Paul has a Poem

Paul at Salt Creek Life has the nicest poem about the season that I have read in a good long while. It had me smiling and reading out loud. Go read...enjoy.

Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm

Is on Farm Side Fridays this week. Directions are included if you are attending. Looks like it is going to be a great event!

The Farmer gets Older

Happy Birthday to the boss!

First Day on the New Feet

Pecan had a new baby girl this morning. First day on the new feet, first breakfast, second breakfast, nuncheon, high tea......

Wordless Wednesday

Cow Housing

Another pic of Moments, since everybody liked her

A lively debate has sprung up in the comments and I thought maybe I should address it from the point of view of 32+ years of caring for and milking cows in both styles of stabling, freestall and conventional barns with pasture. I can assure you from personal, long-term experience that cows are fine in both kinds of barns. Sure they like pasture, but they also race to get into the barn in summer...that is where the fans are and fly control is better. And in winter that is where it is warm and comfortable. Although they can withstand amazingly adverse weather conditions they like to avoid them just as any creature would.

I am not sure that the terms that we use to describe our own emotional states apply to cows in the same way as they do to humans. I admit I am as anthropomorphic in my language as anyone, but I think a cow's sense of well-being runs more to comfortable vs. uncomfortable, hungry/not hungry, frightened/secure rather than abstracts like happy or sad. They are not predators, but rather prey animals, and as such they devote most of their energies to survival. If we make survival easier for them, rather than being what we conceive of as "unhappy" because they are not outdoors, they are contented with having what they need to live and feel safe and comfortable.

Most free stalls are designed with the cow's comfort in mind, with ventilation systems and sprinklers in summer and side curtains to keep out the weather in winter. Cows can walk about freely, eat when they want to and lie down in stalls that are scientifically designed after much research (which is still constantly ongoing with better ideas coming out every year) to fit their needs as perfectly as possible. I am sure you heard about Temple Grandin, whose life story won a boat load of Emmys this year. She is a perfect example of the kind of expert who designs animal handling and care systems so that they serve animals as well as their caretakers..

Not unlike house cats, which might have a heck of a lot of fun hunting birds in the neighbor's back yard, but are much safer indoors, cows inside stables may not look as natural, but the key thing is care. They are well-cared for, their wants and needs attended to and they do just fine. If I were to try to define a "happy" cow, I would describe one that is lying down on a firm but comfortable surface, chewing her cud, calm rather than alert, at a proper temperature for her species (cows like the fifties). There is no reason she can't experience all those things, as much as she wants to, in a free stall barn as well as in a pasture.

Cows look pretty grazing out on a nice green hillside, and under the right conditions that is a fine place for them to be. I like pasturing our cows because it is a very economical way to care for a herd of our size, and they do thrive in summer. Winter is another story. I would love to have a nice modern free stall barn for them in winter. The cows would like it I'll bet. Inside a stable that was painstakingly designed, after much research and trial and error at universities and on farms, to cater to their every whim, is a fine place for them.

A Great Farm Safety Resource

NY State has a wonderful resource when it comes to staying safe on the farm. The New York Center for Agricultural Medicine provides a broad range of safety and health related services to the state's farmers.

An especially handy tool is their list of farm safety articles, which can be found here.

If You Like Monty Python

Go listen to this clip that Dickiebo has up on driving on the left.

Having a son who can do ten minutes of the Holy Grail at a time...and being more familiar with the air speed velocity of swallows with coconuts than with European geography (although I did know the answer to the question...without the taxi) , I laughed so hard that my coffee was hazardous to my keyboard.

Home Girls of Northview

On Parade

***Well, actually on their way down to the barn for morning milking

Traffic jam, NY style...upstate NY that is

Detroit

Bonneville and friends

Moments,
we were hoping she was pregnant
and the other day when I walked by her, her calf to be was poking its fanny against her side
and I got to feel it kicking and wiggling, hooray for Moments!

My favorite cow, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, thanks Alan for giving her to me!

B-dub as I call her gets three pics just because she is so special.
Can you believe her amazing color?

Sunday Stills....Glass

For more Sunday Stills....

Not Just Another Saturday

When the boss watched the news last night I had to walk away from the television and go upstairs. As is I am sure the case with most of you, my memories of September 11 are still as sharp as if it happened yesterday. I shuddered to be reminded so strongly and needed not to be in that room.

On the other hand we need to remember.

I think we have been encouraged to let the horror slip from our collective consciousness and to move along into our usual round of national guilt for anything and everything that happens anywhere in the world. We were attacked in a cowardly and horrific manner.

It was not our fault.... No matter what the American-haters would have us think. The people who died were just living their lives as best they could not bothering anyone.
We should not forget that.

My beloved brother works long weeks and hours, alone without his family far below the site of the horror, laboring to fix parts of what was broken. I worry about him every day. A few years ago a large number of bloggers joined together to remember each person who died in the assault upon our nation for the 2996 project.

Carl DiFranco, an innocent young man just doing his job, who died that day was my assignment. Here is a link to his story as best as I could find it.







Here at home, it was sirens and Sadie all night again. It is worrisome to hear them screaming up and down the valley especially with 9-11 on my mind. So far no news reports to tell me what was going on with the sirens, but the state of the porch gives me a Sadie suggestion. Gael had a bad night with her old dog vestibular disease; the porch is a mess with a chicken feed bag torn up all over the place and who knows what else. She wouldn't eat when I put out her food.

This is just heart-wrenching. Yesterday she had a great day and even trotted out to meet us when we came in from the barn. With her balance problems trotting is not exactly an every day thing. Now today she is terribly bad off again and can barely walk. Poor old girl. We lavish pets and praise on her and feed her treats and tasty foods but....It is different than with Mike. He lost himself long before he passed away. There was no Mike there, but only a shell of dog. With Gael, the body is weak, but the doggy girl, the Wissa Queen, Beanie dog, Queen Bean is still inside her fragile old body. Mike was my special boy but losing Gael is hurting a lot harder.

The windows were fogged solid this morning. For a minute I was worried that we had had a frost last night. Most of the house plants are still outside and the garden isn't done and I am so not ready for frost....although I suppose that I really should get ready. However, I had forgotten that the boss opened the plenum on the furnace yesterday, allowing a little passive heat to seep upstairs. The house has been damp and dismal and that tiny bit of warmth is welcome. No frost either.

State Fair

A kind friend sent me this link to a lovely article about agricultural fairs...which are among my favorite things that there are.

The author neatly synopsizes all that makes up a fair from carnies to funnel cakes and camel rides to giant cucumbers. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

There are Things Every Farm Kid Learns

Like you really can't carry an egg in your pocket. Even your shirt pocket. Even if you go right straight to the house. Go ahead, try it. I have.

An egg in your pocket that doesn't make it to the house has truly nasty side effects. Really.

I found a nice egg this morning hidden in the neatest little cubby among the straw bales that Liz had left from the fair. A little rectangular tunnel back between the bales, just a comfy size for a chicken, dark, and nicely padded. I could just see how very tempting it must be for a hen to snuggle down in there for her daily confinement.

In fact the crook leg hen was in there when I went to get a couple slabs of straw to bed Nick's dog house up for the cooler nights. She clucked at me in irritation, I grabbed the fat white egg that was sitting there...and stuck it in my shirt pocket.

I tended to making Nick's bed without mishap, other than that Nick wanted to be in the dog house when I wanted to stuff it with straw.....then I went to the stove to chuck in some of the nine thousand pound blocks of oak that the boss provided me for heating water. I am sure you are guessing what happened next.

But no, I have been, more times than I care to admit, that farm person will the ill-fated egg in the pocket. One time it was five eggs, but I won't bore you with the details of that debacle.

I set the egg carefully in the grass, filled the stove, and grateful for years of experience with the perils of egg production, sauntered in for breakfast.....with no egg, either on my face or in my pocket.

Seems Like Only Yesterday

That the sun was coming up near the neighbor's spruce tree. Now it rises way to the south and is usually a sadly pale version of its summer fiery self. Unless we get some pretty unlikely weather we are done baling for the year. Days are too short and dew is too heavy for the hay to dry so it is back to chopping for the ag bags

At the Farm Bureau meeting last night our Cooperative Extension rep was telling folks to be checking their corn for maturity. As in the past couple of years a lot of it is way ahead of the norm. Since we didn't plant any this summer it won't be an issue for us.


The birds are sure making themselves scarce. A few passing killdeers, a lot of starlings and the odd chickadee or two are about it except for blue jays. Those gorgeous blue devils have found the giant sun flowers and are denuding them apace. I hope they scatter a few seeds like they did last year so I have some volunteers next year. This year's monsters were volunteers and they are the biggest I have ever grown. I really should cut one down and just save a few seeds, but the task daunts me. They are that big.

Well, off to the salt mines...have a good one.

Poor Doggy

I wonder what would happen if we sent a drug sniffing dog through the halls of national government....Congress, the Maison Blanche, etc. I'll bet he would wear his nose out in the first half hour.

Thunderstorm Last Night

Alan took everybody's favorite rocker over to the fair and it won a blue ribbon!

And I slept right through it. Guess it was a humdinger though.

The hay elevator broke down at about dark-thirty last night. Alan went up in the mow to fix it and fell in a hole in the hay and jerked his shoulder half out of joint. It popped back in when he got out of the hole, but it hurt a lot. There were only about thirty bales left on the wagon he was unloading and they just left them there. Too dangerous to be doing what they were doing in the dark. We will feed the wet bales up to the young stock or give the cows a treat.....second and third cutting fine mixed grass, clover, and alfalfa. They will like it I think.

If you live in the area make sure to save Saturday the 19th of September for Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm. This year it will take place at Stowdale Farm in St. Johnsville. It is always an amazing event and well worth visiting, if only for the free ice cream sundae.

Sustainability and Moo Juice

Milk came out on top in a survey of nutrients vs climate impact.

And it does a body good!

Detonate Me

Deputies blow up stuffed pony.

Watch it happen here

Six-Horse Hitch

And a tiger just for good measure.

Stars and Guard Dogs

Sadie, the guard dog here at the house...mostly an anti-deer-in-the-garden device...barked all night last night. Finally at one AM I got up and went out to see what was troubling her.

Flashlight, dark night, cold barn walk. Wally the barn guard was sleeping, so he wasn't worried about whatever was up. Ditto Nick up in his kennel.

All was well at the barn, no cows in the yard, cold enough for the house windows to be all steamed up and as quiet as it ever gets. Waste of time getting up, but I couldn't just ignore her. There have been a lot of odd things going on around here during the fair...salesmen who weren't really salesmen showing up at the door, trying to barge right on in (I sent them packing) dogs barking during the day when there was seemingly nothing to bark at. The boss was accosted by thugs over at the fair....there are some pretty questionable folks around and I worry....and lock things that are normally not locked. Still I hate getting up in the middle of the night.

But, ah, the stars. We live near a village with lots of night lighting. You can rarely see much more than the brightest of stars, a mere sprinkling compared to what is visible in the Adirondacks. Just too much light for them. However, last night most of the lights in town were dimmed. Thick trees, still heavy in leaf, screened the rest. Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, right down against the hills...horizons usually white from city lights. Across the entire sky the path of the Milky Way was clearly visible. Because of light pollution that is something I have only seen a few times, mostly while camping among sheltering mountains up north. It was like a blazing white ribbon, stretching East to West, glowing brighter than I could even imagine.

I stood in the driveway south of the heifer barn among the sleepy crickets, the urgent cry of a passing night bird echoing loud, the huffing of the heifers on the other side of the fence, comforting and cozy...and just watched the stars for a long time.

This morning I was kind of worse for wear, what with the limited hours of sleep I managed to get, but I wouldn't have missed the show for anything.

And as I came back to the house, way across the river I saw a little bonfire. I'll bet somebody was fishing and maybe partying just a bit and in the incredible stillness (holiday weekend, the Thruway was silent) Sadie could hear the voices of the revelers.