Odd juxtaposition

The bone had been chewed at both ends, though it was more slivered than crushed. The glove was missing two fingers, clearly chewed off. It was a good, sturdy one, with leather fingers and heavy canvas hands, but it had long been abandoned, so no one really cared about it getting chewing it up.


The bone was another story. I am sure its original owner would have preferred not to have an appendage turned into a play toy in such a manner.


It was a deer's foreleg by the way, with the bone above the knee worried to toothpick sized splinters and one toe gnawed away. The remaining toe was small, probably from a yearling fawn.

See, I went out to help my stubborn partner in this operation, who is rather ill at the moment, build some temporary fence up behind the barn. He wouldn't wait for Alan to get home and I didn't want him doing it alone. While we were working, I found the oddities way up on the hill. The grass was all matted down, as if there had been much play going on there. The animals that did the chewing and the rolling down of grass probably are not very big yet, or they would have done much more damage. I wish I could have seen them at it.

Coyotes I think. Pups by the toothmarks. I wonder why they dragged the old glove way up there. Maybe their den is down over the bank. Anyhow, I hope they stick to hunting deer and leave the calves alone....and the cats....chickens...sheep....bunnies.

Running in place

Or that's what it feels like. The boss is sick, maybe a stomach bug, maybe something more serious. Of course, he won't go to the doctor. Alan is still in school, so the girls and I are doing the feeding and milking. Thank God they are out of college for the summer and Liz knows the cows as well as anyone. We sent him in the house to rest last night and finished up chores (you know a farmer, if they can crawl to the barn, they will work). It wasn't too bad.

I really hope it is nothing bad.

Yesterday's best

Herkimer diamonds

Finally....

Something with which I agree from the NY Times.

Herkimer Diamond mining

Was in the plans for today. However, we got up to pouring rain and February-like cold. It looks as if we will have to settle for taking pictures of some we collected other years. Some of these the kids and I dug up and the bigger ones were donated by my brother, who took his family digging a couple of weeks ago. Lousy day, lousy photos, sorry.

Anyone who can....

Take good pictures of fish

Has my utmost admiration!

A local story makes national news service

This story about a SUNY school attempting a little local purchasing refers to our local ag college. What they don't tell you is that the college contained one of the best facilities in the state for butchering locally grown meats up until recently. We did business there for several years and never had such perfectly cut and well preserved meat products. Of course the school closed it.....just not pop culture enough for them I guess. I mean, they killed animals there. Had to get all that nastiness gone. This despite the fact that the meat lab was used to train ag students, culinary students, and pre-vet kids and all animal science majors, plus providing a tremendous service to local farmers by providing a USDA inspected location for meat processing. Sadly even at an ag and tech school, agricultural interests often take a back seat to political correctness.

This kind of thing scares me so bad

80 Year old farmer killed by bull. Liz went to school with one of the grandchildren from this family. We are working on getting Promise and Frank, our two bulls, blood typed so we can get them sold. I am going to call the Holstein Association right now to get a kit. I already have one for the milking shorthorn bull. He is starting to woof at us from the fence and turn sideways when you walk by...not good.

We had company today

Thunderstorms and hummingbirds

Sun going down on a long day

Mostly spent crawling around in the cellar checking phone lines because the other computer wouldn't dial into the Internet and I needed to update some cow files. After hours of such messing around I discovered that the computer dials up just fine....just not from the cow program PC DART. So I guess that will need some work the next time the tester comes.

We also have a problem tonight with a poor cow having trouble calving. Some idiot hunter spooked all the cows into a headlong run down the hill yesterday and the result is she is calving early and it is not going too well. She just isn't ready. We gave her a bottle of calcium and came over to the house to give her a little time and privacy, since she is a very nervous animal. A nice thing for us....a valuable cow, a potentially valuable calf and some jerk hunting out of season (you can only hunt before noon and this was mid afternoon) on posted property going after a five pound bird causes this and we lose. And the cow loses. And I am very afraid that the calf is going to lose it all. Thanks to whomever it was for a lot of trouble and a miserable night.

***Update, the calf finally was born last night at about 10:15. It was stained all yellow, from being stressed in utero by the difficult birth. The cow had trouble I think, because she was at least a week from being ready to calve. Her pelvic ligaments had not relaxed at all yet. Thankfully, the calf, a bull, was very small and refined, so she was able to squeeze him out somehow, through the too small passage. Anyhow, she is up this morning and eating and he drank most of a bottle of colostrum, so he will probably be all right.

Found

More pet food milk protein stuff

Here is a pretty good editorial bringing up the same things I said the other day about MPC or milk protein concentrate and unrestricted food imports. Not to bore you to death or anything, but unregulated importation of the darned stuff is pretty rough on farmers here.

Happy Mother's Day

And thanks, Paints....very sweet....E-Train is having her first Mother's Day, having had a cute little heifer yesterday. We were in the barn until nine PM because old Zinnia decided to keep mother, baby and all the other cows out on the hill.

I would like to thank my mom for being such a great mom...Happy Mother's Day, mom, we love you!.........and my kids for keeping me on my toes, by such means as inventing games like "Whack-a-brother", "manure fight", and many, many others too obnoxious to mention. Last night it was "who can think of the most names of bulls?" (We women were shutting Alan right down until the boss got in the game. Never try to get between a man and his specialty.) I may no longer be quite sane, but I can assure you that I am awake.

Speaking of Mother's Day...here is a very determined mother.
and here is a very funny mother.

Brand new goslings

Liz took this out the car window when we driving over to the school today (she forgot to hand in a scholarship application and it was due today...since she bought me gold fish and a water lily and some hens and chicks for Mothers Day I am sure not complaining).
These babies just came off the nest, because the girls have been watching the parents setting. The silly things nest within yards of the road. Just a few yards from here Becky and I was an American bittern on Tuesday, a life bird for me....don't get too many of those any more.

**You may want to click to get a better view.

Before the Hell storm

Still more on food saftey and inspections

This morning I found the update below in one of my inboxes. It originated with the Meating Place, which offers an industry newsletter to which I subscribe.

"Only a week after taking the reins as FDA's food czar, and in the midst of a melamine outbreak, Dr. David Acheson has had plenty of explaining to do.
More of it came Wednesday, when Acheson found himself before the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, trying to assure its members that the U.S. food supply is safe despite widespread contamination of chicken, hog and fish feed.
However, some committee members contended that melamine is indicative of a bigger problem.

"The explanations from the USDA and FDA leave me with the uncomfortable feeling that maybe we just got lucky this time," said Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.). "The next time tainted food or feed products slip through the very large crack in our import inspection system, we may be forced to confront a much more serious situation in terms of animal or human health."

Acheson conceded that FDA, which inspects just a small percentage of the $60 billion in food imported annually, is due for an overhaul. He says plans to request additional funding and manpower to fuel such efforts."

Um, yeah, I do believe that might be a plan.

More on the pet food recall

Here is a story that reveals all too clearly that some plumb shady practices have been going on in the pet food industry. Obviously no one has been very careful about what went into what dogs and cats eat, where it came from, or even honest ingredient labeling.
Sadly, there is nothing stopping contamination in the dog food dish from showing up at the dinner table too. Another story yesterday indicated that the contaminated rice and wheat gluten (that actually turned out to be wheat flour) was made into fish food in Canada and fed to fish in the USA, which were certainly eaten by unsuspecting Americans.

We were discussing the issue in the barn this morning (politics and national issues are topics that turn up there every bit as often as how many bales of hay to feed.) We decided that if the US inspected foreign foods and their suppliers anywhere near as thoroughly as we do American farms and factories, the likliehood of such adulteration would diminish immensely. Here at Northview we have an inspector from Producers Cooperative, where we sell our milk, who routinely checks our premises. From seeing that medicine for dry cows is on a different shelf than that for lactating cows, to making sure there are no holes in the milk house screens, no dirt where it shouldn't be, and even that the place is tidy, he keeps a close eye on us. Our milk is tested EVERY SINGLE TIME the tanker picks it up, that is every other day, for antibiotics, cleanliness, butterfat, protein, somatic cells and water content. If it is too high in any negative factor it is condemned and we pay for the entire truckload of milk that it was dumped into. We are also under the direct oversight of state and federal inspectors who check for the same things and very thoroughly too.We could be denied a place to ship our milk and fined if we get caught doing naughty things. Certainly if we dumped melamine into our tank to boost our protein price, we would get caught...real fast

Then we are under the observation of the Soil and Water Conservation folks, the EPA, state Ag and Markets, and have so many other government entities watching over how we do what we do that I literally can't bring them all to mind. Building inspectors, Dept of Environmental Conservation, nosy neighbors.... vets inspecting the beef that we ship....we are being watched, and carefully. However, it is pretty darned obvious that while the US government peers at its own navel by layering inspections on its internal food supply like someone dressing a kid for January in Alaska, it has its back turned toward millions of tons of material that is slipping in through the back door. What we need is for imported products to fall under the same scrutiny, and, (since not everybody outside this nation is our best buddy... most favored nation status to the contrary) they should actually fall under MORE scrutiny.

The whole affair makes Pete Hardin, of the Milkweed, look real smart. He has said for years that uninspected and unregulated imports of fractions of milk, such as milk protein concentrate, potentially permit milk from exotic species, such as water buffalo, and unclean locations, such as Chernobyl, to be included in our food. Hmmmmm, ya think?

I like this quote

From hearings on animal welfare by the House Ag Committee....


"The Committee gained insight not only on the issues facing animal welfare but also the solutions that industry is working through to ensure that we have a safe, plentiful, and affordable food supply," Chairman Boswell said. "It's evident that livestock producers are vigorously addressing animal welfare issues."

"Today's hearing demonstrated that the animal agriculture industry is committed to ensuring the humane treatment of animals in its care. Farmers and ranchers, not activists, should be dictating animal husbandry practices. Passing legislation based solely on emotion goes against the Committee's responsibility to use science and best management practices that are designed to improve animal welfare practices," said Subcommittee Ranking Member Robin Hayes."

I give thanks to both of them for having some common sense rather than pandering to whatever special interest group has the most strident voice each day.

May sunrise

The days are long this time of year, but they sure get off to a good start!

It isn't always arm and hammer

Sometimes it's arm and chickadee

Some people have lawn ornaments

Some people have garden gnomes...
Some have blacktop...
Some have the ocean.,
or forest,
or sidewalks





I have........Liz and Mandolin Rain!

On the way to a milk meeting last night

***HT ...this is the kind of land that is getting buried under houses.

Another kindness requested

Last month when I asked readers to support my brother's ride in the Tour de Cure for diabetes, several were kind enough to do so. He is grateful for your kindness, as am I. Great cause, great brother, wonderful folks...it's all good. Thank you.

Here is another kindness that could be done. Laurie at Don't Make Me Get My Flying Monkeys has been writing for some time of her cousin Dale's battle with cancer. Things are going hard for Dale right now and Laurie is hoping that folks around the world will send Dale cards or photos to cheer him up.

His addy is:
Dale Petersen
Room 3408
Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital
1719 E 19th Ave
Denver, Colorado, 80218

Town for sale

I love this story of a husband and wife who decided to build a town, did so, and ran it all their lives. Mrs. Hagglund is auctioning the place off this weekend if you are thinking of picking up a nice little lakeside town all your own.

"Everything Eddie and I did in life was successful, because we worked together," she said. The dream started one day in 1954 when the couple, who operated an implement dealership in the town of Sharon, spotted dozens of anglers on Lake Ashtabula during a drive to visit relatives. "I said to Eddie, 'Wouldn't this be a good place to have a hamburger stand?'" Hagglund said. "That's all it took." The couple bought a chunk of lakeshore prairie for a couple thousand dollars, planted trees and began putting up buildings. The first was the dance hall, which featured a large neon sign that said "Danceland" and hosted dances and roller-skating. They later added the cafe and other businesses. "We were just like homesteaders when we came out here," Hagglund said.n 1960, when the local township board denied their request for a liquor license, the Hagglunds incorporated the town and issued themselves a license. To meet the requirement of 100 residents, the couple "counted cats and dogs" and even coaxed some residents of nearby Luverne to sign a petition saying they lived in Sibley, Hagglund said."

I like that!

Still another meme

From Matthew. Posted over on 2007 Garden Records

Wanna feel a little insulted?

If you are a farmer that is, and not too fond of NAIS (National Animal Identification System)? Just read this story on Cattle Network.com. and you will get the idea.

Especially the part about reading to farmers at the sixth grade level.

"....As described by the USDA, these “key messages” “are organized into topic categories and supported with concise sentences. They are designed for an audience reading at the sixth grade level.” (Handbook, p. 41.)"

Dang. Sixth grade. It has been a while.

"Staff are advised not to “invest[ ] time” in “Anti-NAIS producers” and instead “locate and motivate more favorable individuals” (p. 9). While staff are to tell farmers that participation in premises ID will not compel them to participate in either individual animal ID or animal tracking (Handbook, p. 42), at the same time, staff are to pursue the second and third components of NAIS, “adoption of animal ID and tracing,” during 2007. (NAIS Outreach bulletin, Feb. 2007, p. 1)."

I can't help it. My feelings are hurt.


***Update....Here is a story on the human form of NAIS

Found by accident

I came across this site while trying to find some place within fifty miles of here where I can buy a couple of fan tailed gold fish for my garden pond. We went to Herkimer Sunday in said pursuit and found the fish store there out of business and replaced by a tax preparation store front operation.
I was already aware of puppy mills, before I stumbled on this site, having spent eight years working in a veterinarian's kennel and seeing plenty of sad stories. This is simply horrific though. I guess I won't be visiting the local branch of this chain to buy my fish. I can't justify spending money in such a place. So does anybody within a few zip codes of here know where I can buy a couple of healthy fish without bankrolling such enterprises?

**BTW check out the prices! I bought Mike and Gael from a reputable breeder of working quality border collies for $350 and $425 respectively. Both come from parents that had successfully competed in open level sheep dog trials. Gael's father ran in the Nationals. They were both healthy, well socialized, and capable of what I wanted them for. (Plus in my admittedly biased opinion, they are great dogs.) If you want a purebred dog, buy from a reputable breeder and do your homework. You wouldn't hire a nanny without a background check. Don't hire a dog without looking into its background too. You can also deal with a reputable rescue organization where someone will help you through the experience of starting with a new dog. But talk to dog people. Find out about your breed, the breeder, or whoever is providing you with your pet BEFORE you bring one home and fall in love. Oh, and stay away from border collies unless you have a job for them and plenty of patience. Some of them are fine anywhere, but a good many will herd kids, car tires, tractors, cats, each other and even running water if they don't have something constructive to keep them busy. I almost lost Gael that way when she was a pup and hadn't learned "come here" yet. She took off trying to head a little stream of water and was almost to the road before I thought to use my whistle....which luckily she heeded.

Yep

Spring!

Cow magnets

Apples asked in the comments just what cow magnets do and why we use them. I thought it was a good enough question to answer in a post (plus I don't have much to say today and am grateful for any and all ideas.)

Cows eat all kinds of things in their pursuit of digestible greenery. Autopsies have revealed bicycle tires, shirts, entire feed bags and lots and lots of baling twine. Unfortunately cows often also ingest bits of sharp metal, which can pierce the stomach lining, causing infection and even affecting the heart.The resulting condition is called hardware disease. At the very least it causes the cow a lot of discomfort. In some cases it ends in death. At least some of the time, shooting a powerful magnet down the cow's throat with the same balling gun you use to give aspirin or stomach pills will fix it. Ideally the magnet will grab the offending nail or bit of steel and drag it to the bottom of the stomach where it can just sit there doing no harm.

Magnets don't always work, but sometimes the results are simply spectacular. We had an old cow, number 80, Adela, years ago, before we were married. She went off feed and began a slow decline. Our vet at the time didn't think she had hardware so he treated her symptomatically and went on his way. Days went by and she failed to improve. Finally I suggested to the boss that we give her a magnet just to see what happened. She was obviously dying, so what did we have to lose? By the very next morning she was gobbling hay as if she had never been sick.
Coincidence? Nah...

We had another cow drop dead from a standing position at the end of milking one day. One minute she was standing in her stall chewing her cud; the next she was sprawled on the floor stone dead. We were stunned and really puzzled so we had our veterinarian conduct an autopsy. Amazingly a bit of sharp metal stuck in her stomach wall had worked its way through the stomach lining to pierce her liver, she moved just right (or perhaps just wrong) and bled to death internally in seconds. The metal was a bit of steel off a wagon that a less-than-diligent hired man put through a forage blower into the silo. (Of course we didn't know about it until too late for old Danillla.) We didn't keep him too long after that.

Anyhow, we keep a couple magnets on the fridge among the Far Side cartoons, shot up targets, family photos and school schedules. Then we can always find one when some cow starts refusing dinner and acting odd.

Beck and her bunny

That $#*&&** Robin

I am beginning to have strong feelings about the robin who spends all day, every day banging on the kitchen window. I won't go so far as to say that I hate him, but when two other robins ganged up on him yesterday and drove him away for a while I rejoiced. Too soon it seems, as he was back a couple of hours later, clinging to the uprights of the windows and beating on the glass.
He is a bratty bird for sure and has very strong feelings of his own about his reflection.
I wonder if he was the one getting drunk on palm berries down in FC's back yard all winter? that might explain a lot about his behavior. I hope there is a program for robins like him....or that he finds a lady friend real soon and gets his mind on other things.


On the other hand we have a mockingbird! I know they are all over the place down south, but up here in the far, far north, they are a sometimes kind of bird. Some years we get a tame one who will eat currents off the windowsill in the living room. We get to hear their frantic singing and to try to decide what birds they are mimicking. Then four or five years will go by before we see one. This one mostly sings robin songs, but he has a few other calls as well. By the end of summer if he stays he will probably know every call around

Planting

Things are finally greening up around here. I actually walked through real, honest to gosh, genuine green grass on my way around the garden pond this morning. (I walk around it every morning just in case it has somehow gotten warm enough for the fish to swim around.) I am grateful for the green. I think I will go plant some lettuce and carrots to get my mind off all the ugly of the past couple of days.

Mike
*A border collie is never too old and never too tired to play ball*

Macabre

We tuned into Channel 9 at 6PM, just before we went out to do chores, to see if the standoff in Margaretville had ended yet. To our amazement the station was doing a live update, as the police had just sent smoke bombs into the house and a pall of smoke of staggering proportions was rising into the sky over the lovely old farm house that housed the alleged murderer. Within literally minutes the smoke turned black and the house burned down before our eyes. I cannot tell you how fast it went from a small flower of flame peeking out one door to a towering inferno that consumed the wooden structure like a red avalanche that moved up instead of down. It was so very, very fast and inexorable. We watched in horrified fascination until we simply had to get out to what one TV commentator called a "farmhouse". Up here in the northern part of the state we call such structures barns but everyone got the idea and the commentator at the station managed to set him straight after a while. This whole affair has been a macabre drama that makes no sense at all to a rational mind. Why did the alleged culprit do the bizarre and horrific things he did? We will probably never know, but I wish he had chosen a different path.

Another Bucky Phillips?

Having just finished the Farm Side for Friday, ( a little porky this week,) I was planning on posting about my disgust at Governor Spitzer's verbal abuse of our state senator, Hugh Farley, and his wish to unseat him. Upstate we are a sort of conservative lot and we are fairly fond of Farley. Or at least I am and I don't think the issue of campaign reform should include personal attacks.
From NY1,

"State Senator High Farley faces the real possibility of losing not only his seat, but the Senate's GOP majority in November 2008. Especially when Spitzer's well-funded campaign machine targets him. "
"He's targeting me, targeting Senator Bruno, and targeting different senators around the state so that he can take over the Senate,” said Farley. “I think that that's bad government."

They may not get their way though.

From Fox 23,

"If the governor's plan is to get Hugh Farley out of office, it will be a tall order. Farley was unopposed in his last race and has won his last several races by wide margins."

(Farley is the guy whose phone call got the boss's mother's power turned on when the power company said they could have ten days to ruminate about it after a tree fell on the wires). I think Spitzer is just a tad arrogant to tell us who we should hire to represent us. But then what other word could you use to describe a guy who calls himself a steamroller?

Anyhow, that was what I was planning on blogging about. However, the guys had the TV on while they were eating breakfast. I could hear it in the background as I researched feral hogs and worldwide pork consumption. There was ongoing coverage of the latest state trooper shooting, with an ongoing stand off in the tiny Delaware County town of Margaretville. I had to stop what I was doing to go watch. This situation feels way too much like deja vu. This time the perpetrator is 23-year old Travis Trim.

I hope it ends with no more bloodshed. I hope the two new victims are all right. What drives people to do things like this anyhow?

**Update, the news just came through that another trooper has died. Lord, Lord, how very awful.

Still a good man

My brother is doing this again this year, as he did last year. He is a fine man, it is a good cause, and if you can find it in your heart to support him that would be special. Thanks in advance.

Birth of a calf

We had a little excitement during milking tonight.

This is Becky's show heifer, Lemonade, with her first calf, a half Jersey heifer.

All went well

Stealing a wee snack from number 49, Veronica, who is NOT her mother, but was willing none the less.

I shall overcome

The robin in this window

I know you're in there

Come on out and fight like a bird (brain)

Two auctions in one day

First a machinery auction over in Sprout Brook.

Then a horse auction over at the fair grounds.

The elk are Hanchetts. We drive by all the time and they are way off in the pasture...much too distant for a good photo. Today they were right up by the fence.



The burnt out trucks and machines are from the Town of Root barn fire. What a terrible loss of equipment. It was nice to see all the trucks loaned by other towns lined up there. Good neighbors.

And this kids wants to drive

You try so hard to get them to pay attention...to use judgment...to think before acting.

And then the kid who is begging to be allowed to take his road test so he can join all his buddies who have theirs (and are out getting speeding tickets and rolling over their trucks) goes out to the barn and cuts the switch off his sister's show heifer. I couldn't believe it. I cannot describe to you how egregious it is to do such a thing. The switch is the puffy hair at the end of the tail. It takes a long time to grow. It is not required for showing, but a long, fluffy one adds so much to the appearance of an animal. And showing cows is absolutely number one in Liz's world, ahead, I think, of even rodeo.
And this heifer is the daughter of her two time junior champion. She is still a pretty heifer but it certainly will not help her chance to do well to have a bare stick for a tail.

She did have a big manure ball in her tail. It did need to be washed out (you will notice I said washed out not cut off).

"What were you thinking?" I shrieked when told.

"I wasn't", was the reply. .....my point exactly.

Argghhhh!!!!

****Update....his sister took it well, having seen enough bad this week not to want to worry too much about cow hair. There was in fact much discussion this evening about Bovine Rogaine or Hair Club for Heifers....

They're back...

(Or at least I hope so.)

The tame-ish chickadees that nested in an ornamental bird house on the sitting porch were checking it out again today. The photo was taking through the parlor window, so it isn't the greatest, but the bird sat there while I clicked off seven shots so I am not complaining.

Birds of the day

Robins, juncos, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, rock doves, English sparrows (lousy sassenachs), mourning doves, song sparrows, crows, fifty grackles in a small tree all facing in the same direction, all evenly spaced like some strange decoration in a macabre store window, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, gold finches, starlings, a fat tom turkey strutting right under the grackle tree, a couple of leftover Canadians winging it up the river, some small drab flycatcher that is not a phoebe, nattering from a bush by the barn, a phoebe snagging cluster flies by the big windows in the living room...all at the farm during this after storm day. Last week we saw our pair of purple finches, house finches, turkey vultures, assorted gulls, and a loon up on a little pond in Johnstown yesterday. (He was pretty big for such a small puddle.)

A great blue heron, pterodactyl ponderous, flapping over Randall, two horned larks showing their double collars perfectly as they flew in unison by Bellinger's apple orchard, a gaggle of mallards on the bike path, a kestrel lugging with no little difficulty a huge mouse or vole up where McClumpha's pile their straw....all seen on a trip to the FSA office today (and up around the "block" of course, to check out what was going on with farmer neighbors).

But my favorite is the woodcock, who is back at it in the horse pasture next to the house. I guess he is as glad as I am that it has stopped storming at least for the moment.

Another miss

Thankfully

THE FLOOD WARNING IS CANCELLED FOR
THE SCHOHARIE CREEK AT GILBOA BRIDGE.
* AT 2 AM TUES THE STAGE WAS 18.7 FEET.
* FLOOD STAGE IS 20 FEET.
* THE RIVER WILL RECEDE TO AROUND 17 FEET BY NOON TODAY

Nightmare

We were away at the dentist's office today when all this took place. the boss had to have a tooth yanked out. The girls were at college. Alan was in high school. When we came home Al was there already and he told us that the girls were coming home early because Gilboa Dam is at flood stage. A fellow who worked there called his wife to get folks from school to head for home early if they could. They took him at his word and skipped their late classes. Although we live high on a hill it is predicted that much of this part of the state would be under water very quickly if that ancient dam gives way. We pay it a lot of respect.

Update 9:30 PM...THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ALBANY HAS ISSUED A FLOOD WARNING FOR SCHOHARIE COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL NEW YORK. THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF COBLESKILL. UNTIL 115 AM EDT TUESDAY. AT 119 PM EDT RADAR INDICATED ADDITIONAL MODERATE TO HEAVY RAINFALL ABOUT TO MOVE INTO THE COUNTY FROM THE EAST.
I wonder if the girls will have school tomorrow. Fonda is under a flood warning as well, so maybe Alan won't either.

Then when they got home they told us about the shootings at Virginia Tech. How on earth do you get your mind around such horror? Kids at the college were calling or texting friends who had transferred down there from our little SUNY school, trying to learn if they were all right. I worry about the 25-mile drive our kids make every day through deer and pot holes and Wal*Mart trucks as thick as fleas. I wish I didn't have to worry about this kind of thing too. I feel so bad for all the students, teachers and families that have anything to do with that college. What a nightmare.

Statute of limitations

As the mother/person in charge of general household tidiness, (and as someone who is weary of cleaning around it), I hereby declare a statute of limitations on change, (var. "loose", "stray" and "spare", but not including "pocket".) This statutory period of time will be up to, but not exceeding, the period of time that it takes me to get tired of looking at it.

Thus change (i.e. quarters, nickels, dimes, pennies, centimes, pesos, decimos, lira, shillings, markas, francs etc.) that is left lying around on the sideboard, dining room table, kitchen table, floor, desk, chairs, or stuck to the ceiling with pieces of spaghetti will be confiscated and put here:



Folding money will not fall under this statute, but if it clinks, jingles or rolls when dropped, it is subject to sudden and unexpected confiscation. (The little pile of quarters and pennies on the sideboard that was buried under .6 inches of noxious dust is already gone.)

Thus if you wish your metallic hoard to not join the one I am collecting to pay for food for camp, keep it in your pocket, purse or bedroom.

Thank you,
The management

Todd Fritsch Cheyenne City Limits

Every now and then I write the Farm Side about barn music, (and the wars that sometimes accompany it)...that is, what we listen to while we partake of the staggering ennui produced by milking the same cows over and over again every twelve hours infinitely (or so it sometimes seems). We are a musical bunch, some talented (not me) some just appreciative (yeah) and there is always something playing; Jason Aldean, Kieth Anderson, Trent Wilmon or sometimes George Strait. And sometimes Queen, very loud, if no one is around but Alan and me. Northview has a wee advantage over my thousand-word weekly moment of newspaper fame though. Here you can actually listen to what we listen to.

Or at least you can if you click on Todd Fritsch over in the side bar...or right here.

(Mattie, bro, I am talking to you here....you will like this guy if you can get your dial-up to download it. I just wait it out because it is worth it.)

Somewhere on the site (it moves around) you will find a little juke box. Once you find it, might I suggest Faith Ain't Faith, Bob Wills Song, The Cowboy Song...(or really anything else on there)? This guy is somewhere between Chris LeDoux and Garth Brooks and sings cowboy songs in a sweet, warm voice. He is a real Texas rancher so he knows what he is talking about too. I can listen to him all day (and in fact I have been listening to Faith Ain't Faith for the past twenty minutes.)

"Cheyenne city limits, ridin' a busted thumb, saddle over my shoulder, headin' back where I come from.
Rank broncs they left me, broke and all tore up....
An old man stopped to give me a lift in his beat up pick up truck
I crawled in and we drove off through that dark Wyoming night
It was downright eerie how that old man read my mind.
He said, son you've stopped believin' you can ride in the rodeo
Remember what your grandpa said, when you were twelve years old..

Faith ain't faith until it's all that you have left. Ridin' high is easy, but the lows are life's true test. Do your best to keep believin', the good Lord'll do the rest.
Faith ain't faith, son, until it's all that you've got left."

Nor' Easter...maybe

Since midweek the weather pundit folks have been predicting a severe winter storm for local environs. Thus the fellows scurried around all week getting in some extra firewood for us, and hay and straw for the cows . I picked up portable objects from the lawn and everyone battened down the hatches, or at least tied the canvas on the woodpile, during yesterday's prelude to the storm. (See ominous sunrise above.)

This morning we got up to fast falling snow, really coming down like Christmas. (The ground is already covered completely and I have only been up an hour.) For the first time ever the dogs were jumping on the back door minutes after I let them outside. Normally I have to call them for a minute, even though they can expect a nice crunchy, tasty, not-yet-recalled, dog biscuit when they come inside. I am hoping this exceptional behavior is not an omen.

Anyhow, the weather folks have now downgraded the whiny weather portents from winter storm warning to winter weather advisory....and flood watch.

If my calendar is correct today is the Ides of April. Where is spring? I think Clem hogging our share! When are we gonna get some nice weather so the guys can get on the ground and I can play in my gardens? Alan got half the fence built so we can get heifers out to pasture, but it will be hard for them to eat snow cones and icicles, so in they stay. Cabin fever is a normal January/February ailment for the northward dweller, but April? There is something wrong with this picture!

(Which BTW is the side lawn..note the cattail bog)

***Check this weather out!

Matthew Strikes again

I am sure everyone has seen the thinking blog thing....Matthew D sent it to me...five thinking blogs, hmmm......

I am thinking that the blogs that most keep me thinking are.

1) Pure Florida...not just thinking, smiling, laughing, knee slapping, looking things up to learn more, sometimes crying, always satisfied by a good read

2) Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere...everybody loves Sarpy Sam

3) Upstream...local, pertinent, I may not always agree, but I'm always interested.

4)BOOKS BuckinJunction....written by my kids. I think I always will at least think about reading them and think I like them.

5) Blogriculture...this is a great blog, written by folks who work for the Capital Press farm newspaper. Sometimes they are funny, often they are thought-provoking, always worth reading.

I am only allowed five by the rules I guess, but I read everybody over there in the blog roll as often as I can. Cathy, Joni, Rosemoon, HT, Carina, Laurie, Jeff, Swen, and Matthew, who sent me this are frequent reads. So are Cubby and Karen and Mrs. Mecomber. And Wil. And Jan. And Caroline. And everybody else on the list. I read some because their lives are fascinating, some for their politics, others because they feel like family, and some because they are talented photographers, or writers, or funny, or just nice enough to link to me way back when nobody else did. I like the folks I have "met" blogging here at Northview and I thank them for their friendliness.

Interesting quote

From a story in USA Today.

"The desire for a raw natural diet is leading to a new pattern of foodborne illness," said Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan."

Coyote

Laurainnj, who writes the fascinating blog, Somewhere in NJ, recently posted the story of the coyote down there that tried to carry a toddler off, right out of the family back yard. Many people had very interesting comments on her post and I got to thinking about our experiences with the little brush wolves here at Northview.

About thirty years ago, though I had lived most of my life hiking the mountains and working outdoors, I had never seen or heard one. They just weren't out there. Then on a trip to the Boonville area (not so very far from Canada) we heard a pack howling as we slept in our camper one night. It was a wonderfully eerie, hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck experience.

Soon we were hearing them here, some distance farther south and east. They didn't bother much of anything and were an interesting reminder of wilder places. We still didn't see them, but we knew they were out there.

Then at age 26 I took up milking cows. Soon I married my farmer and coyotes took on a whole 'nother aspect. First they contented themselves with taking our cats. They just LOVE cats! From a high of around forty clustered around the free milk dish (thanks to all the folks who do drive-by drop-offs) we now have seven. Any that don't stay in the buildings are lunch. Next they began to prey on weakened animals like twin calves born outdoors at night. The mother cow can protect one quite successfully, but two are hard to cover. Then they killed a cow that fell down an embankment and couldn't stand. We couldn't get her on her feet, but she looked like she was going to recover, so we were carrying food and water to her with the truck. One morning her hide was almost entirely ripped off, her throat was torn out and, of course, she was dead. So to those who wonder if they can take deer, the answer is a resounding yes, even though they are quite content with rats and rabbits when they can get them.


Later a pair of them drove the visiting nurse off the back porch when she stopped to care for my late mother-in-law who was receiving hospice care. The nursing service called us in high dudgeon to come get our dogs off the porch so the nurse could get in. No dogs though, just a pair of coyotes that were bolder than they needed to be.

I suspect the one that attacked the child was rabid, like the fisher that attacked a woman in her garage near here, or didn't realize that the child was a person. I have no fear of them bothering me personally, even though I have encountered them many times when walking in the fields. They are bolder than foxes, which bolt willy nilly, but not aggressive-seeming. They offer us dirt farmers a boon in that they kill woodchucks, which otherwise build great mounds of dirt around the holes they dig in hayfields. There is something about a hidden pile of dirt and stones that is rough on farm machinery! We don't miss the chucks as they just adapted to the predators and moved down to the house, where they dig holes under all the buildings.


However, to all the folks who claim that we are encroaching on coyote habitat and thus should be happy to have problems with them, sorry, this time we were here first. Unquestionably people drove wolves out of the northeast and opened a niche for the little wild dogs, but coyotes didn't show up here in upstate New York until LONG after I was born. The cities they are moving into were there many decades before they arrived to sort through the garbage and grab small dogs. I am sure they are here to stay though, so we get calves in off the hill as fast as we can, and are thankful for cows like Zinnia, who would protect a baby from a whole pack of real wolves if she had to.

The things you see

Seen on the street in Fultonville

Seen creeping up out in the main garden

Seen from the big windows just before the sun went down

....on a fine (finally) spring day.

In case you ever wonder...

....why I am this way. My parents, (abetted by my grandparents), used to sing this song to me. It was performed at different times by Bing Crosby and Dorothy Shay, who released it in 1947. I was born the same year as Vladimir Putin and am three days younger than Dan Akroyd, so I don't know why they chose me for this particular golden oldie. I was a nice kid, really I was. There were other female grandchildren in the family, but I was the only one to receive the signal honor of my own song. It is really not fair.

Here is the chorus:

Daughter, baby daughter,
Poisoned all the neighbors chickens.
Daughter hadn't oughter
Least 'till she could run like the dickens.
They hit her with a shovel!

They pronounced it "Dotter".
They still call me that.

I think I like this guy

*****

For those of you, who, like me, don't watch 60 Minutes, here is the transcript of a show on Rick Berman, AKA "Dr. Evil", a lobbyist for the other side of the food-as-societal-scourge and deadly -poison-that-will-kill-you-if-you-eat story. Even if you don't agree with him he is pretty entertaining. As someone who makes a living (sort of) selling a food product, his ideas are a welcome bit of sanity in a world that seems to have lost all common sense to me.

"I have no problem with education. But, education turns into regulation, you know?" Berman says. "As the government gets deeper and deeper into people's lives, they start to dictate more and more. If a bartender can cut you off for visibly being intoxicated, why won't we get to the point where a restaurant operator is not allowed to let you order dessert? I mean, you could get there."

Nobody wants to see a drunk driver coming at them down the middle of the highway, but I don't think it is time to regulate pecan pie intake just yet.

****Nice sunrise today again...amazing lot of black birds hanging around, grackles, red winged black birds, cow birds and starlings.

The only thing making this possible

This is what is making life semi, sorta, halfway, bearable during this unseasonable spate of cold, nasty weather. I posted it over at the View last week, but I just wanna look at it some more and pretend I am not freezing......

More pet food recall

Carina posted this story today and I think it is really worth reading.

Happy Easter

Why I can't seem to find the energy to write about anything...

The normal temperature here for this time of year is fifty......today it is a balmy 28.

Sunrise

Almost but no cigar...thank God!

First there was a bomb threat at the school today...kids had to stand out in twenty degree weather for quite some time, then hunker down in the concrete-walled gym while the bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in to go through the buildings....
no bomb.

Then Old Roy dog biscuits were recalled....and on the fridge are the remains of a great big bag, the rest of which was devoured with great relish by a certain trio of border collies that I know. The Sunshine Mills website listed lots of closely related sizes and flavors of biscuits that contain melamine...
the ones on the fridge weren't on the list...
or at least not yet.

I am most grateful that both of these close calls were just that, on behalf of my favorite boy and the best dogs in the world.....

Old stone mill

The stream below the mill

Had to go to Oneonta again and finally got a couple shots of this old mill. It was kind of hairy parking along I-88 with the semi's roaring by practically scooping the car up in their slip streams. Kind of a neat old place though.

Don't pay more for the same stuff

"In a recent study, lab analysis of 95 different brands of retail milk purchased in 48 states confirmed all milk naturally contains the same hormones. There was no difference in hormone content of retail milk based on label claims regarding the use of POSILAC."

Center of the dance

We hadn't heard the woodcock since I posted about him the other night so I figured that he had moved on. However, I heard a faint twitter when I was walking over from the barn tonight, once again as the last pink faded in the west. Soon a loud peent came from over by the horse pond. I wanted to walk up there, but I was pretty sure crashing through the brush with a flashlight would spook him, so I just stood in the driveway behind the car. The Interstate was loud, but I could hear the peent quire clearly Figured it would be hard to hear the sky dance, but danged if he didn't do a big circle right over my head. I have never heard one make such a huge circle, all the way from the pond to the heifer barn, which is on the other side of the house. It was great....worth waiting for my dinner of homemade soup to stand and listen.