Farm Side

Friday

Starting the New Year Off

Pretty much normally.

5:45 AM Get up to a cold house.
Really cold.
6 degrees outside and the stove wood bridged.
No fire.
No heat.
Thank God for the oil furnace (and the boss who put some oil in the tank the other day). Fire 'er up.
Old dogs out.
Old dogs in.
Nick out.
Nick in.


Get everybody out of bed early and chase them out to stove and barn.
First coffee, no time to drink it...take it to the barn.
The two springers we have been wanting to get inside are right at the door.
Tanker day, we have to milk early.
But they are right there at the door.
Move Email to a new stall so we can use hers for a heifer. Move my brand spanking new Citation R Maple baby down to the stall next to England. (My incredibly generous son knew how bad I wanted an R Maple heifer so when his heifer, Bonneville, had one yesterday he gave her to me. What a kid.) Find a collar for Broadway as all that is open for use is one stanchion (now that Email is moved) and one tie stall.

Liz, the cow whisperer, tolls the new ones in and we put them in stalls. Thank God she has that magical way with cows. Neither of these two have had a hand on them since last spring, but they follow her gentle cajoling and the grain scoop right to their stalls. Broadway even stands while she buckles the collar on. I feel better now that they are in.




Start milking. Bed cows while milking. They were bedded up good last night, but it is extra cold so they get extra straw. The new stall is way too cold for the new R Maple baby. The guys nail up plastic over the cracks around the heifer pen window and then build her a little house out of insulation board. Better now. After her bottle she curls up to sleep in about a foot and a half of straw that her overindulgent new "mama" put down.

Voldemar, the second springing heifer, can't stay where we put her. She is a moosely behemoth and is stepping all over Pecan who is a nice little cow who deserves better. We have to get a new stall ready. Alan goes out to the stove some more and cuts up some pallets to get it going. (Handy that we just took them out of the stalls the calves were in so we have them right there for him.)

The girls get down more straw while I finish milking the regular string. Calves are getting hot bottles of milk whenever anyone has a minute between cows. We build a wall of straw next to some other new calves and put insulation board in a couple of drafty windows so they will be warmer. Even with calf coats it is horribly cold. It is such a tight rope act keeping an old barn comfortable in this ridiculous sixty one day and ten below the next weather. The cows need ventilation when it is warm, but the babies need warmth when the temperature drops. Geez!

Spruce is off feed when Liz grains the cows after we milk the two bucket cows, a new heifer (Bonneville) and old Beausoleil. Liz takes her temp. Lowish. Give her a bottle of calcium and put her on antibiotics because it looks as if she has an uterine infection. I won't go into details about how we know....trust me.

Set up the pipeline cleaner while the boss works on a stall. Milk truck comes, "Hi, Mark, Happy New Year, cold enough for you?":
Continue chores around talking to Mark and letting him measure the milk and pump it off. He is a really nice kid and we are lucky to have him as our new driver.

Move Voldemar to a new stall. Fun, fun, fun. She now knows that if she puts her head in the stanchion she can't get it back out. The boss is smart enough to halter her and run the rope through the two stalls so she at least has no choice but to go where we want her.
If she goes anywhere at all. She would prefer not to and throws her head at me, flinging the grain scoop ceilingward and jumping back into the gutter.
Alan hauls her by main strength into the new stall, where once there she falls to eating as if nothing had even happened. Alan takes hay over for the pony and sheep and puts more pallets in the stove.

By then it is after ten AM. We chase Alan in to get some food for himself (for some reason having to do I guess with being a very hard working teenaged boy person he needs to eat promply and well and he is starving by now.) He wolfs five eggs and some toast and goes back to work. (I think Governor Paterson should have to follow Alan around for just one day. Just one. Maybe he would shut up about fat taxes and such.)

It is almost 11 AM now. The men are feeding cows. The girls and I are having breakfast. The poor boss has been out since six and hasn't eaten yet. Normally the cows get their main feeding after breakfast (they get fed grain and corn meal first thing) but what with the cold and the boss wanting to sit down for a few hours today they are feeding early. Sort of. Because with all the extra stuff this morning it is actually late.

Anyhow, Happy New Year. Thanks for being friends all through 2008! I am hoping you will all hang around through 2009 too and that I can visit all your blogs and read about your lives as well. Have a good one!

This is blurry because of frost on the window

Yes, Yes, That's Me!

I am definitely an "ornery, self-obsessed, unhealthy, consumer-driven, gluttonous, idiot-box- watching troglodyte"

Or if I am not, I wanna be. (Actually I rarely watch TV, but I do read trashy novels and surf the net to excess.) I also wish I had written this on the nanny state and its ridiculous, nearly religious, all encompassing, regulatory fever.

However, David Harsanyi has done a great job, so you can just read what he thinks about outlawing loose fitting slacks, sin taxes and the loss of personal freedom in the name of government induced utopia.

Tractor Disasters

Jeffro has some really amazing pictures of tractors and similar machinery that met with unfortunate circumstances.
REALLY unfortunate circumstances.
It is from an email, but still...... One shows where folks got a spray rig stuck in an obvious wet hole of amazing proportions. They put another tractor on the front and got that one stuck.
Then another.
And another.
Then a big digger.
Go look.

Night Photos

The boss bought me a tripod a very long time ago. It is a nice one. I have never used it.




However, I like to take pictures of the moon and stars and such night time type stuff, so a couple of days ago I dug it out and began going out before night milking to attempt some pictures. Nothing spectacular yet, but I am learning how so when we get some neat night sky stuff I can get it......I hope

More Christmas Bird Count

We had a great time Saturday. The truck stuffed was with kids and grownups...a tight fit, but fun just the same (of course since they let me ride shotgun in front I probably had a better time than back seat folks.) It rained almost all day and what with riding with the window down I got pretty wet, but I can't say as I cared. We saw blue birds, more cedar waxwings than I think we have ever counted and a solid batch of the usual common birds.

There are nearly always turkeys in this field and across the road from it. This year was no disappointment as we counted a small flock in the latter.

Our greatest finds were a red shouldered hawk, (which we didn't think was any big deal but it turned out to be the first on the count,) blue birds tearing staghorn sumac apart and almost 150 mallard ducks ling the curving banks and floating on a tiny stream. The group counting the circle totaled 50 species and I think our family species count was in the twenties.

This group of ducks actually number a definite 145 and possibly more as they kept taking flight and returning making a perfect count a challenge.

Our little section of the circle is mostly rapidly developing farm land, full grown housing developments, old land fills and suburbia with a few city streets thrown in.
Still if you know where to look you can find the wild places and after a couple decades of our family counting this area we know where a good many of them are.

This little pool has netted us a couple of kingfishers
and some ducks over the years but this year it was barren.

Sunday Stills

Do these bring luck?

Maybe....


(this is of course a summer picture)

Christmas Bird Count

Alan, Becky and I are off to do 'er today, with the brothers and family and all. Our family has a small section of the Johnstown circle, Mayfield South, that my dad started doing before the boss and I were even married.....one of our favorite holiday traditions is to drive and walk all day counting every cardinal, chickadee and other avian critter that we see. Sometimes we get so desperate for birds that we count the golden eagles on garages and blue birds on mail boxes (we don't turn them in to the offical count though.).

We do our part of our family Christmas celebrating today too, which is why yesterday was an insane whirlwind of sewing, quilting, wrapping...... and interruptions. Phone calls...you would think the darned thing was possessed the way it rang. I'll bet I jogged off five pounds of Christmas cheer jogging and dodging dogs to answer it. One call was the milk tester so we had to test last night. While we were trying to get the testing done twin calves were born almost two weeks early. Heifer and a dead bull. All you farmers know what's up with heifers born twin to a bull...usually they are freemartins and will never breed. So that was exciting.

Had a first calver have a little bull in the morning too and she was insane....wait a minute, let me write that correctly. INSANE! I have been milking next to her for a couple of weeks and we are talking hand-raised, much handled animal here. Still even with the "kickers" on and me holding her tail, she kicked the boss right in the head. Before we got her milked it took FOUR of us to hold her still....and we were at the same time trying to finish up a night's testing. Way too exciting.

She has two sisters in the herd, by two different sires, and they both are challenging as well, although one is drying up for her second calf and the other has had a bunch of them. The pundits say temperament isn't hereditary. I say hah! The original cow in this family, old Cubby, was the sweetest thing you could imagine.... a really nice, gentle old cow. Every single one of her daughters, granddaughters and auxilary offspring is miserable. Every single, solitary one of them. This new heifer, a Straight-Pine Elevation Pete daughter named Cider, stands in my line. I can barely milk old Zinnia who stands in the stall next to her without Cider kicking me. I dread the day I have to start milking the heifer by myself......

At the end of all this is a video of Lizzie's rooster, Mr. Fluff, given to her by Teri last summer. She went out to film the duck...oh, that's right I forgot to tell you about the duck.......and asked Fluff to crow for the camera so he did...do play it, he is quite a chicken.

Photo by Liz

And about the duck.....besides the phone calls, trio of calves, assorted furnace fan belt emergencies and milk testing, somebody showed up here with a big, fat, white, part Muscovy duck in their car yesterday. They said it was running down the road in front of the farm, so they brought it up to see if it was ours.
It wasn't.
They left it with us anyhow.

We are not exactly equipped for duck husbandry, (the turkey is still running loose in the feed room part of the hen house) so the boss took it up to Hand's and gave it to one of the girls who had lost her hen duck a few days ago.

Anyhow my word for the day was arrgggghhhhh.....but I must admit. I truly hate to be bored and really never allow my mind to get into that state if I can help it. Living here, what with people dropping off poultry and all the other stuff that goes on, is a big help with that situation....a really big help.



Mr Fluff

Still Getting Ready for Christmas Here

But it's Farm Side Friday

To Family, Neighbors and Friends

For Dog People on Christmas

Thanks to Winging it Daily for this! Watch it...you will love it!

Make a Joyful Noise

Doing chores and cutting squares of denim here. Getting the Christmas cards out, almost on time.
Best wishes to you all. Hope your Christmas Eve is filled with everything you wish for, especially love and good times.

If you live in the snowy north like we do

You may need to resort to desperate measures to stay warm (including stuffing a squirming barn cat inside your coat)

Or you may just need to come indoors.

Sorry about the blurry flowers. I was hanging laundry on the bars in the parlor (don't ask...please don't ask) with the camera around my neck, while racing to get the bills paid in two lots. I had to get someone to trek to the post office for the first time in a week to get the second batch and mail the first batch...so I didn't take the time that I should.

What I See Out My Window

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Here are some of yesterday's dining room and living room window views.
Too much snow, huh? I wish I could say that I spent the day in my Sunday chair, but alas the stove was cranky and I had to do some wading, shoveling of wood and careful combusticating using FC's special Florida fatwood.
The fluffy precipitation can stop any time now as far as I'm concerned. When I figure out how to get it done I am going to send it up to Linda.

Anyhow, I took these pictures to submit to an interesting blog, What I See Out My Window.
The author of the blog posts pictures sent by people all over the world of the views outside their windows. He asked me to post a link in case any of you want to take a look or even participate in the fun with your own window views. He has pictures of everything from kangaroos to Northview Farm, so it is worth the trip.

Christmas without Cash

Is a concept, which, although tough on the merchant economy, has its upside

And its downsides

(No animals were harmed during the filming of this post
Or during any of the quilt making activities
Although there were times....)

As you can see, Alan and I have been makin' blankets, with some help with the quilting and provision of supplies by the girls.(If you are a pair of blue jeans, Northview might be a good place to avoid, as a seven-year collection of old worn out jeans has gone under the scissors this week.)

There has been pinking.

Filing of the pinking shears.

Sore fingers
Bruised knees
Blisters and bumps from too much gnawing away at stiff, stubborn fabric with not quite sharp enough scissors, (particularly the pinking shears from hell)
Much swearing at bobbins in general and the one currently on the machine in particular.
One large quilt is done.
Lap robes are emerging rapidly from the tangle of tattered denim.

Oh, and there is fresh apple pie jelly too. (See below)

I have one of these blankets that I made over twenty years ago. It is the warmest thing you could imagine.

Sunday Stills

Toast and jam

Lunch for Becky.
Bread by Liz, Jam by mom




See more at Sunday Stills

Free Snow

Here is part of an ad that ran on Craigslist yesterday.
I was so glad I took a second to click on the free stuff tab.
Wish I'd thought of it first!


I have placed several feet of almost new snow at the end of my driveway
Never skied on never peed on
come and get it
first come first serve


Here is another good one. (Have I mentioned that I love Craigslist...thanks Teri)

To the gentleman who helped my Blue Pontiac out of the ditch today off of Albany Shaker today. You were so nice to pull my car out with your tow truck, even though I offered cash you refused and did for free. Thank You! This spirit is what the season is all about! I will pass it along...Merry Christmas to everyone! Bless all of you nice people!

Mandy's Heart

Rurality has been posting really neat photos of animals with heart markings. Mandy's isn't quite perfect but we love her so much that it seems that way....

Yup, It's Farm Side Friday

Again

Writing was an adventure this week. When I started Tom Vilsack had not yet been announced for Secretary of Agriculture, but he was clearly going to be chosen. I wrote a whole bunch based on that premise, then, right in the middle of the hours before deadline, it was announced that he was the one. Can we say rewrite?

Photo Meme

This seems like a fun sort of meme and I don't have much for you today so I am going to give it a shot.
Thanks to Mrs. Mecomber for this one.

Here are the rules:
1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture.
3. Post it on your blog and tell the story that goes with the picture.
4. Tag 5 friends to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog telling them about it.



The story behind the photo: Liz took me to a PBR rodeo a couple of years ago at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona NY. It was an amazing amount of fun. We met Cord McCoy for the first time that day. He is really a great guy and remembers Liz from that day, which is pretty cool. In this photo, taken with the little camera, workers are driving the bucking bulls right across the carpeted aisle of the casino with crowds of people looking on. Neat.

I almost never tag people for memes because I don't want to feel like they have to do them just for me. However, I would be delighted if any of you care to do this one. Just leave a link in the comments and I will update this post with a link to your blog.

Linda is doing this one!
As is Joce.
And Liz
Not to mention Deb
Ed too!
Also Jinglebob
And Aussie Oklahoma

Moving Heifers

We brought a bunch of springing heifers into the cow barn today. Over the next few weeks we are expecting a number of babies. Didn't go too badly, but not much fun either. They are nervous about going in stalls for the first time, except for the really tame show heifers, which of course aren't the ones we wanted.




This is Broadway. She will be needing a stall soon, but didn't get one today. She is half milking shorthorn and half Holstein. She will be the first one of this cross that we calve out and I am quite interested to see how she turns out. She will be having a half Jersey calf, which if a heifer might make a nice homestead type cow. Time will tell.

Milk Jars

I have been trying for a while to get a video of the two lines of milk surging into the receiving jar in the milkhouse.

Meanwhile Deb has milk in jars too.

She also has a new baby over at Tyler Farm that you might like to go see.
Anyhow, I still don't have my splashing milk video, but here is a little milk magic any how.


Milk jar


Now you see it, now you don't.

Someone Else's House

Nighttime view from my Sunday chair, which of late is also my supper chair. If you click and look out into the dining room you can see a towering pile of books, threatening to overwhelm the chair they occupy. That is the norm for this place. Books, books, everywhere and not a place to sit......

Hmmm

What is going on here?

Word Verification

The Jectists went crawk when they saw the slylow. It is considered unfoom tusign a recatist that way!

I used to hate doing word verifications on blogs where I comment. I know how miserable it is to be comment spammed all the time, but I never could read or duplicate those complicated constructions of incongruent consonants. Now many of them are almostwords and they are so much easier. I saved up up a few this week to tell you a story using them...and what fun I had! (But watch out for those unfoom recatists. They are rough on rats, I'll tell you!)
(Of course the red bolds are word verification "words")

Moonlighting

Yesterday was one of those days. Lately a lot of them are. The grain company piled the bags of cornmeal and calf feed they delivered in the manger in front of the cows instead of toting it back to the feed room. We have told them and told them. Ralph was right up behind the barn if they wanted to ask where to put it. I was right over at the house (didn't see them come.) It was a mess. The cows tore up a lot of bags and two cows ate their fill of corn meal. This will not be good for them.
Then Alan's chain flew off his chain saw. Didn't hit him, no harm done and we are grateful, but still.

Just one of those days. Read the dairy market outlook. Wish I had left it for Monday. It is so bad I don't even want to think about it. Dang.

We were going to go up to Romana's for grinders but said the heck with it and made hot dogs instead.

On the way in from the barn Alan asked me to come up to the stove with him while he filled it. Usually I do. We have a nice few minutes of camaraderie and it is pleasant up there. Some nights I am too darned tired or I need to get in the house and adjust dinner in some way. Then I don't. I wasn't going to last night. I was tired, discouraged and somebody needed to cook aforementioned hot dogs.




But I did.
I was glad. The full moon sparkled on the snowy mix of snowsleetandfreezingrain that fell during the day and looked like that flocked stuff they used to put around the toy trains in store windows. It seemed unreal, but it was breathtakingly serene. We practiced our coyote howls at that big silver moon and sent them echoing out across the smooth expanse of snowland to see who might call back at us. No coyotes answered but we didn't care. You could see every bush out there on the hills, picked out like a charcoal drawing. We worked on owl calls too for a while.
Who cooks for you!
Who cooks for you Sam Cook!!

It was fun.
I suppose I am too old for such stuff and I felt a little self conscious about howling and hooting at the moon, but I did it anyhow. Then I went in for the camera while he went in for his hot dogs (which Becky very sweetly cooked so I didn't have to).

(You can see the sparkles a little in this collage if you click)

My pictures didn't come out all that great but I will have them to remember howling at the moon with my favorite son at least.

And although I am by no means a slender little thing, that shadow is certainly not accurate....really it isn't....c'mon you guys, be nice....

Chicks and Balances

Farm Side Friday

Marvelous Mountains

When I saw the small version of this photograph of some mountains in this article, I thought they were mountains...you know regular mountains. Then I read the caption. They are not regular mountains, they are special mountains. The story doesn't have any surprising revelations, but the picture just astonished me...and made me say, "Holy...you know what!!"


***I wonder what kind of tax the EPA will put on the emissions from a pile this size!

Sometimes PBR Riders

Deal with things more challenging than the bulls. Read Reese Cates' blog on PBR (I was already afraid to fly but good grief.)

We have liked Reese since we first saw him...he is quite a rider.