Dogs Gone

A fat blue folder of dogs long gone
Doggone them for leaving
Their place by my feet
For not being puppies
And herders
And guarders
For leaving me waiting behind here at home
While they move on to wide fields
where cows always come running
whenever they roam.

Reading through pedigrees,
Floss, Wisp, Nell and Craig
Davy, Bobby, Sadie, Robbie,
Whitelow Jan,
Dryden Joe,

Grand dogs of the past from Scotland and Wales
All gone now too,
Though their names ring behind them
From the hills and the sheep and the big sheep dog trials

Years ago all combined to make Mike, Nick and Gael
The three collies who worked here
for fifteen long years
Making chores easy and crazy and fun
Tracking in mud and shedding black hair
And lying there sleeping right next to my chair

Mike is long gone now and Nick's getting old.

Gael lies in the kitchen
in front of the gate
Too blind to be watching
Too deaf now to hear
But you still can't get by her
She'll find you no fear.

I was looking yesterday for a picture of a border collie to help me in painting the latest wooden animal project to come my way. In the course of the hunt I dug out my old training books, finding pictures of the likes of Wiston Cap (read the bit in this story about whistle training. I have seen it myself...a dog that knows nothing about whistles working to them anyhow) and so many other great ones. It has been a while since we had a dog here that worked, but when we did they were an incredible help. I really miss just sending a dog to move cows where we want them. Now it's do it yourself if you want it done, and cows don't respect middle-aged-going-on-elderly, ladies near as much as they do fast, young dogs with sharp, white teeth.

Nick at 11 is still eager and biddable, but I could never really use him on the milk cows. He likes to bite above the hock...right where the udder is...and so is not trustworthy. Gael is fifteen and past it all, except for toddling along behind me on the way to the garden.

Mike was a good one. Born knowing more about herding than I'll ever learn.
I didn't deserve him, but I am so glad I had him. As I looked at his registration papers I realized it was no wonder that he was such a terrific dog. Wisp was his grand sire...two time International champion...and I had the honor of working with him, training him, being trained by him. Damn I was lucky.
It was bittersweet to page through the books and registrations, old licenses and vet's receipts.
I was so privileged to have had such a dog...such dogs in fact...but I miss working with them. Their lives are too short.

We have four dogs now, all elderly, what with Nick and Gael, Wally the blue heeler guardian of the barn, and Sadie, the boss's late mother's old mutt, but I am getting the itch to get a puppy. You can't ever replace an old dog and no pup can fill their footprints....but a puppy grows....and learns...and leads you new places where you haven't been before. I'd like to find a puppy.

A working puppy, with the blood of the great ones running through him....
Training stock dogs was the most challenging thing (next to parenting) that I ever did (or more like tried to do). I had to learn several new languages from come bye and away to me to reading cows and sheep in a whole new way.
From training the dog to listen to me and convincing him to work with me to thinking where he needed to be and where I needed to be to make the cows go where we both wanted them without getting anybody run over. From knowing two lefts from two rights...his and mine (and if you want to get complicated, the cows' lefts too) to balance and pressure and outruns and drives.
It is a game I want to play again and I do believe that I am going to need a new dog to play it with.
It is getting hard to wait for him.

It has rained

It is raining. It will rain...and rain and rain and rain. Or so it seems. Work on everything has ground to a halt. No hay, no roofing, no gardening, nothing but chores and house work. Of course there is always plenty of those to do.The tractor pull was canceled so the guys came home and slept off the three AM start to the day before chores.

We have a lawn buck to go with the doe. He came peeking in the window and trotting around the lawn on Saturday. At least a four-point, thick with velvet. I suppose they may have something to do with the absence of tops on the beets in the upper garden...

And I leave you with some baby mockingbirds as I don't have much else to offer. We have all sorts of babies from robins to downy woodpeckers. They are the highlight of the season right now.

The Guys are off To Dansville

Big brother is taking Alan and the boss to the big tractor pull at Dansville today. Alan got up at three-fifteen and got the cows in. They were not at all in favor of that. Cows love routine and they resent and protest change, especially being asked to come in to the barn a couple of hours early. It took him over an hour to get them down. Then the boss and I helped him milk them.

A pic Alan took a couple years ago of our friend's tractor, the Supernatural.

I am hoping the guys have a great time at the pull...the girls and I will milk tonight without them.

***Update, the Dansville tractor pull was canceled and the man are back :(
This rain has a lot to answer for!! The guys got all the way to Syracuse before they found out.

Best Post Yet on the Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Read it here. FC is a Gulf Coast native...someone who lives it and loves it. Read his post...it will break your heart.

No Dairy Farms Left by 2024

Check out John Bunting's blog for some very disturbing figures.

Case 930

Coughed up a head gasket yesterday. It is the mowing/baling/hauling/you name it tractor...or it was.....good thing Alan is studying Ag engineering AKA diesel tech.

Egg Quality a Success in Ohio

Read about it here

Don't Forget the Book Sale

20% off through the month of June.....

***That is a small section of my dining room book shelf, not my folk's shop.

How Loud was that Commercial Anyhow?

Did it wake you up from the best rest you will get today? Happens to me all the time.....However, they are finally thinking about legislating against the way television stations crank up the volume whenever they are hoping to sell something...not unlike a kid with sixteen speakers in the back of his car pulling up next to you at a red light and blasting rap that rattles your windows.

I don't actually watch TV, being more of a reader sort of person, but I live with people who do. I am not sure we need to have the Senate spending their time regulating something as trivial as this....after all, we all need our heart jump started now and then, and they do put a mute button on those TV remotes..... but I wouldn't miss the way the volume on the idiot box jumps from 4 or 5 to 12 or 20 a hundred times an evening. (I wonder if we could get a mute button for the Senate.)

There is also action on stopping damnfoolidiots from texting while driving. My mind boggles at the thought that anybody anywhere thinks themselves skilled enough to multitask that way....to look down at a number pad while howling down the highway among hundreds of other folks, many of who are up to the same silliness. Of course enforcing it might present an interesting conundrum. And of course this is a state issue rather than federal, (they are setting up a program for states but it is still the federal fingers in the state pie)and folks should be smart enough not to need a law, federal or otherwise, to prevent them from doing it, but I am glad someone noticed the problem anyhow.

And They Want us to Stop Using Our Outdoor Furnace

BP to burn 42000 gallons of oil per day. If it is the best answer for keeping as much oil as possible out of sensitive areas I am fine with what they are doing...it just seems ironic that the state is chasing after a few wood stoves in light of the pollution BP will cause.

Weather is Everything

Well, not really everything, but it really matters at planting and harvest time. If it rains you cannot reasonably plant anything or make hay. We are actually done planting except a little bit of the garden that I can't seem to find time for, but we have just begun to make hay...continuing with that will just have to wait for dry, sunny days, even if we switch over to chopping instead of baling.

Just in case, the guys are getting the bagger set up. They will probably chop everything that is already mowed....hardly worth baling it, but we will see. They have a lot of hay mowed right now, getting rained on every day and losing nutrients as it does. They will put it up anyhow one way or the other. You can balance out lesser quality hay by changing the grain ration or you can feed it to dry cows or heifers who need less in the way of high-quality forages.

Meanwhile, we have a steel man here picking up old machinery to sell it. We get part of the money and he gets the rest for gathering, cutting and hauling. Amishmen are giving us estimates on fixing the bad roof. They seem like nice fellows, very brisk and businesslike.

The birds in many cases are on their second broods. The phoebes are calling up a storm again and I am finally seeing a few wrens. I learned a new bird call from my iPod...put my bird call CD on there along with my music and have been listening to a random play list. That means the birds pop up between the likes of Jason Aldean and the Roosters.

The other day I heard a bird on there and thought, wow, I think I hear those all the time. A little research and sure enough, we are plumb surrounded by indigo buntings. Now that I know the call, I have been looking for them and there they were...where they had been all the time, singing to me even from the power line in front of the house and from all over the fields around the house.

The phoebes and the willow flycatchers come right to the living room windows to snatch wasps. It is so cool to sit right there in my chair and bird watch. I let a couple of sumacs grow up against one window and they form a perfect little canopy to shelter them as they hunt for stinging insects. The boss offered to cut them down (not knowing about my free entertainment) but I respectfully declined. I will get rid of them this winter when the fly catchers are gone. Meanwhile, I am working on learning the empidonax fly catchers by their calls. I am pretty near sure ours is a willow, but there is always the potential to mix them up with the alder.

Well, chore time beckons. It will be nice to get the darned roof repaired. Indoor rain showers leave something to be desired....like a way to milk cows while carrying an umbrella.

Belated Wordless Wednesday

Cashin's Opened Yesterday

Guess what Alan and I did. What a difference a year makes. With the nasty late frost last year and the relentless rains, they only picked five days at our favorite self pick farm. We never got any berries for jam. I bought a few organic berries across the river, simply because they were all that I could find, but they were absurdly expensive and sour...probably because of the weather.

Thus when the kids said the sign was out just down the road on 5S we went right out and picked ten quarts. I made two batches of jam and froze most of the rest. (Some simply must be eaten....on ice cream...not on ice cream...right out of the berry box...on the way home....)

I would have made a lot more jam, but there seems to be a Sure-Jell shortage. I had a couple of boxes left from last year but not enough to process ten quarts of berries....Alan found me some fruit pectin by Ball up at Price Chopper, but alas it is the no sugar kind. I have no interest in using it as you have to add other fruit juice. If I am going to make jams and jellies I am not going to buy commercial grape juice so I can do it. We are going to have to do a concentrated Sure-Jell hunt and soon, as the berry season is short and the jelly cravings are long. If you see any when you are out shopping I would be wildly grateful if you dropped me a note in the comments. Have a great day!

***Update, Becky found a goodly supply in Cobleskill. Thank you all for suggestions

Scooter

Cat added for reference. That is Chainsaw, who is quite a small cat and Liz who is not exactly a giant. Scooter is so little that it is easy to scoop him up under one arm and carry him away.

Summer Weeks are Crazy

Noms! I want noms!!

So much is happening on the farm right now that I can't keep up. Haying has come to a halt because of the rain, but a few dry days and the men will get back to that. We are rotating the cows from pasture to pasture. They like the old heifer pasture best for some reason and would rather go there, especially at night. However, we are putting them up behind the barn as we need to get that chewed down pretty quickly.

One of the cows in my string started acting strangely about ten days ago. Bailey had been bred in October and re-bred in March. However, after milking along very nicely for a cow so long in milk, she suddenly dropped precipitously in production. Then her udder swelled up and became oddly fleshy and she would not let down her milk. We couldn't figure out what was going on until last Thursday when she wouldn't come in with the other cows.

The boss told us she was losing her calf. As we thought she was pregnant to the March service we expected a total disaster. However the next day we went out and there she was with a tiny little bull calf....obviously she had been pregnant to the October service. The calf was six weeks early and should not have survived. Instead he is so lively he is hilariously funny, following everyone around the barn butting them in the fanny and dancing like a fawn. I can't describe to you how tiny he is...like a little velvet plush toy. I will try to get some pics today.

The kids named him Scooter and have a great time with him. We were pretty lucky as Bailey came into milk as if she had gone through a normal pregnancy and although her milk can't be put in the tank yet and is being used to feed calves, soon she will once again be a productive member of the herd. I am glad because I really like her.

The kids also rescued an abandoned kitten from the hay mow. Sinopa had three, two tortoiseshells and an orange and white one. When the hay started coming down into the mow she removed two, but left one little tortie behind. The poor thing was so hungry that she was hanging out the haymow window screaming. The kids drove down to a friend's farm to borrow a kitty crate and little Nom Noms now resides in the kitchen, much to Elvis's chagrin. (If he knew she was also noming food from his canz he would really be ticked off.)

Some Amish contractors came in to measure the barn roof for repairs and hopefully will be giving us a good estimate on that, and a scrap guy came in to bid on some old machinery we have around. Another hopeful prospect as maybe one can pay for the other. Plus feed reps have been coming by....Alan went up to the brother's house and got some honey from his bees yesterday. Fantastic stuff! I love honey anyhow, but this is really good. So many activities...so little time....



Well, time for the salt mines..have a good one!

****I forgot to give Becky credit for taking these photos

Surprise Guest

(And what with the beans and peas being planted just a little ways from here, not necessarily a welcome guest). These pics were taken through the living room window...the lower one by Alan who crawled on his hands and knees to get closer to the window to get a photo of her...she was looking right at us! I'll bet she has a fawn hidden out there near the lawn, since she was not at all inclined to leave even with a bunch of people peering out at her.

Sunday Stills...Black and White

For more Sunday Stills...

Let Your Voice Be Heard on Outdoor Wood Stoves

You can file your testimony on the topic here. For background the DEC here in NY is planning regulations that would force most existing stoves to be taken out of service whether they are bothering anybody or not. No other state has put in place such restrictive rules, although several have regulated stack height and siting.

A few bad apples shouldn't cause people like us who sited our stove with great care and maintain it well to have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to heat our home. At this point should OWFs be banned not only would we be forced to abandon a ten-thousand dollar stove, but we would also have to purchase a new indoor furnace as ours is defunct.
Below is the testimony I submitted via the form linked to above.

Thousands of rural New Yorkers rely on outdoor wood stoves for safe, economical heat from a renewable resource, which does not depend on fossil fuels. Our own family turned to an outdoor device when we could no longer afford to heat our home with heating oil. One year alone we spent over three thousand dollars on heating fuel and that was before the price ongoing price spike. I estimate that it would now cost us at least five thousand dollars as we have an old Victorian farm house that is nearly impossible to heat. At this point our only cost to stay warm in the winter is a little electricity and some chain saw chains and gas, as we have our own wood source. It is our only source of hot water in our home as well...year round.

I am afraid we would suffer greatly without it. We run a dairy farm and our income has been horribly curtailed by low milk prices. Perhaps we would even have to sell our farm and move to a warmer climate if we could no longer heat with wood. I will not use an indoor wood device because of the danger of a house fire.

Strong consideration should also be given to the Deep Water Horizon oil spill when comparing the environmental impact of OWFs.
I can't imagine how many wood stoves would have to burn for centuries to have such an immense negative impact on the environment.

Please allow us to continue to use our own resources to heat our homes and to heat our water even in the summer.
Thanks

Eminent Domain...Vermont Farm Spared

I am so glad for this farm family.

More on the Spider

Click to enbiggen

Due to popular demand I put the spider photos up here. They are truly ugh-some. I don't particularly mind spiders, but this one gave me the willies and worse. Liz spotted her in the milk house. I hope I never see her or anything like her ever again, thank you.....

Meanwhile, I think these are prettier than the spider.

Today is the last day to vote in the photo contest. I have been amazed and delighted by how kind friends and family have been about voting for my pic. Thank you all very, very much!


As for things at the farm...the rain has shut us right down. The moisture was needed but it doesn't enhance the hay making experience. It can stop now for a while. The men got the bale thrower fixed-hopefully, but not cheaply. I got part of the garden weeded. Germination was pretty lousy probably because of the dry period. I can't even tell where some of the rows are. Maybe the rain will still bring some things up.....Onions look good anyhow and we planted shallots for the first time and they look great. I have never had any experience with them, but the boss bought the bulbs because hie mom used to like to grow them. Have you ever tried them?

I Have a Spider Picture

But I don't want to post it. It is the biggest spider I have ever seen...it was over in the milkhouse and covered a good part of a round faucet handle. Liz made me take a picture for proof of its ridiculous girth and circumference. It is also the ugliest thing I have seen in my life and I like you folks...so I hate to make you look at something like that. An orb web garden spider it isn't.

Don't forget to vote in the photo contest if you have time....it ends tomorrow and I am crossing my fingers (which makes it very, very hard to type.)

Have a good one!

Gang Symbol

Having been raised as a Catholic and been dragged to church on a pretty regular basis, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time running a gang symbol through my fingers during boring sermons when we were kids...... Nowadays Becky carries one with her most of the time. In fact she likes to send her favorite one along with family members whom she loves...makes her feel better about their safety and all. Who would have guessed that we were showing our criminal colors?

Wordless Wednesday

Photo Contest...Last Days

Only a couple more days until the contest ends and the photo "Liz and Jack is still in the top ten. Some people have done even better than I have and have voted on days when I forgot. Thanks to every single one of you for voting every day!

Rain and Breakage

The men got some hay in the barn yesterday,.... two good sized loads. They were working on the third and hoping for the fourth when the bale kicker STB at the same time as a bolt came out of the tie rod end on the 930 Case, which Alan was driving, causing it to cease to steer. So haying came to an abrupt halt, as the parts folks were enjoying holiday weekend.

And our grain company fired our nutritionist recently and sent in a new guy. His sole effort was to leave his card in the milkhouse and go on his merry way. Didn't bother to come to the house or look behind the barn for the guys.

A salesman who can't even pull out his phone to tell you he is at the barn doesn't really want to talk to you in my opinion and isn't much use.
It was a last straw sort of thing.
Our old nutritionist was the reason we started buying from the particular company in the first place. He actually understood the whole concept of a farm needing to make money to stay in business. When grain got high and milk prices plunged he managed to formulate a bare bones dairy ration which got some milk out of the cows without costing three hundred bucks a ton. We had been feeding it for quite a while.

However, even that feed had crept up in price and our pellets were being made at a new mill and were breaking down into powder. It is hard as heck to feed uneven grain when you feed by volume, which we do....so we were getting close to changing anyhow. Liz only needs to get a computer that will run her ration software and she can formulate our feed, which would allow us to feed commodities without worrying about anything.

The firing was the last straw, so the boss went and got a pick up load of soy and corn meal, and Liz broke out a bag of top dress minerals and we are winging it. Although the cows are milking okay on the new stuff some of them don't want to come in the stall for it.

That is where the wonderful new hay comes in. Offer a stubborn one a handful of that and she can't get herself in line fast enough. Time will tell how this all works out but I am getting sick of companies that fire employees who make a real effort for farmers. This happened once before to us and the cows dropped on production like a rock...so did our bottom line. That grain company sold out to the big guys not so much later. It boggles my mind that they do that kind of thing, because I guarantee that they will lose a lot of customers over it.

And it started raining last night and rumbled and grumbled all night long. It has been dry and we needed it but I hope it gets itself over with and sunny skies and functional machinery return.

On the Lam(b)

Stolen sheep found in car....FOURTEEN of them! Sadly the poor animals had a rough time of it and some of them died. Looks like they may be finding the thieves pretty quickly.

Hay Day Maybe

I hope it is one!



Lots of hay this spring and summer will hopefully keep this guy busy all next winter. (Some of yesterday's corporate logos came from this truck and Dab Farms milk hauling owns it.)

Sunday Stills...Corporate Logos

For more Sunday Stills

Book Sale

All next month at Tryon County Books. My folks will offer twenty-percent off and free domestic shipping from June 1 to June 30th at their amazing book store.

Mom maintains a wonderful website featuring many items from their stock of books. She adds new items frequently and has been doing a lot of updating recently.

Here are links to some of the categories that they offer:

The American Revolution

Big Game Hunting Books

Books by Jack O'Connor

Harper's Weekly

How to Shoot Pistols, Revolvers, Rifles and Shotguns

Hunting and Fishing Books



NY Forest, Fish, and Game Reports and Other Adirondack Items

Old Gun Catalogs

Out of Print Gun Books

Unit Histories and Regimentals

US Navy

Specials

• Since 1952 we have been dealing in The Old and Unusual.
• We now offer a great collection of fine quality Specialty Books. Our aim is to provide you with books you will be proud to own, and pleased to have in your collection.
• If you should be unhappy with your purchase, for any reason, we will do our best to rectify the problem.
• All descriptions are as accurate as we can make them. We try to describe any blemishes or faults, without emphasizing them. While we do not want to dissuade you from purchase we do want you to know what you will be getting.

Stop by their virtual book lovers' wonderland of historical and modern, old and unusual and tell them I sent you.

Remember

The Contest is Almost Over

It ends on June 4th. I would be most grateful if you took a minute to scroll through the wonderful entries and enjoy many aspects of farming and ranching.......and if you vote for mine...well that is great. You can vote once each day as long as the contest continues.

You can see them all here.

Thank you all so much!!

Storm List

Heavy and sweet, the scent of wild grapes and black locust lies on the valley like a mantle. Chores are done, everyone else is off to work, or off to buy seed or off doing some other thing....

Then a storm comes grumbling down from the mountains, lightning flashing over the northern towns, thunder rumbling, rumbling, rumbling

The breeze picks up and whirls stray feathers and hay stems in rising circles
The air changes....sharply warning. Weather is coming

Nobody home but me......

Jack the pony in from his yard, safe in the barn and fed and watered. Showed me some flash and dance but I have his number.
*Check

Guinea roosters locked up in the hen house
*Check

Laundry down and folded
*Check

Computers off and unplugged
*Check

Cat in his kennel, Nick in the house...mad cat; happy dog
*Check

Tomato plants tucked up under the table, safely out of the wind
*Check

Wood stove filled for the night while the wood is still dry
*Check

Gael blissfully oblivious, slumbering through it all. Merciful deafness wraps her safe in sleep, free from her terror of booms and bangs.
*Check

Time to sit down and watch the weather roll by. I hate to say the words but we could use a touch of rain (just a touch, for Heaven's sake hold the monsoons.) The grass is slowing down its rampant spring growth and things are wilting down.

Huh, no storm, three and half drops of rain, and five minutes of howling wind....what's up with that?

Decline of the Small Meat Plant

Is lamented in USA Today. The closing of small, USDA inspected plants is a sad matter for farmers who wish to participate in the local food movement. A couple years back we sold some pork the boss raised at what was at the time a premium price. We could have sold much more than we did and we could easily raise more. However, with the threat of new rules putting even more small slaughter houses out of business, we have backed off from the pig project.

Interestingly the article quotes a local lady who has been very active in matching farmers with facilities and markets. Nice to see her efforts getting some real attention.

Make Me a Sammich

Food Stamp Usage Rises

Read about it here. Did you know that food stamps are budgeted under the USDA, the Department of Agriculture? Thus $73 billion of the ag budget goes to this program, feeding 40 million people per year....

The much-reviled subsidies that are actually paid to farmers are estimated by one source to total between $10 and $30 billion annually depending on disaster payments.
Business Week said that last year (2009) it was $15.4 billion.
Nuff said.

Haying!

The men started haying yesterday and put 250 bales of beautiful, soft green first cutting in the mow. After a series of soggy springs some real haying weather is a welcome change.

Happy Birthday to the Cow Whisperer

Liz is twenty-four today....She truly is a cow whisperer too. She can even come over on my side of the barn and milk the miserable Encore, whose back is as high as my head and who likes to put her hind feet about that high too...without fireworks or drama. Happy birthday kiddo...we love you!

Oh, No

I gasped with dismay when I read Teri's headline this morning. We are fond of her creatures...even the ones we haven't met yet.
Half the chickens in our hen house and our wonderful new Roo came from her flock.
My very favorites, the late George and lovely Laura, grew from chickies she gave Liz a couple years ago.
Sadly she and her friend and family lost all but a couple of their birds to a marauding fox on a spree last night.