A Bigger, Better Bird Feeder

The yard is alive with birds.




More than usual, even though there have really been a lot of them this summer. I went out yesterday to check on a yellow warbler that hit the big windows. (He was fine.)






And found that the mulberry trees are loaded with fruit. Cat birds, mockingbirds, cedar waxwings, robins and just about everybody in the neighborhood are in full holiday mode. I hope they stay away from my laundry.

Excellent Arguments Against NAIS

Chuck Jolley interview with Rhonda Perry.
Well worth a read!

Liberating Lucy

As longtime readers may know, we received a while back the unlikely gift of a turkey hen that is imprinted on people. Her name is Lucy. She is tame, sweet, and staggeringly stupid. She is a lovely sort of slate blue and turkey brown. She walks around the yard, beak pointed upward, chirping in a soft, melodious voice that sounds like a mother tenderly cooing to her babe. You can walk right up to her...except when you need to put her in the hen house. (Did I mention that she is about as smart as a lump of butter.?)





Who knew that when we decided to let the hens, absurdly multitudinous roosters, and good old Lucy range free during the day, getting her back inside would be so darned hard?

The first night Becky went out to close the door on the hens, as farm bird care is nominally her job. She returned much scratched and not too happy, ranting and raving about how hard it is to catch and carry a turkey. Yeah right. She is such a drama queen.

Then last night she wanted to watch some special TV show and the sun sets kinda late these days (for which I am everlastingly grateful). So I said I would put the birds away when it got dark.

A quarter to ten. The sky to the East and North is still glowing peachy gold, with puffy dark grey clouds, like fat smoky cats littering the horizon. I take my trusty flashlight and revel in the fact that it is still lightish at ten at night. I love the long days. Just love them.

A swirl of the light through the hen house reveals sleeping hens and roosters, like feathered fruit, on every high place.

No Lucy.

I find her sitting alone in the middle of the driveway looking very sorry for herself. When she sees me she starts to walk quickly away so I grab her tail. Everyone who has ever captured poultry knows you never grab the tail. The grab-ee turns into an instant self-propelled windmill, whirling on frantic wings until the tail feathers all pull out. The bird runs away, less fluffy in the rear perhaps, but free from your clutches anyhow. Well, if you think grabbing a chicken that way is exciting, try a turkey. Her huge, heavy, wings drummed on my arms and smashed my face. Her tail didn't pull out but I let go....just couldn't hang on.

So I herded her through nettle and burr, up almost to the door of the hen house. She obviously wasn't going in so I grabbed her again, this time by the base of her wings. What a powerhouse! When she flapped, I flapped. She doesn't look very big but I felt like the little dog that finally caught the car. I staggered over to the coop, threw her inside, and slammed the door.

Turkeys are strong. All that thick breast meat? Pure muscle. Schwarztenbirdie personified so to speak I am not sure I want to do that every night so I am thinking of closing dear Lucy in the caged part of the hen house and letting only the hens run free. I am not so sure that I will win the next time.

Air

We finally opened the big front doors yesterday. Normally this is a job for late April. I hate having plastic up over the beautiful windows so I pull it down as soon as I can bear to. We have no choice but to put up plastic as the old doors are drafty as a bat cave and the wind beats against the front of the house all winter like the devil's angry fist.

However, last fall the guys managed to put plastic over the outside instead of inside where I have to staple it up...so we could see the windows all winter.

Then there has been this cold, wet, unforgiving spring. I didn't WANT to take the plastic down. It has been that cold.

Yesterday dawned sticky and breathless. No air. No breeze. Drawing breath was a conscious job and the valley smelled like a wet mop. I tried to pry the plastic off, but I am short and turning into a worse wienie every year. Liz had to do it. As soon as it was down and the doors were opened, the house took a deep breath and finally, finally, shuddered off winter. Soon a breeze popped up and the laundry began to snap on the clothesline......and within an hour the wren was on that porch. Despite nesting in the box on the other porch. Despite spending weeks swinging from the camel bells there and chittering all day long, he moved the minute the doors were open.

Somehow the birds seem to know that if they sing in front of the door on that porch, the two-story, ten-foot ceilings front hallway will serve as a birdie Carnegie Hall for them, amplifying and strengthening their voices until they sound like the biggest birds on the river. I wonder how long it will take the mockingbird to show up....and the great crested fly catcher...phoebe....cardinal....I wonder if they have been doing this since the house was built so very long ago..

Wishful Thinking

Sunday Stills...Tri Color

For more Sunday Stills......

Dad

Our upbringing was unconventional to say the least.
We were raised in an antique and book store. Reading the merchandise. Learning to refinish fine furniture. Playing with relics of days gone by, like horse drawn sleighs, dummy training rifles and clay marbles. We read books from long before our lives. Talk about a different perspective than just reading current literature. ( Mary Lasswell? Tarzan. Tom Swift. Roy Chapman Andrews.)

Dad's carving of King Tutankhamen, with some others in the background

As kids we dug for Indian relics. Fossils. Amazing mineral specimens. Watched birds. Camped. Fished. Read and read and read..... hundreds of books. Thousands of books. We all still read. A lot.

Rose quartz I found while mineral collecting with dad

Dad was president of the local Audubon Society. Mineral Club. Carving Club. There is a rare mineral he found in a place it had never been seen before sitting in a display in the state museum in Albany. He won many, many awards for his carvings over the years and even taught some classes. He was a mover and shaker in Clan Montgomery and still is. He and mom have been married for 57 years after meeting on a blind date. They are still dating.....

Painting of Liz by Mom, who was much encouraged in her art by Dad over the years.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Thanks for the adventurous mind and the interests to go with it. We all love you!

Balance in All Things

Eons ago God was missing for six days.



Eventually, Michael the archangel found him resting on the seventh day.



He inquired, "Where have you been?"



God smiled deeply and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made "


Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, "What is it?"



"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a place to test Balance."



"Balance?" inquired Michael, "I'm still confused."



God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over here I've placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people, and over there yellow people, and another one of red people. Balance in all things."



God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."



The Archangel impressed by God's work, then pointed to a land area and said, "What's that one?"



"That's Washington State , t he most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills, and plains. The people from Washington State are going to be handsome, talented, modest, intelligent, humorous, and prosperous and they are going to travel the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, carriers of peace, and producers of software."



Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then asked, "But what about balance, God? You said there would be balance."



God smiled, "There's another Washington. Wait till you see the idiots I put there.




From my lovely Aunt Peg, who always finds the good ones.

Just Friday

It is raining again at Northview. The guys can barely chop enough hay to feed the cows each day. We had two nice days...when the chopper was broken down and now rain, rain, rain.


If I haven't yet whined about the slugs let me do so now. I have a lush little patch of merveille de quatre saisons lettuce in a fifteen gallon half barrel right outside the back door. It is fantastic stuff with leaves as crisp and meaty as spinach yet so very delicate in flavor. I grew it from seed I saved last summer, which makes me quite smug. The slugs, which seem to undulate over the ground like sticky erasers devouring (and pooping on) all that they encounter, climb up the wet plastic of the tub and gnosh holes in every leaf. I have surrounded the tub with a solid ring of feed grade salt, which I thought was slowing them down.

Not. I just went out to take a picture of its leafy green and red perfection and it is covered with a blanket of them. Chewed to ribbons....and blackened with slug poo. I am disgusted. I have tried the old beer in a pie tin trick to no avail. Any of you good gardeners out there got any ideas?

I am afraid this is going to be a rough year for gardening. First a late frost on the thirtieth of May. Next striped cucumber beetles wiped out the squash. I just replanted yesterday. Now the slugs. (UGH)

Two weeks of dry weather would look good to me just now. Real good.

If By Chance You Are

Here is a picture of a whole batch of Montgomerys...including my parents, some favorite aunts and uncles and all sorts of other related folks. They gather in Harpursville every year to celebrate being family. This year they had a speaker on the participation of the regiments of a number of ancestors in the Civil War. (Help me out here Mom, I never remember them).

If By

Are You Getting Tired of Frog Photos?

Sorry, I just can't resist them....however I am beginning to feel like I am in danger of becoming one....and getting awful tired of rain.

And I was saddened, although not surprised, to get the news release from Ag and Markets, that the Emerald Ash borer was recently found in NY. We love our ash trees, with their wonderful hard but light wood, their purple autumn leaves and the emphasis their very pale green leaves add to the spring canopy. I am afraid it won't be long before ours are affected.

I am old enough to remember when fountains of stately elms lined the streets of most towns offering towering arches of green beauty....and then they were gone. We have noticed though that a few juvenile elms are getting taller before they are infested and die.....there are a handful of almost full sized ones around the place now. Maybe they are developing a little resistance to Dutch Elm Disease. We can hope.

Excitement at Dansville

Check out the second tractor to run in this video from the 2009 Dansville tractor pull.

Alan is lucky enough to know the crew and driver (as do the rest of us actually) and got to go to the pull and be up close and personal with the behind the scenes action (thanks to someone whose privacy I will respect, but the kid is very grateful). Needless to say he had a heck of a time!

Do You Want the Good News First?

Gillibrand maintains stance on cow flatulence tax.

Or the bad news?

A good friend of the family is interviewed in this article on potentially disastrous new farm labor laws in NY. By good friend I am talking the kind of guy who showed up to feed cows for weeks when the boss had an emergency appendectomy before the kids were old enough to work.

Or perhaps the really insanely horrible news? FDA may inspect right down to the farm level and call foods from farms that don't comply adulterated.

As if farms weren't already inspected half to death. And as if most food recalls didn't originate at the plant level, not at the farm. I hope people wake up quickly to this one, because it is going to cost everybody who eats a lot of money and add a layer of government that won't be cheap either.

Moose on the Loose

At Saratoga Race Course!

Rain on the Roof

Liz had a friend over during milking last night and they were in the barn talking cows somewhere. Alan had gone to the big tractor pull in Dansville. Becky was turning cows out. The boss and I were in the milk house tearing down to milk the bucket cows, of which there are ridiculously many due to everyone calving at once. The sun was shining.....

Suddenly there was an awful racket as if a truck with about a dozen cracked pistons was coming right into the milk house with us. Snapping and cracking and roaring

"What is that?" I asked, alarmed.

"A train," said the boss, mistaken.

It was rain.

It was hitting the steel roof of the milkhouse and shed so hard that the din was deafening. Liz's friend had left his truck windows down.

Oops.

It only lasted a few seconds and then there were double rainbows and stereo robins. I stood on the milkhouse step and just soaked in the delight and beauty.....even though we certainly didn't need the rain.

When the sun finally let go on the long summer day, distant lightning flitted across the sky, making reading impossible, as standing on the porch watching was more interesting. The thousands of lightning bugs flickering on lawn and pasture didn't hurt either. They made an incredible show of fairy lights....a million reminders of why we put up with NY winters and governors.

I tried for video but. alas got blackness.

Alan made it home all right, covered with oil from a tractor that blew something and bursting with stories of his adventures, which included an osprey at Montezuma National Wildlife refuge, through which they drove. It is going to be interesting getting the oil out of his favorite shirt...

Mom starts chemo today and prayers would be much appreciated. She is the strongest and most positive person I have ever known but these are hard times.

Sunday Stills...Water Tower

This, our village water tower, is on the road that runs right behind the farm. I ran up yesterday to get the photo, then took the other views of the misty mountains and hills behind us on the way home.

Chuck Jolley Gets it Right

Here is a long, but well worth reading article on the challenge of feeding the world's burgeoning human population. Many will find points to disagree with and experts to dislike. However, the basic dilemma is there whether we like it or not.1930's farming methods will not feed billions of people.

Sticker Shock (or why can't the DMV get glue like that)

Had a thought after reading comments on the married men sticker on the old Case yesterday. Would you believe that that sticker was on the tractor when I met the boss and didn't look much different then than it does now?

Would you believe that we will have been married 24 years next week? Would you believe that that tractor will not run in the winter and ends up sitting where it stalled last all through the cold months very year, so it has not seen the inside of the shed since the guys put in a new PTO a couple years ago? (And then it was only in while they worked on it.)

Why can't the State of New York find glue like that?

Both truck stickers bit the dust long ago...and now the one on the car is creeping down toward the dash and curling its little edges like a girl with a new perm. They should send scientists to analyze the one on the Case.


*****UPDATE: the boss says he remembers distinctly, for certain personal reasons, putting that sticker in place on October 13th, 1974.

What's Up.....

On the farm these days?

Birding is a daily delight. The wrens keep things interesting having fits every time we go out on the sitting porch. Alan says they even chase the hummingbirds away. No problem as there is another feeder they can go to. The male sings and sings, which is a great pleasure to me. We have a couple of sets of mockingbirds and their singing is an intense joy as well. The older male is quite a virtuoso, out cardinaling cardinals and surpassing robins at their own game.




Two calves yesterday, a bull from Sedona and a heifer from Consequence. They are both by the bull, Myrik, a Picston Shottle son. We wouldn't have minded using Shottle himself, but he is plumb out of our price range. We got a good deal on the son though from a nice fellow Liz met at Altamont Fair. We already have one yearling heifer already by him out of my ETrain heifer that is pretty nice.

The two new ones are both nearly all white with tons of speckles. I named the heifer Cameo...will try to get some pics at some point.




The guys got the Case 930 running and are using it now. Here is a video we made of it the other night. It is an amazing old thing.

Corn planting is done. The men will resume haying if it stops raining. What is it with all these cold, wet springs anyhow? As soon as June rolls around it starts raining and once it gets going it just won't quit!

Other than that we have been planting garden between the sprinkles and downpours, doing a lot of cooking, eagerly anticipating the advent of strawberry season and just farming along. The wild grape flowers are over and the pestilential, but incredibly sweet, wild roses are in bloom and the valley is as fragrant as a perfume factory. It is time for ice cream and long, sweet twilights and frogs and fledgelings.

June is my favorite month by the way!


Wow, here is a great piece on the recent protest at a National Animal ID System, or NAIS meeting. I am downright thrilled that mainstream farmers and ranchers are getting on board against this ridiculous, costly and downright dangerous program!

And here is more fun from Craigslist....

"Hi,

A local small farm family, recently helping out a larger rescue are taking care of several sheep and llamas. Looking for sponsors and/or donors to help with a new expanded paddock. We will place a plague to honor any sponsors. Can't keep sheep, adopt one of ours - we care, feed, shelter your sheep, yet you can visit whenever you want. Several lambs to choose from now. "

I wonder if you sponsor a pig they will place swine flu.


Still more....you have to watch this! Obama on my Shoulder


And even more (I feel like I should be on Twitter or something today, as many times as I have edited this post.

This is an actual photograph of an actual check we received today for a 96 pound Holstein bull calf. He was healthy, vigorous and well started. Here is an advertisement for less than one pound of beef jerky. Does anyone besides me see something wrong with this ?

(Almost) Wordless Wednseday

Yes, that is a stick. It is being sold as a bird perch. It costs $4.16. And I am in the wrong line of work.

I am Not Sure What This Means

But it has the feel of good news.



And here is more news on the sad dairy situation, this time from the perspective of one of the larger cattle auction firms that work in this area....

Passing it On

My dad is a lifelong birder. Not surprisingly some of my earliest memories involve seeing Baltimore orioles for the first time when we moved to the country. A barn owl in our old barn. Barn Swallows. Bobwhites. I will never forget our first feeder cardinal back before they were common up here. Over the past decade or so various teams of us have always done the Audubon Christmas count. We also eagerly indulge in an ongoing battle of avian oneupsmanship over who sees the best birds throughout the year.

Now Alan is joining us in this endless delight. He has started a life list and will soon surpass any ability I might have in IDing birds in the field. (It doesn't hurt to study this stuff in college and to have sharp young eyes to boot.) We took a trip for some dog and cat food and other sundries yesterday and birded all the way home.

Can you spot the duck?

He pulled off the road here, something I have always wanted to do but was afraid of the traffic. It was like Heaven. Birds began to pop out of the woods and swamp the minute we parked. Green herons, mallards, cedar waxwings, red winged blackbirds, robins, tree swallows, Canada geese, they paraded by one after another. We could have stayed there all day with the camera, binoculars and field guide.



Alas the perishables were getting warm so we settled for taking the long way home. He got two lifers along the way, a brown thrasher and a meadowlark. (We saw several of the latter) I suspect that helping him with his list is going to be much more fun than doing my own was.


I hope we can go again soon. I can't think of anything more fun and the price is right.
A little gas.
A little time.
Great company. What's not to like?

Sunday Stills....Silhouettes

Did we have fun with this one?
Oh, yes, we really did.
At first I thought I might not even try....so busy this time of year. Then once we got started I had such a great time that we ended up with a lot of them.
For more Sunday Stills, go here.

Saturday Morning Special

Good Grief-Mother Nature is Getting Kinda Raw

We tried off and on all day yesterday to get a decent photograph of this turkey hen. She kept sneaking in and out of the bushes playing peek a boo. We never did get anything decent.
This pic is taken from the living room window from this morning and that is the lawn.
And that pile of feathers and stuff is what is left of her. I don't believe the grey fox did this. I am thinking coyote. I am also afraid she had a nest out there somewhere......

Turn on

....the Cute-o-Meter. This is Liz feeding Shamrock and Shameless their morning buckets of milk. They are like hungry puppies and so tame they come running whenever they hear somebody call, "Babies!"

Shameless

(Okay, kid, where's YOUR milk mustache?)