Sometimes it is Exciting

To be a writer. Even a low-paid or not paid at all writer. With the power of the Internet and the clicking of the keyboard, anyone can make a difference...a real difference. I won't go into detail, because some of the things I do and the people I talk to....they are not bad or anything..but they hold highly controversial points of view. Not all journalists are created equal and there are people who get to say things that I wouldn't dare even mention. However, I can tell certain folks things that I find out in all my reading and researching...and they can give them the public attention they deserve.

I love it... when I see something making the news on Facebook or some place like that and just know....

The Song of Early

Border collie yawning that gap-jawed, noisy, whiny thing they do when they are all excited and eager and justcan'twait to go out doors. Hips swinging with pendulum of tail, ears drawn back in glee.

Border collie gleaming black-and-white against glowing electric greengreengreen grass. Border collie blowing a song sparrow off a swaying leftover dead weed stalk and up into the apple tree among the baby buds. It flies back down, he flies back through and sends it skying up again.

Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast time for doggies.

Grass jumping up tangle-foot tall, almost ready for cows to graze...today maybe? (Please let it be today...)

Dawn chorus. Last week a thin selection of early robins. Today almost a din. The little alarm clock bird is trilling its low key murmur.....softly...softly....day break whistle. (someday I will give it a true name...all I know is that it sounds exactly like Liz's alarm clock and fools me into morning every day)

White-throated sparrows conjuring up old Sam Peabody from every rose tangle and honeysuckle clump. Song sparrows seeking over the freshly turned earth of the gardens. Freshly turned garden...ain't THAT a fine thing!

Liz's boyfriend, who is pretty darned high on my list right now, brought down his grandpa's big ol' Troy Built yesterday, and spent all the middle of the day turning my bony weed patches into delightful swatches of smooth, crumbling, rich and ready to plant, dark black earth..... just begging for seeds. It is still too cold for tender hearted stuff, but radishes, peas and their ilk will be planted apace.

Yesterday the boss fixed the broken water pipe over #171 (who got an early vacation in the pasture, which she celebrated with much kicking up of heels and skirmishing with the handful of others who are out already) and the broken stable cleaner shaft, and brought home corn meal and soy meal and barn calcite to keep the barn floor from being slippery (in the house everyone spreads sand from their shoes, whether I like it or not...the floor is rarely clean, but it is never slippery).

Today the decks are clear. I should write, but I want to go out...fences, gardens, dirt or woodstove. I don't care what the job is....

If it is out...then I am in!

Baseball Hall of Fame

A dear family member took Alan yesterday and Alan took some pictures... Here is my all time favorite baseball player, former Mets catcher, Gary Carter

And here is a Lou Gehrig signed baseball

Sunday Stills...Potluck- Sassafras

Forsythias along the trail among the trees

Part of the college beef herd

One of the college ponds

It took a while...a couple months in fact, but I sold my sheep clipper set on Craig's List to a very nice lady, whom we met yesterday in a parking lot in town. Alas we have no more sheep, so I had no more need of them.

Then Alan took me grocery shopping. On the way home we made a side trip we have been wanting to do for a long time to the arboretum and ski lodge at SUNY Cobleskill (which the powers that be, in their infinite wisdom recently closed because of budget cuts. Great asset-short sighted administrators).

He wanted me to know what sassafras smells like. Rumor is that the crushed twig smells like Fruit Loops. However, the article says rootbeer, but I say, just nice...tangy...woodsy, outdoorsy. We brought my twig home, dusted it with rooting hormone and stuck it in a pot. Maybe I will have a sassafras tree in while.The pics are him running up the hill to get the twig and running back down in the rain and cold and miserable that has marked our weather this weekend.

Meanwhile I had a lot of fun and got some rain-darkened photos of the coolest college around. Where else can you find canoes and trout and rare trees and cows and sheep and horses and...and...and greenhouses and streams and so much stuff I want to go back to college just to play with it all?

For more Sunday Stills.....

This Week

Alan got all of the chisel plowing done and made a good start on the mold board plowing.

Liz met with the nutritionist because the grain for the last two loads has been far too crumbly and didn't stay pelletized. This load smells kind of weird too. Guess there are issues with the pelleting machine at the mill. We will be getting a price adjustment, but I feel sorry for her, because we feed each cow a separate ration, measured by weight and volume...and the weight and volume in a partially pelletized load is all over the place. Each scoop is different. It cost us a bunch of money on the last load as, due to the near impossibility of accurate measurements, we ran out of grain four days early.
Heck, I feel sorry for me too as I have to feed them this morning.

We were milk inspected very thoroughly and did a lot of sweeping down of cobwebs and liming of floors and general tidying up around the place. Also installed a new door on the milkhouse. Expensive, but it looks nice and the old one was...well...old....nice to work in a clean barn, but it would be nicer to have the fences all built.

Dealt with the police so many times we are really getting to know them. Our wires will never be found, but I am not quite as afraid to go to the barn as I was. We can't prove anything and will never know for sure, but some pretty good ideas have been formed about who and how. And our personal deterrent to similar activities in the future is finally in place.

I painted on the turtles and bunnies, got my garden seeds, the boss scratched up the garden nearest the house so it is almost ready to plant. Now it is too wet, but when it dries out the dirt is going to fly, I promise.

Enjoyed the birds, watched the tulips and daffodils begin to bloom and the grass get serious about growing. We had two cows, sisters in fact, that we were letting have the run of the place. They were getting stiff and klutzy and couldn't get up and down in their stalls. They are shut in the barnyard now, as they elected to head back to the sixty-acre lot and hide out one afternoon at milking time....almost a mile away. They were making lots of milk on that lush, green, grass, but we need them to stay home where we can find them...thus until the fences are wired up and good and hot they will be staying home.

And now...it is raining. All that sweet silvery warm weather is over for now and we are back to the monsoons. However, I have read the weather on the blogs of some of our good friends in the west and they are getting sunshine again so our turn should come soon. We have had so much rain in the past three years that we have fields we haven't worked at all in that time span. Alan finally got one of them plowed yesterday. I really hope we can get it planted this year!

And at least we haven't been facing weather challenges like this one.....any time I think my life is tough I take a look at the ranchers on the plains and prairies and know I have it plumb easy.

Stay warm and dry and enjoy the weekend!

10 Dairy Foods Myths Dispelled

Here is a list of the top ten dairy food myths and the rebuttal from the University of Michigan.

Here is just one:

2 Myth: Spinach is as good a source of calcium as milk. Fact: There is more calcium in 1 cup of milk than there is in 16 cups of spinach. One will need to eat more than 48 cups of spinach to get the recommended daily intake of calcium (USDA, 2010). Furthermore, milk contains Vitamin D which enhances calcium absorption (Wasserman, 2004).

Dairy Today Digital Edition

Can be found HERE

Did We Find the Great Cable Caper Perpetrator

Maybe yes, maybe no. Do you remember this story?

The person that the story above is about has only been on this farm two times....that we can prove.

Once was right before that telephone pole walked away.

The other time was yesterday morning at the almost exact time that the power cables were cut and stolen.

Did he come back looking for more things to steal and find the milk truck here and the boss and Liz delivering a calf, and so claim to be selling hay to look innocent?

Or was he in fact innocent? Just a coincidence that we haven't seen him here since 2006 and suddenly he shows up at the scene of our little daylight burglary drama?

I dunno...I am not much one to believe in coincidences the size of Chicago...can't prove a thing, I know what I think....

*****Oh, and a little addendum to the power pole story. The person in question was up at Hand's just after we noticed the pole missing complaining to all who would listen about how a kid that worked for him cut a new pole he got too short for the job he "got" it for........bwaahahahahaha....

The Things You See

********Or love in the great outdoors....

It is spring.

Spring is a good time to make babies if you are a bird, an insect, mammal or herptile.....or plant, as far as that goes...you wouldn't believe the pollen.

Thus I end up feeling like a voyeur whenever I go outside. When I came in for breakfast, Mr. Fluff, the big white rooster, was cut-cut-cutting, over a pile of chicken feed, as he lured the little black hen, Michelle, in for a hot date. He looked like a Matre D, spreading his bright, white wings and bowing and sweeping before her. He also looked kind of silly, but I guess he can't help being a chicken.

There are millions of mosquito wigglers in the garden pond....evidence of an assignation I truly don't need to know about. I put the sunfish back out to take care of that situation...she will get fat and they will get gone.

The big flocks of geese are breaking up into twosomes now and making plenty of noise about it too. I was just finishing up prepping Pecan to be milked this morning when a pair flew right past the barn window behind her. They were lovely against the light of the rising sun and their calls were purely haunting.

I was even nearly an unwilling participant in some of the lusty spring activities this morning. I bent over to prep a little black Holstein named Magic and she threw her chin on my back and started to just hop right up. (It's nice to be loved, but dang.) She isn't a very big cow, but even a little bitty cow in the mood for love is more than I want to tangle with. I jumped right out of that stall in a heck of a hurry and let the boss finish prepping her. (AI service has been attended to. We bred her to a bull from the eighties, Woodbine Ellason. He throws nice big, framey daughters, so maybe if she has a calf from this service it will be a somewhat nicer-looking cow than she is.)

And yesterday morning...I was out in the barnyard just at the break of day, sending ETrain, Encore and Bayberry back up the hill after milking. The sky was bright orange, fading to clear ice blue; the air was as fresh as ice water melting off a glacier. I heard killy killy killeeeees call coming from right over my head. I looked up and there was the kestrel pair, performing their mating flight against the brilliant sky. They swooped and fluttered in huge circles and figure eights, chattering excitedly, then landed in the dead elm to actually mate. I was awed to be standing there in the swelling morning light and seeing their wonderful flight...and I am so happy to have them still nesting in the barn.

Iceland's Volcano

Thanks to Facebook I have made a very pleasant friend in Iceland, so I have been following this since long before it reached the main stream news here. I hope everyone in her wonderful country is safe.....

Ranchers Want Protection

From illegal border activity.

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Proposed NY Rural Truck Ban Rejected

This is good news for farmers who haul crops by truck. Although it was meant to give folks tormented by hundreds of reeking garbage trucks each day some relief from that misery, the law of unintended consequences meant that this legislation would have spilled over onto farmers trucking corn, hay and produce. Even milk trucks would have been affected, as would farmers markets.
Glad they didn't go ahead with it.

Wordless Wednesday

Wherein We Join the Area Crime Wave

Where the generator USED to hook up to the power

(Reluctantly I might add)

Yeah, I was painting turtles.

Liz was talking to the BF on the phone and getting ready to go out and work on the heifer pasture fence.

The boss was cleaning stables. We have two stable cleaners. He ran one and came over to the house to get a glass of milk. (I was soon very glad he didn't stay at the barn and get it out of the bulk tank.)

When he went back to work, maybe fifteen minutes after he left the barn, he had no electricity.
There were rocks rolled out of the ground under the manure spreader shed.

It is a long story, which I will write up for the Farm Side, but the power was off because someone turned it off.

Right at the generator box (we have a PTO generator for use during power outages).

They needed to shut it off so they could cut the three thumb-sized, 35-foot long cables that are wired into the barn box for the generator. So as to steal them that is.....They also dug the lead cords he uses to plug the block heater on the tractor into the electric line out of the ground next to the barn...thus the rocks.

He is still wishing that he stayed in the barn to get his milk. I am still glad he didn't. He would definitely have seen the thieves, as they were right outside the milkhouse window....they would have seen him too. Maybe he could have prevented the theft...and maybe this could be a completely different story if they were organized copper thieves with more to lose than a few hundred dollars worth of cable.

The policemen who came told us that the nefarious bastards who took our cable will burn the coating off it at home and then sell the copper. (I hope they choke on the smoke.)

There has been an awful crime wave down in Amsterdam lately, and I guess we rural folks won't be escaping either. We do have some plans for dealing with such events....



****The only good part of the story....the perpetrators got stuck in a pile of cow manure and one of them had to push whatever they were driving out.
BTW, if you live in the area and see a neighbor burning something nasty with something else nasty on their vehicle and shoes call the sheriff for us if you would please...thanks....

Plowing and Fowl

Well, chisel plowing anyhow. Alan got one field done after school last night and started another. Some wet spots but he was able to go most places. Now if it will just hold off on the raining so he can keep going.

The guinea hens are giving us fits. We got them as keets last summer, raised them in a box in the kitchen and kept them in the hen coop we built. They have had that to themselves since the laying hens went out in the new coop...well except for Mr. Fluff the white rooster anyhow.

I got the bright idea of letting one pair outdoors so they could do their whole tick control thing and learn where they live...(oh, and we may have a surprise for you sometime in the not too distant future and may need that coop for other residents.)

Thus Alan let a pair out for me the other day. For several days they were too stupid frightened to go out through the door. Then one discovered the door and went out.

Then the other.

They both promptly went down to the heifer barn and vanished, not to be seen or heard all day. So much for keeping ticks off the lawn...they never went anywhere near the lawn, just disappeared into the brush, home to foxes, coyotes, hawks, fishers, etc. etc. I cursed my own idiocy. Guinea fowl, besides being dumb and loud, are for some reason fairly valuable. Liz and I have this keet-rearing-Craigs List-selling scheme going on. I did not want to lose 2/5 of the flock first thing in the summer

They did not show their knobby little heads all day. However, at milking time they were back in the coop near their stay at home pals and Liz was quick to lock them in for the night.

I wonder where they went and whether I should shut them back up. They are not going to be much good to us if they nest down in the wilderness and are eaten by the plethora of varmints that live there.

My old flock, back in the day, stayed by the house and laid eggs (hundreds of them) right on the lawn. They hatched clutches, often of over thirty keets a piece, and proceeded to leave all but one behind each and every time. (Guinea fowl can't count and one chick is a good as a dozen to them.) However, we ran around every time a brood hatched, snatching up babies for indoor incubation. At one point I had at least 75 of the noisy, dramatic, wild and crazy critters.

I hope this bunch figures out where they live and soon.....before they join the menu.

Greek Yogurt

It was just one of those things I was afraid to try, because I figured it might be nasty. Then we were given some of this brand by a family friend.

Even then I hesitated until Alan did the "He Likes it. Hey Mikey," thing, did like it a lot and said so...and ate two dishes in a row to prove it.

So I tried it too. And I am here to tell you, one bowlful and you will never again be satisfied by the thin, tasteless, watery, stuff they sell under the brand of a certain French dairy foods company, which I will not name, but it rhymes with cannon. My favorite Fage yogurt is the kind with thick, dark, smokey honey on the side. I love honey anyhow, but the combination of smooth, tart dairy with strong, sweet honey is just about unbeatable. It has become one of my favorite lunches.

****And no, they didn't pay me for this....they never even heard of me. I just didn't want you to miss this great stuff, which is produced just a few miles from here, up by my folks' house. Eating well while eating local just works for me.

Sunday Stills....Hands

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All the hands around here are so busy this time of year. So many jobs that must be done. So little time to do them. We have to remind ourselves to take a minute and stop...to pet the dog, enjoy the beauty, care for each other.....but those are the things that really matter. Have a great Sunday one and all and for more Sunday Stills....

Mowing Hay

If you Google videos for "mowing hay" this is the top entry that you find. It has been viewed over 6400 times.

Alan was mowing hay in our thirty-acre lot last June. He took the big camera up and took a video of himself. So much green, green alfalfa, green trees, green tractor. I thought it was pretty cool.

Yesterday it was Sunny

And I took a couple of pictures of the morning. Today the normal rainy chill of April is back, but we sure liked summer while it lasted. I tried to tell folks not to take the windows out of the barn last night, even though it was a bit hot in there...they are going to be plumb chilly this morning I'm afraid....

Firsts

This is the time of year for firsts. Yesterday was no exception.

First herps. Other folks have seen snakes and frogs and all sorts of cool stuff, but here at Northview we were coming up empty in the reptile and amphibian department until yesterday when I was spring cleaning outside the milkhouse. I reached down to pick up some leftover trash and spotted two little orange things wiggling among the crushed stone. At first I thought they were earthworms, but in fact they were red-backed salamanders. Plethodon cinereus is a big favorite of mine. I picked them up to show the girls, then returned them to whatever they were doing when I found them. (I'll bet I can guess.)

The day was full of cleaning and feeding and sweeping and being really ticked off about some BS with our water bill which is turning my hair grey and my temper black. Late in the afternoon I swore one of the guinea fowl had escaped and was down on the long lawn tuning up its unearthly cackle. I had just sat down and did NOT want to get up and go chase it.....However, the "guinea hen" soon turned into a sea gull and then to a cardinal/robin/song sparrow on steroids, and I realized that the mockingbird had just added a new sound to his repertoire.

Then late in the evening, just past first dark, I stood out in the driveway trying to hear the woodcock. I think he was still out there. I think I heard his whistling wing twitter over the din from the Thruway, but I could not be sure.It was really noisy last night with trucks and trains and tons of traffic. However, there was no doubt that the small dark thing that fluttered past my head and went whirling around the back lawn was the first flitter maus of the season.