The Things

Visited the brother and sister in law yesterday
and the wind was darned near blowing this chicken away! Thanks for a great time guys!

Up with which I have to put.....including kids and stubborn cows

Exhibit A) One of them (kid, not cow) practicing calling coyotes while using MY computer...IN THE DINING ROOM. If you have not heard a predator call go here.
After suffering through that, bear in mind that my personal distressed rabbit uses no call, but sounds much more like an actual rabbit than the guy in the video. I thought turkey calls were bad but....

Exhibit B) Large people playing catch with a seventeen-pound bag of dog food...in the kitchen.
Okay it didn't break, but it could have. What was up with that anyhow?

Exhibit C) Cows that won't have their calves and get it over with. I did both last-at-night and first-in-the morning checks and dang, my eyes feel like a sandbar. And no babies yet. Broadway looks as uncomfortable as heck and seems a little off, but she is eating and getting up and down fine...and NOT having that baby despite being more than ten days overdue. Now Magic is bagged up and about ready, Cider is getting there and Armada is going on the night check list...all I can say is ARGGGHHHH,,,

And last night I was just falling asleep when a bunch of coyotes tuned up, really close...close enough to be heard inside our room, which has a lot of plastic on the windows, and over the din from the Thruway, which offers a never-ending counterpoint of humming, roaring and rumbling. The boss jumped out of bed and went out on the landing to see if he could see them, but despite a small moon and a scattering of stars he couldn't see anything but darkness. I suspect they were on the creek between the house and barn. It serves as a highway for everything from the fisher to beavers to foxes and those pesky brush wolves. It was a while before I fell back to sleep....

At least this morning is dawning clear and pretty with the eastern sky peaches and fire against the deep, dark blue of the zenith. The early barn check offered a river of crystal stars pouring across the sky like liquid diamonds.... and no snow or mud to trudge through, just frozen bare dirt. It has been so cold and windy for so long that five degrees felt warm.

I may whine about all this cow and kid stuff, but putting up with it all is always worth it.

I rest my case.....

Sunday Stills...the Letter G

Green

Gold


Gael

For more Sunday Stills.....

Barn Check Bears Fruit

Heifer calf by Lancer. (Whoo hoo) She was walking around the barn when I got there this morning. I gave her to her mama and bedded mama down with fresh bedding and fed her...(and fed Mandy and Blitz and my shorty an extra forkful of hay). She is licking it off now...when it is dry to her satisfaction I will probably give it a calf coat. It is fairly warm out today and it probably doesn't really need one, but anything to give it an extra edge.

Now if the shorty would just have her calf.....and Magic.....

Still More Yellowtail Wine HSUS

Lest you think that you can't make a difference...

And a post about the true grassroots nature of the anti-donation uprising.

Horse Camping Follies

Some years ago, my late, great saddle horse, Magnum, and I participated in a three-day trail ride and camping trip into the Adirondacks. If there was anything you could do wrong horse camping, we probably did it, but we also had a memorable time....trout fishing...horses jumping into the middle of the bridges on Route 30 (in heavy summertime traffic) up along the Sacandaga Reservoir, early bear season and all.

The first night we got permission to sleep across the road from the old Atomic Gas Station up in Mayfield. We went down a tiny access road almost to the lake, picketed the horses along the edge of the road, and quickly collapsed into our sleeping bags, exhausted from a whole day of riding, and the excitement of broken bridles, horses leaping into the center of highway bridges, etc. etc. Back then, there were no boat docks, camps or development there, just a wild little corner of the lake and lots and lots of real big trees. (In fact, when I went down to the edge of the lake early the next morning I saw the first common mergansers I ever saw, a mother and a row of fluffy little grey and red babies.)

Anyhow, we were tired enough to fall deeply asleep, there among the rocks and trees, just a few yards from the swishing of the traffic on Route 30. It is amazing just how well you sleep under those circumstances. A few hours passed.....

Suddenly the night erupted in a cacophony of horsey squeals and an incredible string of vehement oaths.

Seems a couple of guys were on their way somewhere after closing time at the local bars. Having imbibed heavily, they needed to relieve their discomfort so to speak. Thus they parked their truck along the edge of the little access road and walked down over the bank to the woods.

It was dark

They were drunk.

Thus the fellow in the lead didn't see or smell or hear my friend's gigantic chestnut mare until he walked square into her hindquarters.

They didn't linger but hied themselves back to that truck and drove off with screaming tires. I wonder what they thought they ran into down there beside the lake.....

No Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease

Or at least that is what this study says.

Meanwhile I am going to slap some pure, real, golden butter on my toast this morning and relish every bite!

Back to Barn Checks

After a couple weeks of peace after Etrain had that gigantic bull calf, it is back to O'dark-thirty in the morning excursions to the barn to check springers....springers are cows that are close up to calve. Right now there are three, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, a tiny little black Holstein named Magic, and arguably one of the nastiest cows we own, a largely-white daughter of Four-of-a-Kind Eland. We like our Eland daughters as a rule, but the less said of Crescendo the better. Still good or bad, loved or dreaded, they all get the same care and that means barn checks.

I can't tell you how comfy my bed was this morning. Soft, warm, peaceful...well except for the wind howling that is. And you can easily bear raging weather from the depths of fifteen quilts and afghans (well, maybe not fifteen, but you get the idea.) It is not quite as easy when you know you have to go out in it.

But I did. I had been dreaming of shorty calves all night. Milking shorthorns are not the most highly thought of in the dairy cow line...by some folks anyhow. However, we really like them. Our shorty steers grow up quite thick and sturdy and the only heifer we have milked so far, Broadway, gives as much milk as a Holstein. I value my B-Dub as I call her, and even if I didn't duty was calling loud and clear.

Sometimes a nighttime/almost/sorta morning barn check offers an unexpected beauty, clean white snow, sparkling stars, dazzlingly clean air blowing by, any of the other features of the thick of night may be present. This morning the sky was a muddy grey, the snow was worn out from yesterday's traffic and I was afraid of the damn fisher, which has been tracking up the creek every night.

Still I got er done and am back in the house, comfortably accompanied by that wonderful first cup of coffee. Everybody is fine, no calves yet though, so unless they all have them today I will be doing this again tomorrow.

Have a good one!

Things from Florida

A person from the exclusive, two member, best brother in the world clan and his lovely wife sent us oranges this week....the real kind. The ones that taste of sunshine, sharp and tangy and yet fulsomely sweet. They were so welcome. I was literally wishing for fruit, nibbling leaves off the indoor lettuce and wishing for fruit...when the boss came over from the barn with them. (For some reason known only to themselves UPS left them on the milkhouse step.)
Paradise..that is all there is to it.....thanks bro!



And as I was watching the feeder yesterday I realized that among the white-throated and field sparrows there were a couple of white-crowned sparrows. A few minutes later I heard part of their distinctive call. Usually they are here for a week or two in April and then are gone. Nice to see them.

What Farmers Contribute

This is a neat little movie with some figures on what America's farmers produce that astonished me...and I research agriculture every day and read dozens of newsletters each week.

Coopers or Sharp Shinned

You make the call.. Coopers have white at the end of the tail and a big head...this one has no white, but the tail is very worn...head seems smallish....but it is a pretty big bird like a Coopers.


***Verdict is in. Retriever Farm's husband is a biologist and he says sharp shinned. It was picking Sassenachs out of the wild roses today and Alan said the same thing. Thanks everyone.

More yellowtail HSUS

This time from the NY Post. The reaction to the wine company donation to the animals rights organization has gained real traction in the past week or two. I think at least a few folks are finally getting it.

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...