A milestone

Tree sparrow cussing out a junco

With the new camera. I can pick it up off the desk before the sun comes up, take pictures of the moon and its little star and the dawn and load them onto the computer without ever turning on the light or looking for buttons. It took so long to get to that point with the little camera, perhaps because it was the first digital. With the big one...it is such a darned delight to take pictures with it, that in no time I have found the easier buttons....still have to learn the more complicated things but....wow!

East ...the sun is rising a little more to the north every day even if it is still freezing cold

South..click for the star

And because I have the big camera to play with the guys took the little camera to the auction with them yesterday. (They have been taking it along everywhere they go....Alan is pretty good at taking pictures and is bringing home some great ones.) Spring is auction time in the farm world and there are usually several every weekend. The boss loves them enough to have gone to Missouri Auction School (with me in tow) and the boy is fast becoming a BIG fan. They went to McFadden's famous spring auction yesterday and nearly froze but enjoyed the socializing as always.

Here is a road picture Alan took with the little camera.

This would be a good thing to do while you are waiting for spring.

Operation Komando

The feed truck

Photo by Alan

On SUCH a lovely spring day. He let the heifers out when he left the gate open while he filled the bin. Yay! (I guess every trucker has to learn the hard way that even if you don't see any animals if you find a gate closed on a farm you re-close it after you go through.) He was profuse in his apologies, but Liz, the boss and Alan had to do some snowy-cold running and driving. The critters were headed down the barn driveway and they couldn't get ahead of them, so the boss ran the truck down the house drive and met them at the bottom of the barn drive. They came right back up then.

A frigid tree sparrow

Oh, do try this

Created by OnePlusYou -

HT to Jeffro

Trusting your hunches

Has its costs. Last night one of my cows, Mento, looked like maybe calving in the night. She also had the shakes when she stood up. Liz wanted to give her a bottle of calcium in case the shakes were milk fever. I had a feeling that the shaking was a sort of hereditary tremor that Holsteins sometimes have. She has been showing just a touch of it all winter when she stands up. I don't know what it is called, but it occurs in varying degrees of severity, from barely noticeable to virtually crippling. In Mento's case, so far it has presented as just a ripple of the muscles in her hind quarters.

Normally in such circumstances we would give the calcium just in case, but Mento's skin was warm, she was eating like there weren't going to be seconds and I just didn't think it was needed. Neither did the boss.

However, when you make a decision like that, come morning sleep can be elusive. (You always wonder...is the cow really okay or did I just want to get out of the barn before nine?)
Today is not tanker day, Becky's class is late and there are (hopefully) no inspectors lurking around the corner, so I could have slept until almost six without guilt, However, worrying about Mento...and Consequence, who is also due...and Zinnia who calved night before last....I got up just after five to go out and check. Liz was already up though, just leaving for work because it is SNOWING AGAIN...so she took her phone and went over and checked. Nothing...all well. I am glad but now I wish I had taken that extra almost hour and got some sleep.....oh, well, glad the old girl is all right and expect we will get a calf today.

(Not) my cannon*
Photo by Becky (I was driving)

*Earl: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt: Cannon fuse
Earl : What the hell do you use it for?
Burt : My cannon!

Timberdoodle's return

The snow geese showed up today too! More on View at

We had to milk test today. Because of metering every cow's output it takes longer than just throwing the machines on and gittin' 'er done. Thus we started early and had to hustle. (Our sweet milk tester, who lives over by the college, took Beck to school so I am beyond grateful for that! She is much kinder to me than I am to her and I really should do better.)


Anyhow I was taking the dogs out in the still-freezing darkness when I first heard it for the year. Peeenttttt!!!! The delightful whiny, nasal call was coming from up by the horse pasture pond. Despite the impending pressure of yet another hectic, crazy day, I was thrilled. After being woodcock-less for a dozen years down here by the house, we had one dancing last year. Alan has been seeing them up in the field for a while but "mine" hadn't come back so I was concerned. Every night on the way in from the barn I have been standing in the driveway for a few minutes listening....hoping. And hearing nothing but killdeers and geese.


Then this morning, there he was. I stopped several times on my way over to work, to shut off the flashlight and just listen. Although he kept on peenting he didn't fly so I haven't heard the sky dance yet. Tonght if it isn't snowing or pouring I won't have to hurry so much and I will wait for the thrill. I spend a lot of time standing in the driveway during timberdoodle season.

I am SO glad that he is back!

****Update, Tom has video and sound that will let you enjoy just what we do...and lucky guy, he has five of them!

The day the Internet died

Or night actually...last night Frontier net went down in two area codes, including ours. It was still out this morning so... no Farm Side this week, among other things. However, here are some pictures from yesterday's road trip, which would have been yesterday's post, but for fatigue and technological failure.

A beaver house in a swamp on Corbin Hill Road.
There are two of these within perhaps thirty feet of each other.

Left side of Goldman road

We call this Lyker's Pond, although it probably has another name. The two sections of the pond are connected by a large culvert under Goldman Road. As I stood looking for nice shots (and praying against ticks) there came from behind me a booming sound, like someone heaving a bowling ball through the bushes and onto the ice. I must have jumped three feet. It was a BIG boom. I crossed to that side of the road and peered down into the woods. No bears, no maddened lumber jacks. No teen-aged mutant ninja deer ticks. Nada. I went back to taking pictures. (I love this place, so close to farms and houses and yet so remote-seeming and lovely. I will try to stop back as spring shows up, hot on the heels of all those geese (we hope) and take more pictures. It should be interesting to watch the ice melt and the plants green up.)

Then the booming erupted from the side I had just left. What the heck? It was an elusive sort of sound...seeming to come from everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Then it arose from UNDER the road. That is when I figured out (I think) what was going on. The ice itself was making those thunderous sounds as the sun rapidly warmed it after a night in the low teens...There were certainly pressure lines scored across it that weren't there the other day when I visited (You can see them in the right and left photos if you click). And if there were bears or bowling ticks or a train going off the tracks, I, at least, couldn't see them.

Right side of Goldman Road, where the first bowling tick sound originated

We were inspected yesterday and I guess we did okay, although we will probably never know. Liz was there when the inspectors came for which I am very thankful. That way we at least know they have done us and moved on to other victims.



The low tech method of gathering maple sap. This is adjacent to the big sugar bush we pass and is probably part of it. This is the hard way of getting the job done, but these pails seem to be nicely full of sap.

*****If you want to get a look at the incredible goose invasion that is sweeping over New York, visit my other blog, where I dump photos that don't fit here.
****

A little birdie

Tipped us off that there is most likely to be a federal rating inspector checking on all the farms in the cooperative to which we belong sometime during this week. Federal ratings are a challenge. (That is a nice way of saying horrible, nightmarish, hard as heck.) Everything must be perfect. Hah! This is a farm. Fifty cows and forty heifers and two men who never pick up after themselves conspire with muddy Mother Nature to make immaculate walls and floors and cows and properly organized shelves and suchlike things to dream about. And baling twine. What is it with that stuff anyhow? It has a life of its own. Then when we do get everything spic and span keeping it that way for a week...Arggghhh!!

So we thanked God that Liz had Saturday off and we all pitched in and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. Because I am Queen of the Pressure Washer (having worked on a dairy where I washed the whole parlor down with one every day) I did the milkhouse. Everyone else moved things and swept them and put them in the truck for the landfill. Although it was hard work, most of the job was done by Saturday night, so we were free to share the celebration of Easter yesterday with the dear folks who are giving Lizzie her internship position.

Last night it came down to getting calves out of the manger. We had a couple of them tied in front of loving new mamas who were not exactly happy to see them moved. However, calves in the manger is a major no-no, so they had to go to new locations. Holsteins are usually led on a halter.. Jerseys don't need to be. There are other ways of moving Jersey calves.

Put me down! I want to run up and down the alley

Then last night we came in to enjoy leftovers from Easter that we brought home from dinner with us. I looked up at nine to realize that Alan had not come in from the barn yet. He is often last one in as he feeds out the last hay and fills the stove nights. Still nine was too late so I booted up...my feet that is...and went out to see what was going on.

He was just turning off the lights when I got there. He had scraped and re-swept every bit of the barn walkways and spread a coating of lime on every inch...on his own...without being asked.
It looks terrific and I am grateful. And it is time to head over and milk and clean up whatever messes the cows and cats managed to make last night......

Everyone's an art critic.



I love you, mama

Happy Easter to All

Thanks...for reading and keeping me company. Hope you have a great day with family and friends.
Love to everyone.

Guess who went out barefoot with the doggies this morning

To shoot pictures of the moon? (The rest of them were taken through the windows...I am only half way crazy).







Happy, happy morning...no school, no milk truck, Liz has the day off so I can let everyone else sleep in an extra hour while I play.

Flower garden

Here is a silly little thingie one of my delightful aunts sent me. Just hold your mouse button down or click creatively to grow some springy flowers...since the wind is howling a gale, it is about twenty degrees and snow is in the forecast, I probably got more bang out of this than someone who lives in a more reasonable climate might but....but I gotta tell you, this really feels good

MOS

Photo by Alan
This is the road we take every day over to the college....I stand corrected. Becky took this one.

Big (ish) sky

Another view of the beaver dam taken by Alan while mom was driving about 55

Road trip...detour

Beaver dam on Goldman Road

One of my favorite swamps

"Get offa my cloud"...these Canada geese are already pairing up and staking out territories

Westland/Hallmark and some happier cows

The animal abuse incidents at this plant have had and will continue to have, far-reaching and ugly effects on the animal livestock industry. When one business allows such transgressions everybody gets a black eye, whether deserved or not.

Thus I was simply tickled pink to find this story central in all the news feeds over the past few days. It puts a better face on agriculture and it is much more the true face than what the HSUS has been putting about about cattlemen and women. Cow water beds have actually been around for years, as have dozens of other kinds of mattresses for cows. A comfortable cow is a functional, productive cow. Thus it is not only kind to make them comfy, but profitable too. There is actually constant intense research done on which beds cows prefer and will use most, as they make more milk lying down than standing up.

We bed with straw (or right now, hay, since our straw guy is out)., but we do have thick rubber mats under some particular cows, which could be described as klutzy and need them. The cows love to be bedded and fluff their own straw up before lying down on it. Our oldest ever cow, Frieland RORAE Ann, who passed away on the farm at just shy of 21 years old, used to stare at me nights....I could feel her eyes just boring into me while I milked, until I ran over and bedded her stall. Then she would lie down with a contented sigh to chew her cud. We always get a big kick out of the way cows communicate with their peons (us). They have the stare of demand down to a science...and you know, after a couple or three decades of living so close to them, I usually can figure out just what they want from me.

Some of them also delight in eating their bedding, which is both hilarious and frustrating. For example old Beausoleil picks her bedding up on her hind leg so she can reach it easily and eats it that way. It is not that she is hungry, as I can toss a chunk of the same old hay up in her manger and she will push it away. It is just a habit she has and there is nothing I can do about it but laugh at her and stay out of the way of that waving leg when I am shaking out her bed.

No more excuses

For lame photography.....



Thank you...you know who you are but I don't know if you want to be unmasked here.


First attempt....it's raining so we are a little limited outdoors, but as soon as the sun shines... I have already been immortalized on television as this hooks up to it....much fun being had here.

Maple season explained

I have been wanting to photograph a wonderful sugar bush we drive through every day, but the road is dangerous and there is no place to pull off. then the boss called me in to see this on TV. This is Steve Savage, "our" maple guy who taps our woods (and lots of others too) and keeps us in sweet, golden syrup. If you have the speed, watch the video. It is pretty cool. If not, the text is pretty explanatory.

What is it with roads and birds anyhow?

Coming home from taking Beck to college, late (in more ways than one) this morning. There is a red truck on the other side of the road, partly off the road and partly in traffic. (We are talking busy state highway here, narrow as heck and cars are flying along at least fifty-five mph.)

The man, bearded like a singer in the Soggy Bottom Boys, (only his is real), and dressed perfectly for the part, gets out of the truck and begins to step out into the road. I slow down and wheel over the object of his interest, which is dead center (quite literally) in my lane.


The thing is what we up here in the Northeast call a partridge, which is more correctly known as a ruffed grouse. As I pass, the man steps into my lane and bends to pick the critter up. Winding out of sight, several curves ahead, I can still see him in my rearview mirror, trying to pry that bird off the pavement.


What's up with that I ask you? Nobody is that hungry.


Maybe he ties flies.....

****Update, Becky had the likely answer to this dilemma. The college has a taxidermy class and they often use reasonably intact road kill for practice subjects. This bird was pretty fresh so.....maybe....

Be careful what you wish for

Driving down to Cobleskill, nearly nine last night. Had to pick Becky up after a late class (when will that girl learn to drive?) Alan was riding along to keep me company and we were enjoying each other thoroughly. He is a nice boy and very aware that his eighteenth birthday is Friday...and that the world will change for him and us real soon. As we passed the spot where Beck and I saw the screech owl the other day, I calmly mentioned, "Gee, we haven't seen any owls tonight. Usually we see a couple."

Not three hundred yards down the road we saw one alright. boy did we see it! It swooped right across the grill of the car, almost over the hood. It was close enough that we instinctively cringed backward and stomped on the floor...me on the brake, him on empty floor mat and an imaginary clutch (he is used to his five speed truck). Despite the fraction of a second that we saw it and the gasp factor, I did get to see what it was. A barred owl, all fluff and stripes. It looked big as a turkey from where I was sitting. If it had extended one feather even an inch it would have touched the car. I like owls, but I will not ask so carelessly again.

Which do you prefer?

Fresh fish on ice?

Or really, really fresh fish under ice?

Yesterday hundreds of geese

Today thousands. This flock took long enough to fly past for Alan and me to stand discussing whether he had time to run inside for the camera. Enough to decide, well maybe. For him to run inside and get it. For me to take dozens of pictures. At least five or six minutes. At least a thousand geese. Probably many more than that.

The Season is in Full Swing

Sweet!

Reaching joy

Winter is prison. I don't care how beautiful it is, it makes me miserable. I get though it by feeding the birds, growing as many plants as I can fit in my windows, on my benches, anywhere I can put them, and by waiting.....

***do click***

For a day like this one. There is still snow, but it is perfect snow...loose granular is the skiers' term I think. It has a satisfyingly sloppy crunch underfoot. Fun to walk in. It is on its way out too, leaving us apace..... Every step you take will be a bare place tomorrow. Every dark thing has its own Easter basket nest too, melted by absorbing rays from a still hidden sun.





Birds are everywhere...avian surround sound.

There be robins. Maelstroms of geese, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds ringing everywhere. Red winged black birds and grackles, blue jays with cheeks so crammed with sunflower seeds that they look deformed when they fly. Thunderous clapping mourning doves...birds everywhere. One flock of Canadas went by this morning, sailing east down the river. I counted...slowly....very slowly...to thirty seconds worth and they were still coming, punctuated by silver gulls that were caught up in their beating flight path.




Because I was on a hill and they were not so very high over the water I was looking straight across at them and could see their wings throbbing, brown, then grey, then brown again, in flickering unison.


There is water everywhere too, rushing toward the river like it might miss it if it didn't hurry. The horse pasture pond is overflowing. As I sit on the old barrel I set here years ago, I can hear the excess softly burbling across the grass despite the racket from the Intersate. It is so clear that if it weren't for reflected light, you couldn't see it.




Can you see the water below?...



Even though it is still winter you can sense the springing up of outdoor things. It is easy to remember why lambs buck and caper and horses gallop and kick just for the fun of it. I feel downright frisky too.

Beginnings

We had a second baby yesterday..... out of Dreamroad Extreme Heather. Sadly he is the first bull calf she has ever had and isn't much bigger than a breadbox. We don't know what the heck to do with him. Anybody need a well-bred Jersey bull? Out of a former reserve champion Jersey, bred by a nationally known herd. By the bull Moment?

It's a girl

Meet Frieland E Cookie Crispy

That is not her mama checking her out but rather Consequence who is also due for a baby pretty soon. She stands next to Crunch, the new mother. Sire is Four-of-a-Kind Eland

And so it is done

Elliot Spitzer has resigned. I spent the morning listening to the news with one ear (no choice, the boss had it on) while writing the Farm Side. Deadline day and as usual I was right up against it. This week it is about the effect this scandal could have on agriculture in the state. The Farm Side BTW is a weekly column about farming (amazing huh?) in our great state. Farming is about as regulated as an industry can get so what happens in government greatly affects everything we do. A late state budget affects everyone who pays taxes. Budget deadline is April 1st. What are the odds that it will be done by then? How many heads of departments will roll under new leadership?

Time will tell how this all plays out, but I am glad at least one aspect is finished.

Just passing through

Snow is softly falling, but like a decade of beads on a rosary a javelin of Canada geese wings over,seeking true north and talking to the tundra.

Mackey Leading out of Safety

I thought that the Iditarod would probably be over when I got up this morning. It is not, but it won't be long now. Mackey is still in the lead going away from the Safety checkpoint, but Jeff King is hot on his heels. King has kept his team intact at 16 dogs through most of the race up until now, which is quite a handling feat, but now that they are on the ice he dropped two. Probably by the time we are done milking it will be history....a very exciting race this year and we much enjoyed it.


A few complaints about the new website though. Someone was looking to make money off race followers and if you were a non-paying customer the site was frustratingly hard to navigate. Lots of fascinating anecdotes to be read on the blogs, but when you wanted standings you had to click all over the place. In the end I missed the old stand-alone Cabela's site. The official site when it was stand alone was a pain in the neck and the new one seems to fit that description as well. I expect by next year they will work the bugs out, but if they don't I will use the newspapers for info.

More on the Westland/Hallmark case

This comes from the New York Times, a surprising source for such a balanced discussion. Of course as you might surmise from yesterday's post, the Times has been surprising New Yorker's rather often this week. The author is of the opinion that in light of independent audits by companies, such as McDonald's it is unlikely that such abuse is widespread.

Spitzer resigning...maybe

News reports from all over say that the governor of NY, Elliot Sptizer, may resign tomorrow.
Never liked the man. Never, never, never.
When he was attorney general it was clear that he was running for governor, rather than attending to the state's legal business. I used to use Attorney General's office publications for research for the Farm Side. When he took office most of them vanished from publication.
Although he has been a fairly good man as far as helping farmers goes, his policies in relation to almost everything else have appalled me. I was just thinking today as I read Windy Ridge's comment on gun control measures planned for New York under the current administration that the worst thing that has happened to the state in years was George Pataki's appendicitis. That was before I learned about this.
Today is the first time in over thirty years that I heard my dad give his rebel yell (over the phone). I think he is happy about the news.

Dark

It is. Still. The clock says six, but my brain says five. Everyone is asleep except Liz, who already left for her new job/internship and me, who got up early to see her off. We would normally be milking by now, but everybody is tired and cranky from the stupid time change...so I haven't called anyone yet. It isn't tanker day, Liz already checked the springers (cows close to having calves) and the cows won't care because they are still on Eastern Standard time. Let the poor souls, both bovine and human catch an extra half hour. It isn't going to hurt a thing. Liz is talking about sleeping when she comes home between milkings for her midday break and I am going to encourage her to....she is already weary with four months to go.


We sure have a mess of cows due to calve and have already calved four I think. Probably closest is my Crunch cow (her mother's name was Cookie, by a bull named Plushanski Thor Cutter, so how could I not). Crunch nearly died as a two-year old when she got into the manger in the heifer barn and fell down with her head turned under her. We missed her at about dark that day and went in to find a nightmare. She probably weighed 1100 pounds and was wild as an eagle, stuck down and thrashing wildly. During the course of getting her up Liz got dragged around the barn and Alan took a beating too. With some of us pulling her on a rope halter and someone holding her tail to balance her so she could stand we got her on her feet and walked her outside. As soon as we let her go she went right back in and fell again. We made her comfortable and let her stay there. It took weeks of hand carrying water and feed to her and helping her to her feet every day, but the kids, (mostly Becky and Alan doing the hauling) saved her. She is due now for her second calf and bred to Four-of-a-Kind Eland. I am grateful to the all kids for their hard work back then, getting her out and keeping her going. Cookie was my all time favorite cow and I lost her to a clostridial infection and then her only other daughter, Cedar, was electrocuted. I still have Cookie's sister, Eland and her niece, Egrec, but I would really have hated to lose Crunch.


When the whole affair was over, Crunch had a couple of ropey scars on her legs where she cut herself but she was tame. We figure she turned wild as a calf because the anesthetic for having her horns removed didn't work quite right. She was fine and tame up until she was dehorned and got up the next morning hating us all. (We have our veterinarian dehorn the calves; they receive both general and local anesthetic for the operation...horned cattle are dangerous to themselves, their herdmates and us working in close quarters with them as we do.) Now, she is a sweetheart and was top milker on the farm two months last year. I would love to get a heifer calf, but I will settle for getting her through calving in good shape.


Besides Crunch, we have Liz's baby Jersey, Hazel, her old Jersey show cow, that was reserve champion Jersey at the fair, Heather, Egrec, Mento, (both mine) and others I can't think of this early in the morning.... all gearing up to have calves. So far most of them have been calving during the day, which is a nice bonus...hope they continue in that style.


Sorry about rambling, but I am just not quite awake yet.

**Update, the boss just got up and turned on the news to find that the Cumberland Farms store just across the river from us was robbed yesterday. That is too close...just too close.... maybe a mile and two tenths from the bottom of our driveway. And they wonder why we want to stay armed and able to protect ourselves from stuff like that. Since 911 sent vast numbers of folks moving north from the big city, a veritable crime wave has followed right in their footsteps. Used to be mostly in Schenectady and Albany, but now our banks are being robbed and our stores hit right close to home. Dang.

The Time Change

(I could have added an adjective or two in there, but this is a family friendly place.)
We time changed this morning...got up an hour early to milk and the cows looked at us as if we were nuts. They were still lying down in their comfy beds and didn't even want to stand up. They love routine and hate anything that changes it. Last week I was asked in a newsletter how farmers feel about changing time. Anything that disrupts routines disrupts cows and makes things harder....so I don't like changing in either direction. As to why we at Northview don't just ignore the change and stay on the same schedule year round...in a word (or maybe two) the milk truck. He comes at 8 AM. We have to be done by then. If we just stayed on Daylight Savings we would always be done before 8, but meetings and such would just kill us. I do not understand the rationale behind changing and would like to stay on Daylight Savings year around. Sarpy Sam has some good points on the issue today too....oh, I was reading blogs and see that Linda does too.

Yesterday one of Liz's heifers had a little bull calf (which was a disappointment...she really wanted a heifer). Interestingly though, he was red, which proves that his mother is a red carrier, even though she herself is plain black and white. She was sired by the RC bull at Select Sires, Kenyon, but her dam has never had a red calf. When I looked at him trotting around the barn in his little calf coat this morning I wondered aloud, "How many of these do you think are alive in the world today?"

Not because he was red or a bull, but because he is a son of Citation-R Maple, a bull that has been dead for a very long time. It would be interesting to know just how many of them there are today. Not many I'll bet.

Morning off

Saturday isn't Sunday. However, with Liz away most days for her internship the family schedule of mornings off...Saturday for her, the younger fry and me on Sunday (the boss does not desire and will not take one) has been torn asunder. I didn't think we were going to get one at all any more. However, Liz was given this day off from her new job since she has to work a whole, straight week next week because her boss is going away.

Therefore she gave me and her sibs this morning off and she is taking the afternoon milking to catch up on sleep. I am having a happy time, reading everyone's blogs, and saying hello and doing not one single useful work thing. It is great.
Thanks kiddo!!!

Woke up this morning to a cacophonous din of assorted blackbirds in the honey locust. Two days ago I hadn't seen a single RWBB, now there are thousands. Grackles too. Two days ago there was no bird song....just dozy winter twittering (except for the cardinal, which would sing through a blizzard). Now there are house finches caroling their little purple hearts out and gold finches nattering away, plus all the uproar from the blackbirds.



So many geese, all Canada's so far, are winging over that you start to lose count at two hundred or so....per flock.

I guess we can safely say that spring has sprung,,,and although the grass has yet to riz, I sure know where dem boidies is .

*** footnote. I was searching for the well-known short poem about grass and boidies and discovered that there is much controversy over who wrote it. Everyone learned it in school back in the day and it was then attributed to Ogden Nash right there in the text books...However, now it is attributed to many others as well. I wonder......
Here are some great Nash poems, including another on spring.