Sunday Stills Challenge...the Moon

The best of these were taken by my partner in photography, Alan. He is learning all that aperture and shutter speed stuff in college and it shows. Some of them are mine....I am not telling which.




Sunday Stills

If That Ain't Country

Cow Magnets...but on the water heater

Blitz

Tanker Day

Scotty update, with one pic of her mom and one of Snickers,
the other kitchen calf. Can you spot them?

I thought that since this is a farm blog I should perhaps post some farm pictures, rather than birds and cats and all. You can see how Scotty is thriving after her start in the kitchen, and a little bit of Snickers, who was eager for her pail of milk and not interested in the camera.

We managed to get done and have the milk cooled in time for the tanker today. I think Dale wondered what I was up to, taking photos of his truck....but he didn't ask. Blitz is one of Lizzy's show cows, in my mind the best one she has right now. She and her mother are both much too large for our 200+ year old barn. They have the biggest, best stalls we have but...cows have gotten a lot bigger over the past couple of centuries, so Blitz and Mandy stand with their shoulders in the pipeline. (Here is a baby picture of Blitz) I am going to post some full photos of the ones I combined in the collages over at my photo/overflow blog, The View at Northview, if you would like to take a look at them.

Do NOT Sit in This Chair

See that lump?

It bites!

Not Just Another Pretty Face

Gael
(AKA Queen Bean
Whissa Queen
Strudel
Beanie
QB
Queen of Beans)

Farm Side Friday

Right here

Australian Fires Blamed on "Green" Policies

Thanks to AKAGaga for this one.

Sounds as if the people who lived in the fire ravaged areas knew a lot more about how to manage their land than the activists and government did. It is easy to blame global warming for disasters like this, but there seem to be other issues involved.

Meanwhile, my heart goes out to them for their horrific losses. The tragedy they face is unimaginable. I wonder if there is anything Americans can or are doing to help them.

***Deb was kind enough to answer this question in the comments. Go here for information on helping and for other related information and photos.

This Could Be Dangerous

I find this particular bird well suited to this post...fitting so to speak

Stories like this one trouble me. I have no problem with rewarding people for exercising. No doubt it is good for them. However, punishing those who choose not to live at the gym for the lifestyle they choose, even when it doesn't include being skinny as a pencil, treads dangerously on personal freedom, personal responsibility and their rights. Even their right to not be hungry 24/7 to fit some government guru's idea of the ideal body form.

People become overweight for many reasons. One that I often think about, is that, not so long ago in our evolution as folks, being what farmers call an "easy keeper" was advantageous. The kind of people who can eat a whole ham and fixins and still look like a pretzel would have starved to death quick back in the cave man days. Women like me, who have but to look at a cookie to feel their waist line expanding were selected FOR by that old devil, natural selection. Punishing people for traits that have been selected for in the genetic lottery seems just a tad unfair.

Not to mention that it has been proven that many people who do manage to lose weight beyond what their body naturally feels is right for it live with constant hunger pains.

However, my main concern in this huge push to demonize body condition scores of over five (cow folks will know what I mean) is the potential for a slender world causing polar bears to become extinct. I mean, think about it. If every person who weighs more than they should runs off to the gym and sheds every pound that the government considers extra, think of the effect all those burning calories and all that exhaled carbon dioxide would have on global warming. It would be nice for us as our farm would suddenly become ocean front property, but all I can say is be careful what you wish for.

Wordless Wednesday

Creepy Pictures

And bad ones too. This hawk flew down into the heifer barnyard when I was enjoying my weekly Sunday morning chat with my little brother the other day. We were each watching our bird feeders and comparing notes on what we saw. His birds were much more exotic, including pine siskins and purple finches, while mine were a busy, bustling, but prosaic bunch of chickadees, juncos, titmice and assorted sparrows and suchlike. Of course the usual absurdly large contingent of pigeons (rock doves if you are fussy) was preening and rattling and pooping on the heifer barn roof. Nasty feather rats!


Then this critter swooped in, with a flash of banded tail and outswept wings. Wham! The yard emptied in half a heartbeat. Though I tried and tried, it was a very gloomy morning and alas, no good photos. It was interesting though, that this little hawk flew right INTO the barn a few minutes later, to hunt pigeons. And, thanks to its welcome intervention, the darned things have mostly gone somewhere else to roost for a few days.

We used to only have a scattering of them, annoying, but not too serious a problem. Then the state put plastic owls up on the bridge in town and they ALL moved up here to sit on the heifer barn and the tower on the house. Their clawing is rough on the tower shingles! (I have my own set of plastic owls, but that danged tower is well over 70 feet high. I am NOT going up there with an owl.) So we have pigeons. Except when we have hawks.






And ask you, in all seriousness, what on earth is wrong with this lady bug? I found it on the kitchen table yesterday and transported it into the living room to put on my majesty palm. Scale insects love palms and lady bugs love scale insects so it works out well. However when I took a close up shot of this critter I saw that it was covered with ucky stuff....just ucky. Anybody know what's up with that?



And I can't tell you how much I have been enjoying, vicariously, Alan's fisheries and wildlife studies. We quiz each other on Latin names every night in the barn. I know most upstate mammals and many herps and he is learning fish (if you wanna get stumped, try the minnow clan). Anyhow I am kinda, sorta jealous of his studies. Most days. College just wasn't' like that when I was there. (I might have letters after my name if it had been.) However, yesterday I was thoroughly contented to be at home shoveling ashes rather than doing what his class did. A DEC tech came in and dissected road killed deer for them in the interest of counting fetuses. Some of the deer were fresh. Others were.....not. Very, very, very not. He said it was the worst thing he had ever done.I endeavored not to laugh. It was much easier than usual not to be envious.

Some Days

Some days you take a lot of pictures, (starting the night before) out on the hill trying to get close ups of the outrageous numbers of ducks coming in every night.
And wind up with cold hands and blurs.

Some days the moon is simply spectacular so you go out before dawn and take a lot of pictures with the tripod and all kinds of settings.
And end up with cold hands and weird white circles

Some days you clean the ashes out of the woodstove
It will be nice to be able to fit some wood in (which should help with the cold hands situation).

Some days you go after action shots of birds


And simply don't get any.

Some days you look at the agriculture section of the porkulus plot...er, I mean the stimulus bill...and see that the vast majority of so called ag expenditures are planned for food stamps. Makes sense to me. Most farmers, particularly dairy, are looking at unprecedented financial challenges this year. Let's put 'em all on food stamps....

Sunday Stills, Reflections (a TwoFer)

Since open water is at a premium here in the Great Northeast this time of year, and since I have really overdone the mirror thing in the past few weeks, I dug into the archives for these. I am calling it a twofer because not only do you get Sunday Stills, you also get a peek back at summer (a season, which is much missed around here). The photos were taken last year during our Peck's Lake vacation. The cabin porch is my favorite place in the world and tranquil mornings there offer the finest sense of peace and joy I have ever found.




For more Sunday Stills, go here.

Is there a storm coming?

A Wee Puzzle

First go look at these deer Becky and the boss saw yesterday when they went to Amsterdam to get cornflakes and a new circulatory pump for the outdoor wood stove. They (*deer, not my relatives) can often be seen grazing along the north side of Route 5 west of the city, or even in the road in front of your car if you are not so fortunate.

It seems to me that these look to be in pretty good rig for February during a winter with as much snow and cold as we have had this year. There is a thick crust on most snow too, which you would think would hamper them. Folks we've talked to say they are staying fat on corn that got left out last fall because we had such atrocious weather and couldn't harvest. Certainly, our turkeys are so well-fed that they aren't even coming down by the barn yet. (Yeah, we lost a LOT of corn due to rain and mud.)

Also notice the red one. Seems unusual compared to the usual dim grey of winter....pretty anyhow.
I think Beck did a nice job with these photos!

Every Week

As long as I can think of something to write about....
we bring you Farm Side Friday.

This week....Humans and Animals

Good Morning Cold Village

It is cold here. Yeah, I know it is winter and we live in the Northeast, but as I think of Al Bore and what his raving is doing to the world economy and the lifestyles of everyone living on this planet, I get ranty and whiny. Where we live no matter what the darned groundhog (known in these environs as a woodchuck) sees when he comes out of his hole (which the real ones won't do for at least another month) we are going to get six more weeks of winter.
At least.

It often snows in April here. It certainly snows in March. It is too cold for most of May to plant anything but lettuce and peas and maybe oats and seeding out in the fields.
Some Februarys it never gets above freezing for the whole month. I guess we are actually supposed to get some warmth this weekend...probably warm up and snow.
We have seen forty below for a week some years. Not this winter yet, but just before I married the boss..... Not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. The ice got so thick on the roads that you could barely drive...and lots of ice pot holes that would swallow a car...

Anyhow...bah humbug....sorry, now we will return to your regular programing here at Northview Diary.

Wordless Wednesday

Dozens of Duckies

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These pics admittedly aren't the best. It was getting dark and I was in a hurry (chore time). However, this may give you an idea of how many mallard ducks are coming down in the field behind the barn and the barnyard most evenings. (At least five hundred.)

I think they are recycling corn (very green of them). The boss says they seem to be staying out of the Ag bags, which is more than can be said for the crows and starlings. He was up on the corn bag patching holes the crows pecked the other day. We failed to paint faces and eyes on them this fall and are paying the price for that. Any place they peck a hole lets in oxygen and creates major spoilage. As I was taking these photos a flock of starlings that probably took twenty or thirty seconds to pass flew over my head so low I could hear their wings. That is a BIG flock! I think the hard winter has more birds coming close to the buildings then is normal...just wish they would stay out of our feed....

Hmmmmm

One is dreaming of the other perhaps.....top photo by mom, bottom photo by Alan

A Good John

Memorium

And still more Global Warming!

Sunday Stills Go High Go Low

This one was the hardest yet. I didn't know exactly what to photograph.



Finally I pointed the camera high at the honey locust tree and low at some rose quartz and Herkimer Diamonds, (both of which are once again buried in deep snow.) They are normally viewable around the base of the tree where I grow my kitchen herbs among some mineral specimens and a mess of field rock.



Plus another snow flake just for fun (they do start out high and end up low after all...) The blue background in these photos is the hood of Lizzie's pick up truck btw.


More Sunday Stills......

Happy Sled Dogs

Mon@rch's photo show of a sled dog race he attended. Check out those glorious doggy grins! I must have watched it, beginning to end, about five times.

Twenty One is a Big One

Mr. PattyPaws himself is dancing the Schaufelcat Pirouette to wish Miss Rebecca a very Happy 21st Birthday!
Check out Breezey's Books blog this morning and leave her a comment if you can....I am always impressed with her insight and the depth of her bookshelves (I mean the kid reads Sabatini and Verne for fun....and Dumas..in French).

Becky was born exactly the day she was due. At noon. No fanfare. No problems. She made things so easy that our obstetrician, who was hosting and cooking a huge roast beef dinner for friends and family, never missed a tick. She just ran over to the hospital every little while, said, "Things are going fine," then delivered our Beck between courses and went on her way. Beck figured it all out for herself and was about the easiest baby you could ask for. (Except for the biting part.....)

She has grown up to be a fine young lady, and best of all a truly interesting person. I LIKE to talk to her (and all of them...don't get started now guys) because she is smart and insightful and funny. And I love books too. I even gave her my Rising of the Lark because I knew it would have a forever home with her.
Love you kid....my favorite middle kid.....have a great one!!

Lake Effect Snow

Lake Effect Snow

It falls like this between periods of sunshine....only lasts a little while, but it is enthusiastic as heck.

Green

I grew this wheat as a favor to the cat.
He was not interested.
I tried it on the dogs.
No dice.

However, when I snipped a handful off with scissors, you could smell the scent of new mown lawn.....and it was all worth it. You can't imagine what a shock it is to the senses to smell grass in this season...wrong but in a good way.



And I wish these tiny little sunrise cacti would get growing. They seem to just sit there .....and sit there....and sit there....I planted some assorted aloe seeds I bought from Pinetree Garden Seeds yesterday, so we will see what they do.

Still Another

Farm Side Friday

Some Storm

This is a terrible picture I know. Mike came in covered with snow (and quite happy about it, he is a BC, after all). I wanted a picture of his completely white face, but he hates the camera. By the time I got this blurry shot most of it was melted....he got a ginger snap out of the deal anyhow.

We had a sort of mid level storm yesterday. Don't know how much snow and sleet actually fell, but I'll bet it was close to a foot. It started out as mealy snow, which generally means you will get a good crop of it. Then it turned to hard sleet, freezing rain, big puffy clumps of flakes, still more pelting meal.....truly a little bit of everything. The kids had a rough time driving into school and back (naturally we are back on the weekly storm kick, now that they are back in college.)

Anyhow, the stuff that fell was heavy and dense....Liz said it was like walking in sugar or glass beads. You wouldn't think it would blow, being so heavy and all, but when the wind kicked up about nine last night, it flung it against the windows so it sounded like BB shot. The whole house shook and rattled most of the night, with machine gun sleet to keep it interesting.
Now it is calm and clear and pretty much sunny!

There is something about being inside a big snow storm though, that is calming (except the part about your kids being out in it). Everything seems to slow down to just weather and getting through the weather. Focus. Cooking something warming and filling for supper grows in proportionate importance. People get hungry when it is cold and they are fighting for every step they take all day. I made some of the special baked hamburgers that evolved here through the necessity of cooking while the barn and using stuff that is never quite thawed.

We get our hamburger back from the meat plant in two pound plastic tubes. I thaw them as much as I have time to, then slice them into thick rounds and lay them out in a Pyrex baking dish. Top with homemade Italian seasoning. A little grated Romano. Some Parmesan, sprinkle of garlic. Slice of extra sharp Cheddar apiece. Dab of ketchup. Cover with foil and bake at 325 until you are done with milking and chores.....Sometimes there is homemade bread, although not last night.

The way you hear things changes during a big storm. It isn't exactly that the falling snow muffles sound so much as that it separates each sound into a separate entity. The rumble of trains is distinct from the thunder of the Thruway. A blue jay is not drowned out by the crows.

If we didn't have to drive in bad weather and work in it I think I might even like storms for the silence and the mental acuity that comes with them.
At least until the wind comes up.

I hate the wind.

Wordless Wednesday...Wishful Thinking

Something I Have Always Wanted to Do

Take a picture of a single snowflake that is.
(We have lots of them...it wasn't hard to find one.....)