Overheard in a grocery store near here..

"I can't believe I have to buy STORE potatoes this year! I went to the farm where we always go and the farmer said he was sorry but he didn't have anything but canners. Too much water, can you believe it? I can't see why he didn't keep his crops dry and now I have to buy these store potatoes instead of getting local. And the squash. Same thing. He said it all got moldy and died. Now why didn't he take care of it? I hate buying at the GROCERY store!"

My cannon

A Coyote at the Dog Show has a fine new post called Dangerous Toys for Dangerous Boys, wherein he describes a number of fun, but not so healthy playthings like pow'r tools 'n personal jet packs. I highly recommend it.

Also on the list of potentially deadly toys is a cannon. Swen explains in clear and riveting detail just how to charge and fire said cannon, which was of great personal interest to me. See, there are two things I really want for Christmas...lust after in fact. First on my list is a functional military tank, with which to deter poachers and tres-peserters. Think of the reaction of Joe Redneck, out of season deer hunter, when one of them babies bursts out of the hedgerow, tracks clanking and turret twisting, like a hound dog on a hot scent! I smile just to think of it.

A cannon to set in front of the house, with the business end pointed down the driveway is the second one. I would much prefer one that actually works, but I won't complain if it just LOOKS scary.


In fact here is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies,

Earl: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt: Cannon fuse.
Earl: What the hell do you use it for?
Burt: My cannon.


Every one in the family can mimic that deadpan, "What else would it be?" tone used by Burt Gummer to perfection. In fact, the barn blackboard is often decorated with neat chalk drawings of cannons of all sorts, with my personal favorite being the Civil War cannon.

Canada geese

Winging west, flying low and fast. Click for a better look.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Hope your day goes better than okay.

Love you,

Dotter

Mohawk River flooding

Last night's rain brought the river up out of its banks and into the cornfields over by Fonda again. Wish they would get the canal closed down for the winter and the locks and dams open so at least the fields would dry out and we wouldn't have to worry about it getting into the towns again. Looks as if it is never going to get done raining this year.

Not much sleep here last night, what with the rain and Alan being so sick.

Misleading

An email update from My Cattle.com showed up in my inbox today that had a really misleading teaser on it. It proposed that the national ID program would offer an overlooked benefit, protection against cattle theft. "One of the most basic incentives to have cattle permanently identified is theft."

On the surface there is no problem with that statement. True permanent ID, such as branding or tattooing, provides a lasting way to tell one cow from another.

However, the story's author added this pure BS statement that really got my dander up, "In the falderal (their spelling not mine) surrounding livestock ID and the tragicomedy that has become the National Animal Identification System, it's too easy to lose sight of one of the most basic incentives to have cattle permanently identified: theft."

Balderdash! NAIS is all about selling ear tags and keeping data bases on farm activities and has nothing to do with preventing theft in any way, shape or form.


Even though the author of the article never said in so many words that ear tags equal permanent ID comparable to brands or tattoos, that premise was strongly implied.


Sorry, tags in cows ears are about as permanent as drifting snowflakes in Florida. If they don't fall out or the cows don't rip them out, it is easy as pie for a thief to cut them out.

Such malarkey, it just kills me.

Scamper cloned

Charmayne James cloned Scamper. I don't think there are many animals worthy of the expense but if ever there was one it would be that horse.

Flu shots

What is it about flu shots anyhow? We get them religiously because all three kids have asthma. (If you think flu is bad for normal people, you should see what it does to asthmatics.) Every single year, as soon as I make the appointment to go see the good Dr. K, someone gets way too sick to get a shot.

It NEVER fails.

This year I made one for Alan and me for tomorrow afternoon....didn't even try to get fancy and get both girls in at the same time or anything. Fat lot of good that did. He came home kind of croupy last night and now he has a 102.4 temperature and is lolling around in the living room, sick as a dog. Now I will take him in for a sick child visit instead, get a steroid inhaler, probably an antibiotic, and start playing try-to-get-the-flu-shot tag, hoping to get it done before the flu gets him. It's enough to turn you grey before your time.

Introducing the newly renamed

*Miss Sausage*

*Lo Mein*

*photos by Alan

A week on the farm

Here is a recap of news from the farm for this week.

About two weeks ago the stable cleaner chute split in half, rendering it impossible to remove cow manure from one large section of the barn except by shovel and wheelbarrow. What with the boss's cracked ribs from being slammed by cow number 96 and the chain still being in the gutter, having a clean barn has been fraught with misery. I guess the parts have finally been shipped and the final repair should be getting under way quite soon. Thank God.


The barn cat, Sausage, who was named for her globoid shape as a kitten, (having always been a bit greedy), now has a surname. She has recently become abusive of the horsebarn kittens, Blondie and Kashette, and is generally about as obnoxious as a cat can be. So we changed her name to Sausage Lo Mein....


Alan found a spot on the back of the farm where some folks, with whom we have had unpleasant contact before, have cleared a section of our land, well within the line fence. (That fence has probably been there since the farm existed.) There is litter and garbage (and a rather less pleasant byproduct of human occupation of the area, complete with the sort of paper that attends that use) all over. The grass is all stomped down and they put a posted sign ON OUR LAND facing US! Way on our land. Guess a letter from our lawyer is in order, since a certain sort of squatter's rights law holds sway in New York State. If you don't want to lose title to your land you cannot let people use it as if it were their own. Wish the city *&)&$$#'s would either stay where they came from or take a minute to understand the laws governing rural property. This is at least the third such incursion since last fall. The men keep putting up fence and signs and they keep going around them. Bah!

There has been quite a red-tailed hawk war going on all week in the field beside the house. There is a resident pair that nests just across the property line and another, lighter-colored bird has been hanging around in their territory. Don't know if it is their young one that they want to cut the apron strings or an outside bird, but they don't like him much. It makes for quite a show.

Poaching started yesterday (as usual) and instead of complaining about among ourselves it we called Encon. I heard shots from something really big when I was bringing the dogs in early in the morning. Probably a 10-gauge. Then Alan found a doe just on the other side of our back fence shot to pieces and left. I wasn't surprised as I knew the shots I heard were from something way too big to be shooting turkeys with. (Turkey season is open; deer doesn't open until next week.) Encon said the next time we hear shots to call right away and they will get a game warden here post haste. We havn't called them in before because they are understaffed and far away, thus unlikely to really be able to do anything. However, last year poachers spent the two weeks before season opened cleaning out ALL the deer on the farm. Thus our guys who wait to hunt legally and do it right (not leaving the carcass in the woods because they put about a dozen shells into it) didn't get one. Seems wrong somehow.

Edgar Guest

Mom sent me this poem this morning, saying that Guest was my Grandma Lachmayer's favorite poet. It reminded me so much of raucous Thanksgiving dinners around her dining room table, with the "Allied Union" collecting dishes of dressing and cranberries and such up at our end of the table and making the rest of the family ransom them and so many people crammed into her and Grandpa's little house that the rafters squeaked, that I had to share. Thanks mom, I love it.

***Someday I am planning to tell the story of that table and the many things that have happened on, under, around and to it over the years. From puppies chewing the feet to cousins getting their fannies fixed on top of it, it has quite a history....and it sits right over there in my dining room now waiting to host our Thanksgiving feast in a couple of weeks.

Thanksgiving

Edgar Albert Guest

How many of me?

Try this site to find out how many Americans share your name. Not too accurate though. It says I don't exist...or a least no one with our last name exists.....and there are five of us here, at least.

What do you say, dear?

To a man who tells you at 10:45 on Friday morning that he has an appointment to talk to a crop insurance rep at 3 PM?

In your kitchen?

On a day when it finally looked as if you were going to get some time (in between filling prescriptions and buying groceries) to visit your parents?


For the first time in a month?

When he knew about it since Monday?

When you live on a farm with three full time students, who own at least five pairs of always-muddy boots, (which are always left in that same kitchen, mud and all), along with three indoor dogs, piles of barn clothes and all the assorted untidiness that goes with busy people who make a living doing a very dirty demanding job? When the kitchen door is where they come in from the barn, the fields and the campus (our campus has cows too.)

Perhaps the question should rather be, what do you DO to a man who does that!

***I know what I wanna do, but I don't think it's legal....time to go mop the kitchen floor.

Deer tracks

Hello Moon

Here is last night's rising moon, taken by Alan's binocular method. As you can see, younger hands are steadier hands. Looks kind of like a rotten jack 'o lantern.

Halp us Jon Carry we r stuck hear n Irak

Thanks to Cousin Scott for this answer from some soldiers in Iraq to the esteemed Senator's comments on their level of education. At least SOMEONE has a sense of humor!

Looking out the living room window

We were slumped in various locations around the living room, comfortable in our Sunday chairs, like so many limp vegetables when Alan spotted a white-tail buck (8-point, or so mr. bright-eyes says) and two does in the overgrown horse pasture just outside. They were a good 800 feet away, so even though we could see them quite clearly, we had little hope of getting good pictures. Kind of frustrating, since we love to share.

Then the kid had the inspired idea of lining the lense of the digital camera up with the lense on the Bushnell birdwatching binoculars....and amazingly, hey, presto, pretty deer pictures!

Smart boy, I think I'll keep him.

Retired cow dog at work

*Mike, eyeing a heifer though the fence*
*She is not dog broke and not a bit impressed*

*Young stock coming down to look at that glaring dog*

Sky

No NAIS noticed again

Remember this post?


Back in August, I thought it was a pretty big deal that Walter Jeffries' No NAIS.org was mentioned in Drovers Alert. Now the same website has been mentioned in this USA Today story.

I for one, am glad to see it. The very valid arguments against NAIS need mainstream attention and I am thankful to the hardworking farmers and ranchers ***who are getting it for us.

Even a state veterinarian, who is in favor of NAIS, admits that there are major flaws in how the program is set up today,

"As for arguments that the program is unconstitutional and a violation of privacy, "I can't counter that," Hoenig says. But he tells the farmers, "In an emergency, you're going to be coming to people like me for help. So give us the tools we need to do our job."


Giving them tools to do the job is all well and good, but they are asking for weapons of mass destruction when a BB gun would get the job done just fine.

***Update...upon further reading I realized that Sarpy Sam's No Mandatory Animal ID, which is linked with the word "rancher" above is also mentioned in the article. I didn't recognize it, as his url is different from the name of his site.