Deadly Silence

For the past two summers I have let some weedy sumacs grow up in front of the big living room windows. They are ugly, but the convenient perch brings birds practically into the house. Not your usual feeder birds either, but secret denizens of hedgerow and tree. Warblers, wrens, catbirds, even what I think was a red-eyed vireo this year (didn't have my glasses on) come to the shady shelter of sumac umbrellas to peer into the house or glean busily, unaware of our watching. It is delightful to have them so close and yet not scare them.

However, as winter winds approach, the need arises to remove the danger of the weak, but woody stems of the sumacs lashing against the window and breaking it.

Thus pruning time arrives.

I was miserably wielding my brush nippers, deep in prickly things, a cloud of mosquitoes feasting on anything not covered with Off! when a hawk drifted in on silent wings. He quickly hid himself among the Virginia creeper and river bank grape festooning the ash tree on the other side of the driveway and vanished. Had I not looked up at just the right time I would have never known he was there. So quiet. So swiftly invisible. ..and yet such a big bird. I barely caught a glimpse, but he looked like a red tail. I finished my nipper work and trudged back around the house just as he swooped swiftly down over the driveway by the old kennel, sending the chickens scattering like spilled popcorn. They raced under the bushes, screaming their alarm.

Well, that stinker. No wonder he was being so quiet. He was stalking our tame flock. I was just telling the boss about it and he says the hawk has been around all week, sitting in the big cedars that flank the front porch.
Now we know why.
Dang.


(He was indeed a red-tailed hawk btw.)

Bear vs. Zucchini

Zucchini wins

Farm Side Fridays

Here

September

Blogger's New Editor

So here I am trying to post some nice photos of cows and sunshine and orange trees and fuzzy grass...oh and some fat frogs too, when the new editing system for posting pops up. Lots of new options. Lots of new things to learn. Keeps changing fonts just for fun.  One of the slowest photo uploaders I have ever used. No way to upload multiple photos....oh yeah, I am in love. NOT.


I checked out the page where folks can comment on this topic and guess what...nobody else likes it either!

Is Facebook Down

Yes, it does seem to be and the result is that almost any service that reports on it is bogged down too. Forget about Downrightnow, which is the main place to find out about outages...it is having server problems too. Amazing.

The Funniest Ad

You will EVER see. Courtesy of my friend Teri.

Not

Not for sale
Not Argersinger Road
Not a through road to Lusso
Not a gravel bank either.

Waited all yesterday morning for the clamor to die down around here...chores and milking, people off to work and school. People home and gone again, phone calls, men in and out for checks etc, until it was all quiet on the northview front so I could boil up a third batch of grape jelly. Alan helped me get the grapes down Monday afternoon and I made the juice before that night's milking.

You jelly makers know that once that last big boiling begins you shouldn't stop. So of course, just as I was setting the timer for that all important minute didn't some turkey with a great big truck and flat bed machinery trailer come cranking in behind my car, nearly running over poor old Gael in the process. And I do mean close call.

First words out of his mouth when I go boiling out the door after turning off my almost finished jelly are, "I'm not here to rob you or anything."

I lost it. I admit it. He drove past those signs up there in the photo, minus the vulture I suspect, and right up to the back door of the house. And claimed to be looking for a gravel bank. Missed our poor old dog by inches. I said very unpleasant things to him, made him back down the driveway rather than moving the car so he could just tool right around, and turned his plate number into the state police. Rather than complaining that I might have wasted their time the nice young officer thanked me for reporting the incident.

Am I sorry? Not one bit. After the theft of our generator cables and with this kind of thing becoming too darned common, I will call the next time too.

Did the jelly turn out all right? I don't know yet. It is kind of funny looking but it tastes pretty good. A lot darker purple than the other two batches..

Signs

Of the end of summer

Did it Freeze Last Night?

It matters. Sudan Grass/sorghum develops a poisonous acid after stress like frost. We are feeding and ensiling it right now. First step-stick head out the door (pet the dog for a minute too) and listen for crickets. They usually get it right.

Nope, not a one chirping. Still doesn't either feel or smell that cold ...and yes, you can smell cold, although I can't exactly explain how.

Second step, swipe a hand across the stuff on the car. Nope, not hard and crispy,just wet.

Finally, get high tech. Turn to the computer and check out weather stations. 41 at Albany airport. Probably didn't freeze here either. Okay, another day of bringing in plants, cleaning up garden and turning grapes into jelly. Why oh, why, did the boss's late father plant the grape vine right next to the standard apple tree? Most of them are up about thirty feet on teeny, tiny little branches. We won't be getting them, alas.

Dairy Politics

In the 122nd District. Read about it here.

Working the Curve

College kids...they present quite a challenge to us old fogies....we want to be able to converse with them as if we actually knew what we are talking about and sometimes that ain't easy. When I had offspring in Animal Science, Anthropology and Fisheries and Wildlife, the learning curve for conversation was fairly shallow. They brought home veritable fountains of fascinating new information but at least I had a foundation upon which to build my knowledge. I have lived animal science since I could toddle around with puppies and kittens. Anthropology is just history with science thrown in. Fisheries and wildlife, yeah, fish and fascination, I could do that. I already knew half of those tough Latin names from another college experience in another life time...and from learning them just for fun.

Then along came Agricultural Engineering, which is a fancy name for Diesel Technology. Suddenly the curve looked (and sounded) like Everest on a bad day. I more or less, kinda, sorta, get it about gasoline engines, having dated a mechanic back in the day, and having driven a lifelong series of clunkers (without cash, alas) which taught me just about every single thing that could go wrong with one... Diesels, not so much. I can drive a tractor, but my knowledge stops right there, and that is just fine with me. I like Esox and Sylvalagus, phooey on injectors and turbo chargers.

However, to survive the nightly after-class sermons in the barn I have been forced to learn things I didn't want to know. I now know what a common rail is and can draw one on the barn blackboard. Pumps, bench tests, PTO horsepower. I can listen to all that diesel-Greek with the best of them (I won't lie and say that I get it yet, but I guess I am going to learn whether I want to or not).

Now the turbo charger on the 4490 has gone bad and the kid is trying to replace it with the one that came off the engine that the same tractor blew a couple of years ago. With all the men clustered around that tractor all through milking last night and Becky making pancakes so we could test drive the new grape jelly, Liz and I ended up milking pretty much alone....fun, fun, fun. Will all that classroom learning bear fruit and the tractor arise from the dead, yet again? I surely hope so.

In the meantime let me draw you a common rail.

Sundae on the Farm Report

Here is an excellent report on Montgomery County's 10th annual Sundae on the Farm.

Sunday Stills....Flags

For more Sunday Stills.

A Valiant Trouper

You have probably read about Gael's ongoing issues with old dog vestibular disease. This is a syndrome that supposedly clears up in time, but Mike had and she has almost constant recurrences, which are a misery. Gael was so bad just a few days ago that she simply couldn't eat or walk and we were thinking that the time had come. She hadn't had a good day in weeks and it was obvious that she was miserable.

Then from one day to the next she got just enough better to eat again and to do silly things that she has never done before.

Like Thursday afternoon when Liz and I were heading out to pick up Becky from work. We were just leaving the back of the house in the Durango when Liz said, "Mom, Gael is following us."

I said, "Speed up quick and get out of her sight. She'll stop."

I mean the dog has cataracts so bad she can see about three inches in front of her nose and you have to bellow to call her from a yard away. How could she follow the car?

"She's still coming."

"Quick, go around the corner out of sight. She'll go back."

"She's still coming."

"Drive down between the big trees and wait. She'll go back.

"Uh, ma, look back."

"Oh, all right. Pick her up and put her in the back. She can go with us."

So the old dog who used to live for rides in the car (yeah, the same dog that chased the rear windshield wiper and then ate the rear seat belts in frustration when she couldn't catch it), got an unexpected ride yesterday. She was too tippy to stand and watch out the window like she used to...and can't really see anyhow...but she curled up in her tiny little ball, which seems to give her the most relief from the ODVD and lay there all comfy until we returned. Liz lifted her out of the back and she toddled up on the porch smug as can be.
She knew.

What can I say? What a dog!

Paul has a Poem

Paul at Salt Creek Life has the nicest poem about the season that I have read in a good long while. It had me smiling and reading out loud. Go read...enjoy.

Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm

Is on Farm Side Fridays this week. Directions are included if you are attending. Looks like it is going to be a great event!

The Farmer gets Older

Happy Birthday to the boss!

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.......