on Facebook, look up WRGB, WENT, the Recorder, and Montgomery County Emergency Management, etc. There are some pictures that will chill you....

Preparing for Irene

Hard to know what to do. Looks as if heavy rain and potentially dangerous winds will be coming our way. The ground is already so saturated that I don't know where the water will go. Hope the folks in charge of the river dams are paying attention

This time. (Our fair starts Wednesday and some of the photos at this link are of our fairgrounds during the 2006 floods.) To the north of us Washington County Fair has already decided to close early and I can't say as I blame them.

I am planning on cooking a large meatloaf and just putting it in the fridge. Along with something baked...don't know what yet...we will have good food if the power goes. If the guys get the cows filled up we will just hunker down and hope that it stays on. If it doesn't well...you CAN hand milk cows, although its really not a lot of fun.

Maybe the darned thing will swing out to sea and leave everybody alone. We can hope anyhow.

Irene

Peacock Cumulonimbus

Seems the Hurricane from Hell is on its way. Prayers for everyone and everything in its projected path...Upstate NY is expected to only get lots of rain...so far they are saying six inches.

That would be about par for the course this summer. I have dumped that much and more out of the wheelbarrow several times. It is still wet enough here...and has been almost all summer...that the tractor tires push water in front of them in the hay fields. Heck it rained its little heart out yesterday, so much so that the hummingbirds came and sat on the porch and shivered. A song sparrow found the little box of sunflower seeds I keep under the shelf and came in off and on all day, so bedraggled you barely tell what it was. I'm afraid the cardinals are going to damp off like tomato seedlings, they are so wet when they visit.

A good day for nagging I guess. Hopefully maybe convincing the guys to fill the wagons with extra feed for the cows, stock up on a few every day essentials (like dog and cat food!) Batten down the hatches and the horses and all.

And of course the fair starts Wednesday...our own fair, right across the river in Fonda...Frankly I am dreading it. Traffic has been hellacious all summer due to the construction. It plumb boggles the mind to add in the fair. Liz is taking Bling and hopefully it will actually be possible to get over there to take care of her. Incidentally some folks who saw Rosie at the other fair showed some interest in buying her, but not for what I want to get. I am not that interested in selling her anyhow, but we always get offers on her after a show for some reason.

Hang in there all!

The Calm Before the Storm

I wouldn't call it a calm really, more of a perilous pause. You can't take an eighty-degree day in April in the Northeast and not get something out of it when the evening cool rolls in.

You can surely feel that something coming. The air turns all dense and buttery, thick and thin at once. Like invisible water. Just starting to move. It crowds in all around you as you walk through it, feeling the strength of it and all the energy it has gathered up while the sun thumped down on it all day.

It is still...no leaves to move yet... the leftover grass lies pressed against the ground, the woodpile canvas shrouds the logs in silence. Distant sounds ring like an omen..is that train across the river coming right here up the hill?

Batten down the hatches. Unplug the computers, close the doors, feed the pony, air the doggy. It is coming.

Then a hay string on the dump truck canvas begins to twirl. Just an eddy. A thin little thread poking at it.

A bright pink flash cracks across the valley. lighting up the river.

Snap, crackle, bang, rattle, gust and howl, drip and slash, it is here just at dinner time. We eat our homemade spaghetti sauce dumped over an interesting mixture of assorted pastas that caught Becky's fancy and listen to it lumber down the valley....the first of what will surely be many of its ilk. I guess it must really be spring....finally.

Got water?

Weather fellas say two or three inches yesterday morning. I say I hate it when it thunders when we are milking. So much metal around. And nervous cows. It knocked the power out for a while, which is why there was only a wimpy post yesterday. When the lightning started making the lights flash on and off I just unplugged everything and went to the barn...




I am having algae problems in the pond so I changed the fountain. We have been hearing toads every night and I thought they were here.


However, thanks to having to reset the bedroom digital clock late last night....by guess and by gosh......


And getting it wrong........ so I got up half an hour early and went out with the dog in the not quite dawn.


I discovered that they are instead down in the heifer barn watering trough. Chlorinated water. Emptied and refilled every couple of days. Heifers snorting around in it.....Hmmm.......




They don't know what they are missing.

Trusting your hunches

Has its costs. Last night one of my cows, Mento, looked like maybe calving in the night. She also had the shakes when she stood up. Liz wanted to give her a bottle of calcium in case the shakes were milk fever. I had a feeling that the shaking was a sort of hereditary tremor that Holsteins sometimes have. She has been showing just a touch of it all winter when she stands up. I don't know what it is called, but it occurs in varying degrees of severity, from barely noticeable to virtually crippling. In Mento's case, so far it has presented as just a ripple of the muscles in her hind quarters.

Normally in such circumstances we would give the calcium just in case, but Mento's skin was warm, she was eating like there weren't going to be seconds and I just didn't think it was needed. Neither did the boss.

However, when you make a decision like that, come morning sleep can be elusive. (You always wonder...is the cow really okay or did I just want to get out of the barn before nine?)
Today is not tanker day, Becky's class is late and there are (hopefully) no inspectors lurking around the corner, so I could have slept until almost six without guilt, However, worrying about Mento...and Consequence, who is also due...and Zinnia who calved night before last....I got up just after five to go out and check. Liz was already up though, just leaving for work because it is SNOWING AGAIN...so she took her phone and went over and checked. Nothing...all well. I am glad but now I wish I had taken that extra almost hour and got some sleep.....oh, well, glad the old girl is all right and expect we will get a calf today.

(Not) my cannon*
Photo by Becky (I was driving)

*Earl: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt: Cannon fuse
Earl : What the hell do you use it for?
Burt : My cannon!

Stormy weekend, windy Monday

I guess the worst is over, although the weekend mostly lived up to the weather fellas' dire predictions. Liz made it into school for her advanced ruminant nutrition final, although there were accidents everywhere. It isn't really all that hard to drive in this kind of snow, but you can't drive fast and careless, yakking on your cell phone and changing CDs. People have to try though.

The wind was wild last night. It shook the house (and this house is not easily shaken). This morning the sculpted snow drifts are scattered with box elder seeds. They cling much more tightly to their parent trrees than do the seeds of most members of the maple family, but last night's wild tumult freed them. Next spring the hardly, weedy, little trees will crop up everywhere. (I can't believe that the company that I linked to there actually SELLS them. It seems like selling dandelions. If you want a few thousand, just give me a shout next spring.)

The common winter birds are here in force. I sure didn't need to pish to call them out of the bushes Saturday (which is a good thing, since mostly the only thing that comes when I do is Gael). They wanted to fill up their tanks and practically mobbed me when I went out to fill their feeders. Today they are gleaning the brushy areas more than eating at the feeders. (Maybe they like box elder seeds.) Or maybe they just don't like the wind.


Hope you are warm. Hope the guys can get the hydraulic lines back on the spreader tractor (heifers pulled them off and everything is frozen-boss is not happy.) Hope summer is thinking of us down where it is hibernating.

Not a good horoscope

***Plans are shifting out of place today -- but don't waste your good energy trying to figure out why (because the reason is probably out of your control). Instead, direct all of your good energy toward formulating the most effective reaction to the new situation. You can't afford to have a 'whatever' attitude about any surprises throughout the day. So if something bothers you or frustrates you, take charge and get rid of it. You can put things back on track!***

Above is my horoscope today from Iwon.com. I am not sure if applies to to boss falling while trying to drive a cow out of the barn and dislocating his shoulder, or not, but...
His shoulder popped back in on its own, (after he fainted in the milk house) but the doctor says the muscle pulled out a piece of bone from the top of the humerus. This could heal potentially with 2-4 weeks in a sling. Or he could have torn things that won't heal and need surgery. We don't have insurance so I sure as heck hope not.

Kids all came right home from school and dug in. Professors were nice about letting girls out of class. Liz and Alan fed young stock. Alan fed cows. Liz and Alan are putting an Ag bag on the bagger right now. Becky has several foods cooking and the kitchen in order. I am trying to get my brain going again after standing in the hospital for hours as I guess they don't do chairs.

For the future there is no knowing yet how much soft tissue damage took place. The rest of us are just going to do the milking before the girls go to school. Alan will feed cows when he gets out of school. Now if we can just figure out how to get in forty or so acres of corn that is still out...I may have to hire that done if things don't come along well with the shoulder. Never dull that is for sure.

Can lightning strick twice.....

....in the same place? Of course we all know that it can and does...after all, what do lightning rods do but encourage it to do so? But here is a poor guy who was personally (and painfully) struck twice, 27 years apart. Here is what to do if you are in a car, bus, or a vehicle with a ROPS and encounter a nearby storm.

Cammo and carrots

No frogs this summer! Normally as soon as the garden pond is up and running half a dozen show up to claim super-select bug guzzling spots and stay til fall. They soon ignore us completely and go about the serious business of slurping up mosquitoes and errant grasshoppers in contented oblivion. Some even accept handouts. In return for cheap entertainment we take the biggest garter snakes down below the bike path when we find them seeking frog leg lunches. (It is amazing how far we have to cart them before they stop coming back. They put homing pigeons to shame.) However, there have been no frogs this year....it has been too dry. Even up in the field potholes herpetiles have been rare as hen's teeth. Alan found one little green frog which he put in the garden pond a few weeks ago, but that is all.

The game of who can spot the hidden frogs (they have great cammo) loses some of its glamor when there is only one teeny-tiny frog (and an import at that). Then it rained most of our week at camp. It rained almost every day since too (putting a hellacious crimp in the hay baling I can tell you). Rainrainrain...thunderthundercrashinglightningstillmorerain. The driveway is a washout, barely passable by my SUV, (which I find I really NEED this year). It is too wet to pick zucchini. Or peas or beans. Too wet to weed. Too wet to mow the grass (which is growing again). It is no longer dry to say the least.


Yesterday Alan and I stopped by the pond for a game of find the frog. We hadn't seen even the little import in days. Simultaneously we spotted one....at least a foot a part! There were two! Then a third one plopped under a lily pad and frog-stroked for the bottom. Normally we get big, fat frogs; these were barely two inches long. (It makes spotting them even more of a challenge.) Wonder if the weather has anything to do with the small size or if it is just coincidence that we only have little ones this year. Doesn't matter. The pond, which is especially pretty this summer, is once again a fun place to visit.

We grew carrots in half a fifteen gallon barrel this summer. Our soil is so dense that normally you couldn't pull a halfway decent carrot without breaking it, (if you could even grow it in the first place), but a barrel makes it easy. (We grow lettuce, tomatoes and squash in them too.) Half a fifteen gallon barrel is the perfect depth. A mix of sand and compost equals perfect earth. The stuff we wash the pipeline with comes in such barrels and we only get three bucks if we redeem them so the price is right. They are easy to wash and just the right size for a wimpy old lady like me to drag around. Incidentally I have about six more out there in which the guys need to bore drainage holes pretty soon if I am going to have time to grow more carrots before winter.


I pulled this one for salad the other night and was astonished by the color though. Somehow I forgot all about planting Rainbow Carrot mix this year. Yellow is nice, now I can't wait for a purple one.

Much excitment

About the weather. We have had thunderstorm after thunderstorm...at least a couple every afternoon. For the most part the worst of the weather has gone off to the north bombing Gloversville and Johnstown with dangerous hail and high winds. Last night our turn came.

We got started milking late for one reason and another (mostly having to do with men). Alan had not yet fed the cows their wagon of chopped oatlage with field peas and new seeding so the boss sent him off to do so as soon as the cows were in the barn.

I happened to look up the hill as he was pulling out with the tractor and shouted for the boss to get that boy back ASAP. The gate where they take the wagon through into the field is in an area we call "Lightning Corner". Trees that sprout up there don't usually get more than thirty feet high or so before they are burned or blasted down.

Anyhow the boss let out one of his mighty whistles; the kid heard him and made it to the barn just as the maelstrom hit. Thank God! Within seconds I looked out to see the four or five heifers that stay in the barnyard while the cows are milked bolting down the hill. The tree that they were standing under crashed to the ground, and was still bouncing, as they came for the door. None were hit though. I think they heard it tearing loose before it actually came down. Now there is a large and tangled pile of potential firewood waiting to be cut up and hauled away. Right there handy so to speak.

It was a wild storm. Parts of the overhanging roof of the milk house porch blew off. Rain slashed in through all the windows, wetting us even inside the barn. Dirt blew into our eyes from the windowsills. (Gritty nasty stuff.) The windy downpour lasted most of milking. I hated to touch anything metal because lightning was banging down all around us, but I didn't have much choice as the stalls, dividers, pipelines and the grates over the stable cleaner, which we must walk on are all metal. On one occasion the cow I was milking jumped right up in the air when a bolt hit. I think she got a little zing there.

When the kid finally got to take the feed out after the storm blew itself out, Lightning Corner was a jumble of blown down and blasted trees. It took him a good hour and a half to shift them so he could feed the cows. I lay awake for quite a while last night being very, very thankful that we stopped him from trying to beat the weather and get the cows fed before it hit.
VERY thankful.