$416.31 -that is what an overnight stay, an x-ray, a vaccination and some fancy tailoring set me back for Nick, who is back home by the way. That is more than I paid to purchase either his mother or his big brother, both of whom were born of imported parents, with Gael's father being an open sheep dog trial contender on the national level. (I bred Nick myself). Major sticker shock! I spent eight of my more youthful years working as a tech and receptionist/dog washer/kennel cleaner/whatever else was needed for a vet and I have some idea of the markup in pet vet services. Still I expected to get nailed for maybe two hundred for last night's services for my idiot dog. I should have known when I saw the marble counters on the new hospital that I was in trouble.

When I got home and began to check out the details I became plumb unhappy. They hosed me fifty-three bucks for a distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis and parvo virus vaccine. The farm vet will give them for eight or ten bucks. In fact I often buy my own from Drs. Foster and Smith (about three-twenty a dose for one kind, less than two bucks for another) and give it to the dogs myself. In fact, Nick's dose for this year was and is, sitting in the fridge right now. I knew he was due and figured, what with any exposure he might get at the animal hospital, I would let the vet do it. My mistake, I guess.

They were kind to Nick; I think they did a good job and they were open when none of the other clinics around were. Still, it pains me to pay more for one dog call, even with minor surgery involved, than I usually spend on a whole months vet care for over a hundred cattle. All I can say is ouch.

What a night. I normally let the three border collies out for a couple of minutes before we go over to milk. We are way back from the road and they know where they belong, so this is normally not a problem. They run out in the back, take care of business, and run right back to the porch.

Tonight however, something was amiss. Gael refused to go out, Mike raced back in at warp speed and Nick just disappeared. I got out the shepherd's whistle and called. He minds very well, especially the whistle, so I couldn't believe it when he didn't come right back.

I threw on my coat, grabbed a flashlight and hustled over to the cow barn. Once, several years ago, when he was young and impetuous he took off the same way and drove the sheep down in the ravine between the farms and it took Alan and me hours to get them out. This time, however, the two old sheep that we still have were communing with the show heifers with no dog in sight.

By the time I got back to the house he had returned, bleeding from both hind legs, big tearing wounds, and lame as heck. I thought coyotes had gotten him. The damned things have been so close to the buildings nights that you can hear them over the vacuum pump when we are milking. However, Alan backtracked him down to the road, where he had clearly been hit by a car. A neighbor who had seen the accident called a few minutes later to confirm this. The driver of the van who hit him didn't bother to stop. It wouldn't have made any real difference to the situation, but it would have been a nice gesture to have done so. Anyhow, Alan and I hauled him the 35 miles over to Burnt Hills Animal Hospital, where he was X-rayed, bandaged up, and put in a cage to rest up until tomorrow when they will sew him up.

We still think coyotes were involved. There are tracks all over down where he was hit and he is just not inclined to leave the yard like that. The dogs are all well trained and he is the most biddable and obedient of the three of them. We are thinking either they were chasing him or the other way around.

I am thinking too that I am going to have to do something Alan has been begging me to do for several years. He wants Nick for his own dog. Mike is my number one and everyone knows it including the dogs. They all look to me as the boss lady and food owner, but while we were there getting all that medical work done, although I was doing the holding and turning and such, that little border collie never took his eyes off that boy. His whole being was straining to get back to his kid. No matter what I may think, I do believe he may have made up his own mind about just whom he belongs with.

I would like to direct your attention to a new blog, just started within the past few days. Although you might find it just a tad unlikely for a farm girl from upstate New York to be writing updates about Professional Bull Riding, that is just what is happening at BuckinJunction. Our girl, Liz, has taken on a new writing project and she is having a lot of fun with it. She knows the bulls, the stats and the cowboys so if you are interested in the PBR wander on over for a bit. Although I am of course, a doting mom, I am not exactly a bull riding fan, but she has me reading it.

She says she is going to write about her own cattle too, but so far the topics have been taken up more by the likes of Little Yellow Jacket and Paulo Crimber.

Anyhow, I hope you have time to make a teenager's day and give her a few hits on her site meter.

Cold out, but not so bad in. 

The stained glass doors. Soon to be covered with unglamorous plastic to keep out the freezing winds. 

Herd Health

We had a great time at herd health this week. In theory one performs that management function on a monthly basis. However, here at Northview we only actually seem to get it done about once every three months. We don't have either a huge herd or a real massive budget surplus, but it still seems to work out all right.

Anyhow, we really like our veterinarian, who is a good friend along with being an outstanding animal doctor, so there is always an element of fun involved in the mix. Along with running around the barn puncturing butts with vaccines, checking for pregnancies, dehorning calves and all that good stuff we get a chance to catch up on each other's frantic lives for a few minutes.

This time, we found out that England, my favorite cow, is carrying a calf by Chilton. (Yay. Now if only it's a heifer.) And that the evil queen of the east line, 97, who has been getting meaner with each passing day, is NOT pregnant, and thus will be helping us pay our county taxes in a couple of weeks. Her stall will make a perfect spot for Alan's show heifer, Bayberry, who is not doing well with the heifer bunch and needs to come inside.

Then came the fun part.

The good doctor brought in her ultra sound machine. I had heard about this device many times and expected something about the size of a shopping cart. Instead the machine, which allows earlier diagnosis and confirmation of pregnancy and sometimes sexing of the fetus, was in a cardboard box smaller than a compact car battery. I had also expected some kind of complicated screen sort of thing with graphs and charts and the like, but instead the operator views the cow's interior with what looks like Martian space goggles.

We soon got to see that number 115, Voldemar, is indeed carrying a little bitty calf, smaller than my pinky fingernail. She gave 104 pounds for the tester last month so that was good news indeed. Then we took a look at 103's baby, which was enough larger that Liz and the boss could see the heart beating. My lousy vision without my glasses denied me that pleasure.

We are very aware of the unborn calves once they start to grow large. You can see them kicking. If like me you are a less than svelte middle aged woman squeezing into stalls beside bulging pregnant cows, you can FEEL them kick, sometime quite vigorously. Heck, Liz even talks to them, when they occupy the interior portions of her show darlings. However, it was especially cool to see such tiny, unformed future bovines. I am glad we had the chance and am thankful to our veterinarian for taking time to offer it to us.

We think Mr. Stinky has left us for a bit, although the dogs still have an ominous fascination with the back of the freezer. I put some mothballs back there out of reach of the pets. They seem to repel rabbits, so here's hoping Mephites mephites thinks like the Easter Bunny and hops away.

John's hat hanging out with a really strange head. 

How do you get a skunk out from behind the freezer on the back porch? That's where Mike says he is and he should know...and if he is still out there, how do you get the dogs out past him without him firing off a shot? I need to know.

Seen in an area mall entryway last weekend: Two young Amishmen seated at one of those video games where two players can race cars against one another with lots of smashing and crashing. They were looking over their shoulders kind of sheepishly, but having a heck of a time.

Becky stayed inside to vacuum and cook her famous mac and cheese tonight. Along about half way through the night she put her Green Day CD into the player and cranked 'er up. The house immediately filled with a miasma of stink that could only come from one source. That's right, he was up on the back porch looking for cat food I guess. Anyhow, the entryway didn't smell too awful good when the rest of us came in from the barn, although he didn't let off a full shot at least. Guess this means that they will have to change the name of the genre from punk rock to skunk rock.

I have another entry for the calves lost in holes thread. Our farm actually consists of what was historically two smaller farms. (Both incidentally have similarly inconvenient and miserable cow barns, leading me to believe that the same sadist designed both.)

Anyhow, there is a nearly unnoticeable creek between the two places. It only makes itself known when it is in spate, but then it fairly roars. Therefore we have about a five-foot high oil tank with both ends cut off acting as a culvert to carry it. It is buried deep in the ground, because the little stream cut itself quite a channel over the years. This results in a thick, earthen bridge.

Some years ago, back when we had hired help that didn't share our last name, a newborn heifer calf jumped the fence that serves (sometimes) to keep critters out of the creek, staggered down the fifteen foot drop and vanished into the culvert. It is at times like that when you discover just how much gravel and how many logs and branches and hunks and hanks of other debris that a little creek can carry. For hours everyone tried different means of reaching the terrified animal, which just bored deeper into the nearly blocked culvert every time she saw somebody. Finally our ever intrepid hired man, who was thin as a rake, crawled up from downstream and snagged the calf with a halter, which he tied to a rope threaded from upstream, since there was just too much calf to go downhill. Everyone then did a big old heave-ho and hauled her to safety. It was about as much excitement as we needed for that day, but we kept the calf anyhow. Figured she'd earned it I guess.

A spooky moon hunkered low above the northern mountains, half shrouded in an icy fog bank, when I rolled out this morning. The whistles on at least two of the valley's firehouses sent an eerie chord reverberating shrilly through the cold darkness. That always worries me. Small town dwelling brings mental responsibility. When you hear that scream, chances are it is making that racket for someone you know, at least well enough to pray for, if nothing else.

Last night the near midnight quiet was split by shrieking sirens too, as emergency vehicles, one after another, raced west up the valley right past the house. At least a half a dozen sped by. Same goes on the worrying front. I don't know what happened, although I probably will find out when the paper comes. I lay awake all too long.

Of course some of that was going to the Farm Bureau meeting last night. I am on the county board and love it, but all that industry information, politicking, and socializing just gets me plumb wired up. It always takes me a long time to wind down to sleep. We have herd health this morning though, so I guess I had better get moving.

If any of you local readers want to, you can join NY Farm Bureau at a reduced rate during the ongoing membership drive. Call or email me and I will sign you right up. There is a great discount program now, with lower prices on everything from Dodge Trucks to hotel rooms. Don't let any issues you might have with the national branch of the organization scare you away from state and local. You don't have to look any farther than the farmers' tax exemption or the new licensing rules for driving heavy trucks to see what New York Farm Bureau does for you.

Alan 

This is the strangest January, weatherwise, that I can remember. Even though temperatures are reaching forty and fifty degrees by early afternoon, the ice is as hard and widespread as it was before the thaw. The boss has put out more than half a ten-wheeler load of sand already, but it just washes away or sinks below the surface of the ice daily. There isn't a single one of us who hasn't fallen at least once and Alan is black and blue (he likes to run a lot, which is fairly typical of a teenaged boy I guess, however impractical in this season.)

I am real glad of the warm weather though, despite the ice, for a couple of reasons. One of them is, of course, saving firewood. Another is critter comfort. About three days ago one of my many hot air balloons of conceit was firmly pricked and completely deflated by, of all things, our rabbits. Farm Side readers may remember last summer, when Alan bought a couple of cute little bunnies, then was stung by yellow jackets while holding his. She got away and hid under a building. He spent quite some time catching every barn cat, possum and woodchuck within acres in his humane trap before he finally lured her out from under the old hen house. Well those two bunnies were sold at the auction as does. Since I used to run a rabbitry with as many as seventy-five rabbits at one point, I confidently checked to make sure the auction boys were right. And, yep, sure enough they were both does.

Which makes it hard to explain why Becky came in from rabbit chores the other night and said, "Mom, one of those rabbits has GOT to be a buck. There's a nest full of fluffy brown hair and it's moving."

I went out and looked and sure enough, there are baby bunnies out there. Red Baron is the mama and Snowy, who used to be a girl before he proved me wrong, the dad. I am hoping the thaw lasts long enough for the new arrivals to hair over and handle the winter weather. The kids are hoping to make a little of their investment back selling rabbits at the Easter auction market.

Stormy and Deetzie AKA Comedy

I walked on green grass this afternoon. Soft, lushly lumpy, crispy crunchy at the edges, real honest to gosh green grass. I could feel my chest swell with a rush of rising joy as my feet squashed down into it (guess the lawn could have used another mowing last fall).

Is it any wonder that spring is such a beloved season? That just one long, narrow strip of green could cause such elation is cause for reflection....especially since all that green grass is visible and walk-on-able simply because we did an inadequate job of insulating the pipes that carry hot water down from the outdoor woodstove to heat the house.

As long as the snow doesn't get too deep you can see that strip of green out there all winter, straggling across the yard in all its glory. You can find the same strip in the summer because it is planted with different grass than the old lawn. The new stuff is thick, wiry and dark green, not to mention very traffic tolerant. (It even survived having the whole darned herd of dairy cows punch it all up the last day before frost the fall before last). The old grass is thin, soft and a sweet lime green, just wonderful to walk in barefoot (in warmer months and with great care to avoid the thistles that lurk beneath it). In June it is studded with wild violets in white and two shades of bluish purple. The boss's dad planted it when he was a teenaged boy, working as a gardener for the wealthy folks who owned the place then.

I came indoors and contemplated starting some geranium seedlings. With all that grass out there it feels like time.

I am getting plumb sick of so-called experts at farm magazines pandering to anti-farming special interest groups. These folks, merrily making a living selling stuff to farmers, while deriding everything they do, should have learned from world political history that appeasement NEVER works. If the dairy industry caves to animals rights or environmental groups on any of their trumped up issues, they just ratchet up their want list. However, the editor of Dairy Herd Management, Thomas Quaife, constantly suggests that we comply with ridiculous demands rather than going on doing what we do best-producing inexpensive, healthy food while taking expert care of the land.

He suggested in this month's issue that we spend our dairy check off dollars, intended for promotion of dairy products, to fund a dairy farm air emissions study to the tune of six million dollars. This is despite the admitted fact that the industry already funded such a study and the results were ignored completely by special interest groups. Surprise, surprise! Since when did those sort of folks pay any attention to science when it doesn't reflect their chosen point of view? Quaife mention that the farmer funded study might produce, "definitive research that shuts up the anti-dairy activitists once and for all." That has never happened and is NOT going to happen this time either, so we might as well save our money for the dairy promotion for which it was intended.

Today's assignment is the Isaac Hurlburt Diaries. A descendent of Mr. Hurlburt took the trouble to transcribe his 1862, 1871 and 1874 journals online and they make great reading. It is well worth the trouble of deciphering archaic spellings and parts that are missing due to the age of the documents. You might consider them the 1860s answer to blogging.

Isaac's farm was truly diversified, like most of his day. Throughout the year, besides farming, he was a logger, butcher and carter and also traded and trained horses; he cut poles, sold firewood, grew apples, feed for his animals and hops to sell. He had cows and oxen, sheep, horses, chickens, a sugar bush, Just reading what he and his family did each day in order to survive makes me tired. As you will find if you read the Farm Side this Friday, he even got a dog to churn the butter with a dog-powered treadmill.

He and his family knew how to have a good time too. Here is his entry for this day in 1862, "Friday, January 10, 1862 I and Mary visited Wm Hurlburt and Family found Persity verry feable Ann and Bery came from School Weather windy and thawy." The whole family often visited friends and family or went to social events at the church or school. "Sunday (June) 22 I was at Home all day Some of the children went to meeting Mr Puller Preached at the Cook School House Stafford and Isabel came Here just at night."

I often take a few minutes to read the entries in Isaac Hurlburt's diaries, just to compare farm life today to that in his era. It sure helps put things in perspective, especially the occasional posts about battles in far-off states like Kentucky.

Would you believe that it was still dark enough for a flashlight to be real helpful at seven this morning? The sun is supposed to be putting in an appearance by 7:24 so it is usually quite bright by then. However, it was weirdly gloomy and damp out and stayed dark about as late as I have ever seen it this time of year. We had to turn fans on in the barn that hadn't whirled a blade since early fall, and the air was still heavy. Then by ten AM the sun was shining and it has been lovely ever since. We have made it up to nine hours and fifteen minutes of daylight or what passes for it. Beats December anyhow.

Of course the new camera ate its batteries so I can't go out and take pictures. The chickens very nicely posed in the flower bed this morning, but the batteries were dead when I went out to take their portrait. Guess the lady at the store was right about rechargeables.