Herkimer Diamond mining

Was in the plans for today. However, we got up to pouring rain and February-like cold. It looks as if we will have to settle for taking pictures of some we collected other years. Some of these the kids and I dug up and the bigger ones were donated by my brother, who took his family digging a couple of weeks ago. Lousy day, lousy photos, sorry.

Anyone who can....

Take good pictures of fish

Has my utmost admiration!

A local story makes national news service

This story about a SUNY school attempting a little local purchasing refers to our local ag college. What they don't tell you is that the college contained one of the best facilities in the state for butchering locally grown meats up until recently. We did business there for several years and never had such perfectly cut and well preserved meat products. Of course the school closed it.....just not pop culture enough for them I guess. I mean, they killed animals there. Had to get all that nastiness gone. This despite the fact that the meat lab was used to train ag students, culinary students, and pre-vet kids and all animal science majors, plus providing a tremendous service to local farmers by providing a USDA inspected location for meat processing. Sadly even at an ag and tech school, agricultural interests often take a back seat to political correctness.

This kind of thing scares me so bad

80 Year old farmer killed by bull. Liz went to school with one of the grandchildren from this family. We are working on getting Promise and Frank, our two bulls, blood typed so we can get them sold. I am going to call the Holstein Association right now to get a kit. I already have one for the milking shorthorn bull. He is starting to woof at us from the fence and turn sideways when you walk by...not good.

We had company today

Thunderstorms and hummingbirds

Sun going down on a long day

Mostly spent crawling around in the cellar checking phone lines because the other computer wouldn't dial into the Internet and I needed to update some cow files. After hours of such messing around I discovered that the computer dials up just fine....just not from the cow program PC DART. So I guess that will need some work the next time the tester comes.

We also have a problem tonight with a poor cow having trouble calving. Some idiot hunter spooked all the cows into a headlong run down the hill yesterday and the result is she is calving early and it is not going too well. She just isn't ready. We gave her a bottle of calcium and came over to the house to give her a little time and privacy, since she is a very nervous animal. A nice thing for us....a valuable cow, a potentially valuable calf and some jerk hunting out of season (you can only hunt before noon and this was mid afternoon) on posted property going after a five pound bird causes this and we lose. And the cow loses. And I am very afraid that the calf is going to lose it all. Thanks to whomever it was for a lot of trouble and a miserable night.

***Update, the calf finally was born last night at about 10:15. It was stained all yellow, from being stressed in utero by the difficult birth. The cow had trouble I think, because she was at least a week from being ready to calve. Her pelvic ligaments had not relaxed at all yet. Thankfully, the calf, a bull, was very small and refined, so she was able to squeeze him out somehow, through the too small passage. Anyhow, she is up this morning and eating and he drank most of a bottle of colostrum, so he will probably be all right.

Found

More pet food milk protein stuff

Here is a pretty good editorial bringing up the same things I said the other day about MPC or milk protein concentrate and unrestricted food imports. Not to bore you to death or anything, but unregulated importation of the darned stuff is pretty rough on farmers here.

Happy Mother's Day

And thanks, Paints....very sweet....E-Train is having her first Mother's Day, having had a cute little heifer yesterday. We were in the barn until nine PM because old Zinnia decided to keep mother, baby and all the other cows out on the hill.

I would like to thank my mom for being such a great mom...Happy Mother's Day, mom, we love you!.........and my kids for keeping me on my toes, by such means as inventing games like "Whack-a-brother", "manure fight", and many, many others too obnoxious to mention. Last night it was "who can think of the most names of bulls?" (We women were shutting Alan right down until the boss got in the game. Never try to get between a man and his specialty.) I may no longer be quite sane, but I can assure you that I am awake.

Speaking of Mother's Day...here is a very determined mother.
and here is a very funny mother.

Brand new goslings

Liz took this out the car window when we driving over to the school today (she forgot to hand in a scholarship application and it was due today...since she bought me gold fish and a water lily and some hens and chicks for Mothers Day I am sure not complaining).
These babies just came off the nest, because the girls have been watching the parents setting. The silly things nest within yards of the road. Just a few yards from here Becky and I was an American bittern on Tuesday, a life bird for me....don't get too many of those any more.

**You may want to click to get a better view.

Before the Hell storm

Still more on food saftey and inspections

This morning I found the update below in one of my inboxes. It originated with the Meating Place, which offers an industry newsletter to which I subscribe.

"Only a week after taking the reins as FDA's food czar, and in the midst of a melamine outbreak, Dr. David Acheson has had plenty of explaining to do.
More of it came Wednesday, when Acheson found himself before the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, trying to assure its members that the U.S. food supply is safe despite widespread contamination of chicken, hog and fish feed.
However, some committee members contended that melamine is indicative of a bigger problem.

"The explanations from the USDA and FDA leave me with the uncomfortable feeling that maybe we just got lucky this time," said Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.). "The next time tainted food or feed products slip through the very large crack in our import inspection system, we may be forced to confront a much more serious situation in terms of animal or human health."

Acheson conceded that FDA, which inspects just a small percentage of the $60 billion in food imported annually, is due for an overhaul. He says plans to request additional funding and manpower to fuel such efforts."

Um, yeah, I do believe that might be a plan.

More on the pet food recall

Here is a story that reveals all too clearly that some plumb shady practices have been going on in the pet food industry. Obviously no one has been very careful about what went into what dogs and cats eat, where it came from, or even honest ingredient labeling.
Sadly, there is nothing stopping contamination in the dog food dish from showing up at the dinner table too. Another story yesterday indicated that the contaminated rice and wheat gluten (that actually turned out to be wheat flour) was made into fish food in Canada and fed to fish in the USA, which were certainly eaten by unsuspecting Americans.

We were discussing the issue in the barn this morning (politics and national issues are topics that turn up there every bit as often as how many bales of hay to feed.) We decided that if the US inspected foreign foods and their suppliers anywhere near as thoroughly as we do American farms and factories, the likliehood of such adulteration would diminish immensely. Here at Northview we have an inspector from Producers Cooperative, where we sell our milk, who routinely checks our premises. From seeing that medicine for dry cows is on a different shelf than that for lactating cows, to making sure there are no holes in the milk house screens, no dirt where it shouldn't be, and even that the place is tidy, he keeps a close eye on us. Our milk is tested EVERY SINGLE TIME the tanker picks it up, that is every other day, for antibiotics, cleanliness, butterfat, protein, somatic cells and water content. If it is too high in any negative factor it is condemned and we pay for the entire truckload of milk that it was dumped into. We are also under the direct oversight of state and federal inspectors who check for the same things and very thoroughly too.We could be denied a place to ship our milk and fined if we get caught doing naughty things. Certainly if we dumped melamine into our tank to boost our protein price, we would get caught...real fast

Then we are under the observation of the Soil and Water Conservation folks, the EPA, state Ag and Markets, and have so many other government entities watching over how we do what we do that I literally can't bring them all to mind. Building inspectors, Dept of Environmental Conservation, nosy neighbors.... vets inspecting the beef that we ship....we are being watched, and carefully. However, it is pretty darned obvious that while the US government peers at its own navel by layering inspections on its internal food supply like someone dressing a kid for January in Alaska, it has its back turned toward millions of tons of material that is slipping in through the back door. What we need is for imported products to fall under the same scrutiny, and, (since not everybody outside this nation is our best buddy... most favored nation status to the contrary) they should actually fall under MORE scrutiny.

The whole affair makes Pete Hardin, of the Milkweed, look real smart. He has said for years that uninspected and unregulated imports of fractions of milk, such as milk protein concentrate, potentially permit milk from exotic species, such as water buffalo, and unclean locations, such as Chernobyl, to be included in our food. Hmmmmm, ya think?

I like this quote

From hearings on animal welfare by the House Ag Committee....


"The Committee gained insight not only on the issues facing animal welfare but also the solutions that industry is working through to ensure that we have a safe, plentiful, and affordable food supply," Chairman Boswell said. "It's evident that livestock producers are vigorously addressing animal welfare issues."

"Today's hearing demonstrated that the animal agriculture industry is committed to ensuring the humane treatment of animals in its care. Farmers and ranchers, not activists, should be dictating animal husbandry practices. Passing legislation based solely on emotion goes against the Committee's responsibility to use science and best management practices that are designed to improve animal welfare practices," said Subcommittee Ranking Member Robin Hayes."

I give thanks to both of them for having some common sense rather than pandering to whatever special interest group has the most strident voice each day.

May sunrise

The days are long this time of year, but they sure get off to a good start!

It isn't always arm and hammer

Sometimes it's arm and chickadee

Some people have lawn ornaments

Some people have garden gnomes...
Some have blacktop...
Some have the ocean.,
or forest,
or sidewalks





I have........Liz and Mandolin Rain!

On the way to a milk meeting last night

***HT ...this is the kind of land that is getting buried under houses.

Another kindness requested

Last month when I asked readers to support my brother's ride in the Tour de Cure for diabetes, several were kind enough to do so. He is grateful for your kindness, as am I. Great cause, great brother, wonderful folks...it's all good. Thank you.

Here is another kindness that could be done. Laurie at Don't Make Me Get My Flying Monkeys has been writing for some time of her cousin Dale's battle with cancer. Things are going hard for Dale right now and Laurie is hoping that folks around the world will send Dale cards or photos to cheer him up.

His addy is:
Dale Petersen
Room 3408
Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital
1719 E 19th Ave
Denver, Colorado, 80218

Town for sale

I love this story of a husband and wife who decided to build a town, did so, and ran it all their lives. Mrs. Hagglund is auctioning the place off this weekend if you are thinking of picking up a nice little lakeside town all your own.

"Everything Eddie and I did in life was successful, because we worked together," she said. The dream started one day in 1954 when the couple, who operated an implement dealership in the town of Sharon, spotted dozens of anglers on Lake Ashtabula during a drive to visit relatives. "I said to Eddie, 'Wouldn't this be a good place to have a hamburger stand?'" Hagglund said. "That's all it took." The couple bought a chunk of lakeshore prairie for a couple thousand dollars, planted trees and began putting up buildings. The first was the dance hall, which featured a large neon sign that said "Danceland" and hosted dances and roller-skating. They later added the cafe and other businesses. "We were just like homesteaders when we came out here," Hagglund said.n 1960, when the local township board denied their request for a liquor license, the Hagglunds incorporated the town and issued themselves a license. To meet the requirement of 100 residents, the couple "counted cats and dogs" and even coaxed some residents of nearby Luverne to sign a petition saying they lived in Sibley, Hagglund said."

I like that!