Brrrr......

Solid gold cornflakes

Sarpy Sam has a good post on the rapidly rising price of corn, which is being blamed on ethanol production. The Chicago corn price is the highest today that it has been since 1996. At the same time, world wide corn supplies are the lowest they have been since 1978.

With farm gate milk prices about what they were in 1970, this is creating a horrendous crunch for dairy farmers. We feed about two and a half tons of grain a week to our milk cows, heifers and calves here at Northview. The price we pay for it is skyrocketing, higher every time we get a bill.

The feeding of grain to dairy cows isn't really optional. Cows need grain to make milk. Calves need protein and energy to grow. Here in the Northeast, forages such as the hay and corn that we grew are very low in nutrient value because the incessant rain this summer leached minerals and other nutrients from the soil. Forages are in short supply as well, because excess rain this year prevented normal planting, growth and harvest.

I am not sure how this is all going to shake out, but I suspect by spring there are going to be a lot fewer dairy farms in Upstate New York. It's sad, but there comes a point when there is nothing more to be done.

Feeder closed for a snow day

*Or more properly ice day

Some people have ice wines...

Here at Northview we have ice pines!

Britain vs USA crime rate

TFS Magnum has the figures detailing which nation suffers more from violent crime. They might surprise you...too bad the only place you can find these numbers is not more visible to the general public.

Puppy pictures

*Liz and Nick*

*Socializing the puppies*

*Alan and Lark, who now lives in New Mexico and is a therapy dog*

Taxpayer revolt

Sarpy Sam has a post today that will hit very close to the hearts of many overburdened tax payers. He calls it Perverse Pleasure. It resonated with me in a big way. I have partaken of many such delights myself over the years.

One of my favorites was when Gael gave birth to Nick and seven other little Border collie hellions about eight years ago. The advent of eight extra BCs into a home that already has two on site cow biting, sheep herding, toilet paper wrangling, shoe mangling, tongue dangling, hyper active, smarter than the average bear, little black dogs on hand is not an experience for the faint of heart.

Anyhow, as soon as the pups' eyes opened and they discovered the purpose of those appendages that stuck out of each corner of their sausage-shaped bodies, the floor wars began. We had an appliance box in the dining room to provide safe, secure housing for them.

It failed totally, miserably, early and often. The alarm clock languished, unused and unappreciated, as everyone awakened every morning to the thunder of 32 paws, accompanied by the worried click of poor Gael's claws as she tried, unsuccessfully, to keep them in order. There is not a box made that can contain a determined Border collie, let alone what often seemed like a dozen of them.

Of course with eight, (count 'em, eight) little puddle jumpers piddling enthusiastically during every escape escapade, we went through a lot of newspapers.

Reams.

Rafts.

Rooms full.

In self defense and to preserve the withered shreds of my tattered sanity, I took deep delight in choosing my least favorite politicians' photos to protect my floors.

Face up. I would even fold the paper just so, in order to give them star billing so to speak.

Sarpy Sam's post reminded me of that and I thank him.

Patrick Hooker named Commissioner of Agriculture

This is from an Ag and Markets press release I received this morning;

Patrick M. Hooker is being nominated to serve as Commissioner of
Agriculture and Markets.
Mr. Hooker currently serves as the Director of the Public Policy at the
New York Farm Bureau, a position which he has held since 1999.
Previously, Mr. Hooker was the Deputy Director of
Governmental Relations at the New York Farm Bureau
from 1990 to 1999.From 1987 to 1990, he served as
Director of the New York State Senate Agriculture Committee.
He was also a Rural Affairs Advisor to the New York State Assembly in the Office of the Minority Leader from 1985 to1987.
Mr. Hooker received his B.S. from Cornell University
and his A.A.S. from the State University of New York at Morrisville.

I think this is really good news for New York farmers. Pat is a fair and decent guy with an outstanding knowledge of the industry.

Wait a minute...

*Taken just three days apart*

Organic farming and the hidden corporate agenda

The meeting on activist influence on agriculture in general and milk pricing in particular that I mentioned last month took place today. The main topic was the damage that is done to the image of regular milk by claims by organic companies that their milk lacks something that ordinary moo juice has…in this case antibiotics (strictly illegal) hormones (all milk has ‘em), pesticides, (not legal either) and yucky stuff (not a very scientific term and kind of hard to prove). These claims, made on cartons and in store displays as well as on buckets and buckets of Internet sites are illegal.

They constitute false advertising.

Organic, BST-free, and plain old store brand milk are chemically indistinguishable.
These claims make regular milk seem unhealthy and encourage consumers to either spend much more money than there is any reason to or to give up drinking milk altogether.

I was fascinated to hear that many of the massive anti-“factory” farming campaigns that reach public eyes are funded directly or indirectly by organic food giants such as Horizon and Organic Valley. (On that note, our speaker told us that some folks consider herds of over fifty cows to constitute a factory farm. Guess that makes Northview assembly line all the way. We happen to have just a couple more than that.) I always wondered what spawned such passionate dedication to a food and farming ideal that is actually not nearly as popular as attention by the mainstream media might suggest.
Getting paid for that rabid activism explains a lot.
Interestingly one of the entries in the blogroll, Milk is Milk, was mentioned.

Although the meeting was sponsored by Monsanto, the company which sells Posilac, so the speaker wasn’t exactly unbiased, he reiterated many points on activism that I have belabored for years in the Farm Side.
And here on Northview as far as that goes.

I’m glad I was able to attend. The speaker was so good at his job that two hours went by as if they were nanoseconds, the subject was captivating, and I will probably get a column out of it for next week.
Plus we got a nice lunch and a chance to catch up with other farmers who don’t get out any more than we do.
All in all, a valuable morning.

Sorry, new computer

Sooner or later I will get it all set up and have time to sit down and write. At least yesterday I found the missing registration key for my copy of Microsoft Word, so after five years of using an outdated word processor I can type with the fancy "new" (eh, okay, after that long in the box, languishing unused, it isn't really all that new but still...) one I bought so long ago.

While I am downloading firewalls and Internet answering machines and fixing display properties and attempting to write the Farm Side with an unfamiliar keyboard and word processing program I invite you to enjoy bloggers who are posting frequently.

Liz, although she is still coughing and we are now thinking maybe it's whooping cough, is writing every day at BuckinJunction.

Hurricane Teen who keeps The Minorcan Factor fascinating, has been posting pictures of secret lizards, fiery peppers and luxuriant citrus fruit lately.

Swen, A Coyote at the Dogshow, is on the road in Texas and thereabouts. He has a real good post about fair chase in hunting that is worth a read.

A new face in the blogroll, My Piece of Heaven is posting pictures of just what winter can do when it wants to (just in case all us spoiled Northeasterners have forgotten this year). They are lovely and chilling all at the same time.

Heck, when I have time I just read right down the blogroll, Pure Florida, Sarpy Sam, Upstream, another new face the Poodle and Dog Blog all offer good reading and update nearly every day.

Have a good time reading........

Trust

We spent almost the whole day trying to get a couple of different Wal*Mart stores to honor a perfectly legal, state sanctified and certified, nicely printed and filled in correctly farmer sales tax exemption form.
Because we had to get a computer.
Because the one I do the books and cow records on (which runs Windows 98) is croaking. (Latest thing is the display has turned all pink and funky around the edges and the windows are cut off on the edge. It already won't start without a lot of messing around because it can't find all its files.)
It was time.

The folks at the first store looked at us as if we had just landed our spaceship in the parking lot among the carts. "Farmer? Tax exempt? Never seen one of these before. We can't honor this! No, no, way..." This after we had stood in line and waited for people to ask other people how to handle the usually uncomplicated transaction for somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half hours. (I LOVE to shop.)

So the boss called a different Wal*Mart in another county where there are more farms and they said, "Sure, as long as you have a certificate we will honor it, c'mon down."

So we went. It still took a while, but we finally got the darned thing. I am too tired to even take it out of the box.

The big thing is, while we were gone the whole herd of milk cows had to be fed. So Alan fed them.
A cow named River had a heifer calf while we were away too. (When we left she wasn't giving a single sign of what she was up to. An hour later there was a baby.) It needed to be cleaned off, put in a calf coat, fed colostrum and made warm and dry. Its mother needed a bottle of calcium and to be hand milked so the baby could have the bottle.
Liz did the cleaning, milking, medicine delivery, navel dipping and all the other stuff that attends birthing, while Becky gophered and Alan helped as needed.

It was good to come home to most of the chores done and the calf and cow cared for as they needed.

It is even better to be able to trust the kids to handle all that stuff and not even think about it.
Thanks guys, guess we'll keep you after all.

**Update, while we were milking that night Alan moved the older computers to their new homes, set the new one up and got it running, and cleaned up all the dust that gathers around such electronic devices. It was nice to come in and have all that bull work done and everything ready to start setting up software and moving programs. I sort of conned him into it when he asked if he could do it for me, by telling him it was too complicated and he would lose stuff and all....of course he rose to the challenge.

Down home cookin'

Our lovely Liz cooked all day yesterday...homemade bread, brownies, blondies, a rice casserole for dinner. She has pictures......

Too bad about the power lines.....

*Although I do love the way the electricity makes all my toys work so nicely*

**In the comments I discovered that I had been tagged by Matthew Didier..answers on the View at Northview.

Rain sounds

Across the valley a freight train is slowly gathering speed as it heads west along the tracks. Its mournful whistle sounds as if it was chugging across the side lawn.
It could even be right under the old swing set where I hang my many birdfeeders.
It demands that I hear it and notice out loud.

When I was filling the stove just before this miserable storm, it sounded as if the boss was using some large, unfamiliar, piece of machinery over in the barnyard. I wondered what it could be, since after all these years I am familiar with the different pitches of the engines of every tractor we have. Then he appeared right behind me to help me toss in logs. It took me the rest of the day to figure out that the east wind was making the sound of the Interstate echo off the L-shaped side of the cow barn….it was as loud as if there really were a tractor there.

Walking to the barn later, in the half darkness of a bleak winter rain, I heard, as clear as if it were right beside me, the chug-clack of the couplers between a pair of cars as a different train started and stopped. It was idling on the siding, awaiting a turn on the bustling westbound track. I could hear each distinct click of the various metal connector parts and the shuddering bang of the cars as if I was standing right beside the tracks, a mile and a river away.

We hear trains and traffic every day. Although there are many scenic, special, secret places in the woods and fields here at Northview, you can never forget for one second that you are just a few miles from the state capital. It is never quiet. The sky is never empty of at least a half a dozen jet trails and a propeller plane or two. When a thick storm or unusual cloud formation blows in, the noise is even more pronounced, because sounds are amplified by the clouds and seem to throw themselves around like a perverse sort of ventriloquist. As far as I am concerned it can clear off any time now, so I can sink back into blissful oblivion and stop looking under the swing set for errant trains.

Colorado snowstorm act of God

..or so says PeTA, so tough luck for Western cattle and wildlife...

If you have a minute, listen to these short MP3 clips of an interview session with Colorado Governor Bill Owens, Denver radio station KRFX and a representative of the reprehensible animal rights organization. Just in case you ever thought that they gave a damn, you will see for sure that their agenda doesn't include real kindness for real animals.

Leftovers...

*Leftover berry canes*

After a full moon night with so much light pouring in through every window that it looked as if an alien space ship was landing outside, we were gifted with a sunny day that felt like April. I took advantage of the warmth and light and walked up to the pond in the horse pasture to see what was stirring. The most excitement I came across was a noisy flock of mourning doves, which fluttered into the nearby trees, then twittered back down in an adjacent hay field.

I found plenty of leftovers though and posted more pictures of them over on my other blog, the View at Northview.

*Leftover wild rose hips*

Hawk Day

I think this must have been hawk day. First, in the half light of dawn, a Coopers hawk hurtled out of the gloom beside the heifer barn, hot on the tail of something medium-sized and dark...either a starling or the lone male brown-headed cow bird that has been hanging around. Don't know if he caught him, but they sure weren't picking any berries.

Then when I took the dogs out for a run this afternoon I heard the distinctive cry of a red-tailed hawk. Whenever you hear a hawk or eagle cry on television it is usually the call of the red-tail that is used. I looked up over the old orchard in the horse pasture and the pair that nests here was sailing in lazy circles, just above the trees and calling out to one another. Beautiful!

Mike, heart and soul, a border collie

Happy New Year

Baby lettuce seedlings. Planted about four days ago, in a Styrofoam cooler and set in the living room window. We buy Pinetree lettuce mix from Pinetree Garden Seed company. So many kinds of wonderful of lettuce all in one package...just delightful. They also have a winter mix that is outstanding for fall planting. We had lettuce long past frost until deer came right up on the back steps where I have container gardens and wiped it all out.