Finally!

Here is the House Wren video Mom promised you guys. Hope it will work for everyone!

Calf kills Wolf

Sarpy Sam alertly caught this amazing headline...if it hasn't been changed by the time you get there. I am wondering if the wolf choked on a bone, or if the calf packed more wallop than your average Angus or something, but I am thinking it is quite an event anyhow.

Fishing trip Mill Point

All work and no play?
Nah.....not on Sunday





What the Schoharie can do when it wants to




River of rocks

***Mrs. Mecomber mentioned in the comments that this looks like a river that can rage if it takes the mood.
Here are a couple of links to what it has done in the past. The bridge in the middle photo replaces one of two that went down one terrible day in 1987. (That tree is a lot bigger that it looks in the photo btw!) The other bridge was on the New York State Thruway and killed 10 people when it fell. We were in our car at the bottom of the house driveway with Liz, just a baby, in the car with us the morning it went down. We actually heard it, even though we are about five miles away from it. The boss knew instantly what he heard. Both he and my dad always distrusted the big Thruway bridge, as its construction was known by local folks to be less that the best. It seems to be forgotten now, but the local sheriff at the time tried to close the Thruway that day before the bridge fell because he was afraid that it would, but was not permitted to do so..... with tragic results. A couple of days later we parked the car on the road above this fishing spot and saw whole cottonwood trees, 60 or 70 feet tall, bouncing down the river and banging on the banks. We even saw a mobile home bounding by. The force of the current shook the road like an earthquake. Here is a picture I took last summer that gives something of an idea how deep this river gets. This is a few yards upstream from this year's photos. Flooding goes much higher than the high bank you can see behind the painted rock.
We are very careful about choosing our fishing times here.

Interesting

From TFS Magnum, about tax revenue after tax cuts.

Northernfarmboy

(Liz had been trying for a couple of days to get the wren video up, but dial-up has its problems in that department as well.)

While we await its arrival, I found another interesting species that sometimes inhabits upstate New York in summer. I was lucky enough to get a few photographs of one that was displaying on our lawn. (They are quite tame and friendly to humans.) This is a representative specimen of the Northernfarmboy in its usual summer plumage. (Note the typical hat with folded bill, {Go 'Cuse} the incipient farmer's tan and the hay muscles just coming into seasonal bloom).

You may find Northernfarmboys in their natural habitat, (although the species is declining through habitat loss to burgeoning development), sometimes polishing the seat of the old Case 930 with the seat of their worn out jeans, while they ted a field of hay or chisel up some corn ground. Other times they are found tooling around in the bright blue pick up truck seeking the elusive driver's license or hunched over under the hood of the White 2-105 repairing whatever breakdown it has come up with in a long series of same.

Included are a couple of pictures of typical Northernfarmboy habitat, including a passing thunderstorm and the horse pasture on a misty morning, the first of which will send your average farmboy running for cover. (Especially this particular specimen, which was nearly struck, to the hair standing up on the head stage of too darned close, by lightning and doesn't like it much any more.)




Northernfarmboys come in a wide range of ages and color patterns, but are easily distinguished from Northerncityboys by a certain loose-limbed walk, as if always going somewhere and knowing exactly where that somewhere is, strong, broad shoulders and that unmistakable farmer's tan in summer. (Girls, if by chance you happen to catch one for your own, be prepared for him to work ridiculous hours doing arcane things that smell bad and produce staggering amounts of dirt.)

They are, despite that, quite nice to have around and I wish a very happy Father's Day to my own sun-browned Northernfarmboy, and to my Dad, who is a spectacular specimen of the NorthernBookDealer, with a dash of master carver, rock hound, gardener and a host of other talents thrown in for good measure.

Have a great day, guys!

Timothy and Troglodytes aedon

Timothy is in bloom now.

Liz may have mentioned that she bought a digital camera to take rodeo photos and video for her blog, BuckinJunction. This has an incidental benefit for me, in that she can also take video of the house wren family that we discovered was nesting in the pillars on the front porch. She is going to put one up here for me later today. You can see them feeding their babies and singing at our front door. It is so delightful to sit here with the doors open to the front hall way and hear them sing and the babies twittering when they bring breakfast. It gives new meaning to the concept of sweet talk.

I apologize to all, who like us, have glacial dial-up connections (she lets her videos upload while we milk, which takes about three hours.) I know you probably won't have time to load the video when she gets it done, but I just couldn't resist sharing it.

Meanwhile, here is a rather blurry photo, taken with my much smaller, and not quite so zoomy, camera.

We stopped to pick some Vitamin C today

We had to run to Fort Plain today to get some barn calcite, which we sprinkle on the floor so the cows don't slip when they come into the barn.

I did NOT want to go.
The garden beckons.
Vigorously.

However on the way home we stopped at Cashin's and Liz and I picked two quarts apiece in about five minutes. Literally.

I think it is going to be a good year for strawberries.

Morning Glory

Well, really, it's a geranium, but you get the idea I think. There is nothing painful about early mornings this time of year.

New in the blog roll

This blog showed up in the Center for Consumer Freedom daily newsletter today and I just had to give 'em a link. With everything from why PeTA and Jesus probably wouldn't have been pals, to Lincoln's poem to his pet dog, it is plumb entertaining. I want to be able to read it easily myself.

***If you are bothered by dead woodchucks, don't go there, but if you like reading about working dogs, don't miss it.

Just fine

Yesterday Alan got to go to a big tractor pull....way out near Buffalo, the Dansville ESP Tractor Pull. The rest of us stayed home.

Which was fine.

Until evening milking time.

First the boss went out to bale up a load of hay and unload a couple of loads into the mow....

Which was fine

Until every single bale began to hang up in the chain on the hay elevator. When the girls and I went over to milk he was on his sixth trip up the ladder into the mow and about as happy as a hornet on a hot plate. (Not quite so fine.)

Eventually he got things working and got the hay put away while the girls and I got the cows grained (Liz), the milker set up, and the herd brought down from pasture and put in the barn.

Which was fine.


Until we discovered that Encore was missing. She is a little summer yearling of mine (sister to Etrain) Liz kept up to show. When she decided to take a small string this year we turned her out. It was after seven before they found her hiding in some brush as far back in the pasture as you can get. Then we couldn't catch her, because for some reason a couple of full sisters, Beech and Butternut, decided that they really needed to beat her up. Every time we got close to her one of them would come and throw her with their head and she would run away again. Eventually Liz got her hands on her and wrestled a halter onto her head. What with driving all the other cows out of the yard, closing the gates, getting her into a stall, which had to be set up as all were full, it was nearly ten PM before we got done with chores. Two hours late is plumb painful, especially on Sunday, which in theory, should be and easier day.
The kid got home from the tractor pull about ten minutes after we came in from the barn, just in time to miss all the fun.

Which was fine.

***The top photo is of the Supernatural, which belongs to a friend of ours.

Some animal rights stories

Nice folks these. (Killing the family dogs was what really got me going.)

And these

They're everywhere. (The problem is that chickens are simply NOT cats or dogs.)

Frost in June

The sun looked brassy enough this morning.

Who would believe that Wednesday night it froze? The moon flowers and cardinal climber took a serious hit and a tomato got nipped pretty badly. This is the latest spring frost I have ever seen here. Two days later it is in the upper eighties. Weird weather!

MIlk prices, oil prices..which should be higher?

Elaine Shein, my good friend at Blogriculture, has written a wonderful post on recent milk price increases. She really has it nailed. I find the Capital Press blog, Blogriculture, to be among the very best Ag blogs because it is well-written and entertaining, yet covers farm issues with real insight.
Thanks, Elaine, for sticking up for dairy farmers and our products. We need all the help we can get.

Thanks also to all you good folks who run to the store for a gallon of our product or grab a pizza with extra cheese or a milk shake with your lunch. We love you all. The girls all love you too.... 96, Char, Zinnia, Bariolee, Lemonade, ETrain, 114, Junie, Beausoleil, England, Bailey, Voldemar, Bayberry, Volcano, Adela, Star, Beech, Balsam, Butternut (3 full sisters) Veronica, Heather, Hattie, Hooter, (the Jersey girls) Lily, Mandolin Rain, Zipper, Kid, Jingle, Colorado, Sedona, Boston, Eland, Drive, Soir Noir, Chicago, Cisco (mother of Kid), Egrec, Elendil, Brink, Salt Lake, Lakota, Foolish, Detroit, Marge, Mango, Marvel, Sequoia, Berlin, Virginia, Mary, Mento, Consequence, Crunch, all think anybody who drinks milk or eats cheese is terrific.

So do all their "kids" ...Mendocino AKA Blitz, Zany, Hazel, Hicktown, Bama Breeze, Encore, Blink (daughter of Brink, of course), Takala, Chickadee, Armada, Camry, Alpha Zulu (AKA Alpha Zulu Pinecone) Magic, Medina, Spruce, Broadway, heck I could go on all day. They all love anyone who has ever worn a milk mustache, or said yes to Got Milk? because they would be out of a job without you! Thanks for making June Dairy Month!

Heifers

These are the heifers out at pasture. We had to bring them all down today as a cow that was running with them had a calf early and we needed to get her in. We pulled all the drys and close up heifers out of there and put them with the milk cows so we don't have to bring the whole bunch in every time there is a calf. It is easier to watch them when they are with the milking herd as we bring them all in twice every day and they get handled more. Also we will be turning a bull out there in the next couple of days to catch any the shorthorn bull missed and we don't want to have to go in with him and try to take cattle out.

We got a heavy dose of Barry over the past couple of days with heavy rains, high winds and amazingly cold temperatures. It will go down to 37 tonight and was in the low 40s last night. I felt sorry for the show heifers that are running out with the cows. They were so cold this morning that their hair was standing all on end and they looked awful. Cows don't usually mind chilly weather, but they were so wet when it turned cold that it was rough on them. The darned wind flattened the irises, which were spectacular this year....oh, well, we had them for a few days and it is supposed to get better tomorrow.

On the upside, I wish I could bottle a couple gallons of Mohawk Valley air right now and send it where ever you are. All along the valley thousands of locust trees and billions of wild grapes are in bloom all at the same time. The scent is like the freshest, cleanest, sun dried laundry you could imagine. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it, bringing a moment of sheer delight. I want to find someone who will let me dig a couple of black locust seedlings and plant them up near the bowling green where we lost the big apple tree last year. Then I can enjoy them up close and personal every June from now on.

PBR in Verona, NY

Moving the bulls

Mike White signing autographs

Not quite 8

Liz and I traded in some extra hours of work yesterday for a day off to see the rodeo. Of course the long go had no more than started when a wind storm that swirled hats into the sky like a cloud of flying mushrooms, swept in a miserable rain storm. Like the chickens that we are we retreated from our seats right in front of the chutes to perch in a private box in the enclosed grand stand. I hated to leave our vantage point, but Liz, with her superior camera, actually got some great shots because we were up above the fence. Still there is a lot more drama when you are thirty feet from the thudding hoofs and popping tails. My pictures are cropped from my sorry little 3X zoom, but you can get an idea f the action anyhow. I am sure a little later today Liz will have some great stuff on BuckinJunction, which, after all, is mostly dedicated to rodeo.

It wasn't all bull

To get to the rodeo we had to drive west...way west. The trip was not without its rewards, however. Near one oddly dry field (causing us to wonder where the heck she came from and where she was headed) a large snapping turtle threatened all comers from the side of the highway. Her head, big as an armored softball, wobbled menacingly at the end of her leathery stalk of a neck as she contemplated speeding cars. She put me in mind of certain older ladies you see sometimes with similar necks and duplicate attitudes. I sure didn't want to mess with her. I wondered if she would survive the road crossing she was attempting. There was a staggering amount of traffic for a quiet Sunday morning. She was right up against the white line hoping to scare the cars into getting out of her way I guess. Since she was no where to be seen on the return trip, I suspect she made it. Of course the babies from the eggs she was out to lay might not be as lucky, but still...

Later we dropped down off the hills west of Fort Plain to see this amazing field of white. It was like a snowy blanket thrown over the hay field in front of the historic little church. I thought at first that it was planted buckwheat, which, when in bloom is pretty spectacular. However, it was millions of daisies all in flower at one. The picture simply does not convey the number and brilliance of the flowers. I should have used Liz's camera I guess.

Buffalo wallow

Joni has a picture of one that is really neat. Even though I have read about them in all kinds of books, I had never seen a picture before.


Sorry there have been scant posts lately. Liz went rodeoing yesterday and today I have to accompany her. Makes for craziness to have people away at crop planting, calve having time.

Making her Internet Debut

Frieland LF Bama Breeze
"Bama"

World Milk Day 2008

June 1 is World Milk Day, have a glass!

I was kind of tickled

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