Shameful

TFSMagnum featured this story of appalling treatment of young women wishing to legally purchase firearms. Profiling of young men of Arab descent is not allowed at airports; they search small children and little old ladies as if they were known terrorists instead.
Just to be fair mind you.
Yet much worse treatment of young women, especially blacks, is being permitted if they are purchasing fire arms at a gun show. Some really ugly activities by the ATFB in these circumstances are described in this story. It is worth a read if you are interested in Second Amendment issues.
Heck, I am a woman and I have purchased guns. I'm glad they didn't follow me home.
Gun shows
Racial profiling

Ravens

We had ravens here today. The boss noticed a commotion going on over the top of heifer barn, when we were out in the milkhouse tearing down. (Otherwise I would not have seen them.) A bunch of crows was mobbing a pair of them, really tearing into them, and they were trying frantically to get away.

It was quite a sight to see, as the wind was really ripping and all the birds were having trouble aiming. The crows were surely winning though. They would swoop in from above, one after another, and pluck at the larger birds' backs, darned near landing on top of them. One raven perched on the heifer barn roof, where he sat like a weather vane until the crows found him. They pounded him so mercilessly that he actually flew in through the high window where we put hay in the mow and hid in there for a minute.

I darned near froze out there watching them with no coat or gloves on, but I have never seen them here at the farm. We counted one on the Christmas Bird Count two years ago and I have seen them in the Adirondack Mountains, but never this far south. Oh, well, we knew it was cold, just not THAT cold.
Ravens
Crows

Cold twilight

The sun is setting north of the barn now 

I Hate the Wind

This morning it was calm and sunny. Skinny wisps of cloud slid across a tranquil blue sky. It was so warm we had all the barn doors open and the fans were running. However, we watched the forecast before we went to the barn and knew that the weather wasn’t going to be pretty. In fact I spent a good part of yesterday covering things up and weighting them down in preparation for all this. It was mostly a waste of time. Big wind doesn’t stop for anything; It goes through rather than around and takes whatever it wants with it.

At nine thirty when it hit, we were over at the cow barn. From the milkhouse door we could see the big old spruce in the house hard bending almost in half. I was real sorry that I forgot to move my car before we went to work. One of these days that big green beast is going to come down and I am not going to have wheels anymore.

Every thing that was not weighted down between the house and barn lifted on circling winds. The rabbit coop Alan is building blew over. The woodpile canvas sailed into the heifer yard. Slabs of tarpaper lifted off the old hen house and vanished. The sheep, who normally never come inside, crowded into the barn and cowered in the aisle behind the cows.

Later we found all the insulators and tools from yesterday’s fencing fun spread in a circular pattern all over the yard. They had been put neatly away in the corncrib, but the wind sucked them out. I will pick up that mess when it all stops, but I am not going out there now. It is just too ugly. Liz called from college and she is going to stay at school until it blows over, even though this is her "early" day. I am glad. That little truck is like a skateboard in the wind.
I wish it was over. The dogs are terrified because of the intermittent rolls of thunder. Elm trees that the guys have been afraid to fall, because they were so rotten and brittle, are lying in the mud in the lane. I can see the young stock looking out their door. They want to eat, but they don’t like the storm either.

I hate the wind.
farming
storm

One thing is for certain

One thing is absolutely, positively, for certain sure. If you have animals, you had better not be arrogant enough to think that you can ever make meaningful plans. Today I needed to get a lot of things done. A friend was stopping by to leave a border collie that I bred here for a couple of weeks while her family vacations. The milk tester is coming tonight. I needed to get some cleaning done, button things up outdoors ahead of the big wind we are expecting tonight and all that sort of stuff. I had a full day planned.

Then, I looked out the window and there was a big, fat, heifer, named Frieland Zebra Stampede, down by the fence around my front garden. She was NOT inside the heifer yard. The boss and I ran out and caught her and set to work rebuilding the electric fence.
It has been down for a while and we just didn't get around to it before, figuring that the page wire would do the job, but it was certainly time today. It was a lovely day to be working outside, the sun shining warm and mellow, the air sweet and summery. We actually had a very nice time working out there together and soon had the satisfaction of watching the stock rediscover what the fence was all about.

The boss headed out belatedly to get the cows fed their corn and I came inside to get at my work.

Perhaps five minutes later I heard the piercing whistle that means trouble on the cow front. Mary, a little Rex daughter, had just torn the whole darned fence back down. There was wire everywhere and insulators had flown half way across the driveway. It was not nearly as much fun to build it the second time, and it seemed to take forever. I didn't really get much else done today. However, I think the stock have figured out to leave the wire alone...or at least I hope so. Still, my work awaits.

In fact instead of doing this I should get out and water Rita, our visitor, before it gets too dark. She is Nick's sister, but is a pretty little long-haired girl, where he is a "bare skinned" dog.
farming
cows
building fence

This Doesn't Jibe

I got my online issue of Drover’s Alert today and was confused by what I read. One story announced,

"Farm income predicted to drop in 2006.The USDA estimates that farm income will
drop this year by $18 billion."

I didn’t have any trouble believing that. What with higher fuel prices, rising fertilizer costs, declining milk prices, declining government programs and the new milk tax, I am sure that the pundits are correct. Especially when you factor in imports, corruption in the Department of Agriculture, conglomerate farming and all the other hurdles facing the conventional farmer today.
But the very next headline read,

"Projections show growing demand for agricultural productsThe USDA’s long-term
baseline projections for agricultural commodities indicate that domestic and
international economic growth and gains in population will strengthen demand for
U.S. food and agricultural products over the next 10 years. "

There is something wrong with this picture. If demand is growing and is predicted to grow still more, shouldn’t the income of the folks producing the product grow too? They called that the law of supply and demand when I was in school. Today I guess it is more like the law of legislate, regulate and devalue the farm dollar by whatever means is necessary as long as the consumers find tasty stuff on their grocery shelves and don't have to go broke buying it.

farm
income

Crow time 

It is getting springish here 

The Vice President and the Patient's Right to Privacy

The boss pointed out an interesting discrepancy in press coverage of Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident. During the uproar over how information was served to them, they seem to have completely forgotten the patient’s right to privacy.

When I call the insurance company about something about our health coverage of either my husband or one of our two live-at-home, teenaged, but over eighteen year-old daughters, they will not talk to me. Same goes for the doctor. I have to call the person in question to the telephone, even though I am bookkeeper in chief, check writer in chief, and wife and mother too. I still must have a signed release on file to allow them to talk to me about my own family. This is private information, no matter what the ties between us are.

The same law applies to information about Mr. Whittington too. Do you suppose that every single reporter has a release from Mr. Whittington allowing him access to his health records? I am sure they don’t. Most of what they have demanded from the v ice President, White House staff and the hospital is privileged information.

And when all is said and done and the tumultuous uproar over this sad accident is finished, in what way could it possibly matter if the press was informed promptly or not? This is simply an accident, plain and simple, not a matter of national security. I wish they would find something else to whip themselves up over.

Vice President Cheney
hunting accident
privacy

Another shameless bunny photo 

Some of the reasons that we keep at this challenging job. 

The End

Today marked the end of an era. The small, but enduring, milk marketing cooperative to which we have belonged for quite a number of years voted to dissolve itself in order to join a bigger coop. We were told that we had no choice, that they would not allow our milk into their plants if we didn't do this deal. I have spent a lot of time on the phone since just before Christmas when I found out that this was being cooked up behind closed doors, from someone in another coop. However, the speakers for the new bunch are as persuasive as they are evasive and they convinced the members who bothered to show up (sixteen out of twenty-six) that there was no hope of survival without falling in with the big guys. It was interesting to see that, although the same fellows presented much the same program as I reported upon last week, they had taken out all the slides referring to their debt load. Ralph asked them some real tough questions on that topic at the other meeting. They did not answer them then and looks like they didn't want to hear them today either. It was pretty much all moot anyhow, as this was obviously all settled long before we even knew it was in the works.

We will probably not go along when the move is made. There are other markets out there, not great ones, but we can get a nice, new milk inspector and keep our old milk truck drivers if we change separately from Canajoharie Coop. It is gone now anyhow. Oddly enough, the Canjo coop is required to have an annual meeting even though it is in the process of dissolution. Therefore we will get our roast beef dinner with door prizes just as if nothing was happening. We are going despite our feelings. I can't wait to see who wins the quality awards. Since the boss and I took over the farm we have been in the top five every year, but I'll bet we will mysteriously fall from favor this year, despite somatic cell counts miles below the national average. Kicking in an unpopular direction does not pay.
Dairy
Farming
Milk

New Photoblog

I have started a new blog for the many photos we are taking with the new camera. You can find it in the sidebar blogroll or at The View at Northview.

This is what the Mill Point Bridge looked like in 1987 when flood waters from the Gilboa Dam took it and the Thruway Bridge out killing ten people. 

Gilboa Dam

So what happens if the dam breaks?

Here is a post from Upstream: a Mohawk Valley Perspective, that even people who don't live around here will probably find amazing. Can you imagine New York City maintaining a police force here in upstate NY, which makes arrests, performs raids without notifying local authorities and keeps watch over an antiquated dam that is threatening to flood half the region?
I was shocked and I thank Dan for the heads up. We are 174 miles from the city here and have more than enough layers of government of our own, thank you.
We sure don't need city cops telling us how to do business.
And as for taking care of the damn dam, had it been properly maintained in the first place, we wouldn't be discussing the concept of adding flood alarm sirens to our valley.

There have long been jokes about building a fence somewhere around Poughkeepsie and forming two separate states. I am all for it. Agriculture is New York's number one industry. We have nearly eight million acres of farm land. However, you would never know it from the way we are governed.
agriculture
Gilboa Dam

Today's guest editor 

Barn breakfast 

The business end of Frieland LF Rainwater 

Frieland LF Zinnia back at work after her surgery last week.