Sunday Stills...Graveyards and Old Churches

Indian Castle Church

239 years old, vandals once tried to burn it, but it was saved

Newspaper stories about the fire

Below several monuments from Fiery Hill, Fort Plain, NY

White zinc monument

We had quite an excursion planned for Saturday to take photos for this week's challenge. Then the boss got a bad cold and the weather turned crumby and so the archives will have to suffice. Good thing these are subjects I have found interesting in the past.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Yesterday

This cold weather seemed so far away.

Now it looks as though it's back to say.

So relieved by yesterday........

Yeah, it was sixty yesterday and I didn't care a crumb whether it was anthropocentric global warming, a delayed January thaw, or just a fluke. It was wonderful. Went outdoors in the mud luscious and puddle wonderful as often as I could.

We have all been moaning and groaning about how hard it is to get anything done...no energy...just want to crash and burn all the time.

I can tell you now it is weather-related. A few hours of warm and sunny and the work almost (but not quite) did itself. Had a lovely phone call from the boss's dear aunt, who is just a huge favorite of mine, which added a certain special something. She is such a sweet person.

Back to cold with wind, but the nice weather was a reminder that better days are coming......and I don't think I smell like a pea cock any more, but maybe I have just gotten used to it.

Peacock Poo

Pervasive stuff indeed. Just ask me.

Just ask anyone within six feet of me.

A couple of years ago a person with whom we do business offered to get me a couple of pea fowl from a farmer he knows who has quite a few running wild on the place. I have always wanted a pair....

The gentleman finally caught them and they arrived today. The first thing the hen did was rocket around in her cage spattering me liberally from head to foot with pea hen by-product she had produced during her very, very long ride here.

Of course I had just done a large quantity of laundry and was down to my last dry jeans and sweatshirt(no drier, I use laundry bars). After I had them comfortable enthroned in the old hen house it took me about two seconds to get to the house......I couldn't stand my own company. It's sweats and a couple of old sweaters for me until something dries.

Worth it though. Pea fowl are so beautiful close up they seem like something from another world. They never fail to dazzle me.

Hopefully the hen house will keep them safe from foxes and coyotes and fishers and whatever all else wants them for dinner. Meanwhile, I still smell like the south end of a northbound bird. Any suggestions on getting that gone?

Hen feathers

Been so Darned Fool Busy

Haven't even had time to get pics off the camera. This is a really awful shot of a common redpoll, only the second one I have seen this winter. It was about dusk and this was taken through the window so......I guess you'll have to trust me that it is actually a redpoll.

The weather is warm at least for today and there is much to do. We seem to be acquiring a pair of peacocks so I had to get the hen house that Alan and I built ready for them. That is kinda, sorta done, although there is more left to take care of.

Have much company coming in the next couple of weeks so cleaning is an ongoing, if largely futile, project. Doesn't matter what you do, they follow you around and mess it back up again. We did get the boss's newspapers picked up anyhow. Tied up three large bundles just from the landfill around his chair. Found my missing pot holders and several pairs of his dollar store glasses which was good.

Well, back to the salt mines. It won't clean itself. Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts!

The Last Thing I Do

This is Carlene....back in the day.

She is now a big cow and just had her first calf a couple of weeks ago.

She decided to stomp on Alan last night and stepped on his hand.

He has a perfect set of dew claw marks on the back of it. Isn't she cute?

Before leaving the barn these days is check ears. I go around to the fresh cows and grab their ears to see if they are nice and warm or cold and clammy. It isn't fool proof but it is a pretty good way to check for the beginnings of milk fever, or hypocalcemia.

Of course we are always on the lookout for more serious symptoms of the metabolic disorder so common at calving time, but the cold ears sometimes give us a head start on treatment. It is far better to get a bottle of calcium on board before the cow is down or has stopped eating.

Right now I am keeping a close watch on Egypt and Verona who both had calves a couple of days ago, as well as checking Lakota who is due in a couple of days. And Heather, ditto. Come March we will about be living in the barn because so many cows will be calving.

Wordless Wednesday

Global Warming

We hazit.

Or we did for a grand total of around twenty hours. Temps in the fifties and howling winds. It felt like March. Now we are back in the deep freeze (or deepish anyhow) at 12 and feeling like just like January.

The warm wind did dump a goodly part of the snow off the barn roofs...which is good.

I looked out the window just after breakfast and saw heifers running toward the house...which is not good. Snow fell on the roof of their pen, spooked them, and they climbed up on a pile of frozen feed and jumped out. Came right over to visit us. Of course, as is nearly always the case when somebody gets out, the boss was gone, so with the help of whomever hadn't left for work or school, I chased cows in my house shoes.

Again.

For today it is cold and windy and the windows are all iced up. Global warming is just a distant memory. As Alan always says, I do my share. I drive an SUV (nothing less will do the driveway). So where is my share of global warming, anthropocentric or otherwise?

A second calf was born yesterday to one of Alan's cows, Verona. Both of yesterdays new ones are bulls.

A Farmer Valentine

Millions and millions of mostly imported flowers will be sold.

Rivers of chocolate have been poured into molds, packed into fancy boxes, and purveyed for high prices all across our nation.

That is all fine and dandy. In fact my girls bought me chocolate and I am enjoying it immensely.

However, I wouldn't trade the farmer version of a valentine for anything. This morning boss got up several hours before chore time. I thought nothing of it. Sometimes his knees hurt so bad he goes down and sleeps in his chair so as not to awaken me with his tossing and turning. Sometimes he takes his worries downstairs for the same reason.

However, this time he had one of those feelings animal caretakers get. Something wrong in the barn. He went out on a hunch, figuring to check on the big cow, Verona, who looked like maybe calving last night when we left the barn.

She was fine. It was my young first calf heifer, Egypt, who needed a little assistance getting her baby born. He delivered the calf and made them both comfy and came back to the house.

Where he made a cup of coffee (he doesn't drink it by the way) and brought it up to where I was still asleep, entirely ignorant of all the drama in the stable.

I can't say I drank it up there. Habit dies hard and by the time he got in from the barn it was time for me to get up, so I did. Thus I am sitting here at the computer enjoying it and thinking that farmer valentines are the best kind available.

I wonder if the new calf is a bull or a heifer.

Sunday Stills....Spring Preview

This is a great challenge. I think we all need a little spring.

For more Sunday Stills......

Heat Wave

Twenty-four this morning.

Above

Yay! I am tired of living in a meat locker, where you could just turn off the fridge and use the kitchen table if you wanted to.

And there was a house finch out in the pear tree yesterday, singing his heart out.

Singing! Can you believe it! Not cheeping, not chirping, not peeping or beating his little head on a tree trunk because he is so sick of the weather (oh, wait, that was me), but singing! I loved it.

Slim Pickins' and Fat Pickers

"Hold my beer, watch this!"

Please to clickie

I was wrapped up in a blanket, freezing and snuggling in my chair when the boss began to give me a play by play of the wild turkeys in the rose bushes on the edge of the lawn. Finally it became irresistible to get up, get the camera and get some documentation of the crazy things these birds do in winter. They are plumb hungry. Here is a video of two of the dozen or so that came in, tight rope walking on the twigs as they pick rose hips.

Visitors

There were many yesterday. (Most of these photos were taken at the full extent of every bit of digital and optical zoom I could come up with so they aren't the greatest.)

One visitor left while I was running for the camera. He or she was right up at the edge of the lawn. I saw large, fuzzy ears between the branches of a clump of box elders. I was doing the dishes....and looking out the window over the sink. The ears twitched back and forth in a display of great alertness. At first I thought I was seeing a very short deer.

However then the critter moved out into the open, its thick, puffy tail so heavy with fur that it looked like an effort to hold it up out of the snow.

A red fox with the plushest fur I have ever seen, hunting in broad daylight. He kept looking up the little box elders and sniffing the bark. Wonder what he was finding there.

Burning Food

Read what California dairy blogger, Dino Giacomazzi, says about ethanol

Weather Signs

This often leads to

This

Back when I was working at my first dairy farm job my boss taught me many weather signs. One that has held true in almost every instance is that if snow clings to the branches and wires either wind or rain is close behind. That sure was the case yesterday and despite how grueling the wind was I am glad that it wasn't rain. Hate to think what that would have done to all the thousands of snow-covered roofs in the region.

Do you know any other interesting weather prognostications?

Wednesday

Out before stardark to check on the heifers. We put the last two springers into the cow barn late last night. You never know if they will get into trouble in new stalls so...

Crispy cold. Officially winter, because I finally gave in and got out my brother's old red college scarf. It is a favorite of mine....how I envied his "cool" when he wore it back in the day...so I only wear it when it is just too cold to go without it. Couple times a winter...I want to make it last. It is only around zeroish this morning, but the wind makes it feel plumb glacial.

Scarf did its job so it wasn't too bad walking over. They were both fine, lying properly positioned in the stalls and calm. We will have to watch them real closely for a while though.

Yesterday every twig, branch and wire was all hung with thick snow, a harbinger of either wind or rain...and we got wind. Boy, did it ever howl. It was so loud that when the men came in to sit down for a while late in the afternoon they couldn't hear the TV over it. It was sucking snow off the heifer barn making a cloud so thick you could barely see the barn through it. Hope it is calmer today. Stay warm!

We are Awake Now

Magnum

You have probably read of all the barn collapses all over the Northeast. There have been hundreds of them, many cattle, calves and chickens have been killed, horses trapped and at least a couple of people have lost most of their machinery....all kinds of horrible stuff going on.

There has just been a tremendous amount of snow and then late last week it rained and sleeted on top of it, causing many buildings to fail. It is so sad for all the families that have suffered these losses.

So far we have been fortunate. Most of our roofs are very high, but they are steel and steep, both good. The guys have shoveled off the lower ones already to keep them safe.

However, last night we were milking when a tremendous, thunderous, long, rolling boom shook the barn. The cows panicked and scrambled for footing. We ran around like chickens chasing corn kernels.

Up to the mow, out to the barnyard. Round and round we hurried, looking for what was happening. There was nothing to see though. All was well. It was just tons and tons of snow sliding off the newer part of the barn. No harm done.

All through milking it kept doing that, as one roof after another let off bits of their encumberment. It was not boring.

And I am ready for that to be over with I can tell you. Oddly, after the first couple of cascades the cows paid no attention.

Back in the day when we still had horses they loved to stand and soak up the sun along the dark wall of the old heifer barn. Every now and then in the winter though they would throw up their heads and bolt, seemingly at nothing. We knew then that in a few seconds the snow would slip loose from the roof and come crashing down where they had been standing. Must be they heard it begin to come loose and knew enough to run. Of course Magnum was aways in the bunch and he was a real smart old guy.

Blank

And cold, but hopeful. Yeah, that about says it.

Sunday Stills....Emotions

This was a hard one. To find photos to evoke emotion in the observer. I am not sure that I managed, but here they are.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Updates on Milk Spill Control

This guy has much more sense than some folks I could mention

Here are a couple more articles on the amazing efforts of the EPA to equate dairy products with lubricants and fuels. (Butter as an environmental hazard)

Milk as fertilizer (thanks Nita)

Some news from last summer on the regs.

We Have Met the Enemy

.....and I hafta admit....he is kinda pretty.

Pumpkin Growers Smarter than EPA

Equal in the eyes of the EPA

(Which, I am sure comes as no surprise to you.)

Many of the folks who grow giant pumpkins fertilize them with milk. I often bring milk that can't be sold, such as milk from a cow that just had a calf, over to the garden to feed to my assorted squashes. There are those who poo-poo the idea, but it works for me and some pumpkin producers swear by it.

And there have been numerous milk spills in this dairy-rich region, when milk tankers were involved in traffic mishaps.

You wanna know something amazing? No harm was done. Milk is pretty innocuous stuff.

And staggeringly enough, you can actually drink milk (gasp).

However, the EPA in its infinite wisdom figures that milk fits right in with motor oil and diesel fuel in the pollution department.

Yeah, really.

I can gulp down a fresh, foaming, ice-cold glass of milk with some homemade applesauce cookies, and, after much enjoying the experience, live and thrive.

Yet it appears that the EPA thinks milk is the equivalent of some nice, tasty, 10W-30.

Read about in this excellent column by Thomas Sowell.

I have to thank Cathy for the heads up about this issue. Not long ago we were led to believe that the whole milk-as-toxic-waste issue had died a natural death. Alas it appears that legislation by regulation by activist appointee is alive and well and totally devoid of commonsense as usual.

Color it Cold

Sun on Snow

Driving Excellence

My cousin's book, Driving Excellence, just came out.

Check this out! Can't wait to read it!

Phil Says

An early spring. Thanks Phil!

**** And unfortunately Phil is probably full of......errrr......alfalfa!

Better Days are Coming

Yeah, it is storming...again... For the most part for the past few weeks we have just caught the edges of the big storms that have pummeled the region. However it looks like this one is going to wallop us. Got up to hard, sleety stuff that nicely fits the old adage, "Snow like meal, snow a great deal." You can barely see that it is snowing, but you sure can hear it. I am sending Alan off to school early, as the Blue Bomber is having power issues and I imagine the roads are going to be a mess.

It is still pretty dark, but I hear cardinals chipping and chinking at the feeder, another indication that we have some real weather on the way. They are usually quite a bit later coming in....like about three hours. And the feeders are almost empty even though I filled them late yesterday afternoon.

We have to get out and get done what we can before it gets any worse. We feed from Ag bags, so the snow is an issue...The boss will be clearing driveways as it is tanker day too. Probably won't be much of a fun day for anybody.

So, let us think of spring.

In a few weeks the first crocuses will stick their pointy little purple and yellow noses out through the ice under the kitchen window. In a few weeks the first red-winged blackbirds will echo water whistle songs from the trees at the edge of the old horse pasture. Grackles will plunge stiletto beaks into the pile of lingering seed hulls under the feeder, rapacious raiders that they are. It is the only time all year that I am glad to see them. With them will come all the little not too far migrants, the birds you might see in winter or then again might not. Assorted sparrows mostly.

In a few weeks the bark on the willow trees will turn to greeny-gold and they will stand out like beacons in the woods across the river. Poplars will become pewter candlesticks and gleam gently in their groups. Maples will put on pink spring buds and show themselves among the inky evergreens as well.

The chickadees will change their songs to the spring version and the breathy whistles of the titmice will commence.

In between time, sometime, the maple syrup run will start. usually along about the time that you might see snow rollers and blue ice on the ledges by the sugar bush. Here's hoping for a good run this year, with lots of fine, sweet sap for boiling.

Am I ready for all that? You betcha. Alas those few weeks are usually very, very long ones. Winter trudges along on the slowest snow shoes in creation, flinging weather in every direction. I can't say that I like it much.

I have heard many times from many folks that if I don't like winter I shouldn't live in the Great Northeast. Unfortunately this is where I was born and raised and I lack the initiative or adventuresome spirit to move. (Although it is darned tempting sometimes.)

Thus until green time arrives I will whine and complain and post pictures from the archives of the good stuff...and visit all those great bloggers from the warm places in the world to revel in their beaches and waves and sunshine.

Stay warm!

While Activists Panic About Cow Medicines Here

Mkay, I know it's a fly, but it's the best I can do

Drug and heavy metal contamination is sneaking into much of the food we eat via imported honey from the world's biggest producer, China.

Assorted food activists are doing the best they can to ensure that American farmers can't doctor sick cows and other livestock. New York in particular currently has a bill on the table that would take away many of the medicines we use to keep our livestock healthy.

Meanwhile, imported honey is full of contaminants and illegal medications, such as chloramphenicol, which was outlawed decades ago in this country. It is being smuggled and juggled into this country at staggering levels. It is used in all sorts of prepared foods, such as baked goods, and you won't find the country of origin on the label, because it is passed through other countries first..

You have to read this story (even though it is long). I have been writing in recent weeks in the Farm Side about clenbuterol in Chinese pork. That is a real horror story with many Chinese people falling seriously ill from eating the stuff. Here is another story of willful contamination of food, along with a serious threat to our own carefully regulated honey industry. As a big fan of the product I am pretty upset about this.

***HT to Thank a Farmer on Facebook

Good Morning Beautiful

And Happy 23rd Birthday.....we love you!