Sunday Stills....Clouds

It was a good week for clouds....I didn't touch the color on these, just a little minor cropping.

For more Sunday Stills......

The Price IS a Crime

But we just buy our fertilizer. Farmers in Peru feel more strongly I guess.....


Farmers Kidnap 13 Cops, 4 Civilians in Peru

Not Much Excitement

And I like it that way. The guys are starting a fourth ag bag today. Wish it were the fifth...or sixth...
Crops are sure short with the terrible weather this summer.

We are so glad we didn't plant a lot of corn as what we have is terrible and we still have to pay the cost of planting, fertilizing and applying weed control to it. Sweet corn doesn't look too bad...if the raccoons stay out of it we will have some to eat and freeze in just a few days.

The boss brought down a skid steer bucket load of chopped barley and new seeding for me to bed the babies with last night. It was kind of mungey and nasty, but I am cleaning them out, liming the beds and bedding them up twice a day for their comfort and for fly control. I was running out of stuff to put under them. Anyhow, he left the bucket down and we had to fight to get it away from the cows. Something about it must have tasted good to them. What we rescued was nice and fluffy for the babies though.

We counted the other day and we have THIRTY-THREE babies in the barn right now. Some of them are yearlings that really need to go to pasture, but mostly they are little calves. Liz has been feeding as many as 25 on a bucket, which is a bucket load of work I'll tell you.

I enjoy the task of keeping the tiny ones comfy though. They are so cute. Often after their beds are clean they will stick their noses down into the fresh bedding and then buck and jump like rodeo bulls just for the joy of playing in it. I have to be careful what order I bed them in because the feet fly right past my head sometimes. It is so satisfying though, when by the time we finish milking they are all lying down with their knees tucked up, chewing cud and watching me work.

All is good.

More Chuck Jolley

This week Mr. Jolley interviews Kevin Murphy about anti-agriculture activism and what response farmers can offer. As are many of Mr. Jolley's articles, this one is worth taking time to read.

I Hate to Say It

But the signs are all in place.

Foggy mornings.

Shrieking cicadas in the honey locust right next to the kitchen window. There are so many and they are so loud they drown out even the Thruway.

Gold finches in droves, tinkling from thistle to thistle. There are hundreds and they do the baby raising gig now when the seeds they like are plentiful....the other birds have gone silent, even the mockingbird....

Shrinking days....summer days are like wool sweaters. They are hot and itchy but you love them anyhow...and the hotter it gets, and the soggier, the more they shrink, until they are just too short to be good for much of anything. We are getting there fast, alas.

Fall is almost here...

Cecropia Moth Caterpillar?

We think so.

Cash for Clunkers

Dairy farming has its own version of this program. It is called Cooperatives Working Together, or CWT.

Just for Dairy Farmers

****And of course for consumers who are interested in what happens behind the scenes in the milk production industry.

John Bunting has had several posts this week on processor profits (up 176% this year at one notorious company) and how the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents the big food companies (which are growing ever richer at the expense of dairymen and women) have sent a letter decrying efforts by government officials to direct a little more cash toward struggling farms. Worth reading. I learn something every day.

Entries

Liz and I went over yesterday noon to make our fair entries, expecting as usual to stand in line for a goodly time. Amazingly there was almost no one there and getting entered was a snap. Same at the photo kiosk at Wally World. We printed up our photos and picked up some appropriate frames in no time. (I went with the silhouettes and frogs, along with some landscapes from Pecks. Liz chose rodeo pics.) Now I just have to choose between a chicken and the frog head close up for my 8x10. I printed both just in case. Took some Italian sausage soup to mom and dad while we were out and ran the other errands as well.

We had kinda, sorta decided not to enter Blitz in the fair. Lotta work and all. However, while standing in line I looked at the stack of parking permits. Hmmmm....cows at the fair means exhibitor parking. No cows at the fair means best of luck getting a place close to the barns. And after all, cows or no cows, the barns is where it is all happening.

I asked Liz, "How much extra just to enter one cow?"

She replied, " I don't know...it can't be much."

She knew all the particulars like sire, dam and DOB, so quick like bunnies, she made out the entry form right there in line. It ended up costing fifty-five extra cents to enter her big cow. We have to scare up a few bales of decent straw and get her trucked over (a whole mile) but looks like Maqua-Kil Blitz Mendocino is headed to the fair this fall.

Fair Entries

Today I guess I will be heading over to Fonda to make my fair entries. Last year I picked a few photos off of Northview, printed them and entered. They came in second, which was quite a happy making sort of event and I got a pass which is always quite handy. Then I gave the framed photos away as Christmas gifts, which worked out pretty well too. Thus I will do the same this year.

The fair is less than a mile from here so no matter how determined I am to stay home, the lure always proves irresistible, every single year. How can you pass up a chance to meet dozens of friends you haven't seen since last year, see hundreds of lovely animals (although if Altamont is any yardstick numbers will be down), eat lots of bad for you but oh, so tasty food, and partake of the atmosphere of a county fair? I know I can never quite resist.

So....now I need to choose some photos....I was thinking maybe these....or these....any suggestions?

Thank You

To CTG Ponies for thinking so kindly of Northview. She gave me this award yesterday

Pass the award along to 7 of your favorite bloggers, based on your personal preference.

I couldn't possible settle on just 7 of you folks to pass it along to....you all are special favorites of mine.

Thanks also to Linda, who told me how to do these award thingies! I never got it right before.

Le Danse Macabre

Would describe the weekend all too well. A little background....the kids have been showing cows at the Altamont and Fonda fairs since they were small. Liz was six the first time she led her calf of the year, Sonora, into the ring at Fonda. Last year the show schedule was scaled back to just Fonda, as gas money is scarce and Altamont is far away...(and there are other issues...if you show there you know all about it). Then, just for fun they entered Liz's Blitz cow back at Altamont for this year....just one cow, just to hang out with the kids who show and thus have some fun at the fair.

As soon as entries were made and the health work done, Blitz, who had just calved, came down with a 103+ degree fever and lost a lot of weight practically overnight. An antibiotic put her right, but not in time for truck in, which would be today. She will be all right and all but looks awful.

Okay, stuff happens. Everybody is tired anyhow and there is still Fonda in a couple of weeks. Maybe she will be fit by then.

Then we came in Saturday night to discover that a kid Liz has known since he was little, drowned in a pond while swimming with his brother. He shows calves for one of her best friends. Suddenly, cow stuff didn't matter so very much. Kids from the bunch that show together spent the weekend commiserating over the internet. I didn't know him, having scaled back my fair attendance as the kids became old enough to run the string alone, but that doesn't matter. Losing a kid is the worst thing there is. My heart goes out to the family and the whole gang at the fair. Not much of a year for the kids for sure.

Then comes the macabre part. As soon as Liz came in from chores yesterday morning her phone began to ring. It was Price Chopper calling the Barter and Donnan funeral home to find out where to deliver a meat platter. Strange, but things happen with cell phones. Then they called again. And again.

More people called for the funeral home. Where to park. When was this viewing or that? We tried calling them to get it fixed, but guess whose phone rang when we did.

By mid afternoon she estimated that she had received over thirty calls. Even the local telephone operator called to ask what the heck was going on. Liz likes to take a nap on Sunday. That was just not happening. Of course she could have turned off the phone, but there were friends trying to call over the tragedy over the weekend and she didn't want to do that.

Finally, I got on the Web and found a weekend phone number for Verizon. I won't discuss their weekend customer service operators, because this is a family blog. Needless to say we were not pleased with the disinterested response we got.

So I composed a kinda, sorta firmly worded email, which she fired off to the company. (Have I mentioned that I do firmly worded quite well and by this time we were pretty aggravated?) Within an hour the problem was fixed and the minutes that had been devoured by the misplaced calls were replaced on her phone.

And to be fair, it wasn't Verizon's fault. Someone at the funeral parlor accidentally routed all their off hours calls to Liz's cell.

However, it was a weekend of sadness punctuated by weirdness. Macabre is a good word for it.



***Update, just read the news...this is just a couple miles from us. Talk about weird.

And this from Jinglebob
I knew NY had issues, but dang! Just dang....

Sunday Stills, the Four Elements

Earth

Wind

Fire

Water

For more Sunday Stills....

Dickiebo Insisted

What do you do

When late blight takes out your tomatoes and potatoes?

You make fried green tomatoes and baked potatoes. Lots of them. Found a recipe for the former that involves baking rather than actual frying. Yum.

More Dairy Action, Schumer asks for Anti-Trust Action

Here.

***Thanks to Jean for this one

And here is a much more detailed look into the subject, from John Bunting's dairy blog. (Click on each page of the Feingold, Schumer, Sanders letter.) For all you farmers who have spent the last decade gnashing your teeth over failure to act on anti-trust issues in the dairy industry, here is a little something kinda, sorta hopeful. Now all that is needed is action.

This letter, from the three senators to an assistant attorney general, is pure dynamite. We all knew this stuff was going on, but to read the numbers laid out one after another is shocking! Even if you are not a farmer, this should tick you off. Every time you pick up a gallon of milk you are being deprived of competitive pricing, plus the farmer who produced the milk is being kicked in the teeth. Check it out.....

Hunting a Lost Calf

We found junior Holstein critter just south of here.

While the boss and Liz were at the ball game (they had a great time btw and the Mets won 9-0) Alan and I undertook to find a missing calf. Bubbles, a big Ocean View Extra Special daughter of mine, had a bull calf by SWD Valiant out in the heifer pasture a couple days ago. We let her stay with him for a day then went to bring her down...and couldn't find him. It's a big pasture with a big hill.

If we didn't find him quickly yesterday we were going to put her back out so she could find him for us, but that wasn't our top choice as we would have had to sort her out from about twenty or so young stock again and she is a very hard to handle critter. She is a big cow and will charge you. I was wishing we worked stock on horseback like our rancher friends. Then we could have made short work of the job.

First we searched the thistle patch at the bottom of the hill. You wouldn't think a hundred-pound, bright black and white spotted calf would be easy to hide. However if mama pushes one into a clump of thistles it will lie invisible and never move even if you walk past it a foot away. We once searched all day for one that was lying right under a forage wagon that we must have passed twenty times.

After plenty of scratches and scrapes from the miserable thistles we decided that it just wasn't in there and headed up the great big hill behind the house. He went east and I went straight south.




A few minutes later I heard a hoarse moo somewhere south of me. I couldn't see it because of a patch of wild roses the size of a truck. It may sound silly but I can do a pretty successful imitation of a mama cow calling her baby. I proceeded to do so. Soon I could hear eager little moos hurrying in my direction. I pulled out my dog training whistle and called Alan. (Yeah, besides using the shepherd's whistle for the dogs I have always called the kids with it too...you can hear it a long ways away...people in town always thought I was awful calling my kids with a dog whistle, but it always got them home when I needed them.)

The kid is a lot more likely to be able to grab a calf on the hoof than I am. He hustled over.

We still hadn't actually seen the calf, but he went down behind the clump of wild rose bushes to where we could hear it bawling eagerly for mama.

When it saw him it took off at a dead run.
Straight back at me.
I was wearing my camera, carrying Alan's 12 gauge and a sorting stick. Needless to say I didn't grab it but just got out of the way.....Looked like Secretariat sailing away back to the north over the hill and gone....feet barely touching the ground in that weird off center run that cattle have.

Alan said..."point where it goes for me and I will run it down."

I did and he did....at least a quarter mile over the top of the hill, down the other side and back into the original thistle patch. When he caught up he grabbed its hips and pulled it to a stop. It fought like a wild thing, which I guess it was, but he put the halter I was carrying on it and began to lead it to the barn.... after we looked for his hat for ten minutes or so...it was lost in the race.

All the way to the barn the little bugger attacked him, charging his legs and bawling and snorting. I was like a wild rodeo bull in miniature. I felt sorry for it so..... scared at not finding its mother and instead being pursued by such a strange blond wolf. All is well that end well though and it is safe in the barn where no coyotes or turkey vultures roam.

But oh, how I wish I could run like that. And a long time ago I somewhere heard a story about how the breeder of SWD Valiant lost her prefix and couldn't use it on the calf, which went on to be a highly regarded Holstein sire. Thus she used SWD, which stood for Sold With Dam, a common auction term. I have no idea if this story is true but I think I will name my little bull, Frieland RWA Bat Man....RWA for runs with Alan.

Just Another Wednesday

Late blight has been hitting the northeast in a big way, spread I guess from some tomatoes from some garden center. I grew my plants from seed, but alas the horror spreads on the wind and from the looks of the lower leaves yesterday I am getting hit. My potatoes are already on their way out. Fortunately they have developed enough for the potatoes themselves to be dug, so I dug a bunch yesterday and will try to get the rest today. They are quite nice. I hosed them off outside and they were sitting in a bucket by the sink when I heard...crunch, crunch, munch, munch....
What the heck. I am used to pork chops vanishing.
Bread doing a bunk.
But potatoes!
Who knew!

That sheepish look is because of the camera, not because I begrudge him a couple of spuds.

Later I was picking a batch of green beans for supper when I heard a hen turkey cut-cutting just feet away. It wasn't Lucy, who was down by the horse barn, but rather a wild one we have been seeing out in the horse field. I never did see this one, but I would estimate that she was within six feet of me hidden in tall weeds. It was kind of cool.

Right now a cardinal is whistling up a storm in the cedars by the front door . This is the first time one of them has used the acoustics of the front hall to amplify its song, although other birds do it regularly. You wouldn't believe how loud it is.

Farm Side deadline today, but there is so much going on in the dairy business just now that it shouldn't be hard to find material. Hopefully finding time won't be a problem either.

Someone special is taking Liz and the boss to NY for a Mets game today. The rest of us will be holding down the fort without them. Liz is over graining the cows right now, so I don't have to, but I will be doing it tonight. I think she is worried about me handling it, but I used to do it all the time....I am more worried about all the dozens of calves on buckets right now.

Things are Hopping Around Here

(Excuse the grubby fingers, this toad was brought to you by a hard working man)

And there is some discussion about just what the hopping things in question are. I never knew that we had Fowler's Toads around here, but Alan insists that some of the little guys that we are finding everywhere are not plain old American toads. (I am not going to argue with him. He is the college fisheries and wildlife student and I am just his mom.) They DO seem to have the diagnotic extra lumps in their wartiness. Whatever they are, and I suspect some of each of our local common toads, they are everywhere. You have to watch where you step in the driveway, as they blend in amazingly well and are hopping all over the place out there. I know some toad whoopee was being made in the heifer watering trough all spring, because I could hear them singing all night and half the day. I suspect there may have been some happening in the garden pond too, although I never caught them in the act and they are a pretty shameless lot.

The little ones seem to have an extra measure of cute that is irresistible. I found one when I was out feeding my dog Nick that was small enough to sit comfortably on my thumbnail with room to spare. I put it in the quart cottage cheese container I take the dog food out in (after feeding the latter to Nick of course). Then I took the container in to Becky and said, "Look, I have one little kibble left."

She glanced into the container, did a double take and began to carry on in utter delight. She is as tickled as I am by tiny toads. After a careful examination baby toadlet was carried out to the edge of the pond, where he was much safer than the center of the driveway. Later Alan brought a big one in to compare to the Fowler's on the Internet.....hmmm, spots here, spots there, I think I may, I think I might....be right about this toady tonight.

You see, I have raised my daughters and son right. They love herptiles like outdoor folks should. I am delighted by all these toads and by a baby green frog Alan found on the bridge. By the myriad garter snakes we find. Red backed salamanders (which I have known as plethodon cinereus so long that I have to think to come up with their English name). Milk snakes....although we haven't seen many of those this year yet. All the hoppy, slithery, scaled and slippery amphibians and reptiles that hang around us. I guess we are lucky that most of our local critters are non-poisonous and in the case of the toad, downright neighborly. It makes enjoying them so much fun.

The Expert Has Spoken

Thanks to everyone for an interesting dialog on the Glen Beck Cash for Clunkers story yesterday.

Kim Komando, the digital goddess, addressed it on her blog yesterday and you can read about it here.

And here is her conclusion:

"Personally, I think this is an example of what happens when lawyers aren’t properly supervised. This language is just so over the top."

Drink Milk, Live Longer

Thanks to World Dairy Diary

Milk drinkers live longer.

“Furthermore, childhood diets rich in dairy or calcium were associated with lower all-cause mortality in adulthood.”

Another recent review, in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, made similar findings. It found that dairy products conferred an “overall survival advantage” against vascular disease, diabetes and cancer."

Have You Seen This?

If this is true, the government appears to be permitted to completely take over your computer if you log onto Car.Gov for the Cash for Clunkers program and accept the privacy statement. There seems to be a great deal of discussion on various sites as to whether the privacy statement exists at all and as to whether it says what Beck says it does. Some people think that it is only the dealer log in page that requires that you give up all your information to big brother...but even so...should Uncle BO be allowed to look into everything on a business computer like that?

Anyhow, I am not logging in there to find out.

I hope you will share your thoughts on whether this is actually in the privacy statement and if so, what it actually will mean to folks who opt into it. Meanwhile, I would avoid that site like a patch of radioactive poison ivy. Good grief!!

Macro Monday Revisited

Macro Monday

Sunday Stills...Fences

I had to hit the archives this week. This is a fence that we were quite glad was there.....

And below, is what most of our fences look like this rainy, rainy summer.....



For more (and better) Sunday Stills

Dum Da Dum Dum....The Name

The naming hat has had its say. My new red baby's brand new name is Northstar.

Thanks to June for naming her.

Thank you all for all the great suggestions. Hope you will help again, the next time I come up blank in the naming department.


And in the pointless, but fun department, yesterday was not a great day. Weather issues, farming issues, general misery because it was still raining issues. Last thing at night, after chores were over, Becky and I ran downtown to do a few errands. We needed an extra copy of the paper for a friend, as the Farm Side runs on Friday. We also needed to pick up our own copy at the bottom of the driveway.

I always get a kick out of opening to the editorial page on Friday to see what title the editor has given each week's submission. This week I wrote a sort of tongue in cheek lament about leaving camp behind...I love the lake. Even though I love home too, it is always hard to change gears at the end.....Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I had, not only a nice title, (The Vacation's Over Blues) but a cartoon! Yep right in the corner, next to that lovely 11 year old photo, which makes me feel so good every single week, was a cute little drawing

It describes exactly how I feel! I drove home grinning from ear to ear after seeing it.

More on Moving the Biolab

Lawmaker slams plan for Kansas bio threat lab. (Thanks Elaine)

What puzzles me is why it took so long for legislators and quite a lot of the ag media to get all over this. England is a pretty small country on a not so large island. They probably had no choice but to place their research labs among farms and cattle.

Didn't work out so well for them. We already have a lab dedicated to the study of infectious animal disease.....on an island, in the ocean, far away from cows. So of course, the powers that be want to dump infectious material right into the heart of Kansas cattle company. What are they thinking?

Thanks

Thanks, Linda

Farmers Number 8

Check it out

HT Amanda Noltz at Beef Daily Blog

But wait! There's more! Here is legislation that is LONG overdue. Now lets see if they pass it.
And enforce it..

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.....