Where the Wild Things Are

They are here. With us. On the farm, in the fields, in the yard, in the trees, sometimes even in the buildings.
Sometimes they make our jobs harder. There was something under the grates in the milking barn last week...We didn't know it until we were bringing in the cows and they started flying through the air like Pegasus or maybe really, really big popcorn. It was probably a raccoon that came in through the stable cleaner chute. It chattered and rattled and terrified the cows, especially Blitz, who jumped a gate into the manger almost on top of me and Alan. It was adrenaline pumping, running and jumping ourselves time for a while....

Now we have to have a big, high gate in that spot, because even though there is nothing under the grates now Blitz is terrified to pass that corner and wants to escape into the manger...twice a day...every day...so does Licorice!

Most times though the wild things bring us immeasurable joy and delight. They add so much to the daily experience of living outdoors in a beautiful and natural setting, while working hard at growing food for America. We actively protect and encourage most critters. For example, I won't let the grey fox family be harmed, even though they eat ALL our berries, as long as they leave the hen house alone. They live right in the three bay shed quite near the house. The boss likes wild turkeys so he leaves out a few rows of corn most years for them and the deer.

However, we can't let them eat or kill everything we own. So we have loosely defined rules and guidelines for dealing with the wild things.

Coyotes should stay out of sight of the buildings and away from the calving pasture. There are 320 acres here of wood chucks, rabbits, a virtual plethora of fat, grain fed (yeah, there was a whole field of our corn that we couldn't get in last fall, that they ate all winter) turkeys, and an almost infinite number of small rodents for their dining pleasure. And deer. If they want big game there are deer. They are welcome in the ag bag field where they eat rats and mice that tear open the bags and spoil the feed.
However, if we see them harassing pregnant cows we will shoot them.
Simple and it seems to me quite fair. We are keeping a huge chunk of land open and welcoming to things they can eat. We know where all the dens are, but we leave them alone.

We ask in turn that they leave newborn babies and birthing mothers off the menu. And they are smart adaptive animals. They can learn. If we quit farming this farm, which borders directly on several housing developments, any new owners will probably not offer them quite as good a deal.

And our farm is kind of a wonder in this modern world of border to border, single crop cultivation. We have woods. We have small fields with thick, brushy hedgerows. They are not a glory in the eye of the extension agent, but the wild things love them...food...corridors for safe and secret travel over our acreage..rocky places for dens and trees and brush of all kinds for nests and hiding places. We could easily bulldoze them all out and grow more corn, but we would rather provide a barrier to erosion and a place for trees and tanagers.

I don't think when we shoot predators that are taking our livestock that we are doing anything immoral or wrong in the natural scheme of things. They protect their own as best they can and we are merely doing the same. We don't go out and wipe out dens or kill things that aren't bothering us or the stock. However, the Eastern coyote moved into this area in the late 70's filling a niche left vacant when wolves were wiped out long before I was born. They are much bigger than Western coyotes and much more eager to eat large animals. In some places they have decimated deer populations. We can't let them kill our cows and calves. And they would.

Around here in recent years they have maimed an elderly pony just down the road and disemboweled calving cows belonging to neighbors, eating the emerging baby as it was being born and killing both mother and baby. (Didn't turn out well for the coyotes either, as the farmer saw them and went for his gun). However, that is simply not something up with which we are going to put.

We personally have had them eat a downer cow that we were nursing back to health...pretty much alive.... in one night..and take probably ten or twelve calves over the years. Not to mention one poor little bull calf, whose ears they ate off. He lived, but...They grew so bold at one point before we lived here that a pair stood on the back porch growling at the nurse who had come to tend to the boss's late mother during her final illness. The nurse had to call us to come drive them away!

So we coexist with the wild things, feed some of them, like the wild birds, leave corn out for the turkeys and deer most years, leave the coyotes alone at the back of the farm but do not welcome them in sight of buildings or in the calving pasture.
The cows are under our protection.
We remove their horns and keep them inside fences and breed them for quiet temperament.
It is our job to protect them.
So we do.

Sunday Stills...Eyes

For more Sunday Stills.........

Not Welcome Here

When we came in from milking last night Becky, who was cooking dinner for us, showed me this picture on my camera. It is a bit blurry because she was in a hurry, but that thing up on the hill is an Eastern Coyote. I thought it was a deer, it is so huge. It had been harrying Liz's pregnant show cow, Blitz, but Blitz ran it off. Guess we will have to start shutting springers in the barn yard or get out the 243 or maybe both.

This is Liz

I am posting this for Mom. I'm sure she would want to share it with you guys. The Farm Side is back up on the Recorder's free website. So here you go!

Baltimore Alarm Clock

This woke me up this morning...quite some time before bright and early.
He was right in the locust outside the window. Alan says you can put out a cup of jelly and they will come to eat (oranges work too, but I don't have any of those.) I will have to try that tomorrow as I have a meeting today.

He was loud but I liked him.

This REALLY Makes Me Feel Good

$2.6 Million Study to get Prostitutes in China to Drink Responsibly


I had the crazy idea that there was a financial crisis going on here in the USA. That the carefully negotiated 2008 Farm Bill was being gutted to save a tiny fraction of the amount being spent willy nilly in Washington. That we are getting universal (and mandatory) health care crammed down our throats one bottle of heavily taxed soda at a time.

And yet we can spend millions to research what is very, very clearly someone else's problem! Come on now....pull the other leg.

CWT Herd Retirement

I don't think much of this program for a number of reasons, but here is the latest news on it.

Wordless Wednesday

Come Walk With Me

In the old horse pasture. The horses are all gone now, except Jack the mini. He doesn't need much more than a little patch of yard. We need to get this big field back under fence though, don't we? Kind of a waste having nothing grazing here, although from the size of these deer tracks, somebody is getting some good out of it. I can't believe that the brome grass is already knee high. I love to see it blowing in the breeze like a flag for spring time. I would love even more seeing cows chomping it down while they fill their udders with lots of good, rich milk.




I always have a hard time deciding whether the gold finches look like flying dandelions or the other way around. They sure are yellow anyhow.

And listen to those catbirds! One over there in the mulberry tree, two in that big apple and at least a couple down below the road. Last week I was wondering why we hadn't seen any yet and now they are all over the place. One almost hit me in the head over by the barn the other day. He had better watch where he is going!



Check this out....wild grape flowers. Any time now they will open and the whole valley will smell like Heaven. They are small to look at, but their scent is my very favorite. Wish I could bottle it.



And these little guys! I haven't heard a frog yet this spring....or at least not here at the farm. I thought maybe they had all died out, but somebody has certainly been up to SOMETHING here in the little pond the boss dug for me way back when.

More About Mother's Day

I hope all the mothers everywhere had a good one yesterday. My mom is away, so I didn't get to actually wish her a happy day, although I did talk to her Saturday.

Anyhow, I got to thinking about how the gifts we receive reflect who we are and how our loved ones perceive us.

Thus, I think I need to tell you about mine....

A jug of brush killing Roundup
An ultra nifty bumblebee fishing lure.
A tidy little angel food cake.
Big bag of black oil sunflower seeds.
Package of beet seeds
Home cooked breakfast of French toast and homemade sausage, cooked by a daughter who also milked the cows so I didn't have to.
A steady, all weekend, uninterrupted supply of library books to read, plus the chance to be the second person to read a first edition Mercedes Lackey
Pile o' firewood....hot water and warm mornings are most welcome in my world.

You gotta love 'em, don't you? My family I mean...I feel so well cared for and sheltered...and so very, very understood!

Happy Mother's Day

To my mom, who is the greatest, and to all you moms out there. You know who you are.....keep up the good work!

Sunday Stills...Black and White

For more Sunday Stills.......

Thunderstorms

Are chaining down the valley. They are quick and windy and wild, with sun shine hot on their heels. I am getting sick of shutting down and unplugging computers.
Maybe I should go do something useful just for variety.

Fox Tail Fern

When I met the boss, his mom had a massive, fine leaved fern kind of thing growing in one of the big windows in the living room. She didn't remember its name, but had bought the seed from which it grew by mail order long before I met the family...well over twenty years ago. It has at this point got to be over thirty years old.

She treasured that plant and pampered it more than any other, and she had an amazing green thumb. When she passed away I inherited its nameless, one of a kind, self.

I had no idea how to care for it and wasn't on the Internet at that time...so I muddled along for years, slowly figuring out that it loves water and will be pot bound no matter what I put it in, as it expands to fill available space seemingly overnight. Finally after years of looking at assorted house ferns on the net, I discovered what it was.

It has made seeds for years, but nobody ever did anything with them, until spring before last I stuck two in with tomatoes I was starting for the garden.




To my total amazement in late summer there were two little baby fern plants in with the tomatoes. I planted more last fall, but finally gave up on ever seeing them germinate. I put baby Christmas cacti in the pot I had put them in.

Last week they popped up as if out of nowhere, so now I have five of them.

And the big one is in bloom again.

PS, the Eagle nest cam is back online and the chick has gotten really big. Today it was jumping up and down and practicing flapping its wings. Go see...

Nobody Likes Asparagus

But me.
Isn't that the luckiest thing!

And I am kind of proud of myself. About three weeks ago Microsoft Word 2000, the word processing program upon which I do my writing, put itself in full screen mode and stayed there, stuck. All my menus and tool bars were gone. Years of customizing the program just so, so that I didn't have to think about saving and word counting and thesaurus and all those other goodies, just gone.

It was nasty! I managed to use an online word count tool. I got things done as best I could, but it was really hard. You can supposedly press ALT V to get a view menu and get your stuff back. Or ESC to get out of full screen mode.

None of these things worked. The only other alternative was to edit the registry of the computer.
Frankly I was chicken!

However, after three weeks of misery I couldn't stand it any more. (I had uninstalled and reinstalled Word half a dozen times, and repaired it and changed it to no avail.)
Finally, I went to this site, followed the directions, and presto! In seconds, the tool bars were back.
Sadly all my customizations are gone, and of course, after so long I have forgotten how I did them, but I can happily manage the way things are. And I am glad I was brave and did the edit registry thing. Now if I can just find some more asparagus.

A New Use for an Old Plant?

The Beechnut cereal plant in Fort Plain, NY, may soon be turned into a meat processing facility. This would be a real plus for area farmers, especially those who raise a beef or a pig or two in the backyard and are at the mercy of less than scrupulous facilites around the state

Wordless Wednesday, this one's for Mom

Was it De Day?

What we saw at the house
while the boys were hunting on the hill Sunday

Yesterday we de-wormed the heifers. That was a simple matter of tossing the mineral salt block out of the yard while we were building electric fence and tossing in the SafeGuard block. They will do the rest themselves.

Then I de-grassed the rhubarb bed (reed canary grass is an acceptable cow feed, but it is terribly invasive in a garden. If let go it thinks nothing of growing feet and feet taller than my head! Roots are as thick as my pinky finger, woody and matted. I swear I could hear the rhubarb sighing with relief when I grubbed them out. I was the one sighing by the time I got done. I am out of shape after the long winter lack of garden work.) A wheel barrow load of well-composted horse manure and the job was done. Soon to be followed by rhubarb crisp....

The boss de-clumped the thorn apple tree field (so named because his dad once accidentally put half of one of that kind of tree through the hay mower there...not much fun to get it back out.) Actually he was chisel plowing but the end result was ground that was ready for the discs.

We de-moted the milk cows to the heifer pasture. They were de-lighted because it is a great, big, green field where they de-voured new green grass until they bulged. If I had time I would have taken a few "happy cow" pics as they really were. Happy that is.

I wish you could have seen them when old Zinnia and Etrain realized that the east gate was open instead of the south gate (which let them out into the field behind the barn, which is pretty chewed over.) Zinnia let out a mighty moo, apparently calling the clan to follow, stuck out her long, snakey neck, and shuffled through the puddles by the gate like a big, black duck. As soon as E saw what was happening she trotted on by and hustled up the lane like a magnet seeking north. The whole herd followed, grazed for a few minutes by the gate, and then took a walking tour of their new digs. Every time I looked out the kitchen window, the hillside was dotted with black, white, red and Jersey brown, as they ate or lay in the grass chewing the cud. It was nice.

What's up for today? I don't know yet...de-pends on the weather.

Oh, and as a bit of a post script, Liz's original Jersey cow, Dreamroad Extreme Heather, presented her with a lovely little heifer calf about half way through the afternoon. It is cute as a wagon-load of speckled puppies.

Nesting Frenzy

Totally unrelated really cool, really old building in Glens Falls NY

We got the 4490 back last week and it has barely sat still a minute since.
Field work frenzy you might say.
Anyhow, the oil gets checked in a tractor working that hard.
Often.
Despite this when the boss checked the oil yesterday morning a bird had built a nest on the cap of the dip stick thingie.
Weird.

Sunday Stills....Flowers and Plants

For more Sunday Stills, Flowers and Plants.