The farmer is "on the land". 

Cheerleading for Spring

It is trying quite hard to be spring here in the great Northeast. However, it just can’t seem to make it over the seasonal hump. The daffodils are almost open, but not quite. Cows are almost shed out of their winter fur, but not slick yet. They are still spewing clouds of hairs into the air (and onto our clothing) all day long. Heifers haven’t even begun to lose their wooly covering yet, and are as shaggy as bears.

The gold fish are beginning to forage in the garden pond. Soon I will be able to set up the filter and the fountain and get rid of the slimy strings of algae that are slithering all through the normally clean water.
But not yet; it’s too cold.

I watch every day for the first green frog and listen at dusk for the peepers. Not yet, too cold.

The grass is showing tinges of green in the soft corners (especially on the lawn, where no one would get mad if it waited a bit). Soon there will be enough to turn the stock out into the pastures and stop paying through the nose (and other important bodily orifices) for corn silage to feed them and hay to buffer their rumens. However, turn out time is not quite here yet.

The ground is almost warm and dry enough to start working, but we face north so it is too cold and wet to start turning dirt yet. The boss had a go last week with the chisels and just missed getting stuck. Gotta wait I guess.

However, the maple trees are in full bloom, driving Liz into the depths of allergic-to-them misery. It is not good to be allergic to maple blossoms in upstate New York. Or at least not in April.

The buggy critters sure are waking up. Every day another hornet somehow finds its way into the bathroom and buzzes around on the floor. I hate to be cruel so I give them a ride down the "zoom flume" in our personal water park. What a way to go!

Anyhow, I am ready for the whirlwind insanity that is spring on a dairy farm. Bring on the sun, bring on the grass, warm up the earth, I am ready to garden. Call up the alfalfa, plug in the corn seeds. Come on Spring, rah, rah, ree.

Okay, who's been chasing the rooster? He won't hold still so I can take his picture! 

This was pretty painful this morning. 

Party Animals

We went to a very fine party last night, something that takes some serious planning on the part of a farm family. First the washing machine passed away unexpectedly the night before, requiring Herculean efforts to locate a replacement. (Its motor gave out from overwork, and a new motor costs nearly as much as a new machine. Plus we would have had to wait for a motor to be ordered.)

Thus we drove around all day finding and transporting the new washer, then came right home and began evening milking two hours early. Calf bottles were relayed from hot water bath eager pink mouths at warp speed. You never saw straw bedding being shaken out so fast. I swear, you couldn’t see the kids, except for the blur when they went by. We needed to get everyone through the shower and all primped and prettied up by 7:30.

It wasn’t easy but we got it done.
We were among the first to arrive.
The dinner was potluck.
It was a farmer party.
Farmers for the most part have farm wives.
And daughters.

Thus the food was pretty close to dangerously good. (Which was nice, since we missed lunch due to the washing machine hunting expedition.)
I am talking a serious threat to the waistline and cholesterol level. From about seven different salads to three kinds of meatballs with beans and filled breads in between, there was no reason to go away hungry. And that was before dessert. Which included cake….cookies….pies and cobblers…. Oh dear.

There was Karaoke. (And no, I did NOT sing.) However, after a substantial payoff, plus a promise that I would take him practice driving today, Alan performed Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride, (with his back to the audience.) I have a picture. Do you want to see it, even if it is a little dark and blurry?
Steppenwolf must have offered an undeniable assault to the eardrums of many present, who are a little more accustomed to George Strait than seventies hard rock. They clapped anyhow.
And he was pretty good.
For Karaoke.

We heard stories of genuine tragedy, and stories that were knee-slapping funny. We sat with people we had missed for years and didn’t expect to meet again. (They were forced out of the industry by hard times and family squabbles.) We saw babies, toddlers in cowboy boots, gawky teenagers, and old men with polished heads.

We had fun.
A lot of it. My face hurt from smiling.
I sure do like farmers.

Maddening

This kind of thing is infuriating. One big company messes up, not for the first time, and farmers all over the USA get it in the neck. Our milk inspectors write us up if they can stick a pencil through a gap in a milkhouse windowscreen and yet they can't tell if there are illegal bones in beef that is being exported? Give me a break.

Not much green grass here yet. 

Wanna buy a rabbit?

It is quite a thing when the local auction barn cancels its poultry and rabbit auction without notice. (Seems they are afraid of bird flu. Guess they expect it to arrive in upstate New York real soon.)

Anyhow Empire Livestock in Central Bridge did just that yesterday to the chagrin of dozens of buyers and sellers who showed up interested in trading small critters. There were rows of cars and piles of boxes as sellers wondered what the heck they were going to do with their spare bunnies and chickens. Buyers ran around asking, "Got a dozen chickens?" "What color rabbits you got there?" Talk about chaos! (Interestingly the small animal sale is still listed on the company website. Just scroll down to the Central Bridge Tuesday sale to see for yourself.)

Of course the company has the right to do whatever they want as far as their auction goes, and for the most part the small livestock sale was always a bit of a pain for the beef and calf sellers that keep the place afloat. However it is just plain foolish not to inform regular customers of the impending closing. And bird flu is a lousy excuse. It will probably get here some time, but selling or not selling rabbits in upstate New York isn’t going to change that one bit.

Anyhow, if anybody wants to buy a rabbit or two, Alan still has four of the five he took over to sell yesterday. He sold the other one to a kid in the parking lot who went over to the sale with his heart set on taking home a rabbit.

Home Alone

Kids all in school, the boss gone to get some firewood some friends gave us, nothing but peace and quiet. However, if you have ever seen our house, you know it looks, well, different. We also have an Interstate running in front of it, just on the other side of the state road we live on. This all leads to people, sometimes several cars per weekend, traipsing up here figuring to take a look around. (At least one walked right in the kitchen door to meet Mike teeth and all on the other side.)

It got so bad that when the boss’s mother was alive and living here alone, we put up large, explicit signs at the bottom of the driveway warning people that trespassers will be firmly discouraged.

Didn't work. I was just sitting here taking an innocent coffee break when Nick opened up. Wally didn’t bark, so I figured Nick was barking at a cat and ignored him. Then Gael barked. Mike barked because Gael did. However I didn’t see anybody, so I still didn’t pay any attention.
Then Nick really went nuts, way too much for a mere barn cat alarm, so I stepped out the back door to holler at him. And practically stepped on two guys. Creepy guys. One said, “I’m from (somewhere, didn’t catch it) Illinois. Are you familiar with that, Illinois, I mean?”

Well, gee, no duh, I am a hick from the sticks, why would I be familiar with the state where my brother lived for half his adult life?

Out loud I said, “Of course I am, what are you looking for?”

The jerk explained that he stopped at the neighbors and they told him to come up and ask if he could take pictures. Well, of course he could. I love to be home all by myself and step out the porch and meet a nice upstanding fellow who just happened to drive right by my “no trespassing, private drive” signs so he could take pictures of the house I just happen to live in. I mean, he couldn’t have taken them from the road could he?

I told them to be damn glad the boss wasn’t the one who came to the door, take a picture from the driveway and get themselves gone.

Then I wrote down their license number, came inside and listened to my heart pound for a while. They really scared me. And they had New York plates, not Illinois.
Thank God for dogs.

New Name

The hat has been consulted. The first name drawn was "Hazel", so Hazel it is. (A lucky coincidence, so I am told, since there is a certain someone, involved in a certain cow owner's life who has pretty hazel eyes.)

We are saving the name "Honey" for the upcoming baby (due next month) from Heather's other daughter, Hattie, if it is a heifer. Honey is such a perfect name for a little golden brown cow. ALL the names will go into the naming file for future Jersey babies. What an aid to this imagination challenged farm crew.

Many thanks to all who offered us great names for this new baby. She is a real character by the way. She takes her milk bottle so fast she flattens the nipple, and then butts it and jumps around in irritation when she can't get any milk. She will practically knock you over if you don't pay attention when feeding her.

Name that calf....again

Please lend a hand

Here is another baby girl in need of a name, and you are invited to help. She was born at around 1:30 this morning and her mama’s name is Dreamroad Extreme Heather, so her name will need to start with an "H". She already has older sisters named Hattie and Hooter.

We bought Heather several years ago from a well-known area Jersey breeder to pay Liz for a summer’s work here on the farm. The boss and I are dedicated Holstein breeders and the introduction of a little brown cow into our herd was more than slightly controversial. However, Heather is a good cow, there is just no getting around it, so including this little critter, we now have four Jerseys and one half Jersey. Hopefully you folks will be able to help Liz come up with a good name for her.

Thanks in advance!


Jersey cattle
Farming

Killing the cat food dish 

Pretty good

TFS Magnum mentioned a pretty good editoral on PETa recently. You can read it here.

My friend in Canada shared this picture of her new born baby. How cute can you get! 

Paucity of posting

I apologize for the paucity of posts. It has been brought about in part by fine spring weather, which has allowed the boss to get a little chisel plowing done, and let me rake about nineteen billion honey locust pods off the lawn. What am I going to do with those windrows of tree fruit? I don’t know, but I love it when March goes out like a lamb.

There are also the impending visits of not only a state milk inspector, but a federal one as well. That’s right, we lucky dairy farmers have several levels of bureaucratic oversight just champing at the bit to bring us to heel in our milk houses. Get those windowsills dusted and the gloves off the ladder. Clean the floor, patch the wall, paint whatever will hold still. And do it NOW before they get here with their clipboards and disposable boots.

We get to enjoy the state check up because we are changing milk companies and the national one because the new co-op is up for its periodic federal rating. I am coughing even as we speak, by way of discovering that some pvc pipes I cleaned up last week were full of noxious grain dust that had seeped through the ceiling from an abandoned bin. Hack, hack.

Ah, well, the ground is covered with crocuses the color of rich golden cream, and birds are cheering on the approach of fine spring weather with a jangly concert of morning calling. The Cobleskill Dairy Fashions Sale is tomorrow too. There will be lots of pretty purebred cows for us to admire and covet. (I really am looking forward to that.) Meanwhile, if you don't see me here, know that I am making our barn safe for food production (can't have gloves on the ladder or tractor bearings on the windowsill) or stealing a few minutes to welcome spring to my gardens.

Moving target...picture number twenty-seven 

A Moving Target Indeed

I cheerfully took the camera to the barn with me this morning thinking that I was going to get a wonderful shot of our new baby, out of Alan’s show cow, Bayberry. Bay is a red carrier and was bred to the milking shorthorn bull so we knew from the start that there might be a red calf.
Yesterday morning while I was milking the east line where she stands, she began showing signs of impending labor. I was excited.

She sure didn’t waste any time. She had just lain for the first time when the black smith arrived to trim feet. I went over to the house, caught DG, held him while he got his pedicure, and by the time I got back, there was the calf. Bay was licking it off and quite proud of her efforts.
It was dark mahogany red and it was a heifer too. What more could you ask for?
I did all the usual navel dipping and colostrum feeding, drying off with warm towels and all that, and just couldn’t wait to get a picture to share with you.

However, crossbred calves tend to be, well, a bit vigorous, I guess you could say.
Little Broadway was delighted to see me with something in my hand. (After all I am the bringer of warm milk bottles.) She jumped to her feet. She tugged on her tie. She swapped ends. She licked her mother. She licked Hattie, the Jersey that stands in the next stall. She bucked and jumped and leapt through the air with the greatest of ease. She bobbed her head and switched her tail. She did everything but stand still so I could take her picture.

Out of about twenty-seven shots, this is the best I could do.

Sorry.

farming

calves

Charles Thurwood's Diary 

Charlie Thurwood's Pocket Diary

South wind and raind a little and we split wood
In the afternoon it raind and at night Till came down and playd cards and the wind blowd very hard
4 pales of sap and 32 eggs

So read the March 26, 1874 diary entry of farmer Charles Thurwood of Fort Plain, NY. His little pocket journal lives in the top drawer of my desk here Northview. I bought it years ago as a Christmas gift for the boss.
Every now and then we take it out and compare what was happening in the farming world over a hundred years ago to what we are doing today. It is both very different and yet a lot the same. Our sugar bush is running strong these days, although someone else it tapping it. The sap flows into an old bulk milk tank through fancy plastic lines, but the syrup will taste just as sweet when we get our share. Our hens have begun to lay, although we can't find the nests. And there are only two hens here, we sure wouldn't be getting 32 eggs even if we could locate them.

The boss thinks this house was probably standing here then. Although most of Charles’ trips were to Fort Plain or Cherry Valley, he could have passed here sometime during his life here in the valley. For sure if he came to Fonda he had to have passed our cow barn. It has been there a very long time. Maybe the cheese factory that used to stand where our calf pasture used to be (before the road went through) was making cheese back then.

I wonder.

Traceback made easy

Here is another case where animals with a transmissible disease were discovered and easily traced to their source, despite the lack of a national animal id system. Take note that despite the fact that the pigs in question (which were found to have TB and to have illegally crossed state lines) didn't have health certificates that are already required by law, they still had no trouble tracing them.

This is just more proof that we don't need the system the USDA is so eagerly pursuing.


farming
NAIS

Medina Daydreaming....born yesterday morning, just as the new milk inspector was leaving. 

Across the valley 

More ID

It would be worth your time to visit No Mandatory ID and read today’s post. It contains a letter written to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader about that paper’s editorial stance on National ID. Seems the paper thinks that we dumb farmers ought to just suck it up and smile while we pay to make the USDA look good.

I have heard way too much whining that they can’t trace that last BSE case in Alabama anywhere. This is supposed to constitute proof that we need national ID. They are pretending that it will make a difference to someone somewhere if they can find out where she was born and who she hobnobbed with over her long life.
Wrong. If that cow was over ten years old, most every animal she had contact with over her life is already dead.

Long since.

The only beef cows who hang around for over ten years are likely to be brood cows and breeding bulls. They are after all, beef cows. So where do you really think they are now? And who would gain what by tracing them?

Besides which, if you look back you will see that at least here on this continent, BSE cases have been so sporadic that there rarely, if ever, is more than one case in one herd. Heck there have only been three cases in this whole country. The disease isn’t contagious in the normal sense, cows have to eat infected feed to get it. Add to that the fact that BSE cases are on the decline world wide and you have the whole story. National ID is hogwash, bull crap and bad news and papers like the Argus Leader that support it are full of it.

NAIS
farming

The 11th Commandment

Thou shalt not launder thy pocket herdbook.

More of these every day now...

Amarillo

The name that came out of the hat for our new baby (see below) is Amarillo. I want to thank everyone who offered us a name. We have a number of other babies due soon and I am sure we will use some of the other terrific names for them. I am keeping a file of good names that people come up with as we are all kind of burned out in the naming department.

For the first time this year I missed the Wednesday deadline for the Farm Side. This is actually the latest in the year I have ever lasted without skipping a week. (The editor doesn't care how often I write; I think he understands the vicissitudes of farming.)

I actually was hard at work on a column about the beef check off and the Beefmobile when a milk inspector from one of the companies that wants to buy our milk showed up. By the time I got back to work it was just too late. I have about 925 of my 1000 words and will just get it done for next week.

I hope you like the new header. I have a lot to learn about this editing the template stuff.

Calf
Farming

Sugar ice

Good stuff this morning. The guys cut down a medium sized maple tree for firewood the other day. It is lying in the yard waiting to be cut up and oozing sweet sap and making sugar icicles like mad. I broke off a bunch of them into my coffee cup and made my breakfast coffee with the sweet sap. Lovely.

Clear the Roads

Alan turned 16 today. Look out.

The new one 

You called? 

Name That Calf

When you have a registered dairy herd your animals must be named. If the herd has been in the family for a while and you follow the trend of naming a calf something that starts with the same letter as its mother’s name, you soon start to run out of names. Trust me on this.
When I started going out with the boss he was delighted to turn the task of naming over to me. By the time kids came along I can’t tell you how happy I was to start turning it over to them.

Now we are asking you to try your hand. Yesterday’s little heifer needs a name, preferably beginning with either ‘a’ or ‘s’. So far the suggestions are Sprite, Amarillo and some weird place name that I can’t spell or pronounce.
If you have a good idea for a name, just leave it in the comments section.
Please.
We will pick one out of a hat like we did when we named a ‘v’ calf through the Farm Side.
(A word to the wise: virtually every conceivable conjugation of the name ‘Ann’ and most ‘a’ fruits have been taken already.) Have fun.

Doesn’t all this naming and registering stuff make you wonder why we need a national animal identification system? As soon as little ‘a’-whatever is named and looks like she will survive all right, we will take her picture, write that name with our our herd prefix, her date of birth, the date her dam was serviced, the registration number and name of both sire and dam, the name, address and account number of her owner, whether she was a twin or not, her color, and whether or not she was an embryo transfer on a registration blank. Then we will sign it and send it (plus money) to the Holstein Association. Later we will get back her nice new registration paper, clearly identifying her, us, and where she came from. You will not only be able to trace her, but you can have a look at who her ancestors were and where they lived back to the 1800s if you go on the Holstein website. What the heck more do we need? An ear tag that will rip a big hole in her ear when it gets ripped out on a feeder or tree? Nah, it is just a government gimic to keep tabs on our business. You know it.

Farming
NAIS

Saturday

It was an eventful day today. I went out for early barn check to look in on 114, who STILL hasn’t had a calf. I also checked 75 and Mento, who are due the 24th. I didn’t see any babies anywhere.
When Ralph went over about an hour later there was a little heifer calf running around the barn and she was all dried off and had obviously been there a while. She belonged to 75, whose name is Apricot.
Now, I will admit I didn’t turn on all the lights, but how the heck did I miss a whole calf? I mean the barn isn’t THAT big. Now we are looking for good "A" names for her.
Liz got up, even though it is her day off, and got baby all dried off, put into a coat, dipped her navel and gave her a bottle of colostrum. Hope she comes along all right. A heifer was real welcome after the string of huge bull calves we have been having.

On a less positive note, our milk marketing cooperative held its last annual meeting, after voting to disband last month. It was a pretty emotional time, as many of the members’ families have been shipping milk to Canajoharie Cooperative since their grandparents were farming. We have been shipping there for sixteen years. It was just another victory of the big agribusiness companies over the actual producers of our nation’s food. We still haven’t decided where we will send our milk, although we have to start pushing the pencil pretty hard next week, as we have to change by the first of April or be stuck getting the lowest price around from the new co-op. It is very hard to know what to do.

On the bright side issue we won a "Super Milk" award and an Allied Co-op Quality award, which of course makes us happy. You can’t eat them or pay bills with them, but they sure look good on the office wall.

calves
dairy

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all Irish and honorary Irish readers.

I can claim, at least in part, (there is Scots and German in there too) to be the real deal. After all, my dear departed grandma was a McGivern, and there were MacIntosh’s and such like back there too. I am not wearing any green, but I am off to the supermarket to get a few packages of corned beef to freeze and enjoy throughout the coming year. I boil the stuff in several changes of water so the salt doesn’t kill us off, and we really like it.

St. Patrick's Day
Irish

It was really weird

We spent at least ten minutes tonight debating whether we wanted to turn London outside for the night or not. It is still pretty wintry here and, even though there are two sheds in the barnyard where cows can get shelter if they need it, we rarely leave them out at night until May.

However, London had a huge bull calf the other day (just what we needed, six in a row now) and pinched a nerve in her pelvis. This left her slightly knuckled over at the pastern and she has a little trouble getting up and down. We figured she would most likely have a better time of it out on the dirt, but we weren’t sure she could make the long walk to the door.
We finally decided to give her a shot at it and turned her loose. Although she kind of wandered a bit, she made it to the door and was quite happy to do outside. Later I had occasion to go out to the milkhouse and went outdoors with a flashlight to see how she was doing.

I found her lying quite comfortably on a big pile of hay that forms under the mow window.
Something just didn’t look right though. I could clearly see the top of her head and the area below her ears where her eyes should be. However, instead of her eyes being there, they glowed from about where her chin would be. I stood there staring. Liz came out and stared too.

"She’s down and something is wrong with her." Liz said.

"She sure doesn’t look right," I agreed.

We stared some more.
Suddenly we both began to laugh out loud.
The reason London had eyes on her nose was that BS, the old black sheep, was tucked up under her neck. It was her eyes that we saw glowing. The other sheep, Freckles, was snuggled up against London’s rump. They were delighted to have one of the big guys outside to protect them from the coyotes, and were as close as they could get.

And they call sheep stupid.

Mandatory NAIS

It only took a couple of days after the USDA announced the United States 3rd case of BSE (or mad cow disease) for someone to start raving about forcing a mandatory animal identification program down the throats of farmers, ranchers and small holders.



I predicted that this would happen yesterday when I was writing this week's Farm Side (which will run in the Recorder this Friday). Anyone with any sense knew that this would be the result of finding another case, even though there was never any danger of the cow in question entering the food system.

However, every new disease or new case of an old one becomes another stick to beat the poor dumb livestock owner with. You would think that we farmers really NEED Congress to tell us how to label our cows. After all, they are all familiar with farm livestock aren't they? They all know all about how well ear tags stay in cows' ears don't they? And anyhow, as Sarpy Sam is fond of saying, "An ear tag never stopped a disease."

NAIS
BSE
mad cow disease

Flattened by a Bovine

I got squashed by a cow last night. Pretty badly, actually. She was reaching for feed and just happened to slam her rib cage into me, knocking me into a metal stall divider…three times. It didn’t exactly hurt and I went on milking for a couple of minutes, but then everything started to just feel "wrong" somehow. I had to go sit on a bale of straw for a while because I felt very faint. I just couldn’t get feeling right, so I left the rest of milking to the others and came over to the house where I could sit down if I needed to. I had major abdominal surgery a long time ago and sometimes getting hit real hard messes me up more than you would expect. I felt pretty crummy all evening and went to bed way early.

Of course this morning somebody still had to make the early morning barn check as 144 STILL hasn’t had her calf. I was the first one up so I went out. I hobbled like a little old lady, baby steps all the way. Still no calf so I hobbled back. It took a while.

I dreaded milking. I was really afraid of getting hurt again or more or whatever. However, it has to be done and when the kids are in school there is nobody but the boss and me to do it. At first it was as bad as the early walk over; I could barely move. Plugging the milkers into the overhead pipeline was almost more than I could handle. However, there is nothing like exercise to stretch damaged muscles and joints. I am happy to report that chores are done for the morning and I feel pretty good. Or at least not too bad. It was a reminder though, that no matter how tame and sweet milk cows might be, they weigh around three quarters of a ton. They are very single minded, and they don’t really give a darn if they flatten a mere human who gets in the way of their luncheon.

cows
agriculture

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.