Winter has its rewards. We bought some second and third cutting alfalfa hay from an area dealer and it is of spectacular quality. It is a real pleasure to watch the cows grab a mouthful, and then chew it with as much enthusiasm as a kid with a jaw full of bubble gum. They only get three bales split among the lot of them, as they get other hay throughout the day. It is gone in minutes.
I like to stand at the end of the aisle and watch them eat each night before I go to the house. There is something deeply satisfying about the simple contentment of animals. They are not complicated creatures in their desires and pleasing them seems straightforward and somehow correct.

When all is done in the barn the scent of smoke from the woodstove as we walk across to the house is another joy. The men have brought in cherry and hickory for the fire today. In the sharp, cold night air it smells like the pipe of a favorite grandfather or something good cooking in the kitchen. It speaks clearly of home and hearth and comfort in a cold season.

Inside the house Liz is treating us to a New Year’s Eve dinner that is a rich delight. It smells as good as the woodsmoke in the yard. She spent the day baking cream cheese brownies and herb filled bread. Then since her dad gave her a break from evening milking, she made lasagna with sausage from our pigs, ground beef from the last angus we raised, and four kinds of cheese. Along with a fresh salad it will make quite a meal. I guess we don’t have much to complain about today do we?

I wish a safe and enjoyable New Year’s Eve to all tonight. Everyone knows the rules, if you drink don't drive; if you drive, don't drink. Now we can all hope that everyone follows them. For us, sitting at home with a half-hearted argument over Giant's football vs. PBR rodeo is enough excitement for the five of us. It is Liz's day for the remote so I am betting on rodeo. If anyone sees midnight I will be surprised, although anything is possible. Me, I have a whole pile of good books and tomorrow morning off. Ahhh....

Cactus 

Nancy, do you know this fellow? 

A December day at a glance: We have had snow, then rain, deep cold and then thawing, leaving the ground locked in the iron embrace of real slick ice. Walking is miserable for us clumsy humans and the chickens don’t find it too hot either. They were sauntering down the driveway by the house today, peering about in search of bits of grass that had melted up out of the snow and picking up little stones for their crops. Every time one of the big, heavy roosters hit an icy spot his feet went right out from under him and he slid downhill on his feathery fanny like a kid on a sled. No damage was done, except to chicken dignity, but whenever one fell, much flapping of wings and hysterical clucking ensued. They were sure that the ice was attacking them from below. Good thing they couldn’t see us inside the house laughing our gizzards out at their activities. At least the fat fellows have started sleeping in the heifer barn so we don’t hear them crowing all the hours of the night like medieval night watchmen on patrol.

The guys have started serious construction on an addition to the milk house. They poured concrete for the foundation this fall and built a 55 gallon drum into the floor for a muffler for the vacuum pump when we move it out there. However, they were too busy to get to the wooden part until now. It will be nice to get the pump out of the main barn so we don’t have to hear it. We have a temporary pump and motor in place on the floor behind the north side cows and it is so loud it actually hurts to work around it. It will also be wonderful to have storage for tools and such out of the milk house proper. Something about clutter plumb annoys the milk inspector. Our current personal farm torturer is a super fussy fellow and not fond of anything out of place, so tools on the floor and windowsills just drive him crazy. He reacts by writing us up. I won’t miss that.

Becky and I went up to the city to get an oven element for the stove. Of course the old one expired right in the middle of a Christmas cookie baking frenzy last week. It was genuinely painful for the cookie junkies among us to be without a means to make more. Add to that the fact that pot pies were impossible and casseroles hopeless, and you could find some sadly deprived folks around here. However, the nice new one is all installed and all things edible are once again possible. Hooray!

1001 birds. To me that is an amazing total, but that is how many my baby (all things being relative) brother, his lovely wife, and I counted today during the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/. The weather was foggy, dull and damp and we were sure we wouldn't see a darned thing. However, we had a bit more territory to cover this year, which was really nice. (There is nothing like a little new scenery.) Also the birds seemed to be hanging around near the roads and buildings, so although they were hard to identify, because of the terrible light situation, there were lots of them around.

We had no more than walked out of my mom and dad's house to get in the truck when we saw a mess of birds in a tree across the road. They looked like tiny little crested gold finches, but they were cedar waxwings. The fog made them appear much smaller than they actually were. The same thing happened all day. Crows looked like starlings; starlings looked like sparrows. We spent far more time than normal sitting on various roadsides puzzling over identification of common birds that would normally only require a glance.

We stopped during the early afternoon at the farm home of my favorite aunt and uncle. Matt and my uncle walked the land while Lisa and I drank coffee and tea with my aunt and watched the feeder. They burned more calories, but we saw more birds. Some years, however, those sweetly familiar acres, where we all played as kids, yield everything from blue birds to pileated wood peckers.

It was a great day, as it always is. For me besides enjoying family, the high point was seeing an entire flock of cardinals along one seasonal use road. Another fine sight was several pairs of red breasted nuthatches, the most I have even seen in one place at one time. We used to call them itty-bitty-beeping-robot birds for their jerky movements and distinctive calls.

I asked the lady who runs the count and she said that our family has had the Mayfield south territory since 1989. My dad and mom started with it, and over the years both of my brothers and I have helped. Now Matt and I do most of it, with help from his wife, and sometimes from Alan and Matt and Lisa's daughter, Tawny. This year, however, the kids stayed at Grandma's house to play together.

I hope Clan Montgomery can keep on counting for many years to come. Bird counting is a lot like treasure hunting. You never know what you will find, or when that next "Ooh, Ahh," bird will flick out of the bushes in front of you or call from the swamp beside the road. I love it.

Merry Christmas from Northview. We wish you all a joyous day and gentle things for the year to come. A strange, cold fog blankets the three big windows this morning. Usually they show me the glittering lights of the village and a few frosty stars this early on a winter day. Today they look as if they were covered with a cottony blanket. I could barely see the light on the milkhouse porch when I stood on the stair landing by the window there.

It is supposed to be pretty warm this weekend and that is not unwelcome after all the early cold. Sure saves on the firewood.

A few of our farm related worries were lifted yesterday on Christmas Eve. I for one am grateful. Mango had birthed her calf when I went to the barn for the early morning check yesterday. It is oddly marked, mostly white with a weird little black triangle on its forehead, the reverse of a normal black head with a white triangle. Sadly, it is a bull, but we have had a plethora of heifers this year and have no right at all to complain. At least there will be no Christmas morning emergency delivery as we had feared all week.

Then, when Liz went over to set some beet pulp http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/coping/forageli.htm to water up for her show calves, she found a surprise awaiting her. The barn had an extra occupant. Egrec, the wild heifer, had come inside of her own accord. http://northviewdiary.blogspot.com/2005/12/well-egrec-is-still-out-on-hill-all-by.html

After a summer of wildness, she had headed for the hills when we brought the other heifers in. Then over the past week she took to jumping over the gate of the heifer pasture and then jumping in and out of the cow barn yard so she could hang out with the sheep and commune over the fence with the show heifers in the sawdust shed. She even jumped in with them one day…and then right back out again.

When the guys got a stall ready we drove the big white yearling into it and locked her up. I swear she heaved a big sigh of relief. As soon as she was in the barn she acted as quiet as any yearling. It was plumb strange.

We think she may be blind in one eye and maybe that has been causing her extreme spookiness. Certainly, when she hears our familiar voices she settles right down. Outside she had even jumped a five-bar gate, uphill, rather than let us lock her in the barnyard.

It is a huge relief to have her properly confined. Had she ever gotten down on the Interstate someone could have been killed. All she had to do is jump one more gate or wander through when it was open for the milk truck and we would have had big problems. We even discussed the possible necessity of shooting her if she headed that way. Now she is safe in the barn, although we will probably have to sell her because of her disrespect for fences.

Anyhow, we can hopefully spend the day in the house, napping, reading or watching the football game like regular folks. (If nothing major breaks down that is).

I hope you all get to do the same or whatever other thing it is that will make your Christmas special.

Make sure you don't miss Sarpy Sam's post yesterday on Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere. He has a story there that will surely not make the headlines, what with the press having such a violent allergy to all things Christmas. However, I know most of us ordinary folks will love it. You can find it here: http://nowherethoughts.net/sarpysam/archives/1415-Baby-Found-in-Barn.html

You can also read the whole weblog at the link a little lower down on the right.

We had a very vocal, vituperative, vociferous and darned near violent discussion in the milk house tonight while we were finishing up. I was heating a bottle of milk for the new half-shorthorn calf. I was also whining because it seems to take forever to get it warm when you are in a hurry to get to the house.
One of my delightful offspring informed me that it had something to do with the high specific heat of water. Another chimed in that that figure is 4. something or other joules per gram °C. The original kid asserted that it was one. And so the battle began.

How can I describe how little I care? It makes my brain hurt to worry about such stuff. They didn't even teach us about specific heat in school. Maybe it hadn't been invented yet. At any rate, all the hot air in the milkhouse didn't do a darned thing to get that calf bottle any warmer. However, we had to drag out a college text book and do a google search to settle the point...and guess what.
"The specific heat of water is 1 calorie/gram °C = 4.186 joule/gram °C which is higher than any other common substance." (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/spht.html) So, they were both right in their way, just using different units of measure. I still don't care.

Mike herding water at Peck's Lake

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster online dictionary you will discover that a cobbler is:
1 : a mender or maker of shoes and often of other leather goods
2 archaic : a clumsy workman
3 : a tall iced drink consisting usually of wine, rum, or whiskey and sugar garnished with mint or a slice of lemon or orange
4 : a deep-dish fruit dessert with a thick top crust

These are the only definitions offered by this trusted online source. I also perused well over half a dozen other online dictionaries and no matter where I looked, cobblers are either folks who work with leather to produce footwear, sweet drinks, desserts or are seriously maladroit.

However, the other day in English class, where Becky and her school mates were reading Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue (http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/murders.html), a visiting student teacher had other ideas. In this story a cobbler is mentioned only in passing, when the protagonists are discussing the apparent prescience of one of them. However, the student teacher pounced upon what he viewed as an unfamiliar word and asked the class what a cobbler did. When no one rushed to answer, he called on Beck, who tends to know such things because she reads anything and everything from trashy teen romances to The Three Musketeers in its original language (just for the fun of it). Of course, she answered that a cobbler is a shoemaker, as that is the commonly accepted definition.

The pedagogue was incredulous and suggested that she think of peach cobbler, as that would give her a clue as to the correct answer.

She was totally bumfuzzled and admitted it. Shocked at her ignorance he then gave her his chosen definition of a cobbler. According to this college-educated-educator a cobbler is a man who puts down cobblestones in the streets.

Hmm, maybe, could be, possibly so, but ol' Merriam-Webster doesn't seem to agree.

Guess I will have to find a better dictionary. Or perhaps a more widely read teacher. Anyone can make mistakes, but to ridicule a student for giving a correct answer like that is plumb egregious and I don't mind saying so. Maybe he needs to read some romance novels or something.

I also wonder what the heck peach cobbler has to do with paving the streets, unless of course, you are Hansel or Gretel.

Startin' 'em young 

Feeding the fowl 

The great chicken mystery…..or life is never boring no matter how pointless the excitement may be. Last night we got done at a reasonable hour, so I took Nick out for a bit of a run while I checked the woodstove. When we returned to the house he alerted on something on the porch. Since he is not allowed to bother cats, I gave him heck and started to go in the house. However, something caught my eye and I turned to find the white rooster and the hen without a beard perched on the back of a lawn chair.

This would never do; chickens are not allowed to roost on the porch. I grabbed them and chucked them out into the snow. I had just settled into my computer chair when suddenly I heard a sort of tap, tap, tap on the kitchen window. It became so annoying that I went out to see what the heck Alan was up to.
It wasn't Alan though. The tapping was caused by the white rooster banging his wings on the window above the sink as he tried to roost on the windowsill. What a pesky piece of poultry. I shined a flashlight in his eyes and he flew away.

A few minutes later Alan announced that there were feathers all over up by the stove and the other two chickens were gone. He threw the porch pair into the horse trailer and we made angry plans to deal with those darned coyotes in a very summary manner. There was talk of 22 vs. 12-gauge and where the best place to intercept their twilight peregrinations might be. How dare they come down right into the house yard and take my birds!

Then this morning Ralph came over to the barn and informed me that at least the other rooster had survived because he heard two of them crowing. Figures the coyotes would take the hen and leave that noisy bugger instead.

Later, when I went up to check Nick in his run all the chickens were there looking for stray dog kibble. The whole four of them miraculously restored to their usual feathery glory. They looked amazingly lively for having been killed by coyotes just the night before. Certainly, something chased them around while we were milking last night and there sure were a lot of feathers pulled. However, we will have to call it….dum-da-dum-dum...
the night no chickens died.

Cookie was Egrec's mother's sister. However, she was as gentle as a puppy and a great pet of everyone. That sure was a muddy summer when I took that picture.

Well, Egrec is still out on the hill all by herself in the snow. She looks real good at least, since the guys are giving her a whole tractor bucket load of feed all to herself every couple of days. She is fat and her hair lies in thick, shining swathes on her back. She seems to be softening her stance on having company though.

When she was first out there, after having quit the bunch when we brought them in for the winter, we didn’t see her for days on end. There is some snow, so we could always tell by her tracks that she was coming in at night and eating, but no other sign of her did we see.
Then last week the guys were felling dead elm trees in the field behind the barn. That lot adjoins the heifer pasture. When they felt eyes on their backs and looked up, there was Egrec on the lower side of the fence watching them like a high school kid at the homecoming football game. Her eyes were big as saucers as she observed their chainsaw ballet. She stayed the whole afternoon as they felled, blocked up and split the dead, barkless trees. Then she was gone again.

Wednesday, Liz put her paint horse, Disguised Image, or DG, out in his yard for some much-needed exercise. His turn-out also adjoins the heifer lot and is overlooked by my kitchen window. He was delighted to buck and kick and race the sun and I enjoyed the view.
Then as I polished plates and shined the silver I saw that he had company. Egrec was standing right next to him on the other side of his fence. Spotted Medicine Hat in bay on silver and spangled Holstein all white embellished with black, they communed happily all afternoon. They made an unlikely pair out there with the wire between them.

For DG odd companions are nothing new. Last year a four-point buck came to the same spot every day and tussled with him over the fence. It was quite a sight to see the little white colt biting faces with the velvet-antlered deer as they played. Even though it was mighty tempting to turn buddy buck into venison last fall we let him be, and I think he is still hanging around the house. There is certainly some large deer hiding in the sumac by the driveway every so often. However, he got real careful about letting people see him after going through a couple of hunting seasons.

Anyhow, loneliness seems to be overcoming independence in Egrec’s tangled little bossy brain. Yesterday the boss said that she tried to squeeze through the pasture gate when he fed her. If it hadn’t been almost dark and he hadn’t been alone he would have brought her right on down to join the herd. I suspect that sometime this week we will be able to get her back where she belongs.

This just in: Liz got a 99 on her Chemistry 111 final exam in college. booyah.

Big dog fight here last night. Right in the middle of the living room in fact. Younger border collie brother, Nick, (6) lit into older brother, Mike, (11) with genuine, four star, malicious intent. It was plumb ugly and a darned good thing I was standing right there when it happened. Otherwise there would have been some vet bills for sure. As it was my gorgeous little ninety-four-cent African violet was a casualty and lost a number of leaves and flowers when they tipped over the table it was sitting on. At least they stopped when I let out a stupendous bellow of, "That'll do!!" Guess it pays to maintain my position as dog boss and owner of all the food. Nick and I had an intense little discussion under the dining room table where he ran and hid after said bellow. Then I chucked him in his crate to ponder his sins for a while.

Later I brought some nice, fluffy rye straw over from the barn and stuffed it into the Dogloo in his kennel. Thus he had the option of being warm when I made him stay out all day today. He is well haired up and pretty much used to the cold, so it didn't really hurt him any. However, I figured a few hours of cooling his jets would make it a little easier for him to behave when I brought him back in. He did go in the doghouse now and then but for the most part spent the day barking at cats and running back and forth. I kept the two of them apart tonight just in case. Guess it's the price you pay when you maintain an artificial pecking order. Young vigorous dog, Nick, would be top dog over my old boy if I let him be. However, I don't.

***Don't forget to vote for Thoughts From the Middle of Nowhere for the Weblog awards (see previous post.) Go ahead, do it right now, you know you want to.

If you will work really hard to get out of work are you lazy? If so I am. I hate tedious, over and over again jobs with a passion. Thus I will move calves ALL day so I don’t have a bunch to water with buckets EVERY day. In fact I will do almost anything just to make caring for them easier.
Even just a little bit easier. It may be a pain to drag them around, but it is such a delight the first time I don’t have to lug a dozen pails of water, or work around kicking critters housed among the milk cows.

Today I didn’t actually move any calves, but instead cleaned out two non-functioning bowls, one of which was frozen as well. After I got them both working and rehung one, which was lying on the floor, I convinced the boss to nail a piece of particle board up over a hole in the wall. With that covered the freezing situation should be solved. Thus I was late for breakfast today and dirtier than I have been in a long while (calves are awful messy critters). However, tonight, tomorrow morning and twice a day from now on, I will have half as many calves to water as I did today.
I guess you will just have to color me lazy, but I will love it, I’ll tell you.

We visited the big city, or rather the suburbs thereof, today as well. It was not particularly pleasant for a country girl like me. Besides the swirling ranks of racing cars,drivers chewing on their cell phones while white-knuckling their steering wheels trying to save half a second, there were big diggers and graders clearing brush and trees around a shopping mall. They were preparing to put up two big town house-condominium complexes. Right next to the mall sure seemed like a weird place to locate housing.

I looked at the conceptual drawings on the signs near the muddy construction sites and thought, "Oh, my God, people are actually going to pay to live all jumbled together like that."
It seems sick and wrong, existing all crammed in together with nothing green in sight except phony looking grass and sculptured cedar shrubs. Were we meant to live nose to nose and back to back with no room to breath? (Heck there wasn't even any room for air down there in the metropolis.)

Can people really get along without land to work and animals to care for? Can they stand someone watching them every minute of every day? I dunno.

I guess some folks can and do and are happy for it, but I sure hope I never have to join them. I was mighty grateful to get back here to the hill. Sometimes I wish I could roll the driveway up behind me and shut all that craziness right out.

I have a favor to ask of all who visit here over the next couple of days. If you click on the link to Thoughts From the Middle of Nowhere over there on the right and down a bit, you would first of all get a chance to read my very favorite blog (other than this one of course). Then while you are there if you could take a few seconds and click on the link to the Weblog Awards and vote for that blog on the screen that you will see, I would be quite grateful. The author truly deserves to win the competition based on interesting topics, wonderful photography and great farmer political sense, (in my opinion at least).
Thanks in advance.

Here at Northview things have been quiet for a few days, something that is much appreciated. I actually got a chance to take the younger kids Christmas shopping this morning. (If we hit the store early on my oh-so-wonderful morning off, we can escape a little of the crowding that makes me so uncomfortable.) Alan bought me a second Sago palm to go along with last year's Christmas gift and Becky picked me out a lovely little Christmas cactus. I couldn't be more delighted. I would rather be given a plant than almost any other gift, except perhaps a good book. They also got their sister and dad taken care of and I managed to remember everything I needed except dog food.

Wild birds are coming into the feeders in large numbers now, sometimes twenty or thirty gold finches at once. They are like candles hanging on tube feeder candleabra when they feed in hungry flocks. There are not quite as many chickadees and titmice, but they make their presence known just the same. They swing, twittering and calling, from the twigs on the old locust and the clothesline in the yard waiting a turn a the goodies.

I get a chuckle out of the blue jays. It is good to have them back after their terrible decline because of West Nile disease. They swoop in, flashing brilliant blue, and just bursting with greed, about the middle of almost every morning. There was a big one here yesterday while I was doing the dishes and listening to Mannheim Steamroller's Fum. Fum, Fum (I bought the whole CD for that one song and listen to it a lot this time of year). He cleared the feeder area with a frantic alarm cry, then landed on the gound in the center and began to gulp sunflower seeds as if he were in a chug-a-lugging contest. Head thrown back and throat distended, he got outside of quite a pile before the other birds discovered that he had cried wolf about the danger and began to filter back to the yard.
The four chickens come in too and guzzle their share of the bounty. I wish the kids would find some place else for the rabbits so the hens could have their little coop back. They are still hiding their eggs where we can't find them, and the roosters crowing at the back door are rather annoying. They are more than a little annoying when they start crowing at 3:30 AM too. Even farmers don't get up that early.

We spent a couple of hours at the younger kids’ band and chorus concert last night. Alan had a solo on the tympani and I did not even realize that it was him playing. I couldn’t see the back of the stage except to view a mop of curly blond hair somewhere around the percussion section. Whoever was playing really nailed that solo though. I thought it was P.S., who is one of the better drummers in the band and had no idea my very own boy could play so well. Congratulations to him.

Of course no mention of the word Christmas was made on the cover of the concert program. Political correctness must matter just a bit to the school administration. Thus I expected and was delivered Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and Jingle Bells along with the James Bond Theme. However, I was delighted to find that the program also contained a good, solid number of traditional Christmas carols, from Silent Night to the First Noel. There was a lovely old spiritual hymn, Praise his Holy Name and another Whisper, Whisper. Good solid religious fare with no thought for who might somehow be offended and thus contact the ACLU before they ate their breakfast tofu the next day. In fact by an informal count, nine of the twenty-two selections had some Christian or Jewish religious theme or made mention of some main stream religious event. That seems to be fair to me. Christian music for people there to celebrate a Christian holiday and some secular music for those who prefer it. I guess here in upstate NY we are still not afraid to show our roots. Because, after all, our roots here in this former Dutch and English enclave were certainly Christian. It was a real nice concert and worth going out with wet, frozen hair on a cold December evening.

Yammie, a bum lamb we used to have. He thought he was a border collie and tried to "herd" heifers. They didn't think too highly of that, I'll tell you. 

Right now we have the weirdest bunch of heifers I have ever had to deal with. All our calves are hand raised from birth on bottle and bucket. They are as familiar with people as puppies and generally act about as tame. However, this summer, the fifteen or so we had turned out on the field behind the house have turned as wild as foxes. They have gotten so they bolt for the back of the farm the minute they see a person. We have no idea if they have been bothered by hunters, pestered by the remote control air planes we have lately been plagued with, or if it is that two of the ring leaders are daughters of a bull we used to have that sometimes threw them a little spooky.

Anyhow, anything we did with them all summer was problematic. This is the bunch from yearlings up to springers, so there were many times when we had to bring in new milkers with calves. Every single time it was like chasing deer. The dogs are old and the cattle aren’t dog broke so using them wasn’t really an option either.

We finally got them down into the cow barnyard the other day, more or less by accident. Liz and I went out at four AM to milk and found the yard full of cow tracks. We finished up chores, hoping it would be light by the time we finished. Of course it wasn’t, so we went looking by flashlights. They were sleeping up on the flats by the woodstove and we just hustled them into the barnyard slick as spit. They were a real pain in the neck there as the guys have to feed through with the tractor and they were always in the way. Then of course last night someone left the gate open and they got up on the lot behind the barn. We had to chase them again. Great fun in the dark with the flashlights spooking them and the burdocks flying.

That was the final straw. This afternoon the whole five of us set out to put the darned things in the heifer barnyard with the shorthorn bull. It was highly entertaining. They decided that the bridge between the farms was haunted and they weren’t going to cross it-no way, no how. It was really cold, the wind was shrieking and it was a plumb lousy day to move nervous cattle. However, eventually they got tired of trying to run over the men and slipped in through the gate where we wanted them. They immediately forgot their worries as the scramble began to sort out a new pecking order with the seven that were already there.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get the last one, Egrec, down from the hill. She ran back up the first time they got out and she is the wildest one of the group. I have never seen a cow that likes to be away from the herd before, but she actually prefers staying up there alone and cold to coming down to the barn with the rest of the bunch. Maybe when the snow gets deep she will slow down so we can catch her.

There is a new link lower on the right hand side of this page to the Young America Foundation, which will take you to a Conservative youth organization. YAF purports to help young people deal constructively with the type of Liberal bullying found in some classrooms today (as mentioned in the November 18th post). It is worth a visit. A big thank you to my mom for sending it to me.

It would also be worth your time to check out some of the blogs I have linked to in the same general area. Moonmeadow Farm is somewhat like this one, but with better pictures. Thoughts From the Middle of Nowhere is a popular Montana blog, by Sarpy Sam, that is truly one of my favorites. The photos are breath taking, the anecdotes offer a window on a different and fascinating lifestyle, and the political farm commentary is highly informative. Wish I could write that well.

Last year a bus Alan that rode to Boston for a school trip was involved in a nasty accident, wherein it rear ended another bus belonging to the same company. It is terrifying to receive a call from the school that begins with, "Don't panic, but there was an accident with the bus."
Don't panic. Right, sure thing, tell that to a mother and expect her to react calmly. My heart darned near jumped out through my ribs, before I was assured that only one student sustained minor injuries. The kids missed half their field trip and arrived home hours late, adding to the fear that we parents endured. Sitting in the school parking lot for hours waiting for the busses to return and then lingering another half hour while the school officials told the kids how to spin the story for their families was agonizing. Word has it that the responsible driver was fired, but has now been rehired. Guess they hope we all forgot about it. Now another pair of busses, from the same local bus company, has been involved in a nearly identical accident, with much more serious injuries, although the driver from last year wasn't involved. The driver of one bus is in critical condition right now and thirty-five other were injured. Coincidence? Maybe, but surely cause for thought. Hope the poor driver comes through all right.

Along with the garden pond that I often mention, which is really merely a pseudo pond, we also have a couple of real ones. The largest is up in the cow pasture and another is tucked away in the corner of the old horse pasture. That field has rather grown up to brush since the old horses died, but it is still nice up there.

Today I trawled my way through the burrs and goldenrod looking for wood to heat water for showers. When I made it to the pond I found myself wishing for a seat from which to enjoy the tranquil quiet there, while resting up from wood pursuit. Although the day was warm and fine, the grass was soggy from last week's snow and not very inviting.

I thought that I might climb up in Alan's tree stand and sit there for a bit, but then I saw my old mounting block. The block began life as half of a steel barrel that was used for watering heifers and then morphed into a handy object with which I gained enough elevation to get up on Magnum's back. That was after I closed the gate that separates us from the neighbor with whom I used to ride regularly when I was younger and still had the old boy. I had many a fine adventure after I made the transition from standing on that barrel to sitting knee locked on those strong black shoulders. I sure miss the old guy.

He is buried under an apple tree not too far from that gate now, so I rolled the barrel under the gate and across the field to the pond side. It was heavy, but worth it, as I now have a nice spot to sit and watch the clouds roll by and listen to the birds. If a cat's paw of wind plays with the water as it passes it is just an added bonus for my secret entertainment

A wonderful Thanksgiving to all my family, friends, and strangers who stop here. I felt too lousy this year to invite company, though I missed having folks in. The bug we have all had this fall is just relentless and keeps coming back to wrestle us all down. Maybe we'll feel better by spring.

What a quirky holiday this is. Only an American mom would not find it bizarre to get up really, really early in order to saute celery and onions, mix them (by hand of course ) with wet, squishy bread, dump in sage and pepper and stuff it all up the butt of a bird the size of an ostrich on steroids. As if it is humanly possible to eat that much turkey. As if anyone really wants to.
And then to spend the rest of the morning cooking (or watching the kids cook) all sorts of things that only get prepared and eaten here once a year. Like real mashed potatoes. Ambrosia salad, which requires about six different ingredients never found in my cupboards except in November. Gravy. Yams. And so on.

Things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving: The obvious of course; I love my family, our home and our lifestyle. And the dogs and cows and all. (Most days at least.) I am also thankful to the friends who provided fresh apples and squash from their orchards and gardens to aid in our holiday excesses. I am grateful to be toasty warm today because the guys brought in some wonderful hickory yesterday. I am grateful that I have to go out and run around the barn milking cows for a couple of hours so I can work off some of the turkey (that last is a lie but it sounds good).
For the sky painting itself a thousand shades of grey as a squall blew in this afternoon. It made a glorious backdrop to the dry grass blowing under the snow in the old horse pasture outside the big windows. The contrast between bright snow and stark cold trees made me glad for my comfortable chair. Not having to be on the road in said squall, when so many other folks were, was good too.
For a daughter that bakes tasty pies, which I don't, and a son who can carve turkey so I don't have to. For my other daughter milking my string all alone this morning so I could stuff that fat turkey's fanny full of bread. She doesn't really like to do any of the milking except prepping, but she did it anyhow. For leftovers and tomorrow to enjoy them, I say thanks too, although I am sure to be sick of turkey real soon.

This is a corn harvest run by the draft horse club around 1986 in Lykers Corners. Ray Putman with the team of Belgians

What a day we had yesterday. I had a doctor's appointment in the AM and then did some essential shopping. (With five dogs, one does NOT want to run out of dog food too often.) By the time I got home I was way behind on my daily chores, so I got right at the laundry and dishwashing. I had no more than comfortably gotten started when Erin, a favorite young heifer of mine, walked across the pasture, obviously trying to deliver a calf. (My kitchen window overlooks that field.)Behind her were four other heifers, in an amorous mood, and making her life miserable. They would not let her lie down to have her baby.

I went right out and hollered at them, which stopped them for a bit. However, nobody was around but me, so there wasn't much meaningful that I could do to keep them away from her. I sat on a dog house roof with binoculars and kept a close eye on things anyhow. After a while the kids came home and Ralph came in from the field. He fed the rest of the heifers to get their minds off trouble. Then he and I brought poor Erin down and put her in the cow barn. We are kind of crowded right now, with a lot of calves scattered around the barn, so there weren't any empty stalls. We turned Mango out to use her stall, but another heifer, Wichita, pulled her head out of her stanchion. Erin seemed to want to go there, so we let her. Wichita and Mango went outside with a couple of other heifers.

The guys started cleaning stables and I monitored Erin's calving progress. The long and short of that was that she didn't make any. She was exhausted from being pestered by the heifers on the hill and she was just plain too tired to push that baby out.

I decided to pull it. We like to give young animals plenty of time for calving, since it is better for both mother and baby to take their time. However, this baby looked as if it had a head the size of a watermelon and feet the size of footballs, and Erin had had enough. I grabbed a leg in each hand and pulled gently whenever Erin pushed. Alan kept asking to help, but I didn't want to hurry things, and my strength alone was just about enough force for the task. As the baby's head was delivered at least a gallon of fluid gushed out of her lungs so I guess it was a good thing I didn't wait to intervene. Then the hips engaged in Erin's pelvis and sort of locked in place. Alan's help was welcome then. Although Erin was pooped and the calf much stressed by its delayed entry into the world, by a half an hour later mother was standing and licking her baby, which was also on its feet and quite vigorous. The baby's head wasn't really big at all, just swollen from the prolonged labor. She is a milking shorthorn cross and we normally sell those. However, Ralph likes her so I guess she will stay. I started milking with a feeling of great relief. I really like Erin and I would have hated to lose her.

Then we noticed that Wichita had vanished.
Terrific.... full dark, gates all open because the guys were taking tractors through, and a 1300 hundred pound, almost pure white, beast just up and disappears like a puff of smoke.

It took us until nearly nine to find her. Alan and I drove the car to see if she got down to the road, then teams of two took off to hunt whenever there was a break in the chores. Finally she was discovered, calmly munching grass in the cow pasture. We figure that Mango chased her up there.

Alls well that ends well, but it is a good thing that days like that don't come around too often.

There is something serene about our stable on Saturday night. There is no need to rush with the last of the work. No one has school tomorrow; dinner is baking while we work. Becky makes the best macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted and I am looking forward to it as I sweep up to the cows. The cows are looking forward to their last meal of the evening too, a flake of hay apiece.

There are only four calves on buckets, Verona, the "name that calf contest" calf, gets a pail of water. Chateau, Spruce and Baja each get a pail of milk mixed with hot water. After Alan throws the bales down, he and I will parcel the hay out. Veronica, Verona’s mother is so greedy, she rips a big mouthful out of her piece, with a flip of her head, like a woman shaking out wet laundry.
When the cows are all fed Liz and I will pick up the calf buckets, wash them and call it a night.

Outside on the milkhouse step I look toward the house. It looks like the set of a spooky movie. A golden gibbous moon is just peeping over the ridgepole, between the inky Norway spruce and the side of the dusky tower. With lights glowing brightly from the windows against the velvet black it is dramatic and wonderful. It is welcoming too and I am more than ready to go inside.

I stop on the way and throw another six or seven blocks of cherry on the woodstove fire. The digital thermometer on the side reads 179 degrees; we will surely be warm enough tonight. I am really grateful for the cherry. It burns so much hotter and better than the wet, green oak I have been burning all week. Unless oak is bone dry it burns about like soggy sponge, hissing and spitting and refusing to get hot. The best it can do is smolder glumly and keep us kinda, sorta, not quite comfortably warm. Frankly, although it is better than no wood at all, I hate it.

The last job before I go in is to let Nick out of his kennel to race to the house like a cannonball unleashed. He is eager for his dinner too.

Lately we have heard a lot of complaints from our student there about the liberal arts teachers over at college. Several of them seem to like spending valuable class time spouting anti-government rhetoric and complaining about America. One teacher of an English composition class spends no time at all teaching composition. She merely assigns reading and writing projects and uses her classroom as a bully pulpit to bash the present administration and to belittle anyone who doesn’t share her views. Bush voters are called "Lizard brains" and she polls her class to make sure there aren’t any lurking there. Of course, there actually are a couple, but they keep their heads down and hope she doesn’t call on them.

She is very sensitive to minority issues and especially considerate of students from other lands, to the point of favoring them over native children. She has entirely separate rules for the two groups. She hates our culture and tells her students so, keeping them well apprised of their own shortcomings for having been depraved enough to have been born here.

I don’t like knowing that our tax dollars fund such behavior at a state run school, but judging by what goes on in several other classrooms, such behavior is the norm and is quite acceptable. It is pretty much the same in high school too. At any rate kids seem to survive it and I suppose it really doesn’t hurt them much as long as they are capable of thinking for themselves.

My biggest problem with this is that I don’t think teachers of this type bother thinking for THEMSELVES. Certainly there are plenty of problems in this country and our government is far from perfect. However, teachers can obviously say pretty much whatever they want to in the classroom. Even their students rarely argue with them, whether because they agree with them or because they fear reprisals in the grade department, I couldn’t tell you. But the teachers are free. Our Constitution specifically says that they have the right to say what they think. However, they just don’t get it that freedom of thought and speech is special.

Otherwise at least one of them would have noticed that very few other pedagogues are allowed such autonomy in their speech.

Witness the chemistry teacher in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced this week to 750 lashes and 40 months in jail for speaking openly in his classroom. According to Fox News, "Al-Harbi was convicted of questioning and ridiculing Islam, discussing the Bible and defending Jews."
Actually, according to Human Rights Watch, the poor man was only discussing current events with his class and happened to mention a couple of taboo topics like Christianity and the causes of terrorism. Had he lived in America he would have been granted tenure, handed a sweet pension and a terrific health insurance deal. He would have a nice car to drive and lots and lots of time off.

Instead I wonder if he will even survive his planned punishment.

Oh, good grief, it snowed last night and stuck. We have had the darndest year for weather in my memory, right on top of several others that weren't too hot either. First we had the driest summer in decades, especially right here at Northview. Folks all around us got a few showers, but we couldn't find a drop of rain. Then the monsoons set in. I have measured over seven inches of rain in the past three weeks alone. That is without even emptying the rain gauge every time it rained, so we certainly got more than that. Now the snow is lying on top of several inches of gluey mud. It makes it absurdly hard to even walk to the barn, let alone get any work done. Bah humbug! In the old days I would have said, "I am moving to Florida." Doesn't seem like such a hot idea these days.

I liked this fox picture so much that I painted it twice. This is the second attempt.

We were talking today about how different some aspects of our culture were when we were children growing up around here. Back then kids were turned loose to look after themselves when they weren't needed to work. We played wherever we wanted to and did whatever we liked as long as it was legal and we didn't bother anybody. There wasn't much trouble that sensible kids could get into, as long as they stayed away from the railroad tracks. However, Fonda was always a railroad town, and in those days it had a large contingent of hobos, whom we more commonly called bums.

Political correctness hadn't been invented yet, so it was perfectly acceptable to call them that. They for the most part were harmless, alcoholic drifters, who would do odd jobs for a couple of bucks if they needed money for a bottle. My dad often hired a couple of them to load furniture onto his truck. We kids took them for granted and were often grateful find change that they dropped in the alley behind the antique shop. After all soda was a dime and a real big candy bar only cost a nickel.

Only once was I frightened by a hobo. One night my younger brother and I were alone in the darkened shop, waiting for our parents to come take us home. A tall, spooky-looking man in a long black coat came and tried, very determinedly, to get the door open. Mike had seen him come up the steps and locked it just before he got his hand on the latch. We were terrified. There was no phone and we were all alone in the dark. It seemed like a long time before he gave up and went away. A few minutes later my Aunt Bev arrived to drop off my baby brother and I have never been so grateful to see anyone in my life. I am sure the old fellow was just at the wrong door, as there was a boarding house next door, but I didn't know that then.

When Ralph was a boy hobos stopped at outlying houses to beg a meal or maybe work a few hours or a week or two for their keep. They marked the gates and driveways of farms, to show where a good meal or a place to stay could be found, or where there were mean dogs, or stingy landowners. Ralph's mom was always glad to feed them when they came through and his dad often gave them work.

Can you imagine the reaction of the fine citizens of Fonda today, if elderly men wandered around in their own little world of alcoholic haze, with no means of support and no real home? If they slept on the steps behind the bar because they were too under the weather to make their way to a vacant shed down the way and wore the same dirty clothes for weeks? Something would have to be done. Some government authority would have to take action. Wait a minute. The bums are all gone so I guess someone already did.

I received the greatest early Christmas present this week. The delight of my summer has been my water garden, with fish, frogs, hummingbirds and pretty plants to look at. Listening to the music of the fountain and enjoying its tranquility has been a saving grace for each and every day too. However, now that fall is here, the water will soon freeze. The only plants left growing are a big English ivy in a steel bucket and the water cress. It has been very depressing to know that it will soon be encased in a coffin of ice. Spring is an awful long ways away.

However, I was talking to Ralph about wanting to start feeding the birds, but not wanting the sunflower seed hulls to contaminate the pond and he had a brilliant idea. He and Alan immediately put it into action. He ordered a nice, heavy mini-greenhouse from Farm Tek and they set it up right over the pond.

I will still have to run a small deicer all winter for air exchange, and of course everything will still freeze soon enough. However, for now I can put my lettuce plants in there and get a few more weeks out of them and I can start filling the bird feeders too. The blue jays have been screaming at me for weeks to get busy and feed them.

I suspect the pond will thaw much earlier next spring with the greenhouse in place, and as soon as the season warms a bit, I will move it and use it as a big cold frame to harden off my seedlings. I am so excited about the whole thing.

Thanks guys!!

It was almost dark and I was chucking blocks of oak into the maw of the stove, filling it before going over for milking. The dogs were with me for company as they often are. Gael was eyeing the chickens and Mike was lying near me watching as he always does. Suddenly I realized that Mike had dropped into a working crouch and was creeping away from me. Around the corner came a big yearling heifer, named Piper, that had escaped from the hill pasture. Even though she has never been worked by dogs and wasn't dog broke, she thankfully stopped when she saw Mike. I didn't even dare take time to close the stove before going after her myself. Once cattle get into the driveway there is nothing to stop them before they hit Route 5S or the Thruway. Capture is urgent. I got in front of her as quickly as I could and waved my arms to turn her away from the drive. Of course I didn't have a stick or anything else to impress her with so she kept trying to get by. The dogs were eager to get into the game and ran along beside me. I hollered at them to lie down and parked them under a hay wagon out of the way. I finally chased her over by the creek.

The only way I could think of to deal with Piper was to put her in with the bull and heifers in the heifer barnyard. While she cavorted near the creek, I cut the strings off the gate with my jackknife and dragged it open. Of course the heifers inside imediately tried to get outside. I blew my shepherd's whistle and screamed for the girls, who were inside the house, to come help me. Naturally they didn't hear.

Piper then ran off toward the gate of the cow yard. There was no way I could go get her and steer her through the heifer gate, while keeping the other ones inside all by myself. The bull was trying to join in the exodis too and I was getting kind of scared.

Suddenly, it was border collies to the rescue. Even though he can barely see, Mike ran, without any commands, around behind Piper and started to drive her toward me so I could push her through the gate. She put her head down to fight him. He grabbed her nose and swung through the air as she tried to shake him off. She started toward me, as requested, then changed her mind and charged up the hill in the one direction that wasn't covered. Like a black bolt out of nowhere, (or actually from under the wagon) came my little chicken herder, Gael. That was all she wrote. Piper ran through the heifer gate as if pursued by devils. I dragged it back into place and tied it up again. My heart was pounding like a hammer but I was grinning like a fool. I sure do love those dogs.

They were proud and happy and I guess they had a right to be. Two elderly dogs, both plagued by cataracts, one of them about the world's fattest and most outrageously lazy dog, but when the chips were down, they did what they were bred to do. We went back to the stove to close the door and then into the house for biscuits all around.

Saturday.
The weather is amazing for November. Last night a cricket was chirping, albeit hesitantly, when I came over from the barn. The frogs stagger up from hibernating on the bottom of the water garden and lie on the leaves just taking the sun for a while every day. The white throated sparrows are singing spring songs and the mum Frank and Vonnie gave me is blooming again. We are even still eating fresh lettuce from the pots that I planted by the back door a few weeks ago. I planted a winter mix from Pinetree Seeds and it is the tastiest we have ever grown. I pick a leaf almost every time I walk by just to eat out of hand. It is a wonder there is any left.

This warm, dry weather can last as long as it wants to as far as I am concerned. It is such a relief to have the seemingly endless rains over. We still have two corn fields that the guys can't chop because they are too wet. I sure wish they could as we really need the feed for winter.

However, as soon as they take a tractor into them water runs right out of the tire ruts. Maybe we should start growing rice! If they can't get them off they are going to mow down about forty acres of third cutting alfalfa and go after that. I sure hope the snow holds off.

Threecollies, Gael, Mike, Nick

Mike at work

Mike is different now, from the dog he was when he came here. He is old and loyal as only an old dog can be. He knows every nuance of my daily schedule and neatly anticipates where I will be at any time and what I will be doing. This morning, when I came here to the computer, he cocked his head at me, puzzled that I didn’t turn on the television 24-hour news station first. I always do and he knows and expects it. He heads to his kennel when it is time for me to go to the barn for milking. He keeps an eye on me at bedtime to make sure I don’t go up without him. He waits for me to put my glasses on before he gets up in the morning. I may go downstairs without them, but he knows that I will be back if I do. I don’t have to ask. He makes it his business to know.

It was not always like this. When I, in blissful arrogance, took myself off to buy a Border collie pup, I thought that I would be training it to work for me right away. I have had lots of dogs, smart ones, well-trained and delightful dogs. Dogs that I took from humble beginnings to being the best in their obedience classes, the best Frisbee dogs, the ones who knew the most and best tricks of all the dogs. However, a working Border collie, whose mama came right from the sheep-fested hills of Scotland with hundreds of years of have-to in her blood, was a whole nother story. One that it would take me quite a while to comprehend.

I thought I knew cows too, which is a good place to start when training a herding dog. Mike was born knowing more about moving stock than I will ever know. When he was in the nest yet, tumbling over his siblings looking for milk, his brain held all he would ever need to know to herd, except that loyalty, trust and devotion that he is full of now.
And that didn’t come easy. It had to be earned out on the hill and in the barn yard, working, learning and convincing him that he truly did have to work with me, even if I was really, really stupid.

I did everything wrong that I could do. I took him to stock when he was too young for one thing. He handled it and backed down his first cow when he was four months old. I stood in the wrong place at the wrong time and said the wrong thing. It took me a while to even figure out that I was dumb at herding. Then I strove to right that situation. I took lessons. I read books. I borrowed videos from NEBCA. I bought sheep and learned to love them, (some of them at least, but that is another story). At night I even dreamed of the choreography with dog and sheep that makes such a beautiful dance.

It didn’t make any difference. Mike worked and worked hard with that wonderful fanaticism that drives a Border collie to move animals. However, he didn’t work for me, or even with me. He just sort of worked around me, or over me if it was more convenient. Finally one day, after he had driven a group of heifers right over me a half a dozen times, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck in the stinking barnyard mud, and while I was screaming at him, almost sobbing with frustration and misery something clicked. He decided that dumb as I was, I was his boss and he really had to stop killing me with cows. And I realized that I didn’t know a damn thing about herding with dogs and that it was going to be the hardest thing I ever learned.

When some one says that something isn’t rocket science, you know it is simple and doable. Herding effectively with a dog IS rocket science. In order to be a useful part of the equation the human being has to read cows or sheep-that is watch them and anticipate what they are going to do, and where they are going to go, before they do. The person has to learn right from left-the dog’s right and left that is, and learn the proper commands. It is not easy to keep Away to me and Come by straight when things are getting western and thousands of pounds of animal are headed somewhere they hadn’t ought to be going. The human part of the herding equation has to herd with their brain. The dog supplies the muscle and power and they already know too much. People have to learn it all.

Somehow Mike and I got past all the mistakes or most of them at least. I never got him backed off his stock enough to go to a trial. He never would just go get the cows by himself. However, he dog broke bulls and ornery cows, put heifers in and out of the barn, whether they wanted to go or not, and gathered the hills as long as I was there to keep him pointed the right way. He was so powerful that the barnyard heifers went right in the barn the minute I raised my hand to lift the latch on his kennel to let him out. They knew he was coming to put them in and they decided to just get it over with.

Then one day a couple of years ago he quit. He went under the tractor to move a cow, rather than doing what I asked. It took a while, but we realized that he has been kicked in the head so many times that he can’t see the cows well enough to work.
Heck, I couldn’t work them either if I couldn’t see them, and we have other dogs to do the job, although none possess his level of talent. We let him quit.

So Mike is retired. Now he dedicates all his skill and Border collie fanaticism to me. I am flattered to be the subject of his study, I'll tell you. I love him like a friend and more than any other dog ever.

I don’t get too cocky though because he likes the box of biscuits on top of the refrigerator almost as much.

The interior of the house..and the boss dancing.

Yesterday afternoon the sky was angry black with twisting, swirling clouds boiling above the cow barn when I went to work. A gaggle of gulls spun over the roof looking like something out of a Hitchcock movie. It was downright eerie. I remember when The Birds came out and the family watched it at Grandma Lachmayer’s house. I hid under the dining room table for the whole thing and couldn’t wait to go home. I like birds now, but this is certainly a disturbing season. This evening when I went over the sky looked like a faded bruise, all muddy yellows and harsh purples. It was the ugly precursor of some nasty, squally weather. The wind just howled around the barn. As we were milking the last cow the lights went out and the milking motor and fans all died. We were soon running around by flashlight turning things off and trying to get enough milk out of the line for the calf bottles. Poor Becky got switched in the face by a cow’s tail in the dark. Then the lights came back on and we hurried to finish milking Cisco and feeding babies with her milk. By the time I came back over to the house, by the light of a cold gibbous moon, it was so windy that we hustled whenever we had to walk under one of the old trees in the yard. They sway so far when it really gets blowing that I am afraid they will fall right over.

Lately there has been a broken five-gallon pail in the gutter behind E-Train every time we go in the barn. It’s been a puzzle how it got there. Every day, twice a day, I have moved it back behind a divider by the wall out of the way, and every milking it was back in the drop. However, tonight when I went in the back of the barn the pail was full of kittens, two of Stormy’s babies, having a whale of a cat-battle. Ears pinned and little paws pummeling, they skirmished over possession of the bucket. Now we know how it gets rolled all over the floor.
The five kittens right now are as cute as a batch of speckled pups, but they are always under foot. My favorite one already was stepped on by Balsam when she was walking out of the barn. They just have no respect for the cows and treat them like massive, inanimate objects. We pick them up constantly and move them to safety, but they are soon back in the cow beds or climbing stall dividers.
The mother cats, Stormy and Wildthing, trade babies all the time. Sometimes one will nurse all five, sometimes they feed each others and sometimes the litters split two and three and they care for their own. Since all five are some pattern of grey or grey and white I wonder how they keep them straight. The kids can tell them apart too. Alan carts them around in his shirt all the time, fleas and all. Ewww, I don’t want them that close to me.

How about all this rain? I was going to fill the water garden one last time before winter, but now it is overflowing. The guys can’t chop corn because of the mud; my firewood is all wet, we are keeping the cows in nights, laundry won’t dry and everyone is miserable. On the bright side, we did herd health today and checked nineteen cows for pregnancy. Amazingly, eighteen were pregnant.
This is exceptional and cause for much rejoicing. We can now expect calves from Straight Pine Elevation Pete, Blitz, Zander, Zenith, Extra Special, and a number of other good bulls, as well as quite a few from our old herd bulls. The wonders of AI are a remarkable thing. (We own no bulls currently, except for the milking shorthorn, Promise, who “lives with” the heifers). However, we are still getting daughters from Foxfield-Doreigh NB Rex, Hosking-Brunn MWOD Arvid, Cristman Chairman Mucky, Keeneland Astre Pat, O-C-E-C Lindy Fred, and half a dozen others that we owned over the past twenty years. We bought these bulls from some of the top herds in the state and they have done well for us. Because we can use them over a period of time this way, we get to see how the daughters turn out and can make better matings. If anyone tries to tell you that you can’t breed good cows from bulls that don’t belong to AI studs, they are full of hooey. Right now several of our top cows are from our own bulls, Frieland Rex Star, Frieland A Marge, Frieland CCM Marvel, and a whole batch of others. In fact the cows sired by our bulls are much better in feet and legs and udders than those sired by “proven” bulls.
However, we have some nice ones of the other kind too.

Sequoia finally had her baby today, a nice black heifer by Ocean-View Derry Zander. Liz was thrilled and spent quite a while drying the new one off, treating her navel with iodine and helping her to nurse for the first time. Then she put a calf coat on her and tied her next to my twins where it is nice and dry. We had to give her mama two bottles of calcium as she had a touch of milk fever. Actually she gave us so much trouble that we had the vet give her the second one. For a sick cow she sure could fight!

Much as I hate it, I guess I have to head out to the barn for another round of wet, nasty chores. I sure will be glad when the rain stops!

Liz has started a new thing and I think I like it. I am not sure we will be able to keep it up for long, but she has started getting up at three AM to bring the cows down from pasture and milk them really, really early. I have been going out between four and four thirty to help her, so that we are in the house by six. Then she can leave for college at seven. It isn’t even daylight yet when we get in. Today Ralph also got up and helped us, although we both wish he would get some rest. That is part of why she started doing it. He is just so tired out from trying to get crops in and she figured that he would feel better if he didn’t have to milk in the morning. He is a stubborn guy though, so I don’t know how far that is going to go. It is easy for me to get used to rising that early, as I did it for years at Hollenbeck’s. The extra daylight hours are wonderful for getting things done, such as writing in this blog.

It was kind of sweet coming to the house in the dark this morning, after I drove the cows back up the hill. The air still had the tang of night, cool, clean and sweet. A deep breath felt like a cold drink of water on a hot summer day. For a second I stood under the old cedar tree taking big breaths and reveling in it. The two roosters were having a crowing contest in the pear tree, even though the sun was no more than a faint promise on the horizon. At that time of day, the Thruway is about as quiet as it ever gets, so it was peaceful and pleasant. The only jarring note was the aroma of our local skunk. He met Liz on the bridge Wednesday morning when she was going out, but only hissed and waddled away. Must be a gentleman stinker.

A titmouse is chirping in the cedars by the door, a sure sign that, eighty-degree days to the contrary, fall is here. There are a number of winter birds coming into the yard even though I haven’t been filling the feeders. They are eating Japanese beetles out of the cannas and the seeds of the ornamental sunflowers and rudbeckia. Very heavy rains are predicted for this weekend and I am more than slightly concerned. There is still a lot of field corn and hay that we need to harvest and rain is no help to that effort.

Big bass and small boy 

The late, great Frieland LV Dixie 

Fall at Northview 

Cowgirls of the northeastern world 

We were so lucky today. We could easily have lost a good cow in a very strange way. The first thing I noticed amiss was that little Ricky had cuts all over her. Ricky, whose registered name is Frieland Ricky Austin, is a real favorite of mine because she listens when I tell her to behave herself. If she is starting to kick her milker off and I tell her not to she actually stops. Not the norm for cows, I’ll tell you. Tonight there were deep gouges on the inside of her back legs, with flaps of skin hanging loose and nasty slits sliced into her rump. It looked like someone had been after her with a machete. She was also soaking wet. The girls and I speculated about where she could have gotten injured in such a manner and finally decided that she must have gotten tangled in barbed wire some where. We figured we would have to ask the guys to go look in case the fence was down. Then the boss noticed that A) the water in the big, steel watering trough was full of cow manure. B) the trough was leaking pretty badly. C) there was a huge dent in the side.

Detective that he is, he figured out that some big rough cows must have fallen to fighting with poor little Ricky and tipped her over into it. There isn’t much worse than a cow upside down in a water tub. Liz’s Jersey, Heather, was dumped into the other one, made of concrete, when she was younger and would have drowned if Liz and Ralph hadn’t helped her out. Somehow Ricky got herself out and we are very thankful. Alan told us when he came in from feeding the cows that he had heard a commotion in the afternoon, but when he looked down all he saw was a few cows hurrying away. We figure that either 16 or 471 did the dirty deed. They are both massive and miserable and like to fight.

Anyhow, we treated Ricky’s cuts with Blue Coat and checked her over for any real serious injuries. She was chewing her cud and looking pretty good so we turned her back outside after milking. I am real glad she didn’t drown or get too badly damaged. I like her.

Alan and I went to church today, way out in Freysbush, at St. John’s Lutheran, where we always feel welcome and at home. We came away feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and all new, which seems to be the way it always is when we find the time and energy to go there to worship. I have attended many churches over the years of my life, but never, ever felt like I belonged until St. John’s. We don’t go very often. There are many excuses. It is twenty miles or more away; Sunday is the only time I get any time that is really my own, etc. etc. However, I am always very glad when I do work up the gumption. I have to thank Alan for asking me to take him.

The trip in both directions made it clear that the seasons are about to change. Apples hang heavy on the trees, goldenrod nods in full flower in abandoned hay fields. Just a scattering of trees are turning pale yellow or dark, maroon-ish red on a few outer branches and there are pumpkins to be bought at roadside stands. We saw dozens of blue jays and one large turkey vulture as we drove along. The vulture was sitting on a dead elm branch, holding its dusty black wings aloft like a tattered umbrella, warming up before it tried to fly. Where there was still corn in the fields the outer and lower leaves have turned yellow and tan and the ears have tilted outward for easy picking. It is easy to see that harvest time is here.

There is yet another chapter in the story of the water garden snake. After I tossed him over the bank we thought the pond frogs would be safe for a while. However, a mere three days later he was neck-deep in the water and frogs were scattered all over the lawn, heading for the high country. This time Becky took action. She grabbed him by his snaky neck, took him all the way down the long, steep house driveway, across the road and the guard rails and tossed him over the bike path.
Take that snake! Let’s see if he makes it back this time.

It's Fall! 

Here on the farm we live our lives surrounded by other creatures. Some of them are domestic animals that belong to us, cows, sheep, rabbits, dogs, cats and horses. And chickens. They work for us; we work for them.


There are also wild things. We feed the birds, welcome itinerant frogs to the garden pond and hunt deer, squirrels and turkeys. Or at least the guys do.
However, there are other, less glamorous, and perhaps less welcome critters living here too. This time of year we become quite aware of some of them. For example the bats that live under the roofs of the barns are not really much noticed at any other time of year. They go to bed at dawn, come out at dark and hibernate in the winter, so even though we keep long hours we don’t meet them much. However, with the short days of fall they are still a-wing when we go to the barn in the morning and they emerge from their daytime stupor at around seven PM, intent on insect coursing. Even this wouldn’t be much of a problem if they hunted outdoors, but they like to eat flies in the cow barn. They also are not exactly impressed by human beings and swoop wildly around our heads if we don’t hustle to turn off the lights and head for the house. I don’t mind watching them flutter against the last strip of pink along the western horizon when I am sitting out by the garden pond after chores, but I wish they would wait until later to search the barn.

Then there are the snakes. We have a lot of them, milk snakes, garters, ring necks and once a big old hog-nosed that rattled his tail just like a diamondback when I walked too close. For the most part we don’t bother about them. All the real rattlesnakes are over on the other side of the river and the snakes here hunt more pests than helpful things. However, the one that has been sharing the garden pond with the frogs this summer has plumb worn out his welcome.
The first time I saw him was months ago during a real hot, dry spell. He was lounging in the water with his head on the side of the pond, looking like a scaly gigolo trolling for starlets. I grabbed him by the neck and gave him a toss, concerned that he was either after my goldfish or the frogs. We like to play a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” with the latter, scanning the water lettuce and lily pads for their carefully concealed hiding places. I think camouflage was invented by a green frog. Anyhow, things that eat frogs are unwelcome, as several barn cats have discovered to their damp discomfort. After I chucked him out the snake, a long, shiny garter, hung around but seemed to leave the amphibians and fish alone. He and I enjoyed the waterside in tentative harmony. He became so tame that he often popped out from between my feet when I sat in my red chair and slid quickly through the petunias, to rest on the side of the pond.
Then, yesterday when I was pulling out dead water lily leaves, all five current frogs leapt into the air and dove, hell bent for election, under the water. Woosh, there was Mr. Garter Snake gliding swiftly out to nab one. He missed, lucky for him. This time I hauled him down below the driveway and gave him a fling into the bushes there. He had better stay away. There has been some talk of snakeskin belts or hatbands around here since he showed his true colors.

Little Farm Girls, way back when

Another Sunday has rolled around and a fine one it is. There was a heavy ground fog when I got up but it is gone now and the sun is putting a serious shine on everything. The old horse pasture just glows with goldenrod and the geraniums are like multi-colored torches.
I think the gardens and fields give us a nice show every year so when the snow flies we know just what we are missing. Fall must be on its way. The weather is turning much cooler, at least at night, and the kids are coming down with colds. The health issue with back-to-school is a big one here at Northview. All three kids have asthma to some degree and the cold and flu season is just a misery for all of us. One more reason to love the seasons when they are not in school.

Back-to-school also means less help and not much company during the daytime. We get a real good picture of just how much the kids do for us (and with us) when they are not here to do it. This year none of them will be able to miss school to go to the fall farm show with us, which takes some of the fun out of it. On the other hand, it is amazing just how much work I can get done with no interruptions.
I miss them though.

This morning the milking crew, (not including yours truly because of my day off), had another typical Sunday-fine-as-frog-hair time. A former show heifer named Drive had a great big half-shorthorn bull calf up in the cow pasture yesterday evening. (We have been moving the close-up heifers in with the milk cows because the coyotes have been stealing calves from the inexperienced young mothers. Cows don’t put up with such shenanigans.) This morning poor Drive came down minus her newborn, looking all forlorn. They put her in the barn and went looking for baby…and for a milk cow from my string, named Zinnia, who was also absent without leave. They found the pair together, Zinnia smug as a cat with a bowl full of cream, with “her” new baby. They had to put the calf in the barn to get Zinny in and then they couldn’t get her out.
She wanted to stay with the young ‘un.
Thinking back I remembered another calf stealing cow, old number 20, whom we eventually sold because she stole all the calves she could find. She would literally try to kill anyone who tried to take them to the barn. She once jumped into a 20-foot sheer sided ravine just to get around us and run back out to pasture to a stolen calf. I ticked back over the generations to Maroy Bianca. That was 20’s pedigree name. Sure enough, Bianca was the mother of Milestone Blackie, dam of Blackbird, dam of Black Berry, through several other cows to Blueberry, (you guessed it), dam of Zinnia. The whole crew traces back to an old show cow, Ronscott Sovereign Lucky, a 4-H calf Ralph bought from Mike Scott. Who would believe that such a tendency would come down through so many generations?
A cow like Zinnia is a mixed blessing. On one hand there is no way a coyote is going to kill a newborn calf with a cow like her in the picture. On the other hand, sometimes it is a little hard for people to bring calves in as well.

This is the forth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Since that day, we never hear a plane go over without looking up.
Every single time.
One of the ones that flew into the World Trade Center turned south for New York City over the City of Amsterdam, just eight short miles from here. It made me think then and it makes me think now.

Liz and Lemonade at Altamont

We went over to the fair after milking last night and had a sort of mixed experience. We saw dozens of people that we haven't talked to in ages and thoroughly and very enjoyably talked to them all. However, we also sat in the parking lot for over half an hour waiting for them to let all the big rigs and tractors from the truck and tractor pull leave before the paying customers. I wonder if they had any idea how much gas they were wasting at over three bucks a gallon, with a couple of hundred cars sitting there idling.

Had a short, but enjoyable visit with Matt and Lisa and the kids. It was good to see them. Then we had a nice, but terribly salty dinner at the pancake house and headed over to the agricultural building for some extra milk. That was about as far as we got for at least an hour, as we ran into Gerald and Eileen D., Barney and Brian Y., Ron and Tom and Elma P., Stacie K. and her new baby, and most of the rest of the agricultural population of at least three counties. It was wonderful. Alan and I must have spent ten minutes just admiring Bettie Myer's butter sculpture. It's about time they got smart and hired one of the woodcarvers to do the job. I believe that Bettie produced the best sculpture the fair has ever seen.

Eventually, we moved on to walk around the fair and look at the exhibits. Fonda Fair has fallen from favor with me in recent years, but I have to say that they did a spectacular job with the displays this year. It took us quite a while to make it to the ultimate farmer destination, the Cow Palace. There was the usual group of really high-quality cattle there, but what really caught my eye was an Intermediate Senior Calf, by Silky Gibson, that belonged to Koronas. Wow! That's all I can say. She stood on the south aisle, but I spotted her the instant we walked through the north door. She was foursquare, strong and correct and everything anyone could ask for in a calf. I think she could show well even at the national level. I sure would like to own one just like her.

We will be starting to chop corn as soon as the fair is out of the way. I hope the weather holds warm and dry like it is now and that the machinery all holds together for a few weeks. Then maybe there will be time for some fall plowing before the snow flies.