I can't resist the way the sun hits this door and mirror every morning...
Getting ready for the fair in some ways resembles a landslide on a jagged mountainside. It starts with a single pebble click, click, clicking as it falls. It is hard to believe that it will soon obliterate every other aspect of farm life, taking on the semblance of an all-consuming pile of quicksand.
The earliest event in the fair-ward journey is no more earth shaking than that first pebble. While we are milking, someone asks, “Which do you think looks better, Medina or Mendocino?”
A discussion of the relative merits of two calves begins. It is not too heated as it is long before the fair; no one needs to decide anything. Yet.
A totally irrelevant picture
Then as the weeks roll by the rumbling of the avalanche grows ever louder as fair preparations threaten to take over our lives.
The trucker must be called and decorations planned, purchased and assembled. Once chosen, calves must be trained to lead, bathed and clipped. Oh, and hopefully registered in time for the papers to be back before the show. In the case of Mendocino, who was selected over Medina based on pedigree (daughter of Fustead Emory Blitz, bovine equivalent of Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp rolled into one), greater height and sharpness, wider chest floor and the all-important fact that her mother is Lizzie’s favorite show cow, bathing takes on epic magnitude.
She is nearly pure white, not an auspicious color for a show calf. And not to put too fine a point on it, she is a hawg. Show her something brown and she will lie in it. She will dabble her tail in it too and paint her sides as far north as it will reach. (Of course she has a long tail.) If she can’t find something brown to lie in, she is a determined do it yourselfer. So every day, I say to the calf washer, “Throw that Blitz on the wash rack and let her soak while you’re clipping the other calves. And give her some bedding for Pete’s sake.”
This is futile as she eats any and all bedding, then looks around for more.
There is an intense competition between proponents of the little brown cow and fans of the big black and white ones here at Northview too. And of course sibling rivalry must contribute to the thunder of the developing landslide. Thus Alan snidely calls to Liz as she scrubs on Hazel, this year’s Jersey junior heifer calf, “Rub harder, maybe you can get all that brown off.”
He also takes me aside and suggests (quite loudly of course), “I know just what to do for Liz for Christmas this year. We’ll get some black and white paint and paint all her Jerseys. Then at least they will look like real cows instead of pasture lice.”
I shake my head and wonder at the wisdom of a lad who insults his sister’s favorite cattle while she has a fully charged water hose in her hand. Especially in light of the fact that the fair starts next week and she has a driver’s license and he doesn’t.
Ah well, as the number of days between now and truck-in day decrease, the spirit of cooperation increases, out of dire necessity if nothing else. There had been a vociferous battle, with many verbal stones thrown, over whether Alan’s two-year-old heifer, Bayberry, would go to the show or not. Like many boys he has sometimes used the necessity for him to go to the fair to care for his critters as an excuse to hit the midway with his buddies. This leaves big sister with his cow to work with along with her own. Not a popular phenomenon. Threats and imprecations are uttered on this topic.
Then terrible weather intervenes. There is no way Alan can go to the fair every day to pamper a cow. He can get over there for show night but otherwise he is needed at home to make hay. If the sun shines.
His sister has the choice of taking Bay herself or not having enough milking entries to qualify for Premier Exhibitor or Master Breeder.
Bayberry is going. Liz even rubs liniment on her sore stifle every day. (Poor thing slipped and fell a couple of weeks ago.)
As fair time approaches even the house begins to show the effects of the uproar. There are artificial maple leaves, fake wheat and a bunch of other funky stuff sticking up out of the mismatched sock basket and surging up from the cushions of the couch as if growing there. A crisis emerges when it is noticed that the stall sign for Liz’s Jersey aged cow, Dreamroad Extreme Heather, reads Dreamroad Extreme Heater. However appropriate that might be this summer it must be changed.
Of course an ever-helpful sibling suggests taking off both “H’s” and calling her Dreamroad Extreme Eater.
At least this year Liz is clipping at home, where it is quiet and the electrical outlets work. She was raving today about how nice it is to have the calves all done except for their ears (had to make a trip to town to get new ear clippers yesterday). I point out that I have been suggesting that she do them at home for at least ten years now. She doesn’t want to hear it.
A new dilemma arises. It has rained three days out of the last week. The oats that have been carefully saved in the field to provide bedding for fair stalls are still standing. It is too wet to mow, let alone bale them. Ditto the special second cutting field set aside for show cows. And the first cutting.
Frantic discussion of where enough bedding for ten head and good stuff to feed them can be found before next Monday ensues.
As piles of sand and gravel from the clattering landslide rise high enough to cover my ears, I pray for sunny days. Soon. Oh, and a little extra patience wouldn’t hurt either.
Yet another, equally irrelevant picture, taken at the same time.
As per request
****** Tomorrow I will tell you about actually getting to meet another blogger...first time ever and way too cool!
We got this picture from the driveway at one garage sale. 
My porch deer
You can see why we named him Elvis. He always has to have center stage. 
For saving me on days like this....yesterday the crop insurance auditors (and the Farm Side deadline); today the last high school concert, a bittersweet milestone on the map of family life. This is a tribute to my late mother-in-law, which I don't think I ever actually published. I believe that I wrote it in 2002. She and I had our differences as any two cooks in one kitchen and women on one farm will do. However, I loved her and found out just exactly how deeply when she passed a way. Living here in her house a day never goes by that I don't think of her. I hope I somehow measure up to what she would have wanted...so here's to Peggy, one of the greatest women I ever met...
She was born in the town of Stark in the year fifteen. At first she was so tiny that her daddy, Frank, carried her around the house on a pillow for weeks. Her family wondered if she’d make it at all.
What an illusion that frailness was. She started helping Frank on his farm on Fiery Hill as soon as she could toddle. Milking cows by hand and doing fieldwork were as natural to her as breathing. When I met her she could still push her head into a big Holstein’s flank and make the milk fly with her small but purposeful hands. On Saturdays in spring she had to lead the big buckskin, Dan, pulling the cultivator up and down the rows of corn.
Later she told me how hard it had been to trust the horse not to squash her. She was fearful that his big black hoofs would stomp down on her bare feet and crush them into the hot dust of the cornfield or that he would drag the cultivator through the tender new corn. Still the work had to be done no matter how scary it was. She loved to ride him though, steering him with the driving bridle.
Dan was one of Frank’s fine workhorses, probably more a carriage type animal than a big, heavy horse like you see charging around the show ring today. He was so slow and deliberate in his tread that he never tipped over a stalk of the precious corn. He never did step on her either. She talked about him seventy years later as if he were still waiting out in the barn.
She started school in a one-room schoolhouse, when the teacher came to board at her home when she was three. We have a picture of her, bundled in a thick black coat, much shorter than the other students, but smiling hugely. She always loved to learn. Her education spanned eight decades and encompassed everything from gardening to a knowledge of politics as broad and deep as any scholar of the art. (There are those of us who learned to do our homework before we got into a political discussion with her. It was the only way to avoid walking away muttering and wondering what hit you.)
Frank was a renowned horseman in that area. His teams were called upon when no one else’s horses could get loads of ice or lumber up Fiery Hill. Whereas other farmers had to couple two or three pairs together, Frank could get the job done with one pair of his horses. We have a picture of him driving his yoke of oxen and, so in step are they, that it appears that there is only one ox, the off animal’s legs being totally hidden behind those of the nigh one.
Sadly, Frank was the one who was frail in reality and he died when she was twelve. As often happened in those days, the family was split and she was separated from her mother and sisters. She was sent to live with an old friend of the family who needed extra care, then later found a home with a woman who owned a diner in Booneville. She loved that restaurant and remembered the people who worked with her there very fondly. Roy, the irascible cook dominated the kitchen like a king and kept the girls on a run. She gave him his comeuppance one day when he bent over to check something in the oven as she pared potatoes nearby. She reached out with the razor sharp paring knife and nicked every stitch in the back seam of his trousers. He laughed and gave her hell.
There were some famous patrons among the simple farmers and loggers at the diner. Walter Edmonds, author of Drums Along the Mohawk and Rome Haul, was a regular summer customer. She said that he loved the strawberry shortcake and often stopped in for some during the season.
The loggers came in hungry for fine food after months in logging camp. Hobos were never turned away without a hot meal and a sandwich for the road. There was even a special, substantial dinner that was laid out for any itinerant who called at the back door, with lots of hearty bread and potatoes and gravy to stick to the ribs.
The good cooking she learned at the Brown Derby never left her. She could turn out apple pies with crust as moist and light as the early morning fog at the beginning of a perfect July day. She taught my girls and Alan to cook too. It’s scary. Liz is fifteen and teaches me new recipes. They even inherited her special ability to never use one dish when two would do. When they finish in my kitchen I start looking for the tornado.
She married a local dairy farmer in forty-three and later had two sons. They set to farming with a determination few today could imagine. They raised strawberries and pigs to pay the mortgage. Then they bought a second farm next door. When milking machines came in, her husband milked his string with the new invention while she milked twelve cows by hand-twice a day. Even when her hair was snow white and her steps had slowed enough that toddling grandchildren could keep up with her, she could still send streams of milk drumming onto the floor when she hand-stripped a cow.
At eighty-three, she was still milking cows. Even when she slipped on a grape dropped by an errant grandson and broke her arm; she went to the barn and washed cows with the good one.
She wouldn’t stay in the house in any weather. Snow, ice, it didn’t matter. It was a good thing that the old dog, Beethoven, would let her use his fur to pull herself back up when she fell, because there was no getting her to quit.
Last September, just eighteen months after her husband passed away at ninety, she had a massive heart attack. Nine months later, she died on my birthday, July 4th. It’s pretty empty in the old farm kitchen now. There is nobody to tell me how to grow cannas or cook ham or stuff zucchini. I miss her more than she could ever know.
Last nightBack in 2001 I told you about some types of cows that grace the average dairy farm, from Feed-Flinging Freda to Light Foot Lucy. Recently I realized that there are personality types among calves as well. You might notice this especially when, for one reason or another, (such as the regular stalls being full), there are baby cows tied in all sorts of weird and wonderful places around the barn. A very common and painful calf is the Knee-Buckin’ Biter. These little darlings know darned well that anything human probably has a bucket of milk secreted somewhere upon their person. KBB’s obviously believe that if they grab that human by the side of the leg, dig in their lower front teeth, and punch very, very hard with their flinty little heads, the bucket of milk will instantly be forthcoming. Actually the only thing forthcoming is the howl of pain produced by the poor human when their knee is chopped from under them while several precise curls of flesh are gouged away by chisel-like baby teeth. One of the twins that was born last week is a ferocious Knee-Buckin’ Biter. I have learned to squeeze around her, just out of reach of her eager mouth, but she nailed Ralph good this morning, much to his painful dismay.
Then there is the High-Kickin’ Heeler calf. A calf of this persuasion will stand quite still, calmly munching grain, as you walk by. Molasses wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Then just as you get almost past, but still nicely in reach, she will thrust both hind feet skyward, as if performing the Highland fling before an audience of thousands. Hoofs will flash past your head making you flinch in terror and manure will splatter all over you. And that’s if she misses. If she connects, well, all I can say is ouch.
More of a nuisance than a danger is the Rope-Chewing Chaser. These calves can’t seem to get enough fiber in their diet, no matter how much forage they eat. If they are tied properly with collars and chains they cause few problems, but woe betide the farmer who ties one up with some handy dandy bailing twine. Sweet little calfie-poo will gaze introspectively ceiling ward without a care in the world, all the while contemplatively chewing and eating the rope that ties her up, the one that holds her water bucket, and any loose twine she finds lying around too. Besides being the one that is running gleefully up and down the aisle every time you come to the barn, she is also the one who has all kinds of tummy problems caused by eating string.
There is a whole subset of calves that become apparent when someone begins training for the show season. First is the Thick-Headed Thrower calf. These little fools don’t seem to realize that the most pampered and beloved calves in the world grow up in a show string. As soon as a calf of this type has a halter placed on her noggin (which is apparently empty) and is asked to come along quietly, she revolts ala Gandhi.
She rolls her eyes, tosses her head, throws herself up side down (preferably in the gutter) and lies there as if taken suddenly dead. No amount of pulling or cajoling will induce her to stand up until she is positive that she has won the battle. Calves of this sort miss all the fun of going to the fair and being patted, puffed and coddled all together.
People-Pinching-Punchers are an alternative form of show calf. They are all too happy to move, but are lacking in both braking mechanism and spatial judgment. A PPP calf will squash you flat against a wall in the blink of an eye. She will also gladly drag you to the wash rack at a canter without regard to obstacles, such as people, baby strollers, Hereford bulls the size of semis, or mounds of hay bales belonging to someone else. PPP’s will clear lawn chairs and leap tall buildings at a single bound. Nobody likes them; everybody has them.
Then there are the Toe-Tapping-Topplers. These little sweethearts neither play dead nor run over your prone body (after they render it that way). Instead a TTT bides her time, strolling elegantly around the show ring, head held high and proud, looking like the star of the show that she knows she is. Then, just when the judge, (and all the spectators), are looking right at her (and you, of course), she steps firmly on your foot anchoring you solidly in place. She then nudges you firmly with her shoulder, dumping you neatly into the shavings in the ring. (At least you hope it is only shavings.) Every one laughs and you look monumentally silly. Your foot hurts like heck too.
The garden pond is beginning to shape up a little
Naturally, not unlike the Plain Old Polly milk cow, who does her job day in and day out without theatrics or fanfare, there is the Lovely-Little-Lady calf. LLL’s don’t kick, bite, or run rampant through the barn raising Cain. These ordinary critters stay where they are put, eat cow feed instead of body parts, and treat people with respect and affection. We have one of those right now; a KPat daughter named Frieland KPat Evidence. (We call her Evie). One of Becky’s babies, she stands tied on the corner of a busy walkway, right next to the curb where we like to sit while we wait for the last few cows to finish milking. We avoid tying calves there when we can, as they turn into KBB’S or HKH’s very quickly and make everybody miserable when they sit there resting their tired feet. However, Evie just eats, moves her fanny out of your way when you walk by, and lays her head in any convenient lap (if ear scratches are offered by the lap’s owner). Needless to say I wouldn’t mind having a dozen Evies. However, like all barns, ours is full of all the other kinds.
Bassist Keith Carper
Another shot, also showing drummer Nico Leophonte
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