Wanna feel a little insulted?

If you are a farmer that is, and not too fond of NAIS (National Animal Identification System)? Just read this story on Cattle Network.com. and you will get the idea.

Especially the part about reading to farmers at the sixth grade level.

"....As described by the USDA, these “key messages” “are organized into topic categories and supported with concise sentences. They are designed for an audience reading at the sixth grade level.” (Handbook, p. 41.)"

Dang. Sixth grade. It has been a while.

"Staff are advised not to “invest[ ] time” in “Anti-NAIS producers” and instead “locate and motivate more favorable individuals” (p. 9). While staff are to tell farmers that participation in premises ID will not compel them to participate in either individual animal ID or animal tracking (Handbook, p. 42), at the same time, staff are to pursue the second and third components of NAIS, “adoption of animal ID and tracing,” during 2007. (NAIS Outreach bulletin, Feb. 2007, p. 1)."

I can't help it. My feelings are hurt.


***Update....Here is a story on the human form of NAIS

Found by accident

I came across this site while trying to find some place within fifty miles of here where I can buy a couple of fan tailed gold fish for my garden pond. We went to Herkimer Sunday in said pursuit and found the fish store there out of business and replaced by a tax preparation store front operation.
I was already aware of puppy mills, before I stumbled on this site, having spent eight years working in a veterinarian's kennel and seeing plenty of sad stories. This is simply horrific though. I guess I won't be visiting the local branch of this chain to buy my fish. I can't justify spending money in such a place. So does anybody within a few zip codes of here know where I can buy a couple of healthy fish without bankrolling such enterprises?

**BTW check out the prices! I bought Mike and Gael from a reputable breeder of working quality border collies for $350 and $425 respectively. Both come from parents that had successfully competed in open level sheep dog trials. Gael's father ran in the Nationals. They were both healthy, well socialized, and capable of what I wanted them for. (Plus in my admittedly biased opinion, they are great dogs.) If you want a purebred dog, buy from a reputable breeder and do your homework. You wouldn't hire a nanny without a background check. Don't hire a dog without looking into its background too. You can also deal with a reputable rescue organization where someone will help you through the experience of starting with a new dog. But talk to dog people. Find out about your breed, the breeder, or whoever is providing you with your pet BEFORE you bring one home and fall in love. Oh, and stay away from border collies unless you have a job for them and plenty of patience. Some of them are fine anywhere, but a good many will herd kids, car tires, tractors, cats, each other and even running water if they don't have something constructive to keep them busy. I almost lost Gael that way when she was a pup and hadn't learned "come here" yet. She took off trying to head a little stream of water and was almost to the road before I thought to use my whistle....which luckily she heeded.

Yep

Spring!

Cow magnets

Apples asked in the comments just what cow magnets do and why we use them. I thought it was a good enough question to answer in a post (plus I don't have much to say today and am grateful for any and all ideas.)

Cows eat all kinds of things in their pursuit of digestible greenery. Autopsies have revealed bicycle tires, shirts, entire feed bags and lots and lots of baling twine. Unfortunately cows often also ingest bits of sharp metal, which can pierce the stomach lining, causing infection and even affecting the heart.The resulting condition is called hardware disease. At the very least it causes the cow a lot of discomfort. In some cases it ends in death. At least some of the time, shooting a powerful magnet down the cow's throat with the same balling gun you use to give aspirin or stomach pills will fix it. Ideally the magnet will grab the offending nail or bit of steel and drag it to the bottom of the stomach where it can just sit there doing no harm.

Magnets don't always work, but sometimes the results are simply spectacular. We had an old cow, number 80, Adela, years ago, before we were married. She went off feed and began a slow decline. Our vet at the time didn't think she had hardware so he treated her symptomatically and went on his way. Days went by and she failed to improve. Finally I suggested to the boss that we give her a magnet just to see what happened. She was obviously dying, so what did we have to lose? By the very next morning she was gobbling hay as if she had never been sick.
Coincidence? Nah...

We had another cow drop dead from a standing position at the end of milking one day. One minute she was standing in her stall chewing her cud; the next she was sprawled on the floor stone dead. We were stunned and really puzzled so we had our veterinarian conduct an autopsy. Amazingly a bit of sharp metal stuck in her stomach wall had worked its way through the stomach lining to pierce her liver, she moved just right (or perhaps just wrong) and bled to death internally in seconds. The metal was a bit of steel off a wagon that a less-than-diligent hired man put through a forage blower into the silo. (Of course we didn't know about it until too late for old Danillla.) We didn't keep him too long after that.

Anyhow, we keep a couple magnets on the fridge among the Far Side cartoons, shot up targets, family photos and school schedules. Then we can always find one when some cow starts refusing dinner and acting odd.

Beck and her bunny

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