Charlie Daniels

Last Night

Pretty Corny

Last night just at chore time
I heard a great clatter
and sprang to the porch to see what was the matter.

It was three Amish boys with a quick little trotter....oh, heck, enough of that nonsense..I'm too lazy to rhyme today.

Yeah, three Amish lads with a wagon drawn by a snappy little brown horse showed up peddling sweet corn last night. We have been been bamboozled persuaded into purchasing field corn for our dining pleasure by some other members of the group, so I asked to examine an ear before purchasing.

It was clearly sweet corn, so at a mere two dollars a dozen I bought a bag.

The cheerful youth in charge of sales then asked if the "old man" that his dad had met previously when looking at the hay loader was around. He wanted to sell him some corn too. I explained that said old man was my husband and would be eating the corn I had just bought.

The boy ducked his head a little as if thinking and then said, "If you'd like I'll give you another half dozen for free."

I agreed that this sounded like a real good deal. If I had had more money on me I would actually have bought a couple more dozen for the freezer but I don't trot around the farm with much. He chose another small bag of fat green ears and said sheepishly, "If we go back home with this corn we have to can it all tonight and we don't want to do that."

Kids...guess they are the same all over. I laughed and thanked them and they spun that little brown around like an English kid doing donuts with his truck and were off down the driveway with a rumble of heavy wheels.

Friday on the Farm

Crossing fingers here for another dry, sunny day. The boss has been baling up hay apace all week and has put in some really nice second cutting. He has another field just about dry and if rain holds off today he will probably get it. He needs to get us some late first cutting that they left up in the corner of the 60-acre lot too, so the pony will have groceries this winter. (Fat ponies and second cutting don't mix.)

Pale touch me not

He thought the whole fence thing was very funny by the way. And the kids and I have him playing our favorite little free farm game these days. That is popping touch me not seed pods. We love the way they explode like little bombs if you touch them when they are ripe. There are dozens of them by the gate...by the stove....etc. Every now and then you see him looking guilty and popping them when he goes down to close the gate.

Brassy sunrise, already hot

Nippers

As you might deduce from the previous post, yesterday was one of those days. After our adventures in rodeo, dairy style, we went in to breakfast.

Liz went to work, Alan was already at college, so it was just the boss, Becky and me. As the boss passed by he asked Beck, "How handy are you with the nippers?'

Since the cows got out through a partially shorted out electric fence and since brush nippers are the usual remedy for that ailment, I thought he wanted someone to cut the brush out of the fence. Becky told him no she wasn't handy with nippers, but the request lingered in the back of my mind.

Man, it was so hot. I put it off and put it off, doing all manner of normally unwelcome indoor chores, but I knew that brush needed nipping.

Finally I tucked my trusty iPod into my snap-down shirt pocket, sprayed some WD-40 on my nipper head and went out to nip. I tend to spend my non-milking hours in flip flops. Nettles soon convinced me that, as miserable as it is to wear rubber work boots in ninety+ degree sunshine, I had no choice but to change footwear. It probably didn't take me much over an hour and a half to get the fence all cleared out but I was so disappointed that I didn't get any compliments from the boss on my self-imposed industry.

Then about half way through evening milking I realized. He didn't expect either me or Beck to trim up the fence. He was hinting, in his obviously far too subtle manner, that he wanted me to give him a hair cut.......which I had already done, long before the brush nipping nirvana portion of my day...as a means of further delaying the latter job.

I love it when I completely outsmart myself.

Running After Cows

Not my thing.....but done as needed. Yesterday a small but determined cadre of cows (towards whom I am harboring unkind thoughts) pushed down the electric fence and just ran. Normally if they get out they just eat the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side and you can round them up. Not this bunch.

They gathered just outside the fence girding their loins for flight. I tried to ease through them and point them back toward the pasture. Instead they took off running.

Not in fear. They just knew they were out and wanted to play.

I raced around the house to try to head them off (circle driveway you see).

I almost made it too.

But not quite. They were on a hot jog headed for a busy state highway, another busy highway, and a major interstate, depending on how fast they ran or which way they turned. I took off across the long lawn, (so called because it is long), hoping once again to get ahead of them. At the end of that yard is a head-high wilderness tangle of brush and brambles and who knows what. The only way down to the driveway to head off the cows is through it. To even go a foot I had to put my stick on top of it, stomp it down and proceed.

I tried but I am about as athletic as an elderly broody hen. And it was very thick. I fell down a little bank and got stuck under a mass of raspberries vines. I had to slide back up the hill on my fanny to even get out. I couldn't see or hear a cow.

I was praying hard and I'll make no bones about it. In our state the farmer is liable if cows get in the road. We have insurance but.it is never enough.

Finally, sobbing with frustration and fear and raspberry cuts I tumbled out onto the driveway. Incredibly, just below me stood the cows, milling in a confused pod of black and white. I knew I could never get between them and the road so I called and coaxed and walked away trying to get them to follow.

To my utter amazement they did and I soon saw why. Liz, who uses her head for something besides to keep her ears apart had jumped in her truck (far behind the ravening mob), got her dad to open the gate at the barn, went down that driveway,and up the highway to the bottom of the house driveway where the little b&&*((rds were. (We have two driveways, quite some distance apart with lots of gates.)

I don't know how she did it. I was way ahead of her and she had to go in the other direction, open a huge pair of gates, drive at least a quarter mile, when they only had a few yards to go to the road. She said later that corners on two wheels and the speedometer reading eighty had something to do with winning the race.

Doesn't matter. She saved our bacon...or should I say, beef? And believe it or not those darned sons of guns went up in the pasture where they belong, gathered up all the rest of the cows and came tearing down the hill for another go round. Fortunately Liz and I were both standing there waving sticks.

Soon they were closed up where they belong. I have no idea what possessed them to run. I also have no idea what possessed the boss to leave us to chase them while he went back to the barn to finish chores. It was an emergency and a big one but beyond opening the gate he just ignored it. Did he not get what was going on? I don't know and I am not going to ask, but we sure could have used some help.

However, being tough farm women (and one of us is even smart) we got it done.

Ag at the Fair

A friend and colleague is in charge of this building at the fair and, along with a group of incredible volunteers, she does an amazing job of ag promotion every single year.

No Michigan State Fair This Year

From the same governor who likes to play meatout day comes the decision that it is too expensive for the state to subsidize the fair. (Despite the fact that it makes a profit). Thus ends a 160 year tradition, leaving Michigan one of the few states in the nation without a state fair.

Ag is Michigan's number two industry but I guess Granholm isn't a big fan.

Update on the Strange Accident in Fonda

Here

Incredible Traffic Accident in Fonda

Do click, this is like nothing I have ever seen before and no one was seriously hurt so......

State Fair Milking Contest

Aubertine's team wins again.

“I certainly enjoyed it along with everyone else in this team effort, but most importantly it brings the focus to the dairy industry in this state,” Sen. Aubertine said. “All who were here today participating in the milking contest or who joined us in the stands to watch had a great time. Today at the State Fair it was Dairy Day and with all the events, it brings attention to what is the largest sector of our state’s number one industry in agriculture.”

Can it be Ninety and Still Feel Like Fall?

Yes, it can.

Take in Day, Fonda Fair

Looks like Rose Magnolia will have to be scratched. Alan starts college today and both girls have full work weeks. Nobody to stay with her, as we have to keep the ball rolling....or the hay harvesting...here at home. What can you do? I managed to get my photos printed yesterday. Wishing I had bought new little frames for the 4X6 ones, as mine are scratched and detract pretty badly from the pictures. I have to take them.,..and a Boston rocker (thank you Alan for looking around the living room and finding the biggest thing you could to enter)...over today.

Speaking of the fair, here is a link to an interesting photo posted on a blog that is an adjunct to the newspaper for which I produce the Farm Side each week. Check it out. I am expecting to see and photograph all sorts of interesting things at the fair, but this is so not one of them....just go look....I am not sure whether you will be glad you did, but go anyhow.

Becky is trying to work it out so she and I can make it to the Charlie Daniels concert. Hope that works out. Saw him perform at Saratoga back in the day, but it has been more years than I care to mention...

The Fonda Fair

Sunday Stills...Statues or Figurines

This little carving was a gift from my mom

One of my favorite toys when I was small.
Very plain plastic horses cost a nickle up at the dime store.
Just slightly fancier ones were ten cents.
This guy cost thirty-nine cents and it took me a good while to save it I can tell you.

My dad carved this wood duck in 1983

For more Sunday Stills

A Wonderful Dairy Story

Read about a nice young person's visit to a family dairy farm for a day.

HT to A Dairy Goddess

NY Confirms EEE

From NY Ag and Markets:

NY CONFIRMS FIRST EQUINE CASE OF EASTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS

Two-Year Old Oswego County Gelding Showed Symptoms; Died of Mosquito-Borne Virus

New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker today announced the State’s first confirmed equine case of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, also known as EEE, this year. The affected horse was a two-year old gelding kept in Oswego County. EEE is a rare viral disease of horses and humans that is spread by infected mosquitoes. To date, there have been no reported nor confirmed human cases of EEE in 2010.

“New York’s abundant water sources and humid climate unfortunately make the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and the EEE virus,” Commissioner Hooker said. “Therefore, we highly encourage horse owners to protect their animals and consider vaccinating for EEE. The EEE vaccine has proven to drastically reduce the incidence of the virus in horses and can be easily administered by a private veterinarian.”

The infected horse was a two-year old gelding that was purchased at a New York auction earlier this year. The young horse had an unknown vaccination history at the time of purchase and was not vaccinated after purchase. Last week, the gelding was showing typical signs of EEE, including loss of appetite, circling and leaning against the stall, and after examination by a private veterinarian, was euthanized. Brain samples were sent to the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Laboratory and tested positive for EEE. To date, the other horses on the same premises are not showing any signs of EEE and have since been vaccinated.

Farm Side Fridays

The Farm Side, the newspaper column I write for our local weekly, is usually on the pay page.

Thus normally I don't link to it.....

However, this week, there is a link in the daily email so I will share it with you.

If you wish to read the critter that was the forerunner of Northview you can do so here.

Apple Season has Arrived.

On the way over to the fair for the Holstein show the other night we followed an isolated, but intense, thunder storm to Altamont. The gigantic, flashing, grumbling cloud spewed rain and lashed winds as it hurtled eastward, then jingled half a dozen double and triple rainbows behind it. We stopped near an orchard to take a photo of a particularly vibrant one, arching all brilliant and glorious over shaggy farm fields. It was a quick point and shoot, across in front of the boss and out the car window so there was little time for frame and focus.

Not Early Yet

In the dark before early, the moon poured like water over nighttime scenery; the heifer yard became the bottom of the ocean. The sea of burr cucumber mantling Wally's kennel like kudzu (he guards the barn now) into folded coral, bending into itself all convoluted dark and shining.

A shoal of heifer sharks slept on the barn ramp, full of haylage and sweet corn leaves from garden clean up. The ink and water color of sunrise was just a hint on the other horizon, pointing out the east to anyone awake to watch it.

I was.

Getting the house chores done so the day can be dedicated to finishing up the garden. The beans rendered up an incredible fourth picking yesterday. This has surely been the summer of the green bean. Onions and shallots are dug, potatoes awaiting that service (how can the ground be so darned hard after all the rain we've had?) There is a chill in the air that is suggesting that first frost may come early this year.

I am not ready....but I need to get that way. Brought the first house plants in already....

Getting Up in the Dark

Is not on my favorites list, but it is time to be getting used to it now. In just one week we have gone from two morning singers, the indigo buntings and the carolina wrens to nobody but the roosters making a peep in the morning.

I miss them.

We solved...or rather Alan did...the not-quite robin singing every morning up at camp question. I hadn't said anything to him about the drive-me-crazy-every-morning birds that made the forest ring all around the camp, but he decided to look up the call of the scarlet tanager. He has been seeing a lot of them around and wanted to see if he had been hearing them too.

And there it was, the almost robin. No wonder I never could spot one no matter how many times I walked around the cabin peering into the trees. They may be bright red, but they are not big on showing it off. I am satisfied now at the solution to that puzzle. Next summer I will know.

Looks like we may get a decent rest of the week and the guys are champing at the bit. Hay! We must finish hay or we won't have enough feed again this winter. We lost a whole field of mowed sudex to this rain. It molded on the ground and they must now chop it on the ground to get rid of it.

I don't know why we keep getting all the rain for the whole state every year....three years in a row now of enough rain to support a rain forest. This little section of the valley gets dumped on time after time. We will get a downpour while our friends in Glen have a good day baling.

Sure hope they can get a lot of second and third cutting this week before Alan goes back to college. Crossing fingers for no breakdowns.

Wordless Wednesday

For All You

Beautiful, glorious, wonderful, pedigreed cattle enthusiasts out there. I stumbled upon this fantastic blog and spent more time than you could imagine scrolling through page after page of show and auction photos. The worst part of that is that I am going to spend even more time doing the same the first chance I get.

If you want to see some pretty cows......

You Might be a Farmer If

You know that velvet leaf works great to clean your dipstick when checking your tractor oil.

Weather and Wrens, plus Macro Monday

Katydid

Rain, not just a sprinkle but a never ending downpour. Sluicing, slashing, screaming, splashing, yeah that kind of rain. While farms all around us, even just up-county, have faced a summer of mini-drought, here at Northview it has rained at least three days of every week but one or two. The men have gone nuts trying to put in baled hay. It takes a couple of days to dry it and those couple of days have been so hard to come by.

When we complain about excess rain people look at us like we lost our noodles or something, but every two or three days I dump the wheelbarrow that sits beside the stove...half-full most of the time.

Slashing rains finds leaks....leaks that probably just developed from the slashing rain....don't ask....

And wrens. I love wrens. The cheeky, uppity house wrens that take over the place like they were paying the taxes, or the Carolina wrens that just showed up to serenade me every morning, they are great favorites of mine.

Thus I was so sad when I found a dead one...or what was left of him, just a head and enough feathers to guess what he was. I was also perplexed because I found those tattered relics on the carpet in the front hallway where the birds sing outside the door to get that sought-after concert hall effect. How the heck did he get into the house? And how the heck did our fat, never-been-outdoors since he was a kitten, Elvis the Schaufelcat, catch him? The stinker....every time I have fed him since I have chastised him verbally about his diet and his terminal wren breath. Eating my wren is pretty close to over the edge....

Then yesterday as we looked out at the deluge, knowing it was nearly time to go out in it, get the cows and get our jobs done, Alan heard something. He thought it was outdoors. He perfectly mimicked a wren's alarm call and asked me what bird made that sound.

A wren I answered.

A few minutes later he again roused me from my stupor to point out that said wren was on the upstairs banister. The indoor banister, just outside our bedroom door.

Let's just say that catching an agile wren in a huge, cluttered monster of a house (with ten-foot ceilings) with many rooms and doors and windows is challenging.

Just a little.

A bit the worse for wear after all his thrilling house exploration he finally was released into the bushes out front, whence we set about dealing with the water.

Enough already.

Enough rain.

Enough cruddy weather (the boss is reading me the forecast as week speak...rain every day all week.)

And enough wrens in the house. We still have not figured out how they are coming in, but we closed all the doors so they can't slip around screens or anything.

One certain term comes to mind here.......arrggghhhhhh!!!!!!!

Lots more Macro Monday here

Farming and the World Economy

This is an outstanding article that tells it like it is in a place where it might actually be noticed. Kudos to the author!

Child Abuse

When I read this ad headline I knew what they meant. I kinda wonder about what folks who aren't familiar with quarter horses might have thought though.

Sunday Stills.....Metal

For more Sunday Stills.......

Farmer Connect

Lemmie at the fair. She was reserve champion Holstein

We drove a couple of hours today to look at a bull that was advertised in Country Folks. He wasn't quite what we had in mind, but the folks had another one that we were crazy about and the dam was just as nice so we are negotiating on him.

Rose Magnolia at the fair.
She was grand champion milking shorthorn over a small,
but very nice quality entry. I was stunned and I don't mean maybe.

It was so cool talking to them. When we went into their kitchen we were total strangers. At first conversation was best-behavior-basis, a little stilted, feeling each other out, testing, one, two, three, will you understand what we are thinking? Will we "get" you?

After a few minutes cautious talk about hay and weather, the conversation turned to old cattle sale catalogs and we were off. It was a wonder we weren't next door neighbors or something so much did we have in common. They are good friends with our milk inspector. They like the old bulls, attended Backus auctions, kept big bulls, and on and on.

Alan and I were looking at one another with laughter in our eyes because although the two farmers had never met and looked nothing alike, they were like twins. We stood or sat in their kitchen for hours regaling each other with stories about big, bad bulls, nice heifers, amazing auctions and so on, each getting to know the other's ways and background.

We finally had to get going and they had to get back to fitting for their fair and chores so we said goodbye....several times, always another little story or thought. We liked them a lot. I hope they liked us too. I suspect we will be buying their little bull after a bit. I sure hope we get to meet them again. Nothing like a meeting of the minds.

Twin babies born at the Miracle of Birth Center at Altamont Fair.
Mama seemed quite taken with them.

Food Miles, Calories and Fallacies

I was surprised to find this in a NY Times article.

This is a well-thought out piece worth a thorough read. I am so glad it is reaching a main stream audience.

Raptor

Kestrel

Barred owl...who cooks for you?

Sleepy screech owl, grey phase

Red-tailed hawk...its only flaw was that is was imprinted on humans.

Not red but brave and bold just the same. These are rehabbed birds that were being exhibited near the cow barn at Altamont Fair when I visited on Tuesday. Although they have all manner of handicaps, their raptor nature shown from their dark bright eyes. I missed the gleaming steel colored eye of the broad winged hawk. It was such a beautiful bird, but my focus was poor.

Colored Breeds Show

Down around the wagon by the gate at evening milking time.
Kinda like rush hour country style.

Starts in ten minutes. I am not there.

Maybe I can make the Holstein show tonight. That would be sweet as a certain dearly-loved family member usually shows up and I'd love to see him.

At least chores are done and we finally have grain.

And if you are looking to buy a beautiful children's book, I would love to send some business the way of the illustrator of this one. (You can see how fantastic her art is here)

It's a long story, but she brought our grain at 3 this AMand it wasn't exactly a good moment for her. Anyone that talented deserves support. And it sure goes to show you never know. Who would expect that a grain truck driver, incidentally a lovely and very sweet young lady, would be a published children's book illustrator too?

Back to School Shopping

(Don't you just love these irrelevant pictures?
This is a Scottish Highlander Cow over at the fair.)

I am done with school shopping, what with the baby in college and all, and it is not a task that I will miss at all. If I never again have to compete with herds of other harried parents for the last pack of three by five cards in the state or spend money we don't have for expensive gadgets that could be replaced by lined paper and a pencil I will rejoice with hosannas. To never buy another five-inch binder (yeah, I know what they cost) or graphing calculator will make me a very happy woman.

However, a post by my friend Ann, had me remembering just how creative a terminally lazy very busy and harassed mother can be. Three kids, one husband, elderly inlaws, the farm etc. had me at a dead run all through the school years. Band, chorus, 4-H, Dairy Quiz Bowl, Dairy judging, Dairy Ambassadors, who had time to shop? As soon as our kids could count, read, and conceive of spending money (I think Alan might have been nine) we pointed them towards independence by giving them a certain amount of money at the beginning of each frantic fall pen, pencil and over-priced clothing round up. (One year it was two hundred dollars for clothes, books, three by five cards from Hell, calculators etc. Those were the days.......I can't imagine spending that now and am glad I don't have to).

They were then permitted to each take a shopping cart and buy exactly what they wanted-the catch being that it had to go them for the whole school year. If they had money left at the end of their initial shopping session (when the prices are lowest and the crowds most insane) they could put it away for school needs during the ensuing year. If they had any left come summer vacation it was theirs for whatever they wanted.

If the clothes they bought were poorly made or seriously ugly, they had to cope with the consequences. Skimping on things on the class lists brought the teacher down on their heads not mine. (Well actually I put my fingers in my ears and hummed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony while the teachers yelled at me on the phone but the offspring had to come up with a way to fulfill their commitments....)

You might expect that this would be fraught with comedy and tragedy and that they ended up short of needed funds, out of paper and bereft of pens.
It wasn't.
They weren't.
Maybe because they were farm kids and simply had to be practical and independent to get from day to day, they did just fine right from the very first year. Alan and Liz, the practical pair, had money left for summer. Becky the generous might have had to borrow paper from someone half way through the year, but she got by and got to choose clothes that she liked (I shuddered but she was happy).

It worked for me too. I was there in the store to offer advice if requested but I never had to fight over what color or price of notebook or tee shirt. If they wanted top of the line stuff they made do with less...willingly because they got to choose between five notebooks for a dollar or one for five dollars.

Today any one of them can take X number of carefully hoarded dollars to the store and come back with the maximum amount of appropriate products that those dollars can purchase. They can grocery shop for the whole family on an extremely tight budget, buy vehicles, animals, feed, or whatever and the oldest is only 24. I know I was a real mean mom, but most days I am quite glad of it.

Farm Sign Gate

I was one of a bountiful number of ag journalists who wrote about this fascinating, but incorrect story. I'm calling it farm sign gate.

Retraction anyone?

Stranded Payments in PA

Where is the milk money going?

Shorties at the Fair

Rose Magnolia, our girl, shown in the intermediate calf class

The other shortie at the fair,
sired by Promise, our old bull,
a junior yearling, I think.

Lemmie Loves Me

Lemmie before she heard my voice

Just in case you wondered whether cows know their folks or not....Liz's boyfriend took me over to the fair for a bit. When I got there Lem was just lying there resting. The second I spoke and she heard my voice she spun her head right around to see me. Then any time I spoke her name she quickly looked to see what I was doing.

As soon as she heard my voice...
there were people all around talking but she picked me right out

Chewing cud like it was her job.

Milk vein

Liz, Becky and the men generally feed her. All I do is milk her twice a day, put fly spray on ditto...and talk to her, because, despite her breaking my nose with her tail last year, she is one of my favorites. Nice to know she likes me too.

More Cows for the Fair

I hustled all weekend getting these ladies finished for Liz's fair decorations...then she forgot them. Oh, well, I am sure she will remember tomorrow and the paint will probably be a bit drier then.Now if I can just get the printer working for the stall signs.

Rose Magnolia at the Fair

Some fast phone pics sent home by Liz during and after clipping. Her head is shaped a lot like that of her paternal grandmother Gold Mine Poppys OT Kay (Her sire is the Select Sire Power bull, Poker).

***Yet another update. There is another milking shorthorn heifer over at the fair, a nice yearling. Guess who her sire is?

Yep, the two shorties that will compete are very closely related. Rose's granddad is the other heifer's papa. Even though the older animal will almost inevitably beat little Rose I am simply tickled red (shorthorn red). I picked Promise out myself from a photo I saw online. I fought kinda fiercely to get him drawn rather than just beefed (as a certain husband was going to do). I have no objections whatsoever by being beaten by one of his offspring.

Pins and Needles

Fair time is nervous time for me.

I worry.

The drive is terrible. 32 miles of twisting, winding road, bad enough in the day time, horrible at night when shared with hard core elbow benders and worse. We have been followed, harassed and witnessed massive drug busts while on that merry jaunt to the show and back.

Then there are the cattle. I worry about them. They are so vulnerable to who knows what while they are there. There is a good watchman, but there are so many um.....people....not cow people...all kinds of people. And loose cows, always a few loose cows.

And dear Lemmie has to be hand milked today as the milking parlor won't be open until tonight. She has been hand milked before, but I worry. She is one of my very favorites to milk, tall enough so I barely have to bend down to put the machine on, always clean with a properly placed udder, just a very nice girl...and she is the best cow Becky has ever had. Here at home one of Liz's best heifers, a Silky Cousteau, out of Mandy herself, turned up with a bum hock yesterday. Real bad. She is a big strapping thing, but somebody or something did her harm. Probably one of the other big heifers in that pasture. They tend to play rough. I am so worried about her too. That whole family of cows is very soft, not toughies like some who will just rub a little dirt in it and walk it off. I hope she is better today.

And then there is Gael. Gael is Liz's border collie, Mike's half sister. Her dad was a great enough dog to go to the National finals with his owner. I have written about him here before, one of the most staggeringly talented dogs I have ever seen. Gael was softer when she worked, but she had a git er done attitude that made her more dog than she actually was. She is fifteen. Old dog vestibular disease and with it intermittent blindness. Incontinence. She was drinking from the garden pond when I looked at her yesterday. The next time I looked out to check on her she was gone. I looked and looked. She had fallen behind some plants and couldn't get up. I went and helped her. Then she fell in another flower bed and couldn't get up. She ate a couple bites of meatloaf and nothing more. She has lost so much weight in the last few weeks.... I will get her some canned dog food and see if that helps, but in my heart I know it is getting to be Time.

How I hate to make that decision. I know will feel guilty as I did when Mike left us last fall. Who am I to say? When is it right? Too soon? Too late? Good dogs. Good friends. Good helpers. They are all getting old at the same time.

It all adds up to not much sleep. Worry and a buck and a half will get you a cup of coffee (unless you are the Star$$$$ sort) but I do it anyhow. I will be glad when the week is done and all the decisions are made and the cows and kid back home again.

****Update...first thing I saw out the kitchen window when the sun got down to business this morning was Monday, the Cousteau daughter, lying in some bushes looking awful and very sorry for herself. I was so discouraged I could barely stand it. She is good one. I want her to thrive and prosper. We brought the cows in and were discussing what we would do....try to get her down into a pen, take food and water to her right where she was (problem, the other animals would fight her to take it away from her) or put her in the empty pasture behind the barn. Then Alan said, as he looked out the cow barn window, "Isn't that her right there? Isn't she the only one with a collar on?"

Nonsense....she was so bad off, how could she walk? Well it turns out she could walk pretty darned good and was right there in the barnyard with the rest of the heifers...going back to that whole family being a bunch of wienies.....Yup they are. Guess she sprained her hock, but she is infinitely better this morning. She refused our offer to rest in the barnyard and hustled right out with the others....see this grey hair here...this one right here? It's hers!

Sunday Stills....Smoke and Fire

I pride myself on one-match fires. This wasn't one.



For more Sunday Stills....

Rooster

Teri gave us this fellow a while back. We let him out of the coop to run around the other day and he is such a sweetie! He is still called New Roo for want of a better name.

Another Shorthorn

This is BattleMint, another Holstein/Milking Shorthorn cross. As you can see they don't all turn out red. She is not a bad heifer, but I am probably going to sell her as her mother was an abysmal cow and somebody has to go. I have a Myrik daughter that we can't seem to get bred that is also for sale.

Fair Time

Lemmie shows as a five-year-old this year. Here she is getting clipped

Altamont Fair begins officially on Tuesday next. Liz is getting her animals washed and clipped. This is Frieland Ex Spec Lemonade, a daughter of Ocean-View Extra-Special out of an old Straight-Pine Elevation Pete daughter we had. She has never exactly been a spectacular cow, but she never changes...looks the same at five as she did at two. I am really hoping she holds together to show as an aged cow and looks this youthful.

Carolina Wren on the Porch

For Cathy, who asked. I never imagined I could actually get this video, but as I was getting ready to head to the barn this morning, not one, but two Carolina wrens came to sing on the porch amphitheater. One was under the old DR Trimmer singing its heart out. This one started at the top of the steps then flew right to the door where I was standing, clung to the outside of the crosspieces on the screen and sang about a foot from my camera (missed that on the video). You can see him flying up to the door at the end of the video.
Used my beloved Canon Is3s btw, which does a fine job at anything I ask of it.

I was about to shoot more when the cat hit the screen at about a hundred mph. Guess he isn't a music lover.

****Update, I put a second video, in which you can just barely see the bird on the screen before the cat hits it over on my other blog, The View at Northview.

Thursday on the Farm

Not all the dandelions around here are out in the lawn.....

Sorry I haven't been doing much more than putting up links and photos lately. This is a busy time of year on a farm and we have been going at it every day. The guys are finished with first cutting and getting at the Sudex and second cutting. Trying to bale the latter, but with the every few days rain most of it is ending up in the bag. They are mixing the Sudex with semi-dry hay to get it to go in the bag as it is pretty hard to dry down and tends to mush up and not pack otherwise.

Haven't even had a chance to plug the new camera into the computer to charge its little battery. Beets and beans are throwing themselves at me apace and I have to get them in the freezer. I am itching to get out and take some video of Shamrock playing with her tongue. She is a goofy little Jersey of Liz's and she spends hours flipping it up and down and waving it around and turning it upside down like someone waving a flag. It is the funniest thing to see.

Liz's new job is making it hard for her to get ready for the fair next week. It looks as if she is going to be leaving my milking shorthorn, Rose Magnolia, home because she never got to the library to print off registration blanks for her. I am kinda disappointed because I think she is real nice and I want to see how she looks with her coat clipped and washed and all shined up. She is a strapping big girl now with an amazing frame and a very deep body. I think the Poker bull is going to be a good one.

Well, the Carolina wren has finished his daily early morning serenade and the Indigo bunting is warbling down below the driveway. Guess that means its time for chores. Take care....

Seed Signs and Cow Hunters

Yet another totally irrelevant photograph...how I love them

Here are a pair of stories I used in researching this week's Farm Side

Chicagoans see seed signs as evidence of corporate ownership

Insects could be the key to meeting needs of hungry folks

And here is the rest of the story on the cow found dead with an arrow in its side. (The Angus in question must have been armed, as the alleged perps are claiming self defense.)

Farm equipment thieves caught in the act.

NAIS wearing new clothes, but still the same old nightmare.

Best Butter Commercial EVER

HT Elaine Shein on FB