Happy New Year!

Fireworks for you!

Outdoors

Smiling up at the eastern moon
A sky the color of butternut smoke
Geese on the river
Talking in tongues
And the chores in the rear view mirror.
Nothing more to say and nothing more to ask for....a good night....

Oh, wait, it was certainly a fancy moon, what with the way it was shining through those thin clouds of ice and snow and glowing brighter than the ball in Times Square, but who knew that it was a blue moon too? The boss's dear aunt, who is in her nineties but sharp as a tack and sweet as sugar, called to remind him. I was glad....sometimes you need to look at the moon.

Cold With Possible Irruptives

Yep, it's winter. Not my favorite season. Barn has flooded three times this week because of sump pump failure.

Hope they got that fixed finally. I am sure the men hope so more than I do, as they are the ones who have to pump water out of one gutter and into the other...Alan got kicked pretty good working behind one cow named Baha. Don't know what has gotten into her lately but she sure has turned miserable. Liz got kicked too, in the knee just like Al.

What is up with these cows? Really I think they just don't like this kind of weather either. They are inside a fairly warm barn and have what they need to eat brought to them, but it is still probably not as comfortable as when it is say, fifty degrees, which our milk inspector says is a cow's favorite temperature (I lean towards 70 myself.)

Anyhow I am working at grinning and bearing it, as there are plenty of people who are experiencing much worse weather than we are....it is winter after all.

The cold sure does bring in the birds. I think I saw a red poll day before yesterday when I was on the phone with the milk inspector (discussing Liz's upcoming trip to Iowa). I didn't have my glasses on so I am not going to be betting on it yet....but I think so.

I won't lie. I am real nervous about that trip. It is an honor to be chosen to represent the entire Northeast region of the National Farmers Organization and I am excited for Liz. What an opportunity!

On the other hand, guess where she has to change planes.
And January is winter there too, with all sorts of accompanying weather possibilities. I will be glad when it is done and she is home and regaling us with stories of all the goings on.

Well, time to milk the cows and then polish up my own year in review essay for this week's Farm Side. Stay warm if you can.

Horses for Lisa

Our bird counting peregrinations take us past a pretty horse farm with neatly trimmed barns and long, white fences....and horses, beautiful, playful horses.

These Percherons were playing, leaping and rearing and spraying snow everywhere, like a beer commercial or some other exciting thing. Alas, this was the best I could do....






The sunset was pretty cool too.

Our Bird Count Totals, Day of the Jay

No "ooh-ah" birds this year, although I guess team Mayfield South counted the only horned larks. There was a neat little flock of them feeding in the up and down way they have near a horse pasture we passed.

We saw:

1 sharp-shinned hawk
7 Red-tailed hawks
1 Unidentified hawk species...see below




4 Downy woodpeckers
1 Hairy woodpecker
6 White-breasted nuthatches

6 American goldfinches
1 House finch
1 Northern cardinal

1 Mallard duck
4 Unidentified duck species...probably more mallards, but they got behind a tree in high speed flight
134 Rock pigeons

7 Ring-billed gulls
167 Starlings
14 Tufted titmice

157 Common crows
19 Dark-eyed juncos
14 House sparrows (Sassenachs)

4 Tree sparrows
137 Black-capped chickadees
55 Mourning doves

24 American Turkeys
25 horned larks
And 97 Blue Jays

I doubt that 97 is the highest count we have had with jays, but it is certainly the most in a while. They were everywhere in flocks of as many as 25 at a time. Guess they have recovered from West Nile and are having a good year.

It was certainly a weird day. We have been counting MFS for a very long time, probably over twenty years. In that much time you learn where the birds are likely to be, droves of chickadees on Maloney Road, lots of everything good on Ashler Road if it is passable, etc. Yesterday, the good spots were virtually all bereft of birds. Instead we found them in weird places, like a large mixed feeding flock in the parking lot of a tractor trailer place where we have never seen a single bird before. Strange...also strange is not seeing a single Canada goose. There are still hundreds of them down here on the river just a few miles from our territory.

As always it is fun to get out with the family and count the birds. The brothers and I are the second generation to work this territory and we all three of us have kids that will probably keep up the tradition in the future. I for one am grateful for those sharp young eyes when they ride out with us.

Dave Barry

Year in Review

HT to Jeffro, whom I thank with much gratefulness.

It's better not to hike the Appalachian trail....just sayin'....

Help! What Hawk?

Sunday Stills...Odds and Ends

For more Sunday Stills....

Christmas Bird Count Today

The forecast is very mixed, with the potential for rain, freezing rain, flurries or sun...
or even all of the above. Here's hoping it is halfway decent and that we see the great blue heron that was just down the road from the folks' house on Thursday.

Had Christmas with the family yesterday and had the best time. There is just nothing like folks...and your own folks are the bestest folks hands down.

Hope you all had a great Christmas...will report on the bird count later.

A Quiet Christmas

With partying today...weather permitting.....

Merry Christmas from Northview Farm

We thank you all for making our Christmas so much more and are all wishing you much love and joy ....... friends and family together in heart no matter how great the distance may be.

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza

Liz makes the dough (she also took the pic above)

I make the sauce.

Here is the recipe for the dough. Liz puts in more garlic and honey and leaves out the onion powder.

There is a Ball Joint

On my kitchen table. It looks sort of like a heavy, black, shower head, but is proving much more troublesome to add and subtract from a certain Dodge pick up truck.

Yesterday a friend of the kids' spent his whole day helping in the attempt to remove the old one so that this new one could be installed. So far with small success. (Until he is better paid, I fed him...cookies...sweet and sour maple venison as per the earlier recipe, homemade applesauce and a pile of potatoes....best I can do....we are in the process of inventing a cookie recipe these days. We started out with the three-ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe given to us by a dearly beloved, really nice family member, who is at least as sweet as his cookies, and added oatmeal one time...chocolate chips the next...and yesterday a handful of coconut.....not bad so far. I'm thinking raisins for the next experiment.)


Here's to a better day today.

PS to all you kindly commenters....any time, any time at all..we do food fairly well and there is certainly plenty of the other side of the equation as well.

The Things You See

In a simple farm kitchen

DELAP Payments Processed Yesterday

I spoke to a friend at the local USDA office yesterday (she was kind enough to call me so I could put it in the Farm Side) and she said that they had processed these payments. They will be a welcome stocking stuffer (so to speak) for the nation's dairy farmers. The payments were calculated based on milk production between February and July of this year. This number will be doubled and paid at a rate of thirty-two cents per hundredweight.

Although there is no question that this is more than welcome, milk prices were $5.55 lower for that same hundredweight of milk than last year, meaning that hauling out of this hole will be a long process. (I heard estimates at a milk cooperative meeting I attended that said that it will take three years of twenty-dollar milk to even pull most farms even.) Prices have shown some slow up-ticking over the past two months, with class 3 hitting around $14.85 for December milk, which well above the low for the year. However, the all milk price for the year, according to Bob Cropp, will be.$12.75, still far below the cost of production.

Here's hoping the national and world economies recover enough over the next few months that folks can afford dairy products again....and that the big guys pay attention to the anti-trust investigations that are occurring and let some of their record profits trickle down to the folks who produce the products they peddle.

Macro Monday

With the same theme as last week's Sunday Stills, which I missed...this is one of my favorite Christmas ornaments and one of only four on the tree...so far...this one stays downstairs on the China closet door year round as I can't bear to put it away.

For more Macro Monday...

Thank You

Called brother and sister in law this AM to talk about some hay they are bringing us for bedding for the bossies. Something Lisa told me then has us all full of wonder and amazing joy (and kind of choked up also). Someone, we are not to know who....but someone that we have "met" here at Northview Diary...and in their home as well I'm sure.... somewhere away from here, but close in the way of hearts....bought us eleven more bales of haylage for the cows.

I am afraid that I don't know how to say thank you well enough. Actually, I barely know what to say at all....I am so overwhelmed by such an incredible kindness. The hay Matt and Lisa brought us during that terrible storm last week already got the cows up two hundred pounds of milk. a pick up (and we even haven't fed three bales yet) which sure is moving in the right direction. They love it and jump right up and start mooing as soon as we start to feed it. It means a lot to us that they cared to bring it to us....We are so lucky in the people around us and the people we have met here.

We have come to care for our blog friends as if they were family in a way...as if they lived next door, or down the street or across the river. We talk about their lives when we are working in the barn....their trials and joys...grand kids, horses, dogs and gardens...snow storms and sunshine, a world of wonderful folks at our fingertips. Politics and doctor visits. Snow storms and sunny Florida beaches....all enrich the fabric of our daily lives.

They...or perhaps I should say you...are an important part of our world. One of the best parts. I can never wait to get on the computer when I come in to see who has said what or what is going on. You are great folks and I am grateful for you.

This is more than we could ever have imagined though...

To the person who bought us these bales, thank you, God bless you, we are more grateful than I know how to tell you...Your caring means the world to us this Christmas, here's hoping you and yours have a wonderful one as well.

An External Combustion Engine

Is not a thing to be wished for.




And Tupper Lake is a long way from home.

***We made it home all right, but it was a trip from Hell. Becky is home to stay and I am more thankful than you could possible imagine that I never have to make that trip again...especially with a car that keeps catching on fire whenever you stop.

Sweet and Sour Maple Venison

Compile in a good heavy pan:

4T cooking oil
2T butter
1 large coarsely chopped onion
1 large clove garlic finely chopped
* Optional: a little lovage if you have it/celery if you don't

Saute until onions begin to turn clear

Add:

A couple of pounds of venison stew meat

Saute until brown

Toss in:

Italian seasoning to taste
*Optional: A little more garlic
* Optional: A tiny pinch of salt

Dump on:

1/4 C vinegar
1/4 C maple syrup
1/4 C Ketchup

When all ingredients are nice and brown and bubbly and the house begins to smell really, really good,

Add:

Two or three cups of water.

Seal the pot tightly with foil or a good, tight-fitting lid, and cook in a 325 degree oven until the meat is fork tender and succulent.

Around here that is for about as long as milking and chores take.
Anywhere normal it would probably be around 2 1/2-3 hours, more or less. Take care that it doesn't cook dry as the "gravy" is the best part.

Serve over rice or potatoes.

****This recipe is a happy accident I came up with the other day while working on 1001 ways to cook venison when your freezer is full of deers and you are out of beef. We really liked it and hope you will too.

Hmmmmm