Grazing a bunny on the lawn 

The bunny wrangler 

You be the judge

There is an auction barn too darned far to the west of here where the guys recently took some heifers to sell. (We don’t feel that we get a fair price at the mega-corporation-owned one that is more locally located.)

Anyhow, when they dropped off the critters last Sunday, all the bales of hay kept in the barn to feed the animals there over the weekend were plainly labeled,
"Not for Human Consumption."

I hope it was a joke.

The river is back in its banks 

Earlier this evening 

Oh, power pole, power pole wherefore art thou?

Someone took our telephone pole.
Lifted it, liberated it, loosed it from its bonds, somehow removed it without our knowledge.
A whole great big power pole, vanished into thin air like a puff of creosote smoke. We have been puzzling about the who and how since we noticed it was missing from the old calf pasture, now grown up to trees and honeysuckle, right in front of the house. The Power Company gave it to us when they replaced all the poles around here a few years back. It was pretty inaccessible, lying up on the hill across a ditch, quite some distance from a well-traveled highway and right in front of the house. Certainly we probably should have hooked a tractor on and dragged it up behind the barn, but who the heck would expect somebody to steal something as big as a telephone pole? It had to have been cut up with a chainsaw or heavy equipment brought in to move it. The thing was huge and it was maybe 150 feet from the front door!

How the heck did he do it neither challenged by us nor questioned by someone going by?
We have FIVE dogs, including Wally, who lives in a kennel and keeps us informed of what is going on even down on the bike path. How did we not hear them…or them not hear him? Probably came at milking time and got lucky that everyone was over at the barn at once. I guess we will never know the exact how, although we have a pretty good idea of the who. If by chance he reads this, yeah, we figured it out and you know just how we know. It must be hell to have that kind of reputation, but we hope you enjoy the pole.

This is all kind of funny to speculate upon, except that we did want to use the darned thing. Imagine going to all that trouble to take something that could be replaced by a couple of trees you could cut down right in your own woods. It boggles the mind.

Dixon, daughter of Dallas, grand daughter of Frieland LV Dixie. 

Too wet

We are getting a real cold miserable rain this weekend. The weathermen (who work indoors in nice warm buildings) are just delighted. Their livelihood isn't washing away.
It is true that it has been dry, there have been serious brush fires, and the grass needed some moisture to get growing.

However, this is ridiculous.

Overkill.

Too much.

It can stop now.

Heck, it could have stopped yesterday. (And early yesterday at that.) Our men had three fields all worked up and one gone over with the Perfectas and ready to plant to seeding. Now they will have to do it all over again. With the price of fuel, an extra trip with the tractor is not something to aspire to. Plus we have to wait for it to dry up again first before they even put a tire on it. Dang, we sure didn’t need this much water.

I left my wheelbarrow out where I was planting herbs Friday and there are six and a half inches in it. Allowing for the slant of the wheelbarrow, that has got to be at least three or four inches of rain over 24 hours . Wish I had turned the rain gauge right side up before this all started so I knew exactly.

Across the river on the flats neighbors just finished planting corn Friday. It is all under water now. I expect that they have lost it and will have to replant. Big bucks. I am sorry for them. But that's farming. You are ever at the mercy of the weather and the government.

The Paint big cheese 

Busy days, tame chickadees and hanging zucchini

Busy, busy days just keep coming at us full speed ahead. The new vacuum pump is like a dream though, and a very nice dream it is. The first few milkings drove us crazy because it is so quiet that is you can’t hear it at all inside the barn. Thus you have the sense that the milking machines are not going to work when you plug them in. They do, however, work just fine and we are making good time milking because we now have a huge vacuum tank as well. This gives us more of a vacuum reserve so the machines work better. Now if we could just get rid of the dreaded inch and a half pipeline everything would be practically perfect.

A small milestone in life up here at the farm. (Real small.) Although the boss and I have been married nearly 21 years and have worked together here even longer, we have only actually lived up here for about four and a half years. Before that we lived in town. Anyhow, I have spent a little time here and there, ever since we moved up, trying to get chickadees tame enough to land on my hand to take a seed.
That finally happened yesterday. Today they came right down off the clothesline to snatch seeds out of Alan’s hand too. It is so neat to have those tiny, but very brave, little creatures come close enough to touch. Hope the bird flu stays away and they are spared.

The boss planted one bag of sweet corn about four days ago and is going to try to get another bag in tonight while the rest of us milk. We hope to get a good enough crop to sell a bit this summer, but I will settle for enough to freeze a lot and eat homegrown corn all winter. Yum.

We were supposed to test tonight, but the tester canceled out, which is just peachy with me. Not having to rush around tidying up for that allowed me to get a bit of gardening done. I am really excited about something I saw over at Sunnycrest Orchard. They have hanging plant baskets out in the greenhouse, with zucchinis and cucumbers, loaded with fruit, growing in them. I have just got to try that. I am sure they need massive amounts of water and fertilizer, but I am going to have a go just the same. I can't wait.

Reasons for not posting much these lovely spring days

We are getting a new vacuum pump. It has been installed over the last couple of days and everything else has ground to a halt. This one will be located outside the milk house in an addition the guys built over the winter. The one we have been using was a replacement that a contractor (who BTW never came back) loaned us when ours broke down. It was located in the north aisle right behind the cows and it was LOUD! Deafening in fact. We all hated milking because of it. The boss made a muffler for our new one out of a 55-gallon barrel set in solid concrete. It that doesn’t keep it quiet nothing will.

The front end came out from under the White 2-105. For the uninitiated that is a pretty good sized four-wheel drive tractor. It doesn’t steer for beans with its front wheels falling off so…

It is warm enough to plant corn.

The corn planter needs two new cutting disks.

It is warm enough to plant some garden things. Like peas and lettuce and onions.

It is warm enough to play outdoors. This one is a biggie. How can I stay inside and write when the fish are awake in the garden pond, wonderful things are blooming, the liquid is vanishing out of the hummingbird feeder (haven't seen any hummers yet though) and the purple finches are back?
The answer is simple, I can’t!

A good joke

Dan Weaver has a pretty good Amish joke over at his place today.

Good morning 

I was too busy yesterday to have my picture taken but here I am today. 

An Almost Perfect Easter Sunday

First we shared a delightful meal with new friends, who are becoming good friends very quickly. The kids hunted Easter eggs, just a bit sheepishly because they think they are sophisticated teenagers, but they had a great time. Or at least they wanted to stop at every house that had an egg tree on the way home so they could continue the chase.

Then we took a short ride out to Lykers Pond to see what spring was bringing for Easter out in the wild world. The country sure had its Easter bonnet on. Red osier dogwoods, with stems like purple fire sticks, glowed against last year’s dry grass, wherever fields had lain fallow for a few years. Solid pewter poplars bloomed like stately candelabra along the edges of hardwood patches. Geese guarded every pasture puddle. Shaggy manes of coltsfoot blossoms brightened the roadside ditches and maple flowers out-redded the cardinals. It was just plain pretty with a nice mess of wind-tossed clouds overhead to top everything off just right.

At the pond we watched three muskrats so large that at first we thought they were beaver. They swam so fast you would have sworn they could outpace an Evenrude at full throttle. I stepped down into the woods to watch them cavorting and to admire the huge craters chopped into a dead tree by a pileated woodpecker.

As I stood in the dead grass and dried leaves, I thought to myself, ‘this isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had’. However, the muskrats came right up close and I forgot about the tickling sensation I felt on my knee for a second. I did look after a bit though but there was nothing to see….or so I thought.

All good things must end and soon we had to come home so the boss could feed the cows. I sat down to write about our adventures and felt that tickly sensation again.
It was a nasty, creepy, crawly, dangerous because-of-Lymes disease, deer tick!

Argghhhh.

Everyone has their phobias and ticks are mine. Just thinking of them gets the skin at the back of my neck crawling and sends me running for the insect repellent. Off! is my favorite perfume in summer, or you might think so from how often I wear it.
Guess it is time to put that right in the car for the season, oh, and the binoculars too. It is kind of dumb to go bird and wildlife watching without them.

Mike is getting older but the cow below is the one he and Nick shifted off the lawn the other day. She is a lot bigger than he is! 

Another new one 

The six-berry pie

I admit that I am kind of ambivalent about the Amish moving into the area. On one hand they do keep land in agriculture that would probably otherwise be developed. On the other hand they enjoy a reputation for good farming and good cooking that is pretty much undeserved. And they get away with a lot of stuff that us regular folks would get arrested for.

They abuse their horses beyond belief. It is nothing for them to hook up a Standardbred that is already lame in three out of four legs and drive it until it can barely stand, tie it up hot, throw a rug over it, and drive it back the same distance when they are done shopping. One that we know gelded a stallion he bought off the track and then drove it forty miles. If the horses don’t go they beat the heck out of them, and yes, I have seen them do so personally. They are not required to follow the same sanitation laws as regular farmers and yet can sell their products right out of their kitchens. They do not follow either hunting or trespassing laws. One friend of ours walked into an Amish yard last year and found five deer hanging….in the summer, out of season. Does, fawns, whatever they can find. However, because of the mystique of their culture it is all good and nobody bothers them.

Anyhow, some of the new group went to the new farmers’ market last week selling pies.

They charged ten dollars a pie. (Pretty pricey, even for the best of pies.) However, a friend who was there purchased one of those ten-dollar pies and took it home and served it, only to discover that the pie contained exactly six berries.

That’s right.

Six.

When I told the boss, he said, "That’s not a pie it’s a turnover."
To my, "huh?" he replied.
"A turnover from your friend’s wallet to theirs."
Yep, that about says it all.

Sheepdogs unite

Hopped up to answer the phone today and wouldn’t you know, it was a telemarketer who hung up on me before I could even say hello. However, when I put down the phone I noticed a cow on the lawn.

Not my favorite picture.

I called Mike, grabbed a sorting stick off the porch and hurried out to take care of the situation. Mike saw ol’ bossy the minute he was out the door and dropped into a crouch as he slowly crept in her direction.

I like to work him without commands sometimes, just to watch him use his wonderful mind to sort out a task, and I did this day. He knew where the cow belonged and so did she, so there was no confusion despite my silence. As soon as she spotted the dog, the cow raised her head and sauntered off toward the barnyard where she is supposed to be succoring her newborn calf.

However when she came to the parked horse trailer she stopped to commune with the heifers on the other side of the fence. She kept stealing glances at the dog, waiting to see what he was going to do.

Mike looked back at me wondering what I wished of him.

Run in and bite her, circle around and turn her, just hold her where she was?

I didn’t really want him to do any of those things. He is getting pretty old and slow and she is a nasty character, much given to fighting and kicking. I called him off for a second and released Nick from the kennel where he was spending the afternoon.
Ah, what a difference. One diffident old dog does not a posse make. However, one old dog who knows the ways of cattle, backed up by an impetuous youth with clean, sharp teeth, and a heart full of desire, and it's like the James Gang rides again.

Stubborn old mama cow lit a shuck for the barnyard and didn’t some back.

I called the dogs back with much praise and let them graze on the lawn for a while. Border collies sure do love green grass.
And I sure do like to watch them do the work they are born for.

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