The sleep of the just

Or just sleep? We took a quick run over to Central New York Farm Progress Days today. Didn't stay long as these are busy times, what with corn chopping in full swing and all. This isn't our truck, BTW but I wouldn't mind if it was. We passed this one shortly after the incident below.

Anyhow, today the weather was spectacular, the show was pretty decent, although perhaps not up to past years, and the ride home was especially pleasant.

Out the car window near the auction

Most especially when we made a short detour to look at some machinery that is coming up for auction this weekend. As we rounded a corner on a tiny back road we came upon a National Grid truck. That is our area electrical utility and seeing their trucks isn't so uncommon. However, I am not so sure about the guy sound asleep in the driver's seat, head thrown back and mouth wide open. I hope it was his lunch hour, although it was two in the afternoon. I wanted to take a picture to share, but the guys wouldn't let me.

I did take a few others though.

This company supplies our milkhouse cleaning supplies.

****Update, I haven't spent much time reading blogs today, what with traveling, but I just visited Liz's, BuckinJunction. She posted yesterday on 9-11 and what she has written made me proud to be her mother. I mean, I always knew she was a good kid and all but this was just special for someone only 21 years old.

Marnie

I have been reading a number of blogs, which feature marvelous insect photos and lots of interesting posts on such things as tagging monarch butterflies. Today Burning Silo had a photo of a "surprise" indoor monarch, which reminded me of an incident that I had forgotten.


You see once upon a time we shared our home with a butterfly too. It happened one fall when Alan was quite small. An early frost had struck overnight ending the growing season with a decisive bang.


We were driving up the hill to the house, which was not our home yet, when Alan called out, "Look mom, it's a butterfly." And sure enough, among the bushes that straggle willy-nilly beside the drive was an empty chrysalis with a butterfly clinging below it.



We crawled out of the car and rushed over to look. He was young enough then that such a sight was a new and truly exciting event. (Eh, I admit it...we would still be just as quick to stop today and he is a senior in High School now.) As we got closer we could see that things weren't good for this poor insect though. "Her" wings had only half opened and had hardened into a crumpled, curled-over black and orange mess. I suppose the frost may have been the culprit. We left her there and went about our business, but at night she still hung there, wrinkled and weary. We decided that since more bad weather was forecast and since Alan was a little boy who hated to see anything suffer we would take her home.



At that time we lived about a mile from here in a house in the village, as the boss's folks lived here. There didn't seem to be any serviceable jars for monarch housing, and with those wings we didn't figure she would be going anywhere, so we released the critter, christened Marnie by her benefactor, in our tiny bathroom.


Since the kids had studied butterflies in school Alan knew enough to make sugar water, which he offered her in a soda bottle cap. She promptly obliged by sitting on his finger sipping neatly through her cunningly unrolled "butterfly straw".


Thus began about ten days of feeding her interesting sweet things, checking your toothbrush for butterflies, and finding her sitting on your shoulder when you went in to wash your hands. We brought bunches of late flowers in for her and she knew just what to do with them. She had to work hard to fly well enough to join you as you prepared to shower, but fly she did. Alan took her for "walks" outside, perched on his outstretched finger. She stayed with him, seeming content. Someone was always hollering, "Don't let the butterfly out of the bathroom," every time they heard the door open.


We really enjoyed her; it was fun to have a butterfly in the house. However, there were a number of close calls when she escaped from her little prison and found her way to kitchen or closet. It was not easy to find her again and I was afraid that one of these incidents would lead to disaster or that she would be injured when someone picked up a towel or something (she often chose to perch on towels).


Therefore, one brilliant sunny afternoon when over 30 wild monarchs (with properly flat and handsome wings) were sipping at the mums in the side yard, I took Marnie for a walk. I wasn't sure what would happen, but I needed the story to have a happy ending for her very young benefactor. I wasn't planning on bringing her back to the house.


Amazingly, as soon as she felt the sun beating down over the bank of glowing flowers, she lifted off my finger and spiraled off over the lilac bushes. She circled higher and higher until she was out of sight, flapping diligently off toward the river.


She was an insect, (not necessarily even a "she" although anthropomorphically we called her one.) I don't imagine we even existed for her and that her landings on our persons were incidental rather than planned. I rather doubt that she made it to Mexico or lived to reproduce. Those wings probably didn't carry her very far on that late fall afternoon of freedom.



However, we have comfortable and fond memories of sharing the bathroom with a butterfly and an everlasting soft spot for Monarchs just the same.

We did it!

.Danick Dupelle

David Pichette

Emerson Drive...this time in Ebensburg PA******

******which is WAY too far from here for us to go. WAY too far.

****got up at three on Saturday to milk, drove all day (Liz) went to the concert and fair, drove all night (Liz). Got home again at five on Sunday. Milked again. Feel very, very poor. Very poor

Will they do it?

Are the three women of Northview brave enough to hop in the car and go here to see this (scroll to the bottom to see what is on tomorrow afternoon)?
I am not sure but things are leaning that way.

Homeland Security

....and cow feed. You will be (as I was) comforted to learn that the Department of Homeland Security is keeping us safe from cow feed. Yep, I have it on good authority that samples of chopped hay and corn are often flagged for further investigation at the post office level. (Fermented or fermenting feed tends to smell "funny"). Then the folks who are fighting terrorism, cow by cow, can test the samples for themselves. After assuring themselves that the little sample baggies contain only grass and grain they send it along to the nutritional lab for which it was intended in the first place. Then the farmer and the feed company guy get the info they need to balance the daily ration for the cows.

It is always good to know how our tax dollars are being spent....and wonderful as well to feel safe and well-protected from immediate and obvious dangers such as feed samples.

Effects of Obesity epidemic

On skinny kids. It is really rough you know...the way they have cut down on the portions in school lunches (while raising prices, naturally) . If your son is six feet tall, still growing, very active and a fellow whose skinny bones form a walking anatomy lesson, all you hear is whining about the little tiny sandwiches and terrible teensie tacos that are served. Good manners and lots of "pleases" and "thank you ma'ams" will sometimes get a boy an extra scoop of salad or an extra juice, but by the time that bus gets here at 3:17....get out of the way, he's headed for the cupboard
and the fridge
or anything that holds still long enough to put it on a plate (quick Mike, hide under the table).

All kids should have to do farm work after school. That would end this whole "obesity" affair in about a week.

The recipe

Italian Venison Vegetable Soup

The soup below really starts as just your basic meat and vegetable soup...I make 8 quarts at a time as there are a lot of us and I want it to go extra meals.

First slowly brown the meat, in this case venison, with garlic and onion...to your taste. I use two cloves and one small respectively. I substitute stew beef, ground beef, or regular or Italian sausage or any combination thereof for the venison in this brew. We just happen to be out of all those things right now and down to eating deer or buying meat.


When the meat is well cooked, I add such vegetables as are available..canned, frozen or right out of the garden. This particular batch contained carrots, green beans, lots of cut up grape tomatoes, and yellow and green zucchini, all from the garden plus some frozen cauliflower and broccoli.Also a large can of corn and a can of garbanzo beans.


I usually add a couple of the large cans of crushed tomatoes and as many cans of water as it takes to fill up the pot.

For seasoning...well it varies. This time I added garlic and onion as listed above, commercially prepared Italian seasoning, fresh parsley (but frozen or dried is fine), a dash of Mrs. Dash, a couple leaves of lovage, (but if you have celery, that is better) and half a leaf of sweet basil. I also often include spearmint leaves and orange mint leaves, but mine are all buggy right now. If is a little too tangy a teaspoon of sugar is a good addition. So is thyme if you have time, which I didn't this time, although there is plenty of it out in the herb garden.


When everything is boiling nicely I toss in some pasta. We are fond of weird pasta...strange shapes and colors seem to taste better. Or rice...brown, white, wild or all of them. (you could put potatoes in the vegetable section as well).


In order to call it Italian soup, this time I dumped in about a quarter cup of grated Parmesan cheese, which adds a nice flavor and texture.


Then I set my oven to between 285 and 325 and go to work....temperature depends on how long I am going to be gone. If you can't watch soup or stew it will cook itself very nicely in the oven. (I have yet to meet an 8-quart slow cooker I'm afraid.) Anyhow when I am done milking cows the soup is done becoming dinner.


I really like this recipe because it is very forgiving. You can put darned near anything in it...and I do.

Venison vegetable soup

Italian style (I put in lots of zucchini and parmesan cheese and dump in some Italian seasoning.)

Even more meme-ishness

Here is a meme from In the Pink...feel free to play if you would like to...just leave a link in the comments if you do......However the girls have asked me to tag them so....Liz
and Becky

1. If you could have super powers what would they be and what would you do with them? (Please feel free to be selfish, you do not have to save the world!) Flying has always appealed to me...I was looking at the jumping gym at the fair and wishing I was young enough and spry enough to play! If I could fly I would do so, looking down at wild and lovely places.
   


2. Were you to find your self stranded on an island with a CD player...it could happen...what would your top 10 bloggers island discs be? Emerson Drive/Countrified, Todd Fritsch/American Cowboy, Todd Fritsch/Sawdust, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band/20 Years of Dirt, Any Jimmy Buffett, Any Hal Ketchum, Any Garth Brooks, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Trent Wilmon's first album, Jason Aldean's first album.
   


3. If you were a smell what would it be? Grape flowers is what I'd like to be...I am not sure that is quite how it would turn out though...eau de cow is much more likely.
   


4. What bird would you most like to be? Chickadee so I could join my little friends in the yard as they party all day long.
   


5. If you were a bird who's head would you poo on? Hillary Clinton
   


6. Are there any foods that your body craves? Varies, but I like to eat..cookies maybe
   


7. What's your favourite time of year? Spring or Fall
   


8. What's your favourite time of day? Early, early morning...or when we are done work at night
   


9. If a rest is as good as a change which would you choose? Rest, I am a real lazy bones
   


10. If you could have a dinner party and invite any 5 people from the past or present who would they be? (Living or deceased.) Louis L'Amour, Nora Roberts, JA Jance, Dick Francis, Patricia Penton Leimbach or alternately, myself and the four wonderful people with whom I abide. We really are a self-sufficient and happy bunch and like to be together....I will miss them when they find their own paths.
    

Cow eating French fries video

BuckinJunction

The French Fry calf

For the past few years the show string here at Northview has been oddly bereft. Kind of dull and ordinary even. Since the death of our all-time-number-one-best show cow, Frieland LV Dixie, there just hasn't been another animal that had her "big cheese" presence and bossy ways. Mandy, our current anchor cow, is sweet enough, and lovable, but mostly you would describe her personality as pleasantly stupid (at four years of age she still stops at the barn corner, too confused to turn right to find the door....twice a day, every day.)

This year, just to test the waters, Liz took a calf that belongs to her dad, Frieland Chilt Blink, (those are her ribs sporting the Northview sign in the header), over to Fonda. The competition is harsh there and Blink stood last in her class. (We subscribe to the "somebody has to be last" school of showing and don't get too excited about it though. We have been on the other end a few times too.)

Anyhow the kids came home laughing like crazy yesterday and said, "We've got another Dixie!" Another Dixie...hard to imagine another cow as funny and yet imperious, queen of the world and everything in it, as old Dix. She had so much personality that I even had her ghost write my newspaper column, the Farm Side, once. (She bragged about how many people worked so hard to take care of her wants and needs...veterinarians, feed salesmen, peons {us}. It was so "her".)

One of the most entertaining, (not to mention most aggravating) features of Dixie's outlook on life was that she considered ALL food to belong to her. ALL food. We discovered this little quirk when Liz ran to clean up a "phone call" and left nachos on her chair, well out of reach (she thought). She returned to find an empty plate and a smug, self-satisfied cow with cheese on her whiskers.

From there on no French fry was safe. No taco salad uneaten. No Nacho unstolen. It became part of the culture of fair week to feed Dixie odd foods and watch her enjoy them. If you didn't offer she would ask, swinging her long head and lashing her tongue in the direction of your dinner. When she passed away no other cow seemed to come along that was as much fun to take to the show.

Enter Blink. Alan was sitting on a bale of straw noshing onion rings the other day when something large and sticky slipped under his arm and plopped in his plate, slapping up most of the food. It was Blink's tongue. She wanted some. Ketchup and all. Finding cow slobber unappetizing he let her finish them off. There was no turning back. Besides being a nice natured, engaging critter like old Dix, she shares her taste in junk food. Last night the kids bought her a whole plate of French fries and ketchup and took a video of her eating them. Right now they are busy with the fair, but as soon as Liz gets a chance it will be posted on BuckinJuntion

I have never seen food vanish so fast. If cows could eat hot dogs Joey Chestnut would have to look to his laurels.

Emerson Drive

Number one fan and little brother before the show (3rd row seats!)

Brad Mates

David Pichette


Mike Melancon



Danick Dupelle



Dale Wallace (with David Pichette)

***More later when I can see, speak and type again........

If you get a chance to see these guys, go. We had so much fun last night that despite two nights in a row of four hours of sleep, I am as happy as music can make you. We stood in line for hours for those third row seats. Then the kids stood in line again for as long as it takes for about 800 people to get autographs. They told the band about all the cows with names from their songs and they were delighted to hear about them...asked them to send photos of them....Drive, Moments, Evidence, Lemonade...I think Hollywood Kiss is another one of them...they have six, I just can't remember them all.

Smoke....big pullers

Went over to the fair last night because Liz didn't feel well and the guys wanted to see the Supernatural, which belongs to friends of ours, pull. Took a walk around the fairgrounds, then took care of Blink, the calf that we have over there. She is so sweet, just the nicest baby. She loves attention and eats French fries, which is an important attribute in a fair animal.

Got to talk to an amazing array of wonderful people and got to eat some amazing cookies. What more could there be to life? I felt so at home sitting on that old blue show box, reading a Kjelgaard book and watching the people go by. (How could Wild Trek, which is such a rich and detailed adventure story be older then I am?)

As kids got driver's licenses and took over the show string, I have stayed home and missed the belonging part more and more. Somebody has to do the work at home and I have had my years of showing, since I was twenty-two or so and started with horses and chickens and bunnies.

It was kind of nice to have personal charge of a lovely cow and personal time to read my heart out. It would have been nicer though to know where the scrubbing brush was so I could spot wash poor Blink who had a couple of spots in addition to the ones she was born with. Anyhow, it's a good fair so far.

(Shaky hands)

There's nothin' I know of can make you fall in love

Like a night at the county fair.*

*Thanks to Chris LeDoux

The blue show box

Is showing its age. I have had this old army trunk since I was in college, many moons ago. It served as a tack trunk when I showed my old horse, Magnum, and then with the harness ponies, Deranged Richard and Major Moves.

When the family started showing cows when Liz was six, I painted the cow and our names on it. It has been hauled back and forth to many shows since then. Many, many shows. It has held shampoos and tie chains and buckets and health papers. Grain scoops. Show halters. Rope halters. Squashed lemonade cups. Dirty, wet, nasty socks. Crumpled last place ribbons. Crumpled first place ribbons.
More memories than you would ever think could possibly fit inside such a small container.

If I had a nickel for every time someone sat on it to peruse a show catalog or read a book while waiting for "phone calls" or just to catch up on farmer gossip, I'd be rich.
(Oh, wait a minute, I already am.)

Liz is 21 now and it is on its way to yet another show, the Fonda Fair. I am thinking maybe it is time for a little touch up on the paint job.
How about you?

Wrench in the works

Last year we, or rather I, bought a young bull calf from a registered Holstein breeder who sends cows to a friend's farm to be milked. We wanted to draw semen from him to breed our own cows AI as we don't like to keep bulls, but we like something cheap to use for "clean up", to mate the cows who don't breed as well as we would like.

Anyhow, we raised him up, fed him and cared for him for a year, and then sent in some ear hair from him for DNA testing as required by the Holstein Association for AI. His dam, who belongs to the people we bought him from, also had to be tested. Imagine my dismay when we got a letter Saturday stating that his grandpappy wasn't in fact his grandpappy. (Your papa aint' your papa but your papa don't know.) Somewhere along the way somebody goofed. I suspect until this is all straightened out he is no longer even registered.

Never having faced such a situation before I simply have no idea what to do. We paid for a purebred and eligible for AI use animal. As it stands right now that is not what we got. We fed him for a whole year plus a couple of months, by far the greatest expense in owning an animal. We really, really want to send him up to Verona where the drawing takes place and then sell him. He is big, messy, hard to care for, and costing us MORE money every day to feed. I am tempted to beef him and just take the loss....but I just don't know.

***Update...spoke to the Holstein Association today and all efforts are being made to resolve this. However the sire of the mother cow looks like it is going to turn out to be a bull we used heavily that had a bad proof and was beefed by the bull stud. If this turns out to be the case we will sell Frank, but at least he will be registered. I laughed out loud when I heard who the probable grandsire was and I'll suspect the lady at Holstein thought I was nuts. It was so ironic though. Ocean View Extra Special was a bull we used heavily enough to have the winning get of sire at Altamont a couple years ago. We like his daughters and couldn't really understand why they dumped him, but really can't use any more of that bloodline.

Just a little memeish

From Smokey Mountain Breakdown

4 jobs I've had

Kennel Cleaner
Chamois folder
Vet tech
Handler of smooth fox terriers for AKC shows

4 places I've lived

Gloversville
Caroga Lake
Fultonville
Fultonville

4 places I've holidayed
Floriday
Montana and Wyoming
Peck's Lake
Terril pond

4 favorite foods

Steak
Cookies
Home made salad
Potato chips

4 places I'd rather be

Camping
Fishing
Sleeping
Heck, actually I am perfectly contented right here

The end of summer

Brings good things to eat.


Special friends stop by bringing gifts from the garden. (Thanks Gordie...we do love corn.)



We freeze all afternoon. (Not freeze as in being cool, freeze as in putting up.)
Husk the corn.
Stack the corn.
Boil the corn.
Cool the corn.
Cut the corn off the cob.
Bag the corn.
Put the corn in the freezer.
Do it again.
And again.
And again.




It is 96 and icky humid. Not a good day for freezing anything in a kitchen billowing with steam...water bubbling loudly...keeping the doors closed to keep the head-banging bane of the heat outside. No breeze. No breath. There are sticky bits of corn everywhere. Sticky corn on the table. Sticky corn on the floor. (Happy dogs, happy dogs. How they love that sticky corn.There is no need to sweep or mop.) The counters and table are another story. No dogs allowed there and it would make good glue, I'll tell you. Still, you make hay when the sun shines and you freeze corn when the corn comes.


Many hands make light work. (And many kids have many hands.) The kitchen is full of teens and twenty-somethings armed with knives and bowls and baggies. There is much silliness and sibling competition. Many insults and near passing of drinks through nasal passages with all the nonsense that is being bandied about. (It is one of my most cherished goals as a parent...to make my kids pass food through their noses at things I say..{ask them about summer vegetables}.....this time they do it to each other though. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and I guess the corn doesn't either.) We finish in under two hours and save out a dozen ears so we can have fresh corn on the cob for supper. This winter corn that brings the taste of summer right back to us will be a special treat for chowder or just for dinner. It is always worth the effort.


We make apple snacks in late summer too. Ginger gold apples are in, the first of the really hard, crisp, good-eatin' apples...not soft and mushy like Macs. They are so tart and tangy and delightful, just like the great late-fall apples like Spies and Ida Reds. I salute whoever invented the variety.

To make your own apple snack, core and cut up the best apple you can find.
Cut up the sharpest cheese you can find...just a bit.
Add raisins
Granola
Cheerios
Eat
(We often bag this stuff for a quick rake along snack...it will keep a few hours and is full of autumn goodness)

Salute

If you have a minute, visit My Blog, the delightful blog of the author, JA Jance. She has written a salute today to her late parents that is very moving and yet fun to read.

"According to family legend, he first came courting my mother's younger sister, Toots, but was told by their father, "Norman, in this house we eat the old bread first." And so he ended up with the older sister, Evie, instead."

Anti-NAIS blog

Good stuff here! Watch the videos if you get a chance.

Ear tags and disease

Isn't it amazing that the Holstein Association is in favor of national animal ID?
(Well, no, it isn't all that surprising....They maintain a large and lucrative animal database. They make money by identifying animals. Why wouldn't they support it?) It aggravates me to see them pontificate like this no end though. They prey on the ignorance of the general public to make their point of view seem like the right one. I disagree. Pretty strongly, in fact. England has one of the most restrictive animal ID systems in existence. They still have outbreaks of horrific animal diseases. Ear tags don't stop them.

I defy the proponents of NAIS to explain to me how putting expensive ear tags in cows will stop the spread of foot and mouth disease should it come here to the USA. It blows on the wind, flows with the water, is spread by birds, animals, car tires, and people. You could ear tag every domestic animal in the country and it would still do the same thing. Oh, the government says they could find the animals quicker to "do something about it" (read kill cows...the Brits killed a number of herds that didn't even turn out to have the disease. Tough luck for the cows and farmers). Maybe they could find cows faster. However, ear tagging my cows wouldn't do a darned thing to stop the dozens of deer that ramble all over our farm..and the neighbors' farms...and the Amish farms. It won't stop the wind, or the water, the Thruway or the starlings. It won't stop the disease either.

Poor baby

Blinky

Summertime news

Another site

With a fantastic catalog of natural sounds. I was researching for the Farm Side, writing about the sounds and sights of a summer day and stumbled upon the Macaulay Library.

It is simply amazing! This is a toy I will be playing with a LOT!

How (not) to photograph a calf

(The first time she goes out on a halter)


Running

Running some more

A pause for the cause

But I lo-o-o-ove you

Maqua-kil Blitz Neon Moon making her debut at Northview Farm.

Say it isn't so

Upstream

Who is this raider of the green bean patch?

Here is where I am looking to try to find him. And here.

A couple more cow stories

You might think that it is a chore for cows to be dragged to the fair...that they must mind being shut into a stock trailer, driven 32 miles over twisted hill country roads, and kept away from green pastures and good buddies for a week.

You might think.

However, there is a certain amount of evidence to the contrary. About six years ago one of the show heifers was turned out with a herd of regular heifers. The boss was really worried about how we were going to sort her out to take her to the show. (She had been to the fair the year before.) However, as soon as he backed the trailer over to the heifer yard, she threw up her head and ran up to the gate so she could get on.

Same thing this year. Because of the light duty truck the guys made a second trip back home to get Lemmie and Blink. They loaded Lem and went back into the barn to get Blink. When they came out there was Heather, Lizzie's old Jersey show cow, who isn't going this year because we didn't get her bred until real late, climbing onto the back compartment of the trailer. Foolish, a milking two-year-old, who went last year too, was right behind her and Junie, a dry who has been showed all her life, was running down the hill for her turn. I suppose it just shows that they aren't stupid. For the week at the show they are fed about ten times a day, have nothing to do buy lie in knee deep straw, get washed, and groomed and pampered until they shine like stars. It is like a spa for cows! What's not to like? Still it amazes me that all it takes is one trip over to the fair for them to associate a trailer ride with pleasure. In fact, Foolish has never even ridden on OUR trailer, having been hauled over by our trucker last year!

Then the other day, Alan was standing in the barnyard waiting for the boss, and decided to scratch Balsam, mother of Bayberry, grandmother of Bayliner. He used to show Balsie when she was a heifer but she is an older three quartered cow now and can't be shown. He was being careful to stay at arm's length so she wouldn't knock him down if she decided to take off, as most cows won't let you touch them when they are running free. Instead of taking off, she scooped him into the hollow of her neck, with a swoop of her head, and cradled him there against her neck so she could be sure not to lose the source of all that lovely scratching and petting. It was like a huge cow hug...she is mean to other cows, but she sure is sweet to people.

Mandy

Getting ready

This is Mandolin Rain, a 4-year old daughter of Ocean View Zenith out of an old homebred cow, being milked after the show in the fair's milking parlor. It amazes me how the cows take to the parlor, not being milked in one at home. Lemonade had to be milked off the wrong side and is only a first calf heifer and she stood like a champ.

I see you!

What is amazing about this picture is what Mandy is looking at, staring at in fact, over the side of the parlor stall. There is a roped off area where fairgoers can watch the cows being milked. I was standing in the center of about thirty people a good twenty feet from her. She is not one that I milk, she hadn't seen me in a week, it was way past dark, and yet she picked me out of the crowd and stared at me most of the time she was being milked.

I was amazed and humbled. ...although I guess that there was no reason for me to get all excited. One of the kids' friends showed her in one class last year and as soon as she came over to the string this week Mandy recognized her and wanted to be petted. The cows come home tomorrow night and I am way past ready... a night with more than five or six hours in it would be a real bonus.

Doing pretty good here....92 pounds in a day

This one did win

Frieland Chilt Blink

Although I think the kids came in fifth with that best three females group below this baby, showing as a senior heifer calf, won her class against stiff competition. She is not spectacular in the rear "wheels" and could stand to be a little longer and stronger over the topline, but I have liked her since day one. Blink is a daughter of the Select Sires young sire, Chilton, out of a Comestar Leader cow Alan used to show, Brink.

Finally

I'm thinking this is Best Three Females Class, Altamont Fair 2007. We didn't win the blue ribbon, but it was a groundbreaking, watershed, revolutionary, first time kinda thing just the same. Check out the guy on Mandy's halter...

Milk hauling dilemma

Did you know that dairymen pay the milk company that buys their milk to haul it to their plant. This may change depending on the results of a study that is now being done. I hope it does. We pay nearly a thousand dollars a month for hauling.

What's that bug?

Or mammal or frog! I stumbled upon this site after reading Burning Silo today and realizing that although there are katydids all over the place here I had no idea what one sounds like.

Now I do, having listened to the recorded call on the site. Sadly the site is not very comprehensive, but it is fun anyhow.

Speaking of meth

Last year the guys saw a car in the barn driveway and ran down to accost the individual.
We are on a high hill with a winding dirt drive.
His excuses for being at our barn didn't exactly jibe so we called the police.
He claimed he was looking for Argersinger Road.
However in this picture you can see an abandoned house that we think he wanted to get into. I never mentioned it here, but the guy in the car had no teeth, just tiny rotting shells and stumps sticking up out of raw, ragged gums. He couldn't have been more than thirty. I figured at the time and still do that he was looking for a place to cook meth. Just a couple weeks before some fellows got caught cooking on a farm road near some friends' place.
We were scared for a while.
Still think twice about checking the barn after dark.
Oh, and he had a kid about nine with him.
Nice, huh?

Reasearch

Liz accidentally woke me up at four this morning when she got up to go to the fair. (Frankly, it hurt.) It was not time to milk, but since I was up anyhow, I went to work at my other job.....the Farm Side. Deadline is today (not unlike every other Wednesday) and I didn't even have a rough draft. I started doing research on the new federal regulations on 7% iodine solution. I didn't find good news I'm afraid. Instead of being able to go to the farm store to buy a gallon, we will have to look elsewhere, probably a pharmacy, for this much needed medicine. The drug will now be sold only by entities registered with the DEA and records will be kept of its distribution. (I don't suppose that will make it any cheaper.) The law is changing because depraved drug dealers use iodine to cook methamphetimine to sell to their customers. They already steal anhydrous ammonia fertilizer; now they have their fingers in the farm medicine cabinet and their chicanery is taking away a much needed tool for calf, lamb, and kid health.

When baby critters are born, their navels offer a veritable highway by which nasty pathogens can enter their bodies, often causing a disease called joint ill, or navel ill. Dipping the newborn navel in strong tincture of iodine disinfects it and helps it to dry out, closing that germy autobahn into the baby body. Joint ill is a really nasty disease causing swollen, damaged joints and often death. Thanks to all those entrepreneurial drug cookers our calves will now more vulnerable to it, at least until we find an acceptable (and hopefully useless in making meth) substitute.

In the course of my pre-milking research I learned all kinds of stuff about laws, drugs (the bad kind), drugs (the medicinal kind) and public hearings. More than I had wanted to know, really.


Then after all that clicking and ticking away on the keyboard I changed my mind and wrote about this story instead.

Oh, the weather outside is....

Perfect, like a crisp fall day but longer, drier, and just enough warmer to be delightful. Beck and I ran errands this morning and didn't even mind (much). Liz is over at this fair with the cows...and her friends, which is, after all, the real point of showing cattle....being with your friends, that is. It has nothing to do with ribbons (although we like them) and everything to do with who is there to hang around hollering "phone call" every time a critter raises her tail to take care of business. (As in, "Liz, there's a phone call for YOU," when it happens to be one of hers that is doing what cows do best.) And who is there to "accidentally" "slip" with the hose on the wash rack. Who has a set of ear clippers you can borrow. Who brought that amazing summer yearling...or junior two or aged cow.

***New sign in the Fonda Dollar General Parking Lot***

Or who can get away to take a walk down to the carnival section with you and pick up a corn dog. Which serious hottie down on the end of the barn stands up and belts out, "I've got a Brand New Girl Friend", every time the song with the same title comes on the radio that somebody else has blasting loud enough to be heard over the buzz of a dozen sets of cow clippers, the calliope jangle of the rides and the shuffle of hundreds of feet of the fairgoers admiring the cows and the suntanned country kids that grace the new barn.

Fair time is not without its hassles, skimpy passes, loss of exhibitor parking and things like that, but never stops being a great place to meet your friends and have fun. I am looking forward more than I have in a long time to seeing friends at our local fair in a couple of weeks. I am entering some vegetables and such, but only so I can get in as often as I want to see the folks. I know if I go over with the boss we will be able to spend three hours, never get bored, and never make it past the Cow Palace.

***Back to school '07, college girl version 102***

Who brought that animal in the house!!!!!

Wait a minute...it's kind of blurry

Aha, all is clear now...it was the farmer boy in the kitchen with the yellow cat!

Oat shocks in an Amish field

Foot and mouth update

This story brings up what I said below about Plum Island vs inland labs for this highly contagious material. Interesting that it is running the same day as the Farm Side on that topic.

Ha, revisited

Save a cow

Ha, not in my barn you don't

Foot and Mouth disease disaster

Sarpy Sam posted this about FMD with a link to this post about what is going on over in Great Britain. (These pictures are heartbreaking.) The whole affair is generating some serious anger, even here in the USA. It is pretty much a done deal that the disease escaped from a lab that was manufacturing vaccines under government auspices.
***Update...Here is more

Here in the United States such testing is carried out at Plum Island off Long Island, NY. This research facility is being moved to one of five inland sites in the near future at a cost to tax payers of an estimated $450 million.

Plum Island has never caused an outbreak, but is controversial because it is out in the water and easily approached by folks in boats. It is, however, a long way away from hoofed animals, which Kansas, Texas, and all the other proposed sites for the new lab, simply are not. In light of what happened with the outbreak I wonder about the advisability of moving the lab inland. Here is some good news though.

More reasons to avoid National Animal ID

From Drovers Magazine,
"A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report requested by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and released today found weaknesses in USDA’s plan to implement a national animal identification system. Harkin asked GAO to examine USDA’s animal ID plan in November 2005 after concerns were raised that USDA was not effectively implementing the system and not informing producers and livestock market operators how much the system will cost their operations. Harkin is chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry."

More,

• "The USDA lacks a comprehensive cost estimate or cost-benefit analysis for the implementation and maintenance of the animal ID system. In response to GAO’s recommendation to do so, USDA has now entered into a contract to have a cost estimate conducted.
• USDA has not prioritized the implementation of the animal ID system according to economic value of the species or those most at risk for specific animal diseases.
• USDA has not developed a plan to integrate the animal ID system with preexisting animal disease eradication programs for hogs, cattle, sheep or goats, thus duplicating effort and cost to producers.
• USDA has awarded 169 animal ID cooperative agreements totaling $35 million but has failed to adequately monitor the agreements or determine if the intended outcomes, for which the funds were used, were achieved. USDA has also not consistently shared the results of the agreements with state departments of agriculture, industry groups, or other stakeholders to allow them to learn from experience under the cooperative agreements.
• The timeframe for effective animal disease traceback from where animals have been raised is not clearly defined for specific species. Some contagious diseases need to be tracked and identified in a very short amount of time to limit further spread of the animal disease.
• Tracing animals from their original origin will be problematic given that USDA is not requiring critical information, such as the type of animal species, date of birth, or approximate age of animals to be recorded in the animal ID system. This information is necessary to limit the scope of an animal disease investigation.
• USDA has no benchmarks to determine if there is sufficient participation to achieve an effective animal ID system."

Just what farmers and ranchers have been saying all along.

For washing show cows

A cleaner, (but wetter) Frieland Chilt Blink

***Update...check out this cowside art at BuckinJunction