You know it has been a long winter when

You go out for a Sunday drive and complete strangers step up to your car to chat. We decided to try for duck photos, and although the best I could do was a couple of mallards in a ditch, we met so many nice people and saw so many pretty places that I was just delighted. Who needs ducks?



First we pulled over at the mystery duck spot where the beaver dam is and an elder fella stopped to invite us to hunt ducks on his land if we wished. It isn't duck season anyhow, but he was real disappointed to see the camera rather than something more lethal. I guess mostly he wanted to talk to someone about how the beaver dam on someone else's land had flooded forty acres on him and he wasn't too happy about it.

A blurry shot of the gorge (but didn't the bushes come out nice?) Still you can get a sense of how far down it is.

We chatted for a few minutes until another car came along and we had to get out of the way. Then we stopped to try to get pictures of this gorge. We were across the road from a house and the folks there saw us and came out to the car. Rather than chase us away, as we expected, they brought their digital camera to show us the pictures they had taken earlier in the day, after climbing down INTO the gorge. My photos do not give you the sense of how steep this is, but believe me, you could not pay me enough to climb down or back up. They were really friendly, just plain nice folks and we enjoyed chatting with them and seeing their excellent pictures...(much better than mine).

Photo by mom

Photo by Alan

It was the same everywhere we went, from stopping at Stewart's for coffee and having bystanders in the parking lot joking around with us, to folks in backyards waving as we meandered by taking pictures out the windows of the car. This is neither the South nor the Midwest.
This is NY.
Such friendliness is a wonderful and rare phenomenon here in the state that spawned New York City. It has REALLY been a long winter and I think folks are just plain sick of it and glad to share a warm, sunny delicious day like this.
And right now I am going outside to help Alan pull off some plastic mulch and reclaim some ground to plant beets and lettuce. See ya later.

Alan just had to take a picture of this...could it be that the General Lee has come north to hibernate, or perhaps to nest and lay eggs?

Cobleskill Dairy Fashion Sale

The destination for the day. (Same drive different parking lot.) You can view the online catalog here. It is pdf and takes a while to load, but it looks as if there will be some real fine animals there.

******Home later with lots of pictures. The sale has been held down by the old cow barn as long as I can remember, but this year they placed it up by the new barn. Wa-a-a-ay up on the hill. The new building is very nice and makes it much easier to display the cattle well. (The shuttle ride was something to write home about though.)


This cow caught my eye within a few minutes of entering the barn. I didn't even look at her pedigree because I had my driving glasses on. However, when we went outside a fellow we show against over at Altamont pointed out that he and his son had bred and owned her dam. They came to the sale determined to buy the young cow and did so. She was lot number 46, Pineyvale Power Tessy VG, and brought six thousand dollars. She is of an age to show against our Lemonade and there isn't much doubt about who would take home the ribbon in that match up. We have to content ourselves with showing home-breds, which isn't really a bad thing. We might not win as often but it sure is sweet when we do.






This heifer is pretty special too. Alan spotted her and dragged me over to see her right away. Lot number 10, Welcome Velvet Saratoga. She was offered for sale to benefit the Kristy Peck Memorial Scholarship. Ms. Peck, SUNY Cobleskill graduate, was killed when the Thruway bridge collapsed and the scholarsip honors her memory. Auctioneer Dave Rama began his chant as she walked into the ring,called one single bid of $4300. and banged his gavel down. I looked up in astonishment as we were expecting prolonged bidding on such a fine animal for such a good cause. However, all was immdiately explained. A syndicate, including the Rama family and a number of others put the heifer right back in the sale, thus contributing her first cost, with the second buyer, Ransom Rail Farm, taking her home for $3500.



Here is one Liz liked, a Roylane Jordan daughter, lot number 44. She brought $3100.


We didn't stay for the whole sale. The tent was cold, the seats were hard and we were hungry. Did we buy anything? Well, yes. Alan bought a hamburger and I had a donut. There were a couple of new little calves we would have liked to see sell. He might have invested some of his college savings on one if we could have stood to stay that late. However, they were way, way down in the sale order and the tent was cold and the seats were hard. Liz stayed so I guess we will know what they brought anyhow....probably more than we wanted to spend.

Hockey vs modern medicine

A certain young man who teaches me how to use my electronic gadgetry took a hockey ball in the mouth yesterday. (Of course he plays goalie) Although the kids he plays a pick-up game with every day after school wear protective gear, at the before school, under the eye of the coach game not much gear is available. When one of his good friends took a shot from about six feet out of the goal he stopped it, much in the manner that Mike might stop a Frizbee. I believe that it was unintentional on both their parts but....

He split both lips good.(or bad if you prefer) and by last night he still looked as if he had picked a fight with Joe Louis. It was a meaningful experience. He ordered himself some protective gear online after work, so he can be safer in the "supervised" games. (His buddies keep him outfitted during the pick up games, but someone he knows quite well had been suggesting to him that he get his own ever since he began playing hockey. However, since he can work her camera better then she can he figured he could wait on getting the hockey stuff. The hockey advice took on more authority after yesterday though.)

He was totally cool with being a wounded warrior and wouldn't even let the nurse call home when he went to her office to get the bleeding stemmed. And he is 18 now, so she wasn't required to do so either, so we knew nothing about his injury until after the afternoon game. There was no complaining, no whining or griping about how much it hurt either. He just trotted around all day with an ice pack and fat lips. Hockey injuries are honorable injuries it seems and worth putting up with.

However, he is no where near as sanguine about the three (count 'em three) shots he got for college today.

Funny how a tetanus shot is worse than a hockey ball shot every time. And those TB tests, Dang!

Whatsis ducks?
They were so far away that even with binoculars we couldn't be sure. Anybody?

Crazy

Photo by Becky

Is not exactly my favorite song, but it describes my life quite well. Up in the morning and out to the barn. Pulsator malfunctioned on two of my cows. Made us late for the tanker. Dale is nice about it, but we try real hard to be done milking by eight so he doesn't have to wait. Didn't make it.

Did make Farm Side deadline. Wrote about car deer collisions (amazing huh). You might be shocked how much damage is done by them annually. I certainly was.

By the time that was done, Liz was back from taking Beck to school (her "day off", meaning she works here instead of there). We hurried off for a serious grocery shopping trip. Cupboards were bare and have been, but last week's power failure made it impossible to shop then. Came home and did some high speed house cleaning. (About as effective as dipping out the Atlantic with a spoon during mud season, but you have to try.)

Then back to school to pick up Beck. I really hustled as her class gets over at seven and I have yet to get the headlight that the deer broke fixed. On the way home we saw these (and many, many other) deer. It is no wonder I hit one. There must be hundreds of them out feeding all hours of the day now.

Also by Becky

Then we spotted these little ducks in a small roadside pond. They looked so unusual to me that I turned around (to heck with the headlights) and drove down to take hurried pictures out the car window (no pull offs). I believe they are buffleheads (mon@rch, am I right?). If so they are only the second ones I have ever seen.



Home to find the rest of the crew still milking and our wonderful and highly regarded feed rep visiting to tweak the ration. He brought pizza and some neat things, including little mugs made out of corn plastic, which I will photograph later when time permits. He is a great guy; helped Liz figure out how to best handle a total rearrangement of our feeding as we have run out of both haylage and corn silage and are feeding straight dry hay, grain, corn meal and soy bean meal. (She has been doing a good job with it btw.) By the time all was done it was well after eight. Alan had some pizza, but we saved the rest for breakfast (LOVE cold pizza for breakfast) as Liz had made marinated chicken breasts over rice with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and mushrooms and her pasta salad with lots of raw vegetables, which is always great. I am reading a really good book by Faye Kellerman, but I didn't get through two pages before my eyes started closing on their own and I gave up for the night. I sure will be glad when the internship is done and Liz is back home all the time.

My favorite road

(Except for the deer.)

Step off the world with me

There can be a car just below the lip of this hill and you cannot see it from the top of the hill even though it seems as if you can see the whole road. In fact there was one there when I took this picture.

Rolling, that is what we call 'em, rolling

This is Corbin Hill Road, our path to the college (and back) each day. These photos were taken on the hurry-up, through the windshield of the car (Liz was driving) so they aren't the greatest, but I think you can catch that driving-off-the-edge-of -the world feeling. I wish each and every one of you could experience the trip past beaver dams and lodges, muskrat houses, swamps burgeoning with newly arrived migrant birds and amazing sweeping views of the foothills around every turn. Today as we passed the field where we saw the bittern last year a rough-legged hawk made war with two ravens and a pair of red-tailed hawks over some carcass that had been flung from the road. The wild winds swooped them around like forgotten newspapers, wings and tails outstretched. Yesterday just a few miles from there a pair of kestrels were busy making little kestrels while perched on the telephone wire (not an every day sight). There is always something exciting to see (including some things more exciting than others, such as deer). Wish you could ride along is all...just sayin'. You would come away with a whole different picture of New York State.

Blue Morph Snow Goose

A blue one

The regular fellas.

Yum, yum

Yeah, they are eating corn out of just what it looks like. In light of current staggering fertilizer prices farmers are making sure their fields are well covered with this valuable organic resource. The geese and wild turkeys are simply delighted to indulge. When Beck and I went by this farm (same one as has the big sugar bush) on the way to school this morning the geese were right next to the road. Great photo opportunity, but she was barely in time for class so we couldn't stop. By the time I got back they had wandered quite some distance, so the photos are not what they might have been. Still I considered myself lucky that they stayed at all. Amazing number of snows around this year. Large flocks of them are sleeping in the cove in the river right in front of the house many nights. When the traffic dies down on the Interstate, it is simply delightful to listen to their sleepy murmuring.

It was a dark and foggy night

And as Beck and I negotiated the twisting, narrow Catskill foothills roads deer began to cross the road in front of us. They were crouched so low they were going UNDER the guardrails. It was very dark. Very foggy. I slowed down as much as I could, but there was a car flying at me from the rear. (Why don't people drive within the scope of their headlights? ). I wanted to come to a complete stop, but because of the rapidly approaching car I couldn't. For a second there were no more deer. Then one leapt out of the woods right into the side of the front fender. I couldn't even stop then because of the maniac behind me and had to pull ahead into the end of a little road a few yards down the road. I think he hit one too, as he stopped as well, but I couldn't see.

We are fine as I was going very slowly. I really don't know if the deer was fine because it was too dark and foggy to even see it. The car...mmmm not quite so fine. No high beam headlight and it is loose in its socket, so I don't know how much damage was done there. Bumper is loose. Hood is sprung a little. They make cars nowadays to crumple easily to absorb impact. Yup they do. I feel pretty bad about this particular little bit of crumpling. I am quite fond of this particular car as it is the first thing I have ever owned that does the driveway without getting me stuck about twenty times per winter. Bah humbug.

Busy, busy

Like this guy during a worm shortage...sorry

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