Back to Barn Checks

After a couple weeks of peace after Etrain had that gigantic bull calf, it is back to O'dark-thirty in the morning excursions to the barn to check springers....springers are cows that are close up to calve. Right now there are three, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, a tiny little black Holstein named Magic, and arguably one of the nastiest cows we own, a largely-white daughter of Four-of-a-Kind Eland. We like our Eland daughters as a rule, but the less said of Crescendo the better. Still good or bad, loved or dreaded, they all get the same care and that means barn checks.

I can't tell you how comfy my bed was this morning. Soft, warm, peaceful...well except for the wind howling that is. And you can easily bear raging weather from the depths of fifteen quilts and afghans (well, maybe not fifteen, but you get the idea.) It is not quite as easy when you know you have to go out in it.

But I did. I had been dreaming of shorty calves all night. Milking shorthorns are not the most highly thought of in the dairy cow line...by some folks anyhow. However, we really like them. Our shorty steers grow up quite thick and sturdy and the only heifer we have milked so far, Broadway, gives as much milk as a Holstein. I value my B-Dub as I call her, and even if I didn't duty was calling loud and clear.

Sometimes a nighttime/almost/sorta morning barn check offers an unexpected beauty, clean white snow, sparkling stars, dazzlingly clean air blowing by, any of the other features of the thick of night may be present. This morning the sky was a muddy grey, the snow was worn out from yesterday's traffic and I was afraid of the damn fisher, which has been tracking up the creek every night.

Still I got er done and am back in the house, comfortably accompanied by that wonderful first cup of coffee. Everybody is fine, no calves yet though, so unless they all have them today I will be doing this again tomorrow.

Have a good one!

Things from Florida

A person from the exclusive, two member, best brother in the world clan and his lovely wife sent us oranges this week....the real kind. The ones that taste of sunshine, sharp and tangy and yet fulsomely sweet. They were so welcome. I was literally wishing for fruit, nibbling leaves off the indoor lettuce and wishing for fruit...when the boss came over from the barn with them. (For some reason known only to themselves UPS left them on the milkhouse step.)
Paradise..that is all there is to it.....thanks bro!



And as I was watching the feeder yesterday I realized that among the white-throated and field sparrows there were a couple of white-crowned sparrows. A few minutes later I heard part of their distinctive call. Usually they are here for a week or two in April and then are gone. Nice to see them.

What Farmers Contribute

This is a neat little movie with some figures on what America's farmers produce that astonished me...and I research agriculture every day and read dozens of newsletters each week.

Coopers or Sharp Shinned

You make the call.. Coopers have white at the end of the tail and a big head...this one has no white, but the tail is very worn...head seems smallish....but it is a pretty big bird like a Coopers.


***Verdict is in. Retriever Farm's husband is a biologist and he says sharp shinned. It was picking Sassenachs out of the wild roses today and Alan said the same thing. Thanks everyone.

More yellowtail HSUS

This time from the NY Post. The reaction to the wine company donation to the animals rights organization has gained real traction in the past week or two. I think at least a few folks are finally getting it.

Sunday Stills...Valentines Day

......I want to dedicate this week's Sunday Stills to my incredible parents who will celebrate 59 years of wedded devotion in September. I love you guys! Thanks for the shining example of what love is.

A geode, with crystals, a long ago gift from my parents.
See the heart?
Do click

Details, details

And some gifts from Liz's Valentine and mine, the Stewart's coffee and gumdrops are hers...and my Valentine has been getting up first and making me a cup of coffee and turning on my computer all week....thanks guy.....


For more Sunday Stills....

New York Farmers are Bloggers Too

If you want a glimpse of New York agriculture as seen through the eyes of the people who live it, there is no shortage of options.

You can visit The New Farmer's Blog for some useful thoughts on frugal menu planning and interesting discussion of farm issues.

Or Teri's wonderful Farm Life, the story of a little different style of farming, an often comforting, yet also thought-provoking view of just what its title says.

Or Putting Up With Annie's Crap for a dose of wry humor and real life farm stories

John Bunting's Dairy Blog for in depth insight into milk pricing and the convoluted challenges it poses for the dairy farming economy. Today he writes about the dismissal of the NFDM casem
yet another outrage in a seemingly never ending saga of unfairness.

Liz's BuckinJunction, which is often about rodeo, but is also a journal of farm happenings....and Maqua-Kil Farms her other farm blog

And not least, my lovely sister-in-law, Lisa's story of happenings on their little piece of NY farming, Southview Farm

Red Tailed Hawk

The boss called my attention to this visitor. He was being mobbed by a couple of crows and landed quite near the house, so I grabbed a couple of pics through the window.

Zac Brown Band and PeTA

Read about it here:

"Dear PETA -- Plants are living creatures too . . . Bacon had a mother, but so did Pickle. It takes life to support life -- welcome to the planet," the Grammy-winning group wrote on their Twitter page.

I Got To Do a Guest Post

Over on Breezey's blog, Books! It was a terrific amount of fun to write and I hope you can take a minute and cruise on over.

It is about one of my very favorite books of all time, Suds in Your Eye, by Mary Lasswell.

Potential Change in Milk Cooperative Law

Bill passes to give farmers voice in cooperative voting.

Bloc voting has not worked out at all well for dairy farmers under the cooperative system. It is too easy to sway a handful of representatives to do whatever coop management wants done.

On the other hand here is a piece on the other side of the story. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but work certainly needs to be done on the way coops function today.

The national issue and the state one are not identical, but you can get the idea of what is going on with the issue from the two stories.

More Maple Venison

I love to cook using foods that grew on the farm. Our own beef and pork and vegetables from the garden are a given, but there is special value in the wild crops that grow on their own as well. We love wild game, especially this year when it has been our main source of protein, and the maple syrup from the sugar bush on the Northwest corner of the place is incredible. And there are a lot of ways to use it besides drowning pancakes.

Up until this winter we didn't really know how to use venison. Alan usually gets at least one deer. He is a good hunter and a good shot, so the meat is much better than that from an animal that was wounded, chased over five or six miles, and finally dispatched after an incredible amount of stress. Still, it wasn't beef. Stew and steak were about the best we could do and it turned out edible but not wonderful. I always cooked it like beef, which resulted in something that was okay, but not as good as beef.

This winter, the winter of no beef, necessity has become the mother of invention. Thus we are inventing recipes for deer (and goose, grouse and cottontail) because we were sick of eating leathery stuff that tastes like hooves.

One thing we never succeeded with before this year is roast venison. Every way we tried to roast deer before either turned out dry, stringy, and gamy or rare. I will not eat wild game that isn't completely cooked.

Enter the wonders of maple syrup. The Iroquois who lived here before us paired the two in their cooking and they sure knew what they were doing. Once we took a lesson from them and added maple syrup to most of our recipes, venison has become a delight rather than a chore.

The other night I decided to make some roast venison for sandwiches.

First I sauteed chopped onion, garlic, lovage (for which you can substitute celery) and Italian seasoning in a thick pot. When the onions began to soften I tossed a couple of slabs of venison, cut for roasts, on top and gave them a good browning, turning them occasionally with tongs.

When the outside was brown I added a cup of vinegar to the pot and boiled the whole shooting match for a bit. Then I poured maple syrup over the roasts.
Thickly.
Don't be afraid that wild sugar will make your meat taste sweet. It doesn't, but rather adds a smokey, savory flavor that is incredible, something like mild barbecue, but not at all acidy.

Next I added enough water to keep the meat from drying out, maybe halfway up the side of the roasts, tucked the pot tightly closed with foil, and roasted in a 350 degree oven for as long as it took to milk and do chores, (maybe a couple of hours out in the real world).

Most of the water cooked away and we ended up with venison that was as tender as the finest beef, succulent and juicy and amazingly flavorful. We made sandwiches on nice, fat hard rolls, then used the leftovers in a rice casserole, with zucchini from last summer and some really, really good rice we found over at the Dollar General in Fonda. I wish we had cut a lot more roasts instead of the stew and steak we did make. Next year........

The Fisher Returns

This time there were no close encounters of the uncomfortable kind, but there are tracks up the creek between the house and the barn. I think I want to get some batteries for my real bright flashlight and stop going back and forth with the little dim one I normally use around the house.

Is It a Very Strange Love Affair

Or is it hate? (hard to tell with a cat.)

(Especially a warped cat. And Elvis is warped...hates all other cats with a killing passion. We think he is channeling a dog...Maybe an 80-pound pit bull rottie cross with issues.)

Anyhow, I went out in the front hall the other day (it is part of the house that is closed off for winter) to find Mr. Kitty himself glaring at me, with that half/guilty/half go-to-Hell look that cats have, as he mauled this kitty.



He had to sneak upstairs through two doors that are kept closed and get up on the saddle rack in Liz's room to get it.....we are perplexed......how did he pick out a cat from all the stuffed animals available...and what is he thinking? Maybe I don't want to know...

Sunday Stills....Salsa or Hot Sauce

For more Sunday Stills.....

Winter to the South, Robin to the North

Seems as if a lot of this winter's worst weather has hit folks well to the south of us. This weekend's nasty blizzard is no exception. I feel real bad for the people getting nailed, (but I have no desire to have them send our weather back). I think that the storms are actually targeting AlGore, and a lot of innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire.

On the happy side of things, I was trudging to work the other morning, looking down so as not to land on my fanny on the ubiquitous ice, ice and more ice, when what to my wondering ears did appear but the musical chirp of an out of season robin.

I looked up quickly, despite the ice, and there he was in the old elm above the cow stable, red as a fiery sunset, and launching every now and then into about the first three notes of his summer :cheer-up-cheerily song.

It is not all that unusual to see robins up here in the north even in the depths of the cold. A few winter over across the river from us every year and we can generally drive over to Route 5 to see them tearing up the staghorn sumac if we want to. It was sure nice to see this guy right here at the farm though....

Meanwhile, if you are in the path of the big storm, stay in, stay warm....and keep it there.....

****Update, check out the comments! Our Florida friends say the snowbirds are heading back north...no, not the folks in Bermudas and Hawaiian shirts, the robins and blackbirds. Can't wait until the get here!

Did Obama Really Abandon NAIS

Or is it going to spring up again in some other form?

"After concluding our listening tour on the National Animal Identification System in 15 cities across the country, receiving thousands of comments from the public and input from States, Tribal Nations, industry groups, and representatives for small and organic farmers, it is apparent that a new strategy for animal disease traceability is needed," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "I've decided to revise the prior policy and offer a new approach to animal disease traceability with changes that respond directly to the feedback we heard."

The framework, announced today at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) Mid-Year meeting, provides the basic tenets of an improved animal disease traceability capability in the United States. USDA's efforts will:

• Only apply to animals moved in interstate commerce;
• Be administered by the States and Tribal Nations to provide more flexibility;
• Encourage the use of lower-cost technology; and
• Be implemented transparently through federal regulations and the full rulemaking process.

Yellow Tail Wine and HSUS

Have you heard about this wine company's $100,000 donation to that anti-agriculture, anti-meat, anti-dairy organization, which has proudly announced ,

"We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding."

Yep, Yellow Tail gave a boat load of money to HSUS, supposedly to rescue animals, but we all know that it will be used to lobby voters in places like Ohio, where despite farm groups setting up an animal welfare board, they are still putting their own anti-agriculture legislation on the ballot.

Yellow Tail has a Facebook page where farmers, ranchers, and just plain folks are letting them know just how appalled they are. You can too, if you want to.
I did.
You can "un-fan" them after you let them know what you think....of course it is said that they are deleting aggies' comments and/or ignoring or misinterpreting them as in favor of their foolishness, but I guess anybody dumb enough to send money to HSUS is probably too dumb to read real well either.

****I gotta tell you, I am everlastingly in awe of the power of the Internet... Where else could farmers share their opinions in such a powerful manner?

Growing Onions Indoors

Every day Northview gets a number of hits from people looking to grow lettuce and carrots indoors. We have done both with good success and in fact found the task surprisingly easy.

This year we tried a new "in house" crop. Walking onions, or top onions, (those big eclectic critters that perpetuate themselves by growing little onions on their tops and dropping them to root and grow new plants), thrive in a number of large clumps around the yard (will share if you are local and want some).

Thus last spring I planted some in an ordinary dollar store hanging basket in plain dirt and let them take care of themselves all summer. Last fall I brought them in, fed them a little fertilizer and stuck them in the kitchen. No special lighting, they aren't even in a window, no special care. (Although we do dump the coffee grounds in the pot when Liz makes "real" coffee).

They have thrived and we have had all the green onion tops we could use. Last week during the thaw I spotted a handful of last year's top bulbs that had melted up out of the snow, so I started a second basket. They sprouted brisk growth in four days and will be ready to join the ongoing harvest in another week or so.

I have always gone outside whenever the snow was low and chopped off a few stems, but having them flourishing indoors is wonderful. Soup, stew, whatever, it just looks (and tastes) better with little green rings of fresh onion floating on top.

We also added a bucket of parsley to the pot of chives that has been spending summers out and winters in for years. We solved the problems we have had with the parsley bringing in a healthy crop of nasty insect pets like white flies and mealy bugs by letting it freeze good and hard and then bringing it in. Not a bug in sight and lots of tasty green for cooking.



If any of you have other ideas for growing food plants indoors I would sure love to hear them. It is terrific to cook with fresh vegetables and herbs that don't cost the earth because they are out of season.

Milk Fever + Monster Big Calf=

Almost no sleep for anyone.

Etrain started calving at the end of milking last night. Liz spent several hours in the barn waiting for something to happen....

She and Alan gave E a bottle of calcium sometime between ten and eleven. (I went out but by that time the clock was pretty blurry.)

Calf was upside down first time Liz palpated her. Cow thrashed around for a while and got it mostly straightened up. Ralph and Liz finally got the head and legs just right somewhere along towards midnight. Darned cow wouldn't lie down though, which is less than desirable for all concerned.

I suggested everyone adjourn to the house for a little while and turn off the lights so maybe she would lie down. Liz went out maybe fifteen minutes later and the old girl had managed to get herself in trouble. Liz let her out of her stall and pulled the calf...a monstrous bull that looks about six months old already.

Etrain wouldn't even try to get up and was trying to prolapse. Ralph sewed her up and we administered more calcium, oxytocin and an anti-inflammatory drug.

And we waited. She lay there alternately taking great interest in licking her calf and eating hay and drooping down into a frightening stupor. Still wouldn't even attempt to get up.

Around two-thirty they sent me to bed so I could get up and take care of her this AM while they slept in a little.

I didn't figure she was ever going to get up. She looked pretty forlorn, down on calcium and exhausted from trying to have that beast of a calf (which by the way was up and trotting around the barn begging lunch off anybody who was willing about ten minutes after it was born.)

As soon as I got up this morning I dragged myself into my barn clothes and shuffled on over to the barn for maybe the twentieth time in 24 hours. The boss's flashlight, which I stole again, made the new-fallen snow sparkle like diamonds. I didn't care and thought so out loud. E is one of my very, very favorite cows. If you search this blog you will find many pictures of her and stories about her. She is a real pet, which is not the best way in the world to manage cows if you want to hang on to your heart all in one piece. It is an unwritten law known to anyone who keeps livestock that it is never the bad ones that something happens to.

I didn't know what would be waiting for me, but I sure didn't expect what I found. I have no idea how she got where she is, because I don't want to wake anybody up to ask...however, she is lying on the grates over the stable cleaner, yards and yards away from her stall.
Chewing her cud.
She had to have walked there somehow, as her butt is facing down a narrow aisle where there is no possible way anyone could have put her.

At least she isn't dead. And I really, really hope she can walk by herself. Otherwise milking and cleaning stables is going to be real interesting, as stepping over a thirteen-hundred-pound cow filling the entire walkway to overflowing is going to be a bit of a challenge.

Wish me luck...I am expecting another long day.

*****Update: Thanks for all your kind thoughts. Although E is by no means out of the woods yet, Liz reached down a few minutes ago to see if her back end was warm (cold fresh cows are cows likely to be suffering from milk fever) and she jumped to her feet and moseyed away. She needed another bottle of calcium early this morning, so we may have more episodes, but my dear big girl is back in her stall, eating like crazy and mooing and cooing over her gigantic baby boy... I am delighted. I suppose it is a fool's errand to get so attached to a cow, but I sure hope she makes it.

Chicken Rescue

I am sorry. I don't mean to be hardhearted, but this is just nuts.

Chickens Rescued in Drug Raid Headed to Sanctuary. Flying to Indiana and driving a thousand miles in a rental van to rescue 40 scrawny chickens makes about as much sense as.....

"Chickens are delightful animals...." said one volunteer.

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.