Just in time for Halloween

Spooky weather

Twenty Million Dollars

Does this mean that our taxes will go down?

Farm Side Friday

Here is this week's version of the Farm Side, which I have written or contributed to for over ten years now. I am having more fun writing it than ever now that I can share it with Northview folks, of whom I have grown very fond and whose opinions I value very much.

The paper has a couple of new staff blogs, following the path of other area papers, both of which offer blogs. My favorite of these is the farm blog at the Times Union, Farm Life, which is written by one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. Teri's farm may be small but she has a real feel for what it means to be a farmer and puts that into words very, very well.

Anyhow, it was mentioned here, that they are looking to get a few more folks blogging at the paper.....(wonder if they know they already have a fairly active blogger contracting for them). I like the idea of blogs associated with newspapers. They offer an opportunity for a more in depth look at the news, a more personal touch, and an up to the minute connection with the media and current events. I hope they do expand the feature and I especially hope my immediate boss does something like start a blog. He is a terrific writer and I miss the column he used to post on Sundays (hint, hint).

LIfe revolves around

Corn this time of year....Chopping it. Changing tires when they go flat. Filling the ag bags. Feeding it to the cows. Bringing ears like these down for the piggies and the hens. Mud, mud, mud (we are so sick of mud.) Forty acres to go and the weather is getting worse every day. I can't wait until they are done and it is all in the bag.

Wonders of Home Weaving

My talented sister-in-law hand wove this wonderful blanket for my especially special younger brother. It is patterned on an antique blanket my parents have had since I was a kid. The original came into the antique shop where we all grew up some long, long time ago. (Growing up in an antique and book store was an experience that had to be lived to be imagined. It was cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and dusty all year round. We read the merchandise and took for granted being able to play in three seat cutters with tiger and horse head lap robes to keep us warm. Thus I have read all of the original Tarzans, Roy Chapman Andrews, Osa Johnson and a vast array of other books that not too many people have had the opportunity to peruse. I didn't appreciate the history surrounding us then but these many years later I surely do.)

(That is a tall brother there, so you can tell it is a BIG blanket)

Matt and Lisa were kind enough to take this photo for me and allow me to post it for you. It looks wonderful to me.
It looks warm too....(which also looks wonderful to me). She made me a blanket a couple of years ago and that puppy doesn't want to wander far from my Sunday chair, else heads will roll. Even in the summer I keep it handy....just in case!

Signs of the Season

The fall migration is in full swing

These are nearly gone now

I keep finding these in the washing machine.

I gather them when I am outside....stick them in my pocket...
and forget them.
Every time.

This is not just welcome now


It is plumb necessary

Kody Lostroh

Liz took this video at Mohegan Sun. I think she did a great job with it and Kody did a great job with the bull too.

Mohegan Sun PBR

PBR at Mohegan Sun

Dip Dog with Nick Landrenau

Liz got some great shots and video at the rodeo yesterday. Here are a couple.

Bucky balls

I am sure many of you scientific types have heard of bucky balls and buckypaper and even understand how they came into existence. To me though the whole concept is new and exciting, nanotechnology not exactly being an everyday tool on a dairy farm.

However, the potential exists for virtually everyone to use material made of buckypaper in some form or other in the future. Just discovering the stuff is incredible. Imagine doing research on manufacture of carbon by stars and turning out molecules that can be made into a substance ten times lighter than steel yet 500 times stronger! Alan and I have been emailing back and forth all morning about it....cool stuff!

Hard frost last night

The TV news report says that it is the official end of the growing season....maybe.....I haven't taken the canvas off the tomatoes yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if we still get a few more. They ripened late and very slowly but we have had all we could eat plus lots to freeze.




The fire in the outdoor woodstove is very welcome these days. This old house is cool in summer and absolutely frigid in winter. (All you folks who have made us blankets and lap robes...you know who you are...we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Our toesies thank you too.)




As soon as all the geraniums I am giving up on (I normally bring in every single geranium and struggle all winter to keep them lush and nice. This year...just a few...I grow them from seed anyhow so I end up with a ridiculous number of them) actually freeze I am going to refill the pots with a little fresh earth and plant lettuce in them. We have grown lettuce indoors for a couple of years now and you can't beat it if you have a bright window.




Liz is off here for this today. Her favorite cowboy, Cord McCoy, is there to sign autographs and ride and her other favorite, Kody Lostroh is too. As of yesterday they were first and second in the standings, which was pretty cool.




It is a long drive to a different state. As the official motherperson I will worry all day and night until she is home. (It is my job and I take my work seriously.) She wanted me to accompany her and I would have loved to go, but it was felt in certain corners that I should stay home and work. So I did. No morning off this week, but it was a pretty morning and I didn't really mind all that much being out. I hope she has a great time and brings home lots of good photos. I hope she meets that nice cowboy that she talks to on the Internet. I hope she calls home soon........

And here is this week's

The Farm Side is a Friday column, so here is a link to this week's right on the heels of yesterday's.


Northview Diary is sort of an offshoot of the newspaper column, which I started writing ten years ago last March. At the time I was working on a novel (and no it never got published) and a friend was writing the Farm Side. He and his wife thought of the name when he was asked to do a farm column for the paper thanks to his excellent letters to the editor. He asked me to spell him once a month as he has a large and very busy farm and a batch of grandkids that need time with grandpa. After a while he asked me to write twice a month and then after a year he decided to call it quits and left the column in my hands (or at my mercy if you prefer).

I enjoyed the chance to write about farming and about life in the valley so much that three years ago in August I started this blog. The first photo here was taken with a disposable camera....how things have changed since then....I have enjoyed this just as much as writing for the paper, mostly because of the dialog with folks who comment. I feel that I have made friends from Canada to Mexico and Florida to California, as well as meeting new people just across the river from the farm. I am thankful for everyone who reads either the Farm Side or Northview Diary....it has been good to get to know you. Thanks for stopping by!

Becky

Has been given a rather special honor. We are pleased and proud. Read about it here.

I have also hired her to move Northview to the new Blogger template. I simply don't have time to move all my links and gadgets, but I am sick of Blogrolling being so unreliable. I like to read most of the blogs I link to and it is frustrating to never see them in the sidebar. Anyhow, I am sure for a couple days until she gets it all straightened out it will look a little strange here, but please be patient with us.
Thanks!

new template

Hey threecollie's daughter here. Northveiw is moving to the newer blogger. If you notice any links missing/ not working drop us a line in the comments or at breezey375@yahoo.com and we'll make sure it gets added.

I'm having a tad of difficulty getting all the link working and or to show up at all. And frankly mommy scares me and she's very attached to this blog...

Farm Side online

As of Monday the paper I write a weekly column for, the Recorder in Amsterdam, has a free website. Thus if you wish to read the Farm Side each week you can do so. Here is a link to last's week's column.

Rain and piggies

After a stretch of exceptional fall weather it is raining again. It never really dried out but now the mud has the consistency of grease.
Hard to walk.
Hard to work.
No corn will get chopped today. These photos are from yesterday, when it was fine enough to pick tomatoes and try to dig out the roots of those giant sunflowers.....unsuccessfully I might add.




Also, yesterday, Alan and Becky made the long trip south to get new piggies, a pair of gilts this year. They are remarkably fuzzy and quite different from last year's pigs. However, we have never gotten one that didn't grow really well from our pig farming folks and I am sure they will be fine. Last year we ended up with the best sausage ever, so we are going to make a lot more this time....believe it or not everybody liked it better than pork chops.

Remember yesterday

Better if clicked

Jay (not Leno)

A collage of blue jays gobbling seeds as fast as they can stuff them in their bills and a video so you can see exactly how fast that is. They clean two or three of these big sunflower heads every day....and this is the last one I have. They are such beautiful birds though that I always am glad when they come out of hiding in the fall when baby rearing season is over.

The color of autumn

Better if larger...do click

Objects in the mirror

Objects in the mirror are sometimes closer than they appear. And sometimes things around the house have greater value than their surface might seem to warrant...value that only appears when you use them and remember how you found them.

This stainless steel milk pitcher is important to me in that way. Like rubbing a lamp for a genie, every time I pick it up to water the plants in the living room, (for that is the job that falls to it now) I remember the day it came into my possession. .

The boss and I were returning from dropping off milk for the church chicken and biscuit supper some years ago, when we passed an intriguing looking garage sale. We were soon glad we stopped as the folks who were running it were a retired farm couple. We had a terrific time comparing stories about the farming lifestyle and playing do you know......? Although we had never met and had never heard their names before we had dozens of acquaintances in common and they had read the Farm Side so they felt as if they knew us. We soon felt the same way about them, in the way you sometimes do when you meet an unexpected kindred soul.

Unfortunately, although they had a great time showing us around the place, there really wasn't much in the sale that we had any use for. The one thing that caught my eye was the little steel pitcher. They had used it to bring milk to the house for years, but now it was just another bit of left over clutter to them. I liked it though...it is nicely proportioned and simply caught my eye. However, I couldn't get the lady of the house to put a price on it....even though it was in the sale....so that I could buy it. After at least an hour and probably a good deal more of enjoyable farm talk we climbed into the car to leave empty handed but full of the pleasure of good company.

As we were backing down the driveway, however, the lady came over to the car and tapped on the window. When I rolled it down she put the pitcher in my lap. I would have happily paid her for it, but she would take no money.

We have never seen them again or heard word of them, so that short time at their garage sale was the only contact we ever had or probably will ever have. Still I think of that kind lady every time I water my plants (and as I have a lot of them, that is quite often) and remember her fondly.
And I treasure it all out of proportion to its intrinsic value and I am sure I always will. You might say it is closer than it appears.

Fog on the Pumpkins