Name That Calf

Been a while since we did one of these, but we have a very special calf for you to name. I am excited about this baby. She is a daughter of one of my favorite cows, Camry, a daughter of Ocean-View Extra Special out of our old Butternut cow. The newbie's sire is Juniper Rotate Jed.

Butternut was one of five full sisters by Mansion Valley Delaware, out of a cow we had that would not conceive to any other bull. She had five heifers in a row and they did really well for us. Two of them, Birch and Balsam, even won really tough heifer classes. Balsam took junior heifer calf at Altamont and Birch won intermediate heifer at both Fonda and Altamont. She was a February calf and to win against animals so much older than she, at a fair like Fonda, was a big deal to us.

Balsam was born on the 29th of February, so she is young cow in birthdays, but a bovine senior citizen in real life. She is the only one of the sisters still with us, but her family is thriving, with Bayberry, my beautiful Broadway, Rosie, and many others descended from her still standing in the barn. This new baby has a lot of promise and I have real high hopes for her.

If you've been here a while, you know how the name the calf contest goes. You folks are clever, we are unable to come up with a name, so we ask you to offer suggestions. We write them on slips of paper, toss them in a hat and pull out a winner.

Asaki is one example of a cow named this way, as is Bama Breeze. Both still live with us and are still called and registered under their contest names. And that is the prize....your choice of names bestowed upon our new little black girl, printed on her registration paper, and should she reach the show ring, on her sign.

Skies

The view from the porch

During this year long adventure in Hell weather, or really, even longer than that, one constant has been the drama of the skies.

Poplar tree or Ferris wheel?

Crazy clouds, wild winds whipping them around, rainbows, sun dogs, you name it, we look up a lot. These occurred last Friday in between sets of soggy storms. It looked a lot like this back on the tornado day, but I didn't get good pics then.

I'm not sure if you can see it but this little rainbow was caused by the sun shining through a gap in the clouds.

Sunday Stills...Focusing on the Foreground

This was a toughie...which is good. For more Sunday Stills......

Windy

Over the river to view the woods

Even the frogs are snuggling down

Kite flying weather this day. I swear the big old moon was bobbing around in it when I came down the stairs this morning. Said wind and moon were quite a surprise as we retired to the tune of still more rain. Glad it stopped.

Thanks to the rain we are back to routine catch up jobs and buttoning up for winter, until the fields dry enough to get back on them. We pulled Scotty out of the pen she was in with some other heifers and gave her a nice big stall as she is going to calve pretty soon. She was plenty tame and gentle when she went into the pen. Nowadays, not so much. She is only half Jersey, the other half being milking shorthorn and Holstein in equal parts, but the side she shows the public is that stubborn Jersey bit.

You wouldn't think a little bitty cow like her could be that adverse to cooperation but she surely was. Of course Liz needed to get done early, which was probably why she put up such a discussion.....they KNOW when you need to get done and react accordingly. The CO in cow is not synonymous with the CO in cooperate.

Growing Tomatoes Indoors

Maybe. Started this plant specifically to bring in and kept it on the porch all summer. It is doing quite well so far. My biggest concern is pollinating future flowers. Back when I was in college (when they were first inventing dirt) we had a little patio tomato where I lived and we pollinated it with a paint brush. I tried that with the first two blossoms this one set and failed. Hoping for better luck next time. Meanwhile I am going to have a nice tomato sandwich for breakfast today at least.

After the Flood

Here is a long, but informative article, which offers some conclusions on what happened during the recent floods, including where some fingers of blame might be pointed. (Suddenly some reasons why this flood was so much more horrific than any before have ever been become clear).

It also offers some predictions of future disaster if changes aren't made. It doesn't look as if certain government entities have any intention of making those changes though....let the houses wash away, they have to protect the precious stream beds (!) As mentioned, it is long, but really worth a read.

Speaking of storms, that little tornado that formed right out behind the barn....the boss went out there the other day and there were sheets of roofing steel thirty feet up on the trees right outside the back windows. Thank you again to all the folks who called with the tornado warning. It really was there! Right there! It was just small enough not to do much. Wow.

Thurwood Thursday

Charles Thurwood was a farmer up around Fort Plain, NY. In 1874 he was of an age with Alan, who is 21, and working with his folks pretty much like Alan does today, except there were no tractors. He kept a diary, something like this diary, of what he and his family did each day and how their lives were back in that other century.

Every now and then I take a look back at that diary and think about our parallels.

And there are many.

Yesterday's entry:

"Cloudy and windy and cold and we picked apples and father went over to Mr. Bujer and bought a horse for $110 dollars. Eleven years old and in the afternoon father went to Fort Plain."

And yesterday here in modern NY, just a handful of miles east of Fort Plain, Alan might have written: "Cloudy but pleasant, not much breeze, and I chopped alfalfa and put it in the ag bag and father worked on the driveway and mother saw a mangy red fox in the house yard. No wonder the chickens were raising Cain all morning."

There is quite an almanac in the front of Charles' little leather-bound book. The states and territories of the time are listed there. No Colorado or Idaho on that list. NY State had a population of 4,380,759 back then. I have no idea how accurate those figures are, but I think we have a few more folks living here now.

Pretty soon it will be time to pick the Winesap apples for jelly too, but we sure won't be buy a horse any time soon, no matter what the price or age.

Soldiers, Saddles and Sabers

The folks will be at the afternoon portion of this event on Saturday. Sounds like a lot of fun. Stop by and see them if you go.

Another Dairy Blog

Happened upon this dairy blog from the land down under and read and read and read. Great stuff!

Powerful Post

Over at John Bunting's blog. He really gets the dilemma of life as a small dairy farmer. Go, read.....

Eerie

What am I?

Strange sky this morning. Despite thick clouds the moon was so bright that everything kind of glowed. Then, where the sun was coming up, little slits in the clouds let in thready rays of spooky, white light.

It was as if the sky was torn and leaking.

Sort of Martian.

At least it isn't raining yet. The dog barometer was dry when he came in, always a good sign. And Simon, AKA Seismo, the seismological cat, (due to his twenty-poundage and thunderhooves) flung himself in through the door for a dish of cat food, then flounced back out after he ate, with all his many furry, fat, belly folds flopping. Guess he has solved the problem of winter care and feeding for us.

If you know what the "who am I" bird is, please let me know. There are so many exotic LBBs around this fall that it is driving me crazy! There were several of these flitting around the roof eating something...probably spiders or box elder bugs. They are so fast that even though I took several pics, this is the best I could do. Help with ID would be much appreciated. I know it looks a bit house finch-ish, but I am pretty sure that it is not.

Dum da Dum Dum..Messing with the Template

Just checking to see if folks who have been having trouble accessing Northview can get on now. Over the past few days some people have been unable to get on at all, others have slow page loads and still others get a message about the Stumbleupon script running slowly.

And others, including myself and Liz, can get on just fine. Go figger.

Of course I contacted the folks responsible for that script. Of course they did not reply within the time frame promised and of course nothing I could find on the Net gave me the details on how to get rid of the darned thing.

So, I boldly went where I have never gone before and cleared all changes to the widget part of the code.

And would be most grateful if you let me know in the comments if it worked, if you are having problems, but can still get to the comments. Etc. Thanks

Gilboa Dam Hearing

Called for by Assemblyman Lopez. Seems like a good idea to address concerns about this century old dam when rains of biblical proportions are not actively falling.

According to the article water was coming over the dam at one point at nearly the rate of Niagara Falls. That's a lot of water to dump into rural upstate towns and farms.

Eastside Lewisdale Gold Missy

Baby pic of our Bama Breeze,

who will never go to Expo,

but she is a nice cow just the same

Supreme champion at World Dairy Expo.

Why do I always love it when a Holstein wins it? Cow partisanship I guess. Someday.....someday....maybe we will get to attend WDE. They are said to have had a record number of entries this year. Imagine all those beautiful cows all together in one place. Wow.

Here are a couple of pics of her.

Sunday Stills...Vanishing Points

Corbin Hill Road, a huge family favorite

Had a couple of ideas for this one, but then the car coughed up a pinion seal and we were suddenly earth bound and not flying the roads....so here is a pic from the archives. We are not too flat around here, so some aspects of this are a real challenge....which is what it is all about.

For more Sunday Stills......

Running in Place

Amish horse looks a little short of groceries

Good weather. You gotta grab it. So the men are running in all directions at once trying to make up for our mostly lost summer. Building fences, mowing and chopping, cleaning pens, welding, patching tires that keep getting cut because the rushing water exposed sharp slate ledges and so on. Yowsa, it makes my head spin just keeping track of them.

The days sure have been pretty too. You just have to be outdoors all that you can. The air is so fresh and sweet it seems drinkable, the sun just warm enough to feel like a gentle blanket and the migrants are passing through, unwinding their coils in the north to thread south like fabric unwoven...

Song sparrows in flocks, cedar waxwings ditto, turkey vultures soaring past and one pair even seeming to play, drifting lazy over the river, then dive bombing one another over the barn. Ubiquitous little brownish warblers, calling from all over and flitting through the trees, plus the birds that will winter with us coming back from wherever they go.

I was picking tomatoes when I heard a creaky chickadee, calling half-heartedly from the mountain ash. I pished a little because I wasn't even sure that it was a chickadee and not a catbird or mocker. The thing bolted straight toward me like a bullet on a mission and barely swerved aside before it hit my head. Then it sat in the honey locust cussing me out in no uncertain terms. I ran into the house for seeds, but it had moved along when I came out. I am guessing that one of last winter's tame birds may just be back from its summer adventures.

I am not ready for winter, even though we are running in place getting ready for winter, but still....it is nice to see my friends again.

Holy C**p update! Liz just saw people throw two dogs out of a van, a little chihuahua and a lab. She got their license number and called the police on them....wonder if they will pursue it. I'll bet you can all think of some suitable punishments for such &^%%$^&*. Makes me sick. A dog is a commitment, a long commitment, but if you have to end it there are better ways. Geez.

The Bright Side

Of an impending first frost. You get to pick all the tiny little baby squashes with the flowers still unopened on the end and saute them with garlic...in butter of course. With home grown roast beef and the boss's signature Cole slaw it was quite a feast...all thanks to the weather.

Washing Down a Mountain

Quick run to Fort Plain yesterday for parts for the milkers (inflations for you who milk cows). We took Route 5 because they just announced that it had reopened after the flood and we wanted to see what had happened that the clean up took so long. Liz drove home that way one night and called me on the phone later. She was incoherent about what she saw.

Once we got to Big Nose, so were we.

Gratuitous mild profanity erupted in its own little flood, mile after mile. (Holy S**t was the most common epithet.) Ordinary words just couldn't capture our astonishment at what had happened. The vicious flood waters carved huge channels down the flanks of that whole mountain...just scored the earth like the claws of some great beast, many feet back into the mountainside, right down to the bone and even into it..

These photos do not do justice to the vigorous new streams and water falls that splash merrily down the sides of Big Nose Mountain now. They look as if they have always been there.

I wish my Grandpa Lachmayer, who took us on many road trips down the valley on the road that curves around its steep green sides, could be alive to see. He would have enjoyed the astonishment.

Nature is powerful beyond imagination and erosion apparently does not take centuries, just a lot of water.

The boss thought he counted seven or so of these gigantic gashes in the mountainside. They went many, many feet into its sides and stretched out of sight toward the top. Can you imagine all that rock and dirt and trees and debris dumped on the roadway below? I am impressed that they got it all cleared up before freeze up.


****Just a few weeks ago this whole area was smoothly rounded and covered with forest.....

Mag-tastico!

Yesterday was. The sun shone. Oh, there were clouds but they were a minor annoyance. The tractor had a flat tire...the big expensive rear tire. But our good tire guy came down and fixed it right away and charged a very reasonable amount so that was okay too.

And when I walked past the window on the way to who knows what, something flitted across the yard and flirted with the laundry. I am always thinking bird, and watching hard to see them, but this was something else, a monarch butterfly so bright and orange against the vibrant green left behind by all the water. It was as if it came just to entertain me, testing the last bright, red, canna blossom, comparing the colors of the shirts and blue jeans, floating up and down on a freshening breeze. It only stayed a moment or two, but they were good moments.

Then at evening chore time, the setting sun was like a spotlight shining across the shadows to highlight each bright tree against the darkness of the retreating clouds. The sky to the west was a soft, bright, greenish-gold, with just a few puffy clouds that looked as if they had been shipped down from Heaven.

Just to make it perfect, better than perfect, beyond all that is perfect, a set of geese winged over low, heading straight into the sun. It lit their wings until they seemed to be made of burnished metal, tin foil geese, mirror geese, so beautiful they made my heart hurt. Their calls followed them to the horizon as we went to let the girls into the barn to eat their supper.

It was an amazing gift to see them, like finding a diamond in a crackerjack box. Plumb made my day.

Escaping from the Flood

Old Faithful

For the past several days we have been finding a few cows in places where they don't belong each morning. We figured it was probably due to the boss doing some electrical work and forgetting to plug the electric fencer back in on Saturday. He does stuff like that pretty often nowadays.

Yesterday morning we had all the cows and all the colored heifers, but every single black and white Holstein heifer was missing. Of course it was still raining but Liz and Alan went hunting for them, fond them in a hay field and brought them home.

Alan spent the entire day fixing fence. The problem was undoubtedly precipitated by the lack of electricity on the fence. A plethora of overgrown rose bushes lying on the wires didn't help.

However the biggest issue was that the flood took the corner off the fence, ripped the post right down. Our creek is usually just a trickle, but it has been swollen to little Niagara status a lot lately. Anyhow, the kid worked the whole day and got it about half finished...good enough to get by but he will have to finish it today.

Especially since he left my good hammer and my not quite as good, but good enough, brush cutters up along the fence in a bucket. It is unwise to fail to return mommy's tools around here.

It has been very weird this summer how the heifers have segregated themselves. Now and then they gather in one bunch, but most of the time the two brown Jerseys pair up with the two red milking shorthorns and the black and whites form another group entirely. It is not because they were particularly raised together or anything, but they sort by color pretty much every day....odd....

Well-Meaning But....

Great article here on how ill-informed folks often make the wrong call on animal welfare situations. One of the best I have read.

Monday

Quack, quack, ribbit....learning a new language here, the language of rain.

Sunday Stills....Water Droplets

No shortage of these. Bossman says the folks say there have been twelve days of rain in this set.

For more Sunday Stills......

Cool Stuff from other Folks

Jinglebob posted this link on the real result of letting folks exercise their Second Amendment rights.

A good friend participated in this Guinness Book record collection of boats in Inlet NY.

Take into account that Inlet, a tiny town in the Adirondack Mountains, has a population of well under 500, yet beat out Pittsburgh, PA for the record. The event raised money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research and was called One Square Mile of Hope. (Record is not yet official but surely will be.)

Benefit Tractor Pull

At the Fonda Fair grounds October 29th and 30th. This sounds like it will be a tremendous amount of fun for pulling fans with proceeds going to flood victim relief.

***Thanks, Scott for the HT

Operation Swoop the Coop

The name flat cracked us up, although the subject isn't all that funny. Now we are just waiting to hear who dunnit.

***Ask and ye shall receive. Here's the answer.

***And yet another, and probably more accurate story, this time with photos.

Who is Really Getting Your Vote

Hacking the voting machines

Sunrise

We're having one!

Yesterday, not so much. This video shows one of the reasons Liz didn't make it home to milk last night. All the roads approaching the farm from the west, north and south were closed, so she just couldn't get here.

Beck, Alan and I did all the milking and Beck fed calves while the boss went out and churned up mud getting the cows fed. Took him all of chore time and then some and he cut a tire on the skid steer on the slate banks that were carved out by the water rushing down. There is a good eight inches of heavy gravel with rocks bigger than my fists piled up in front of the cow door. Guess when they get the skid steer tire fixed he can use it to fill those holes.

It was hard to even get to the barn last night, normally a five-minute or less walk. The mud was boot top deep, the creek under the culvert bridge, which normally holds barely enough water for a cow to get a careful drink sounded like Niagara and would have washed you away had you stepped into it.

It was spooky to even step out onto the darned bridge. It has washed out several times, once just as the milk truck was about to drive onto it, and it always makes me nervous to cross when we are getting a lot of rain.

Beck warned me not to step into the water rushing across the barnyard up on top too. However, I am a shorty and couldn't begin to step across, it so I waded right in. Sure enough it was racing fast enough to nearly pull my feet out from under me. Wow! The kids grabbed my hands because they are such nice folks, and, although I would have been fine without, I was thankful.

What a year!

Not Again

A huge thank you to friends, family members and caring neighbors who called us about the tornado warning. We had no idea....

We ended up spending around 45 minutes watching the skies to the west and south, ready to hit the cellar if we had to. We got an outrageous lot of rain and some pretty wild winds and rumor has it that something did some damage just a tiny bit to the south of us, but we are fine. Now it is raining hard and thundering wildly.

The boss just got the driveways half-way fixed up so the milk truck can get in all right and we can get the trucks and the Durango up and down. Guess he is looking at a couple more days on the skid steer. Guess I had better shut this down before the storm gets any closer.