Sunday Stills...Frame it

For more Sunday Stills

God Bless the USA

Why am I Thinking of Ice Cream?

Doesn't this look a little bit like a scoop of ice cream? Vanilla, of course, still the most popular flavor...

With a few of these sprinkled on top. What a terrific treat for the holiday weekend!

July is Ice Cream Month!

Cross Country Blogging

I meant to ask to take a proper picture,
but got so interested in talking that I forgot....

It is pretty cool when a fellow blogger rides a motor cycle across the USA and writes about his travels. Cooler still if he stops by for a visit. Today we got to meet Earl, and it was a fine experience. He is even more well-spoken than his blog would have you think, (which is saying quite a lot) and he didn't seem to mind the warts-and-all experience of visiting the wilds here. (And what with the lawn mower languishing by the honey locust, hood-deep in uncut grass and the usual general shagginess, there are warts and wilds aplenty amid the good parts.)

We toured the mostly empty barn, as the girls were out to pasture (any other day they would have been on the hill right behind the house but today they decided to wander way to the back.) We checked out the ag bagger and the self unloading wagon, which coughed up a beater yesterday, but is all fixed today. Then we walked about half way to the way back fields and stopped in the Thirty-Acre lot to look north toward the Adirondacks. NY was putting on a gentle show of fluffy white clouds and stark shadows against the green of the mountains (instead of the usual rain, rain and more rain) so the view was worth the walk.

We had a nice talk, and I got to satisfy my curiosity about the Appleseed Project, which is something Earl participates in regularly.

It is pretty neat to me how blog folks are on one hand complete strangers and on the other so familiar and friendly. Thank you Earl for taking time to stop and talk. Hope the rest of your trip is safe and beautiful.

New Job

Our milk marketing cooperative has hired our oldest kid to be a milk inspector...a demanding job, but she will be using her degree and in this job market it is pretty exciting. She sure is going to get to know a lot of farmers!

University of Vermont Selling Dairy Herd

HT to John Bunting's blog

Read about it here

Our milk inspector keeps telling us that dairying is about done in this country. Is he right? All I can tell you is that the whole industry is in a world of pain and this is probably just another symptom.

"Vogelmann said UVM would be the first public institution in the country to shift its dairy research to an “on-farm” model with private partners, and other fiscally strapped research universities are paying close attention. “It’s something we’re pretty excited about,” Vogelmann said. “This is a very challenging time for all land grants. At the heart of the issue is the status of university farms. They’re very expensive to maintain. It takes quite a lot of operational capital just to keep the doors open and the lights on.” "

Mockingbird Magic

We had some high drama here last night, involving someone outside the family who said some things that caused much emotional uproar. Those words had nothing to do with the farm or the family directly so I won't detail them here.

However, there were tears and pain, not mine, but when it is your family sometimes they feel like they are yours, and no one slept very well.

At three AM I woke up, wide awake, trying to remember if I had turned the compressor that cools the milk on or not. The tanker picked up yesterday and it is always shut off while the washer cleans the milk tank. It is arguably my job to turn it back on every other day when we start to fill it up with fresh milk. Normally I make a point to think about what I am doing when I do it so that when I wake up at 3 AM I can say, yeah I turned it on and go back to sleep.

Yesterday I forgot to do that.

So, I got up, threw my barn boots on with my bathrobe and hiked to the barn. The moon turned the yards into a ragged chiaroscuro of light and dark, so bright it seemed as if you could see a faint tinge of green among the greys and blacks. There was the least hint of skunk on the air and it was almost as crisp and cold as fall, truly a beautiful night.

As I tugged the cold rubber of the boots on over my cold bare feet a faint sound came from the field. At first I thought it was a cricket. With the Thruway devoid of travelers there was silence except for that vague call. It came again, not a cricket...just ....something.....

Then suddenly the air filled with opulent sound as the pasture mockingbird (not to be confused with the house mockingbird) burst into gay and glorious song. His notes were round and full and fluent, the calls of all the other birds combined together, each more melodious than the one before.

I just stood there, soaking it all up, the breeze, the light, the magical song, even the distant skunk. There are people who have more fame and fortune than my most bedazzling moments could conjure, but I wonder how many of them get free midsummer serenades in a theater as beautiful as a late June night in the country. If I was counting blessings I would surely have run out of fingers and toes before I even got started. The hike to the barn, usually an onerous misery at night, was a treat indeed, not a mosquito to be had and that glimmering song trailing behind me like a train of stars.

The tank was on. River, who had twin bulls yesterday and was left in the barnyard to recover, was fine. When I went back to bed, the singer was still pouring out a sweet stream of secret music with no one to listen but him and me...and maybe mephitis mephites.

Taking on the US Census

If they had let this guy run the census....well...
it wouldn't have been any worse.
And his regular job, guarding the barn....he does that very well.

First came a blizzard of snippy little cards warning us that we had better get our census form sent back right-away-quick-like or else.

But wait! How could we? We got the little cards, but we didn't get a census form.

I was concerned so I called in for one.
And was informed that it was too early for us to get one; they were still being sent out.

More cards
No form

After a while I called again. It was getting late and we wanted to be counted.

They sent us one
I sent it back

A lady came anyhow to get us to fill one out. Drover her little car up the mountain goat path driveway like a regular trouper. I sent her on her way, explaining that I had already filled one out.

Another person stopped by for some similar reason...same reaction

Then a man came yesterday to verify that the house next door is derelict. I would have thought that the missing roof, broken windows and general air of.....er....falling down...would have been the first clue, but I guess they needed my name and address to prove that the poor man taking the census was telling the truth rather than skipping out on his job.

You would think I had done my part for the nationwide body count. I called for my form. I filled out my form. I sent in my form. I explained how nobody lived in the obviously abandoned house...and fairly patiently too, all things considered.

However, today the telephone rang and a very apologetic, poor, innocent, woman, who had obviously had a tough time recently, explained that I needed to fill out a census yet again. The data from a (large) number of forms in the area were not entered into whatever the heck they enter them into so they had to get them again. She told me that all I had to do was tell her how many people lived here and she would leave me alone. Or she could get our info and fill out the form properly.

I chose the latter and dictated everything I had written on the form I called for and sent in to her over the phone. I felt so sorry for her but I couldn't help but complain about the waste and inefficiency I had observed in the 2010 census. She admitted that she had heard the same complaints, over and over and over.

And rightly so. That is our money they are wasting with such incompetence and it is our country that will base aid and election districts upon what is obviously going to be pretty questionable data. And do you suppose maybe areas like this are being deliberately messed up? I mean this ain't exactly urban inner city or anything. If they make it hard for us plain old folks to get counted maybe it will be hard(er) for us to get representation too.

Whatever is up, we are certainly being cheated, in terms of bang for our census buck, right along with the harassment of repeated visits and calls.
If what I have heard from the census takers themselves is true, this stuff is widespread if not universal. Where is the outrage?

*** btw lack of capitalization of the word "census" is intentional and deserved.

Unexpected Visitors

Yesterday.






I hope they made it home before the rain. Their big brown horse would have had to do some serious trotting to get it done, but they only live a couple of miles up the road. First time they have stopped here.

Old fashioned horse drawn hay loader

They were interested in this...and in getting the boss to mow some hay on a neighboring farm. He can't do it for them though. We used to take that hay ourselves on shares and gave it up because the hills are so steep we were wrecking machinery on them every year. When you drive the raking tractor over the edge of the hill and you can't see the bucket loader on it in front of you, well, that is steep. Too darned steep. Different farmers have taken the hay from the out of town folks who own it, but most of them only do it for a few years before they decide it isn't worth it.

Cheap Dates

We all are...or at least very easily entertained by barnyard slapstick. First we were setting up in the milk house for evening milking. Alan called us all over to the door to watch the high drama going on outside. Chainsaw, the world's most obnoxious little black cat, was sitting among the cows like the king of his domain.

Except for the flies which were swarming around his ugly little head. Bite, bite, bite, slap, slap, slap, he snapped and pawed at the annoyance. It looked as if he was catching some too and eating them as a wee protein supplement to his usual diet of mice and rich, creamy warm milk. Still he never seemed to run out of them. We all stood quietly, watching, when suddenly things got Western.

He was so busy with the flies that he was oblivious to his surroundings. However, the surroundings were not so oblivious to him.

A big white heifer came tip-toeing over and snorted right in his ear. He clawed skyward in surprise, landed hard, and gathering the tatters of his dignity, stalked over to the edge of the yard, trailing his flies behind him.

The heifer followed him right over and snorted on him again. You should have seen his tail, snaking back and forth like an angry metronome.
He was so mad.
He turned his electric green glare on her and just stared right into her eyes.

And she backed down. Eleven hundred pounds of cow, maybe eleven pounds of cat and the cat won. Dang!

Then we went inside to sand the floor and get ready to bring the cows in for milking.
Becky was standing innocently near the window, just waiting.
Lemonade, her big show cow, stuck her nose in the window...unseen by her owner...and let out a mighty bellowing moo about six inches from her ear.

Didjaknow?
That girl can jump.
And I do believe that cows can laugh.

Sunday Stills....History

It was hard to decide which bit of history to post...we are so surrounded by history here in the valley and in this ancient house. I turned mostly to the china closet this time, for things of mine and favorite possessions of my late mother in law.

Here is a blue vase of hers, a souvenir of the 1934 World's Fair

And here is a button from my parent's antique store, which has been closed for years. I was just a little kid when I found it among the assorted stuff piled high on the dusty tables. They let me have it and I have always kept it through many many homes. It is about the size of a quarter.

Mom gave me this



And Dad gave me these


Found this up in the three bay shed



And this old cow bell belonged to the boss's mom too
It rings with a loud and raucous clang
that must have rendered the wearer easy to find on long ago foggy mornings.

For more Sunday Stills...

Let me Shoot It

Alan said of the grey fox tooling around the lawn in broad day light. "It's after your guinea hens."

"No", said I, "it won't bother them."

"You'll be sorry," said he, in disgust, as the fox bounced away into the bushes. "It's going to get them."

That was yesterday afternoon.

And this morning you can easily see what soft-heartedness gets you out here in the real world. The whole barnyard is paved with speckled and spangled grey and purple feathers and the only guinea left is the big purple male.

Of course they had to start sleeping in the heifer barn instead of the coop where the door can be shut at night. They are the dumbest things....

There is no tenderness in nature...lesson...learn it if you want to live close to it.....Okay, I guess I've got it now.

Meanwhile the remaining male has been alarm calling since o-dark-thirty . At least I discovered that Nick will work birds when needed. (Gael used to be my go-to bird herding dog, soft enough to never alarm them (too soft for much real work) yet steady and good at getting it done.)

Nick has never been worked on birds because he has eaten a chicken or two in the past (they committed suicide by dog, by flying into his kennel), but this morning I simply couldn't stand all the screaming. I didn't want the guinea rooster to wake the boss up as he is plumb tired out, so I took Nick out to drive the darned bird to the barn and shut him up. He took commands he has never been taught slick as a cat burglar..."walk up, lie down, walk up" (he does know "lie down") and "that'll do" when the job was done. It was sweet to work a good dog again, really sweet.

I shut the cat up so he could come in and have a big bowl of kibble with a tablespoon of bacon grease....good boy! Guess I will put the purple male back in the coop and maybe give him away unless the female that seemed to be hiding a nest in the shrubbery actually is.

Not My Own

My time that is. Farm days have become a hotbed of activity. Visits from milk company officials, an electrician, the steel guy, and on and on, with the phone ringing constantly until long after night chores are done. None of these are exactly bad things and I may even have some very interesting news for you in the next few weeks. However the down side is the days fly by with no pauses or stops and at the end I look back at what I accomplished and sigh. So much activity...so little to show for it. But even that has its upside. I usually have trouble sleeping during full moon weeks. I drop into bed now and sleep like the dead and wake up ready for more. (Sleep, not insanity.)

The guys finished one ag bag yesterday and went to buy another bag which they will put on the bagger today. Imagine an incredibly thick, heavy, white trash bag that measures 9'X200'....not easy to manhandle that around! Imagine stuffing that with chopped crop products, in this case green, freshly chopped hay, and fermenting it for a month or so and then feeding it out all sweet and tasty. Good stuff. They are going to try to get some baling done too if the rains hold off.

Finally got the tomatoes planted, late I know, but there hasn't been much time for playing in the dirt. If the blight doesn't kill them they will be fine even planted this late. If they are going to grow they grow fast.

When I finish hilling the potatoes (yeah, still at that job) and plant a few more squash it will be time to dig the garlic. It looks great this year and I can't wait. I simply can't school myself to save enough to plant enough to get ahead each year. It is so good that I want to cook with it, not store it away to plant next year. I bought some for planting last year, from a kid over in Cobleskill and we ate half of that before it got planted too. Have I mentioned that we love garlic?

Anyhow, it is time for chores. have a good one.

Happy Birthday Handsome Brother

For Michael

Hope your day is spectacular and that you enjoy being the same age as I am (ancient) for a few days..... before I once again pull ahead in the race to antiquity (I am not quite old enough to serve as the subject of my own Sunday Stills entry this week, but I am working at it. Thus you aren't old enough for me to run down and photograph you either but....you will get there grasshopper, you will get there....lol)

Anyhow we love you and hope the finest of music flows through your life like cool, clear water through a secret canyon, deep in the heart of the wild.

We love you!

Your non-big-sister for about nine days anyhow...

Super Milk

We made it again last year. The milk inspector brought us our little sign just the other day.

It takes a whole year of commitment to quality to get this little plaque and we sure are pleased with it.

The Super Milk website.

Friends

While we while away the summer wishing for hay weather, and patching and repairing and bickering while we wait, some of our blog friends are doing exciting things.

Earl is at Yellowstone National Park

Joated is in Dawson Creek BC

Linda P shows some flooding in Canada...all I can say is wow!

Rev Paul talks about bear attacks and the biggest fish you could imagine, caught by someone you wouldn't expect.

Linda B has some amazing photos of her part of Colorado. Make sure you spend a few minutes checking out recent posts for ancient rock paintings. They are incredible. It must be amazing to live near them

Sandcastle Momma has an update on the oil spill that is simply heartbreaking. Why are these wonderful people and this beautiful place being hurt like this?

Lisa has new baby chicks.



JB has rainbows (and I am so very envious)

Dani has rainbows too. You really should compare.

Hope you enjoy their wonderful posts today, rather than having to read complaining about raining...

Polydesmid Millipede (or at least I think so)

Becky spotted this critter on the bridge by the barn this morning. Never seen such a thing before but I guess they aren't terribly uncommon. It was about the size of my pinky finger and kinda gave me the shivers. Here is a bit of information on it and its ilk.

Fish Story

I have to write for my "real" writing job today so I leave you with this...Stolen shamelessly from a local friend who is also on Facebook.

I went fishing this morning but after a short time I ran out of worms.

Then I saw a cottonmouth with a frog in his mouth.

Frogs are good bass bait. Knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the frog in his mouth I grabbed him right behind the head, took the frog, and put it in my bait bucket.

The dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bitten.

So, I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey in its mouth. His eyes rolled back, he went limp. I released him into the lake without incident and carried on fishing using the frog.

A little later, I felt a nudge on my foot. There was that same snake with two frogs in his mouth.

Now That's Photography

Digital camera+Styrofoam+balloon= incredible photos of our planet

July 4th Milk Dumping Protest "Dump the Milk Day"

I had been hearing rumors of this protest here and there but this is the first I have seen actual published material on it.

A "Blizzard of 1099's"

Deep in the bowels of the health care deform bill, (and yes, I did mean to type "D") is a nasty little provision that will have every farmer (and other small business folks too) in the country sending out 1099s to every single entity with whom they do $600 worth of business in a year. This will make a sickening mess of bookkeeping for thousands of farm women like me, (and yeah, men too) who would much rather go hill potatoes than hunt around for tax numbers and do paperwork for the feds. It will cost businesses ridiculous amounts of money.

You can read a bit about it here.
And here
And here

Hold on to your stomach because this is really going to be ugly.
Don't we wish more people had read the stupid bill before they voted it into law? Um, yeah....

Sick

Not me, Alan. Woke up at three AM yesterday so sick he had to crawl to the facilities. Call for help? Of course not. He slept all day except for chores, in which he insisted upon participating, and was somewhat better, although still under the weather last night. Poor guy.

His dad worked alone and got a lot done just the same. Fixed the rollers on the chopper so they were the correct distance apart, chopped for the cows etc. I did bookkeeping and worked in the garden. Plugging away at hilling the potatoes. I never, ever leave enough dirt between the rows. Never. Side dressed my little bit of sweet corn with nicely composted cow manure. Weeded the peas, cursed the bunny rabbits, which demolished an entire row of beets.

We were hoping to bale today, but it is really cloudy and feels like rain.
Have a good one.

Saving Scooter

Scooter eating bits of bread

The big steer having a whole piece.

Regular readers may remember how poor Bailey had a six weeks premature calf not long ago. Alan named him Scooter and we have been raising him as best we could. We suspect that rather than being caused by some pathology, the early birth was caused by big, nasty heifers beating on the more timid animals. Bailey is a real wuss like all daughters of the bull Ricky that we had born here. Poor Scooter didn't even have teeth when he was born, but as you can see in the picture he does now.

Being born so early left him a bit compromised, but Becky has been faithful in his care and he has thrived, all things considered. Then yesterday he didn't want his milk very much. He seemed to be chewing his cud so we weren't too worried until the end of milking.

I had taken the camera and some bread to the barn to take some photos of the steers, heifers and calves eating it out of our hands. They love bread and go about half nuts if someone walks in with some. It is like dropping big pennies in a huge piggy bank...slices of bread are tiny compared to the mouths of cattle. Alan even offered Scooter a couple of tiny pieces and he ate them eagerly.

A few minutes later though Al ran out in the milk house, "I've got to give Scooter some water...he can't swallow his bread."

I explained to him how to put his fingers in a calf's mouth, on the corner where there are no teeth and to press a little on his palate so he would spit out the bread. However, he couldn't seem to do it, so I took over. To my surprise the poor little guy had a huge mass, not of bread, but of hay, plugging up his whole throat. It took some fiddling around to get it out without getting bitten by his tiny, razor sharp teeth, but I was able to. His relief was marked and he drank a bottle of water like it was going out of style. Apparently, although he has teeth, they are not quite up to the job of chewing up a lot of hay yet and it all got wadded up in his tiny throat.

I was so glad that Alan gave him the bread so that we realized what was troubling him. I hadn't been to worried about him not wanting his milk as he had just figured out how to work the big cow water bowl and we figured he was full of water. He seemed to be fine last night and polished off his evening bottle like a champ. BTW, that bottle is a two-liter Mountain Dew bottle with a lamb nipple rather than a big old calf bottle...those are too big for him.

Sunday Stills, High, Low

From low looking high

Low

For more Sunday Stills...

Happy Father's Day

Thanks Dad for the love of learning and the curiosity that has and does drive me. My life will never be dull....and a happy day to all you fathers out there. You mean a lot to your wives and kids and this day is just one way of showing it.

***The folks are here this weekend with their amazing array of rare books. Stop by and visit if you are in the area. If you can't visit enjoy their month-long online book sale here.


A bit off topic, but by the way, I read some of the drivel that was printed about this show and I was embarrassed to live in NY state. Good grief what ignorance.


It's okay lady, we gun people don't want idiots like you near our guns, so it all evens out in the end I guess.

The Roof is Done

Which means a lot to me. A couple of years ago we lost a couple of sheets of roofing steel. Couldn't seem to find any contractors that wanted to bother with it and the boss can't climb so...we just lived with the leak. then a severe storm early this year peeled off a good third of one section. The leak became an indoor water park, so much fun in a rainy season like this one. Once again we called contractor after contractor to no avail. Most of them promised and promised and promised, but were simply too busy to be bothered to actually show up.

Then the boss called a few Amishmen, got estimates, and within less than two weeks the job was done. I wish you could have seen them work. They were like squirrels. Really fast moving squirrels. Where I suspect "English" contractors would have erected scaffolding on the main barn where the damage was...very high in the air btw...the Amishmen put a ladder up by the milk house and scurried over the lower roofs until they reached the junction with the big roof and went up that way. I could not stand to watch them. They sauntered around on that high roof like it was the barn floor, no hands, no ladder, no nothing.

I would never have believed the job could be done in a day, but they arrived around seven in the morning and by four in the afternoon the tools were packed away and the new steel was shining in the late afternoon sun.
It was awesome.
They used lumber we had stacked in the heifer barn against just such a repair and had to tear the stacked pile apart to get boards long enough to fit their needs. When they finished, despite the boss telling them not to bother, they re-stacked the whole pile...for which we are grateful.

Hopefully the new roof won't leak (although we certainly don't need any more rain to be testing it) and it will stand up to the ferocious winds we seem to get every few weeks now. Time will tell.

I had to laugh this morning when I came down the stairs. I always pause on the landing to see what it is up out in the yard. This morning Mr. and Mrs. robin were lounging around under the big blue spruce. For the past few weeks their single young one has been following them around like a fat, speckled beggar, importuning them for food all day long. Apparently he finally went out on his own and they were loving it. The male was lying on his side in the driveway, for all the world like a barn yard chicken at its leisure. The female was popping around self-importantly, chasing English sparrows away from him. It was hilarious and I wish I could have watched all morning. Alas the cat was howling for his breakfast and if I don't get the old dog out promptly in the morning she makes me wish I had.....

Have a great day!

Hustling

The Amishmen are here to work on the roof. They arrived when we were about half way done with the morning milking. First crisis...bees in the beams. Alan is off to get bee spray. They are hurrying around getting ladders up and tools in place and two by fours out of the heifer barn. Those men can really hustle! I am very glad I don't have to follow them around for the day.

Second crisis, Neon Moon walked right through the electric fence, just because she could. It was hot and she was getting shocked by it...she didn't care. Tore off about fourteen insulators so the boss had to drop every thing and go fix fence....ah well...never a dull moment.

One Hungry Planet

Storm

Yet another wild storm with torrential rains last night. No hay is being made.
See the little dingle-dangles hanging down under that cloud? In the seconds before I took the photos, I was just sitting down in my Sunday chair to enjoy a wonderful anniversary dinner provided for the boss and me by our Becky. First bite of delicious calzone from Romana's had just been cut. I glanced out the window and saw this huge, pregnant, ugly thing hanging down from the big, black thunder cloud. The wind was already howling, folks had scurried to close windows, and the sumacs were lashing the windows like whips.

Having watched many tornado chaser videos, I ran for the camera. By the time I got back to the window, the bulge had been reabsorbed into the cloud and all that was left were those two little wisps...which were rotating around in a circle. It was over in an instant and no more than a glimmer of what it could have been, but this has certainly been a summer for bizarre weather.First a hot dry May (for which I was grateful as we got more work done every day than we can do in a week now). Now a cool, absolutely soggy, sorry June. We can't seem to buy two dry days in a row and keep having to turn the heat on to take off the miserable chill and dry the house out..

At least a man brought the steel for the barn roof yesterday. Of course the men had gone off for parts for the engine rebuild on the 930 so there was no one to help unload or to tell me where it needed to go.

Wednesday Thursday Friday?

This is nuts. It is bad enough that there are parts of America that are too dangerous for the average Joe or Jill to visit due to urban violence, but how can there be places we can't visit because of foreign crime? It is unbelievable that anybody finds this acceptable. How can they declare national wildlife refuge off limits to the citizens who pay for it because nobody has guts (I wanted to use a better word here, but I'll be nice) to offer our people security and safety? Just read the initials of the title and you will know what I am thinking.

Wordless Wednesday

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.