Cow Down

I don't know about you, but when I have to get up before my appointed time and go out in the dark, I am pretty numb and dumb.

However, Cow #188, my ETrain, who has been keeping us crazy all week... due to calve two days ago, all bagged up, having some problems with hypocalcemia, and just not getting on with her job, required a visit from me early this AM. Thus numb, dumb, and all I staggered out to the barn a couple hours ago.

When cows are calving there are barn checks. It is just part of the job. There are bed time checks, midnight checks, and my personal favorite (because I am the one doing them) really early in the morning checks. (Up until a couple days ago we were also checking Liz's purchased heifer, Sugar, but she has now calved.)

This morning I found ETrain standing quietly in her stall chewing her cud and looking quite smug. Sugar was okay too. I took a quick stroll though the barn (with visions of that wondrous first cup of coffee dancing in my head) when I found a pile of manure where no poo should be. Right in the middle of the walk way.

Erp. Cow number 215, also mine, a good looking first calf heifer named Encore, had gotten down in her stall and was stuck. Nobody was up but me and they had done those other cow checks so I was on my own.

I won't bore you with the details....but closing gates on ice in the dark, even with the boss's flashlight which I liberated for the job, is fraught with peril. 1500 pound cows are too, when they get in a pinch and start thrashing around. However, I got her out of the stanchion, untangled from the stall divider, up on her feet, fed some grain for her trouble, and walked very carefully outside...where she stopped, completely nonchalant, and began to hoover up balage spilled during last night's feeding.

She has been having some problems getting up and down for a couple of weeks. The guys have modified her stall, filled it with sand, packed the front with soft bedding etc. etc. Now there is nothing for it. Either she gets moved, a tie stall is put in her place, or she sleeps outdoors in the shed.

Meanwhile, that first cup of elixir of wake up awaits me.

Humane Watch

Check it out here

Bag Balm

You can still use Bag Balm on cows too even though WaPo is all excited about other uses for it. (and here at Northview we still do).

Roast Wild Goose

Alan bagged a couple of Branta Canadensis back during the season (nearly dropping one through the sky light on his best friend's parents' house) and he has been after me to cook them. Never having cooked goose (and only having eaten it once...domestic...long frozen...and just plain nasty) I procrastinated.

Finally yesterday I relented, he thawed the goose that was intact (and the one that was much diminished by excess shot) and we hunted up a recipe.

We found this one.

Around here recipes are more like guidelines, so we threw in some extra stuff and left out some other stuff...dumped a box of prepared stuffing that was given to us on top of the critter. Tucked some venison steaks into the pot for anybody who didn't like goose (which could possibly have been all of us). Added a little vinegar, because we have discovered that, in terms of both tenderness and taste, it does a lot for slow cooking tough meat . Dried cranberries because there was the tag end of a stale bag in the freezer....etc

Then we stuffed it in the oven. Because of milking and chores, which keep me outdoors for quite a while, it got roasted about two hours longer than the recipe called for.

Didn't matter.

Liz tugged off the first piece to see if it was edible. Sure enough it was.

That verdict having been rendered the goose lasted about five minutes before the bones were picked so clean I am wondering if I will be able to find enough bits and pieces to make soup tonight. The guy that wrote the recipe says that it tastes like beef...and it really does, albeit kind of dry beef. Sort of like fine grained-chuck roast that got cooked a tad longer than you planned on. Savory and satisfying. I am amazed to find that I really like wild goose.

I recommend the recipe. All the recipes other we read that were geared for domestic fowl and would certainly have produced a meal fit for soling a pair of shoes, but this one made for a delicious change from deer and chicken. I wonder when the next goose season opens....

A Twenty-Two is Handy to Have

Whether it is a Mohawk 10-C, my favorite gun in the world, (unless some day I finally really find a cannon)

Or a fine, upstanding 22-year old daughter.

Happy Birthday Becky!

Sorry the good Lord didn't send warmer weather for the event.
Love you!

Sunday Stills...Textures

This should have been fun and easy and but for the perpetual tumultuous uproar and the frigid temps, it would have been. However....these two pics kind of tell it like it is. The forecast is for freezing temps, with snoozing cats....

For more Sunday Stills.......

Ice Bringer Moon

Nationalized Health Care Stinks

Stolen Borrowed from Dickiebo

Just ask people who already have it...

Grandmother, disgusted by filthy hospital, cleans up and cares for patients. Read it and weep.

I Like Change

Quarters, dimes and half dollars are my favorite.

When it Gets This Cold

It is all about the cold. Yesterday an email weather alert promised the winter equivalent of a summer squall line of violent thunderstorms. Two of the kids were out and on the way home and Liz's BF was on the way down. I knew it would be a close race whether they beat the storm here or were caught out in it.....I was talking on the phone with my brother when it hit his place maybe forty-five minutes west of here.

It was sunny when the call started. He said, "Wow, here it comes. I can't see Fred's place. Wow, now I can't see the place across the road......now I can barely see the trees in the yard."

I would guestimate that less than three minutes passed and the sun here vanished behind a black wall of cloud as dark as a bruise. It was like pulling down a curtain. As I watched snow began to plow in from the north and two more pieces of tin slashed off the big barn roof before the snow shut out all vistas here too.

To my relief, just as it got really bad, Liz trundled up the driveway from the post office in the little turquoise Dakota. Not half a minute behind her came the bigger blue truck bringing Alan from college. Big sigh of relief when the black one was right behind him.

It howled and screamed most of the rest of the day and most of the night. What a year for wind this has been! Now it is just breezy, but cold. Two above and I am sure it will drop more before sunrise. When it gets like this you have to plan how to wear enough clothes to work in it. My shoulders ache all winter from trying to work with so many shirts on. I am so looking forward to the time when outerwear, rather than weighing forty pounds, consists of a pair of shorts and a button down short sleeved shirt.

Meanwhile, it is time to go put on the down vest and heavy fleece and my wood gettin' gloves and my ancient Brown's Feed hat and see what froze in the cow barn. Have a good one!

Weather

Downy woodpecker

And still more weather. I know it's January and we have to expect it and all, but dang, it is cutting into my blogging time. Big wind predicted for today...hoping that barn roof stays down until we can get some estimates on fixing it and get the tin back on.

I hate the wind. We live just where the river comes out of a bend and it gets all lined up and howling and smacks right into our house.
Right where our bedroom is.
It actually gets kind of scary sometimes, like being on a tossing ship lashed by a storm. We don't get much sleep on nights like that.

Alan gave me heck for not posting yesterday, as he is back at college and was between classes and bored. What can I say? It was Wednesday, I was finishing up the Farm Side and the bills and feeding the baleage and I was just....busy....

That blurry little girl in the photo above crashed into one of the big windows and stunned herself. Thankfully that is a very rare occurrence. As it happened I was right there when it happened. I ran outside, snapped a quick shot, and picked her up very carefully, about two seconds ahead of a marauding barn cat. Literally. For a fraction of a second, she was small and still in my fingers, then with a flick of those outspread wings she was gone, down across the driveway to the ash trees there, safe for another day.

I was glad.

I KNEW I LIked Ray Stevens

Some Days

It doesn't pay to try to get anything done. I accomplished a little bit o' bill paying and chores yesterday and that is all. First thing in the morning I checked my Facebook. (Along with several of you and lots of family, Alan's best friend's mom is my friend on there). Her post shared the horrible news that Alan's friend's uncle and his wife, who farm with his dad, lost their whole house in a terrible fire. I feel so bad for them. I hope there will be some kind of community outreach for them that we can add to in some way.

Then the wind and rain hit. I grabbed a pic of this surprising January rainbow, thought it was all over, and wham, the next thing I knew the boss was hollering that tin was coming off the barn roof.
It was, necessitating several trips to Hands for canvas for emergency patches. No sooner had he left when Liz and her BF left too to go get some stuff and feed his horse. They got as far as the side of the house when the big attic window blew out with a crash. That meant that we had to steal the piece of plywood Liz uses to separate the cow stalls at the Altamont Fair and find nails (ours were in her truck, which her dad took to Hands) to put it over the blown out window before the howling gale lifted the house roof.

The phone rang and rang and rang. Normally we never use call waiting even though we have it. Did yesterday though, several times. The boss went over to put the canvas in place and found that the cows had broken the main water line from the milk house and were getting a shower...as was everything in that end of the barn. I had some plumbing parts under the sink, but not enough of course, so it was back to Hands for the third...fourth....I dunno, time. We shoveled out some stalls at chore time, and put in sand and some chaff to try to dry them up a bit. Thankfully, all the water didn't harm any of the wiring for the milkers so we could milk all right.




The craziness went on and on. We heard that a milk truck split in half at a farm not far from here, spilling thousands of gallons of milk on the road. Liz's BF found out that he had lost the second of his friends in two weeks in a car accident...too many funerals for sure. He and Liz just went to one last Saturday.....

Sirens and fire whistles went off all day. The whole valley echoed with them...sometimes the latter for half an hour at a time...it was just one of those days that you are glad when it is over. I sure hope today is calmer for everybody in the region.

Wood You?

Sunday Stills...Sports

For more Sunday Stills....

Desperation

NY Dairy farmer kills 51 cows then commits suicide. These are not easy times to be a farmer of any kind and dairying in particular has faced an unprecedented series of challenges recently. I guess this is just a heartbreaking symptom of the desperation that is undoubtedly being felt on a lot of farms these days. We didn't know this man, but my heart goes out to his family and friends....what a sad, sad thing.

Update....Here are two more stories, one from a friend, that I found after I first learned of this story.


***I am going to add a comment I left on Teri's blog because I understand too darned well .

"I am heartbroken for this man and his family. It is absolutely true that you get up every single morning worrying about being able to get by, how you will pay for ever more expensive necessities with an ever shrinking milk check. It is county tax time right now and I am sure plenty of farmers have a tax bill sitting on their desk like something radioactive, glowing in the back of their minds like a nightmare…waiting for them to figure out how to deal with a bill that will probably take more then two milk checks, which are already needed for grain bills and power bills and last year’s crop inputs. etc……..
We are losing something priceless and irreplaceable in this country, as our farmers give up in one way or another and our farmland turns into housing developments and malls….. and most people won’t even notice until it is all gone."

Pasture Walk

Cottontail

I have always been fascinated by tracking. I can claim no great expertise, but I love to go out in fresh snow or mud of just the right consistency to see who walked there before me.
Wednesday it snowed a little and Thursday morning conditions were right for a track walk. The sun was shining and the wind wasn't blowing so I went out with the camera to take a look around. I discovered an interesting surprise among the skeins of bunny prints, fox, coyote, bird, mouse, domestic cat and Nick the dog tracks I found.

Box elder

As it happened, the other day I stopped by a blog that I have followed for a while, but always seem to forget to read (I have now linked so I don't miss these fascinating posts.) Anyhow the author has been discussing tracking for a while and I found myself reading page after page. One post that really interested me involved a wild canid leaving a certain sort of triangular print in the snow when thrusting the muzzle down to sniff for prey.

No doubt I have passed this phenomenon before but wasn't aware of it and so didn't really see it.

Hot Showers and Warm Toes

Imagine my surprise when, right outside the back yard next to the pony yard, I found just such a triangular mark among a tangle of coyote tracks. I would have missed it completely except that Mr. Coyote had pulled a couple of feathers out of the mouse run he was sniffing and I spotted them on the snow. I didn't try for a photo as it was in an awkward spot, but it was neat to look down into the sub-snow mouse run. I'm so glad that I happened to read that particular blog post on that particular day and then walked past that particular nose print in the snow.

And I wonder why the feathers were there in the mouse run.

Mr. Mousy Built a Housie (Click for cool detail)
(this is not the nose print, but the opening of a different tunnel)

River Grape...
about five months from now the valley
will be sweetly scented by its inconspicuous flowers

Bailey

And Beausoleil.

They love me. I know they do. (Well, really I admit it is probably more like the bovine equivalent of anthropomorphism. They think I am a calf.......)

A little background...when we milk the cows, we first prep their teats for the application of the milking machine. Although other dairies use other methods, we prep with a half and half solution of Clorox and water in a spray bottle....spray on a few splurts, clean and dry thoroughly with a paper towel (sometimes repeating as needed), strip out the foremilk and attach the milker. When the cow has yielded up her share of the bounty, remove milker, spray again with more of the Clorox and water and you are good to go.

Simple and effective, right? Well except if you are me (or sometimes Becky if she is milking on my string with me, which she rarely does any more). Then when you get to the aforementioned cattle it gets much more interesting. They are both big old sweeties, Beausoleil is our oldest cow in fact, and they think I am a sadly deformed, but still lovable calf. Thus when I bend over to perform the prepping ceremony they treat me accordingly. (Not being fleet of knee I bend my back to milk).

Beausoleil is the most enthusiastic about grooming me up for the day. She grabs the back of my shirt and pulls me close if I try to stand out of reach. Then lick, lick, lick, with her seemingly bath towel sized, sandpaper rough and soggy wet tongue. Despite polishing my prepping technique until I am the fastest Clorox sprayer in the west (or east...whatever) she finds plenty of time to soak me thoroughly, pull my tucked in turtle neck out and completely ruffle up my composure. If I don't cooperate properly she will even push me up in reach of her snaky long neck with her hind foot...(which is more than slightly disconcerting). Sometimes I feel like a Timex.......

Bailey isn't quite such a dampening influence, but she "loves" me too. Her specialty is grabbing the tiny little seam on my jeans pocket and trying to drag me into the manger so she can do a good job of spiffing me up. You wouldn't think an animal with a mouth as big as a cow could to that. (if you wear jeans try taking a hold of that tiny little flap of cloth. Now imagine dragging a fat old lady around by it.) Bailey, who like all cows, has no upper front incisors, does it every day. It amazes me. (Between her and Beausoleil it also gets me all wet for the rest of milking.)

Guess I am glad that I am not a calf, but they are both real favorites of mine. Nice, gentle, sweet-natured cows, they are both a pleasure to milk despite the side effects of their affection. I wish all the cows were just like them.....except for the eating me alive part.....


****Liz is flying home to us today. Your prayers and good thoughts would be much appreciated. We sure have missed her!!

Wordless Wednesday

HSUS Rates the Legislators

New York: Gillibrand100
Schumer 83
Tonko 77

I won't tell you how I feel about this, but I'll bet you can guess.
Check your legislators here....warning pdf

Carrot vs Stick the Size of a Telephone Pole

What would have happened if either of the two parties, each of which had the world by the reins with great big majorities in recent administrations, had actually taken the pulse of real people, living real lives, with real jobs and real budgets, and (acting within the guidelines set out by the Constitution), actually done what folks wanted and needed? Those of us who keep our eye on Washington have had some pretty scary moments over the past few years as laws that will hurt us are formed. promoted, and passed without regard for reality.

(btw oftentimes I think that what people need most is for their politicians to sit down and shut up...during the so-called crisis in NY when the Senate didn't go to work, no bad legislation was passed. The Farm Labor poison pill they have ready for NY to swallow fell by the wayside during that period and they haven't managed to prop it up yet..not for lack of desperate effort...It is back on the table now and NY legislators need to hear from folks who oppose it...today would be a good time to call.)


Having been followed around for the past couple of decades by legislation-wielding politicians with regulatory clubs the size of redwoods I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting concept. Or maybe it isn't and I am just not awake yet. Liz made it safely to Iowa after numerous flight delays, which had us all huddled by the phone fretting.... we are all pretty sleepy this morning.....

I dunno, it's morning and I have to go to work. I'll think about this later. I am graining the cows now with a list Liz made me so I need to get myself in gear.

Here is a story on the NY Farm Labor Bill
Here is a petition State Senator Darrell Aubertine has up opposing the so-called compromise bill.

Macro Monday

Recycled Christmas tree

For more Macro Monday.....

National Farmers Organization

Liz is off to the NFO national convention in Iowa this morning (and yes, I am nervous, the weather is nasty, there is a plane that will land at Detroit airport involved, and I am a mom). She will be away until Thursday and I am already missing her, even though she is actually still here and making coffee...

She was selected as a young farmer delegate to represent the Northeast region for the nationwide farm organization late last year and they have taken great care of getting her set to go.

NFO came to our rescue last year when we lost our milk market, calling up out of the blue to offer to take our milk. We had barely heard of them, but they saved our bacon in a big way. After our long involvement in Farm Bureau (I have served on the FB county board of directors long enough to be term-limiting off for the second time next year, and Liz is serving her second term and does the newsletter) it will be interesting to learn how this new (to us) organization operates. I truly wish Liz's laptop hadn't croaked so she could blog from there and keep us up on things, but alas it met an untimely demise....

I have so far been to a couple of state NFO meetings and the state annual convention and Liz went to one state meeting to meet the board because of this appointment. It is interestingly different from things I have done before.....Farm Bureau and NFO have somewhat divergent ideas on what is best for the farm economy here and I find that I agree with some of both, but not all of either. Farm Bureau held their convention last week (some day I would love to be able to get away from the farm to attend that one, but that will probably only happen if we retire) and I was delighted with a lot of the policies that came out of that. We will see what turns up with NFO.

Anyhow, good thoughts and prayers for Liz's trip would be much appreciated. I fear that it will be a long week.

Sunday Stills...Moods and Emotions

Ho

Hum

Happy

Intent

Not in the MOOD for this

For more Sunday Stills.....

How Fair is This?

The Amish will be exempt from the new health care mandate. When the fools in Washington get done conducting a final frantic run to change my life and your life and the way we access health care in the future, (hurrying to get it done real fast before somebody, somehow rubs their noses in the fact that the majority of Americans don't want it) we will face FINES if we don't buy health insurance. The Amish won't.
(51% of American people are against this health care idiocy .....and I think the other 49% are asleep in front of the TV with a Bud and a bowl of popcorn...)

Nice. I can't pay my bills now. I give everybody some money each month, we spend as little as we can, and still we are looking at losing our cows and our business right now, this year, maybe even next month. (This by the way is unprecedented. We always kept up and were known for it.) Yet these jerks are planning to tell me I have to find money somewhere to pay for health insurance or else pay a fine.

Guess we will have to stop eating, because I can't think what else we can cut to come up with the money to buy their damn insurance. Bah to all of them.

***We used to have health insurance by the way, paid for it ourselves out of the milk check. However, we had to let it go because we couldn't afford it. Still can't

***can you tell that they have already incurred a considerable amount of wrath here? Have they no shame? They KNOW people don't want this bill, but they are going to pass it anyhow just because if they cheat and lie and steal, they can.

Cattle Groups State Principals on Cattle ID

I found the link to this information on the Livestock Marketing Association website. The actual document is a pdf so... I am sure there is room for improvement here too, but this list of principles makes more sense than many I have read so far. About time someone pointed out that there are already several systems in place to track diseased animals.

"A meeting of cattle organizations representing the beef, dairy and marketing sectors
was held in Kansas City, Missouri, November 4-5, 2009. The participating organizations agreed that a livestock identification plan for the cattle industry should be singularly specie specific because of the diversity in the way cattle are raised, marketed and processed. This system must be based on the following principles:

1. Additional costs to the beef and dairy industry must be minimized.

2. Any information relative to cattle identification information should be under the
control of state animal health officials and be kept confidential.

3. The system must operate at the speed of commerce

4. Brucellosis/Tuberculosis surveillance and control should be the model upon which
to build an interstate movement identification program.

a) Additionally, existing programs within our industry have proven to be
historically successful in livestock identification. These programs should be
recognized and utilized. [The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal
Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) February 2009 study of “Cattle
Identification Practices on U. S. Beef Cow-calf Operations” reported that there
is currently a high level of some form of cattle identification in cow-calf
operations in the United States. The survey of 24 major beef producing states
represented 79.6 percent of U.S. operations with beef cows and 87.8 percent
of U.S. beef cows. The study found that two-thirds of the operations (66.1
percent) used some form of individual identification on at least some cows.
Overall 79.1 percent of all beef cows surveyed were individually identified by
one or more methods, with 58.6 percent of the beef cows using an official
identification, such as a Brucellosis vaccination ear tag.]. Nearly half of the
operations (46.7 percent) used at least one form of individual animal
2 identification on calves, which accounted for 64.8 percent of calves being
individually identified. 61.3 percent of all cattle and calves had some form of
herd identification.]
b) The cattle industry recognizes that improvements can be made to these
programs and is committed to systematically improving the coverage, speed
and accuracy of these processes.

5. Any enhancements of historical identification systems must be phased-in over a
proper time-frame.

6. The first step in improving cattle identification is the individual identification of adult
cattle (breeding age cattle 18 months or older, excluding those going into terminal
feeding channels) by using the historically established federal and state cattle
disease programs as models, such as the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis programs
as they existed prior to any NAIS modifications. The goal is to accomplish this
voluntarily for all adult cattle changing ownership by 2015. (As we accomplish the
adult cattle goal as an industry, we commit to evaluating the phased-in addition of
other ages of cattle based on an industry evaluation of the cost/ benefits, feasibility
and value to continually improving U.S. cattle herd disease surveillance, control
and eradication.)

7. Producers must be protected from liability for acts of others after cattle have left
their control.

8. The purpose should be solely cattle disease surveillance, control and eradication.
The only data required to be collected should be that necessary to accomplish this
goal.

9. Maintain the historical state flexibility allowing State Animal Health Officials
discretion in assigning an identifier for the person responsible for livestock.

10. The 48-hour Foot and Mouth Disease traceback model is currently unachievable.
The goal of this program should be to enable the cattle industry, state and federal
animal health officials to respond rapidly and effectively to animal health
emergencies.

11. Renewed emphasis on preventing the introduction of foreign animal diseases of
concern.

12. We support the flexibility of using currently established and evolving methods of
official identification.

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.

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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!