NAIS (allegedly) losing steam

(Although maybe only until Hillary has her hand on the throttle.)

According to this story in the Des Moines Register, even Collin Peterson is folding his tent (at least for a while).

"The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., says he has given up on the program until there is a new administration. Peterson once introduced legislation to make animal ID mandatory.

"We have our head in the sand if we think we can get by without having one," he said."

Just call me sandy head I guess, because I sure don't feel any need to do more government paperwork and stick more ineffective tags in my cows' ears. If we do end up, as we probably will, with a different party in the White House next fall, I wonder what will happen to NAIS. I am not eager to find out though.

Kegan's pickerel

My handsome nephew Kegan (that's him with the ruler) caught this 28 inch pickerel up at Peck's Saturday. That is one amazing fish and he didn't even have a steel leader. Photo credit goes to cousin Scott's weekly missive and I am thinking to one of my favorite aunts.

25 years today

Since the boss and I met...(been married 22) He asked me to dance and I did, only because of his farmer's tan. I thought by the looks of him that he must have had fifteen years on me (only four, but he was kind of a party animal in those days and didn't get a lot of sleep).


A lot of water has flowed down the Mohawk since then. Lot of gallons of milk been made. Tons of hay baled or chopped. Corn planted. Gardens grown. Toddlers morphed into teenagers, and at least one twenty-something. The babies I used to haul to the barn in a Snugli or Gerry carrier are running it now. They started helping as soon as they could pick up a shovel. Liz has been showing cows since she was six and we gave her Sonora who made the front page of the Recorder when Liz took her off the trailer at the fair. We were the first people I ever saw to get one of those high rear wheel jogging strollers so we could haul the kids around. We started with just Liz in the seat and ended up with Becky in the seat, Alan on her lap, and Liz riding on the foot rest. They were darned heavy too, but our bright red kid buggy would go over anything. Now everybody has them, but I will never forget how excited I was to find something practical in which to drive babies around fair grounds and such.

I will also never forget the day I had Becky in the Gerry on my back while I worked, (not really doing much more than keeping the boss and his late father company. There is danger in inherent in family farming and I always tried to be careful. However, things happen that are impossible to predict.) After a while she got heavy and I had just taken her to the house to leave her with grandma when a steel barn support upright fell on me and crushed me. Cracked my skull, broke the little cartilage thingie on my sternum. (My head is still pretty fragile and I am careful not to bump it.) God was sure watching that day, because if she had been on my back things would have been a lot worse. No one could have known THAT was going to happen, so we sure got lucky.

At one point I often walked around with Alan in the Snugli, Becky in the Gerry and Liz hanging on to the hammer loop on my jeans. Sort of a human baby tree. We hardly ever left them, no matter where we went. Still don't if they want to ride along and amazingly they usually still do.

I think the best thing we have to show for all the years is the kids...Anybody can run a business or grow a crop and there are plenty of farmers who do it bigger and better than we do, but I sure am proud of my kids. Wouldn't trade em for anything, although some nights when they get fighting...well, dang.

Anyhow we are still crazy after all these years. The boss is still flying with one wing and we are still covering all the milking and feeding, although he is chopping corn every day. I don't know how he even gets into the tractor, since most of the time we have to tie his shoes for him....but I am still glad I fell for that farmer's tan and those rugged, outdoorsman good looks. Really I am.

Hundreds of these this year

Praying mantis.
Photo by Alan

Too many peppers

Not enough pepper people***






***I grew a nice mess of hot peppers for the kids this summer. They eat them. We don't.
However, there are a whole slew hanging out on the clothesline waiting for someone to decide what to do with them. Anybody want to make some salsa or something?

Eighteen cents

The boss and I hauled ourselves over to a bank across the river this noon to pay the school taxes on our side of the mountain. (They went up over $300 bucks this year, thanks to a change in the formula used to calculate ag taxes. It nicely canceled out most of the rebate our trusty governor saw fit to hand to New York property owners this year.)


Anyhow, while the boss was standing in line waiting to render up our portion, another fellow was getting in trouble for overpaying his share by $ .18.
Eighteen cents.
Today that will not buy a first class stamp.
It will not buy penny candy. A cup of coffee. A shoe lace.
Or much of anything.

When the boss and I were kids (and Fonda had several stores that sold such things) that same eighteen cents would have bought a grape Nehi or an Orange crush.
Or a Royal Palm root beer.

AND a palm-sized Three Musketeers candy bar. Or a Milky Way. Or a Snickers.

AND SIX pieces of Double Bubble chewing gum. That's a lot of gratuitous sugar in any body's book.


However, we were not fat. We were skinny, wiry critters, probably partly because it wasn't easy to come by eighteen cents when you were a kid back then. That much cash would also darned near buy a gallon of gas for the old Chevy and that had priority over treats for kids. However, it was probably also because he worked all the time and played baseball and because I spent most of my childhood being a horse (since I couldn't have one) and galloping or trotting everywhere.
If by chance we weren't doing something useful my parents' favorite refrain (particularly when we hung around the antique store pestering them for a nickel) was, "Go outside and play. Go over to the playground and swing or something."

So we did

Country folks

Yesterday I was outside hanging up laundry and feeding the ever-demanding maw of the woodstove when a friend called. When I got in to hear the message she said she was bringing over food.

Food...wonderful homemade meat loaf, sour dough bread, potatoes, corn and cuppycakes with the best frosting I ever tasted. She also brought the boss a Sudoku book, which he amazed me by finding totally engrossing when he came in from overdoing it and half killing himself with work he shouldn't even attempt. What a friend! She is busy with her own farm and her own farm guys and calvings and all the headaches that accompany being a farm wife. She already works too hard. Yet she took time to make us the best meal we have had in ages. We couldn't wait to finish up milking last night so we could come in to dinner. It was worth the wait.

Thanks!!! That is all I can say. It was a tremendous kindness that we won't forget any time soon.

The answer

"The eartag hole shows how easy those eartags can be lost, even by goofy looking cows."


Lee, a local reader, saw the problem right away in this picture of a cow involved in the foot and mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain. Even though GB has a cumbersome and extremely restrictive National Animal ID System, not only has the disease spread unchecked reaching 8 farms by this time yesterday, but clearly cows over there don't retain tags any better than they do here in the USA. While researching this week's Farm Side I also discovered that the cows on one farm had foot and mouth for four weeks before anyone noticed. Guess the ID system and tags didn't help much there either.

What is wrong

with this picture?


Update: I guess I need to be clearer. I have some great answers, but I specifically mean what is wrong with the picture itself.

***Answer in the comments. First to get it right will get a post with a link tomorrow.*

New website for dairy farmers

Dairy Cattle Xtension

Looks like a good tool

Not a blue heeler

Nope, it's just a naughty border collie who tried to steal some crust when Liz was making a VIP (that's a very important pie). See what happens to dogs who reach for the table just as the pie crust gets rolled out!?! Wish I could have gotten a picture of her trying to lick the flour off the back of her neck.
Worst thing was that no one said anything about it, so I was peacefully sitting there in the living room when this multicolored dog walked nonchalantly by......

The silver lining

The boy ran into a little tractor trouble today. He came down to get the tools he needed and asked for some company for a while. I was pretty much caught up so....

Behind the barn where the cows like to hang out in summer

Looking for the portable air tank

Hickory tree field, from the 30-acre lot

Pretty

A coyote runs through it

...

Pretty special

Silly turkeys

Found it

Through the gap into the old pasture lot

Click to see how the sun glitters on the corn leaves

A good man

er....I mean a good dog.

Mike

Getting by

We are. The kids have stepped up and done amazing things. Alan has covered ALL the feeding for nearly 100 animals every day plus going to school plus getting the bagger set up and a little corn chopped. Liz cleaned the barn alone (which is a HUGE job...her hands were all torn up last night) and filled the waterers and did all the calves and so many other chores I can't remember them. Then the two of them milked while Becky and I got some groceries so we will be amply supplied with appropriate junk food (plus some nutritious materials to fill in around the edges.)


This morning the girls and I milked very early as they had to be in school by 8. They had to leave when we were finishing up so I finished alone. Couldn't find a couple cows so they will just have to wait until tonight. It is so foggy and dark mornings. Neither of them is giving much milk so they will be fine. The boss is going nuts wanting to work and keeps coming out to the barn and we keep chasing him back to the house. His shoulder is so messed up...there is a groove in his arm where the muscle came off the bone.


Went to a very valuable meeting yesterday with our new assemblyman, George Amedore. He seems like he may be someone who will work with farmers. I hope so. Liz went too, as she is trying to get into the swing of farm politics in the area. You can't just sit back and let the outside world rumble along without you these days or you will find yourself regulated right out of business. I hope we have raised a set of good citizen activists. I know some of their teachers already drive them nuts with the nonsense they preach. Alan has a guy "teaching economics" in school right now who says that public schools originated because farmers needed to learn time management or they wouldn't be able to become factory workers, because they would go fishing if they felt like it rather than build fences. Oh, and he also says that farming isn't labor intensive any more because of machinery.

I could tell him a thing or two.

Oh, and a hellish awful thing...Patrick Bourque, who has long been bass player for Becky's favorites, Emerson Drive, (he left them in August) died suddenly at his home in Canada. Today would have been his thirtieth birthday I think. We were simply stunned and Beck felt particularly bad as she really liked and admired him.

Not a good horoscope

***Plans are shifting out of place today -- but don't waste your good energy trying to figure out why (because the reason is probably out of your control). Instead, direct all of your good energy toward formulating the most effective reaction to the new situation. You can't afford to have a 'whatever' attitude about any surprises throughout the day. So if something bothers you or frustrates you, take charge and get rid of it. You can put things back on track!***

Above is my horoscope today from Iwon.com. I am not sure if applies to to boss falling while trying to drive a cow out of the barn and dislocating his shoulder, or not, but...
His shoulder popped back in on its own, (after he fainted in the milk house) but the doctor says the muscle pulled out a piece of bone from the top of the humerus. This could heal potentially with 2-4 weeks in a sling. Or he could have torn things that won't heal and need surgery. We don't have insurance so I sure as heck hope not.

Kids all came right home from school and dug in. Professors were nice about letting girls out of class. Liz and Alan fed young stock. Alan fed cows. Liz and Alan are putting an Ag bag on the bagger right now. Becky has several foods cooking and the kitchen in order. I am trying to get my brain going again after standing in the hospital for hours as I guess they don't do chairs.

For the future there is no knowing yet how much soft tissue damage took place. The rest of us are just going to do the milking before the girls go to school. Alan will feed cows when he gets out of school. Now if we can just figure out how to get in forty or so acres of corn that is still out...I may have to hire that done if things don't come along well with the shoulder. Never dull that is for sure.

Shameless bunny

Congress explained

Thanks to a very favorite and incredibly talented cousin of mine, I now understand just how Congress "works".

***this is a video

Amish corn harvest

Hello chicken dinner, goodbye plumber

I stumbled on this via a quote in Food Systems Insider. It was worth a little searching for the source of the quote to find the story about a NYC man who tried to grow and prepare all his own food for a month...in the middle of New York City. (It was a sort of an extreme locavore thing.) He lost 29 pounds trying to feed himself out of his Brooklyn back yard, which perhaps could spell the end of the obesity epidemic, if widely embraced.


I was especially interested to read that it cost him more than $120 per meal to grow his chicken, rabbit and vegetables. I think I can do it cheaper than that here at Northview, even allowing for exorbitant NYS property and school taxes.


I understand the satisfaction he found though. I too find it particularly pleasing when sometimes everything on our table, except perhaps butter and condiments, was raised here on the farm. There is nothing like soup made entirely with vegetables from the garden and beef or pork that we raised or venison from the land. If Liz makes homemade bread it is about as good as it gets. (If you want to be picky, we don't grow the flour or yeast, but still....)


Of course we can't do it all the time, but I love it when we can.


I have also always thought that people who can actually turn a living animal into meat for their table are all too rare and much undervalued. I think the author of this story and his family got that concept very clearly by the end of his experiment. Especially his family....

"Howard said she only began to see his side of things after she banged her head in a dark corner of their basement on a slaughtered Flemish Giant rabbit.

"She asked me if she had hit her head on a dead chicken. When I told her it was a 20 pound (9 kg) freshly-skinned rabbit, I broke down and wept," he said. "I think that's when she realized I wasn't getting off on all the blood and gore, and it was beginning to wear me down.""

I remember all too well the first time I had to butcher a rabbit. It was a very long time ago and it was a matter of get it done or go hungry. It is a skill I don't use much today, but I am not sorry to know how. I give this guy a lot of credit for attempting this experiment and I agree wholeheartedly with his conclusions.

"But now his family has a greater appreciation for the business of food and the people who grow it, he said. And the toil made the food rewarding to eat, even if his kids didn't eat everything he grew."