First Day on the New Feet

Pecan had a new baby girl this morning. First day on the new feet, first breakfast, second breakfast, nuncheon, high tea......

Wordless Wednesday

Cow Housing

Another pic of Moments, since everybody liked her

A lively debate has sprung up in the comments and I thought maybe I should address it from the point of view of 32+ years of caring for and milking cows in both styles of stabling, freestall and conventional barns with pasture. I can assure you from personal, long-term experience that cows are fine in both kinds of barns. Sure they like pasture, but they also race to get into the barn in summer...that is where the fans are and fly control is better. And in winter that is where it is warm and comfortable. Although they can withstand amazingly adverse weather conditions they like to avoid them just as any creature would.

I am not sure that the terms that we use to describe our own emotional states apply to cows in the same way as they do to humans. I admit I am as anthropomorphic in my language as anyone, but I think a cow's sense of well-being runs more to comfortable vs. uncomfortable, hungry/not hungry, frightened/secure rather than abstracts like happy or sad. They are not predators, but rather prey animals, and as such they devote most of their energies to survival. If we make survival easier for them, rather than being what we conceive of as "unhappy" because they are not outdoors, they are contented with having what they need to live and feel safe and comfortable.

Most free stalls are designed with the cow's comfort in mind, with ventilation systems and sprinklers in summer and side curtains to keep out the weather in winter. Cows can walk about freely, eat when they want to and lie down in stalls that are scientifically designed after much research (which is still constantly ongoing with better ideas coming out every year) to fit their needs as perfectly as possible. I am sure you heard about Temple Grandin, whose life story won a boat load of Emmys this year. She is a perfect example of the kind of expert who designs animal handling and care systems so that they serve animals as well as their caretakers..

Not unlike house cats, which might have a heck of a lot of fun hunting birds in the neighbor's back yard, but are much safer indoors, cows inside stables may not look as natural, but the key thing is care. They are well-cared for, their wants and needs attended to and they do just fine. If I were to try to define a "happy" cow, I would describe one that is lying down on a firm but comfortable surface, chewing her cud, calm rather than alert, at a proper temperature for her species (cows like the fifties). There is no reason she can't experience all those things, as much as she wants to, in a free stall barn as well as in a pasture.

Cows look pretty grazing out on a nice green hillside, and under the right conditions that is a fine place for them to be. I like pasturing our cows because it is a very economical way to care for a herd of our size, and they do thrive in summer. Winter is another story. I would love to have a nice modern free stall barn for them in winter. The cows would like it I'll bet. Inside a stable that was painstakingly designed, after much research and trial and error at universities and on farms, to cater to their every whim, is a fine place for them.

A Great Farm Safety Resource

NY State has a wonderful resource when it comes to staying safe on the farm. The New York Center for Agricultural Medicine provides a broad range of safety and health related services to the state's farmers.

An especially handy tool is their list of farm safety articles, which can be found here.

If You Like Monty Python

Go listen to this clip that Dickiebo has up on driving on the left.

Having a son who can do ten minutes of the Holy Grail at a time...and being more familiar with the air speed velocity of swallows with coconuts than with European geography (although I did know the answer to the question...without the taxi) , I laughed so hard that my coffee was hazardous to my keyboard.

Home Girls of Northview

On Parade

***Well, actually on their way down to the barn for morning milking

Traffic jam, NY style...upstate NY that is

Detroit

Bonneville and friends

Moments,
we were hoping she was pregnant
and the other day when I walked by her, her calf to be was poking its fanny against her side
and I got to feel it kicking and wiggling, hooray for Moments!

My favorite cow, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, thanks Alan for giving her to me!

B-dub as I call her gets three pics just because she is so special.
Can you believe her amazing color?

Sunday Stills....Glass

For more Sunday Stills....

Not Just Another Saturday

When the boss watched the news last night I had to walk away from the television and go upstairs. As is I am sure the case with most of you, my memories of September 11 are still as sharp as if it happened yesterday. I shuddered to be reminded so strongly and needed not to be in that room.

On the other hand we need to remember.

I think we have been encouraged to let the horror slip from our collective consciousness and to move along into our usual round of national guilt for anything and everything that happens anywhere in the world. We were attacked in a cowardly and horrific manner.

It was not our fault.... No matter what the American-haters would have us think. The people who died were just living their lives as best they could not bothering anyone.
We should not forget that.

My beloved brother works long weeks and hours, alone without his family far below the site of the horror, laboring to fix parts of what was broken. I worry about him every day. A few years ago a large number of bloggers joined together to remember each person who died in the assault upon our nation for the 2996 project.

Carl DiFranco, an innocent young man just doing his job, who died that day was my assignment. Here is a link to his story as best as I could find it.







Here at home, it was sirens and Sadie all night again. It is worrisome to hear them screaming up and down the valley especially with 9-11 on my mind. So far no news reports to tell me what was going on with the sirens, but the state of the porch gives me a Sadie suggestion. Gael had a bad night with her old dog vestibular disease; the porch is a mess with a chicken feed bag torn up all over the place and who knows what else. She wouldn't eat when I put out her food.

This is just heart-wrenching. Yesterday she had a great day and even trotted out to meet us when we came in from the barn. With her balance problems trotting is not exactly an every day thing. Now today she is terribly bad off again and can barely walk. Poor old girl. We lavish pets and praise on her and feed her treats and tasty foods but....It is different than with Mike. He lost himself long before he passed away. There was no Mike there, but only a shell of dog. With Gael, the body is weak, but the doggy girl, the Wissa Queen, Beanie dog, Queen Bean is still inside her fragile old body. Mike was my special boy but losing Gael is hurting a lot harder.

The windows were fogged solid this morning. For a minute I was worried that we had had a frost last night. Most of the house plants are still outside and the garden isn't done and I am so not ready for frost....although I suppose that I really should get ready. However, I had forgotten that the boss opened the plenum on the furnace yesterday, allowing a little passive heat to seep upstairs. The house has been damp and dismal and that tiny bit of warmth is welcome. No frost either.

State Fair

A kind friend sent me this link to a lovely article about agricultural fairs...which are among my favorite things that there are.

The author neatly synopsizes all that makes up a fair from carnies to funnel cakes and camel rides to giant cucumbers. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

There are Things Every Farm Kid Learns

Like you really can't carry an egg in your pocket. Even your shirt pocket. Even if you go right straight to the house. Go ahead, try it. I have.

An egg in your pocket that doesn't make it to the house has truly nasty side effects. Really.

I found a nice egg this morning hidden in the neatest little cubby among the straw bales that Liz had left from the fair. A little rectangular tunnel back between the bales, just a comfy size for a chicken, dark, and nicely padded. I could just see how very tempting it must be for a hen to snuggle down in there for her daily confinement.

In fact the crook leg hen was in there when I went to get a couple slabs of straw to bed Nick's dog house up for the cooler nights. She clucked at me in irritation, I grabbed the fat white egg that was sitting there...and stuck it in my shirt pocket.

I tended to making Nick's bed without mishap, other than that Nick wanted to be in the dog house when I wanted to stuff it with straw.....then I went to the stove to chuck in some of the nine thousand pound blocks of oak that the boss provided me for heating water. I am sure you are guessing what happened next.

But no, I have been, more times than I care to admit, that farm person will the ill-fated egg in the pocket. One time it was five eggs, but I won't bore you with the details of that debacle.

I set the egg carefully in the grass, filled the stove, and grateful for years of experience with the perils of egg production, sauntered in for breakfast.....with no egg, either on my face or in my pocket.

Seems Like Only Yesterday

That the sun was coming up near the neighbor's spruce tree. Now it rises way to the south and is usually a sadly pale version of its summer fiery self. Unless we get some pretty unlikely weather we are done baling for the year. Days are too short and dew is too heavy for the hay to dry so it is back to chopping for the ag bags

At the Farm Bureau meeting last night our Cooperative Extension rep was telling folks to be checking their corn for maturity. As in the past couple of years a lot of it is way ahead of the norm. Since we didn't plant any this summer it won't be an issue for us.


The birds are sure making themselves scarce. A few passing killdeers, a lot of starlings and the odd chickadee or two are about it except for blue jays. Those gorgeous blue devils have found the giant sun flowers and are denuding them apace. I hope they scatter a few seeds like they did last year so I have some volunteers next year. This year's monsters were volunteers and they are the biggest I have ever grown. I really should cut one down and just save a few seeds, but the task daunts me. They are that big.

Well, off to the salt mines...have a good one.

Poor Doggy

I wonder what would happen if we sent a drug sniffing dog through the halls of national government....Congress, the Maison Blanche, etc. I'll bet he would wear his nose out in the first half hour.

Thunderstorm Last Night

Alan took everybody's favorite rocker over to the fair and it won a blue ribbon!

And I slept right through it. Guess it was a humdinger though.

The hay elevator broke down at about dark-thirty last night. Alan went up in the mow to fix it and fell in a hole in the hay and jerked his shoulder half out of joint. It popped back in when he got out of the hole, but it hurt a lot. There were only about thirty bales left on the wagon he was unloading and they just left them there. Too dangerous to be doing what they were doing in the dark. We will feed the wet bales up to the young stock or give the cows a treat.....second and third cutting fine mixed grass, clover, and alfalfa. They will like it I think.

If you live in the area make sure to save Saturday the 19th of September for Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm. This year it will take place at Stowdale Farm in St. Johnsville. It is always an amazing event and well worth visiting, if only for the free ice cream sundae.

Sustainability and Moo Juice

Milk came out on top in a survey of nutrients vs climate impact.

And it does a body good!

Detonate Me

Deputies blow up stuffed pony.

Watch it happen here

Six-Horse Hitch

And a tiger just for good measure.

Stars and Guard Dogs

Sadie, the guard dog here at the house...mostly an anti-deer-in-the-garden device...barked all night last night. Finally at one AM I got up and went out to see what was troubling her.

Flashlight, dark night, cold barn walk. Wally the barn guard was sleeping, so he wasn't worried about whatever was up. Ditto Nick up in his kennel.

All was well at the barn, no cows in the yard, cold enough for the house windows to be all steamed up and as quiet as it ever gets. Waste of time getting up, but I couldn't just ignore her. There have been a lot of odd things going on around here during the fair...salesmen who weren't really salesmen showing up at the door, trying to barge right on in (I sent them packing) dogs barking during the day when there was seemingly nothing to bark at. The boss was accosted by thugs over at the fair....there are some pretty questionable folks around and I worry....and lock things that are normally not locked. Still I hate getting up in the middle of the night.

But, ah, the stars. We live near a village with lots of night lighting. You can rarely see much more than the brightest of stars, a mere sprinkling compared to what is visible in the Adirondacks. Just too much light for them. However, last night most of the lights in town were dimmed. Thick trees, still heavy in leaf, screened the rest. Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, right down against the hills...horizons usually white from city lights. Across the entire sky the path of the Milky Way was clearly visible. Because of light pollution that is something I have only seen a few times, mostly while camping among sheltering mountains up north. It was like a blazing white ribbon, stretching East to West, glowing brighter than I could even imagine.

I stood in the driveway south of the heifer barn among the sleepy crickets, the urgent cry of a passing night bird echoing loud, the huffing of the heifers on the other side of the fence, comforting and cozy...and just watched the stars for a long time.

This morning I was kind of worse for wear, what with the limited hours of sleep I managed to get, but I wouldn't have missed the show for anything.

And as I came back to the house, way across the river I saw a little bonfire. I'll bet somebody was fishing and maybe partying just a bit and in the incredible stillness (holiday weekend, the Thruway was silent) Sadie could hear the voices of the revelers.

Sunday Stills....Shoes and Boots

Becky's old flip flops....most of the shoes around here
are either nondescript sneakers or too nasty to share.

Aluminum racing plate (technically it is a shoe) from the filly Lighthearted.
She was the star of the stable at Saratoga where I worked as a hot walker for Henry S. Clark when I was in my early twenties. When we went to the racing hall of fame we found her name listed in one of the rooms there. She won the Go For Wand and the Molly Pitcher Stakes in 1973.

And this is Charlie Daniel's cowboy boot

And this is its owner. Becky took me to the concert last night.
Wow!

For more Sunday Stills.......

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.......