99% Farms Family Owned

Here is another story about AFBF annual convention and some remarks from NY Farm Bureau President, Dean Norton, on family farms.

"About 99 percent of America's farms are family owned, Norton said, so the idea that there are these large corporate farms engaged in factory farm is really a myth.

"Sure there are bad apples," Norton said. "There are bad apples in every bunch, but people never look at the good stuff. They only look at the bad stuff. Only the bad stuff makes the news."

"American farmers have fed and clothed American families for more than 200 years and we're the leaders in the world in providing food and fiber," Norton said. "We're not going to let people not part of our industry tell us how to raise our animals healthy. We're already doing that."

Thaw

!Drip!

We are in the midst of a little one and it is truly a delight. Went out yesterday (several times) with no coat. Birds are everywhere; doves hang like delightful diamonds on all the dangly wires and branches. Dozens of gold finches, house finches, juncos and field sparrow (thanks to all who helped us with that identification) white-throated sparrows, and all the other common bird folk chink and cheep and flutter by. The yard is fearfully barren when they leave to glean the fields.

Lines of geese are flying urgently up and down the valley. When geese go somewhere they are very earnest about it, shouting out to one another and stretching their necks out eagerly toward their destination...even when they don't really have one and are just circling the river trying to decide where to land. Alas, the cove across from the house is frozen now, so I can't hear them when I wake up at night. They are all hanging around on the lawn down by the state transportation building instead. These are not migratory geese but rather residents, but they make a warm day feel like spring even though you know it isn't. I stood out in the yard with the dog, yesterday at midday, watching them flow by with the sun on my head and soft air moving slowly across my cheek and just reveled in it. It will get cold again...too soon...but I am going to enjoy this weather for all it is worth.


This is my garden pond (for FC, who has ice too...ice which I envy very much). Those marks are where I tried (and failed) to use my trusty hatchet to chop a place to set the venting heater...guess I waited just a little too long this year....

American Farm Bureau

Resolution on Cap and tax Trade.

"The delegates approved a special resolution stating that cap-and-trade legislation would raise farmers’ and ranchers’ production costs, and the potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs to producers. Due to these and other concerns, the delegates strongly opposed “cap and trade proposals before Congress” and supported “any legislative action that would suspend EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

“As Congress returns to the issue of cap-and-trade this year, the message of Farm Bureau will continue to be: ‘Don’t Cap Our Future’ agricultural productivity and food security,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “We will now send that message even more strongly.”

“Congress should focus on renewable energy that is better for the environment and our domestic energy security,” he added, “but it should not tie the hands of U.S. producers, whose productivity, historically, has provided the world’s food safety net. We should not shrink U.S. agriculture at the very time when many are concerned about how to feed a growing global population.”

New York Chainsaw Massacre

No humans were harmed in the destruction of this very expensive, perfectly tuned and sharpened, well-loved by its owner, chainsaw. I am very thankful for that.

Sure wish the boss had a better aim when felling trees though, and so does Alan, whose best saw this once was......sigh.......

Just When We Thought

....that the dairy industry might be beginning...just baby steps mind you...to crawl out of the terrible pit it has been in for the past year, comes yet another threat.

Favorable climate gives NZ farmers a huge advantage in dairying as their cows remain on pasture year round, expensive buildings are not required, and supplemental feed costs are negligible. Last time we got involved in trade talks with them and dairy was on the table, they got to send us Cheddar cheese, we got to send them cat food. Not so advantageous for our struggling industry.

Wordless Wednesday

Why

Was the calf in the kitchen? Well, it is pretty cold here still, although much warmer than last week's deep freeze. This guy was born either two weeks early or ten days late (not sure, but I am going with late) and he was walking around the barn when the boss and Liz got there Sunday morning.

It was cold.
He was wet and cold
His mama is a first calf heifer who had no clue what to do.

So Liz washed him with hot water in the milk house, dried him as best as possible, buckled him into a calf coat and then replaced that coat with a fresh, dry one when he was all dried out.

He reacted by getting out of the collar she tied him up with and falling in the gutter behind the cows while they were over at the house.

He was soaked, filthy and shivering so Alan gave him a second bath...however I didn't figure the calf coats were going to be sufficient to warm him. And although the Blitz cow was willing to be a substitute mama when he was just wet, this new form of wet was not so interesting to her.

Thus the kids carted him over to the house and put him in the big dog crate overnight so he could get truly warm and dry. As of last count he was fine, back at the barn, drinking up his bottle eagerly, so far none the worse for his adventures.

This is the house

And this is the kitchen............................................


What the heck is that calf doing here?

Sunday Stills...best shots of 09

A recent favorite

And one from way back last winter

For more Sunday Stills....

****For those of you who share my conservative leanings make sure and check out AKA Angrywhiteman's comment. I laughed so loud I scared the cat.

Scroll All the Way Down

Sorry about how messy it looks...I don't know how to format this kind of thing

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January 2010 Have You Herd… … According to the National Dairy Council (NDC), the new Fuel Up to Play 60 program, which incorporates both good nutrition and physical activity, is helping kids develop better lifelong habits. Read more here. … Skirt steak is an inherently less tender beef cut that needs a little help from a tenderizing marinade. Look for naturally acidic ingredients, such as orange juice, wine or vinegar. … Crowding steaks during skillet cooking will impede browning and create unwanted steaming. Watch For New Ads Starting this month, leading trade media publications such as BEEF, Beef Today and Dairy Herd Management will feature new producer communications ads with the theme “Producers can’t be everywhere, my beef checkoff can.” Watch for testimonials from O.D. Cope (beef producer) – Missouri, Dan Javor (veal producer) – Michigan, and Ken Nobis (dairy producer) – Michigan. Tell Your Story The Dairy Producer Communications Forum and lunch will be held Jan. 28 during the Cattle Industry Convention. This year, dairy producers and state beef council executives will be asked to put on their thinking caps as CBB producer communications Trade Media Manager Melissa Slagle and Dairy Management Inc. Vice President of Producer Relations Stan Erwine will lead them through an interactive working session designed with the future of dairy beef operations in mind. It is more important than ever before for producers to establish positive relationships with the community. With that in mind, this session will introduce attendees to some new skills and provide them with a number of tools to help communicate about their operation, including the beef checkoff-funded MBA program and dairy-checkoff “Telling Your Story” program. For more information, email Melissa Slagle. Training Costco Staff A seminar was recently held with Costco staff in Mexico to instruct them to be better advocates of U.S. beef. The seminar trained nearly 40 Costco meat buyers and wholesale managers so that they could answer consumers’ questions about U.S. beef nutrition and the necessity for meat in a balanced diet. Mexico is the largest export market for U.S. beef. Read more about Mexico. Beef And Dairy Partnership For the third consecutive year, the checkoff-funded Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program is partnering with the Dairy Calf and Heifer Association (DCHA) to promote beef quality assurance to growers of dairy bull and heifer calves. The partnership helps extend the BQA message into this often hard-to-reach segment of the cattle industry. In addition, it allows the BQA program to access some of the most progressive players in this segment of the industry and to help develop targeted BQA best-management practices for calf growers. For more information about BQA, visit http://www.bqa.org. Reminder: MyBeefCheckoff Blog Later this month, be sure to follow the latest Cattle Industry Convention updates via the MyBeefCheckoff meeting blog. We will bring you information from the meeting, including live interviews, presentations and much more. Don’t worry – if you can’t attend, you can still get the virtual recaps! Producers Telling Their Story Through checkoff-funded programs like the Masters of Beef Advocacy and Food Fight, producers have been encouraged to share their stories whether it be eat a local meeting, in the grocery store or on the Internet. Here’s an exciting blog that will give you insight into life on a dairy farm in upstate New York, written by “… Not your average stay at home mom....what with the tractor bearings and shotgun shells on the kitchen counter and the cow tie chains on the floor in the parlor...oh and cow magnets, the kind you put in their stomach, on the fridge... All opinions are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else.” Another great example of producers telling the dairy beef production story and having a little fun while doing it.

The Long Reach of this Cold Weather

There is more than discomfort contained in these harsh, cold days. Southern farmers are racing to protect their tender crops from the exceptional low temperatures. Surprisingly fish are among the hardest hit by the adverse weather conditions. Interestingly so are Florida iguanas, which are invasive in the sunshine state and unable to withstand the freezing temps.

Western and Central farmers and ranchers are struggling to harvest corn in snow too deep for combines. Many may wait until spring to harvest.

Besides making farming and ranching more challenging for those who participate, this affects everyone else as well. Fruits and vegetables will cost more. Anything made with corn will cost more. (A lot of things are made with corn.) Products produced by animals which eat corn will cost more. With the damage being done by water restrictions in California I will be surprised if we don't see a spike in overall food prices, although prices recently declined for the fifth straight month.

I hope wherever you are the weather is kind and that this winter doesn't overdo it and break any more low temperature records.

***and if you think we have food supply problems read this on dairy processing in Zimbabwe.
And this on iodine tainted soy milk originating in Japan.

****Weight loss foods which may surprise you (although if you follow research that is NOT done by anti-agriculture animal rights type groups you will probably already know)

What Birds?

Help! What are these weird little birds? They are the size exactly of English Sparrows but aren't...Are they some common sparrow we are too dumb to recognize or are they a hybrid? They look like tree sparrows, but there is no trace of a central breast spot and they are just not quite right....



I have been putting seed right under the dining room window so they would come close....they have obliged, but every time I get one in the screen somebody slams a door or drives up the driveway and they fly away....dag nab it. So these are not the best, having been taken through the kitchen window, where I have to hold the camera over my head and hope I actually have a bird in the frame.....

Sweet

My daughters are singing together in the kitchen. The men are in the milkhouse yarning...Chores are done...it isn't too cold, there is a soft breeze blowing instead of a gale force wind. The sky to the north is lit up by the cities and looks like an Easter egg from the dark side. Things are calm and gently peaceful...what could be sweeter?

Jingle

Just came in from taking Nick out for his morning constitutional. I feed the birds just outside the kitchen window, a practice which this year has been exceptionally rewarding. It is unusually cold, the ground is frozen very hard and the sparrow-folk are hungry. They come in droves....if you fill it they will come....We have a lot of juncos, an entire flock of white-throated sparrows, a whole batch of puzzling LBB's (little brown birds...I think they may be tree sparrows, which are a constant around here, but no central breast spot is visible,) plus a song sparrow or two and all the other common feeder visitors. Guzzling gold finches, hungry house finches, chattering chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, dozens of mourning doves and over on the other side of the house, the dearly beloved mockingbird clan.

Anyhow as I stood on the edge of the porch (barefoot, the more fool me) I could just barely make out an entire ground covering of small black blobs, standing in ranks around the porch, the honey locust tree and the garden pond. There were dozens and dozens of birds dotting every foot of ground, neatly spaced as if someone had laid out a grid pattern for them..
They were waiting for me.
(and my trusty can of sunflower seeds.)
I could tell by the jingle.

Is Dairy Farming Really....

One of the five worst jobs?

This birthday greeting really stinks!

Chocolate milk is the devil and will kill you. There should be a war against it......(I beg to differ btw...I lived on the stuff when expecting Alan and look how he turned out.)

****There was no childhood obesity crisis when we were kids. Of course we were barely allowed in the house either.....

Kseniya Simonova’s Amazing Sand Drawing over at Dickiebo's

Dickiebo has and incredible post up today. It is awesome, moving, purely beyond description. Please go visit him and take time to watch it. I guarantee that you won't stop in the middle.

Word for Wednesday

Protractor ..or maybe compass

I Feel Better Now

After looking at this for a minute or two...

It was around seventeen degrees most of yesterday...calm with not too much wind .... it felt plumb warm.

Warm I tell you.

It is incredible how quickly we can adapt to adverse weather. Here in the Great Northeast November was quite warm. Then cold weather came in hard and fast, virtually from one day to the next. It was pretty miserable to adjust, but we can and do get used to nasty and cold. (I will never get used to it taking fifteen minutes to get dressed in the morning and that is just the indoor stuff...)

Last night after milking Alan, Liz and I were feeding baleage. We pull the bales apart, fork big piles into a double-axle wheel barrow and bring it inside to feed out by fork.

Alan loads

I wheel

Liz feeds out.

About five minutes into this job and I was shedding shirts and sweaters like confetti...Standing outside in the half-baked moonlight hatless and bare handed. I ended up carrying my outer shirt, my down vest, gloves and hat all into the house rather than wearing them. If you had told me that would happen on Sunday when I was sitting around trying to read with a hat on and a blanket over my head I would have thought you were joking. Amazing what happens when the wind goes down and the temp comes up....even a little bit.


I am putting this sheep shearer up on Craig's list today. It has literally only been used to shear two sheep. I quickly discovered that I stink at shearing and did it with scissors after the first time. We no longer have sheep so....

Update

We couldn't get the house above fifty degrees yesterday, which is far too cold. The outside air temperature wasn't that bad...maybe 8 above, but the wind was ferocious. Horizontal snow all day. I wanted to invite AlGore to visit and sit in the living room and chat for a bit. He deserves goosebumps the size of real geese just as much as the rest of us do.

What is with emails from certain people that vanish from my inbox just before I need them? I needed to send some money to someone for something, wrote them for their snail mail addy and their reply vanished. I know I didn't delete it...nothing in sent mail or trash. Same exact thing happened with the same person last year, so I think it is some program they have on their mail. Makes me look dumb as a rock, which is not an experience I enjoy very much...now I will have to write them again, second year in a row...maybe I should learn to keep a hard copy.

Planted some indoor lettuce the other day..We do love our winter lettuce. Usually it germinates in three or four days, but it is so cold...inside...that it is still just sitting there. We need a nice January thaw.

Everyone is in a horrible mood around here so I am just tip toeing around them and hoping they all get their kinks worked out and get back to normal.
Soon.
In the meantime I sure hope the Lord will grant me patience because I need a double helping and quick!

Sunday Stills...Food

For more Sunday Stills

Monster Storm This Weekend

Or so the weatherman says. We are not supposed to get much here but wind and small accumulations, but our friends and neighbors to the Northeast may really get nailed. (Deb has a new farm website here...it is pretty darned nice.)

Anyhow, those of us who did chores this morning got in extra bedding and got the first feeding done early and the boss sanded the driveway for the milk truck. (Our hill is wonderful in flood times, but we pay the price in winter when the ice comes. I am glad we have a good guy to bring in sand for sure.) The boss leaves a skid steer bucket load by the back steps for me and I dump on some salt and take care of my walkways over here by the house with it. This year some enterprising soul left a bag of feed grade salt on the porch so I am using that.

It has been so cold already this season that the guys have stapled plastic up over windows we never have covered before. It certainly helps with the indoor temperature.

Lately I have been brushing my old cow Beausoleil after milking. She is such a sweet old thing....if she had her way I would just stand in her stall and brush her maybe twenty hours a day. Alas I am only good for a few minutes worth, but she and I are pretty good friends just the same. There isn't a drug on the market better for stress than brushing a nice old cow.
Stay warm!

*****If you get a chance today, go see Linda. She has some REAL cowboy poetry that will make you glad you are warm and cozy.

2010

Sometimes a piece of yarn is a mighty fine thing

Good morning all, and Happy New Year. Not much to say yet, beyond those things.....
I hope for all of you and for our nation and our struggling world that this just-born year with the neat name...twenty-ten, I like that...will be better, kinder, sweeter in the savoring, than this one just past was.

Good things happened last year though, in between the struggles and problems. Mom made it through chemo and is her wonderful self again...and maybe it is good that all of us learned to appreciate just how wonderful that self always has been. She is such an enthusiastic, upbeat, happy and loving person, always able to see and enjoy the bright side of every single thing in life. We have been so darned lucky to have her as our mom all those years, anchoring, negotiating peace and making really good soup. Nowadays, I at least, know just how grateful I need to be for that.

Brotherly peace and love found our family this year in so many ways...... I will be grateful for that forever I expect. I wish that my whole life I had appreciated the folks in my family. They sure were and are good folks.

Scrolling back through the photos here on Northview this past week in the course of writing my year end retrospective for the Farm Side, I got to see and remember just a little of the amazing beauty that was put on parade for us day in and day out. I hope this upcoming year I remember to stop and savor all that a little more, in between worrying about bills and breakdowns.

Thanks for visiting! Best wishes to every one of you from all of us at Northview Farm

Happy New Year!

Fireworks for you!

Outdoors

Smiling up at the eastern moon
A sky the color of butternut smoke
Geese on the river
Talking in tongues
And the chores in the rear view mirror.
Nothing more to say and nothing more to ask for....a good night....

Oh, wait, it was certainly a fancy moon, what with the way it was shining through those thin clouds of ice and snow and glowing brighter than the ball in Times Square, but who knew that it was a blue moon too? The boss's dear aunt, who is in her nineties but sharp as a tack and sweet as sugar, called to remind him. I was glad....sometimes you need to look at the moon.

Cold With Possible Irruptives

Yep, it's winter. Not my favorite season. Barn has flooded three times this week because of sump pump failure.

Hope they got that fixed finally. I am sure the men hope so more than I do, as they are the ones who have to pump water out of one gutter and into the other...Alan got kicked pretty good working behind one cow named Baha. Don't know what has gotten into her lately but she sure has turned miserable. Liz got kicked too, in the knee just like Al.

What is up with these cows? Really I think they just don't like this kind of weather either. They are inside a fairly warm barn and have what they need to eat brought to them, but it is still probably not as comfortable as when it is say, fifty degrees, which our milk inspector says is a cow's favorite temperature (I lean towards 70 myself.)

Anyhow I am working at grinning and bearing it, as there are plenty of people who are experiencing much worse weather than we are....it is winter after all.

The cold sure does bring in the birds. I think I saw a red poll day before yesterday when I was on the phone with the milk inspector (discussing Liz's upcoming trip to Iowa). I didn't have my glasses on so I am not going to be betting on it yet....but I think so.

I won't lie. I am real nervous about that trip. It is an honor to be chosen to represent the entire Northeast region of the National Farmers Organization and I am excited for Liz. What an opportunity!

On the other hand, guess where she has to change planes.
And January is winter there too, with all sorts of accompanying weather possibilities. I will be glad when it is done and she is home and regaling us with stories of all the goings on.

Well, time to milk the cows and then polish up my own year in review essay for this week's Farm Side. Stay warm if you can.

Horses for Lisa

Our bird counting peregrinations take us past a pretty horse farm with neatly trimmed barns and long, white fences....and horses, beautiful, playful horses.

These Percherons were playing, leaping and rearing and spraying snow everywhere, like a beer commercial or some other exciting thing. Alas, this was the best I could do....






The sunset was pretty cool too.

Our Bird Count Totals, Day of the Jay

No "ooh-ah" birds this year, although I guess team Mayfield South counted the only horned larks. There was a neat little flock of them feeding in the up and down way they have near a horse pasture we passed.

We saw:

1 sharp-shinned hawk
7 Red-tailed hawks
1 Unidentified hawk species...see below




4 Downy woodpeckers
1 Hairy woodpecker
6 White-breasted nuthatches

6 American goldfinches
1 House finch
1 Northern cardinal

1 Mallard duck
4 Unidentified duck species...probably more mallards, but they got behind a tree in high speed flight
134 Rock pigeons

7 Ring-billed gulls
167 Starlings
14 Tufted titmice

157 Common crows
19 Dark-eyed juncos
14 House sparrows (Sassenachs)

4 Tree sparrows
137 Black-capped chickadees
55 Mourning doves

24 American Turkeys
25 horned larks
And 97 Blue Jays

I doubt that 97 is the highest count we have had with jays, but it is certainly the most in a while. They were everywhere in flocks of as many as 25 at a time. Guess they have recovered from West Nile and are having a good year.

It was certainly a weird day. We have been counting MFS for a very long time, probably over twenty years. In that much time you learn where the birds are likely to be, droves of chickadees on Maloney Road, lots of everything good on Ashler Road if it is passable, etc. Yesterday, the good spots were virtually all bereft of birds. Instead we found them in weird places, like a large mixed feeding flock in the parking lot of a tractor trailer place where we have never seen a single bird before. Strange...also strange is not seeing a single Canada goose. There are still hundreds of them down here on the river just a few miles from our territory.

As always it is fun to get out with the family and count the birds. The brothers and I are the second generation to work this territory and we all three of us have kids that will probably keep up the tradition in the future. I for one am grateful for those sharp young eyes when they ride out with us.

Dave Barry

Year in Review

HT to Jeffro, whom I thank with much gratefulness.

It's better not to hike the Appalachian trail....just sayin'....

Help! What Hawk?

Sunday Stills...Odds and Ends

For more Sunday Stills....

Christmas Bird Count Today

The forecast is very mixed, with the potential for rain, freezing rain, flurries or sun...
or even all of the above. Here's hoping it is halfway decent and that we see the great blue heron that was just down the road from the folks' house on Thursday.

Had Christmas with the family yesterday and had the best time. There is just nothing like folks...and your own folks are the bestest folks hands down.

Hope you all had a great Christmas...will report on the bird count later.

A Quiet Christmas

With partying today...weather permitting.....

Merry Christmas from Northview Farm

We thank you all for making our Christmas so much more and are all wishing you much love and joy ....... friends and family together in heart no matter how great the distance may be.

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza

Liz makes the dough (she also took the pic above)

I make the sauce.

Here is the recipe for the dough. Liz puts in more garlic and honey and leaves out the onion powder.

There is a Ball Joint

On my kitchen table. It looks sort of like a heavy, black, shower head, but is proving much more troublesome to add and subtract from a certain Dodge pick up truck.

Yesterday a friend of the kids' spent his whole day helping in the attempt to remove the old one so that this new one could be installed. So far with small success. (Until he is better paid, I fed him...cookies...sweet and sour maple venison as per the earlier recipe, homemade applesauce and a pile of potatoes....best I can do....we are in the process of inventing a cookie recipe these days. We started out with the three-ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe given to us by a dearly beloved, really nice family member, who is at least as sweet as his cookies, and added oatmeal one time...chocolate chips the next...and yesterday a handful of coconut.....not bad so far. I'm thinking raisins for the next experiment.)


Here's to a better day today.

PS to all you kindly commenters....any time, any time at all..we do food fairly well and there is certainly plenty of the other side of the equation as well.

The Things You See

In a simple farm kitchen

DELAP Payments Processed Yesterday

I spoke to a friend at the local USDA office yesterday (she was kind enough to call me so I could put it in the Farm Side) and she said that they had processed these payments. They will be a welcome stocking stuffer (so to speak) for the nation's dairy farmers. The payments were calculated based on milk production between February and July of this year. This number will be doubled and paid at a rate of thirty-two cents per hundredweight.

Although there is no question that this is more than welcome, milk prices were $5.55 lower for that same hundredweight of milk than last year, meaning that hauling out of this hole will be a long process. (I heard estimates at a milk cooperative meeting I attended that said that it will take three years of twenty-dollar milk to even pull most farms even.) Prices have shown some slow up-ticking over the past two months, with class 3 hitting around $14.85 for December milk, which well above the low for the year. However, the all milk price for the year, according to Bob Cropp, will be.$12.75, still far below the cost of production.

Here's hoping the national and world economies recover enough over the next few months that folks can afford dairy products again....and that the big guys pay attention to the anti-trust investigations that are occurring and let some of their record profits trickle down to the folks who produce the products they peddle.

Macro Monday

With the same theme as last week's Sunday Stills, which I missed...this is one of my favorite Christmas ornaments and one of only four on the tree...so far...this one stays downstairs on the China closet door year round as I can't bear to put it away.

For more Macro Monday...

Thank You

Called brother and sister in law this AM to talk about some hay they are bringing us for bedding for the bossies. Something Lisa told me then has us all full of wonder and amazing joy (and kind of choked up also). Someone, we are not to know who....but someone that we have "met" here at Northview Diary...and in their home as well I'm sure.... somewhere away from here, but close in the way of hearts....bought us eleven more bales of haylage for the cows.

I am afraid that I don't know how to say thank you well enough. Actually, I barely know what to say at all....I am so overwhelmed by such an incredible kindness. The hay Matt and Lisa brought us during that terrible storm last week already got the cows up two hundred pounds of milk. a pick up (and we even haven't fed three bales yet) which sure is moving in the right direction. They love it and jump right up and start mooing as soon as we start to feed it. It means a lot to us that they cared to bring it to us....We are so lucky in the people around us and the people we have met here.

We have come to care for our blog friends as if they were family in a way...as if they lived next door, or down the street or across the river. We talk about their lives when we are working in the barn....their trials and joys...grand kids, horses, dogs and gardens...snow storms and sunshine, a world of wonderful folks at our fingertips. Politics and doctor visits. Snow storms and sunny Florida beaches....all enrich the fabric of our daily lives.

They...or perhaps I should say you...are an important part of our world. One of the best parts. I can never wait to get on the computer when I come in to see who has said what or what is going on. You are great folks and I am grateful for you.

This is more than we could ever have imagined though...

To the person who bought us these bales, thank you, God bless you, we are more grateful than I know how to tell you...Your caring means the world to us this Christmas, here's hoping you and yours have a wonderful one as well.

An External Combustion Engine

Is not a thing to be wished for.




And Tupper Lake is a long way from home.

***We made it home all right, but it was a trip from Hell. Becky is home to stay and I am more thankful than you could possible imagine that I never have to make that trip again...especially with a car that keeps catching on fire whenever you stop.

Sweet and Sour Maple Venison

Compile in a good heavy pan:

4T cooking oil
2T butter
1 large coarsely chopped onion
1 large clove garlic finely chopped
* Optional: a little lovage if you have it/celery if you don't

Saute until onions begin to turn clear

Add:

A couple of pounds of venison stew meat

Saute until brown

Toss in:

Italian seasoning to taste
*Optional: A little more garlic
* Optional: A tiny pinch of salt

Dump on:

1/4 C vinegar
1/4 C maple syrup
1/4 C Ketchup

When all ingredients are nice and brown and bubbly and the house begins to smell really, really good,

Add:

Two or three cups of water.

Seal the pot tightly with foil or a good, tight-fitting lid, and cook in a 325 degree oven until the meat is fork tender and succulent.

Around here that is for about as long as milking and chores take.
Anywhere normal it would probably be around 2 1/2-3 hours, more or less. Take care that it doesn't cook dry as the "gravy" is the best part.

Serve over rice or potatoes.

****This recipe is a happy accident I came up with the other day while working on 1001 ways to cook venison when your freezer is full of deers and you are out of beef. We really liked it and hope you will too.

Hmmmmm

DELAP Payments Being Sent

According to NY Farm Bureau USDA has said that payments will be mailed by December 24th.


Below is an earlier press release on the topic.

USDA Announces New Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment Program to Provide Financial Relief to Struggling Dairy Producers

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the implementation of the new Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment (DELAP) program. The 2010 Agricultural Appropriations Bill authorized $290 million for loss assistance payments to eligible dairy producers.

"Through this program, eligible dairy producers will receive economic assistance that will help stabilize their operations during these tough economic times," said Vilsack. "I have personally heard from hundreds of struggling dairy farmers from all across our country who have been hit hard by declining prices over the past year, and now, we'll be able to offer them help."

Milk prices declined substantially through early-to-mid-2009, with the national price for milk averaging $16.80 per hundredweight (cwt.) in the fourth quarter of 2008 and averaging $12.23 per cwt. in the first quarter of 2009, a 27-percent decline. On average, the price U.S. dairy producers received for milk marketed in the summer of 2009 was about half of what it cost them to produce milk.

"The dedicated employees of the Farm Service Agency deserve a great deal of credit for acting quickly to provide this critical assistance to America's dairy farmers," said Jim Miller, Under Secretary of USDA Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services.

Eligible producers will receive a one-time direct payment based on the amount of milk both produced and commercially marketed by their operation during the months of February through July 2009. Production information from these months will be used to estimate a full year's production for an operation to calculate the payments, using a 6-million pound per dairy operation limit.

Dairy producers who have production records at the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) county office because they participated in another FSA dairy program do not need to apply for the program. FSA will use existing production records for February through July 2009 to calculate and issue their payments.

Producers who have not provided production data for those months to FSA, and have not already been contacted by FSA to provide such data, have 30 days, until Jan. 19, 2010, to apply. FSA officials estimate that more than 95 percent of eligible producers will receive benefits without having to fill out a new application.

A national per hundred weight payment rate will be determined by dividing the available funding of $290 million, less a reserve established by FSA, divided by the total pounds of eligible milk production approved for payment. Based on current information, FSA estimates that 875 million cwt. of milk production will be eligible for payment. The reserve will cover new applicants and appeals. The expected payment rate is approximately $0.32 per cwt.

To be eligible for DELAP, the dairy producer and the dairy operation in which the producer has a share:

• Must have produced milk in the United States and marketed milk commercially at any time from February through July 2009;
• Must have milk production data for those months;
• Must certify to all milk production produced and marketed by the dairy operation during that time.

Also, any dairy producer who has an annual average adjusted gross nonfarm income of more than $500,000 for calendar years 2006 through 2008 is not eligible for DELAP.

For more information and eligibility requirements on the new DELAP program, please visit your local FSA county office or www.fsa.usda.gov.

Better

Got nuttin' today. It is 8 degrees and sunny. The world is coated in an icy shield about three inches thick. Went back to wearing old sneakers to work as it is impossible to walk in hard plastic. It is good to see the sun shine just the same.

However, other folks have done better than I and have had interesting things to say this past week...

Liz has a good solid list that will help you know whether or not you are a dairy farmer.

Willow Witch has a story that will bring tears to your eyes and shivers up your spine.

Lisa is finishing up the barn loft.

Wish Linda a happy blogoversary.

If you drove one of those wonderful muscle cars...or just wish you had, go see Jeffro and dream of joys gone by.

Tomorrow Alan and I must go to Potsdam to bring Becky home....wonder what the Dacks will have to show us this time.

A Real Farm Take on FarmVille

This gave me a chuckle, but it is quite true. The farming games are a lot of fun and I play them too, but they are pretty far removed from reality (which is fine...they are games after all.)

Hope and Change

The dairy industry is changing rapidly these days, and in fact many days I feel as if it is changing right out from under us. I put a post up here on the Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment Program or DELAP a couple weeks ago, with a link to what was known at that time about this bail out for desperate farmers.

I soon started getting a few hits a day as people looked for news on the much needed assistance program. And since that day no more information has emerged...or not that anyone can find...and each day I get more and more hits from all over the country as farmers try to find out what is going on with it.

With all this change there seems to be little room for hope. Even if the government gets its payment into the hands of farmers really soon nobody is making enough to pay the bills....milk costs around seventeen bucks to produce and we have been getting ten all year. The price is up to thirteen now, but that isn't going very far to make up all the losses. We are all discouraged and grateful for any shred of good news that might come our way.

Yesterday we had another lousy day with a visit from our milk inspector to deal with some equipment malfunction that was damaging our milk quality. We pride ourselves on receiving quality premiums every month so that was a blow.

After a long day of coping with that and all the usual other stuff I stood outside the milkhouse door with Alan during the last few minutes of chores. I can't remember just why we were standing there, but we were right beside my shorthorn, Broadway's, stall.

I glanced over and noticed a curious bulge waxing and waning along her right flank. She is a bit of a skittish young lady so I had to be very slow and careful to lay my hand there (she milks off the other side and doesn't worry about what I do over there). I stroked the wiggly bulge. It thumped at me and slid around under her thick, red skin. Every touch of my hand elicited a more than equal and opposite push or shove in the other direction.

Then I had Alan put his hand there and pet her side a bit. You should have seen him grin as the bulge danced against his hand. At that point, big old BW started swatting at us with her tail so we stopped bothering her, but it is nice to know that there is a lively calf in there waiting to be born next February.

Hope. It is still there I guess, in the future, and in the next generation of cattle with which we will mingle our lives and dreams. I hope B-Dub, as I call her, has the calf all right....don't care if it is a bull or heifer; we will keep it either way as we need a service sire for heifers. Hope we are still doing this when she has it and haven't had to sell them to pay the folks to whom we owe money....

Milk Truck Roll Over

Right across the river. The boss's dear aunt heard about it on her scanner and gave us a call. Not our truck and no one hurt, but much excitement in the little village of Fonda.

Wordless Wednesday