As requested

*Shagbark Hickories behind Seven County Hill*

Finally made it up to the top of the farm today to get the overview photos of the farm requested by mrs. mecomber and my dear friend, numberwise, (in Vitamin Sea's meme the other day). Becky and I took Mike and walked a good part of the way, but every now and then Alan picked us up with the truck, as he was working getting wood in.

The rides were most welcome. Seven County Hill is named that because you can supposedly see seven counties from there. You can certainly see quite a distance, although there is no telling what counties you are looking at. We saw many amazing and wonderful things, including a three legged frog, turkeys, vultures, and a marsh hawk.

*The three-legged frog*

*Looking out over the valley from the 30-acre lot*

Seven-County Hill

*Click for a better look*

*The villages of Fultonville and Fonda can be seen from here*

Here how the world looks from the top of Northview's tallest hill. On a day like this it is cold and windy up there, but it sure is pretty. We just missed a spell when the sun was playing shadow games with the clouds, making brilliant patterns of dark and blazing colors from the maples and poplars. When it is sunny and clear you can see several more sets of mountains behind the ones in the background.

However, by the time we got home from Bellinger's Orchard with some nice Ida Red apples, it was mostly all grey and threatening, so the pictures aren't all they might be. Oh, well, Alan and I had a great time poking around on the back of the big hill, which drops off in a very steep bank to a few fields in the back of the farm.

Pumpkin Tide

A lovely picture of a St. Augustine, Florida church, surrounded by burnished gold-orange pumpkins, was posted recently by Florida Cracker on his wonderful blog, Pure Florida. It reminded me abruptly of one of my favorite poems. I had pretty much forgotten it, since it was something I liked way back in college when being seen reading counter culture poetry was quite the thing to do. Still, the instant I saw all those pumpkins lined up in front of that beautiful edifice it jumped into my mind as swiftly as a leaping whitetail.

Here it is just in time for the Halloween season.

The Pumpkin Tide
I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling up on the beaches;
it must be Halloween in the sea.

from The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster 1968 by Richard Brautigan

What's up at the paper anyhow?

I dunno. A few weeks ago the Farm Side started showing up on Saturday some weeks when Friday is its normal day to run in the Recorder. That seemed to happen when I got real close to my noon Wednesday deadline before sending it, so I figured that I was not getting it done in time to make the cut for Friday. Then they started leaving off the tag line about me being a dairy farmer and regular columnist and all. I didn't pay much attention; this is a busy time of year and it just wasn't a big deal. However, a good friend was bugged by it and called the new publisher and complained. She phoned me after the fact and said he was very nice and told her he was sorry about it. I chuckled and thanked her for noticing and caring enough to take the time to bring the situation to the man's attention. As long as they kept paying me, I wasn't going to get too excited about it.


Then this week they printed it with no byline, no grinning mug shot, no tag line, no nothing, not even the name of the column. Come on now, how is anybody even gonna know what they are reading, except that at least it was in its usual spot on the side of the Friday editorial page? (If you actually want to see it you will have to spend a buck as the paper has a pay per view website.) There have been quite a few changes at the Recorder lately and maybe that is what is going on here. The masthead is bigger and has a nice drawing of a windmill. In fact the whole look of the newspaper has changed, mostly for the better I think. Still, I hate to see that look change so much that I am no longer part of it.

Are they trying to irritate me enough to drive me to full time blogging? Sort of a death by a thousand (paper) cuts type of thing? Do they hate me? Was it an oversight? Should I cry and pound my heels on the floor?

Or should I laugh and wait to see what they do next week? Yeah, that works for me. That's just what I'll do.

Doggone it!

I mostly mind my own business where other people's dogs are concerned. However, yesterday I was just plain perturbed by a doggy situation the girls and I experienced. We were at Wally World buying an elbow brace. I blew my right one a couple of weeks ago struggling with a barn door that had come off its rollers and it has been getting progressively worse. I parked, as is my habit, in the rows in back down near the swamp. There was no one else around.

However, when we returned to the van there was a gigantic blue truck parked about as close as it could get to our driver's side door.
And in the open back was a beautiful blond Doberman.

Loose.

Completely unrestrained.


She was a gorgeous dog, although there were several rather serious scars marring her lovely golden coat. She wore nothing but a choke collar (something I would certainly never leave on an unattended dog).

I felt strongly uncomfortable, despite having no particular fear of Dobies. (Some of the nicest dogs I have ever met have been Dobermans). However, I have worked with dogs all my life, and this dog gave me the willies. Determined not to show breed prejudice, I unloaded my stuff into the back of the car (including an extra-large bag of dog food), all the while keeping half an eye on the occupant of the next vehicle, who was about five feet from my face. The girls and I kept up a stream of nervous chatter about the dog and her presumed-to-be-idiot owner while we worked. When we done loading our things I turned to walk to the driver's door. The dog came quickly toward me and leaned out of the truck bed with an "I mean business" growl rumbling in her throat. She bared her teeth right at my face.
Needless to say I went around to the other side of the car to get in.

A few seconds later a man jumped into the truck and drove away with the dog still loose in the back. We marveled at his unconcern.


What kind of dimwit leaves a dog loose in the back of a truck in a busy parking lot anyhow?
And what kind of malicious fool does it with an aggressive dog? It certainly isn't fair to the dog, no matter how well trained and it isn't too safe for passersby either. I sure hope I don't meet him again.

Yummy

A new product has just hit the shelves in the Middle East. Its release was timed in order to coincide with the Holy Month of Ramadan. When this Camelicious substance reaches our shores will it sweep Coke and Pepsi aside in its wake? Will Mountain Dew be replaced by Desert Dew Drops? Only time will tell, but date-flavored camel milk may be the Yoohoo of the future.

Evergreen Cemetery

*Fonda, NY*

Catskill Game Farm closes

This is the last weekend for the big attraction and naturally the animal rights idiots are there protesting. The place has an incredible record of breeding endangered species in captivity, helping to assure their continued existence on earth, but there is always somebody who has to stand on the sidelines whining and waving signs. And of course they get the headlines and camera time.


I wish we could get away to go to the auction. Although I have no interest in owning an addax, a yak or a rhinoceros, they have peafowl, guinea hens and exotic chickens. I could go for something like that maybe. I certainly miss having guineas. Ours used to fly up to the top of our 72-foot high tower and cackle and screech for hours as they surveyed their territory. For some reason I found that amusing. They are also wonderful for curing horses of being spooky about noisy things bursting out of the bushes. They spend all their time in a state of frantic alarm and after a while the equines pay no attention to such antics... a big help in a region where there is an equally feather-headed wild turkey under every other bush.

Speaking of screeching. About an hour before first dawn today I was luxuriating in my cozy nest, fairly wallowing in the knowledge that this is my morning off. No need to haul cold, still-damp sneakers onto stiff, achy feet to trudge through what feels like half a mile of mud to where fifty muddy, cranky cows await. No need to work for four hours before breakfast and second coffee. No need to do any darned thing I didn't want to.

Suddenly, SOMETHING let out an awful wail that sounded like it was right beside me.
Close.
Real close.
I thought one of the kids was having a nightmare. It came again. And again. And again. I realized that it was outdoors, but it was the most unearthly sound you could imagine and it was right next to the house.

I woke up the boss and we jumped out of bed to find Liz about to pound on our bedroom door. It had wakened her too. Of course it was still pitch dark and the land was blanketed with dense fog, so thick you couldn't see across the driveway. Whatever it was it was gone by the time the sun came up, but I kept dogs in, much to their chagrin, until I could actually SEE them when I let them out. Chances are it was a coyote, but it just didn't sound normal. We have the wild brush dogs around all the time and although they have a pretty unearthly cry we are used to them. Could have been a rabid one or a dog that had been hit by a car and was running in the dark. There is just no way we could tell because of the fog. I went out on the porch for a while, but couldn't see at all no matter how bright a flashlight I had. I suggested that the boss take a .22 or something to the barn with them, but he didn't. I am not going out to fill the stove until the fog lifts. It's cold, but it isn't THAT cold.

**Update...along about noonish when Alan finally stumbled down the stairs (having the morning off himself and having stayed up to watch the Mets game in its entirety last night) blond hair puffing over bleary eyes and jammies hanging off his bony hips, we got....dum da dum dum......the REST OF THE STORY.

We asked him if he had heard those infernal Hellish shrieks that paralyzed the rest of us with shivering terror.


"Oh, yeah," he replied. "That was Gael* howling back at the coyotes out on the hill. I heard her but I was too sleepy to go down and holler at her."

*Border collie number three, in season and evidently in the mood for love...any love.

Danged dog!

Maple

Blogriculture

I stumbled upon a stellar West Coast agriculture blog yesterday, by way of checking out my Site Meter to see who visits here. Someone did a search for "dairy farm blog" and found both Blogriculture and Northview Diary.

Blogriculture is the blog of two writers for the Capital Press Agriculture Weekly paper, which looks to be a tremendous source of useful ag info. Interestingly, one of Liz's best online friends, a writer whom she competes with on Its Your Turn, writes for the paper as well. They were kind enough to Blogroll me, so I am returning the favor. Take a minute and check out Blogriculture and the Capital Press. I am personally looking forward to a promised upcoming post covering a very interesting trip.....

"We send me this weekend to an Oregon farm to watch a crane drop, from the equivalent of 10 stories high, a 1,000-pound pumpkin on a Mazda hatchback."

I can't wait to read that one!

Fall color as promised

*Lovely old carriage house down in the village of Fultonville*

*The neighbor's sugar maple*

*Staghorn Sumac down along the driveway*

Checkerboard Magnums Promise

This is our purebred milking shorthorn bull, Promise, perhaps an anomaly on a Holstein farm, but calving ease on heifers is important to us and his babies bring a good price at auction. Beautiful Broadway is the one red daughter we have from him. All the rest have been various combinations of black and white.

This will take you to a picture of Promise's 90 point dam.

Here is a picture of Promise before we bought him. Sadly his speckles vanished.

For laurainnj at Somewhere in New Jersey

Great Border Collie site

Carina shared this site with me. It is truly hilarious to anyone who has ever been around a BC...or even three of them.

The dogs at Northview

A recent comment from a good blog friend in Michigan reminded me that not everyone at Northview Diary can read the column I write for the Recorder, the Farm Side, thus not everyone has already been bored to death with our three border collies.

Let me rectify that situation. Mike was my first border collie dog. I bought him from a local breeder, who has since moved to the left coast. Mike Canaday also sold me Gael, who was out of the same dam, Floss, and sired by his open trial dog, Robin. I liked Mike so much that I bred Gael to Bill, Mike's sire to get my young dog, Nick. Floss and several other dogs in the pedigrees of the three collies were actually imported from Scotland.

Mike (the man, not the dog) once brought Robin to the farm with some sheep and another fellow, his dogs and a horse, to practice for the national sheepdog trial. He just let the sheep out of the horse trailer and turned them loose. The darned things bolted for the barn and raced down the cow barn driveway towards the road. Sheep are fast. My heart was in by throat. I was envisioning carnage with wool and lawsuits and jumping up and down, when Mike released Robin and whistled something. Within seconds, literally seconds, even though Robin had never seen our farm before and hadn't seen the sheep go, I was pinned against the gate by a milling, wooly flock. He had gone over the bank, through the creek, and down below the sheep to fetch them back. Those open trial dogs are plumb amazing!


Border collies of the real sheepdog persuasion, as opposed to AKC, where good looks are all important, can have any length of hair and be just about any color you can imagine. As long as they work, it is all good. Mostly black dogs are pretty much preferred because sheep can see them better and don't mistake them for other sheep. Two of our dogs, Nick and Gael, are of the shortcoated sort; Mike is a pretty boy. They never need grooming, he requires frequent unraveling.

All three dogs work. Mike as a young dog was quite talented, although he has retired himself now at almost twelve. However, they have no where near the skill level of dogs like Robin or even nursery trial dogs. This is my failing as a trainer, not theirs as dogs, although Gael is a bit weak for a cow dog. Training sheep dogs is the hardest thing you can imagine....like parenting with sheep.

Read Mike's Ten Tips page for a little insight into getting a Border Collie puppy started.

Websites about working Border Collies.
United States Border Collie Handler Assoc.
American Border Collie Assoc.

Blondie

*Here you go Liz, as requested*

A meme!

Sort of. A regular commenter on one of my three very favorite blogs, (Pure Florida) started a neat photo exchange thingie for this weekend that sounded like a lot of fun. So I am going to play along.


Vitamin Sea is Laura's blog, worth a read while you check out other bloggers all around the country who are taking pictures of their hometowns, fields, forests, oceans and rivers this weekend and sharing them with us all. I am just waiting for the sun to come up before I head out with the camera to see what I can find to photograph. It is opening day of fall turkey season, so I am going to stay near the house. Of course it is pouring.


Wish I had taken the camera with me when we went out bringing heifers down yesterday. We brought all the springers in with the cows, so we can put the open heifers in with the bull in a couple of weeks. It was SO pretty on top of the heifer pasture hill, with the trees just starting to change and all the little white churches shining their steeples out among them.

I was amazed to find that I was able to comfortably hike up that big ol' hill TWICE! We went up first to get a half shorthorn heifer calf that wild little Mary had hidden in a tiny cup-shaped hollow we call the calving grove. (Cows have probably been hiding babies in there for a couple hundred years or more, ever since this has been a farm anyhow.) Then we had to go back for Mary, who for some reason wouldn't come along with her baby. Every breath was like a cool drink of water on a hot day. You could just feel the air recharging your lungs. In the heat of summer that hill about kills me. In fall I was able to charge up it faster than the boss.....the first time at least. He had a bit more stamina on the second trip.


Our resident red tailed hawk screamed as he sailed above us and the other heifers ran along side us dancing at the fun of it all. It actually was fun....for work.

UPDATE: I believe after reading posts on other blogs that I am supposed to take requests....so what would you like to see photographed here at Northview Farm?

Fall colors are kind of subdued this year

Bunny

*For matthew didier

The dogs

*Mike and Nick, 3/4 brothers*

*Nick, who is not thrilled about the camera*

*For carina

*Gael is in season and can't have her picture taken with her son and brother...