Same Old, Same Old

It is kinda hard to find anything interesting to write about these days. We certainly keep busy...yesterday the boss fixed stalls to bring some heifers into the cow barn. We moved calves, cleaned as always, dragged in hay off round bales and fed it out. Bought another load of round bales (ouch), and prayed for green grass and soon.


Alan has some time home from his job...as the newest guy on the roster he has to wait his turn for work. He is handy to have around and helped the boss replace a stubborn stall divider the beef steer wrecked and rebuilt Mandy and Blitz's tie rail. Since Blitz had worked the rail loose enough that she could step right up into the manger and steal feed from Broadway and Dalkeith across the barn, it was a much needed repair.


These are all things that are engaging enough when you are doing them, but they don't exactly make for thrilling reading later....it's all right by me though. I would rather soldier along doing the boring jobs day after day than run around coping with crisis after crisis, which is a pretty normal situation on a farm, especially when there are animals involved.

Leftover for Wordless Wednesday

From Sunday Stills about liquids.

Scho-Mo Confluence

A necklace of gulls hunts where the waters merge

 A mighty tree the flood washed up at the boat launch

 Mappy for size reference
You can see part of the aqueduct behind him

The Auriesville Shrine from the boat launch

The innocent corn fields looked much the same...

you would never know that they had been inundated with feet of swirling water. When we were little the then owners let my dad and his friends and us kids walk these river flats after the rain, searching for chips of flint, arrow heads, pot shards and other evidence of those who lived here before us.

On the way home from the hospital Sunday my brother and sis-in-law were kind enough to stop at the boat launch where the Schoharie "creek" (a word used loosely for a sometimes-raging monster river) and the Mohawk River (which did some raging of its own last year.)


All the way home, things had looked the same and yet different from the last time I had been this way....before the flood...houses still sat where they always had been, but now they were wrapped in Tyvek, surrounded by dumpsters full of sheet rock and sofas, or sported condemned stickers and waited for their fate. 


It was a little like moving away, growing old, and finding your town somehow different when you came home to visit....you knew where the streets were, but life had gone on without you. Kind of misty and confusing.


Except that it goes on for miles and miles all over the state and a lot of places are much worse than here.


Much the same at the boat launch...the hard things of concrete and stone were still where they used to be but water channels had changed, roads had washed out and been replaced with lesser roads, debris was piled everywhere in windrows and mini-mountains. 


I was really pleased to see that much of the aqueduct still stands...I thought it might have all fallen. Imagine the kind of construction that has kept that much of it upright since 1841.


The place was thronged with people, much busier than it is in the summer when the state holds its hand out for money every time you drive down the access road. People hunted lures, played with eager doggies, or just looked out where the gulls whirled in the current, hunting herring. It was wild and eerie and.....well...I can't come up with a better word than different.


For more on problems with flood debris, go here.

Mom is a Carver Too

She carved this little Santa and even won a blue ribbon with him. He was among my very favorite Christmas gifts this season.

Weekending at the Movies

And at the rehab hospital. Got to see mom and dad yesterday. Dad seems to be doing great and it was so wonderful to visit and talk with him. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers.

Also finally got to see The Big Year. It was only released on a limited basis locally so we missed it in the theater. 

I am not much of a movie goer, but I knew I wanted to see this story about three birders doing simultaneous big years, especially after reviews came in from other birders and they were kind....heck, they were downright glowing.

Anyhoo, I bought myself the DVD, something I haven't done since Cats came out, believe it or not, and we watched it Saturday. I gotta tell you, it is worth buying if for nothing more than the bald eagle mating scene, but in fact it is a good enough movie that all four of us, including the boss, who isn't exactly a bird man, watched it, and were truly enthralled.

The scenery...ah, the scenery was breathtaking. Finding the big birds was so cool; the Code 4s and 5s gave me cold chills. (Alan says we should do one, a big year that is, he seems to have missed that we are neither rich nor anywhere near expert enough for such as that, but you gotta love him for the enthusiasm. He is seeing life birds all the time down there where the big rivers meet the Atlantic ocean and I am green with envy. I have only had two lifers in about the past decade.)

Mainstream reviewers butchered this movie and killed it completely at the box office, which I suppose should have been my first clue that I was going to love it.....

I really didn't expect to love it so much though. I expected to cringe at the humor style of Jack Black and Steve Martin as they pursued my favorite pastime. I thought they would mock birding and the slightly off-center sort of folks who get all excited when they see crows mobbing an accipiter in the the rehab hospital parking lot.

 I didn't because they didn't. They captured the madness that is birding, without mocking it too much, and made me smile a lot. There were a few sticky moments where you expected to be plunged into painful embarrassment at the characters' behavior, but most were redeemed before they got too hurtful. If you get a chance, rent it or buy it...I envy you the opportunity to see it for the first time...

I stuck the DVD in my laptop yesterday and watched the whole thing over again and wished for more. I had never heard of Himalayan snow cocks, Xantus hummingbirds, or several of the other birds...I wanted to imagine them again, and to watch those eagles.....

Sunday Stills...Liquids

 Our favorite liquid

 Semi-sorta liquid

 Water droplet with sky (If you click you can see a tiny bubble)

 Water droplet with something other than sky

Liquid pumpkin

For more Sunday Stills......

Happy Saturday

Not much going on...the boss smashed his finger between two oak logs yesterday so he is in a world of hurt. In typical farmer style he soldiered on all day, after sticking it in an ice cold creek back in the woods for a while. It takes more than that to slow him down. He was kinda unhappy with various cows who thought it would be a nice idea to thump on it when he was milking them last night though.


Have a good Saturday. If nothing breaks, or gets loose or gets sick or decides to have a calf I am going to make chicken today for those who will watch the SB tomorrow evening...I will not be among that number......

Baby Pics

Mirage, daughter of Magic and Tri-Day Valiant Gold. Born yesterday in the middle of my bookkeeping marathon.Magic needed a little help, but mother and daughter are doing fine now.

From Both Sides

People are such a various lot. Some of them do good beyond all expectations and some of them are terrifyingly not good. Talked to the boy early this morning and he had horror stories of subway platforms and slow death happening even to the harmless and the danger of standing near the trains....It twisted my heart right up. Such death and mayhem.........and then I read this story. One young American saw something awful happening in another country and reached out via social media to find help.


And found it, so much more than he had even imagined possible.


And last night I read another story, which on one hand was very moving, and on the other hand is so typical of the lengths farm folk will go for others. We have been the recipients, several times over the years, of help from unexpected directions, coming at the darkest hour, and lightening our lives, probably more than the givers imagined possible. I will try to wipe the subway images out of my mind for the day and think of the good people, and the new baby heifer that Magic presented to us yesterday and get on about the day.

Let NY Farm Act

The boss (in his mystery shopper outfit) and Bubba, headed for the barn

Sounds good to me. Read about it here.

Last Year's Weather

Northstar, a name the calf graduate, all grown up

Is still hanging around biting everybody right...well you know where. Even though we are enjoying this long spell of warmer than normal weather, what happened last summer is having lasting ramifications for farmers and ranchers from the southern borderlands to the far, far north.


Nobody has feed...well, some folks do, but there are a lot of shortages and staggeringly high prices for what is out there. We are about out of haylage, maybe a couple of days worth left, and buying round bales...spring and green grass can't come soon enough for me!


The guy we buy our crop seeds from called the other night...talked to the boss for quite a while. He wanted to give us a heads up that the seed we buy from him will nearly double in price for this year...drought in Texas wiped out most of the seed crop. He is big, successful farmer but he will be out of feed soon and told of dozens of customers who are feeding out their last bits. He thinks a lot of folks who have bought from him for a long while won't be in business this summer.


And yet, the big players are still manipulating the CME, while the milk to feed ratio drops like a rock. I am sure somebody will still be making milk come spring...the Chinese are buying dairies in New Zealand so their farmers can be trained how to do it right (first clue...leave out the melamine...it tends to kill people.) 


China has also become the world's number one nation for feed grain and oil seed production and yet they are still huge importers of food products and feeds....and ammunition or so they say.....


***Dad update. It has been a really tough haul for Dad and for Mom, who has been an amazing trouper through it all, but yesterday she reported solid progress. He is in rehab now and is doing stairs and getting around without the walker. Your prayers have been appreciated more than you could possibly imagine...thank you!

Wild

The weather that is. One minute it's pouring rain, the wind howling like a whole tribe of banshees, and the heifers are running for the stable. Next minute the sun is blazing down, it's as warm as April and all the fields are draped with dazzling, dangling, dripping water crystals like a million, billion shining gems. 


The heifers come back out to bask against the side of the barn, soaking up rays like girls on the beach. You can almost see them reaching for their Oakleys and slathering on the sun screen.


I have been spending my time today (when not doing bookkeeping and chores and writing this week's Farm Side) checking on the pony, Jack. Becky thought he was a tiny bit off this morning and she asked me to keep a watch on him.


I could see what she meant...he sort of had a contemplative look and was flicking his ears back and forth for no apparent reason. I got an inkling that maybe he isn't drinking like he should so I took him up a handful of delicious kosher salt from the kitchen.


He sure liked it, and scoured up every crumb. 


He is such a cool little guy. I really liked having an excuse to fool with him. This afternoon he seems fine...if anything ailed him, whatever it was (or wasn't) it seems to have passed.


***PS the boss says that he saw two rainbows between the storms. 

Beware those Secret Shoppers

The boss does a lot of our shopping...I am kind of a hermit, and he likes to shop...and yesterday he ran up to an area store to get a spiral ham and a birthday cake (although I can bake cookies with the best of them I don't do cake.)


He wasn't exactly dressed for the prom, if you get my drift (although you can take my word for it that he cleans up pretty good.) Anyhow, various store employees kinda, sorta, ignored him so to speak.


He waited a while at the checkout, then suddenly a dressed up sort of fella saw to it that a whole bevvy of cashiers corraled up to wait on him.


 Then the dressed up guy approached him and offered him a job as a secret shopper.


Being a fairly busy sort of lad, he declined, but we got a heck of a good laugh out of it....


So, anyhow, watch out. You will never know if that grubby, haircut-challenged guy, who looks like he lost his razor is just an old farm boy...or a corporate spy!

Happy Birthday Breezey375

AKA Becky, who keeps me in good books and stretches my imagination with books I might not choose for myself and feeds me chocolate and preps my cows for me. You are a paragon of daughterhood and I love you madly.

Poor Craftsmanship Alert

The boss always buys me an extra turkey at Thanksgiving time when prices are low. It gets pulled out of the freezer on weeks like this and much enjoyed in sandwiches and pot pie.


However, this time the second bird posed a puzzle. It had two necks, two livers (huge livers!) and no heart. 


Must be a GMO bird. 

It wasn't me, really it wasn't...

Okay, Here It Is

The boy stopped in yesterday on the quick, hurry up, to show me his new window decal. He asked me to take a pic and share it with you as he thinks it is pretty cool. (FYI, it is the Bone Collector one. When we went down to Cabela's he bought me a Bone Collector air freshener, which is very nice too.)

And then he was gone, off to Jersey and the pier, to make holes in things and then fill them up again.

Sunday Stills...Nature's Frames

This was quite a challenge purely because of weather and season...it is nice out today, but all week it has been rainy and gloomy. Still the show framed a couple of odds and ends and the grape vines framed not much of anything....and a mouse made a nice, if empty frame....


For more Sunday Stills......

What has it Got in its Pocketses?

A recent comment reminded me of a long ago incident that etched itself quite solidly in my memory.


Before the boss and I were married I worked on a much larger dairy, milking around three times as many cows as we do now. One of my duties was overseeing a series of young men as they learned to milk cows and work in the milking parlor and dairy barn. 


There was a series because as fast as they were trained to do farm work...to show up at five AM, milk cows, climb on a tractor or up in the haymow and work til evening milking, then milk again, then maybe get on a tractor again....they found easier work elsewhere. It wasn't the pay, because our boss paid really well.


It is a well-known fact that̶ I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶b̶o̶s̶s̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶c̶k̶ delegate tasks quite well.


Which I suppose may be behind what happened one day. I had milked both milkings with the trainee of the day. We didn't really get along all that well....I must admit that he was not my favorite kid to work with and I wasn't sorry when he inevitably moved along to greener pastures far away from real pastures. Guess I wasn't his favorite either.


Anyhow at the end of the day the boss kindly drove me to the grocery store. We shopped. I paid (we were only dating at the time.) I went to put the receipt in the back pocket of the clean jeans I had left hanging in the barn storage room so I could change after work.


There was already something there. It was soft and about the size of the plastic baggies I carried my lunch of diced apples to work in. I pulled it out to throw it away.


It was not a plastic bag.


It was a dead mouse last seen curled up on the storage room floor.


I screamed and flung the thing high in the air to the amazement of fellow shoppers and cash register girls. There was no question at all how it had found its way into my pocket.....




The boss was eager to track down my coworker, with mayhem on his mind (today he would point and laugh) but we threw the mouse in the trash and slunk out of the store... embarrassed half to death at my girly display.

The river is running fast and full of ice

No mayhem has ever been wreaked over the incident...but I have not forgotten.....

Photos

I kind of liked the way the river bank grapes, 

burr cucumbers and rose bushes twined together to form a safe corner for these birds. 

Don't like House Sparrows much but they were handy. do click....

Been out taking photos for Sunday Stills, which is natural frames this week. It is so grey and gloomy that it is hard to get anything but dull, dull, dull, but I think I got a couple that will do. Such a faded and colorless time of year. Still there are wee bits of color and small things of interest if you look long and closely. 

Saturday

The bicarb and salt tire.....forlorn and empty

Still nothing big going on, which I guess is good. Worked on 1099s yesterday, no big deal for those who have a clue, which...alas...I don't.


Was interested and appalled to note that in order to send the clearly labeled form to the folks who require them you must send another form so they know what the first form is...to convey it so to speak. These are the same folks who want us to live green and conserve and all that stuff...a form to send a form yeah, that makes a world of sense.


But the frosting on the cake was a mouse in the washer...after washing of course. It was a little deer mouse and the washer made it all fluffy and clean. 


And dead. Did I mention dead?


I picked it up with a napkin and threw it out for the cats, which appear to prefer dirty mice, so I had to dispose of it in a better fashion later.


And then I washed everything again...and a second again...just in case. 

You Will NEVER

See this at Northview.




**** (Not the kitty tracks...we do have kitty tracks.)

January Rain

Seems with our changing weather patterns we get at least one damaging rain storm in January. Every single year.

Yaktrax Tracks

Seems that this is it. Everything is awash in water running over the ice and frozen ground. Not very nice for walking. Can't say enough about those Yaktrax (and no they don't pay me.) Gotta get the boss a set.


There is little of interest going on...the boss keeps working on the furnace, making it a little warmer at least. We keep milking cows and feeding cows and cleaning out the stables...picking things up and putting them down. Dad is having kind of a hard time, but I guess he is progressing....and that is about all the news that is fit to print.

The Difference in Dogs

The original three collies, rear Gael and Mike, foreground Nick

Long time readers will remember my once in a lifetime border collie, Mike. Mike was amazing, a hard, stubborn, brilliant, guy, a so called "line dog" and the best canine friend I ever had. Once we came to terms that is. He would and did work anything we pointed him at and mistakes...and there were many...were generally mine.


Nick is his 3/4 (ish) brother..his mom was Mike's half sister (our Gael) by an open trial dog of national caliber and his father was Mike's father.


You may remember the story of the day Liz, (who was around thirteen at the time, and home terribly sick), had an intruder try to get in the house with her. I was out. The boss was at the barn choring.


She was in the shower trying to get relief for her lungs...the kids all have asthma and she was, as I said, really, really ill.


Mike was loose in the house with her.


We reconstructed events later, based on forensic evidence and what the boss saw from the barn.


Somebody came on the back porch from a rental van and opened the kitchen door and tried to walk inside the house. (They did NOT succeed at this attempt.)


The door was still partly open when the boss came over after seeing someone leaping through the snow like a gazelle, great, big, loping steps, and diving into the rental and racing away.


Indoors everything was torn off the counter and there were claw marks three quarters of the way up the door...eight foot door btw. The whole kitchen looked like a cyclone had hit.


The only cyclone was Mike though, protecting his girl and his property. I will wager that the guy in the van (whom we suspect was looking to fill it up with stuff out of our house) never even gave thought to coming back. I wonder if he even knew what hit him when he stuck his foot in that door.


Fast forward to Nick, who is getting old enough that he doesn't quite recognize folks at the door any more. The boss and Becky came in that same door yesterday. He was barking furiously right at the crack where it opens.... 


Teasing, the boss stuck his hand inside and made a noise.


Nick bolted in terror to sit on my feet, quaking like an aspen, for at least an hour.


And there is the difference in dogs. Short of being full sibs they couldn't share much more DNA and yet.......

Surprise

Kitteh, lying in wait for something
Please click to enlarge any of these

Sitting at the kitchen table this morning getting outside the first cup of coffee when Liz walked in.

Scaring the heck out of something and making it run away and slip on the ice

No surprise as that is how the day usually goes. 


Except that I hadn't heard her truck. I usually hear her truck...before the dog does in fact. He sure is getting old.


I didn't hear the truck because she came in really, really, really early and milked ALL the cows by herself (except Lemmie, because she didn't know what I am doing with her) and fed the babies.


Wow, that sure is a great surprise.Thanks Liz!


And last night the boy dropped in with a half a dozen hilarious stories about life in the big city and pretty girls and all those young guy things we miss when he is gone.

"Something" track. I would say possum....what was that kitteh thinking!

So anyhow, I had time to go out an look at some tracks and take some pics. Brave kitties out there last night...but kinda stoopid!

In Honor of Burns Night

I get to show off this lovely plate Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas......so, Happy Burns Night, everyone!

The Things You Learn While Moving Heifers

The electric fence gate is indeed "hot". If you touch it while wearing thick rubber boots and gloves and standing on snow, you won't get grounded completely and knocked on your *ss. However, liquid fire will run over your skin and you will cuss in the general direction of the guy who built such a tight d*** gate! Ouch!


When you worry and agonize for months over how you will move a certain recalcitrant heifer with big horns and a bad attitude, from heifer barn to cow barn....... When you sweat and plan and lose sleep fretting over what she will do......


She will walk quietly, almost exactly where you want her to go, and stroll into the barn and let you lug her into a stall with only the most minor of disagreements.


As if to say, "Ha, fooled you, didn't I?"


And the best cow moving item I have ever found is an old worn out canoe paddle. I always keep something on the porch with which to direct cow traffic. I can't count the number of times I have looked out the window to see cattle coming at me where they don't belong. Or heard hooves and moos out of place. It does not pay to chase them unarmed, as they will laugh and leap around you, kicking up their heels as they race away.


However, as with any tool sequestered by the lady of the house, all my fiber glass sorting sticks became "walking" sticks (as in walking away..I have a walking hammer too) and are over at the barn. When the time came to move an animal recently there was nothing on the back porch to choose from but a hoe and the canoe paddle.


 I chose the one that fit my hand the best and carried the fondest memories. Much to my astonishment cattle respect that paddle. And do not challenge me when I carry it. Must be because they can see it so well and it makes me look wider (amazing) and more dangerous.


Anyhow, farmers love to recycle and I am going to recycle that old paddle!


**Thanks again for your prayers and thoughts. Dad had a good day yesterday and took two walks and ate hit meals. I think that is excellent progress.

Something Going On

In the Amish world today. Early this morning, as I lay squashed under the mountain of comforters, blankets, and afghans that is necessary to prevent freezer burn in this climate (I felt like a particularly insignificant leaf, pressed in a particularly thick dictionary) I heard horse after horse clopping by.


I paused on the stair landing and watched yet another, seen only by a vague green light from whatever he was using to make himself visible to passing traffic, as he pounded down the road well before dawn.


I wonder where they are all going. 


And have you noticed that almost every single one of their horses is lame to some degree? Watch for the tell-tale head bob when the hurty foot hits the ground when they trot....or listen. You can hear that little hitch in their git-along too, especially in the quiet of the early early morning like today.

Anyhow, something is happening somewhere.....




****And on another note, I am SO GLAD that moose are uncommon in NY (although I am sure most local folks will remember the one in Fonda a couple of years ago. Do click the link above then click on through to read the whole story. I know a lot of tough women, but to drive away an attacking moose with a grain shovel...at 85 years old and 97 pounds...well, that is amazing.

No News is Good News

I hope at least. Haven't heard how Dad is doing yet today, but he came through surgery all right.
Thank you all for your prayers. 


I KNOW they helped.


 Hope you will continue to keep him in your conversations with the Almighty as we will be doing here at home. 

My American Farm

HT to Kim Komando for sharing this site, which shares lots of useful information on American farms and farmers. 

And here is another story about area cheese making.




****Please if you can, pray for my dad today. Major surgery taking place.