Storm

Yet another wild storm with torrential rains last night. No hay is being made.
See the little dingle-dangles hanging down under that cloud? In the seconds before I took the photos, I was just sitting down in my Sunday chair to enjoy a wonderful anniversary dinner provided for the boss and me by our Becky. First bite of delicious calzone from Romana's had just been cut. I glanced out the window and saw this huge, pregnant, ugly thing hanging down from the big, black thunder cloud. The wind was already howling, folks had scurried to close windows, and the sumacs were lashing the windows like whips.

Having watched many tornado chaser videos, I ran for the camera. By the time I got back to the window, the bulge had been reabsorbed into the cloud and all that was left were those two little wisps...which were rotating around in a circle. It was over in an instant and no more than a glimmer of what it could have been, but this has certainly been a summer for bizarre weather.First a hot dry May (for which I was grateful as we got more work done every day than we can do in a week now). Now a cool, absolutely soggy, sorry June. We can't seem to buy two dry days in a row and keep having to turn the heat on to take off the miserable chill and dry the house out..

At least a man brought the steel for the barn roof yesterday. Of course the men had gone off for parts for the engine rebuild on the 930 so there was no one to help unload or to tell me where it needed to go.

Wednesday Thursday Friday?

This is nuts. It is bad enough that there are parts of America that are too dangerous for the average Joe or Jill to visit due to urban violence, but how can there be places we can't visit because of foreign crime? It is unbelievable that anybody finds this acceptable. How can they declare national wildlife refuge off limits to the citizens who pay for it because nobody has guts (I wanted to use a better word here, but I'll be nice) to offer our people security and safety? Just read the initials of the title and you will know what I am thinking.

Wordless Wednesday

Dogs Gone

A fat blue folder of dogs long gone
Doggone them for leaving
Their place by my feet
For not being puppies
And herders
And guarders
For leaving me waiting behind here at home
While they move on to wide fields
where cows always come running
whenever they roam.

Reading through pedigrees,
Floss, Wisp, Nell and Craig
Davy, Bobby, Sadie, Robbie,
Whitelow Jan,
Dryden Joe,

Grand dogs of the past from Scotland and Wales
All gone now too,
Though their names ring behind them
From the hills and the sheep and the big sheep dog trials

Years ago all combined to make Mike, Nick and Gael
The three collies who worked here
for fifteen long years
Making chores easy and crazy and fun
Tracking in mud and shedding black hair
And lying there sleeping right next to my chair

Mike is long gone now and Nick's getting old.

Gael lies in the kitchen
in front of the gate
Too blind to be watching
Too deaf now to hear
But you still can't get by her
She'll find you no fear.

I was looking yesterday for a picture of a border collie to help me in painting the latest wooden animal project to come my way. In the course of the hunt I dug out my old training books, finding pictures of the likes of Wiston Cap (read the bit in this story about whistle training. I have seen it myself...a dog that knows nothing about whistles working to them anyhow) and so many other great ones. It has been a while since we had a dog here that worked, but when we did they were an incredible help. I really miss just sending a dog to move cows where we want them. Now it's do it yourself if you want it done, and cows don't respect middle-aged-going-on-elderly, ladies near as much as they do fast, young dogs with sharp, white teeth.

Nick at 11 is still eager and biddable, but I could never really use him on the milk cows. He likes to bite above the hock...right where the udder is...and so is not trustworthy. Gael is fifteen and past it all, except for toddling along behind me on the way to the garden.

Mike was a good one. Born knowing more about herding than I'll ever learn.
I didn't deserve him, but I am so glad I had him. As I looked at his registration papers I realized it was no wonder that he was such a terrific dog. Wisp was his grand sire...two time International champion...and I had the honor of working with him, training him, being trained by him. Damn I was lucky.
It was bittersweet to page through the books and registrations, old licenses and vet's receipts.
I was so privileged to have had such a dog...such dogs in fact...but I miss working with them. Their lives are too short.

We have four dogs now, all elderly, what with Nick and Gael, Wally the blue heeler guardian of the barn, and Sadie, the boss's late mother's old mutt, but I am getting the itch to get a puppy. You can't ever replace an old dog and no pup can fill their footprints....but a puppy grows....and learns...and leads you new places where you haven't been before. I'd like to find a puppy.

A working puppy, with the blood of the great ones running through him....
Training stock dogs was the most challenging thing (next to parenting) that I ever did (or more like tried to do). I had to learn several new languages from come bye and away to me to reading cows and sheep in a whole new way.
From training the dog to listen to me and convincing him to work with me to thinking where he needed to be and where I needed to be to make the cows go where we both wanted them without getting anybody run over. From knowing two lefts from two rights...his and mine (and if you want to get complicated, the cows' lefts too) to balance and pressure and outruns and drives.
It is a game I want to play again and I do believe that I am going to need a new dog to play it with.
It is getting hard to wait for him.

It has rained

It is raining. It will rain...and rain and rain and rain. Or so it seems. Work on everything has ground to a halt. No hay, no roofing, no gardening, nothing but chores and house work. Of course there is always plenty of those to do.The tractor pull was canceled so the guys came home and slept off the three AM start to the day before chores.

We have a lawn buck to go with the doe. He came peeking in the window and trotting around the lawn on Saturday. At least a four-point, thick with velvet. I suppose they may have something to do with the absence of tops on the beets in the upper garden...

And I leave you with some baby mockingbirds as I don't have much else to offer. We have all sorts of babies from robins to downy woodpeckers. They are the highlight of the season right now.

The Guys are off To Dansville

Big brother is taking Alan and the boss to the big tractor pull at Dansville today. Alan got up at three-fifteen and got the cows in. They were not at all in favor of that. Cows love routine and they resent and protest change, especially being asked to come in to the barn a couple of hours early. It took him over an hour to get them down. Then the boss and I helped him milk them.

A pic Alan took a couple years ago of our friend's tractor, the Supernatural.

I am hoping the guys have a great time at the pull...the girls and I will milk tonight without them.

***Update, the Dansville tractor pull was canceled and the man are back :(
This rain has a lot to answer for!! The guys got all the way to Syracuse before they found out.

Best Post Yet on the Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Read it here. FC is a Gulf Coast native...someone who lives it and loves it. Read his post...it will break your heart.

No Dairy Farms Left by 2024

Check out John Bunting's blog for some very disturbing figures.

Case 930

Coughed up a head gasket yesterday. It is the mowing/baling/hauling/you name it tractor...or it was.....good thing Alan is studying Ag engineering AKA diesel tech.

Egg Quality a Success in Ohio

Read about it here

Don't Forget the Book Sale

20% off through the month of June.....

***That is a small section of my dining room book shelf, not my folk's shop.

How Loud was that Commercial Anyhow?

Did it wake you up from the best rest you will get today? Happens to me all the time.....However, they are finally thinking about legislating against the way television stations crank up the volume whenever they are hoping to sell something...not unlike a kid with sixteen speakers in the back of his car pulling up next to you at a red light and blasting rap that rattles your windows.

I don't actually watch TV, being more of a reader sort of person, but I live with people who do. I am not sure we need to have the Senate spending their time regulating something as trivial as this....after all, we all need our heart jump started now and then, and they do put a mute button on those TV remotes..... but I wouldn't miss the way the volume on the idiot box jumps from 4 or 5 to 12 or 20 a hundred times an evening. (I wonder if we could get a mute button for the Senate.)

There is also action on stopping damnfoolidiots from texting while driving. My mind boggles at the thought that anybody anywhere thinks themselves skilled enough to multitask that way....to look down at a number pad while howling down the highway among hundreds of other folks, many of who are up to the same silliness. Of course enforcing it might present an interesting conundrum. And of course this is a state issue rather than federal, (they are setting up a program for states but it is still the federal fingers in the state pie)and folks should be smart enough not to need a law, federal or otherwise, to prevent them from doing it, but I am glad someone noticed the problem anyhow.

And They Want us to Stop Using Our Outdoor Furnace

BP to burn 42000 gallons of oil per day. If it is the best answer for keeping as much oil as possible out of sensitive areas I am fine with what they are doing...it just seems ironic that the state is chasing after a few wood stoves in light of the pollution BP will cause.

Weather is Everything

Well, not really everything, but it really matters at planting and harvest time. If it rains you cannot reasonably plant anything or make hay. We are actually done planting except a little bit of the garden that I can't seem to find time for, but we have just begun to make hay...continuing with that will just have to wait for dry, sunny days, even if we switch over to chopping instead of baling.

Just in case, the guys are getting the bagger set up. They will probably chop everything that is already mowed....hardly worth baling it, but we will see. They have a lot of hay mowed right now, getting rained on every day and losing nutrients as it does. They will put it up anyhow one way or the other. You can balance out lesser quality hay by changing the grain ration or you can feed it to dry cows or heifers who need less in the way of high-quality forages.

Meanwhile, we have a steel man here picking up old machinery to sell it. We get part of the money and he gets the rest for gathering, cutting and hauling. Amishmen are giving us estimates on fixing the bad roof. They seem like nice fellows, very brisk and businesslike.

The birds in many cases are on their second broods. The phoebes are calling up a storm again and I am finally seeing a few wrens. I learned a new bird call from my iPod...put my bird call CD on there along with my music and have been listening to a random play list. That means the birds pop up between the likes of Jason Aldean and the Roosters.

The other day I heard a bird on there and thought, wow, I think I hear those all the time. A little research and sure enough, we are plumb surrounded by indigo buntings. Now that I know the call, I have been looking for them and there they were...where they had been all the time, singing to me even from the power line in front of the house and from all over the fields around the house.

The phoebes and the willow flycatchers come right to the living room windows to snatch wasps. It is so cool to sit right there in my chair and bird watch. I let a couple of sumacs grow up against one window and they form a perfect little canopy to shelter them as they hunt for stinging insects. The boss offered to cut them down (not knowing about my free entertainment) but I respectfully declined. I will get rid of them this winter when the fly catchers are gone. Meanwhile, I am working on learning the empidonax fly catchers by their calls. I am pretty near sure ours is a willow, but there is always the potential to mix them up with the alder.

Well, chore time beckons. It will be nice to get the darned roof repaired. Indoor rain showers leave something to be desired....like a way to milk cows while carrying an umbrella.

Belated Wordless Wednesday

Cashin's Opened Yesterday

Guess what Alan and I did. What a difference a year makes. With the nasty late frost last year and the relentless rains, they only picked five days at our favorite self pick farm. We never got any berries for jam. I bought a few organic berries across the river, simply because they were all that I could find, but they were absurdly expensive and sour...probably because of the weather.

Thus when the kids said the sign was out just down the road on 5S we went right out and picked ten quarts. I made two batches of jam and froze most of the rest. (Some simply must be eaten....on ice cream...not on ice cream...right out of the berry box...on the way home....)

I would have made a lot more jam, but there seems to be a Sure-Jell shortage. I had a couple of boxes left from last year but not enough to process ten quarts of berries....Alan found me some fruit pectin by Ball up at Price Chopper, but alas it is the no sugar kind. I have no interest in using it as you have to add other fruit juice. If I am going to make jams and jellies I am not going to buy commercial grape juice so I can do it. We are going to have to do a concentrated Sure-Jell hunt and soon, as the berry season is short and the jelly cravings are long. If you see any when you are out shopping I would be wildly grateful if you dropped me a note in the comments. Have a great day!

***Update, Becky found a goodly supply in Cobleskill. Thank you all for suggestions

Scooter

Cat added for reference. That is Chainsaw, who is quite a small cat and Liz who is not exactly a giant. Scooter is so little that it is easy to scoop him up under one arm and carry him away.

Summer Weeks are Crazy

Noms! I want noms!!

So much is happening on the farm right now that I can't keep up. Haying has come to a halt because of the rain, but a few dry days and the men will get back to that. We are rotating the cows from pasture to pasture. They like the old heifer pasture best for some reason and would rather go there, especially at night. However, we are putting them up behind the barn as we need to get that chewed down pretty quickly.

One of the cows in my string started acting strangely about ten days ago. Bailey had been bred in October and re-bred in March. However, after milking along very nicely for a cow so long in milk, she suddenly dropped precipitously in production. Then her udder swelled up and became oddly fleshy and she would not let down her milk. We couldn't figure out what was going on until last Thursday when she wouldn't come in with the other cows.

The boss told us she was losing her calf. As we thought she was pregnant to the March service we expected a total disaster. However the next day we went out and there she was with a tiny little bull calf....obviously she had been pregnant to the October service. The calf was six weeks early and should not have survived. Instead he is so lively he is hilariously funny, following everyone around the barn butting them in the fanny and dancing like a fawn. I can't describe to you how tiny he is...like a little velvet plush toy. I will try to get some pics today.

The kids named him Scooter and have a great time with him. We were pretty lucky as Bailey came into milk as if she had gone through a normal pregnancy and although her milk can't be put in the tank yet and is being used to feed calves, soon she will once again be a productive member of the herd. I am glad because I really like her.

The kids also rescued an abandoned kitten from the hay mow. Sinopa had three, two tortoiseshells and an orange and white one. When the hay started coming down into the mow she removed two, but left one little tortie behind. The poor thing was so hungry that she was hanging out the haymow window screaming. The kids drove down to a friend's farm to borrow a kitty crate and little Nom Noms now resides in the kitchen, much to Elvis's chagrin. (If he knew she was also noming food from his canz he would really be ticked off.)

Some Amish contractors came in to measure the barn roof for repairs and hopefully will be giving us a good estimate on that, and a scrap guy came in to bid on some old machinery we have around. Another hopeful prospect as maybe one can pay for the other. Plus feed reps have been coming by....Alan went up to the brother's house and got some honey from his bees yesterday. Fantastic stuff! I love honey anyhow, but this is really good. So many activities...so little time....



Well, time for the salt mines..have a good one!

****I forgot to give Becky credit for taking these photos

Surprise Guest

(And what with the beans and peas being planted just a little ways from here, not necessarily a welcome guest). These pics were taken through the living room window...the lower one by Alan who crawled on his hands and knees to get closer to the window to get a photo of her...she was looking right at us! I'll bet she has a fawn hidden out there near the lawn, since she was not at all inclined to leave even with a bunch of people peering out at her.

Sunday Stills...Black and White

For more Sunday Stills...