Busy, busy

*The milking machines waiting to be washed after milking yesterday*

The various weathermen and women in the area seem to agree that it is going to get cold and storm over the next few days. Consensus is rare among them, so we are hustling around today getting ready. The boss is feeding the cows up right now; all the heifers are down from the hill and hanging around pestering him while he tries to work. I suspect that he wishes they were back out.

*The path to the orchard, made by Becky and Jack, but used by me in my woodquests*

I have been up in the old orchard gathering odds and ends of dry wood off the ground and from the old apple trees, which seem to shed dead branches like a dog sheds hair. A couple of wheelbarrows full of that stuff and the stove will really get cranking....and the kitchen will get nice and toasty. As soon as the cows are taken care of the boss is going out to get us some serious wood (as opposed to the frivolous little stuff I haul in with my trusty wheelbarrow). I am afraid we are going to need it.

*The wimpy wood I find*

It is a fine day for working outdoors, sunny...temps probably hitting the low forties. It doesn't really feel much like November, although there have been plenty of gloom and doom days to remind us of the season. Tomorrow however it is supposed to be much colder with northwest winds and snow...naturally, since, Liz is off on a school field trip to Ithaca tomorrow. Her class is going to tour the bull stud at Genex, which should be interesting. (In fact I am kind of jealous.) The boss and I went, or tried to go, to Sire Power down in Tunkhannock years ago, but we got lost, so it was closed by the time we got there. Oh, well, maybe some day.

Northview girls

Frosting...the heifers are in from the hill

Liquorice ...(I think)

Mandy

Bama Breeze

***Notice that only Bama and Mandy still have ear tags, and all Mandy has is her official USDA tag (required for shows). They ALL had tags like Bama's when they went to pasture. The National Animal ID System, NAIS, will rely on ear tags to trace animals to their source.....what a wonderfully reliable system they are planning.

A couple (or three) links

Stories about the border opening.

One

Two (R-Calf

Three (completely unrelated, but kind of interesting)

Too good to be true

I don't think I have said too much about our ongoing situation with our milk truck driver. It has been just one of those things. Way back in the spring our regular guy got hurt and a substitute began to pick up the milk. (The milk truck picks up every other day here at Northview, which is pretty much the norm for all but the largest farms.)


We always got along wonderfully with our regular driver and his son-in-law, who was his relief driver. They were the kind of guys who glanced in the barn now and then and if they saw something amiss, they dealt with it. For example we left one day to go to the farm show in Syracuse. Chores were done and everything was ship shape when we left. We thought. However, Dale took a look in the barn and there were little twin heifers behind old Zinnia, who had calved early. He knew we were away and put them up in front of their mama where they were safe. It wasn't his job, but he took care of it anyhow.


Dale always picked us up at 9:30 in the morning. It was no problem to be done by then. (It takes at least a couple of hours to feed grain, set up the milkers and to actually milk the cows. By the time you factor in actually getting up, getting dressed, making coffee, letting the dogs out and walking to the barn, you have to get up pretty darned early even to be done and the milk cooled by then.)


At first the new guy did the same. We missed Dale, but what could we do? Then he started showing up at 8:30. Then 7:30. Now we were running into difficulties. The milk was still warm when he was pumping it into the truck. (Illegal and wrong.) Still, it was summer and with the kids home we could be done milking by then. So, of course, he backed it up to 6:30. Terrific. Sometimes if we have mechanical problems or a calf to pull, that is when we START! We were starting earlier and earlier and still not being done before he came in. It was pretty frustrating.


We couldn't wait to milk until after he picked up either. Before we can milk again after milk is picked up the tank has to be washed. It takes an hour, which made us too late to milk 12 hours later at night. There were any number of other issues, such as him hooking up the hose to the tank before the milk was measured, breaking the tank washer, and the milk being warm so we got high bacteria counts that we didn't deserve. Still, we soldiered along and compromised at being done at 7:30. He still pulled in at 6:45, but everybody just put up with it all.


Then Monday he didn't show up. He had been promising for six months or so that he would be done driving the first of December since he has a winter job. When another guy picked us up at 9:30 we were absolutely ecstatic. We practically handed out cigars. We figured he had quit early and we could go back to our normal milking hours of 6 or so in the morning and 5:30 at night (which is when we have been milking anyhow, stretching the days out very l-o-o-o-o-n-g.) Happy, happy, happy!


However, just as we were getting ready to put the milkers on at 6:37 this morning, we heard the rumble of the tanker truck down below the gate. We had to shut down, let him draw off the milk, and wash the tank, before we could milk. It put us hours behind and I felt like kicking the wall!
Seems he couldn't get up the driveway Monday because of the ice, so Tyler got the milk. (This is another issue if he keeps driving since the boss can't add another task, sanding the driveway, to our already crowded race to get done before he gets here.)


Woe is me!

Joni's idea

Was to show off some of her favorite Christmas ornaments. Seemed like a great plan, so here are a few of mine. I'd love to see yours too, hint, hint....

Not so wild horses

Made by my mom

Naturally

Here is why I hate corn pickers

This poor man amputated his own arm after getting it caught in a farm implement, which then caught on fire. Our corn picker sits up in one of our fields abandoned because it was too darned dangerous to run...

Rainy days and Mondays

Today is both. There is a fine scrim of ice on every bit of ground, which makes walking a challenge. The milk tanker didn't show up this morning and we are hoping he isn't off the road somewhere.

Yesterday was certainly something. First Nick and Wally got into a discussion through the kennel fence and woke me up way too early for a morning off. Then Alan set out to skin and cut up that nice little buck he got. To his dismay something was terribly wrong with it. Every bit of meat was full of holes and blood clots, essentially ruining it. What a shame! We figure that any one of four scenarios is possible.
1) It got policed in a fight with a much larger buck, which did an amazing amount of damage.
2) Hit by a car.
3) EHD
4) (Most likely in my opinion) Some idiot loaded it full of turkey shot thinking they could kill it with a bird load.

Whatever happened, we won't be eating it.

Then the kid brought down the Christmas tree (I use the term loosely). Last year he got us this tree. We teased him about it but we liked it. I expected something similar this year when he suggested getting another, so I said, "Yeah, go ahead."

About an hour later he dragged this thing in the house.

It is over ten feet high and set up it reaches half way across the living room (you can see how wide that is in the shotgun pellet pictures below.) I am not sure quite what to think of it, but looking on the bright side, there will be room for every single one of my many and various Christmas ornaments on it.... For all of Grandma Peggy's too.... And for all the ones that have been languishing in boxes in the attic for a decade or six.

Half decorated

Wow.....

13 Degrees This Morning

***Late this afternoon Daniel Boone got another deer, a small six-point buck. He was just climbing up into his tree stand with his gun already on the rope (and of course, unloaded-there has already been one death in NY involving a tree stand ladder and a loaded gun) when it walked by. He said it was quite a scurry to get down from the stand, untie and load the 20-gauge. Then he missed it completely. It obligingly gave him a second chance. Another head shot.

Hunting safely

These are our living room windows. We love the view. We don't love the shotgun pellet holes. The glass is very thick and we have been told it would be absurdly expensive to replace so the reminder of someone's vandalism and foolhardiness remains with us. This was done before the folks bought this half of the farm back in '62.

Taking mandatory NAIS to a whole new level.

Here is the story of a farmer who defied NAIS, so the state came in and RFID tagged his cows under a court order. (What part of voluntary did they miss?State troopers enforcing ear tagging rules? Good grief!) Although I do think we need TB testing, I have to say that I admire Greg Niewendorp for standing up to the government on mandatory RFID tags.

Here is a group that wants to make it easier for farmers to direct market to the public without jumping through all the hoops that government has put in front of small operators. I have mixed emotions about some of this, as we do pasteurize milk for a reason, but still it is interesting. We know of several small turkey farms around here that were utterly defeated in their efforts to supply folks with tasty, home-grown turkeys, because state regulations mandated separate stainless steel pans for every turkey and dozens of other rules intended more to stifle small players than to make meat safer.

Happy Thanksgiving

To everyone! This is my favorite holiday. It is all about family, friends and sharing....rather than parties and getting stuff. I like it!


****Photo by Liz, right out on the lawn

Twas the day before.....

Dish washing, yam boiling, celery chopping, pie crust all over the table, onions blending their fragrance (pungently) with that of the three gifted kittens in crates in the kitchen. Liz went down to Gordie and Marie's yesterday and brought home two short haired calicoes and a long-haired black and white tom. Can you imagine a farm running out of barn cats? Me neither, but we only have four old cats and the two little yellow ones I got at Wal*Mart last year left. (Speaking of the scents of Thanksgiving preparations, I just remembered why I don't like cats in the house. Yowsa, tomorrow will be better on that front I hope.)

Liz is cooking the dinner this year (she did last year too because I had the flu) but I helped with the shopping and am helping with the clean up. We hit the stores at 6:30 this morning to miss the crowds and it worked out well. However, we had a touch of excitement on the way home. We were just leaving Johnstown when something black banged off the windshield leaving behind a mark. It made an incredibly loud CRACK sound and scared the heck out of both of us. At first I thought it was a rock from someone's tire and I looked around for a truck or car, which might have thrown it. There was nobody there! Liz thinks it was a spent bullet and I suspect that she may be right.We were right next to an abandoned farm. We didn't need any coffee after that I can tell you!

Would you believe kids over at school were really giving her a hard time yesterday because she is doing the cooking? I don't mind a bit doing it myself. However, she asked a couple of weeks ago if it was all right if she did it. The kids all learned to cook partly from their late grandmother, some from me and some from my mom. They all like to. However, her buddies think it is cruel that we are letting her undertake such a big meal. She says if she had been born just a couple of generations ago she would be married by now and cooking for her own family and doesn't care what they think.

Gee, I'm glad she's not (married and cooking for somebody else I mean). It is nice to lean back and watch someone else doing all the chopping and rolling and boiling. However, it is back to the salt mines for me I guess....well, actually, the kitchen sink. I am waiting for the woodstove to get some more water hot for me and then I will tackle more of those darned dishes.

A little randomness

Grandpa's gold finches

Blue jay inspecting the lawn for errant sunflower seeds

Oh, deer

The final rule

Explained

The link above will take you to a question and answer page on the new rules for importing cattle from Canada to the USA. The USDA will now allow animals born after 1999 to be imported for beef and breeding purposes, plus allowing many more categories of beef products and by products. The coming weeks market-wise should be very interesting, as usually allowing more imports from Canada is rough on cull cow prices here in the US. The final rule also allows many more dairy animals to be imported, usually resulting in excess milk production and lower farm gate milk prices. This time, however, the Canadian Loonie is very strong vs. the American dollar. Things may not be as bad for US farmers as they have been in other years when the border is open (although conservative estimates point to 600,000 head coming south in the next year.)

I am not holding my breath anyhow. The border opens today and we already took a $400 hit on one heifer we sold last week....evidently buyers are planning on higher supplies and lower prices. (We were getting $1200 and got $800 instead for a breeding age Holstein heifer.) Farmers in Canada are already hurting too, due to the divergence between the currencies. I don't pretend to know what will happen in the next few months in either the beef or dairy markets....other than that food giants like Tyson and Dean Foods will prosper and we farmers won't get rich selling our products to them.

We will be

Processing venison today

Blissful joy, a morning off

I didn't see this today....this was actually taken yesterday.

As close as the kid got

Our one winged warrior

Is mostly back to work now. His shoulder will probably never be the same as there are muscles detatched from the bone that are not going to grow back. However, he is a typical tough farmer and just keeps going and going. He managed to get all the corn chopped and finished up Thursday. You can see in this picture from last week that his right arm doesn't work too well, but he gets things done some how...(he is bringing me firewood in this picture, bless his heart.)

Farming is different from most jobs in that respect. There are a finite number of people to do work that is absolutely unforgiving. Cows must eat, drink and be milked. The stove must have wood. Things have been kind of ugly....cows don't get bedded or stables cleaned until late afternoon and I do most of the former. Not so neat and tidy as it might be, but they have something to lie on at night anyhow. One side of the stable manure has been piled outside under the chute for weeks....that will get cleaned up pretty quick now that he doesn't have to try to chop acres and acres of corn with one arm and worn out equipment. Just yesterday, Liz and I helped him get all the fans out of the barn, move calves, change calf collars, build stalls, clean mangers and a half dozen other jobs that have gone begging until we had enough help and time to do them.

Now we have to rebuild the sawdust shed for yearling calf housing, tear out half of the old calf tie up and put in the new headlocks so we can catch the yearling heifers to breed them...oh, and get some Amish in to patch the roof if we can... rebuild the pig housing....get the five bred heifers and two dry cows down off the hill ....and on, and on, and on..etc.....

I am awful glad to have him done with corn and able to help in the barn all day....you just can't imagine how glad.

On another note, today is opening day South, deer season. Cows are all staying in the barn except the seven out on the heifer pasture hill and they have a lot of feed down here to keep them busy and close to the barn. Show heifers are locked in the barn yard. Horses are in the barn.....and my son is somewhere out on Seven County Hill with a twenty gauge and a dream.
I forgot to have him borrow a cell phone from one of his sisters, so I will worry and worry.
I trust him.
It is the poachers who will have by passed our no trespassing signs I worry about. The ones who hunt in full cammo and take sound shots and can't tell a deer from a billy goat or a Jersey cow. It is an insult to call them hunters. They are just idiots. I hope he doesn't meet any.

Still more company

I glanced out at the garden pond yesterday to see an odd creature leaping futilely against the side of it. It was the right size for a sparrow or chipmunk, but it just didn't look right somehow. I grabbed the camera and ran out in the rain to find this guy trying to get in out of the weather. I think it would normally have been an easy hop for so big a green frog, but it was COLD and he was kind of floppy. I took his picture and then gave him a helping hand over the side into the rain-dimpled water. He stroked swiftly to the bottom and vanished under a cinder block.

I just bought a brand new heater, so he should have a comfy place to hibernate this winter, along with the two itty bitty greenies and one large, fat leopard that are already there.

Deer on the side lawn

The kids got up to find this little guy munching on the raspberry vines at the edge of the lawn a couple of days ago. (I missed the whole show due to being over in the barn milking the cows, but I guess he hung around for quite a while.)


The video was taken through the living room window. ....the white blur when Liz pans the camera down to the bird bath is a hole made by some idiot's shot gun pellet some years ago....there are around fifty of them there. Notice that although he looks at the house quite often, he never flags his tail in fear. Notice also the amazing camouflage. The second he walks into the golden rod and wild roses along the horse pasture fence he vanishes. I think he spends a lot of time hanging around the house, actually...partly because of the hoof prints under the window and partly because SOMEBODY is eating all my lettuce.

***It could also be that he has read the game syllabus and knows that opening day of the southern deer season is Saturday and figures it is safer next to the house.