On the Lam(b)

Stolen sheep found in car....FOURTEEN of them! Sadly the poor animals had a rough time of it and some of them died. Looks like they may be finding the thieves pretty quickly.

Hay Day Maybe

I hope it is one!



Lots of hay this spring and summer will hopefully keep this guy busy all next winter. (Some of yesterday's corporate logos came from this truck and Dab Farms milk hauling owns it.)

Sunday Stills...Corporate Logos

For more Sunday Stills

Book Sale

All next month at Tryon County Books. My folks will offer twenty-percent off and free domestic shipping from June 1 to June 30th at their amazing book store.

Mom maintains a wonderful website featuring many items from their stock of books. She adds new items frequently and has been doing a lot of updating recently.

Here are links to some of the categories that they offer:

The American Revolution

Big Game Hunting Books

Books by Jack O'Connor

Harper's Weekly

How to Shoot Pistols, Revolvers, Rifles and Shotguns

Hunting and Fishing Books



NY Forest, Fish, and Game Reports and Other Adirondack Items

Old Gun Catalogs

Out of Print Gun Books

Unit Histories and Regimentals

US Navy

Specials

• Since 1952 we have been dealing in The Old and Unusual.
• We now offer a great collection of fine quality Specialty Books. Our aim is to provide you with books you will be proud to own, and pleased to have in your collection.
• If you should be unhappy with your purchase, for any reason, we will do our best to rectify the problem.
• All descriptions are as accurate as we can make them. We try to describe any blemishes or faults, without emphasizing them. While we do not want to dissuade you from purchase we do want you to know what you will be getting.

Stop by their virtual book lovers' wonderland of historical and modern, old and unusual and tell them I sent you.

Remember

The Contest is Almost Over

It ends on June 4th. I would be most grateful if you took a minute to scroll through the wonderful entries and enjoy many aspects of farming and ranching.......and if you vote for mine...well that is great. You can vote once each day as long as the contest continues.

You can see them all here.

Thank you all so much!!

Storm List

Heavy and sweet, the scent of wild grapes and black locust lies on the valley like a mantle. Chores are done, everyone else is off to work, or off to buy seed or off doing some other thing....

Then a storm comes grumbling down from the mountains, lightning flashing over the northern towns, thunder rumbling, rumbling, rumbling

The breeze picks up and whirls stray feathers and hay stems in rising circles
The air changes....sharply warning. Weather is coming

Nobody home but me......

Jack the pony in from his yard, safe in the barn and fed and watered. Showed me some flash and dance but I have his number.
*Check

Guinea roosters locked up in the hen house
*Check

Laundry down and folded
*Check

Computers off and unplugged
*Check

Cat in his kennel, Nick in the house...mad cat; happy dog
*Check

Tomato plants tucked up under the table, safely out of the wind
*Check

Wood stove filled for the night while the wood is still dry
*Check

Gael blissfully oblivious, slumbering through it all. Merciful deafness wraps her safe in sleep, free from her terror of booms and bangs.
*Check

Time to sit down and watch the weather roll by. I hate to say the words but we could use a touch of rain (just a touch, for Heaven's sake hold the monsoons.) The grass is slowing down its rampant spring growth and things are wilting down.

Huh, no storm, three and half drops of rain, and five minutes of howling wind....what's up with that?

Decline of the Small Meat Plant

Is lamented in USA Today. The closing of small, USDA inspected plants is a sad matter for farmers who wish to participate in the local food movement. A couple years back we sold some pork the boss raised at what was at the time a premium price. We could have sold much more than we did and we could easily raise more. However, with the threat of new rules putting even more small slaughter houses out of business, we have backed off from the pig project.

Interestingly the article quotes a local lady who has been very active in matching farmers with facilities and markets. Nice to see her efforts getting some real attention.

Make Me a Sammich

Food Stamp Usage Rises

Read about it here. Did you know that food stamps are budgeted under the USDA, the Department of Agriculture? Thus $73 billion of the ag budget goes to this program, feeding 40 million people per year....

The much-reviled subsidies that are actually paid to farmers are estimated by one source to total between $10 and $30 billion annually depending on disaster payments.
Business Week said that last year (2009) it was $15.4 billion.
Nuff said.

Haying!

The men started haying yesterday and put 250 bales of beautiful, soft green first cutting in the mow. After a series of soggy springs some real haying weather is a welcome change.

Happy Birthday to the Cow Whisperer

Liz is twenty-four today....She truly is a cow whisperer too. She can even come over on my side of the barn and milk the miserable Encore, whose back is as high as my head and who likes to put her hind feet about that high too...without fireworks or drama. Happy birthday kiddo...we love you!

Oh, No

I gasped with dismay when I read Teri's headline this morning. We are fond of her creatures...even the ones we haven't met yet.
Half the chickens in our hen house and our wonderful new Roo came from her flock.
My very favorites, the late George and lovely Laura, grew from chickies she gave Liz a couple years ago.
Sadly she and her friend and family lost all but a couple of their birds to a marauding fox on a spree last night.

Wanna Take a Tour?

Looking North from the Thirty-Acre Lot

C'mon along if you do. Alan needs to get some grass for the calves in the barn and he said we could ride along if we want to.



The grass is right up in the Thirty-Acre Lot, but we will go way back behind Seven County Hill, all the way to the back of the place just to see what we can see.




Wow, there are more bobolinks this year than I have ever seen before.
There must be a dozen in this field alone.


And Red-winged black birds of course.



One of my favorite views looking north from the Sixty-Acre Lot


Some ground planted to sorghum/Sudan grass. it is just coming up, although you can't see it here


The Hickory Tree, for which Hickory Tree Field is named


Good thing the cows like dandelions.
Case 930 the mowing trator

Big doings across the river

Macro Monday

For more Macro Monday

Sunday Stills...Landscape

Here in the Northeast, in spring, the landscape runs to trees....lots and lots of trees. This is the view looking north from the sitting porch, the neighbor's Norway Spruce and some Northern sky in the evening.





For more Sunday Stills......

Robin Surprise

Baby Robin

As Alan was leaving the house yesterday on the way to an afternoon of that most sought after, beloved and popular farm job, picking stone, I asked him to take a minute to remove the plastic covering from the stained glass doors. I am too short to make a good job of it and I wanted to let the spring breezes have a free romp through the house.

I was out hoeing onions near the back door when he returned.

"Well, that was an adventure," he said, while wiping off his arm.

"What happened? Bees?"

"No I pulled the plastic down and a bird landed on my arm and pooped all over me."

"Starling?"

"No, baby robin...they have a nest on the pillar. I put it back up there"

The little darling stayed all day, chirping so sweetly.
Such marvelous music from a barely fledged infant.
Alas it was gone this morning, but I think the folks were caring for it down in the lilac bushes.

It joins a full complement of spring birds, except my beloved house wrens. Haven't seen or heard a one yet.
But we have:
Lotsa robins, starlings, catbirds, common yellow throat, yellow warbler, phoebes, willow flycatcher, white-breasted nuthatch, chickadees, barn swallows, cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeak pair, Baltimore orioles, Ruby-throated humming birds, Sassenachs, crows, grackles, northern mockingbirds, song sparrows, kestrel pair with babies in the heifer barn, chipping sparrows, gold finches, red-winged black birds, cow birds, chimney swifts, rock pigeons, mourning doves....just off the top of my head. We are much more blessed in the bird department than we deserve.

Have a good one. Haying starts today, provided the machinery all starts today.

Color My World

Red Cows

And Red Necks (Do I know these strange people?)

Yellow Ducks

Yellow Skies

And Shy Little Brown Birds

The Joy....and the Other Side of the Story

As I mentioned in the previous post, Becky's show cow Lemonade, or Lemmie for short, had a heifer calf yesterday. It was the first purebred Holstein heifer she has ever had, after a series of bulls, and was sired by Roylane Jordan, a significant bull of the breed. The baby has the potential to really be something special and Lem is pretty special in her own right. (in fact she was sired by Ocean-View Extra Special.)

So we were thrilled. Mom is fine. Baby is fine. All is good.

But then there is the other cow that was kept in the barnyard with her and helped her in the great escape yeseterday. Cow #156, Consequence, or Connie. Nobody liked the way she looked yesterday so we gave her a pre-calving bottle of subcutaneous calcium. Last night we kept her down in the barnyard with Lemmie again (with a much reinforced gate situation).

This morning Liz found her rolled into a dangerous position and unable to get right...cows can die if their organs press on their lungs and heart....so she and Alan and the boss rolled her upright. She promptly gave birth to a tiny, healthy, bull calf. Obviously a twin. They tried to get another bottle of calcium on board, but she was having none of it and could run faster than they could, so they let her be. Lemmie took possession of baby number one while Connie got down to the business of having the second.

I just went over to check on her progress and found her with a huge ball of placenta-wrapped calf behind her. Sadly the calf was born dead. I am pretty sure that it had been dead a while before birth and was twisted up in the uterus behind the healthy calf. It was not stretched into the normal "diving" position for bovine birth and instead had legs stuck behind its head and turned every which way. No wonder she had been looking ill and more uncomfortable than is normal even for an extremely pregnant cow.

At least she has the live calf to fuss over and was able to stand and walk around. When we go out to milk, hopefully the whole bunch of us...minus Liz who is working at her new job...can get her in the barn and given that calcium. That is how it is with farm life...and all life I guess...you get the joys but they tend to be balanced out by the other side of living. I am going to focus on the Lemmie's new heifer, which Becky has named Lipstick, and get on with spring time. After a bit, Connie will get on with things too....poor old girl.

Don't Try This at Home

Morning milking, column deadline,
Two springer cows in the barnyard
ready to calve
Phone rings
BF's grandparents truck broke down
Bringing it here so the boys can fix it
Phone rings
Liz checks springer cows
They are both missing
Broke down the gate
and headed for the pastures
Phone rings
Power company calls from the front yard driveway
and comes to check wires that they messed up last week
While the GP's are still here
Power lady needs to see the boss,
But, of course he isn't
Here that is
Kids find cows and Lemmie has a heifer
Power company leaves
And the milk inspector gets here
At the same time
Traffic jam in the driveway
Introductions all around
and around
and around
Inspector wants his wooden critters
Glad I have some done
Bye, bye to four bunnies and four duckies.

Truck is finished, calf is a nice one,
everybody goes home
and the phone stops ringing.
Throw together some meatballs and sauce for spaghetti
Milking time again

***This is not by way of being a poem, but merely a list of the busiest day in recent memory. In between the boss ran for parts and ran for hay..twice..fixed the gate that the cows broke down.