In the Misty Morning Fog

With our hearts a thumpin'

Well, kinda sluggishly....but they are thumping. Alan rigged up his mini-boiler again yesterday. Too soon to know how much heat it will provide, as it has to be uncoupled and unplugged when not actually working....and no one wants to stay up all night feeding it. Time will tell.....hopefully it will tell us we are warm.

Shiverish but Sunny

It is. Down into the mid-twenties last night, making it a very pleasant thing to turn on the electric heater this morning. It is tiny and it labors mightily to take the edge off the cold in the kitchen. Just now it is my best friend.

Not much of great interest happening here. We milk the cows. We feed the cows. Then we milk the cows and feed the cows. Somewhere in between the boss cleans the barn and fixes a seemingly never ending string of broken water bowls.

Feeding them with wheelbarrows is getting old fast, but on the other hand it is getting the fat old lady into shape, being wheel-barrower in chief and all.

There is a big wheel barrow. There is a little wheel barrow.

The boss brings down a bucket load of haylage with the skid steer and dumps half into them. He takes the big one and I take the little one and we distribute largess to the ladies.

Then he dumps in the other half of the load and I feed out both while he gets another bucket full.. It is heavy. There are ramps. There are cow heads reaching and slamming and grabbing on all the corners and ramps as everybody wants theirs NOW.

However, I find a very positive side to me doing at least some of the feeding. I actually know all the cows, who is dry, who is milking hard, which are still growing heifers that need a little extra, and I adjust their dinners accordingly.

Scotty gets a great big pile.....

And Lemmie, and Camry, and Blitz and Mandy....Not so much Zinnia, who is almost dry and about the size of a pick up truck. I KNOW that when they get their morning feed outdoors she stomps around and grabs more than her share.

I won't say that this has increased milk production, but they were dropping really fast and now the slide has stopped and they are holding. Works for me.

That Ain't Chicken Feed

"This is my own tiny kitteh bed....to you it may be a paper towel,

but to me it is special..."

Photo by Alan

A representative of a local fish and game club brought me some bird seed today...read the Farm Side late in summer about the shortage of high price of sunflower seeds...and just brought me some seed. Isn't that the sweetest thing?

Thank You

Global Warming. Not too bad here so far, although it is supposed to chill later in the week. I will take every passing warm day we get and rejoice!

Been reading in the local paper about all the hooligans being arrested for assorted crimes against wildlife and private property.

Imagine what would happen if they really got out there after them. They could balance the state budget in a wink. The boys caught two trespassers in one hunting trip here, both in full cammo, and there are more every day...just can't chase them all due to the whole having to work thing.

Wish the DEC would catch our band of outlaws for us. Alan went up in the field to have a look around yesterday and found that some yahoo with a pick up truck rutted a couple of new seeding hay fields all to heck...big fixit job there I guess.

They had to drive over rocks and trees and through a whole darned hedgerow to get in, right past a posted sign. Guess they poached a deer off us and were too lazy to drag it out.

Remember Melamine?

There's a talking head on my lawn

Another pet threat from China...Pet treats killing dogs....

Conservation Reserve

Has anyone had experience with putting land into the CRP program for wetlands? Any thoughts? Any problems selling property later?

Thanks in advance.

Sunday Stills...Bokeh

I have used this before, but it is an accidental example I think

I did what I could with this, but it is a bit beyond my abilities....maybe more than a bit. Here is the definition of Bokeh. I actually have a few examples of accidentally getting this right in the past, but alas, they are on the dead computer in the dining room.

For more Sunday Stills......

Leftovers

Lichen, not leftover, but it could have been

Some people dread them and whine and complain about the too much food thing. Hah, no such thing. No way no how. Personally I am very fond of them. It is wonderful to finish up the day and know the only cooking I have to do is to pull those wonderful square plastic tubs the boss bought me out of the fridge, pile them on the table and point the family at the microwave.

Here is someone who has scientific ideas about how to handle them.

I really like his thinking......of course he is the editor of the paper that runs the Farm Side....but, still, I really like his thinking. Kind of on a been there, done that sort of level.

***Here is another just put up today. Pretty darned inspiring.

Farm Side Freebie Friday

Right here.

Outlaws

Yesterday while the bird was browning and the women were working on the side dishes, the younger men folk went a-hunting.

While perched in the pasture tree stand, Bubba had a close encounter of the turkey poo kind. See, Alan spooked them up and they flew right over him...they had been eating grapes by the way. Guess you could call it the purple badge or courage...or really badges plural.

They did see some deer, but mostly they saw poachers. One guy had innocently wandered across the property line so Bubba just guided him back out to where he actually had permission to hunt.

The other one saw Alan and took off running.

Uphill.

We are quite well supplied with uphill.

However, Alan's new job entails thousands of critters rather than a few dozen and he sees a lot of action every day.

What makes a forty-something guy think he can outrun a rake-skinny farm boy who wrestles beeves and calves and bulls and dairy cows for a living ?

He couldn't. He didn't. After the kid chased him up hill and down dale for a while, and hiding in the bushes didn't work out well for him, (he was in full cammo..clever lad) he finally stopped.

Then he claimed to be an officer of the law and thus had a right to sneak around our posted farm in cammo and run away from rightful landowners and all. Or so he thought. Our former student of the laws of fisheries and wildlife explained the realities of the game and trespass laws and escorted him to a convenient boundary line.

Th two of them flat messed up the hunting for the boys so they came home and ate turkey. Don't know where the "cop" went, but as long as it wasn't on our land it will be okay.

Thankful

Light of dawn, like silky smoke, slides in from all sides as if it has forgotten east.

Cats clamor. Sate them with kibbles.

Put out bird seed.

Dog dances, ear scratches,

Sunday morning silence on a Thursday in November.

Chores will soon be finished.

Rest and be thankful.

Wishing each and all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday from all of us at Northview Dairy Farm. Hope your day is all you wish it to be.

When the Going Gets Cold

Mappy in Shadow

The cold go shopping. It was just miserable here yesterday. Atmosphere and temperature both. So Liz took Beck and me shopping for a turkey and everything that goes with it.

It was warm in the store. People were remarkably friendly and smiley and nice.

And it was warm. I have never enjoyed shopping more.

Now there are yams in the oven and celery and onions on the stove and it at least smells warm in here.

Hope you all have a terrific day tomorrow.

PS a certain grumpy someone just came home with an itty bitty electric heater. Maybe I should smile at him.

Arggghhhhh

Nuff said

Twin Cousins

Susurrus Samaras

Out on the porch watching the dog, who knows better than to stray, better than to bother heifers, better than to harass horses or chase chickens, or fight with cats, but not better than to avail his delicate-tummied border collie self of deer innards, (which will be removed TODAY or my name isn't mom.)

Something makes a soft, sweet, swishing sound, like pattering rain drops falling down.

What could it be?

The sky is cool slate grey, with milky yellow undertones, not a drop in sight or sound.

Mr. Half moon is sliding through the branches of the box elder tree that is playing host to that same deer.

It is pretty out, and kind of warm too, all things (like November for example) considered.

What is that sound?

Barely a puff of breeze ruffling the samaras on the box elder as it whooshes by. How sweetly sibilant.

Sunday Stills....Portraits

Shavings and all

Not pigeon-toed, just frozen that way staring at something

People portraits proved impossible. Thus, Nick, being a border collie and Jack, looking for noms. Best I could do, sorry.

For more Sunday Stills.....

First

Doe permit=filled

Update

The good news is a couple of warm (ish) days in the offing. The not-so-good news is, that although at least the factory did not condemn the wood boiler, it will take around six weeks for them to get it repaired.

Maybe more.

Hopefully less.

(It is in Wisconsin now. If any of you live there and happen to see it, tell it hi for me and that I miss it.)

Six weeks ain't much in the grand scheme of things except when it is six weeks of November and December in the Northeast. Then the death of the oil burner becomes a bit of a crisis.

Only to us though. The boss has spent hours on the phone trying to track down a new firebox for the old wreck to little avail. Everyone wants to sell us a new furnace. Yep got those thousands of bucks sitting right here. Hard enough to find the cash to pay for repairs to the wood boiler, but dang, how are we going to do it twice!

Little brother had a thought. We have a small propane furnace in another location. Might could be that it can be installed in our living room or somewhere to hold off just the actual freezing thing for the next few weeks. Kind of hard to pursue it on the weekend but it is high on the agenda for next week.

Meanwhile, I have been reminded that I have been cold before. It is more comfortable to forget moving to an ancient farm house when I was 8 and heating with antique coal stoves. We were never warm, but we survived. I can remember huddling next to the stove in near darkness (lord only knows why we didn't have good lights, but it seemed like it was always dark there) reading and putting off going to bed in those icy upstairs bedrooms.

Then moving to my grandparents summer camp in January. Unheated. Sticking a stove pipe out the window for a little sheet metal stove designed to heat maybe a shoe box. "Burning" wet, dripping wood. (Burning is a euphemism for striking a lot of matches and trying to light the paper under the pile of soggy junk then watching it steam while we froze.) That was the cold of despair. I have never been so cold. I didn't know then how to get warm without proper heat.

That is when I learned to really build a fire though. When we bought the wood boiler the man who installed it was astonished how fast I got it up to operating temperature. Heck I had dry wood.

Anyhow, we are getting by. It stinks to be this cold and I fear for my house plants, but we are surviving. And it's warm in the barn.

This Week's Farm Side

Can't link to it this time, not on the freebie pages. However it is about one of my favorite authors, Ralph Moody.

And story (or storey) poles, both farmer version and government version. Gotta love the contrast. (be sure and scroll down on the latter to see the photos.)

Awakened

Got mud?

Yup...snow too, this AM

By a certain individual who has to arise at three to milk someone else's cows. Good that you are making money, but the rest of us don't need to get up at that hour ....just sayin....

I am actually comfortable though. Hot water bottle (two liter soda bottle heated in the microwave) in the back of my chair. Blankets in the chair too...nice and cozy. Oven on for about ten minutes with a pan of hot water inside (scented with cloves and cinnamon of course). Ran the shower for a minute to let out a bit of steam. Amazing how fast you get used to the cold. I worry about my house plants though.

Proof that Magic Exists

Right here.

Happy 80th Birthday

To the man who made me care for cardinals.

Notice red leaves.

And take stock of the heavy samara crop.

Along with all that reading and learning and making of things by hand.

I love you Dad.

Amid the Wreckage

As I run...er....trudge..up and down the cellar stairs in hot pursuit of photos of the no longer at all hot furnace, I find that there are bright sides to be found.

So far it is not all that cold out. (Please send our share of Global Warming now, thanks.)

My little three-breed heifer, Scottie (half-Jersey, one-quarter Holstein, one-quarter milking shorthorn) had a heifer calf by our milking shorthorn bull yesterday. She is a little cutie. The boss and I milked Scottie for the first time this morning and she didn't kick much. That could change, but we didn't have a rodeo this morning at least.

Scottie is just a tiny little thing, takes after the Jersey half of her pedigree I guess, but she goes back to some decent Holstein show cows and has a nice enough udder and pretty correct feet and legs...which don't quite match her very large and excessively hairy head, but what the heck, you can't have everything and she will probably look much better when she sheds out in the spring.

And each fall I bring in my multitude of house plants, including a lot of holiday cacti. Usually I stick them in the parlor, a room we don't use much, and although they bloom, no one sees their flowers.

This year I was in a hurry and they never made it past the living room, which we use as just what it sounds like. Thus the flowers are right there handy to brighten our days...works pretty good too.

Thanks

To everyone who called yesterday with caring and concern and offers of help of assorted kinds. Thanks for all the kind words here to....It is so heartening to know that you are there and that you care, even when many of you are facing your own challenges far worse than ours. Love to you all....be safe and thanks again.

Boom

Our furnace just exploded.

No one hurt.

No fire.

No heat either

Cell Phones

Kids, or should i say young adults, and cell phones go together like celery and turkey stuffing....you rarely see one without the other.

However, I resisted the technology, mostly because of cost, right up until a few days before the floods....literally, six days before the water came. At that time I purchased a $20 reconditioned Straight Talk phone and began learning to text and take lousy photographs and be annoying and all the other good stuff you do with cell phones.

It was kinda nice. I could keep in touch with the kids without being intrusive, send it with the boss when he went out on the highway after parts or groceries and get on the Internet any place any time. We could call the vet or the oil company or anyone else we needed to talk to right from the barn....or really from the barn yard, as there is little service inside the actual barn.

Then came the floods. Our land phones were out for days, but with the cell we could keep in touch with family all over. All was good.

Enter the cell phone slayer. Yeah, our twenty-something boy child. He hurts phones. Drops them in fast running creeks, the gutter between the cows, gets them kicked into orbit behind cranky cows when he uses them while milking, and other nefarious deeds.

Gets them sprayed with hydraulic fluid and gets it behind the screen. I swear his phones always smell like rice from all the days and hours they spend resting in bags of same.

I could go on and on and on and on. All that stuff I listed was done to one especially tough model he used. It was run over five times, by the truck and tractors, besides enduring the oil, the kicks, the stompings and any number of other indignities. (When he dropped it in the creek he was hunting with a friend and actually watched it floating away, underwater, flashing and blinking happily.) Rather than a smart phone I guess we should have called it the tough phone.

It actually still works, you just can't read the screen.

Thus he was finally forced to buy a cheapo flip phone to replace it.

Which he dropped the other day while working in the dark in the free stall barn at his new job. That one didn't survive its encounter with an errant cow hoof atall, atall..

So guess who is without a phone right now. No, not the slayer......

Sunday Stills...Potluck, with a Purpose

This was quite an interesting challenge for me. I know almost nothing about the technicalities of photography. As a frustrated painter, I see something that catches my eye, point, click, shoot, good, bad or indifferent.

If I don't like what I end up with I might change the setting or angle or distance, but there is no logic to it at all. I am wildly impressed by folks who actually know what they are doing, but for me it is enough to sometimes be able to capture the moment.

With the moons, that was the exact case. Kept changing settings until I got one I could live with. The top one and most successful in my opinion was taken with the aperture priority setting.

The top, and to me more interesting, rhubarb leaf was just getting a little closer, framing a little differently and cropping more attractively.

I am looking forward to getting some free photography lessons from all you much more skilled bloggers who will be doing this post today. Thanks in advance.

For more Sunday Stills....

Chilly

Tisn't Alaska, but it sure is nippy. Kitchen faucet was just a tad frozen this AM. Have to get some things buttoned up around here or we will be regretting it I fear.

I think we are going to have to start afternoon feeding a little earlier too. It was so dark last night when we were finishing up that you couldn't see the feed going into the wheelbarrows from the transport wagon...made it kind of interesting.

Well, have a great weekend. We are supposed to get a bit more decent weather and I am downright grateful....something else to be thankful for...October in November.

Filling the Suet Feeder

Farm Side Freebie Friday

Here you go.

A little bit of everything this week so hang on tight.

The Christmas Tree Tax

Was in fact not a tax and was never intended to be one. It was a checkoff program. Checkoffs are producer funded and driven generic advertising programs intended to increase sales of various farm products. Christmas tree growers wanted to get on board with this concept to help real trees maintain their market share against artificial ones. Here is a pretty good story about it.

Such programs are common among various commodities. Here is a bit on the soybean checkoff which explains some parts of the concept.

There is a beef checkoff...a buck a head for every cow or calf sold for beef in the nation. Beef, it's whats for dinner, is an example of the resulting advertising campaigns.

There have been times when that beef checkoff has really ticked me off. Say when calves are bringing five bucks and out of that you pay the checkoff and commission and get nothing back at all. However, all those new cuts of beef you see, flat iron, etc....developed and promoted with beef checkoff dollars, in the interests of making beef more appealing. Plus lots of recipes and other programs are thusly funded.

There is a dairy check off too. Fifteen cents per hundred pounds for every bit of milk that leaves a dairy farm. We do not get to pass that along to consumers either, because our price is set by government formula, which does not take it into account. If it is in any way a tax, it is a tax on us, not on the folks who drink our product.

It has also irritated me on occasion, such as when it spent our money to help the EPA fund air quality studies on dairies. Seemed dumb at the time and seems even dumber now. However it also funds the wonderful Dairy Princess program and partners with grocery stores to better display our products, schools to convince students to drink it, and restaurants to use in new offerings to keep folks using it in drinks and as cheese on burgers. Here is a link to the local "chapter".

All three of the Northview crew served as dairy ambassadors on various Dairy Princess courts. They learned a great deal and spent a lot of time at various public affairs meeting consumers face to face and explaining about the value of dairy products in the diet. It was good for them and good for the industry. And it put faces on farmers in a very real and personal way for thousands of non-farm customers.

I have been appalled over the past couple of days by the sheer ignorance of some pundits on the topic of the Christmas tree checkoff. They are to be excused for not understanding the whole checkoff concept when the furor began. They are not to be excused for not doing their homework before they sounded off. I give them an F in research.

I am kind of on the fence on the whole checkoff concept though. It makes for splashy advertising and in the case of the dairy and beef checkoffs has come up with some really popular campaigns. However, it has pretty much been proven that such generic advertising has very little benefit for individual farmers and when it gets down to the nitty gritty that is who is paying for it.

Creepy

Simon, the unlikely, elderly, best hunter on the farm

Fog this morning. Couldn't see more than the vaguest outline of the heifer barn, which is right next to the house. I worry with the crew out on the roads so early; Alan off to milk a lot of cows somewhere else and Liz on the way here to milk ours.

Last night bringing the cows in by moonlight was an interesting experience. It is lovely out there in the moonglow. Even the mud turns all silver and shines. However, dear little Rosie, the milking shorthorn heifer, has turned into a lunatic, who charges anyone she sees.

Oddly her roan and white coloring blends in with the darkness much better than the stark black and white of the Holsteins so watching for her is problematic.

You kind of have to rely on the sound of hurried hoof steps in the mud to tell you when this juggernaut of naughty (and dangerous) bovine is coming at you.

However, in the dark the sounds of the cows walking echo off the horse trailer and the corn crib and the heifer barn. Sloppy, soupy, mud-song-surround sound.

I was kind of nervous about it when I got left behind, being fence while waiting for the last few cows. Everyone else went in to let cows in.

Then the last few cows surprised me as I was shutting the big gates...old lady with a broken foot, deep, sticky mud, big, heavy red gate that has to be dragged...I wasn't moving very fast.

From right behind me I heard a soft moo. Oops, the cows weren't all down yet. (Even with a good flashlight it is really hard to see them). There was Mandy...and the two Jersey heifers...and Rosie.

Who took one look at me and ran like heck...to get away from me.

Hmmmm......

Wings

Sheltering wings. Somehow it seems that they are always there when we need them most. Someone's word or touch or kindness beyond the call lends them when the challenges are the greatest and we take comfort in the care and caring.

Sometimes we are called to lend those wings ourselves...sometimes we are shielded beneath them.

I am most thankful in this month of Thanksgiving to all of you who have stretched out your wings over the rocky parts of my life. It has always meant more than I could say. I hope sometimes I do the same for you.