Sunday Stills...Valentines Day

......I want to dedicate this week's Sunday Stills to my incredible parents who will celebrate 59 years of wedded devotion in September. I love you guys! Thanks for the shining example of what love is.

A geode, with crystals, a long ago gift from my parents.
See the heart?
Do click

Details, details

And some gifts from Liz's Valentine and mine, the Stewart's coffee and gumdrops are hers...and my Valentine has been getting up first and making me a cup of coffee and turning on my computer all week....thanks guy.....


For more Sunday Stills....

New York Farmers are Bloggers Too

If you want a glimpse of New York agriculture as seen through the eyes of the people who live it, there is no shortage of options.

You can visit The New Farmer's Blog for some useful thoughts on frugal menu planning and interesting discussion of farm issues.

Or Teri's wonderful Farm Life, the story of a little different style of farming, an often comforting, yet also thought-provoking view of just what its title says.

Or Putting Up With Annie's Crap for a dose of wry humor and real life farm stories

John Bunting's Dairy Blog for in depth insight into milk pricing and the convoluted challenges it poses for the dairy farming economy. Today he writes about the dismissal of the NFDM casem
yet another outrage in a seemingly never ending saga of unfairness.

Liz's BuckinJunction, which is often about rodeo, but is also a journal of farm happenings....and Maqua-Kil Farms her other farm blog

And not least, my lovely sister-in-law, Lisa's story of happenings on their little piece of NY farming, Southview Farm

Red Tailed Hawk

The boss called my attention to this visitor. He was being mobbed by a couple of crows and landed quite near the house, so I grabbed a couple of pics through the window.

Zac Brown Band and PeTA

Read about it here:

"Dear PETA -- Plants are living creatures too . . . Bacon had a mother, but so did Pickle. It takes life to support life -- welcome to the planet," the Grammy-winning group wrote on their Twitter page.

I Got To Do a Guest Post

Over on Breezey's blog, Books! It was a terrific amount of fun to write and I hope you can take a minute and cruise on over.

It is about one of my very favorite books of all time, Suds in Your Eye, by Mary Lasswell.

Potential Change in Milk Cooperative Law

Bill passes to give farmers voice in cooperative voting.

Bloc voting has not worked out at all well for dairy farmers under the cooperative system. It is too easy to sway a handful of representatives to do whatever coop management wants done.

On the other hand here is a piece on the other side of the story. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but work certainly needs to be done on the way coops function today.

The national issue and the state one are not identical, but you can get the idea of what is going on with the issue from the two stories.

More Maple Venison

I love to cook using foods that grew on the farm. Our own beef and pork and vegetables from the garden are a given, but there is special value in the wild crops that grow on their own as well. We love wild game, especially this year when it has been our main source of protein, and the maple syrup from the sugar bush on the Northwest corner of the place is incredible. And there are a lot of ways to use it besides drowning pancakes.

Up until this winter we didn't really know how to use venison. Alan usually gets at least one deer. He is a good hunter and a good shot, so the meat is much better than that from an animal that was wounded, chased over five or six miles, and finally dispatched after an incredible amount of stress. Still, it wasn't beef. Stew and steak were about the best we could do and it turned out edible but not wonderful. I always cooked it like beef, which resulted in something that was okay, but not as good as beef.

This winter, the winter of no beef, necessity has become the mother of invention. Thus we are inventing recipes for deer (and goose, grouse and cottontail) because we were sick of eating leathery stuff that tastes like hooves.

One thing we never succeeded with before this year is roast venison. Every way we tried to roast deer before either turned out dry, stringy, and gamy or rare. I will not eat wild game that isn't completely cooked.

Enter the wonders of maple syrup. The Iroquois who lived here before us paired the two in their cooking and they sure knew what they were doing. Once we took a lesson from them and added maple syrup to most of our recipes, venison has become a delight rather than a chore.

The other night I decided to make some roast venison for sandwiches.

First I sauteed chopped onion, garlic, lovage (for which you can substitute celery) and Italian seasoning in a thick pot. When the onions began to soften I tossed a couple of slabs of venison, cut for roasts, on top and gave them a good browning, turning them occasionally with tongs.

When the outside was brown I added a cup of vinegar to the pot and boiled the whole shooting match for a bit. Then I poured maple syrup over the roasts.
Thickly.
Don't be afraid that wild sugar will make your meat taste sweet. It doesn't, but rather adds a smokey, savory flavor that is incredible, something like mild barbecue, but not at all acidy.

Next I added enough water to keep the meat from drying out, maybe halfway up the side of the roasts, tucked the pot tightly closed with foil, and roasted in a 350 degree oven for as long as it took to milk and do chores, (maybe a couple of hours out in the real world).

Most of the water cooked away and we ended up with venison that was as tender as the finest beef, succulent and juicy and amazingly flavorful. We made sandwiches on nice, fat hard rolls, then used the leftovers in a rice casserole, with zucchini from last summer and some really, really good rice we found over at the Dollar General in Fonda. I wish we had cut a lot more roasts instead of the stew and steak we did make. Next year........

The Fisher Returns

This time there were no close encounters of the uncomfortable kind, but there are tracks up the creek between the house and the barn. I think I want to get some batteries for my real bright flashlight and stop going back and forth with the little dim one I normally use around the house.

Is It a Very Strange Love Affair

Or is it hate? (hard to tell with a cat.)

(Especially a warped cat. And Elvis is warped...hates all other cats with a killing passion. We think he is channeling a dog...Maybe an 80-pound pit bull rottie cross with issues.)

Anyhow, I went out in the front hall the other day (it is part of the house that is closed off for winter) to find Mr. Kitty himself glaring at me, with that half/guilty/half go-to-Hell look that cats have, as he mauled this kitty.



He had to sneak upstairs through two doors that are kept closed and get up on the saddle rack in Liz's room to get it.....we are perplexed......how did he pick out a cat from all the stuffed animals available...and what is he thinking? Maybe I don't want to know...

Sunday Stills....Salsa or Hot Sauce

For more Sunday Stills.....

Winter to the South, Robin to the North

Seems as if a lot of this winter's worst weather has hit folks well to the south of us. This weekend's nasty blizzard is no exception. I feel real bad for the people getting nailed, (but I have no desire to have them send our weather back). I think that the storms are actually targeting AlGore, and a lot of innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire.

On the happy side of things, I was trudging to work the other morning, looking down so as not to land on my fanny on the ubiquitous ice, ice and more ice, when what to my wondering ears did appear but the musical chirp of an out of season robin.

I looked up quickly, despite the ice, and there he was in the old elm above the cow stable, red as a fiery sunset, and launching every now and then into about the first three notes of his summer :cheer-up-cheerily song.

It is not all that unusual to see robins up here in the north even in the depths of the cold. A few winter over across the river from us every year and we can generally drive over to Route 5 to see them tearing up the staghorn sumac if we want to. It was sure nice to see this guy right here at the farm though....

Meanwhile, if you are in the path of the big storm, stay in, stay warm....and keep it there.....

****Update, check out the comments! Our Florida friends say the snowbirds are heading back north...no, not the folks in Bermudas and Hawaiian shirts, the robins and blackbirds. Can't wait until the get here!

Did Obama Really Abandon NAIS

Or is it going to spring up again in some other form?

"After concluding our listening tour on the National Animal Identification System in 15 cities across the country, receiving thousands of comments from the public and input from States, Tribal Nations, industry groups, and representatives for small and organic farmers, it is apparent that a new strategy for animal disease traceability is needed," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "I've decided to revise the prior policy and offer a new approach to animal disease traceability with changes that respond directly to the feedback we heard."

The framework, announced today at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) Mid-Year meeting, provides the basic tenets of an improved animal disease traceability capability in the United States. USDA's efforts will:

• Only apply to animals moved in interstate commerce;
• Be administered by the States and Tribal Nations to provide more flexibility;
• Encourage the use of lower-cost technology; and
• Be implemented transparently through federal regulations and the full rulemaking process.

Yellow Tail Wine and HSUS

Have you heard about this wine company's $100,000 donation to that anti-agriculture, anti-meat, anti-dairy organization, which has proudly announced ,

"We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding."

Yep, Yellow Tail gave a boat load of money to HSUS, supposedly to rescue animals, but we all know that it will be used to lobby voters in places like Ohio, where despite farm groups setting up an animal welfare board, they are still putting their own anti-agriculture legislation on the ballot.

Yellow Tail has a Facebook page where farmers, ranchers, and just plain folks are letting them know just how appalled they are. You can too, if you want to.
I did.
You can "un-fan" them after you let them know what you think....of course it is said that they are deleting aggies' comments and/or ignoring or misinterpreting them as in favor of their foolishness, but I guess anybody dumb enough to send money to HSUS is probably too dumb to read real well either.

****I gotta tell you, I am everlastingly in awe of the power of the Internet... Where else could farmers share their opinions in such a powerful manner?

Growing Onions Indoors

Every day Northview gets a number of hits from people looking to grow lettuce and carrots indoors. We have done both with good success and in fact found the task surprisingly easy.

This year we tried a new "in house" crop. Walking onions, or top onions, (those big eclectic critters that perpetuate themselves by growing little onions on their tops and dropping them to root and grow new plants), thrive in a number of large clumps around the yard (will share if you are local and want some).

Thus last spring I planted some in an ordinary dollar store hanging basket in plain dirt and let them take care of themselves all summer. Last fall I brought them in, fed them a little fertilizer and stuck them in the kitchen. No special lighting, they aren't even in a window, no special care. (Although we do dump the coffee grounds in the pot when Liz makes "real" coffee).

They have thrived and we have had all the green onion tops we could use. Last week during the thaw I spotted a handful of last year's top bulbs that had melted up out of the snow, so I started a second basket. They sprouted brisk growth in four days and will be ready to join the ongoing harvest in another week or so.

I have always gone outside whenever the snow was low and chopped off a few stems, but having them flourishing indoors is wonderful. Soup, stew, whatever, it just looks (and tastes) better with little green rings of fresh onion floating on top.

We also added a bucket of parsley to the pot of chives that has been spending summers out and winters in for years. We solved the problems we have had with the parsley bringing in a healthy crop of nasty insect pets like white flies and mealy bugs by letting it freeze good and hard and then bringing it in. Not a bug in sight and lots of tasty green for cooking.



If any of you have other ideas for growing food plants indoors I would sure love to hear them. It is terrific to cook with fresh vegetables and herbs that don't cost the earth because they are out of season.

Milk Fever + Monster Big Calf=

Almost no sleep for anyone.

Etrain started calving at the end of milking last night. Liz spent several hours in the barn waiting for something to happen....

She and Alan gave E a bottle of calcium sometime between ten and eleven. (I went out but by that time the clock was pretty blurry.)

Calf was upside down first time Liz palpated her. Cow thrashed around for a while and got it mostly straightened up. Ralph and Liz finally got the head and legs just right somewhere along towards midnight. Darned cow wouldn't lie down though, which is less than desirable for all concerned.

I suggested everyone adjourn to the house for a little while and turn off the lights so maybe she would lie down. Liz went out maybe fifteen minutes later and the old girl had managed to get herself in trouble. Liz let her out of her stall and pulled the calf...a monstrous bull that looks about six months old already.

Etrain wouldn't even try to get up and was trying to prolapse. Ralph sewed her up and we administered more calcium, oxytocin and an anti-inflammatory drug.

And we waited. She lay there alternately taking great interest in licking her calf and eating hay and drooping down into a frightening stupor. Still wouldn't even attempt to get up.

Around two-thirty they sent me to bed so I could get up and take care of her this AM while they slept in a little.

I didn't figure she was ever going to get up. She looked pretty forlorn, down on calcium and exhausted from trying to have that beast of a calf (which by the way was up and trotting around the barn begging lunch off anybody who was willing about ten minutes after it was born.)

As soon as I got up this morning I dragged myself into my barn clothes and shuffled on over to the barn for maybe the twentieth time in 24 hours. The boss's flashlight, which I stole again, made the new-fallen snow sparkle like diamonds. I didn't care and thought so out loud. E is one of my very, very favorite cows. If you search this blog you will find many pictures of her and stories about her. She is a real pet, which is not the best way in the world to manage cows if you want to hang on to your heart all in one piece. It is an unwritten law known to anyone who keeps livestock that it is never the bad ones that something happens to.

I didn't know what would be waiting for me, but I sure didn't expect what I found. I have no idea how she got where she is, because I don't want to wake anybody up to ask...however, she is lying on the grates over the stable cleaner, yards and yards away from her stall.
Chewing her cud.
She had to have walked there somehow, as her butt is facing down a narrow aisle where there is no possible way anyone could have put her.

At least she isn't dead. And I really, really hope she can walk by herself. Otherwise milking and cleaning stables is going to be real interesting, as stepping over a thirteen-hundred-pound cow filling the entire walkway to overflowing is going to be a bit of a challenge.

Wish me luck...I am expecting another long day.

*****Update: Thanks for all your kind thoughts. Although E is by no means out of the woods yet, Liz reached down a few minutes ago to see if her back end was warm (cold fresh cows are cows likely to be suffering from milk fever) and she jumped to her feet and moseyed away. She needed another bottle of calcium early this morning, so we may have more episodes, but my dear big girl is back in her stall, eating like crazy and mooing and cooing over her gigantic baby boy... I am delighted. I suppose it is a fool's errand to get so attached to a cow, but I sure hope she makes it.

Chicken Rescue

I am sorry. I don't mean to be hardhearted, but this is just nuts.

Chickens Rescued in Drug Raid Headed to Sanctuary. Flying to Indiana and driving a thousand miles in a rental van to rescue 40 scrawny chickens makes about as much sense as.....

"Chickens are delightful animals...." said one volunteer.

Cow Down

I don't know about you, but when I have to get up before my appointed time and go out in the dark, I am pretty numb and dumb.

However, Cow #188, my ETrain, who has been keeping us crazy all week... due to calve two days ago, all bagged up, having some problems with hypocalcemia, and just not getting on with her job, required a visit from me early this AM. Thus numb, dumb, and all I staggered out to the barn a couple hours ago.

When cows are calving there are barn checks. It is just part of the job. There are bed time checks, midnight checks, and my personal favorite (because I am the one doing them) really early in the morning checks. (Up until a couple days ago we were also checking Liz's purchased heifer, Sugar, but she has now calved.)

This morning I found ETrain standing quietly in her stall chewing her cud and looking quite smug. Sugar was okay too. I took a quick stroll though the barn (with visions of that wondrous first cup of coffee dancing in my head) when I found a pile of manure where no poo should be. Right in the middle of the walk way.

Erp. Cow number 215, also mine, a good looking first calf heifer named Encore, had gotten down in her stall and was stuck. Nobody was up but me and they had done those other cow checks so I was on my own.

I won't bore you with the details....but closing gates on ice in the dark, even with the boss's flashlight which I liberated for the job, is fraught with peril. 1500 pound cows are too, when they get in a pinch and start thrashing around. However, I got her out of the stanchion, untangled from the stall divider, up on her feet, fed some grain for her trouble, and walked very carefully outside...where she stopped, completely nonchalant, and began to hoover up balage spilled during last night's feeding.

She has been having some problems getting up and down for a couple of weeks. The guys have modified her stall, filled it with sand, packed the front with soft bedding etc. etc. Now there is nothing for it. Either she gets moved, a tie stall is put in her place, or she sleeps outdoors in the shed.

Meanwhile, that first cup of elixir of wake up awaits me.

Humane Watch

Check it out here

Bag Balm

You can still use Bag Balm on cows too even though WaPo is all excited about other uses for it. (and here at Northview we still do).

Roast Wild Goose

Alan bagged a couple of Branta Canadensis back during the season (nearly dropping one through the sky light on his best friend's parents' house) and he has been after me to cook them. Never having cooked goose (and only having eaten it once...domestic...long frozen...and just plain nasty) I procrastinated.

Finally yesterday I relented, he thawed the goose that was intact (and the one that was much diminished by excess shot) and we hunted up a recipe.

We found this one.

Around here recipes are more like guidelines, so we threw in some extra stuff and left out some other stuff...dumped a box of prepared stuffing that was given to us on top of the critter. Tucked some venison steaks into the pot for anybody who didn't like goose (which could possibly have been all of us). Added a little vinegar, because we have discovered that, in terms of both tenderness and taste, it does a lot for slow cooking tough meat . Dried cranberries because there was the tag end of a stale bag in the freezer....etc

Then we stuffed it in the oven. Because of milking and chores, which keep me outdoors for quite a while, it got roasted about two hours longer than the recipe called for.

Didn't matter.

Liz tugged off the first piece to see if it was edible. Sure enough it was.

That verdict having been rendered the goose lasted about five minutes before the bones were picked so clean I am wondering if I will be able to find enough bits and pieces to make soup tonight. The guy that wrote the recipe says that it tastes like beef...and it really does, albeit kind of dry beef. Sort of like fine grained-chuck roast that got cooked a tad longer than you planned on. Savory and satisfying. I am amazed to find that I really like wild goose.

I recommend the recipe. All the recipes other we read that were geared for domestic fowl and would certainly have produced a meal fit for soling a pair of shoes, but this one made for a delicious change from deer and chicken. I wonder when the next goose season opens....