The things you see

Seen on the street in Fultonville

Seen creeping up out in the main garden

Seen from the big windows just before the sun went down

....on a fine (finally) spring day.

In case you ever wonder...

....why I am this way. My parents, (abetted by my grandparents), used to sing this song to me. It was performed at different times by Bing Crosby and Dorothy Shay, who released it in 1947. I was born the same year as Vladimir Putin and am three days younger than Dan Akroyd, so I don't know why they chose me for this particular golden oldie. I was a nice kid, really I was. There were other female grandchildren in the family, but I was the only one to receive the signal honor of my own song. It is really not fair.

Here is the chorus:

Daughter, baby daughter,
Poisoned all the neighbors chickens.
Daughter hadn't oughter
Least 'till she could run like the dickens.
They hit her with a shovel!

They pronounced it "Dotter".
They still call me that.

I think I like this guy

*****

For those of you, who, like me, don't watch 60 Minutes, here is the transcript of a show on Rick Berman, AKA "Dr. Evil", a lobbyist for the other side of the food-as-societal-scourge and deadly -poison-that-will-kill-you-if-you-eat story. Even if you don't agree with him he is pretty entertaining. As someone who makes a living (sort of) selling a food product, his ideas are a welcome bit of sanity in a world that seems to have lost all common sense to me.

"I have no problem with education. But, education turns into regulation, you know?" Berman says. "As the government gets deeper and deeper into people's lives, they start to dictate more and more. If a bartender can cut you off for visibly being intoxicated, why won't we get to the point where a restaurant operator is not allowed to let you order dessert? I mean, you could get there."

Nobody wants to see a drunk driver coming at them down the middle of the highway, but I don't think it is time to regulate pecan pie intake just yet.

****Nice sunrise today again...amazing lot of black birds hanging around, grackles, red winged black birds, cow birds and starlings.

The only thing making this possible

This is what is making life semi, sorta, halfway, bearable during this unseasonable spate of cold, nasty weather. I posted it over at the View last week, but I just wanna look at it some more and pretend I am not freezing......

More pet food recall

Carina posted this story today and I think it is really worth reading.

Happy Easter

Why I can't seem to find the energy to write about anything...

The normal temperature here for this time of year is fifty......today it is a balmy 28.

Sunrise

Almost but no cigar...thank God!

First there was a bomb threat at the school today...kids had to stand out in twenty degree weather for quite some time, then hunker down in the concrete-walled gym while the bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in to go through the buildings....
no bomb.

Then Old Roy dog biscuits were recalled....and on the fridge are the remains of a great big bag, the rest of which was devoured with great relish by a certain trio of border collies that I know. The Sunshine Mills website listed lots of closely related sizes and flavors of biscuits that contain melamine...
the ones on the fridge weren't on the list...
or at least not yet.

I am most grateful that both of these close calls were just that, on behalf of my favorite boy and the best dogs in the world.....

Old stone mill

The stream below the mill

Had to go to Oneonta again and finally got a couple shots of this old mill. It was kind of hairy parking along I-88 with the semi's roaring by practically scooping the car up in their slip streams. Kind of a neat old place though.

Don't pay more for the same stuff

"In a recent study, lab analysis of 95 different brands of retail milk purchased in 48 states confirmed all milk naturally contains the same hormones. There was no difference in hormone content of retail milk based on label claims regarding the use of POSILAC."

Center of the dance

We hadn't heard the woodcock since I posted about him the other night so I figured that he had moved on. However, I heard a faint twitter when I was walking over from the barn tonight, once again as the last pink faded in the west. Soon a loud peent came from over by the horse pond. I wanted to walk up there, but I was pretty sure crashing through the brush with a flashlight would spook him, so I just stood in the driveway behind the car. The Interstate was loud, but I could hear the peent quire clearly Figured it would be hard to hear the sky dance, but danged if he didn't do a big circle right over my head. I have never heard one make such a huge circle, all the way from the pond to the heifer barn, which is on the other side of the house. It was great....worth waiting for my dinner of homemade soup to stand and listen.

On Fiery Hill

From inside the house foundation

"White bronze" marker

And old marble stone

We made a trip to the abandoned farm where the boss's mom grew up. Nothing left but the foundation, a lot of brush, a few stones and some realtor's signs. Wish we were rich enough to gather up all these old farms and keep them safe.....

The cemetery is up the road a bit, and may have nothing to do with the farm, but it is very lovely. I especially like the zinc monument... I have been wanting to get up there since we finally got a digital camera to take pictures of it before something happens to it. (Although as it happens someone has done quite a bit of work cleaning up around the stones etc.)

**Photos by Alan

Geese

Muskrat houses

Over on Route Twenty near Sharon Springs. They dwarf the tiny pond they occupy. Must be quite a sight when as many rats as it took to build 'em start swimming around and cutting cattails. The pond must churn like somebody was stirring it with a souped up Evinrude!

Timberdoodle

Coming over from the barn last night, talking a bit to Alan, pleasantly tired, happy to be finished with chores... just past daylight...barely needed the flashlight. Suddenly something hurtled past my head on whistling wings, a speeding susurrus, silhouetted momentarily against the last orange glow in the west. Mourning dove, I thought, wow, she is out late.

Then, from the flat, grassy knoll up by the horse pasture pond it came....for the first time in at least fifteen years I heard a very special sound. The buzzy, rasping, nasal peent! of a male woodcock courting a mate. Ah, all became clear... the feathery bullet was his lady friend heading elsewhere in a heck of a hurry.

We have a dancer! Big news! I was thrilled. Indeed cold shivers ran up and down my arms. Alan made fun of me, saying that they (woodcocks, that is) are all over the back of the farm; all I have to do is walk out there to see one. However, he has never heard the dance and doesn't understand that watching one bomb through the bushes like a flying rocket or hearing one dance are not the same thing. Not the same at all.

It was too cold last night, I was too tired, it was too dark. But (if he stays) Alan and I will tiptoe up to the pond one night soon to watch and listen to the magical sky dance. If we are lucky, Mr. Timberdoodle will spiral skyward, then hurtle to earth piping the ethereal mating whistle that makes these fat, pointy-nosed little birds a ghostly springtime wonder. It is such a special thing that you almost feel guilty watching...like you were in some one else's church or something. Once he stands there in the darkness, hearing that other-worldly song, I think my boy will know what I mean about timberdoodles though.

I had never seen the sky dance and didn't know of it at all until I read A Sand County Almanac in college, having grabbed it off the college bookstore shelf because it had a pretty cover. (Now there was a life changing moment....all these years later and I still think of the things I read there, especially how chickadees come to folks who cut firewood...looking for insects. (They do btw.) You just never know when an important book will sort of jump off the shelf at you and change your way of looking at the world.)

Later someone important to me at that time in my life found a dancing ground across the road from my camp in Caroga Lake. We sat on the tail gate of my pick up truck in the driveway, every single clear night, swatting mosquitoes and watching the dance as the sun went down. I didn't have a TV then and didn't miss it either.
When I moved down here to the valley, there was another dancer who regularly performed on the heifer pasture flats behind the house. Then a few years ago he left for some reason and I never heard another until last night.

Now we have a possible avian thespian setting up stage out by the pond, which is already one of my favorite places on the farm.
I hope he stays.

Golden morning

I just liked the way these scraggly old trees framed the rising sun this morning.

Whoo hoo

Check this out! A very special person gave Becky a call tonight to let her know that Emerson Drive is expected to perform at Fonda Fair, right across the river from us. After what she went through last year upon finishing high school, including having the concert to which we bought her tickets for graduation canceled, this is pretty special. I know what we will be doing this August 31st, the good Lord willin' and the crick don't rise.

We are wondering if the guys actually read the letter Liz wrote them last year detailing Beck's big disappointment and asking them to think about either coming back to Northern Lights or playing the fair. We will probably never know, as they never answered the letter, but excitement reigns tonight anyhow.

Growing lettuce indoors (part two)

This has worked out amazingly well. We have enjoyed lots of lettuce for sandwiches and small salads and it just keeps coming back no matter how much we pick. The boss makes amazing croûtons (really good in soup too, so I made some of that Saturday, with venison, homegrown ground beef and a little Italian sausage from our 2006 piggies) so with a little super sharp hunter's cheddar and some ranch dressing we are rich indeed.

Hmmm

Someone kindly nominated Northview for a blog of the day award and I just wanted to say thanks...so thanks.

Today