Water, water, everywhere

Here is Cameo drinking from the big girl water tub.
(The wire is over the window and really no where near her. I am just too short to miss it in the frame.)

It's wet!

There are times when we are glad of our hills....at least, although haying is shut right down until it dries up a bit, we are not under water like folks in the story above.

We got a lot yesterday though. Driveways washed again. I was thinking I needed to top up the garden pond...uh, not so much....

Deer in the headlights look.

Another milking shorthorn/Holstein cross,
this time a bull, which will be steered and raised for beef.

*******Keep those names coming! Getting some real great ones!

Name that Calf

As promised

Long time followers and Farm Side readers are probably familiar with the Name That Calf contest phenomenon.

The rules are simple. We here at Northview need a name for a new baby. You out in blog land are clever, inventive, and kind enough to be helpful. And of course, everyone, everywhere, is eager to receive the fabulous prize, which is to have a beautiful bovine go through life sporting the name you gave it.

In past contests, lovely Bama Breeze was named by Florida Cracker. Asaki, as in "this is my cow, Asaki," got her moniker from Mrs. Mecomber. Liz has several named by kind folks as far away as Oregon. Dalkeith, Takala, Maureen, Hazel, just to name a few....

Anyhoo, it has come to pass that I have a really nice calf, and no one can come up with a name that is quite....enough....if you get know what I mean. Nothing quite seems to fit...to have that ring that stands out just so.......

The name-ee is half milking shorthorn and half Holstein, sired by our shorthorn bull, Checkerboard Magnum's Promise. Her dam is a gigantic first calf heifer out of my Trixie family (ask Alan if she looks like Trixie). Mama's name is Frieland Chilt Encore, and she is sired by a Champion son, Chilton. Her dam is my old England cow, who sadly had a preemie while we were at camp, which only lived one day.

Shamelessly nameless is the color of a pale carrot, a soft, orangy red. Her face has a faint roaning pattern that makes it look as if the sun was shining on it all the time....and she has a few snowflake-like speckles on her legs. (I will try to get a pic this morning at milking.)

She was a total surprise to me. Although Encore's maternal grandsire was Citation R Maple, none of her other family members ever showed any sign of being a red carrier. A sure sign of carrying the gene for a red coat is having a red calf...recessive gene and all. This opens up some interesting possibilities, as England must be a red carrier too. She is an old cow, but, you never know.

I am going to say thanks in advance for all the wonderful names I expect you will probably come up with. I enjoy the connection I feel with my blog friends when I care for animals that you good folks have named. I get a huge kick out of the clever and perfectly good fitting names you have come up with too.....Liz has the naming hat (into which we put slips with your baby names) all primed and ready....

So, ready, set, go......

NAIS and Kansas FMD Lab

Two links to Cattle Trader stores.

One is a Chuck Jolley column on the popularity of the National Animal Identification system....or the overwhelming lack of it...



The second discusses the advisability of plopping the nation's animal disease research lab (think foot and mouth disease) down in the middle of Kansas cow country.



****be sure to click the link at the very end of Jolley's column about USDA and the word "no".

Homecoming Week

Being back from camp is always a challenge. I don't think we quite realize just how busy we are until we let it all go for a week. Then homecoming hits like a two by four to the head. This year it is worse than usual because of the dairy situation. The point of can't do it any more is rapidly approaching on farms all over the country and ours is no exception.

Alan has jumped into finishing up 1st cutting. They finished Hickory Tree Field yesterday, with one more big field and one small to go. It is still too wet to put a tractor in any of the new seeding, but we are praying the ground firms up enough to get that in.

We are so glad we only planted a little corn this year. The cost of putting it in is ridiculous since the advent of wonderful, wonderful (insert sarcasm) ethanol. And with this lousy weather, what they did plant looks two months behind. If they can get the first cutting finished up I guess there is some nice second to go after too. And that new seeding weather permitting.

The boss was worrying about buying corn meal this winter to replace the corn we didn't grow. I pointed out to him that the cows are doing pretty well on cheap (ish) grain and green chop. They ought to do just as well or better on fermented green stuff and the same grain this winter...so why worry?

Liz is tired from filling in for the rest of us for the past week. I feel bad for her. Alan came down several times and helped her milk, but the boss doesn't exactly leap into the fray during milking. She is planning her fairs....decided to show her Blitz daughter at Altamont and Fonda. She got a Roylane Jordan daughter from her, which is some solace I guess for being left with all the work. Her vacation will be the shows... Not my idea of restful contemplation but then I am a whole lot older than she is. I can remember dragging the ponies over to Fonda...and the cart...harnesses...hay...weeks, months, years of training. For a couple of little slips of ribbon (usually red, although Major Moves and I once brought home the blue for open driving.)

Becky will be off to Potsdam in 31 days. I think she is getting nervous. I know I am. She will be the first one of the kids to leave home....I am not sure just how folks deal with that phenomenon, but I guess I will be finding out pretty soon.

While we were away my Trixie family heifer gave birth to a one-half milking shorthorn heifer calf. It came as an amazing surprise to me as it is the loveliest carrot red you could imagine. I simply didn't suspect that Encore was a red carrier, despite her mama being a Citation R Maple daughter. Kind of neat anyhow. I am looking forward to seeing the folks who bought some semen from her sire from us last year. Wondering if they have any nice calves. Ours are amazing looking things. Wish we saw a rosier future, as I think we could make some pretty nice milking shorthorns with a little practice. The one we are milking isn't much of a tester, but she makes as much milk as a Holstein.

We are buried in calves right now. Liz has over twenty of them on buckets. Normally when milk prices are so low and we have such a barn full of heifers we would send five or six of them over to the heifer sale and pay some bills. Now they aren't worth anything. We got fourteen bucks for two nice bulls again last week. I have no clue how we are going to pay our taxes this fall as we count on heifers to fund that. Sorry to be so negative, but this is historically about the worst time dairy farming has EVER seen. I am tired.

On that note, I stumbled upon a good blog just before we left for camp. John Bunting is a well-known dairy speaker and his blog offers some insight into what is going on behind the scenes to create the current crisis. Check it out if you have a minute.

Macro Monday

For more Macro Monday

Sunday Stills....Toys

For more Sunday Stills

Home Again

Yellow Perch

Common Mergansers

My other home

Companionship

A little of this

And a lot of this!!

Sustenance

Transportation

Away...Wednesday

While the Farmer's Away...Tuesday

A Photo a Day

While the farmer's away

Sunday Stills....Awww Nuts

Good grief! This was such a hard one. Liz had some good ideas, but I simply drew a blank. There are no nuts around here in July except the ones milking the cows and driving the tractors and the ones hanging off the back end of some of the livestock...and sorry, but I am NOT going there. lol.
So above are some kind of nuttish things in the woodwork in the dining room....(well, they COULD be acorns...you never know.....





And my favorite nut, who volunteered for this photo and was in no way coerced.

For more Sunday Stills, go here....

My Dad Would Love This

He always has a lot to say about woman drivers

Deja Vu All Over Again

It was about 8:15 last night, I was setting up calf bottles for morning, Ralph was milking the bucket cows and Alan was up behind the barn getting feed with the skid steer. Down the farm road from the far back fields came four teen aged kids....dripping wet, freezing cold, covered in sloppy mud...and whatever else they had stepped in. We ran out to accost them, as most everybody that shows up trespassing is here for nefarious reasons.


They kept telling us how they got on our land from their friend's house and were walking the nature trails. After a while, we realized that they were well and truly lost, as they kept saying they came in from the west, when in fact they were from the housing development to the east...they were visiting from Albany and were on a "nature walk". They kept insisting there were laid out trails and mowed areas where they came onto the farm. Took us a while, but we finally realized they were talking about the farm roads and mowed hay fields.

They were terrified. We didn't mean to scare them, but as I said, we have never actually had benign trespassers before. Thank God they found the barn when they did, because they soon would have been blundering into temporary electric fence where the cows are. Had they not come down when they did they would have been hard to find out there, as although they had a cell phone, there is little signal up there. And there are lots of farm fields, ours and others, going south and west for quite some distance. Lots of wild brush land too.

Anyhow, it took a while to get them straightened out and waiting at the bottom of driveway for parental pick up. I suppose I should feel bad for laughing (even if I waited until after they were gone) as they were polite and really scared, but the manicured "nature trails" and mowed lawns were just too funny for words.

We finished the night by locking Foolish, who had the calf, in the barnyard for the night, as well as Mandy and her daughter Blitz. Blitz looks like calving tonight too and she will not stay in a fence with out her mommy.

When we came to the house Liz pointed out that this happened last year the night she calved.
However, these were the trespassers then. What a coincidence to have strangers show up during the same circumstances like that.

Camp

We leave tomorrow at noon. (Hope to see some of you there...you know who you are.)
Farming doesn't stop while I pack, and the days are so full and busy I barely have time to pick up the camera or spend a few minutes writing here.

I may not have mentioned it, but the boss was pulling the John Deere forage wagon through a particularly rutted bit of farm road last week when a front axle broke. When he called the local dealer about the part the price was way over five hundred bucks.
Plus freight.

Arrggghhh!! And the guy we generally borrow RR jacks from when we have a challenge like this was out of town. We brainstormed. The guys are running with only two wagons this year.
They need that JD.

But five hundred bucks! It was decided to take the part up to Broadalbin Manufacturing and see if they could weld it. If you ever need something like that done, I can't recommend those folks enough. They have big, complicated, metal machining projects going on all the time, but they have a soft spot for farmers and will fit in our little, but important to us, jobs as best they can. They do good work and their prices are very reasonable.

They repaired the axle and welded some kind of doohickey on it for $125. The guys borrowed jacks from my wonderful brother, (thanks, Mappy) who also cut them enough blocking to make what otherwise would have been a terribly dangerous job relatively safe.

And so they are running with two wagons again. They had a mishap with the bagger last week so we lost about sixty feet of bag. Thus yesterday during the storm the boss ran down for a new bag so he and Alan can set it up before we leave for camp. Teri has a pic of some of the hail that was around, but thank God it missed us. One of our friend's corn got hit last week and it looks like Sudan Grass now. In fact when we went by his place, not knowing about the hail, we thought that it WAS Sudan. It has been a very hard year to make forages, one of the worst we have ever seen.

I sure hope this weather pattern gets over itself and goes somewhere where it is needed.
Meantime....must pack.

Question

Does this

Make you think of

This?

Mackerel Sky

Not long wet......not long dry....

Attached to the Land

And to the cows.
The lifestyle.
The family working and living and striving together.

This article in the Iowa Independent describes the mindset of farm families faced with this terrible crisis affecting their homes, livelihoods, and the very center of themselves, is one of the best I have ever read.

I have often tried to explain the powerful emotional hold that working the land has for a farmer and have never been able to do so. No matter how many people tell you to treat it like a business, it is more. It simply has to be. You don't just farm....you are a farmer.

The author of this story has done a great job of explaining that. Speaking of farmer fears when faced with farm foreclosures,

"Not only are they letting down themselves and their families, but they are letting down the animals and land they’ve come to respect and love."

Go.
Read.
You will be strongly moved I promise.

HT to Jeanelle at Midlife by Farmlight, who adds her own excellent perspective to this issue.


Update: Here is a potential outcome of such disastrous times coupled with such intense involvement in the life of a farmer. Suicides a Tragic Result.
This is a powerful article and well worth reading!

Here's another.


And here

Mr. Bunting and Pete Hardin of the Milkweed have been trying to tell folks for years how badly they are getting hammered. I am so glad to know someone is listening.

Watch Out for Facebook

And be afraid to rely on Norton Antivirus. I was enjoying the former networking site yesterday when the latter product failed in its task of protecting this computer in a proper fashion.

It took nine hours of computer time.
And a hundred bucks to Norton......
......To get rid of the resulting virus. I never did get a coherent explanation from the many technicians in India who attempted to resolve the issue. Or from about the sixth or seventh one who finally did.

I didn't get much sleep, but it is fixed and the Farm Side was sent in on time.
Yay me.

The kids have AVG free version antivirus software on the other two computers. Both are on Facebook day and night.
Both are fine.
I am trying to figure out why I am paying 80 bucks a year for a product that doesn't do the job when I can get a free one that does. Hmmmmmmm.....

42

At Peck's last summer
Can you tell I am getting antsy?

Alan and I have been keeping a loose list of the birds we have seen here at the farm this summer. I don't bore you with a list of names but we are up to 42 species at this point. They are mostly common, with the most exotic being the willow flycatcher, a bird that is hard enough to distinguish from the alder that even experts tell them apart by their call. Ours has been thoughtful enough to call all day, all spring and half the summer, allowing us to spend hours on What Bird listening to recorded calls. His call is a perfect match.

To add to our enjoyment of this drab little critter, it has taken to coming right on to the sitting porch several times a day picking at yarn from a trellis. Must be thinking about nesting again, although it isn't calling much. I am trying for a photo but between the wren rushing in to drive it away and its level of personal wildness that may not happen.

The end of the dawn chorus has been like the turning off of a switch. After weeks of having the delight of waking to cardinals, mockers, robins and what all, there is nothing calling now but a couple of starlings. And the wren. Which never shuts up. This lack is probably partly due to the season.

And partly due to the sharp shinned hawk. He was first spotted taking out an English sparrow, to which he was quite welcome. Then the other evening, just after an especially torrential rain, Alan and I were on our way out to milk when we heard a commotion from the mulberry by the compost bin.

Underneath the canopy, on the lowest branches, was the wettest, most bedraggled hawk I have ever seen. Each feather stood up in a ruffled peak like Harry Potter's hair.

It was clutching something and trying unsuccessfully to fly away from us and from the dozens of small birds that use the tree as an all day, all-you-can-eat cafeteria. They were (not unreasonably) quite discommoded by its presence.

Finally it made it to wing, showering water droplets behind as it lumbered away. It was lugging quite a large frog in its talons and we had a nice chuckle at its antics. I suspect it is a young one to which flying is a relative novelty.

Or else just a klutz. Either way I wish it would move along. I love taking a minute now and then to walk out on the porch to see who is flying back and forth across the long lawn, beaks crammed with berries. Or what the mockingbird is fighting with at any given time. It is getting too quiet.

For Mom

To be 57 years old, children grown, almost 40 years on my own, and yet to still be lucky enough to know a mother's love.
There can't be anything more special.

Thanks for the un-birthday cake Mom. Banana cake. You make the best ones...it's the only way I like bananas. You didn't have to do it, but it was so kind and caring that you did when you are so sick.

And it is so good.

We love you. Hope you feel a little better each day....
Love,
Dotter

Sunday Stills...Texture

For more Sunday Stills

More Chuck Jolley on NAIS

Here is the transcript of a Q&A session with Tom Vilsack....(except that it wasn't with Vilsack).
To me it looks like a lot more of the non-answers to important questions that USDA has been tossing around like rotten fruit....however, it would be good if you took a look to see for yourself if you have a chance. Mr. Jolley has provided his email address should you wish to convey to him your take on the session, which in turn may forwarded to the Secretary of Agriculture Food Stamps.

Wren on the Front Porch

Chitter, chitter, chittering. There is an English sparrow that loves to torment him by sitting right next to his second nest. I chase it away a dozen times a day just to shut him up. (I hate the darned things too.) I suppose I should get up now and show my scary face at the door but I am feeling too lazy and privileged just now. The thing which we are 99% positive is a willow flycatcher is coming right onto the other porch now to tug at some yarn on a trellis I grew moon flowers on the past few years (they froze in June last summer so I decided not to bother this year.) It is thrilling to see the little thing but it is too leery for me to get a photo.....yet....

Dog in the food bag. Guess he got tired of waiting. Becky, sleeping beauty herself, has taken to getting up before me, turning on my computer, taking the doggies out and making me a cup of perfect coffee, which is steaming gently, awaiting my arrival each morning. I feel as if I have somehow entered an alternate universe.......a very nice one. But I should go feed the dog before he eats the whole bag. He may be blind, deaf and tippy, but he knows how to take care of himself.


Sun up and shining, praise the Lord. The guys filled over forty feet of bag yesterday, more than they have been able to do for weeks. The girls and I milked all the cows so they could stay in the field. We sold one that was terribly mean and nasty this week and I sure didn't miss her when I had to milk my string alone last night. I wasn't thrilled with the price but after talking to folks who were at the sale, it looks like we got lucky and topped the sale with her and two heifers we sent over. I am grateful for that. The latest thing at the cattle auctions is to call a "no sale" and take the animal anyhow. Somebody sure as heck is doing all right at that!

Got the hot sheet from DHIA and our weighted SCC average was just over 100 thousand. Been having some challenges in that area so we were delighted. Nothing bad mind you....it is just that premiums are about the only aspect of our price we can do anything about and we pursue them mightily.

Liz is off to Countryfest today. She won a ticket from WGNA..... so...if any of you local folks are over there and you see her, please keep an eye....that is an awful brouhaha for a young girl to attend alone.

Get Down Babies

Another Good Dairy Article

Here is another article about the crisis in dairy pricing. I thought it was interesting partly because we know several of the folks in this story. We bought a real good bull from Mr. Hosking years ago and a number of nice cows at auctions run by Dave Rama.

The bull, Hosking-Brunn MWOD Arvid, was a son of the Melwood bull out of Homestead-SS Bell Alice, a Bell daughter. He made some of our finest ever cattle when crossed on daughters of a Ned Boy son we had out of a Triple Threat dam. They were not big cattle, but they were real sharp and hard and milked like they wanted to. We still have him in the tank and use him for clean up now and then.

Discussing Dairy Subsidies

On Coyote Blog there is a discussion taking place on dairy subsidies. I am not a big fan of subsidies, but few people have even a tiny understanding of the inner workings of the dairy industry. However, people can sure preach about things they have no clue about. When it comes to reading the thoughts of folks who say that farmers get a "really good subsidized price" for milk, I won't say that my blood boiled, but it did get a little warmish.

I left a comment myself...tried to not to sound too rabid or get too complicated. However, I know there are some real smart farmers and farm women who read Northview. I know some of you could do a better job of discussing our industry than I can...so I hope you click on over and add your thoughts to the dialog.

For the most part I like Coyote Blog, which is why I link to it and read it regularly. But I am just a tad irritated just now.

Knot Knotty Pine

But rather knotted honey locust.

Last year when I was weeding the asparagus that grows right next to the house (a volunteer) I discovered yet another of what seems like millions of honey locust seedlings. The other end of the tap root on every single one of them has a Hong Kong address. When I couldn't pull it out I tied a knot in it in frustration.

And forgot about it. The big asparagus plant doesn't get weeded all that often, but I finally got at it again the other day. Rather than the little baling wire sized stem of honey locust there was a big robust yearling as thick as my thumb and as tall as my head growing out of it. As I chopped it down with my loppers I found a surprise...the knot I tied and forgot last year. Who would expect that a tree would grow with a knot in the trunk?

So of course when I found another little seedling in the other flower bed, I chopped off its head and tied a knot in the stem.

Stormin'

We are having thunderstorms every day. Sometimes several. Beck and I went to the library and Stewart's yesterday and raced home because they were talking tornado warnings over in town. I didn't see any myself but it was hailing when we got home. It was weird to cross the river bridge. The sun was shining brilliantly on one side, although the clear blue water was white capped.




On the other side leaves and branches that had broken off were lashing across the road. The sky was thick with ominous grey clouds and hurtling rain. You could barely discern the difference between the surface of the river itself and the rain that was dashing into it.



Sunset was weird. Unrelieved textureless grey clouds with just a round yellow ball dripping through them down to the horizon. It was so unusual that we all ran to look at it, even our milk tester who was here testing last night. It spotlighted the flowers kind of nicely though.

Liz Needs Your Help

She has another calf that needs a good name. Suggestions welcome at BuckinJunction

Rana Day

Happy Birthday, Mappy!!

Patrick Hooker Meets Tom Vilsack

Press release from Ag and Markets
July 6, 2009

COMMISSIONER MEETS WITH USDA SECRETARY VILSACK

Emphasizes the Need for Assistance for Dairy Farmers at Concord, NH Meeting

New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker today met with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at a town hall meeting in Concord, New Hampshire, where he joined other Northeast agriculture commissioners, emphasizing the serious need for assistance for dairy farmers in New York State and across the nation.

At his first face-to-face meeting with the Obama administration official, the Commissioner thanked Secretary Vilsack for the leadership he has already provided the dairy industry and asked for more direct assistance, explaining the dire need for help on behalf of the State’s 6,200 dairy farmers.

Commissioner Hooker specifically requested Secretary Vilsack to support an immediate and retroactive increase to the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) safety net program, as well as a minimum six-month interest-free extension or debt forgiveness on USDA loans. Both of these actions would bring immediate relief to dairy farmers, as they experience the perfect storm of high input costs and protracted low milk prices.

A surprise announcement by Secretary Vilsack in New Hampshire today was his pledge to form an advisory group to recommend changes to the federal milk pricing system for fairness for farmers and to help promote profitability and stability in the dairy industry. This is a concept that Commissioner Hooker and his counterparts in Vermont and Pennsylvania, as part of the Northeast Dairy Leadership Team, suggested to the Secretary in a letter sent earlier this year.

Books

Are the perfect gift around this house....Thus my birthday was perfect due to quantities of books. I should have been too old to squeal with joy when opening a package, but I did at mom and dad's house. An owl book. A big pictorial bird book. A kitchen pharmacy book. Mrs. Rasmussen's Second Book of One Armed Cookery ( a veritable treasure and Mom's own copy, which will be doubly delightful), and last, but not least a book on cannons. How cool is that? Now if I can just get a real one for the front lawn......and that tank for repelling trespassers......

Along with the field guides and a novel for camp provided by Alan, not to mention chocolate and an Amp from Liz.....ah......I feel pampered. To make it all perfect we were treated to two sets of simultaneous fireworks, one at the race track and the other at some town up west and across the river. They were stupendous and we had the added benefit of the old dogs being so deaf they could barely hear them, so there was no panic and hiding in the bath tub this year.

Sunday Stills...Wild Flowers

For more Sunday Stills....

Climate Change Bill Bad for America

Typical New York Congressman at work

Seems a lot of people outside the beltway who pay for their own cars and groceries don't think this bill, for the most part unread by the people who are voting for it, is much of a birthday present to our great nation.

Here is a letter to the editor written by a local lady who has always "gotten it". Despite serious illness she recently took the time to instigate some back and forth dialog with the editor of the paper to get this piece printed. I admire her for it. We all should be talking to our newspapers and legislators right now. Even if we agree with this kind of expensive and unproven legislation, seems to me we should ask that it be read before the voting.....Of course I admire this particular lady for most everything, from her fantastic paintings to her spaghetti sauce...and you probably would too if you knew her, but she is so right about this issue.

Anyway this fine lady is comparing the new Climate Bill to the old Cardiff Giant. I'll bet there isn't a one of you local folks of a certain age that didn't get hauled to the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown to have a look at that famous hoax. You can just figure that Cap and Tax is going to be a money maker of a similar style, but on a staggeringly grander scale. And it will be coming out of your pocket for every single item you buy.

I don't agree with the New York Times that even a seriously flawed climate bill is better than no bill at all....and neither does my wonderful mom. Hope you have a minute to read her letter....thanks....

And, by the way, I write this on a typical April day here at Northview....or maybe even late March. It is 63 degrees, the wind is howling and it has been raining overnight and is going to rain again. We have had such a non summer that the boss does not have a suntan. Can you imagine a farmer in July with no suntan? We still have calf coats on some of the babies. I have washed and put away the winter polar fleece jackets, sweaters, pull overs and hunting coats....in fact, I have washed them and put them at least five times.... by the time it gets summery enough to keep them in the drawer for a while it will be time to get them out again for winter. I am persistent in the wearing of shorts department, because wearing shorts is what I do in the summer...but some days it takes a lot more courage than it ought to...

Anyhow, have a great Fourth of July, each and every one of you. Fireworks tonight...don't forget to crate the doggies.

Friday Follies

The newspaper for which I write the Farm Side, is without phone service and has been since Tuesday. I can't imagine how hard coping with that must be for an entity that depends on communication to function.

It rained more yesterday. A lot more. Alan was sick all day, so we just let him sleep, although he did get up for chores. There wasn't really much you could do anyhow as hard as it was raining. Liz did fix stanchions and banged her finger pretty bad.....anyhow he seemed a lot better last night, so I guess the rest did him good. He has this stay up until two AM thing going on and it just isn't working out for him. We all learn at our own speed it seems.

Not sure what else to tell you. It is wet. A good day of warm air and stiff breezes would go a long way toward making it possible at least to get in the garden. It is going to take a while for the fields to dry out if they ever do this year. We are waiting on a roof guy for the barn and hoping it dries out enough so he can work so we can bail hay. If it ever dries out enough to do that.

The mockingbird has taken to singing all night. I like it. (Others are not so thrilled.) It is disconcerting though to hear a ring billed gull calling from the box elders by the lawn...he is real good at gull calls. The baby wrens have stayed around and they are still an endless source of cheap thrills. We have two front porches. They were hatched on one. Now they live in the cedar trees next to the other and take great delight in hopping up and down the steps, sometimes in sets of two or three. I have to tell you, it is hard to stifle laughter when you watch them bouncing up and down like kids on a play ground. Pop, pop, pop, up they hop. Reverse. Down, down, down. Then do it all again.
They also go in and out of the old nest the parents used last year and the year before. Don't know what is up with that but it is also entertaining as half a dozen of them try to squeeze into the old pillar. I will miss them when they finally leave us for good.

Above is another picture of the lake. (I am figuring you don't want to see pictures of rain any more than I want to take them.) Fifteen more days. (Yeah, I'm counting.)

Finding the Bright Side

I like:

The soft garump of a sleepy green frog out in the garden pond. Since the pond is covered with platter sized lily pads (and lots of blossoms this summer) we rarely see the little fish However, the frogs are always there to add a bit of action to the watery still life canvas. I love it when their calls, either emphatic when the sun has warmed them up or just a gentle gurgle on this early, foggy day, remind me that they think my homemade pond is close enough to the real thing to suit their herpie little selves.

I like:

Spending a couple of hours yesterday using a Barnes and Noble gift certificate given for my upcoming birthday by my delightful middle brother and wife. What joy, what joy....with a fledgling birder joining the happy pastime of counting and checking and observing the flying wild things, new field guides were in order. We have what we are mostly positive is a willow flycatcher living next to the driveway. When we looked it up in my old Birds of North America, which I have used all my life, Willow wasn't an option for a flycatcher. Time to catch up with the changes in taxonomy (dang those lumpers and splitters). So a new Birds of, a Sibley's, which I haven't used before, and a new Peterson's. Cool huh? Peck's Lake here we come, armed and dangerous with Latin names and new field marks and youthful enthusiasms galore. I like that. Now if my darling baby son will find my Kaufman's, which vanished a couple weeks ago when he was in charge...

I like:

Knowing that camp is coming. I feel guilty leaving LIz and Ralph with so much to do. There is enough work for all five of us never to catch up because it has rained until it is ridiculous. Flood watches every day. Flood warnings every night. Fat, leaking thunderstorms, lumbering up the valley, dropping inches every time they breath. I look forward to a too short lumpy bed, cheap novels, listening to loons languidly laughing. Board games. Catching six inch rock bass. Watching the sun rise over the water. I feel guilty, but that time of recharging and reordering is overdue and needed. I like knowing that it is so so close.



I like:

Talking with all of you. You add such color and texture to the fabric of all our lives. Even though you don't hear the boss talking too much here, even he loves us reading to him what is going on in your worlds. He comes out sometimes to see your pictures (especially all you farmers.....especially when it is machinery-thanks for the combines, Jeffro). We talk about your babies, both bovine and human. Your cats, dogs, snakes and fish. Birds and weather in states far away and jokes from England that brighten the day. Thanks!

Possible Last Minute Action on FMD Lab Relocation

Back on topic here....A good story from the Cattle Site
about questions being posed to Obama's appointee for the Science and Technology Directorate, physician Tara O’Toole as the Homeland Security Department’s Under Secretary.


It is about time somebody at least noticed that the powers that be are planning on plopping an infectious cattle disease research lab down right in the middle of one of the nation's biggest cattle regions. Duh.

I Don't Know What to Say Here

What is the latest thing in hair treatment? You probably don't want to know, but if you do, click this link and prepare to be grossed out .

And Peta strikes again. They want Wisconsin to change its name to America's Dairy Cow Hell.

CAP and Trade

Good morning. Sorry about yesterday. It dawned clear and sharp and bright. The air was clean and fresh. It didn't rain. So everybody in the family worked like a dog with two tails to take advantage before it starts pouring again. (This afternoon by all accounts.) Between grabbing a good day when we could and Frontier being down most of the day, I barely even looked at the computer. We cleaned the barn and Becky swept the whole house. I weeded the small garden patch. The guys chopped haylage. We cleaned mangers. We moved heifers up on the hill into the big heifer pasture.

They are a bunch of big ones we really wanted to keep right by the house for the summer, as we are breeding them AI. We need to see when they come in season and be able to catch them to do that. There are self-locking stanchions there we can use for the latter job. However with all the rain the mud in the yard became ridiculous. They just couldn't stay in it any longer. Now they are in a huge field with no headlocks, where it will be hard to see them in heat let alone catch them. We had to think about their health and comfort though.

Unfortunately it is also the field where we are holding the dry cows and calving some of them. Liz goes out every day and walks that fence and checks for new calves or new problems. I will worry more now as some of the big heifers are aggressive and others are overly friendly. (When something weighs well over a thousand pounds, cuddly is bad.) She takes a cell phone and a big stick but still....it got pretty western yesterday moving some of them. One of them, a big, ugly beast named Armada, was downright dangerous when we were trying to get her up the lane. (I am too old to dodge charging heifers, I have to say.) I think she may have sealed her fate and be looking at an auction-bound trailer ride next time we handle them. I need money to pay bills and we don't need dangerous animals. This was the second time she has caused problems.

Today we get another good weather day before storms are expected for tonight. Liz and I need to set up a couple of calf hutches as we have more calves than we have places to put them. We need to get strawberries before the season ends. Rain and frost have made that a big problem. Becky needs to get taken to Walmart for going to Potsdam supplies.

We lost one of our best heifers to bloat Saturday night into Sunday (one of those in the barn until ten thirty nights). I for one still haven't gotten past it. If you have them you will lose them, s**t happens and all, but she was a Silky Cousteau out of an Ocean View Extra Special, a really, really special animal. It was just a freak thing. We treated her and had her coming around good, but she was still pretty weak. Sunday morning Liz and Ralph milk. She was okay then. They came in from the barn for breakfast and while they were eating she rolled herself over on her head and probably suffocated. Only heifer her mother ever had and she is gone too so.....

Just a lousy weekend overall.