Return of Winter 

King wins his fourth Iditarod

While we snuggled last night, safe in our beds, listening to a really nasty wind howling outside, Jeff King was racing under the burled arches in Nome, his fourth Iditarod win under his belt. He ran the race in 9 Days, 11 Hours, 11 Min., 36 Secs. The veteran musher, besides being an able dog handler and race strategist, has made some innovations in his equipment that have made a real difference to his team. Check out the way he has made a seat, a better way to haul dogs that need a rest, heated handlebars and a better harness. He even keeps his dogs fit by swimming them during the warm weather in summer.

Congratulations to Jeff and his team and to all the hardworking people and dogs who make the great race possible.

Jeff King
Iditarod

Please make the bad bunny go away... 

Dang

Suspect BSE case declared positive.

BSE

Iditarod

Jeff King has the lead right now, having reached Shaktoolik, according to Cabela's, with Doug Swingley, Paul Gebhardt and Dee Dee Jonrowe next in line. Jeff is my favorite musher, but I would love to see Dee Dee win. She has been trying for a long time, through a lot of personal challenges. She is also only two years younger than I am (and I am older than dirt). I sure couldn't climb on a sled behind a bunch of dogs and go over a thousand miles in a few days.
She gets my vote as a real fighter.

Iditarod

Berry canes are turning red 

Springing forward

On today’s early morning walk to the barn to check cow number 114 (to see if she is ever actually going to have that calf she is hanging onto so jealously,) I heard a veritable banquet of birdsong. Although the sun was not yet up and it was barely light enough not to need the flashlight, I could hear not one, but three, male cardinals pouring forth three different versions of their melodious call. There were blue jays, chickadees in summer mode, starlings, blackbirds and grackles. There was a sparrow that I think was a song sparrow, although his call was a bit rusty, and a white-throated sparrow. Off in the heifer pasture woods, things I can’t identify by call were singing and screaming and tooting and hooting.

Last night geese filed over the farm in V-shaped ranks, echoing their gargling calls across the whole valley. These are not the resident geese that hang around all winter scrounging corn out in the fields; these are the real deal, headed for their far north nesting grounds apace. They don’t even answer the tempting lure of a rest on the river, but just hurtle on by, flock after flock.

The valley fairly pulsates with waterfowl right now; crowds of ducks winnow the air over the house with frantic wings. They do stop at the river. I was kicking myself Saturday when the boss drove me over to gas up the car. There was a large flock of something small and black and white, guddling around right in the shallows next to the speedway.
And there were no binoculars in the car. I am thinking hooded mergansers, but I will never know for sure. We are in for some nasty weather again later in the week, but the birds don’t care. They have declared it spring anyhow.

birds
spring
farming

Another case of BSE?

Maybe. The USDA announced another inconclusive test today. There have been several of these in recent years and they have all done ugly things to beef prices for a while. It is my personal opinion that there is no reason whatsoever to announce anything but proven positives. There is nothing to gain by announcing maybes except damage to farm prices. If they turn out to be false in the end, the harm is done for no reason.

BSE
mad cow disease

Montgomery County Farm Bureau Membership Drive 2006

Here ducky, ducky, ducky 

USDA Getting Looked at Some More

"WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The integrity and competence of the U.S. Department of Agriculture were called into question Thursday by U.S. senators concerned with the USDA's failure for several years to investigate anti-competitive cases in the livestock and meat packing sectors. "

From what I read at Cattle Network, it looks like maybe some action will be taken on the USDA's complete failure to make any effort to look into anti-trust complaints against packers and stockyards. Hope that they get that boar's nest cleared up and then investigate the big milk marketing companies (you know the ones that call themselves farmer owned cooperatives and then lobby in Washington for lower farm prices). When one company with more arms than a giant squid is allowed to buy out dozens of small milk plants until it controls most of the milk in the country, somebody should sure investigate something.

"


beef
dairy
farming

No quite a mackeral sky...perch perhaps? Or maybe largemouth bass 

Iditarod Update

One of my favorite mushers has long been Jeff King. This is partly because he seems like a fine man who runs outstanding dogs. (In 2003 he won the coveted Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award for excellent dog care .) However, I especially like him because he also gave a local boy, CJ Kolby a ride on his sled, under the IditaRider program. (See that link for more on CJ's story.) CJ was suffering from a cancer, which later proved terminal. Jeff even visited CJ's family when he was speaking in the area. We followed the race even more intently than usual that year, because of CJ.

Jeff is currently in 7th place, with another favorite of mine, Doug Swingley, in first. The race has currently reached Ophir.

Iditarod

P. I. G.

If you heard of a high school course called "Participation in Government" or PIG, what would you expect the students to study? Even getting away from the obvious jokes about the relationship between swine and leadership on high, wouldn’t you figure that children would be taught about the legislative and judiciary branches of government? Maybe a bit about the executive level? And maybe even get to see those entities in action?

However, here in ever so liberal NYS, that is just not the case. While some attention is given to state and national government, the focus seems more toward teaching our fledgling citizens how to find all the handy sources of pork at the personal level that government has to offer. Thus, rather toting high schoolers down to Albany to sit in the balcony above the Senate chambers to watch government in action, they are forced to head over to the county building to find out how to sign up for government benefits. WIC, Medicaid, Food Stamps, you name it and the kids have to get a signature in the department that doles it out. The rationale is that they may need these some day.

It seems to me that what they really need is to learn how the leaders they elect (if they are not too lazy to vote) do the leading.
We took Becky to some very meaningful farm meetings, including the one that disbanded our milk cooperative, to gather information for this course. However, she has never been allowed to make her required reports on these meetings. Her class is just too busy learning that it is smarter to sell your home and rent rather than acquiring equity. Arrggghhhh.

I tip my hat to everyone who reads this who either home schools now, or has already raised, bright, well-prepared, capable, offspring by schooling them themselves. It seems like we spend most of our teaching time with our children counteracting the junk they are taught in school.

I guess they should just call the course "People Slavishly Dependent on Government" and get it over with.

Season of transition 

Sled dogs and Jersey calves all in one

Ramey Smyth is currently in the lead in the 2006 Iditarod sled dog race. Lance Mackey, now in 33rd place, set a blazing pace to Finger Lake, with very little time to rest or camp, according to Cabela’s website. The 2006 Yukon Quest winner is said to have exceptionally fast, strong dogs. His lead dogs, Hobo Jim and Larry, won the Golden Harness award in the Quest this year.

Much to my surprise, one of my favorite authors, Gary Paulsen, tried running again this year. However, the 66 yr.-old scratched in Skwentna. He managed to complete the race in 1983 with a team led by a trap line dog, and went on to write the account in the children’s book, Woodsong. Woodsong is one of my great favorites especially the story about the "seven skunk run" I guess sled dogs are sometimes hard to steer and they LIKE skunks.

Here at Northview, Rumpleteaser, an aging Jersey/Holstein cross cow, kept Liz up literally all night nursing her through the birth of a large bull calf. He was quite a disappointment, as not only was he not a heifer, but he was black, instead of the lovely honey brown that her ¾ bred calves usually are. Oh, well, he is still cute as you can see in his picture. This is looking like a big year for bulls, payback for all those heifers we got last year.
Dog sled racing
farming

This guy kept Liz up all night taking care of him and his mom....3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Holstein . Third bull in a row. 

Iditarod

My favorite sporting event of the year kicks off this weekend. More exciting than the Superbowl and World Series combined, the Iditarod Sled Dog Race is romance, drama and wonderful working dogs all thrown into one phenomenal event. I have followed the mushers for years, like kids follow pitchers, catchers and quarterbacks. From Susan Butcher in earlier days to today’s Seavey family, Jeff King and Martin Buser, they all fascinate me.

Since the first time I froze my feet trailside, watching a team of sled dogs explode down the snow at a local race, (back when there were races around here, back when we had snow), I have been hooked on the thrill. We used to tie our pet dogs to a plastic toboggan with whatever came to hand when I was a kid. Later when we bought the first Border Collies, Mike Canaday’s team of sheepdog trial dogs ran away with his son on the runners and my kids on the sled. (That was a whole nother kind of exciting.) Then a local musher gave us a couple of harnesses and we were really in business. We loved to drag the kids around on a Border Collie powered hand sleigh when they were little. They were the envy of a lot of town kids with their three dog team. Instead of gee and haw we hollered "away to me" and "come bye." Sometimes the dogs even listened.

There is just nothing like the eagerness of the dogs to run. They are bred to run, born to run, trained to run, conditioned to run and they truly love it-even the Border Collies, which are not exactly huskies. They twist in their harnesses on the way to the gang line, and yelp and moan with delight. Then they leap against the line, desperate to start the fun. Hitching up at a race is loud, with dozens of dogs screaming their desire to get going. It is like a canine Mardi Gras. When the brake is released and a team takes off the energy is staggering.

Once they are out on the trail all is silent. There is only the faint grating sound of the sled runners in the snow and the susurrus of dog paws to be heard. It is eerie to find a trailside standing place and watch them go by almost soundlessly.

These days we always seem to be too busy to hook up the mutts. The harnesses and gang line are stuffed under the hutch in a tangled ball of nylon line, flat straps and fluffy padding. However I will certainly be finding time to click on Cabela’s excellent coverage every day for the vicarious thrill of the race. Hope you can join me.
sled dog racing
Iditarod

New Animal Tracking Database

According to World Dairy Diary, a group called ViaTrace has teamed with Microsoft and the United States Animal Identification Organization to create an animal tracking database. ViaTrace is calling its product ViaHerd, and has provided technology to the National Cattlemens Beef Association for bovine ID and to New York State for tracking captive deer already.

Why does this worry me? I dunno, somehow the combination of the world's dominant computer software bully with the bullies who want to identify our cattle in the name of disease tracking just isn't real comforting.
NAIS
Farming

Hiding 

Shameless bunny on the china closet 

True horror story

Here are two links to some really nasty pictures of what the animal rights organization PeTA actually does to animals. These are photos of the pets two volunteers from that organization are alleged to have picked up, having expressly claimed that they were going to find homes for them. They did indeed find homes for these highly adoptable creatures...in garbage bags in someone else's dumpster. Do not look at these if you are sqeamish, but if someone from PeTA posts in your comments about how wonderful they, are you can share.

Stormy and Deetzie

Do me next! 

Freshly swept and resting comfortably 

Brooming the Cows

We are chopping ice off the water tanks every day. Some days it is four inches thick or more. The ground is frozen solid; it is near zero most mornings and the wind has a savage bite to it. However, no matter what the weatherman or the calendar says, spring is coming. House finches and chickadees are singing their mating songs, cardinals are calling cheerily from down below the drive and the first blackbirds are showing up at the feeder. The cows are shedding like crazy too, with clouds of hair flying all over the barn.

This leads to an interesting phenomena. The cows go nuts when they see a broom, or at least they do on my side of the barn. See I have been spending quite a lot of time sweeping floors and cleaning windowsills in honor of the fact that, since we are shopping for a new milk market, we are meeting a lot of new milk inspectors.
A bit of sweeping and polishing helps give a good first impression when they walk into the barn to talk turkey.

Anyhow, as I walk down the aisles brandishing my tired, old, barn broom, I also sweep off the loose hair on the backs, rumps and tails of any cows that are lying down. This is something I do every spring. The cows love it. Within a couple of days of my starting, they begin to beg, cow style, to be next for grooming. They stare at me intently and swing their heads up and down, clanging their stanchions. Some will even moo at me and groan eagerly when they see the broom coming.

While the stiff bristles are scrubbing off their excess hair, they put their heads right down to the floor and chew frantically, in a reflexive action like a dog moving its leg when you scratch its ear. Cows that are normally about as friendly as crocodiles lean toward me and jostle their neighbors to keep themselves closer to the wonderful tool. Some of them insist on standing up, which makes it much harder to broom them, as I am not terribly tall. The smart ones stay down though, so I can get at every itchy inch.

It makes the job fun to have them enjoy it so much and they really look amazingly better when I am done. Clean cows are another important issue for milk inspectors, so I get a business benefit along with the satisfaction of making the cows more comfy.
Cows
Farming
Signs of spring

Sunset/moonrise 

Great Game

Hat tip to A Coyote at the Dog Show for this really entertaining game. Just put aside your politics for a few minutes and have fun. Good hunting!

Good Post

Sarpy Sam has a good post today, on just how necessary National Animal ID is, or should I say, how unnecessary. Worth a read.

Apples to Apples or Calculating the Price of Milk

I spent a long time pushing the old pencil today, trying to compare the various milk pricing deals we have been offered. (It was plumb painful; mathematical calculations are so not my thing.)
You would think it would be simple though, wouldn't you? Say, so many dollars for so many hundredweight of milk, so much to haul it to the plant and so much for dues and services. Instead they make it darned near impossible to compare. One place charges forty-five cents a hundredweight and the other eighty cents for hauling. Obvious decision right? Nope, the one with the lower hauling has a higher stop charge. (If you are not a dairy farmer, you probably don't know that not only do you pay to ship your product to the plant, but you also pay for the truck to stop at your place-fifteen times a month.) One has a better base premium and the other higher dues. One charges a nickel to participate in the CWT program, the other includes it in the service fee. And on and on until my head is spinning trying to compare. There is no apples to apples and oranges to oranges about it. More like apples to arachnids and oranges to orangutans.

However, both the boss and I, independently, came to the same conclusion, so I think we know where our milk will be going. It is just a matter of talking to the new inspector now and seeing if we share the same, or at least almost the same, philosophy on just how clean the milkhouse has to be and other milk inspector-type issues. No matter what we do we will be paid less than we have been being paid. The demise of Allied Federated Cooperatives is going to be very rough on a lot of farmers in the Northeast. I am wondering if I should sell all my Allied hats, coffee mugs, carpenter's pencils and all the other things they have given us over the years on e-Bay. They are collector's items now.
Dairy Farming
Milk Pricing

"Canadian cold front moving in...." 

Shameless bunny photo of the day 

More shameless bunny photos on The View at Northview.

What I DON"T Believe

In response the comment on yesterday's post about how wonderful alternative farming is.

Don't get me started on the whole organic thing. I am no fan of chemicalling everything to death and using drugs to take the place of good husbandry. If you care about your cows and take good care of them, they will take care of you. My kids literally love their cattle. This whole place was in mourning for months when old LV Dixie died. She was one of the family after a lifetime in the show ring. In fact, our oldest is passing up a free ride to vet college in the Caribbean to come home and run this little dairy farm on a thin, fraying shoe string because she loves her cows. However, only in magazines is organic husbandry better for cows than using modern medicine when they are ill.

You wouldn't deny your child an antibiotic if they were ill and I will be damned if I will do the same thing to my cows. Organic husbandry means that if your cow gets sick, you give it a few probiotics and hope the hell it gets over whatever ailed it. Even the best cared for cattle, under the most natural of circumstances get sick sometimes and they need help. I have watched acquaintances of ours go to organic dairying to make an extra buck and watched their cows DIE of curable diseases. I believe in grass feeding. I believe in not dumping twenty different hormones into an animal to make up for stuffing it in an overcrowded barn. However, do not bother to tell me to throw away the bottle of Excenell for a scouring calf or to NOT give Star, our eleven year old pet some penicillin when she suffers from a retained placenta. Good management prevents some of these things, but just as no matter how much we love our children we can't always keep them from getting sick, sometimes even well cared for cows NEED medicine. Ours are going to get it if I have any say in the matter.
organic

I thought I had heard everything

The New York Times is so afraid that we don’t know how to take care of ourselves and need a full time nanny, (preferably a New York City Liberal nanny of course) that it is advocating teaching eating as a classroom subject. The paper uses the usual flawed data, such as that children will die younger than their parents, and that we are all "addicted" to sugar and fat, to bash hamburger and chicken, and as an excuse to rejoice that whole milk has been banned in NYC schools. The writer wants lunch to constitute the "core of the curriculum". (For some it probably already does.)

The author suggested one thing that seemed logical to me, getting kids involved in actually growing some food. This makes sense, first of all because growing food is hard work. Get them up off their butts and out in a garden, put rakes and shovels and hoes in their hands and the so-called obesity epidemic might be a thing of the past. Growing food of their own might also put them just a tiny bit in touch with the people who normally grow it for them. Farmers and ranchers that is. Somehow, though, I think this would just turn out to be another attempt to accustom us to government baby sitting, as applied to our families.
Obesity
Farming

This guy was born at 4 AM today. Hard to believe little Ricky had such a behemoth all on her own 

Still another shameless bunny photo 

Mohawk 10C 

House Guns

Here is my house gun as per a post on Alphecca about which one you keep handy. This Mohawk 10C is my favorite because I can shoot it. I have had it since I was 21, which has been a fine long time. It was the first gun I ever owned except for "dummy training rifles" that my brothers and I played "Combat" with when we were kids.

I got really ticked at my son when he came back from hunting with it and said that he "dropped" it on the ice and slightly cracked the stock. I got even more ticked when he admitted that he and his dad had dropped a tree on it when getting firewood and that is how it really got the crack. My dream gun however, is a cannon to set at the top of the driveway. I also want a military tank to scare the bejesus out of all the jacklighters poaching our deer every fall.
house guns

The Farm Sign. It DOES have a flat tire. It does NOT say Argersinger Road. It sits on the cliff at the bottom of the driveway.

Argersinger Road

I trudged down the barn driveway today and took a few pictures so you can see how little it looks like a county road in New York State. There was just no way the guy on Sunday could have been mistaken about where he was.

Farming
Trespass

Argersinger Road???? 

Nope 

Still not 

Alert

I got my weekly update from Drovers Magazine today and two stories jumped right out. One is on the sale of banned beef products to Japan. Looks like the Japanese company actually deliberately ordered the illegal material, then cancelled the order. The USDA is still taking blame, but it looks to me to be shared.

The other is that Sen. Tom Harkin has introduced legislation that would put the burden of proof "in proving unfair actions away from the producers and onto the dealers, stockyards and packers. The legislation also would make several changes to the Agricultural Fair Practices Act, intending to prevent discrimination against producers belonging to an organization or cooperative. The American Meat Institute expressed opposition to “any expansion of existing authorities that would adversely inhibit producers’ and packers’ ".
Farming
Beef

Tired Iron

I put a couple of pictures of the tractors over on The View at Northview if you want to see them.

Farming
Farm tractors

Night Checks

So far I have been out of the loop on the night time calf checks. We only have two cows hanging fire right now, Ricky and Aretha. Ralph and Liz have been taking turns going out at night and I have been doing the early morning and daytime checks, but they are getting tired and I can feel my turn coming.

Night checks are a misery. Even with the best of flashlights, the lumpy frozen ground is hard to walk on. Since we have been having folks prowling around, (see below) I am nervous going to the barn in the dark. I often take Mike and Gael along, although if there is a calf they are a pain in the neck.
There also have been a lot of skunks around whenever it gets above freezing and I am not much more enamored of them than the human kind.

Alan and I were counting up yesterday and between now and the end of April we are expecting 14 of our 56 cows to calve. That adds up to a lot of nighttime hikes. One of these days I am going to get a remote camera and put an end to all this fun. Oh, well, if you can get past the bogeymen in the bushes, it is nice out at night, quiet and clear. Guess I will live.
Farming
Calves

Another picture by Alan, last night out in the woodstove. All that nice wood was a gift from friends who had county work done on them, trimming some dead trees. Thanks to them we are nice and warm. 

For Pete's sake, fill the feeder will ya? 

Corn Planter

If you guessed some kind of planter or seeder, you were correct. The boss's folks had several of these. Alan wants to see if he can plant some sweet corn with it next summer.