Fonda Fair

Antique milking machines....sure glad I don't have to use them

Some fair goers I think I have seen somewhere before

The butter sculpture

Bling...she doesn't look her best because she HATED the water and didn't like to drink

Portrait of Thursdon Hand....we thought very highly of this wonderful man

I can remember these. I think I rode in one.

A pretty horse

There are always a few jackasses at the fair!

The whole fair was a tribute to the army of volunteers who cleaned away feet of mud and water and mess to put on a show that sparkled. Wish the weather had treated them better...what a wild and rainy week.

Kansas, We Have Your Weather

And Florida, California and Alaska too. Earthquakes (which I suppose technically aren't weather, but they can go away just the same) a devastating hurricane, and now a tornado.

Enough already. You can all have your weather and your seismological events back any time you want them.

Here at Northview we were just getting started milking, early, trying to beat the storm, which looked like a big one, and its potential for power failure, when the lights went out.

Fun, fun, fun. Thankfully the power was restored fairly quickly, although a couple of hours were added to evening chores, which were not much enhanced by the rain either.

September in upstate NY is supposed to bring warm, bright days and cool pleasant nights. Sunshine. Calm. Fresh vegetables.

What the heck is up with this and who has OUR weather? That's what I want to know.

Sunday Stills....Potluck

Hey, there, cutie, how's about a kiss?

No, no, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, me, me.....

What! Who me!!?!

Kiss this!

For more Sunday Stills........

And to get into the spirit of things....some real pot luck.

Eleven Cows Found

I know some of you live where these are as common as sparrows,

but this is the first one we have seen in at least five years.

This hen pheasant is nibbling something on our soggy driveway...

I read somewhere that eleven missing cattle were found. 22 thoroughbred horses still missing.

Here are some info links:

New York Farm Bureau flood help link

NYFB Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, coming to Schoharie County dairy farm today.

How to help in flood-ravaged Middleburgh (our favorite place to collect brachiopods when the kids were small.)

Fifth Place

Junior heifer calf...Fonda Fair...Bling

No complaints. The competition is fierce at Fonda and there are a lot of nice cattle at the show this year despite the flood. Congratulations to everyone who made it possible for there to be a fair this year and to all the exhibitors who dared.

The Fog Comes In

And no little cat feet about it. More like a sensation of cold, wet, fish strapped all over your body...of breathing through a soggy, slightly moldy blanket. It seeps right into the house....Erk.

It rained hard again yesterday, not helpful in any way.

We turned the cows into a new field though, and of course they didn't really want to come back out. All that lush, delicious grass you know.

So the boss and I hiked up to call them....at least they didn't make us go into the field with them... Anyhow as we walked along, a great whirling flock of bobolinks rose up...the most I have ever seen in one place at one time. It was pretty cool.

They kept us company while we stood in the lane and hollered for cows and it was pretty nice. Even if is was a not so welcome harbinger of what is coming and soon......

Unsung

But heroes just the same.

The boss just spent a few minutes chatting with our milk truck driver while he was picking up the milk. He, his boss who is the owner of the trucking company, (a really sweet guy), and all the other drivers...and no doubt dozens of guys from other companies...have been going through H-E-Double Hockey Sticks getting to farms to pick up milk.

If the trucks can't get in, even if the farmers have generators and power to milk the cows (not to mention still having barns and cows, which many don't) then the bulk tanks fill up and have to be emptied somehow....usually by dumping milk. Having dumped milk when our market got mixed up a couple years ago, I know how painful that can be. It takes a lot of work to grow and harvest feed and grow cows and then feed the cows to produce the milk. Not much fun to watch the fruit of all that labor swirling down the drain.

Add to that the fact that some of the plants that take milk have closed temporarily due to the flood and you have a nightmare.

The owner of the company that hauls our milk just spent three hours just getting to two close together farms marooned by flood waters. One of his drivers drove all night to get to an alternate plant to offload milk. They have been having trouble even getting home at night when they are done.

Thankfully, these men know every back road, short cut, long way and detour in this part of upstate NY. If there is a way to get where they need to go, they will find it.

My hat is off to them. Thanks, Dale, and John, and all you other guys, you know who you are, who are working so hard to get our product to market. It means a lot.

A Long, Long, Time Ago, On This Very Day

Folks said that they were much too young to fall in love.

It didn't matter to them. They knew better.

Folks didn't believe that they would make it, but they knew better.

My brothers and I thought that they didn't see what we got up to and maybe we sneaked something by them. They knew better.

And now, sixty years later, they are still in love and proud of it, glad of the family they have raised and delighted to be together still, despite all that life has thrown at them.

And I am proud and thankful to be their daughter.

Happy 60th anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Here is a quote from Mom's Facebook page (yeah, my mama does Facebook) "Tomorrow is our 60th Wedding Anniversary. I think we are going to make it!

They told us we were too young, but we are still in love, have three wonderful children, nine exceptional grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren."

You go mom!

Dairy Supply Management

Is not popular with everyone. (And as I watch the list of folks who are in favor of Foundation for the Future fill up with processors like Land O Lakes, folks who make a lot of money by keeping farm prices low, I like it less and less.)

Here is a website for farmers who are against the supply management plan.

Stop Supply Management

Another Day, Another Detour

Katydid by Becky

Routing traffic away from flooded areas, un-inspected bridges, and such has snarled traffic like the wind will your hair when you ride in a convertible. It took Alan well over an hour to pick Becky up from work yesterday and she only works a mile from here. Worth every minute of it though, if keeps everyone safe from further disaster.

Folks are being so good about it too. If you need to pull onto what was once a thoroughfare, but is now a slow-moving parking lot, people let you in with a wave and wait as patiently as they can. As always there are a few bad actors and rude folks, but they are in the minority.

Most everyone from politicians to whom I never paid any attention before, news sources (can't say enough about the fantastic job media and ordinary people are doing at getting out information), volunteers and professional emergency folks, to the kids cleaning up the fair ground so the fair can go on albeit a bit late, are making me feel fortunate and proud to live here.

What a great region for neighbors and caring and community spirit!

I even talked to really, really nice people at the power company yesterday. The boss's elderly aunt is still without power and not getting her meals on wheels and such. (We packed a cooler and ran it up as soon as we knew, but she needs her fridge.) My first call about the power was routed to Boston for some reason, but the lady there was incredibly helpful and got me the numbers I needed for the local situation. The man I reached next was helpful too. Hopefully she will soon have power. Meanwhile Liz hit the grocery for imperishable edibles last night.

Anyhow, I really want to thank everyone who has worked and is working so hard to restore the upstate area. Great job! Great neighbors! Wonderful people, thank you, thank you, thank you.

***Update, amazingly 5 and the Thruway are open.

Flood Video

Here

Marooned, Incommunicado

Collage of just some of the things that were flying over the farm yesterday.

I missed the governor's helicopter, having run outdoors quickly to quiet the dogs

Collage of skies, from Saturday through yesterday

What you can see from our windows

"The wind makes me restless. I can't settle to normal Sunday pursuits. Dishes, laundry, chores galore, all done before the crew is finished in the barn. Judging by posts from my Facebook friends, it's the same all over. No one can be calm with all this going on."

That was written on Sunday before the main storm hit. at that point the storm looked unimpressive, but there was a gripping, ominous tension in the air...you just couldn't walk away from it.

Our senses were not wrong. The poor valley is devastated, the whole region damaged horribly. We were lucky, we are fine. We couldn't get out and no one could get in, but we never completely lost power, although phone, Internet and television were gone.

Entities far from this region complaining that the storm preparation was over done and over-hyped are full of it. Whole farms were swept away, whole towns inundated, people died. People are still in shelters, people still don't have power. Buildings that have stood everything that has happened since the Revolutionary War were badly damaged. Guy Park Manor

It is too soon for me to process it all, but here are some links and pictures.

Video of part of the extent of the flooding taken from the governor's helicopter, which flew very low over us several times. Drove the dogs totally crazy.

Leader Herald story

There is so much more...too much more. As I said, I can't process it yet. Prayers for people who had and have it a lot worse than we do and belated thanks to Grandpa Delbert for going against convention and buying land high on the hillsides instead of river flats. I sent him good thoughts all weekend.....

If you are on Facebook, look up WRGB, WENT, the Recorder, and Montgomery County Emergency Management, etc. There are some pictures that will chill you....

Sunday Stills....Pests

Japanese beetles

Rock Pigeons

Tommy, who tries to sneak into the milk house

where cats are banned by law and then sits on the bulk tank,

or the microwave or anywhere else that we don't want him

He's cute though

Fox tails

Lots of pests available this time of year.

For more Sunday Stills........

Preparing for Irene

Hard to know what to do. Looks as if heavy rain and potentially dangerous winds will be coming our way. The ground is already so saturated that I don't know where the water will go. Hope the folks in charge of the river dams are paying attention

This time. (Our fair starts Wednesday and some of the photos at this link are of our fairgrounds during the 2006 floods.) To the north of us Washington County Fair has already decided to close early and I can't say as I blame them.

I am planning on cooking a large meatloaf and just putting it in the fridge. Along with something baked...don't know what yet...we will have good food if the power goes. If the guys get the cows filled up we will just hunker down and hope that it stays on. If it doesn't well...you CAN hand milk cows, although its really not a lot of fun.

Maybe the darned thing will swing out to sea and leave everybody alone. We can hope anyhow.

Links

Gratuitous cute kitty....Athena

Just because:

Dairy, a dirty job nobody wants (and here we are doing it for the love of it)

It's National Dog Day. The boss thinks that PeTA and HSUS should dig into their coffers and buy every dog in the country a nice, thick steak! Nick is waiting for his right now.

The estimable Chuck Jolley on the NYT's ag "expert". (Great job, Mr. Jolley, you knocked this one out of the park!)

And the best ever of those little copy and paste jobbies from Facebook:

A dying granny tells her granddaughter, "I want to leave you my farm. That includes the villa, the tractor and other equipment, the farmhouse and $22,398,750.78 in cash." The granddaughter, about to be rich, says, "Oh my Granny, you are so generous. I didn't even know you had a farm. Where is it?" With her last breath, her grandmother whispered, "Facebook".

Thanks to Isla Gringo

Irene

Peacock Cumulonimbus

Seems the Hurricane from Hell is on its way. Prayers for everyone and everything in its projected path...Upstate NY is expected to only get lots of rain...so far they are saying six inches.

That would be about par for the course this summer. I have dumped that much and more out of the wheelbarrow several times. It is still wet enough here...and has been almost all summer...that the tractor tires push water in front of them in the hay fields. Heck it rained its little heart out yesterday, so much so that the hummingbirds came and sat on the porch and shivered. A song sparrow found the little box of sunflower seeds I keep under the shelf and came in off and on all day, so bedraggled you barely tell what it was. I'm afraid the cardinals are going to damp off like tomato seedlings, they are so wet when they visit.

A good day for nagging I guess. Hopefully maybe convincing the guys to fill the wagons with extra feed for the cows, stock up on a few every day essentials (like dog and cat food!) Batten down the hatches and the horses and all.

And of course the fair starts Wednesday...our own fair, right across the river in Fonda...Frankly I am dreading it. Traffic has been hellacious all summer due to the construction. It plumb boggles the mind to add in the fair. Liz is taking Bling and hopefully it will actually be possible to get over there to take care of her. Incidentally some folks who saw Rosie at the other fair showed some interest in buying her, but not for what I want to get. I am not that interested in selling her anyhow, but we always get offers on her after a show for some reason.

Hang in there all!

OMG

Liz had no more than left for work when she called to tell the boss that they would have to take Becky to work by a different route. This terrible accident happened just seconds before she crossed the intersection.

I hate this intersection! So many close calls and horrific accidents. Traffic moves too fast on the main road and the sight line is terrible for cars coming off the side road. Scares the heck out of me.

Wet and Dark

The Fruit Salad Tree is Filling Up

On mornings like this the entire valley moans and grumbles, clasped damply against the soggy breast of a bad-tempered, slow-moving thunderstorm.

Pitch dark at six AM. We'll be milking wet cows this morning....when they deign to come down off the hill that is.

Sorry I missed you yesterday. Deadline was nigh, tomatoes were ripe, and the men could finally chop feed again, after a series of disasters so bizarre and unlikely that you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you about them. (Suffice to say a truckload of ticked off skunks would have been more welcome...what is it this year anyhow?)

The season of ripening maters has lead to BLTs bulging with bacon, slippery with tomato succulance, and so tasty they should be illegal, taco bowls (take everything that makes up your favorite taco and layer it into a bowl, replacing the taco shell with taco chips, with which to dip) fresh, homemade, vegetable-beef soup, afloat with rings of shimmering yellow summer squash, and pungent with fresh-dug garlic, and even plain old tomato sandwiches for breakfast. I suppose if we had fresh tomatoes from the garden year round they would be ho hum, but here in the Great Northeast, tomato time is something to write home about.

Sorry about going on and on about groceries like this, but when I was working on the Farm Side yesterday we got to talking about how the boss's mother used to feed us. She was an old-fashioned farm wife, who felt that staggering meals were an important component of the wage of her worker bees. Since she spent her formative years working in a well-known Boonville restaurant, she was more than qualified to provide the same. She used to even serve the author of Drums Along the Mohawk, Walter D. Edmonds ( a fan of strawberry shortcake in season.)

Not much to say about the earthquakes...none of us noticed any of them. Before we lived here the tiniest one centered in Blue Mountain lake, where ours usually begin, would wake me right up. Now, living so close to the constant stream of heavy freight trains, shaking the earth day and night...well, not so much.

Have a good one...I've got to go get wet.

Going, Going, Yeah, it is Gone

The elderberry crisp.....of course there are a lot more elderberries in the freezer in the cellar...don't tell....

Not a Cloudy Day

Morning

Evening

But a day of clouds

Contentment

Teeny Leetle Spider Guy

It makes me happy to learn new things. These things do not need to be useful in any way...my brain is a old granny's attic crammed with pointless clutter. However, interesting, odd, cool, unique, yeah, even totally meaningless in the grand scheme of things trivia, that is treasure to me.

Some of the stuff that has come my way this summer:

Female cardinals sing too. Thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for this little tidbit. No wonder it seems as if we have so many of them each winter.

Leave the landscape alone if you visit Hawaii. Pele prefers it apparently. There are places where you can return anything you inadvertently remove....especially lava rock.

There is in fact a cloud appreciation society (and so there should be). Thanks to Cathy, I now know that you can go to their website to view staggeringly lovely photos of all sorts of clouds. Do not miss the opportunity to sooth your soul with their sweet and sensuous photos. Here is one of Cathy's.

I have also learned a few creepy crawly buggy things and a couple of new butterflies, and maybe a bird call or two, bad things that can go wrong with tractor engines and transmissions (there are a lot and they are all expensive and nasty) and a couple of new recipes, but the above three are my favorites so far this summer.

Sunday Stills...the Letter B

Bur cucumber the kudzu of the north

Bedewed

Bovine

Butt

Buck

Becky with Bunny Ears

For more Sunday Stills....

Living with Ruby

Throated hummingbirds that is. Our pair had a pair I think, of playful youngsters that tumble through the air like pups. They are as tame as pups too, as long as I don't touch the camera. They like me just fine, but that big black eye is way too scary.

They come to sit on the hooks at the top of the hanging flower baskets when I am on the porch. (there is not room to hang them all, so they provide perfect little perches for perfect little birds.)

They are so very curious. I was awaiting a storm yesterday while shooting unusual clouds and succulent flowers. They came, buzzing like bombers, flipping like a deck of cards. Around and around my head, close, only inches away. Then one sat down in the variegated pink geranium, right next to me. She looked me up and down, tipping her pointy chin, then tucking it into her feathers, then whirring purposefully away, only to return for just one more peek.

I think maybe we bird watchers are a bit arrogant in thinking we are the only ones. I think she goes back to the Mountain Ash tree where she keeps her tiny field guide and turns the little pages, trying to learn more about the creature she has found...hmmmm....what is it...what is it?.

I think yesterday she put me on her life list..... ticking off the field marks....slightly bent steel rimmed glasses (don't drop them and step on them while taking pictures of bugs) Check...

Soft, blue chambray shirt...check....bare feet check.

Yep, sure enough, it is one of those fat old farmer ladies var. bluejeaniensis. Wow, never thought I would see one of those....Check.

This and That

Our "feral" visitor kitty

The cows did reasonably well at the fair, not too surprising since there were very few animals this year. Bling won junior heifer calf, which delighted all. She is such a sweet little girl. Rosie won grand champion milking shorthorn, but she doesn't get any kudos because she is the only shorty at the fair. She is being a very bad girl and dragging everybody all over the place, so she may not get to go to Fonda. She even took Alan for a run around the ring and the show barn and he is a pretty rugged guy.

Chrome came in second in her class. Moments was grand champion Jersey. Wish Liz had entered her at Fonda. She is out of the lesser of her two lines of Jerseys...her mama had some serious flaws, but I always liked her because she was such a powerful, big-framed cow. Moments has enough of that to be strong and correct and she is not wing shouldered and her udder is high and tight instead of almost hitting the floor. Monday did okay too and was reserve senior Holstein....although the boss just got up and told me that she stomped Alan pretty good last night too. They are big animals and there is so much commotion and noise at the show. She has never been shown before...and someone was shooting off explosives while the show was on...lots of fun.

All and all not bad. Now I can't wait until they are all home.......