That $#*&&** Robin

I am beginning to have strong feelings about the robin who spends all day, every day banging on the kitchen window. I won't go so far as to say that I hate him, but when two other robins ganged up on him yesterday and drove him away for a while I rejoiced. Too soon it seems, as he was back a couple of hours later, clinging to the uprights of the windows and beating on the glass.
He is a bratty bird for sure and has very strong feelings of his own about his reflection.
I wonder if he was the one getting drunk on palm berries down in FC's back yard all winter? that might explain a lot about his behavior. I hope there is a program for robins like him....or that he finds a lady friend real soon and gets his mind on other things.


On the other hand we have a mockingbird! I know they are all over the place down south, but up here in the far, far north, they are a sometimes kind of bird. Some years we get a tame one who will eat currents off the windowsill in the living room. We get to hear their frantic singing and to try to decide what birds they are mimicking. Then four or five years will go by before we see one. This one mostly sings robin songs, but he has a few other calls as well. By the end of summer if he stays he will probably know every call around

Planting

Things are finally greening up around here. I actually walked through real, honest to gosh, genuine green grass on my way around the garden pond this morning. (I walk around it every morning just in case it has somehow gotten warm enough for the fish to swim around.) I am grateful for the green. I think I will go plant some lettuce and carrots to get my mind off all the ugly of the past couple of days.

Mike
*A border collie is never too old and never too tired to play ball*

Macabre

We tuned into Channel 9 at 6PM, just before we went out to do chores, to see if the standoff in Margaretville had ended yet. To our amazement the station was doing a live update, as the police had just sent smoke bombs into the house and a pall of smoke of staggering proportions was rising into the sky over the lovely old farm house that housed the alleged murderer. Within literally minutes the smoke turned black and the house burned down before our eyes. I cannot tell you how fast it went from a small flower of flame peeking out one door to a towering inferno that consumed the wooden structure like a red avalanche that moved up instead of down. It was so very, very fast and inexorable. We watched in horrified fascination until we simply had to get out to what one TV commentator called a "farmhouse". Up here in the northern part of the state we call such structures barns but everyone got the idea and the commentator at the station managed to set him straight after a while. This whole affair has been a macabre drama that makes no sense at all to a rational mind. Why did the alleged culprit do the bizarre and horrific things he did? We will probably never know, but I wish he had chosen a different path.

Another Bucky Phillips?

Having just finished the Farm Side for Friday, ( a little porky this week,) I was planning on posting about my disgust at Governor Spitzer's verbal abuse of our state senator, Hugh Farley, and his wish to unseat him. Upstate we are a sort of conservative lot and we are fairly fond of Farley. Or at least I am and I don't think the issue of campaign reform should include personal attacks.
From NY1,

"State Senator High Farley faces the real possibility of losing not only his seat, but the Senate's GOP majority in November 2008. Especially when Spitzer's well-funded campaign machine targets him. "
"He's targeting me, targeting Senator Bruno, and targeting different senators around the state so that he can take over the Senate,” said Farley. “I think that that's bad government."

They may not get their way though.

From Fox 23,

"If the governor's plan is to get Hugh Farley out of office, it will be a tall order. Farley was unopposed in his last race and has won his last several races by wide margins."

(Farley is the guy whose phone call got the boss's mother's power turned on when the power company said they could have ten days to ruminate about it after a tree fell on the wires). I think Spitzer is just a tad arrogant to tell us who we should hire to represent us. But then what other word could you use to describe a guy who calls himself a steamroller?

Anyhow, that was what I was planning on blogging about. However, the guys had the TV on while they were eating breakfast. I could hear it in the background as I researched feral hogs and worldwide pork consumption. There was ongoing coverage of the latest state trooper shooting, with an ongoing stand off in the tiny Delaware County town of Margaretville. I had to stop what I was doing to go watch. This situation feels way too much like deja vu. This time the perpetrator is 23-year old Travis Trim.

I hope it ends with no more bloodshed. I hope the two new victims are all right. What drives people to do things like this anyhow?

**Update, the news just came through that another trooper has died. Lord, Lord, how very awful.

Still a good man

My brother is doing this again this year, as he did last year. He is a fine man, it is a good cause, and if you can find it in your heart to support him that would be special. Thanks in advance.

Birth of a calf

We had a little excitement during milking tonight.

This is Becky's show heifer, Lemonade, with her first calf, a half Jersey heifer.

All went well

Stealing a wee snack from number 49, Veronica, who is NOT her mother, but was willing none the less.

I shall overcome

The robin in this window

I know you're in there

Come on out and fight like a bird (brain)

Two auctions in one day

First a machinery auction over in Sprout Brook.

Then a horse auction over at the fair grounds.

The elk are Hanchetts. We drive by all the time and they are way off in the pasture...much too distant for a good photo. Today they were right up by the fence.



The burnt out trucks and machines are from the Town of Root barn fire. What a terrible loss of equipment. It was nice to see all the trucks loaned by other towns lined up there. Good neighbors.

And this kids wants to drive

You try so hard to get them to pay attention...to use judgment...to think before acting.

And then the kid who is begging to be allowed to take his road test so he can join all his buddies who have theirs (and are out getting speeding tickets and rolling over their trucks) goes out to the barn and cuts the switch off his sister's show heifer. I couldn't believe it. I cannot describe to you how egregious it is to do such a thing. The switch is the puffy hair at the end of the tail. It takes a long time to grow. It is not required for showing, but a long, fluffy one adds so much to the appearance of an animal. And showing cows is absolutely number one in Liz's world, ahead, I think, of even rodeo.
And this heifer is the daughter of her two time junior champion. She is still a pretty heifer but it certainly will not help her chance to do well to have a bare stick for a tail.

She did have a big manure ball in her tail. It did need to be washed out (you will notice I said washed out not cut off).

"What were you thinking?" I shrieked when told.

"I wasn't", was the reply. .....my point exactly.

Argghhhh!!!!

****Update....his sister took it well, having seen enough bad this week not to want to worry too much about cow hair. There was in fact much discussion this evening about Bovine Rogaine or Hair Club for Heifers....

They're back...

(Or at least I hope so.)

The tame-ish chickadees that nested in an ornamental bird house on the sitting porch were checking it out again today. The photo was taking through the parlor window, so it isn't the greatest, but the bird sat there while I clicked off seven shots so I am not complaining.

Birds of the day

Robins, juncos, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, rock doves, English sparrows (lousy sassenachs), mourning doves, song sparrows, crows, fifty grackles in a small tree all facing in the same direction, all evenly spaced like some strange decoration in a macabre store window, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, gold finches, starlings, a fat tom turkey strutting right under the grackle tree, a couple of leftover Canadians winging it up the river, some small drab flycatcher that is not a phoebe, nattering from a bush by the barn, a phoebe snagging cluster flies by the big windows in the living room...all at the farm during this after storm day. Last week we saw our pair of purple finches, house finches, turkey vultures, assorted gulls, and a loon up on a little pond in Johnstown yesterday. (He was pretty big for such a small puddle.)

A great blue heron, pterodactyl ponderous, flapping over Randall, two horned larks showing their double collars perfectly as they flew in unison by Bellinger's apple orchard, a gaggle of mallards on the bike path, a kestrel lugging with no little difficulty a huge mouse or vole up where McClumpha's pile their straw....all seen on a trip to the FSA office today (and up around the "block" of course, to check out what was going on with farmer neighbors).

But my favorite is the woodcock, who is back at it in the horse pasture next to the house. I guess he is as glad as I am that it has stopped storming at least for the moment.

Another miss

Thankfully

THE FLOOD WARNING IS CANCELLED FOR
THE SCHOHARIE CREEK AT GILBOA BRIDGE.
* AT 2 AM TUES THE STAGE WAS 18.7 FEET.
* FLOOD STAGE IS 20 FEET.
* THE RIVER WILL RECEDE TO AROUND 17 FEET BY NOON TODAY

Nightmare

We were away at the dentist's office today when all this took place. the boss had to have a tooth yanked out. The girls were at college. Alan was in high school. When we came home Al was there already and he told us that the girls were coming home early because Gilboa Dam is at flood stage. A fellow who worked there called his wife to get folks from school to head for home early if they could. They took him at his word and skipped their late classes. Although we live high on a hill it is predicted that much of this part of the state would be under water very quickly if that ancient dam gives way. We pay it a lot of respect.

Update 9:30 PM...THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ALBANY HAS ISSUED A FLOOD WARNING FOR SCHOHARIE COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL NEW YORK. THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF COBLESKILL. UNTIL 115 AM EDT TUESDAY. AT 119 PM EDT RADAR INDICATED ADDITIONAL MODERATE TO HEAVY RAINFALL ABOUT TO MOVE INTO THE COUNTY FROM THE EAST.
I wonder if the girls will have school tomorrow. Fonda is under a flood warning as well, so maybe Alan won't either.

Then when they got home they told us about the shootings at Virginia Tech. How on earth do you get your mind around such horror? Kids at the college were calling or texting friends who had transferred down there from our little SUNY school, trying to learn if they were all right. I worry about the 25-mile drive our kids make every day through deer and pot holes and Wal*Mart trucks as thick as fleas. I wish I didn't have to worry about this kind of thing too. I feel so bad for all the students, teachers and families that have anything to do with that college. What a nightmare.

Statute of limitations

As the mother/person in charge of general household tidiness, (and as someone who is weary of cleaning around it), I hereby declare a statute of limitations on change, (var. "loose", "stray" and "spare", but not including "pocket".) This statutory period of time will be up to, but not exceeding, the period of time that it takes me to get tired of looking at it.

Thus change (i.e. quarters, nickels, dimes, pennies, centimes, pesos, decimos, lira, shillings, markas, francs etc.) that is left lying around on the sideboard, dining room table, kitchen table, floor, desk, chairs, or stuck to the ceiling with pieces of spaghetti will be confiscated and put here:



Folding money will not fall under this statute, but if it clinks, jingles or rolls when dropped, it is subject to sudden and unexpected confiscation. (The little pile of quarters and pennies on the sideboard that was buried under .6 inches of noxious dust is already gone.)

Thus if you wish your metallic hoard to not join the one I am collecting to pay for food for camp, keep it in your pocket, purse or bedroom.

Thank you,
The management

Todd Fritsch Cheyenne City Limits

Every now and then I write the Farm Side about barn music, (and the wars that sometimes accompany it)...that is, what we listen to while we partake of the staggering ennui produced by milking the same cows over and over again every twelve hours infinitely (or so it sometimes seems). We are a musical bunch, some talented (not me) some just appreciative (yeah) and there is always something playing; Jason Aldean, Kieth Anderson, Trent Wilmon or sometimes George Strait. And sometimes Queen, very loud, if no one is around but Alan and me. Northview has a wee advantage over my thousand-word weekly moment of newspaper fame though. Here you can actually listen to what we listen to.

Or at least you can if you click on Todd Fritsch over in the side bar...or right here.

(Mattie, bro, I am talking to you here....you will like this guy if you can get your dial-up to download it. I just wait it out because it is worth it.)

Somewhere on the site (it moves around) you will find a little juke box. Once you find it, might I suggest Faith Ain't Faith, Bob Wills Song, The Cowboy Song...(or really anything else on there)? This guy is somewhere between Chris LeDoux and Garth Brooks and sings cowboy songs in a sweet, warm voice. He is a real Texas rancher so he knows what he is talking about too. I can listen to him all day (and in fact I have been listening to Faith Ain't Faith for the past twenty minutes.)

"Cheyenne city limits, ridin' a busted thumb, saddle over my shoulder, headin' back where I come from.
Rank broncs they left me, broke and all tore up....
An old man stopped to give me a lift in his beat up pick up truck
I crawled in and we drove off through that dark Wyoming night
It was downright eerie how that old man read my mind.
He said, son you've stopped believin' you can ride in the rodeo
Remember what your grandpa said, when you were twelve years old..

Faith ain't faith until it's all that you have left. Ridin' high is easy, but the lows are life's true test. Do your best to keep believin', the good Lord'll do the rest.
Faith ain't faith, son, until it's all that you've got left."

Nor' Easter...maybe

Since midweek the weather pundit folks have been predicting a severe winter storm for local environs. Thus the fellows scurried around all week getting in some extra firewood for us, and hay and straw for the cows . I picked up portable objects from the lawn and everyone battened down the hatches, or at least tied the canvas on the woodpile, during yesterday's prelude to the storm. (See ominous sunrise above.)

This morning we got up to fast falling snow, really coming down like Christmas. (The ground is already covered completely and I have only been up an hour.) For the first time ever the dogs were jumping on the back door minutes after I let them outside. Normally I have to call them for a minute, even though they can expect a nice crunchy, tasty, not-yet-recalled, dog biscuit when they come inside. I am hoping this exceptional behavior is not an omen.

Anyhow, the weather folks have now downgraded the whiny weather portents from winter storm warning to winter weather advisory....and flood watch.

If my calendar is correct today is the Ides of April. Where is spring? I think Clem hogging our share! When are we gonna get some nice weather so the guys can get on the ground and I can play in my gardens? Alan got half the fence built so we can get heifers out to pasture, but it will be hard for them to eat snow cones and icicles, so in they stay. Cabin fever is a normal January/February ailment for the northward dweller, but April? There is something wrong with this picture!

(Which BTW is the side lawn..note the cattail bog)

***Check this weather out!

Matthew Strikes again

I am sure everyone has seen the thinking blog thing....Matthew D sent it to me...five thinking blogs, hmmm......

I am thinking that the blogs that most keep me thinking are.

1) Pure Florida...not just thinking, smiling, laughing, knee slapping, looking things up to learn more, sometimes crying, always satisfied by a good read

2) Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere...everybody loves Sarpy Sam

3) Upstream...local, pertinent, I may not always agree, but I'm always interested.

4)BOOKS BuckinJunction....written by my kids. I think I always will at least think about reading them and think I like them.

5) Blogriculture...this is a great blog, written by folks who work for the Capital Press farm newspaper. Sometimes they are funny, often they are thought-provoking, always worth reading.

I am only allowed five by the rules I guess, but I read everybody over there in the blog roll as often as I can. Cathy, Joni, Rosemoon, HT, Carina, Laurie, Jeff, Swen, and Matthew, who sent me this are frequent reads. So are Cubby and Karen and Mrs. Mecomber. And Wil. And Jan. And Caroline. And everybody else on the list. I read some because their lives are fascinating, some for their politics, others because they feel like family, and some because they are talented photographers, or writers, or funny, or just nice enough to link to me way back when nobody else did. I like the folks I have "met" blogging here at Northview and I thank them for their friendliness.

Interesting quote

From a story in USA Today.

"The desire for a raw natural diet is leading to a new pattern of foodborne illness," said Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan."

Coyote

Laurainnj, who writes the fascinating blog, Somewhere in NJ, recently posted the story of the coyote down there that tried to carry a toddler off, right out of the family back yard. Many people had very interesting comments on her post and I got to thinking about our experiences with the little brush wolves here at Northview.

About thirty years ago, though I had lived most of my life hiking the mountains and working outdoors, I had never seen or heard one. They just weren't out there. Then on a trip to the Boonville area (not so very far from Canada) we heard a pack howling as we slept in our camper one night. It was a wonderfully eerie, hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck experience.

Soon we were hearing them here, some distance farther south and east. They didn't bother much of anything and were an interesting reminder of wilder places. We still didn't see them, but we knew they were out there.

Then at age 26 I took up milking cows. Soon I married my farmer and coyotes took on a whole 'nother aspect. First they contented themselves with taking our cats. They just LOVE cats! From a high of around forty clustered around the free milk dish (thanks to all the folks who do drive-by drop-offs) we now have seven. Any that don't stay in the buildings are lunch. Next they began to prey on weakened animals like twin calves born outdoors at night. The mother cow can protect one quite successfully, but two are hard to cover. Then they killed a cow that fell down an embankment and couldn't stand. We couldn't get her on her feet, but she looked like she was going to recover, so we were carrying food and water to her with the truck. One morning her hide was almost entirely ripped off, her throat was torn out and, of course, she was dead. So to those who wonder if they can take deer, the answer is a resounding yes, even though they are quite content with rats and rabbits when they can get them.


Later a pair of them drove the visiting nurse off the back porch when she stopped to care for my late mother-in-law who was receiving hospice care. The nursing service called us in high dudgeon to come get our dogs off the porch so the nurse could get in. No dogs though, just a pair of coyotes that were bolder than they needed to be.

I suspect the one that attacked the child was rabid, like the fisher that attacked a woman in her garage near here, or didn't realize that the child was a person. I have no fear of them bothering me personally, even though I have encountered them many times when walking in the fields. They are bolder than foxes, which bolt willy nilly, but not aggressive-seeming. They offer us dirt farmers a boon in that they kill woodchucks, which otherwise build great mounds of dirt around the holes they dig in hayfields. There is something about a hidden pile of dirt and stones that is rough on farm machinery! We don't miss the chucks as they just adapted to the predators and moved down to the house, where they dig holes under all the buildings.


However, to all the folks who claim that we are encroaching on coyote habitat and thus should be happy to have problems with them, sorry, this time we were here first. Unquestionably people drove wolves out of the northeast and opened a niche for the little wild dogs, but coyotes didn't show up here in upstate New York until LONG after I was born. The cities they are moving into were there many decades before they arrived to sort through the garbage and grab small dogs. I am sure they are here to stay though, so we get calves in off the hill as fast as we can, and are thankful for cows like Zinnia, who would protect a baby from a whole pack of real wolves if she had to.