Sunday Stills...My Favorite Place

All week I have been anticipating this one. My favorite place, in the whole, wide world, is that red metal chair on the front porch of cabin 2, Peck's Lake NY, preferably at sunrise.. Any kind of summer weather. We have sat here in the rain, thunderstorms, blazing sun, chill and grey. I love that porch....fishing pole locked between my knees, coffee cup, camera and binoculars. Field guide to the birds, a good book, or a journal. Better yet when shared with dear friends (you know who you are, you wonderful folks who have shared summer afternoons and great conversations there) and beloved family members. Lots of those too. So many little folks have caught their first fish off that porch. Yeah, I am saving up my pennies from painting lawn ornaments and my newspaper writing money even now so I can get my deposit paid for my week in Paradise on that little porch.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Saturday Morning Cereal

Big doings in Alaska today. The Iditarod kicks off...and you can have a front row seat by visiting here.

Apple peels fight cancer (Me I just eat the whole apple)

More on honey laundering. NY is trying to do something about it.

Johanns is trying to get the EPA to commit to some common sense instead of treating milk as if it were crude oil.

Calves and Currycomb Love

Heather's baby boy. Check out his eyeliner

In the next four weeks we have around eighteen head due to calve. It is with a mixture of awe and dread that I face this prospect. Among the "springers" are my beautiful Broadway and Liz's Fustead Emory Blitz daughter (whose name is Mendocino, but who is simply called, THE BLITZ...she gets caps even in every day life.) We care a great deal for all the cows, but there are always certain special ones that cause just a little more worry and heartache when calving time rolls around. As with any birth there is a lot that can go wrong.

Last year if you remember, Broadway had a gigantic heifer calf, breech, and it was one of the toughest deliveries I have participated in. We were thankful for the hybrid vigor of the shorties that day I can tell you. It looks as if she is carrying another big one.

I worry.

Evie, Verona, Egypt, the two Whirlhill Kingpin daughters, Zobaba and Bayliner, Heather, and several others have already had their babies, mostly bulls, alas.

Does anybody who milked cows back in the sixties remember any temperament issues with the Kingpin daughters? These two are both snarky little darlings I can tell you. They are from unrelated dams, but they are like the nasty devil twins. I have been lashed with more sodden, stinking tails and stomped at more by them than by all the other first calf heifers together.

Even Egypt, who was a real wild child all through her carefree heiferhood, is a little sweetie and loves to have me scratch her exceptionally furry head. I was currying cows yesterday and didn't even try to brush Zobaba (although Bayliner is finally liking the attention.)

You wouldn't believe how the cows are shedding. I could bed them with the hair I get off with the comb. And they love it so much! Always worth a laugh to see the heads waving and the stanchions clanging while they await their turn. I like it too. I can't even see over Lemmie's rump, she is such a big girl, and normally she is flighty and a little loony. However, when I have that currycomb, she is like a fourteen-hundred pound kitten, all cuddles and love.

Kinda like cupboard love, only this time it's currycomb love.

Cage Free vs Traditional

Cost of eggs debated.

Friends in High Places

In this case the roost. The queen gets down to eat when I am there, but the king stays on the roost and peers down his beak at me.

Butter

Is made from fresh, sweet, cream, skimmed from milk that comes from cows. (I read that on Facebook the other day.)

Period.

Anything else is simply not butter. It may be nut paste, or soybean paste, or some kinda amorphous, yellow, synthetic bread-greasing goo, but it is not butter.

Only real butter finds its way to the Northview table.

However, up until the day before yesterday, any butter would do. Ours usually came from a big box store or Stewart's (which has really good dairy products, from ice cream to milk for your cereal).

However, the other day we were given a two-pound tub of butter, which surpassed all expectations and reminded me how foods such as butter tasted when I was a kid.

It even looked good, so when we celebrated National Pancake Day, I opened it, even though there was half a stick of regular butter still in the dish. It had the nicest pale, clean, color, like justbeforesunrise in June.

A chip popped off the knife as I chiseled off a piece (yes, our kitchen is routinely cold enough this time of year that you have to chip off butter and hope your toast is still warm enough to melt it). I tasted.

Wow! It was so sweet, so light, so smooth and creamy. Instant flashback to my grandma's kitchen where we grandkids fed upon buttered bread with sugar when we just couldn't wait until dinner. (It was real hard to wait for dinner at either of my grandmas' houses. Those fine ladies could COOK!)

This butter was like that. Easily the best I have ever tasted.

Can't seem to find a website, but it is made by The Country Creamery in Canastota, NY.

Have I mentioned that I like it?

Good Morning from the Ice Cave

Or hockey rink if you prefer. We are having crystal days with temps in the twenties or thirties and shining nights near zero. Nice sugar weather and the days are really pretty.

However, the result is that in the day time no matter how much sand is spread, all the drives and walkways are like shining sheets of glass. And all the sand is sucked under by the melting, presenting a fresh ice world each morning.....

I can remember being a kid and skating on such stuff. Loving it. Flying. Crashing down on it and not caring, and getting up and doing it again. We skated EVERYWHERE when we were kids. If there was a six-inch patch of ice we were all over it.

I mean we had wild hockey matches on the thin little threads of ice between the hummocks of grass and corn stubble in the field next to our parents' house. If you came to a grass tuft you just jumped it. I don't remember it hurting except the time I froze my toes ...just a little, but enough to hurt for days and days.....skating up at Caroga Lake. Having too much fun to notice until it was too late.

Where did that marvelous sense of balance go? Now I can't WALK to the barn on the ice...let alone skate (and the toes I froze back in the day are not happy little campers in this weather either.)

Yesterday I got as far as the back of the stock trailer and just waited. I couldn't even hold one foot still on the stuff....I was afraid I would slide right off the hill.

The wait was fruitful as it happens, as the boss grabbed the skid steer as soon as he got to the barn and scooped up some sand and did the drive between house and barn.

Still made for a slow walk, but at least I could walk. Beck was not so lucky. She was feeding her dog and took a terrible header. Being a farm kid she went to her off-farm job anyhow, but she is black and blue. Nasty stuff ice.

However, when I took feed to the peacocks yesterday, a mix of cat and dog food, corn and sunflower seeds with a nice chopped apple for topping, I waited for a few minutes over by the outside door. The hen began to give those guttural little clucks they have, then very, very cautiously hopped off the roost and began to eat the corn.

I was delighted.

National Pancake Day

We love pancakes!

Every now and then someone goes in early from chores to make a stack for supper. When we have sausage from our own pigs, maple syrup from our trees, (or homemade apple, grape or strawberry jam if you prefer) plus real butter, a glass of cold, fresh milk ....well, it is a feast of fine proportions I can tell you!

And every bite was produced on a farm. (Many of the bites right here on our farm). The local Farm Bureau has a program called, "What is a pancake?" wherein hard-working folks visit area schools to cook up pancakes and maple syrup for the children, while teaching them how each product involved is grown and harvested on farms. I think they do a fantastic job of showing how food isn't made in the back room at the grocery store.

***The photos were taken in our maple woods which are tapped by Mr. Savage from Johnstown. (We have a real nice barter deal, wherein he taps the trees and gives us syrup when he is done each year.) Word is that the sap has been running in some places, although we haven't seen any sapcicles yet. Everywhere you drive folks are out in the sugar bushes though, getting everything clean and ready to go

Word Verification

I experimented with turning it off for a while. I know it is really a pain in the neck to try to read and type those twisted letters. Sadly within just a day or two spammers were aggressively hitting my old posts and driving me crazy.

So, I turned it back on. Sorry for the annoyance it may cause.

Thought-Provoking Links

(Plus a gratuitous happy dog to cheer you up)

For your reading and listening pleasure

Lou Dobbs interviewing my cousin about his book

The sad story of NY State's budget cuts to agricultural programs

Excellent column about the true agenda of HSUS

Modern hog production results in safer food "The most notable findings were that changes in swine production methods have been associated with the virtual elimination of the risk of the foodborne parasites Taenia solium, Trichinella spiralis and Toxoplasma gondii from pigs reared on modern intensive farms."

The virtual elimination of Trichinella in pigs from modern farms. Immeasurably important in my book , but you won't hear the animal rights folks talking about that.

Goodbye to a Nice Old House

Up here on the hill you can see a long way. And there was the sweetest old house right straight across the river, a lovely home nestled in the trees on Hickory Hill Road.

It was a pretty landmark among the green of summer, the blaze of autumn and the white and grey of winter....one of those places where if you said, "the white house on the curve on Hickory Hill", everybody all up and down the valley knew just where you meant.

Last night right before evening chores we began to hear sirens. We always notice, but with the heavy thaw we were thinking flooded basements down along the river. You get that this time of year.

However, when I went out, there was a pall of smoke stretching down the whole valley straight across the river from us. I could see that it was a very bad fire. The entire length of road that you could see from here was lined with emergency vehicles and more were coming and going continuously. You could smell the smoke in the barn all through milking.....

It was still going late last night. What a sad loss for the people who lived there and loved their fine old home. So many historic and wonderful buildings have been lost to fire around here lately. Things are never the same afterwards......

****You won't be able to read the story without paying, but you can see a photo of the house here at the paper.

Sunday Stills....TV and Movies

Top: My very favorite TV show. I was grousing to the boss about not liking ANY Tv shows and he suggested this.

And bottom two: my favorite scene of all time. Regular readers will understand, as one of my all time (and often mentioned) wishes is for a cannon (the other one is for my own personal tank, preferably one with its own cannon.)....shoulda made this clear...this is from a movie,.

For more Sunday Stills......

Oh, Joy

Guess Who's Not Going to the Farm Show

Again this year? Yeah, the boss and I are staying home; kids are going. I love to go but there is just too much to do here. All that snow yesterday on top of the usual run of daily disaster. The situation is normal.......snarled beyond untangling.

I hope the kids bring me home some samples and good reading material.

Stormin'

Again. And having heard from snowed in, powerless friends in other states, I guess it is going to pack a whammy. The boss says when he got up at five-thirty there wasn't a flake. I am here to tell you it is making up for lost time.

Had a hawk hunting the mockingbird yesterday in the big rose bush where the turkeys were feeding last week. He flew when I got to the window with the camera, but I got a quick shot. Not sure what he was...never got a good look. I will thank him for staying the heck away from my mockers. They have chased him out several times this winter, but I think he had them pinned down yesterday. I was glad to come to their rescue.

So far today we have had a loose Jersey heifer who broke a water bowl, causing flooding in the barn....again.....not an auspicious start to another stinking, lousy snow storm.

Which, as a Facebook friend pointed, out was supposed to be a few flurries and then some rain, but, gulp, amazingly, incredibly, they got it wrong again.

It is supposed to stack up a foot of the lovely, fluffy white stuff. Yay! Hope you are warm and dry and a big thank you to all my Florida blog friends who warm my world with pictures and videos of dolphins, gardens, birds, beaches and sunshine. Yeah, that is the stuff.

Later Thursday

Thursday

Lakota's new baby boy with Tux, the opportunist

Is sometimes my second favorite day of the week (after Sunday) because I am caught up by then....usually.

But sometimes I am not so caught up. And Thursday is just another day......Another storm in the offing for tomorrow, geraniums to plant, dreaded house work to dig away at. (Why is it I get a lot of satisfaction out of sweeping a barn aisle or sluicing out the milk house but hate every swipe of the broom or mop indoors? Ugh!)

We experienced a significant and quite notable sign of early spring last night though. Just about last dog turning out time of the evening a powerful, pungent and real CLOSE odor wafted into the kitchen. I think the perp may have actually been on the back porch at one point.

Thus Nick and I will be doing leash walks again until the air clears and he or she takes his stinky little act down the road.

Depeche-toi

That is what I call this guy. He has a partner named "Hurry Up". They meet me every day when I go out to fill the feeders. You may need to click the first two shots because of the cluttered background....sorry about that.

PS, I don't know if it is clear, but that is my feed scoop that they are landing in. I was holding it in one hand with the camera in the other.

Tuesday Edition

Cold again, or still, or whatever. Around zero I guess. I dragged myself out in the dark for morning barn check. Everyone but me has the dreaded cold/flu thing, so I could hardly expect anyone else to do it. Beautiful morning though. By the time I was done the sun was just rising like a peach and melon watercolor, washing the land with light. Old Mr. Fluff was crowing his heart out and ringing the morning in. The tracery of foot prints in the snow showed only cats and no foxes nudging around the hen house (unlike yesterday when some varmint was clearly looking for a free lunch right outside the windows.)

Everyone in the barn was fine. Heather was nice and warm and standing over her baby chewing her cud. Evidence and Lakota were not showing any sign of calving right away. I stopped to give Lakota a nice scratch on the poll, which she seemed to quite appreciate. It is getting to be an itchy time of year, with all of them shedding like crazy, and they love a good scratch. (You should see my dark blue work pullover...covered with enough hair to stuff a sofa.)

You would probably get a good laugh out of Bama Breeze and Carlene when I milk them. They stand side by side, so I go up between them to milk.

Bama is a real pet and always turns her head around toward me, soliciting a good neck rub. It only took a couple days before Carlene got the idea from watching her and decided to get in on the action. (Cows solicit each other to scratch their necks with their tongue, by stretching their neck toward the other cow and bunting and nudging...they groom each other quite a lot.) Now if I have time I can stand up between their heads, digging my fingers into their furry necks, as they turn this way and that to get the best angle.

Bama even licks my back when I milk her too, practically knocks me out in the aisle sometimes. (You would never guess that the same cows will stomp you flat if the mood takes them.)

Anyhow, the sun is up, it is time for chores....wonder when maple season is going to start.

PS, I think the peacocks started eating yesterday. They tipped their food table over twice, I believe getting up on it to eat. Guess I will have to make it more secure. Liz called the man who got them for me and it turns out that they have not been fed by hand, having lived free on the farm they came from. Thus they simply don't know what my food is for. I think I will go around the house and catch them a jar full of these darned box elder bugs that wake up whenever the house gets warm and crawl all over everything. That would make a nice treat, don't you think?

So...

Found a brand new Jersey bull calf with Heather last night when we went out for chores. The boss had left the barn about ten minutes earlier and nothing was going on, so I guess the old girl didn't waste any time. Shame that it was a bull, as Heather is quite a well-bred critter and has nice daughters.

Then Liz's ongoing battle with bronchitis took a nasty turn. Poor kid looked terrible with eyes like bloodshot grapes and all red and sickly. Her BF took her to the emergency room around 8PM and they kept her all night. She is allergic to so many antibiotics that there are few possibilities for her. They put her on Zithromax and a lot of prescription cough stuff and sent her home to rest. Hope she feels better soon, poor kid.

And it is and has been snowing again, not too surprising for February but not much fun.

I am afraid I am going to have to send the peacocks back to the farmer who raised them. They simply do not want to eat anything I feed them. So far: sunflower seeds, cat chow, dog food, shelled corn, cow grain, puffed rice cereal, apples, alfalfa hay, everything I can think of or find suggested on the peafowl boards. They won't even look at it. If anybody knows any tricks for interesting them in food, please, please let me know. I love them...the most beautiful birds I have ever been around...I want the best for them.

So.....have a great day, and I hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of fun on the dairy farm.

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.