Dead Cow

Another old Farm Side for you today. Dead Cow actually left us several years ago, passing away in her sleep in her stall one night. She lived to be a very elderly cow, despite her perils of Pauline sort of life.

Born in 1992, and a little on the small side, she was an ordinary black heifer. We called her 403, the number on her eartag, although her name is Frieland AE Dandy Vanity. She quickly faded into bovine obscurity, merely another in a barn full of heifers.

In 1995 a horrible strain of pneumonia swept through the milk cows. 403 was milking by then, a little on the kicky side, but not bad, just another bovine in a barn full. She stood in a stall way back by the calf tie-up, about as far from the barn door as a cow could get.

When I went into milk her one night during the epidemic she seemed hot and sluggish. There were funny little bumps on her rib cage. I poked at one and it crackled like cellophane. “Oh, boy,” I thought, “this is real bad.” Crackly lumps on a cow’s body indicate air under the skin, which emanates from lungs that are somehow pierced. The poor cow had a temperature of 105 degrees too.

We called our vet, who examined her and pronounced her very seriously ill. She had pneumonia and one of her lungs had begun leaking air. He treated her with a new antibiotic and instructed us to move her to a stall near the door. According to his reckoning, she would most likely be dead by morning. She could barely stagger around the barn to the first stall and once there stood with her head down and ears drooping, ignoring the tasty second-cutting hay we offered her.

We felt lousy about it, I’ll tell you. Half a dozen other cows were sick by the time we finished milking although none as bad as 403. We injected them with the new drug, fed them the choicest feed we had and went to the house, debating where we could find a chain to drag the dead cow out with in the morning.

She didn’t die. When we nervously peeked in from the milkhouse the next morning she stood in her new stall with a huge mouthful of hay, chewing eagerly, eyes bright, ears up.

It took several weeks for the air under her skin to dissipate, and she didn’t milk all that great that year, but she surely lived. When we moved her back to her old stall, she had earned a new name. She was now known as “Dead Cow”. Decent people would have been eternally grateful to the vet for saving her and exultant that such an effective new antibiotic was available. Brats that we are, we instead teased the poor man unmercifully and pointed out the dead cow, happily chomping feed, every time he came to the farm.

The next spring Dead had another bout of pneumonia, but once again survived. She kept right on surviving until last February when, at nine years of age, she had a huge bull calf. She pinched a nerve in her back giving birth so both hind legs knuckled over at the fetlock. When she tried to stand up she would panic and scramble frantically, injuring herself worse each time. Our current vet took a look at her and, once again, predicted a grim outcome for the old cow. With both hind legs bent and her body bruised and battered from her frantic struggles, it looked like she was going to be living up to her name. She still stood in the same stall, where Liz milks now. The stall is narrow and Liz was afraid Dead would fall on her, so we moved her again, over to a wider stall on my side of the barn. We tied a 2 X 4 to the dividers in the new stall so when she tried to get up, she could get a good grip with her injured legs and filled the stall with sand and straw. The vet gave her some anti-inflammatory drugs.

Thus Dead Cow and I began a long course of working together to get her healthy again. Despite her injuries she was milking well and the same determination that got her through her other illnesses was evident again. She learned to dig her toes into the 2 X 4 to get up and stood, swaying precariously, while I milked her. By summer she was staggering out to pasture with the rest, never left behind, just frog-hopping along to keep up. There was a problem though. She had stood all her milking life in the stall by the calf tie up and, by heck, she was determined to keep standing there. Liz was still afraid of her so she had to stay on my side. In the hurly burley of cows racing into the barn to get their grain there was no way to turn her north without causing a pile up, so we reached a compromise. Dead ran into her old stall and gobbled down a scoop of grain, then, when all the other cows were locked up, she teetered back around the barn to her new stall for another scoop. It was late last fall before we finally got her weaned to going straight to my side of the barn.

She had more adventures this year. A cat scared her one night during milking and she broke her stanchion out of its moorings and galloped around the barn in terror, with it banging around her neck. It finally fell off and she ran outdoors, where she spent the night, refusing to even approach the barn door. Next morning she came in as if nothing had happened. She lost a pregnancy too and it looked like curtains for her then. She bred right back though.

Lately there’s been talk among upper management of selling her before she comes up with another way to kill herself.

Over my dead body. D C and I became good buddies over the last couple of years. She doesn’t fall on me and I don’t get mad at her for running around clanging her stanchion and scaring the other cows. She can walk right now too and she’s due for a new calf in May.

Besides she gave 19,000 pounds of milk last year.

Not bad for a dead cow.

Friday is when the Farm Side runs

This ran several years ago

What do you get when you put three harried women in a Wal-Mart parking lot on a really hot, humid day and give them two sets of car keys and two sets of errands to do? You get a disaster of unprecedented proportions that’s what. Even the time the sliding door on the side of the minivan fell off and the kids and I had to tie it on with dog ropes so we could get home couldn’t compare.

On this fateful day we were two days to camp week and counting. Things had already begun to get crazy. If you don’t think removing three of the five workers at this place for seven days doesn’t create difficulties, just try it sometime. Everyone was spending the week trying to get all the normal work caught up, digging worms in the off hours, marshaling fishing poles and life preservers during spare moments and planning, planning, planning all the rest of the time. The guys were chopping hay that day so the girls and I rushed off to purchase two cans of coffee and two packs of bathroom tissue and two of just about every other staple you could imagine. We were hoping that the younger kids and I could go to camp and Liz and Ralph could stay home in comfort, supplied with all the essentials. I was still gathering extra dog food and paper plates when the girls got bored and asked to go to the car. Because I have been known to lock my keys in the car I carry two sets of car keys. One is the big set marked with a cow neck chain tag that we actually use to drive the car. The other is a little ring with a car key and a house key that I keep in my pocket. Always. I gave them the little set because it was handy and went on shopping.

By the time I got to the car, I was hot, tired and footsore so I asked them to go back inside to pickup the photos I had left for one-hour developing. With all the ambition that is normal for teenagers, they whined and refused. I dragged myself back out of the car, leaving my purse behind.

It is awful heavy.

Naturally at the last second they decided to come too and jumped out of the car, locked the doors and ran to catch up.

Leaving both sets of keys in the car, one in the ignition and one in my Conservationist Magazine commemorative tote bag.

The fun began. One of the windows in the back of the van was open, you know, the big one that just springs out from the side of the car about two inches. Could we stick an arm through the crack and tug a lock up? Nope, those darned engineers must have planned it that way. Liz went back for some metal coat hangers. Could we twist three of them together and snatch the little key ring out of the ignition where it dangled so temptingly? Nope, three coat hangers just bent and twisted and hooked everything but the keys. We caught plastic bags and seat belts; we snagged the steering wheel and newspaper, but no keys. Could we get the dangly handles on my tote, which sat so tantalizingly close between the front seats. Nope, not that either. The coat hangers were just too wimpy to stay straight.

I went down in the woods alongside the lot and found a long skinny poplar stick. We all had our hair tied up in braids or knots, so we sacrificed our hair ties to fasten a coat hanger hook onto the stick and tried using that to get the elusive purse handle. It didn’t work. People pointed and laughed. Little old ladies offered advice.

Finally in disgust I stomped off toward the store to try to buy a nice straight (and hopefully cheap) fishing pole for our key fishing expedition. We figured Alan could fish with it after we were done. If we ever actually got the keys that is.

Just as I reached the door Becky came racing up. Liz had hooked the purse handles. Naturally, the ungainly thing caught under the edge of the back seat and the hook in our hanger threatened to straighten out if we pulled too hard. Of course the stick wouldn’t quite push it out from under the seat.

Finally after an hour and a half of guddling around with two coat hanger hooks, the bag was hauled up against the window in weary triumph. However, no one could get their fingers into the side pocket where the keys resided. I pulled the edges flat against the edge of the window with just the tips of my fingers, since that is all there was room for. Liz wedged her arm between the glass and the frame and dropped the various items her fingers contacted in the pocket onto the floor of the car.

Suddenly, success. She caught the very tip of a key between the ends of two fingers and fished the whole set through the window.

We danced around the empty parking space next to our old minivan singing, “Boo yah, farm girls rule.” We did it and we were darned proud of it.

Why didn’t we use the cell phone Liz had in her pocket to call the guys back home? It would have been easier.

First they were most likely out in the fields and wouldn’t even know we had called for hours. Second, asking for help from the guys doesn’t come all that easy to us country girls. We are used to dealing with our own flat tires, doors falling off the car and other such catastrophes. And third, we were just too darned embarrassed to admit that we had done something as stupid as lock, not one, but two sets of keys in the car at the same time.

****This is one huge advantage of being privileged to write a weekly column for the local newspaper. When you do something staggeringly dumb you can make a joke of it and actually get paid for your pain......

Yesterday on the Farm

Click to see the geese coming in and the huge number of feathers floating on the water.

One of the swamps along Corbin Hill Rd.

Goose feathers floating by

Mirror, mirror on the pond.

Cat tails

We did so much stuff yesterday and took so many pictures I could get a week of posts and still not get em done. As you can see we stopped at the pond on the way home from grocery shopping.




We checked out the culvert where we saw so many fish this spring. Someone had been busy filling it up. On one side of the road humans had removed the sticks. On the other they completely blocked the entrance to the tube. There were fresh drag marks where this busy little _________ had been hauling sticks just before we got there. We spent some time wondering what had made those marks, but I woke up this morning knowing the answer.

Morning was pretty.

A hawk caught something in the barnyard and ate it in the dead elm tree over the heifer barn.

The Jersey girls

Hillbilly Deluxe,
never still for a moment

and her sister (not to mention cousin) Moments

Grain we want grain!!

Pet us, please, please please






Wild Alien Jerseys

This post is in part published for Knolltop Farm Wife, whose family recently entered the clan of Jersey owners. Don't ever let anybody tell you that Jerseys are just Holsteins in little brown suits....they are not your average cows in any language.

Match-o-Matic

Compare statements by presidential candidates to see whether you will vote for Obama or McCain.
This is a lot of fun...accurate at least in my case, and there are some statements that will surprise you I'll bet.

Another one to gitcha mad

5-year old mistakenly put on bus and dumped in the middle of NYC. Talk about egregious! It is lucky a decent person was the first individual he approached so he made it home all right.

JBS Swift fires Muslim workers

I was really surprised by this development. Companies seemed to be bowing to worker pressure to change the rule in the workplace, then this popped up in the news yesterday. Swift is a Brazilian-owned mega company, one of five-ish that controlls most of the beef in this country. It is attempting to buy out two of the other major players, a deal which, if completed, will concentrate sales in very few hands.

A look at Sundae on the Farm 08

Haunted mornings

This fog seems to be keeping first frost at bay. It is as if the earth has its feet in different seasons now, one firmly planted in summer and the other slipping over the edge into fall. We get freeze warnings and watches every evening, but so far, at least down here by the house, it hasn't frozen yet. Days the temp goes up near 70 and the sun is like a comforting beacon. It feels good to go outside and soak up the warmth.




Alan, our resident fisherman, is catching the gold fish from the garden pond for me....one by one. They are ellusive little beasts and don't seem to want to join us in the house. However, the past two winters I have kept them outdoors with a heater in the pond. First winter the heater failed and all but one froze. Second winter, heater worked fine and they all wintered over only to succumb (all but one again) to bacterial infection caused by stress in the spring. Enough already. We have a twenty gallon tank and a ten. They can join the guppies and the Betta and see if that works better.




We keep harvesting more sweet corn even though it is getting kind of tough. I am glad Agway keeps a record of whatever variety we buy because whatever this stuff is it is really good.Ike knocked a lot of it down but it is still easy enough to pick a couple of dozen ears in a few minutes. Tomatoes are ripening nicely. Some year I will realize that one or two plants of each cherry tomato variety is enough. I think I planted about ten currant tomato plants and discovered that even if you eat all you can stomach every time you go to the garden there will be hundreds (and hundreds) left. The grape tomatoes from last summer volunteered and produced well too. Never thought I could get sick of tiny tomatoes, but there it is.



Wish I knew more about harvesting sunflower seeds. I have been cutting the heads one by one (when they get low enough to bonk me on the head when I am digging potatoes....they remind me of giant showerheads. You wouldn't think it, but a sunflower head can deliver quite a thump). They remind the blue jays and chickadees of lunch counters. As we speak a whole flock of jays, silent all summer, are careening around the house, shrieking and beeping and barking.....I'll bet they are scarfing seeds up in the garden too. They will be welcome as soon as I get enough seeds saved to grow more next summer... I am hoping the ones I am picking are ripe enough to dry and plant. Some of them are the most amazing deep purple color...which rubs off on your fingers if you pick out seeds. It amazes me how much of our produce never makes it in from the garden. They are sure tasty.

Can you guess what this is?
NYV probably knows.

Amazing vegetable marrows

Last winter I won a small contest on MySpace given by a guy named Jesse. Jesse grows and sometimes sells seeds from giant plants. He was kind enough to send me seeds for sunflowers, sweet basil, watermelon, amaranth and vegetable marrows. We got one marrow early in the season, then the plant went wild, sending vines thirty feet or more in several different directions. As the vines were threading themselves through tall grass on a steep bank behind the house we didn't pay too much attention to them.

Yesterday there were serious frost warnings out. Liz and I spent much of the day picking, covering, and moving tender plants. We also began taking down the plantings in the garden pond and continued the absurd saga of trying to capture the gold fish to bring them inside (they seem to like it out there).

Just for the heck of it I clumbered around on the grassy bank to see if there were actually any marrows out there. I was so amazed to find these that I hollered loud enough for Liz to hear me from the house. She came out and dragged them down the hill for me and here they are.




Vegetable marrows are a sort of a vining zucchini-type thing. Big as these are....and they are the size of watermelons...they are still tender to the fingernail test. I am kind of nervous about eating them....but aren't they cool?


***Update: I cut the neck of the little one up and put it in a potato, bacon, corn and squash casserole I made last night. It was okay but the regular zucchini had a much nicer flavor.

Sundae on the Farm

2006 Sundae on the Farm
at Hu-Hill Farm,
one of my favorites ever

The big event will take place this Sunday, 12-4, at the Conbeer Farm over across the river from us. If you live within driving distance, don't miss the giant free ice cream sundae, live animal demonstrations, horse-drawn wagon rides, live music and all kinds of opportunities to meet farmers and learn about farming. Some events are for fee, but most stuff is free and you sure can have a good time enjoying the beginning of the season.

Sundae on the Farm is always a great time for all involved.. An amazing amount of volunteer hours go into it and the results are worth the effort. I have attended a number of them, sometimes just for fun, and sometimes because I am on the Montgomery County Farm Bureau board of directors and have to do my part. This year I will probably be there and Liz definitely will be. If you are coming let me know and maybe we can meet up.





Here are directions to the event:
From Amsterdam - Rte. 5 West for 8 miles, go through downtown Fonda- about 1 mile, take slight Right onto Hickory Hill Rd. Farm 3.5 miles on right
From Rte 90 (Thruway) – Exit 28, turn Left onto Riverside Dr, at traffic light take Right, at next traffic light turn Left onto Rte. 5 West, 1 mile through downtown take Right onto Hickory Hill Rd, Farm is 3.5 miles on Right

Making a case for banning all bread

Here

Mars pet food recall

Gael hates the camera, but she likes Pedigree

Here is the website with codes for the new recall.


I am sure everyone remembers the horrible round of petfood recalls. at Menu Foods last year, which resulted in numerous deaths of pet dogs and cats. Now Mars company has recalled some pet foods too apparently because of salmonella contamination.

When I heard the TV in the other room announce the recall my ears perked right up. Mars makes Pedigree and we have fed the small crunchy bites since Mike was a puppy. He had a lot of health problems when he was a young dog and it seemed to be the only thing he could eat. Now he eats pretty much anything, including nasty vegetables he steals out of the compost bin, but we had success with the food so we continued to feed it.

I went right to the Mars website to check out the codes on the 40-pound bag in the pantry. Sure enough the UPC was right there on the list.

Oh, good. We have five dogs. There is about five pounds of food left in the bag.

Now what? I kept perusing the site, hunting for more information. Finally I found it. Besides the particular UPC that was on our food there also was a small three letter code, which indicated the bad batch. Our bag doesn't have it. I was not terribly worried as it takes quite a while for the mutts to munch their way through 40 pounds. If they were going to get sick I figure it would have already happened......still.......

Blogger Comments

Comment eating crows

So far three kinds folks have let me know they are having trouble commenting or even getting on Northview to read posts. I am not sure what is going on, but if you are having difficulties and would like to let me know, you can drop me an email at:
threecollie at yahoo dot com

I will try to straighten things out as soon as I figure out what is causing the problem.
Thanks!

As goes Blogger, so goes the morning sky...weird that is, just plain weird.

A good one from Terry Etherton

Here is his take on some of the unsound science being used to convince people that conventional food is somehow lacking.

Happy Big 6-0 to the boss

Liz worked, literally all day yesterday, producing a birthday feast for her dad....chicken and biscuits from my birthday chickens, green bean casserole from my aunt and uncle's green beans, mashed potatoes from the garden, southern biscuits, and this amazing three-layer chocolate cake with white chocolate chips.....I have only one thing to say...Hooray for leftovers!!

Corn

The past week has been an epic journey of corn for Liz and me. The boss planted ten pounds of sweet corn last spring.





I swear every single kernel grew and a lot of stalks produced two ears. You already know how we kept the raccoons out of it. Every day except a couple when there was just too much else to do the two of us picked and husked corn.

Boiled it.

Cut it off the cob.

Stuffed it in bags.

And then into the freezer.

We did over 180 ears today, but most days around 110 was enough to use up the time we had. Today may be the last as it is getting a little tough...not bad, but we have two and a half freezer shelves full and we are sending a beef tomorrow.




Here is a short video of Hurricane Ike buzzing through. Pretty mild compared to what he got up to in other states....just a big wind here.

My handsome cousin made the NY Times

Check it out!

I babysat for that fine young man!
Not to mention learning to love farming while running tame on his family's dairy farm. How cool is that?!?

Serene

Hello New Sitemeter

And good bye (and good riddance) all in the same day. I have used Site Meter as a hit counter since the beginning of Northview and I like it. Tried half a dozen other statistical devices and never found anything remotely comparable. I particularly love the referral report which tells me how visitors get here....not to mention that lots of other people spell Palin wrong as I did when I first posted the ten facts about her. I spelled it Paliln. Search term tracking says that lots of other folks do too.

Then this weekend the company rolled out its new "improved" version. I obediently installed the new counter code, only to find that all the reports I read each day were simply gone. In their place were charts and graphs in a nearly microscopic font that told me next to nothing. I tried for quite a while to make the new version work for me, but eventually gave up. I have always used the free version so I suppose I have no right to complain. However I did send them a note about how unworkable I found the new site, then went surfing for something else that would serve.

Imagine my amazement when I clicked on my Site Meter icon later today to find a message that they were migrating the site back to its original form. I was delighted. Like all applications, Site Meter has its faults. However, I have become accustomed to it and comfortable using it and like most human beings I hate change. Many thanks to the company for fixing things up so promptly.