Sheepdogs unite

Hopped up to answer the phone today and wouldn’t you know, it was a telemarketer who hung up on me before I could even say hello. However, when I put down the phone I noticed a cow on the lawn.

Not my favorite picture.

I called Mike, grabbed a sorting stick off the porch and hurried out to take care of the situation. Mike saw ol’ bossy the minute he was out the door and dropped into a crouch as he slowly crept in her direction.

I like to work him without commands sometimes, just to watch him use his wonderful mind to sort out a task, and I did this day. He knew where the cow belonged and so did she, so there was no confusion despite my silence. As soon as she spotted the dog, the cow raised her head and sauntered off toward the barnyard where she is supposed to be succoring her newborn calf.

However when she came to the parked horse trailer she stopped to commune with the heifers on the other side of the fence. She kept stealing glances at the dog, waiting to see what he was going to do.

Mike looked back at me wondering what I wished of him.

Run in and bite her, circle around and turn her, just hold her where she was?

I didn’t really want him to do any of those things. He is getting pretty old and slow and she is a nasty character, much given to fighting and kicking. I called him off for a second and released Nick from the kennel where he was spending the afternoon.
Ah, what a difference. One diffident old dog does not a posse make. However, one old dog who knows the ways of cattle, backed up by an impetuous youth with clean, sharp teeth, and a heart full of desire, and it's like the James Gang rides again.

Stubborn old mama cow lit a shuck for the barnyard and didn’t some back.

I called the dogs back with much praise and let them graze on the lawn for a while. Border collies sure do love green grass.
And I sure do like to watch them do the work they are born for.

The farmer is "on the land". 

Cheerleading for Spring

It is trying quite hard to be spring here in the great Northeast. However, it just can’t seem to make it over the seasonal hump. The daffodils are almost open, but not quite. Cows are almost shed out of their winter fur, but not slick yet. They are still spewing clouds of hairs into the air (and onto our clothing) all day long. Heifers haven’t even begun to lose their wooly covering yet, and are as shaggy as bears.

The gold fish are beginning to forage in the garden pond. Soon I will be able to set up the filter and the fountain and get rid of the slimy strings of algae that are slithering all through the normally clean water.
But not yet; it’s too cold.

I watch every day for the first green frog and listen at dusk for the peepers. Not yet, too cold.

The grass is showing tinges of green in the soft corners (especially on the lawn, where no one would get mad if it waited a bit). Soon there will be enough to turn the stock out into the pastures and stop paying through the nose (and other important bodily orifices) for corn silage to feed them and hay to buffer their rumens. However, turn out time is not quite here yet.

The ground is almost warm and dry enough to start working, but we face north so it is too cold and wet to start turning dirt yet. The boss had a go last week with the chisels and just missed getting stuck. Gotta wait I guess.

However, the maple trees are in full bloom, driving Liz into the depths of allergic-to-them misery. It is not good to be allergic to maple blossoms in upstate New York. Or at least not in April.

The buggy critters sure are waking up. Every day another hornet somehow finds its way into the bathroom and buzzes around on the floor. I hate to be cruel so I give them a ride down the "zoom flume" in our personal water park. What a way to go!

Anyhow, I am ready for the whirlwind insanity that is spring on a dairy farm. Bring on the sun, bring on the grass, warm up the earth, I am ready to garden. Call up the alfalfa, plug in the corn seeds. Come on Spring, rah, rah, ree.

Okay, who's been chasing the rooster? He won't hold still so I can take his picture! 

This was pretty painful this morning. 

Party Animals

We went to a very fine party last night, something that takes some serious planning on the part of a farm family. First the washing machine passed away unexpectedly the night before, requiring Herculean efforts to locate a replacement. (Its motor gave out from overwork, and a new motor costs nearly as much as a new machine. Plus we would have had to wait for a motor to be ordered.)

Thus we drove around all day finding and transporting the new washer, then came right home and began evening milking two hours early. Calf bottles were relayed from hot water bath eager pink mouths at warp speed. You never saw straw bedding being shaken out so fast. I swear, you couldn’t see the kids, except for the blur when they went by. We needed to get everyone through the shower and all primped and prettied up by 7:30.

It wasn’t easy but we got it done.
We were among the first to arrive.
The dinner was potluck.
It was a farmer party.
Farmers for the most part have farm wives.
And daughters.

Thus the food was pretty close to dangerously good. (Which was nice, since we missed lunch due to the washing machine hunting expedition.)
I am talking a serious threat to the waistline and cholesterol level. From about seven different salads to three kinds of meatballs with beans and filled breads in between, there was no reason to go away hungry. And that was before dessert. Which included cake….cookies….pies and cobblers…. Oh dear.

There was Karaoke. (And no, I did NOT sing.) However, after a substantial payoff, plus a promise that I would take him practice driving today, Alan performed Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride, (with his back to the audience.) I have a picture. Do you want to see it, even if it is a little dark and blurry?
Steppenwolf must have offered an undeniable assault to the eardrums of many present, who are a little more accustomed to George Strait than seventies hard rock. They clapped anyhow.
And he was pretty good.
For Karaoke.

We heard stories of genuine tragedy, and stories that were knee-slapping funny. We sat with people we had missed for years and didn’t expect to meet again. (They were forced out of the industry by hard times and family squabbles.) We saw babies, toddlers in cowboy boots, gawky teenagers, and old men with polished heads.

We had fun.
A lot of it. My face hurt from smiling.
I sure do like farmers.

Maddening

This kind of thing is infuriating. One big company messes up, not for the first time, and farmers all over the USA get it in the neck. Our milk inspectors write us up if they can stick a pencil through a gap in a milkhouse windowscreen and yet they can't tell if there are illegal bones in beef that is being exported? Give me a break.

Not much green grass here yet. 

Wanna buy a rabbit?

It is quite a thing when the local auction barn cancels its poultry and rabbit auction without notice. (Seems they are afraid of bird flu. Guess they expect it to arrive in upstate New York real soon.)

Anyhow Empire Livestock in Central Bridge did just that yesterday to the chagrin of dozens of buyers and sellers who showed up interested in trading small critters. There were rows of cars and piles of boxes as sellers wondered what the heck they were going to do with their spare bunnies and chickens. Buyers ran around asking, "Got a dozen chickens?" "What color rabbits you got there?" Talk about chaos! (Interestingly the small animal sale is still listed on the company website. Just scroll down to the Central Bridge Tuesday sale to see for yourself.)

Of course the company has the right to do whatever they want as far as their auction goes, and for the most part the small livestock sale was always a bit of a pain for the beef and calf sellers that keep the place afloat. However it is just plain foolish not to inform regular customers of the impending closing. And bird flu is a lousy excuse. It will probably get here some time, but selling or not selling rabbits in upstate New York isn’t going to change that one bit.

Anyhow, if anybody wants to buy a rabbit or two, Alan still has four of the five he took over to sell yesterday. He sold the other one to a kid in the parking lot who went over to the sale with his heart set on taking home a rabbit.

Home Alone

Kids all in school, the boss gone to get some firewood some friends gave us, nothing but peace and quiet. However, if you have ever seen our house, you know it looks, well, different. We also have an Interstate running in front of it, just on the other side of the state road we live on. This all leads to people, sometimes several cars per weekend, traipsing up here figuring to take a look around. (At least one walked right in the kitchen door to meet Mike teeth and all on the other side.)

It got so bad that when the boss’s mother was alive and living here alone, we put up large, explicit signs at the bottom of the driveway warning people that trespassers will be firmly discouraged.

Didn't work. I was just sitting here taking an innocent coffee break when Nick opened up. Wally didn’t bark, so I figured Nick was barking at a cat and ignored him. Then Gael barked. Mike barked because Gael did. However I didn’t see anybody, so I still didn’t pay any attention.
Then Nick really went nuts, way too much for a mere barn cat alarm, so I stepped out the back door to holler at him. And practically stepped on two guys. Creepy guys. One said, “I’m from (somewhere, didn’t catch it) Illinois. Are you familiar with that, Illinois, I mean?”

Well, gee, no duh, I am a hick from the sticks, why would I be familiar with the state where my brother lived for half his adult life?

Out loud I said, “Of course I am, what are you looking for?”

The jerk explained that he stopped at the neighbors and they told him to come up and ask if he could take pictures. Well, of course he could. I love to be home all by myself and step out the porch and meet a nice upstanding fellow who just happened to drive right by my “no trespassing, private drive” signs so he could take pictures of the house I just happen to live in. I mean, he couldn’t have taken them from the road could he?

I told them to be damn glad the boss wasn’t the one who came to the door, take a picture from the driveway and get themselves gone.

Then I wrote down their license number, came inside and listened to my heart pound for a while. They really scared me. And they had New York plates, not Illinois.
Thank God for dogs.

New Name

The hat has been consulted. The first name drawn was "Hazel", so Hazel it is. (A lucky coincidence, so I am told, since there is a certain someone, involved in a certain cow owner's life who has pretty hazel eyes.)

We are saving the name "Honey" for the upcoming baby (due next month) from Heather's other daughter, Hattie, if it is a heifer. Honey is such a perfect name for a little golden brown cow. ALL the names will go into the naming file for future Jersey babies. What an aid to this imagination challenged farm crew.

Many thanks to all who offered us great names for this new baby. She is a real character by the way. She takes her milk bottle so fast she flattens the nipple, and then butts it and jumps around in irritation when she can't get any milk. She will practically knock you over if you don't pay attention when feeding her.

Name that calf....again

Please lend a hand

Here is another baby girl in need of a name, and you are invited to help. She was born at around 1:30 this morning and her mama’s name is Dreamroad Extreme Heather, so her name will need to start with an "H". She already has older sisters named Hattie and Hooter.

We bought Heather several years ago from a well-known area Jersey breeder to pay Liz for a summer’s work here on the farm. The boss and I are dedicated Holstein breeders and the introduction of a little brown cow into our herd was more than slightly controversial. However, Heather is a good cow, there is just no getting around it, so including this little critter, we now have four Jerseys and one half Jersey. Hopefully you folks will be able to help Liz come up with a good name for her.

Thanks in advance!


Jersey cattle
Farming

Killing the cat food dish 

Pretty good

TFS Magnum mentioned a pretty good editoral on PETa recently. You can read it here.

My friend in Canada shared this picture of her new born baby. How cute can you get! 

Paucity of posting

I apologize for the paucity of posts. It has been brought about in part by fine spring weather, which has allowed the boss to get a little chisel plowing done, and let me rake about nineteen billion honey locust pods off the lawn. What am I going to do with those windrows of tree fruit? I don’t know, but I love it when March goes out like a lamb.

There are also the impending visits of not only a state milk inspector, but a federal one as well. That’s right, we lucky dairy farmers have several levels of bureaucratic oversight just champing at the bit to bring us to heel in our milk houses. Get those windowsills dusted and the gloves off the ladder. Clean the floor, patch the wall, paint whatever will hold still. And do it NOW before they get here with their clipboards and disposable boots.

We get to enjoy the state check up because we are changing milk companies and the national one because the new co-op is up for its periodic federal rating. I am coughing even as we speak, by way of discovering that some pvc pipes I cleaned up last week were full of noxious grain dust that had seeped through the ceiling from an abandoned bin. Hack, hack.

Ah, well, the ground is covered with crocuses the color of rich golden cream, and birds are cheering on the approach of fine spring weather with a jangly concert of morning calling. The Cobleskill Dairy Fashions Sale is tomorrow too. There will be lots of pretty purebred cows for us to admire and covet. (I really am looking forward to that.) Meanwhile, if you don't see me here, know that I am making our barn safe for food production (can't have gloves on the ladder or tractor bearings on the windowsill) or stealing a few minutes to welcome spring to my gardens.

Moving target...picture number twenty-seven 

A Moving Target Indeed

I cheerfully took the camera to the barn with me this morning thinking that I was going to get a wonderful shot of our new baby, out of Alan’s show cow, Bayberry. Bay is a red carrier and was bred to the milking shorthorn bull so we knew from the start that there might be a red calf.
Yesterday morning while I was milking the east line where she stands, she began showing signs of impending labor. I was excited.

She sure didn’t waste any time. She had just lain for the first time when the black smith arrived to trim feet. I went over to the house, caught DG, held him while he got his pedicure, and by the time I got back, there was the calf. Bay was licking it off and quite proud of her efforts.
It was dark mahogany red and it was a heifer too. What more could you ask for?
I did all the usual navel dipping and colostrum feeding, drying off with warm towels and all that, and just couldn’t wait to get a picture to share with you.

However, crossbred calves tend to be, well, a bit vigorous, I guess you could say.
Little Broadway was delighted to see me with something in my hand. (After all I am the bringer of warm milk bottles.) She jumped to her feet. She tugged on her tie. She swapped ends. She licked her mother. She licked Hattie, the Jersey that stands in the next stall. She bucked and jumped and leapt through the air with the greatest of ease. She bobbed her head and switched her tail. She did everything but stand still so I could take her picture.

Out of about twenty-seven shots, this is the best I could do.

Sorry.

farming

calves