Getting Up in the Dark

Is not on my favorites list, but it is time to be getting used to it now. In just one week we have gone from two morning singers, the indigo buntings and the carolina wrens to nobody but the roosters making a peep in the morning.

I miss them.

We solved...or rather Alan did...the not-quite robin singing every morning up at camp question. I hadn't said anything to him about the drive-me-crazy-every-morning birds that made the forest ring all around the camp, but he decided to look up the call of the scarlet tanager. He has been seeing a lot of them around and wanted to see if he had been hearing them too.

And there it was, the almost robin. No wonder I never could spot one no matter how many times I walked around the cabin peering into the trees. They may be bright red, but they are not big on showing it off. I am satisfied now at the solution to that puzzle. Next summer I will know.

Looks like we may get a decent rest of the week and the guys are champing at the bit. Hay! We must finish hay or we won't have enough feed again this winter. We lost a whole field of mowed sudex to this rain. It molded on the ground and they must now chop it on the ground to get rid of it.

I don't know why we keep getting all the rain for the whole state every year....three years in a row now of enough rain to support a rain forest. This little section of the valley gets dumped on time after time. We will get a downpour while our friends in Glen have a good day baling.

Sure hope they can get a lot of second and third cutting this week before Alan goes back to college. Crossing fingers for no breakdowns.

Wordless Wednesday

For All You

Beautiful, glorious, wonderful, pedigreed cattle enthusiasts out there. I stumbled upon this fantastic blog and spent more time than you could imagine scrolling through page after page of show and auction photos. The worst part of that is that I am going to spend even more time doing the same the first chance I get.

If you want to see some pretty cows......

You Might be a Farmer If

You know that velvet leaf works great to clean your dipstick when checking your tractor oil.

Weather and Wrens, plus Macro Monday

Katydid

Rain, not just a sprinkle but a never ending downpour. Sluicing, slashing, screaming, splashing, yeah that kind of rain. While farms all around us, even just up-county, have faced a summer of mini-drought, here at Northview it has rained at least three days of every week but one or two. The men have gone nuts trying to put in baled hay. It takes a couple of days to dry it and those couple of days have been so hard to come by.

When we complain about excess rain people look at us like we lost our noodles or something, but every two or three days I dump the wheelbarrow that sits beside the stove...half-full most of the time.

Slashing rains finds leaks....leaks that probably just developed from the slashing rain....don't ask....

And wrens. I love wrens. The cheeky, uppity house wrens that take over the place like they were paying the taxes, or the Carolina wrens that just showed up to serenade me every morning, they are great favorites of mine.

Thus I was so sad when I found a dead one...or what was left of him, just a head and enough feathers to guess what he was. I was also perplexed because I found those tattered relics on the carpet in the front hallway where the birds sing outside the door to get that sought-after concert hall effect. How the heck did he get into the house? And how the heck did our fat, never-been-outdoors since he was a kitten, Elvis the Schaufelcat, catch him? The stinker....every time I have fed him since I have chastised him verbally about his diet and his terminal wren breath. Eating my wren is pretty close to over the edge....

Then yesterday as we looked out at the deluge, knowing it was nearly time to go out in it, get the cows and get our jobs done, Alan heard something. He thought it was outdoors. He perfectly mimicked a wren's alarm call and asked me what bird made that sound.

A wren I answered.

A few minutes later he again roused me from my stupor to point out that said wren was on the upstairs banister. The indoor banister, just outside our bedroom door.

Let's just say that catching an agile wren in a huge, cluttered monster of a house (with ten-foot ceilings) with many rooms and doors and windows is challenging.

Just a little.

A bit the worse for wear after all his thrilling house exploration he finally was released into the bushes out front, whence we set about dealing with the water.

Enough already.

Enough rain.

Enough cruddy weather (the boss is reading me the forecast as week speak...rain every day all week.)

And enough wrens in the house. We still have not figured out how they are coming in, but we closed all the doors so they can't slip around screens or anything.

One certain term comes to mind here.......arrggghhhhhh!!!!!!!

Lots more Macro Monday here

Farming and the World Economy

This is an outstanding article that tells it like it is in a place where it might actually be noticed. Kudos to the author!

Child Abuse

When I read this ad headline I knew what they meant. I kinda wonder about what folks who aren't familiar with quarter horses might have thought though.

Sunday Stills.....Metal

For more Sunday Stills.......

Farmer Connect

Lemmie at the fair. She was reserve champion Holstein

We drove a couple of hours today to look at a bull that was advertised in Country Folks. He wasn't quite what we had in mind, but the folks had another one that we were crazy about and the dam was just as nice so we are negotiating on him.

Rose Magnolia at the fair.
She was grand champion milking shorthorn over a small,
but very nice quality entry. I was stunned and I don't mean maybe.

It was so cool talking to them. When we went into their kitchen we were total strangers. At first conversation was best-behavior-basis, a little stilted, feeling each other out, testing, one, two, three, will you understand what we are thinking? Will we "get" you?

After a few minutes cautious talk about hay and weather, the conversation turned to old cattle sale catalogs and we were off. It was a wonder we weren't next door neighbors or something so much did we have in common. They are good friends with our milk inspector. They like the old bulls, attended Backus auctions, kept big bulls, and on and on.

Alan and I were looking at one another with laughter in our eyes because although the two farmers had never met and looked nothing alike, they were like twins. We stood or sat in their kitchen for hours regaling each other with stories about big, bad bulls, nice heifers, amazing auctions and so on, each getting to know the other's ways and background.

We finally had to get going and they had to get back to fitting for their fair and chores so we said goodbye....several times, always another little story or thought. We liked them a lot. I hope they liked us too. I suspect we will be buying their little bull after a bit. I sure hope we get to meet them again. Nothing like a meeting of the minds.

Twin babies born at the Miracle of Birth Center at Altamont Fair.
Mama seemed quite taken with them.

Food Miles, Calories and Fallacies

I was surprised to find this in a NY Times article.

This is a well-thought out piece worth a thorough read. I am so glad it is reaching a main stream audience.

Raptor

Kestrel

Barred owl...who cooks for you?

Sleepy screech owl, grey phase

Red-tailed hawk...its only flaw was that is was imprinted on humans.

Not red but brave and bold just the same. These are rehabbed birds that were being exhibited near the cow barn at Altamont Fair when I visited on Tuesday. Although they have all manner of handicaps, their raptor nature shown from their dark bright eyes. I missed the gleaming steel colored eye of the broad winged hawk. It was such a beautiful bird, but my focus was poor.

Colored Breeds Show

Down around the wagon by the gate at evening milking time.
Kinda like rush hour country style.

Starts in ten minutes. I am not there.

Maybe I can make the Holstein show tonight. That would be sweet as a certain dearly-loved family member usually shows up and I'd love to see him.

At least chores are done and we finally have grain.

And if you are looking to buy a beautiful children's book, I would love to send some business the way of the illustrator of this one. (You can see how fantastic her art is here)

It's a long story, but she brought our grain at 3 this AMand it wasn't exactly a good moment for her. Anyone that talented deserves support. And it sure goes to show you never know. Who would expect that a grain truck driver, incidentally a lovely and very sweet young lady, would be a published children's book illustrator too?

Back to School Shopping

(Don't you just love these irrelevant pictures?
This is a Scottish Highlander Cow over at the fair.)

I am done with school shopping, what with the baby in college and all, and it is not a task that I will miss at all. If I never again have to compete with herds of other harried parents for the last pack of three by five cards in the state or spend money we don't have for expensive gadgets that could be replaced by lined paper and a pencil I will rejoice with hosannas. To never buy another five-inch binder (yeah, I know what they cost) or graphing calculator will make me a very happy woman.

However, a post by my friend Ann, had me remembering just how creative a terminally lazy very busy and harassed mother can be. Three kids, one husband, elderly inlaws, the farm etc. had me at a dead run all through the school years. Band, chorus, 4-H, Dairy Quiz Bowl, Dairy judging, Dairy Ambassadors, who had time to shop? As soon as our kids could count, read, and conceive of spending money (I think Alan might have been nine) we pointed them towards independence by giving them a certain amount of money at the beginning of each frantic fall pen, pencil and over-priced clothing round up. (One year it was two hundred dollars for clothes, books, three by five cards from Hell, calculators etc. Those were the days.......I can't imagine spending that now and am glad I don't have to).

They were then permitted to each take a shopping cart and buy exactly what they wanted-the catch being that it had to go them for the whole school year. If they had money left at the end of their initial shopping session (when the prices are lowest and the crowds most insane) they could put it away for school needs during the ensuing year. If they had any left come summer vacation it was theirs for whatever they wanted.

If the clothes they bought were poorly made or seriously ugly, they had to cope with the consequences. Skimping on things on the class lists brought the teacher down on their heads not mine. (Well actually I put my fingers in my ears and hummed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony while the teachers yelled at me on the phone but the offspring had to come up with a way to fulfill their commitments....)

You might expect that this would be fraught with comedy and tragedy and that they ended up short of needed funds, out of paper and bereft of pens.
It wasn't.
They weren't.
Maybe because they were farm kids and simply had to be practical and independent to get from day to day, they did just fine right from the very first year. Alan and Liz, the practical pair, had money left for summer. Becky the generous might have had to borrow paper from someone half way through the year, but she got by and got to choose clothes that she liked (I shuddered but she was happy).

It worked for me too. I was there in the store to offer advice if requested but I never had to fight over what color or price of notebook or tee shirt. If they wanted top of the line stuff they made do with less...willingly because they got to choose between five notebooks for a dollar or one for five dollars.

Today any one of them can take X number of carefully hoarded dollars to the store and come back with the maximum amount of appropriate products that those dollars can purchase. They can grocery shop for the whole family on an extremely tight budget, buy vehicles, animals, feed, or whatever and the oldest is only 24. I know I was a real mean mom, but most days I am quite glad of it.

Farm Sign Gate

I was one of a bountiful number of ag journalists who wrote about this fascinating, but incorrect story. I'm calling it farm sign gate.

Retraction anyone?

Stranded Payments in PA

Where is the milk money going?

Shorties at the Fair

Rose Magnolia, our girl, shown in the intermediate calf class

The other shortie at the fair,
sired by Promise, our old bull,
a junior yearling, I think.

Lemmie Loves Me

Lemmie before she heard my voice

Just in case you wondered whether cows know their folks or not....Liz's boyfriend took me over to the fair for a bit. When I got there Lem was just lying there resting. The second I spoke and she heard my voice she spun her head right around to see me. Then any time I spoke her name she quickly looked to see what I was doing.

As soon as she heard my voice...
there were people all around talking but she picked me right out

Chewing cud like it was her job.

Milk vein

Liz, Becky and the men generally feed her. All I do is milk her twice a day, put fly spray on ditto...and talk to her, because, despite her breaking my nose with her tail last year, she is one of my favorites. Nice to know she likes me too.

More Cows for the Fair

I hustled all weekend getting these ladies finished for Liz's fair decorations...then she forgot them. Oh, well, I am sure she will remember tomorrow and the paint will probably be a bit drier then.Now if I can just get the printer working for the stall signs.

Rose Magnolia at the Fair

Some fast phone pics sent home by Liz during and after clipping. Her head is shaped a lot like that of her paternal grandmother Gold Mine Poppys OT Kay (Her sire is the Select Sire Power bull, Poker).

***Yet another update. There is another milking shorthorn heifer over at the fair, a nice yearling. Guess who her sire is?

Yep, the two shorties that will compete are very closely related. Rose's granddad is the other heifer's papa. Even though the older animal will almost inevitably beat little Rose I am simply tickled red (shorthorn red). I picked Promise out myself from a photo I saw online. I fought kinda fiercely to get him drawn rather than just beefed (as a certain husband was going to do). I have no objections whatsoever by being beaten by one of his offspring.

Pins and Needles

Fair time is nervous time for me.

I worry.

The drive is terrible. 32 miles of twisting, winding road, bad enough in the day time, horrible at night when shared with hard core elbow benders and worse. We have been followed, harassed and witnessed massive drug busts while on that merry jaunt to the show and back.

Then there are the cattle. I worry about them. They are so vulnerable to who knows what while they are there. There is a good watchman, but there are so many um.....people....not cow people...all kinds of people. And loose cows, always a few loose cows.

And dear Lemmie has to be hand milked today as the milking parlor won't be open until tonight. She has been hand milked before, but I worry. She is one of my very favorites to milk, tall enough so I barely have to bend down to put the machine on, always clean with a properly placed udder, just a very nice girl...and she is the best cow Becky has ever had. Here at home one of Liz's best heifers, a Silky Cousteau, out of Mandy herself, turned up with a bum hock yesterday. Real bad. She is a big strapping thing, but somebody or something did her harm. Probably one of the other big heifers in that pasture. They tend to play rough. I am so worried about her too. That whole family of cows is very soft, not toughies like some who will just rub a little dirt in it and walk it off. I hope she is better today.

And then there is Gael. Gael is Liz's border collie, Mike's half sister. Her dad was a great enough dog to go to the National finals with his owner. I have written about him here before, one of the most staggeringly talented dogs I have ever seen. Gael was softer when she worked, but she had a git er done attitude that made her more dog than she actually was. She is fifteen. Old dog vestibular disease and with it intermittent blindness. Incontinence. She was drinking from the garden pond when I looked at her yesterday. The next time I looked out to check on her she was gone. I looked and looked. She had fallen behind some plants and couldn't get up. I went and helped her. Then she fell in another flower bed and couldn't get up. She ate a couple bites of meatloaf and nothing more. She has lost so much weight in the last few weeks.... I will get her some canned dog food and see if that helps, but in my heart I know it is getting to be Time.

How I hate to make that decision. I know will feel guilty as I did when Mike left us last fall. Who am I to say? When is it right? Too soon? Too late? Good dogs. Good friends. Good helpers. They are all getting old at the same time.

It all adds up to not much sleep. Worry and a buck and a half will get you a cup of coffee (unless you are the Star$$$$ sort) but I do it anyhow. I will be glad when the week is done and all the decisions are made and the cows and kid back home again.

****Update...first thing I saw out the kitchen window when the sun got down to business this morning was Monday, the Cousteau daughter, lying in some bushes looking awful and very sorry for herself. I was so discouraged I could barely stand it. She is good one. I want her to thrive and prosper. We brought the cows in and were discussing what we would do....try to get her down into a pen, take food and water to her right where she was (problem, the other animals would fight her to take it away from her) or put her in the empty pasture behind the barn. Then Alan said, as he looked out the cow barn window, "Isn't that her right there? Isn't she the only one with a collar on?"

Nonsense....she was so bad off, how could she walk? Well it turns out she could walk pretty darned good and was right there in the barnyard with the rest of the heifers...going back to that whole family being a bunch of wienies.....Yup they are. Guess she sprained her hock, but she is infinitely better this morning. She refused our offer to rest in the barnyard and hustled right out with the others....see this grey hair here...this one right here? It's hers!