But this is so horrible

That I truly feel sick about it. These poor people losing all their years of hard work, having to kill so many cattle, probably because the government doesn't do a very good job of managing wildlife problems.

Break in at the school last night...

With strange things stolen, such as a teacher's favorite marker and all the completed chemistry lab papers, including Alan's. Nothing on the news yet, but I'll bet they will catch 'em and quickly.

More babies

Liz found and photographed these little killdeers hanging out with her horse. We also found a pair of kittens inside the barn wall, where they had fallen down from the haymow. A little wall destruction and they joined their mamas in the stable.

Babies

I guess it's that time of year. Three calves this week, two heifers, one bull. One of them will put to good use a fine name that was suggested by a respected fellow blogger recently.

Frieland LF Bama Breeze made her long-awaited (nine months in fact) debut in the Holstein Heifer Cowbell Choir here at Northview just a couple of days ago. She is the much-welcomed daughter of Frieland MG Beausoleil, who was given to me for Mother's Day some nine years back. (Actually, it wasn't so much that the boss gave her to me as that he wanted to sell her as a baby because he didn't think much of her dam. I liked her right from the start so I begged. She is a sweet old cow now, and a big favorite, which just goes to show...) The other heifer will also be named after music, Countrified. Her dam is Cisco, out of Cubby, who was thus named because she was tied next to the barn cupboard as a calf. (Desperation often rules the naming around here so we are always grateful for good suggestions.)

There was a baby on the bridge this morning too, hop-skipping cheekily just out of reach. It was new and not long out of the nest, but quite able to handle itself, thank you very much. The new-fledged song sparrow was just a shade less brightly colored than the adults, perhaps offspring of the one that sings on the heifer yard gate every now and then. It wasn't exactly soaring like an eagle but it certainly could fly better than I can.

Other critters are having babies too, some of them causing me very mixed emotions. After all, bunnies are cute. The bring chocolate at Easter and look pretty bouncing around on the lawn. They are soft and fluffy and have big, brown eyes. Bunnies also reproduce at a phenomenal rate and eat just about anything vegetative. They consumed my apple trees this winter, despite wire cages three feet high (the four-to-six-foot snow gave them a paw up so to speak.). Anyhow, Alan uncovered a nest with the riding lawn mower, exposing fourteen little syvilagus floridanus babies, which rolled out onto the grass. (This is the first mowing this year and the lawn is about hip high.) I will spare you the details, but lawnmowers are not good for animals. They provided a quick meal for some passing crows and a couple of barn cats anyhow.

I tried to feel bad about them, really I did. I mean, how awful to be run over by the mower and eaten. It will be at least a couple of weeks before their mother, which escaped unscathed, can produce fourteen more. However, I'm sorry to say that I failed miserably.
I like apples.
They are my favorite fruit except cookies.
There is a whole orchard right next to the lawn, full of untended trees, large and small, which the rabbits could have eaten this winter. They could have mowed down as many box elders and mulberries as they wanted too, no complaints.

Why the honeycrisps I ask.

Why?

Pet food recall harassment alleged

Menu Foods has been ordered by a judge to cease contacting pet owners, sometimes by automated calls, who have retained legal representation. Nice folks Menu. They are said to have known about the contamination long before it became public and now they are badgering those who lost pets to agree not to hire a lawyer.

Happy Birthday Liz!

21

Hogzilla II?

Really big pig shot by not so big kid!
May be world record!

On a good day

The sun comes up like a ball of fire (and I hope I feel the same way.)

The hummers hum and hover and buzz around our heads.

And the sitting porch beckons.......

Read it and weep

Florida Cracker, who writes Pure Florida, posted some astonishing pictures of the tiny sea life that inhabits the sea grass preserve near his home today. Then he linked to a story of some Philistine who wants to dredge a big swath of it so he can bring in thousands of people, and boats and build heliports and golf courses. His plan is so grandiose and alien to a nature preserve, that I could feel my blood pressure rising with every word I read. I have nothing against a healthy economy, but what this man proposes is nothing short of obscene. From what I read at Pure Florida and the Minorcan Factor, there isn't much real Florida left. It would be a terrible shame to wreak havoc on such a spectacular piece of it.

First one up

I had to add some light to the hummingbird photo as fast shutter speed isn't so hot at dawn and hummers won't settle for anything less.

Odd juxtaposition

The bone had been chewed at both ends, though it was more slivered than crushed. The glove was missing two fingers, clearly chewed off. It was a good, sturdy one, with leather fingers and heavy canvas hands, but it had long been abandoned, so no one really cared about it getting chewing it up.


The bone was another story. I am sure its original owner would have preferred not to have an appendage turned into a play toy in such a manner.


It was a deer's foreleg by the way, with the bone above the knee worried to toothpick sized splinters and one toe gnawed away. The remaining toe was small, probably from a yearling fawn.

See, I went out to help my stubborn partner in this operation, who is rather ill at the moment, build some temporary fence up behind the barn. He wouldn't wait for Alan to get home and I didn't want him doing it alone. While we were working, I found the oddities way up on the hill. The grass was all matted down, as if there had been much play going on there. The animals that did the chewing and the rolling down of grass probably are not very big yet, or they would have done much more damage. I wish I could have seen them at it.

Coyotes I think. Pups by the toothmarks. I wonder why they dragged the old glove way up there. Maybe their den is down over the bank. Anyhow, I hope they stick to hunting deer and leave the calves alone....and the cats....chickens...sheep....bunnies.

Running in place

Or that's what it feels like. The boss is sick, maybe a stomach bug, maybe something more serious. Of course, he won't go to the doctor. Alan is still in school, so the girls and I are doing the feeding and milking. Thank God they are out of college for the summer and Liz knows the cows as well as anyone. We sent him in the house to rest last night and finished up chores (you know a farmer, if they can crawl to the barn, they will work). It wasn't too bad.

I really hope it is nothing bad.

Yesterday's best

Herkimer diamonds

Finally....

Something with which I agree from the NY Times.

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.