In the Dark

Yeah, tis the time of year for chores in the dark. O-dark thirty in the morning and after dark in the evening. It isn't too awful when it is clear. Kind of neat to be out in the night. However, during monsoon time it is pretty darned grim. They say it is supposed to clear off this afternoon.

I am ready.

On the feeding side of things Alan came up with a good plan. We were chopping Sudex and second cutting hay and feeding it green...a reasonably workable system. Then we got this rain. No idea how much, but it is still raining after almost two weeks, the driveway is gone again after just being repaired, the four-wheel drive is down and the John Deere can't do the job. We didn't want to open any of the 150 or 200 foot long bags the men have put up for winter, but the girls gotta eat.

I suggested to the guys that next year they should think about putting up two or three little bags first thing in the spring, so if we get a spell of bad weather or a break down we don't have to commit to feeding out winter feed when it isn't winter. (Once you open a bag, the feed spoils if you don't keep feeding from it.)

Alan thought a while and said, good plan. Then he suggested...."why don't we pull the bagger off the bag we are filling now and just close it up and start a new one for the rest of the fall harvest?. Then we can feed that instant "short bag" right up."

Yeah, brilliant idea, so that is just what they did. The cows had big golden mounds of partially ensiled Sudex for supper last night and they really liked it. We let them eat in the barn instead of outdoors so they were actually dry when we milked them, which is not an issue for them, but it sure is nice for the cheap help. They went back to their pasture last night, but heaping mangers await them as soon as it gets light enough to find them and bring them in.

Had a calf born yesterday too. We were watching Camry like a whole family of hawks. The past two times she has calved she has been afraid of the calf or something and tried to give birth while running away from the process. This is not a workable plan and she nearly died with her first calf. things were pretty dicey last year too even though she calved right by the barn and we were right there.

Thus the plan was to keep her in the stable when she looked close and be right there to assist. Like many plans made by mere mortals this one was foiled by a higher power. She looked fine yesterday morning, no sign of labor, so we turned her out with the rest of the girls. Last night when we brought them down to dinner she was leading a shaggy little black and white heifer, a daughter of SWD Valiant. I guess she finally figured things out. Just in case she hadn't quite we kept them both in the barn last night....

WWW

Stuck

Or....Sometimes your morning coffee is the best part of the day.

We are back into monsoon season here in the Great Northeast. Never really got out of it actually, although the weekend wasn't too bad. So harvest has come to a dismal halt and the guys are getting stuck. Me too

Stuck with the skid steer....all you can do is dig yourself out and try to smooth over the hole so the next guy doesn't bury it.

Stuck with the tractor, chopper and forage wagon...all you can do is unhook, pull the wagon out backwards, lug the chopper out somehow and go find some place else to chop for the cows.

Stuck in the garden...all you can do is pull your now bare foot, mud-be-sloshed over the ankle bone, out of its flip flop and then dig the darned thing out. Bah! But the last of the tomatoes must be brought in... to ripen on every surface in the kitchen.

(Made meatloaf last night with extra-sharp Cheddar on top, covered with thin slices of ripe tomato sprinkled with Parmesan and home made Italian seasoning...took every body's minds off the mud for a little while at least...also apple crisp...ditto..)

And last but not fun, stuck in the barnyard while opening the gate for fifty-odd large, hungry animals that want to go through that gate and NOW. (Rubber barn boots get stuck worse than flip flops and in the barn yard the stuff you get stuck in is not nice black garden dirt)....all you can do is cling to the gate and pull like heck on your foot...hope your boot doesn't come off...hope the cows wait a second while you get your foot out and get out of their way.

Am I ready for it to stop raining....um.....yeah....I do believe that I am.


Meanwhile, the kitchen is the best place on the farm to be, if you have an excuse to be there. I have several....

Harvue Roy Frosty Wins Again

Frosty is the winner again this year at World Dairy Expo

Sunday Stills...Red and Green

I cannot contemplate Christmas in October, so here are some reds and greens from around the farm and the nearby area. They include the Ag Bagger, with its red hopper and green body, some of the boss's red graffiti on his Ag Bags, an asparagus berry, a tomato on some lovage I am drying (a slow job as moist as everything is now) and some maple, virginia creeper and river bank grape foliage.


For more Sunday Stills......

Alien Cow Abduction

A serious and growing problem

The Most Beautiful Cow in the World

The girls like it when we stay home and take care of them so we have never been to World Dairy Expo (on this week in Madison, Wisconsin.) However, this year I have had the unprecedented pleasure of following the action via photos on the All Breeds Blog. It is so cool to see the exhibits, the faces of the excited folks attending (even a couple of them whom we know and talk to now and then) and most especially the wonderful, wonderful cows of all the top dairy breeds. There was a heifer pictured there today that is probably the best looking Swiss I ever saw

This afternoon I clicked on over to see what new photos of fabulous cows had been posted. I scrolled just a little bit down the page and stopped in awe.

Man, oh, man what a cow. Not one thing about her not to like. Long and black with an udder that looks painted on. Correct legs. Top line smoother than my kitchen table, which is pretty darned smooth and so elegant you could expect her to be wearing white gloves and a tiara.. She is sure something.

Then I read the caption.

Harvue Roy Frosty, last year's supreme champion. (You can take a look at her yourself here). She has just been scored Excellent 96 and boy did she earn every point... Not too surprising that she might catch your eye.

If I am not mistaken, this year's supreme champion will be chosen tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see who it is.

Farm Side Friday

A couple of days ago sunrise looked like this

Is about World Dairy Expo and the popular breeds of dairy cattle this week.




Meanwhile there is flooding everywhere. I was joking yesterday about wet cows leaning on us when we milked them ....which they do...which is a pain...but this isn't a bit funny. The paper is full of stories of flooding, minor so far, but nothing is minor when it is happening to you.

Our four wheel drive tractor is down with something like a valve spring (they got the turbo fixed only to reveal other problems) so the John Deere 4430 is all there is to feed and chop.

It got mired yesterday just getting the wagon out to the field and the tire chains had to be put on the the rain and muck. We are normally in for breakfast by 8 or 9 but it was nearly 11 before morning chores were finished.

The boss has enough left on that wagon to feed them today, but tomorrow he is going to be mudding it for sure if he has to chop....we don't want to open a bag of winter feed yet or turn to the hay mow, so I surely hope it stops raining and dries out.

Meanwhile there are rumors about the river continuing to get higher until tomorrow night...I am waiting for sunrise to see what it looks like. It was already pretty high when the sun went down last night. We are high on a hill, but.......

Hope you are all snug and dry wherever you are and if you need rain, take some of ours.....please.

More Farm Walk Stuff

Beam me up, Scotty!

Today is our payback for yesterday's warmth and beauty. Rain. High winds. General yuckiness....incoming. I am hoping we get the cows in before the rain starts. Milking wet cows is not such a pleasant chore. Several of mine think it is just peachy to lean on me when I wash their udder and put the milker on. Bad enough when they are dry, but when they are dripping...ugh.

Milk Weed is not open yet.
I love the silvery lining of the pods when the fluff pops out

Bonanza of box elder bugs. I didn't get time this summer to photograph the amazing egg laying party they threw in the big box elder behind the house. Everything about them is pink and black...even the eggs are pink!

Autumn Farm Walk

Walking up to the field is a sensory banquet. I don't smell the cows, but I am sure you would if you walked along.. It is not an offensive odor, just warm and earthy. I do catch the sweet odor of the sorghum silage, which smells sugary just like fermenting corn. It is a nice scent and comforts me with the knowledge that the men are putting up feed to keep the cows secure through the winter.

A flaming candle of ash

I don't know what possessed me to take a hike up back this afternoon. I had to go to the barn to check on Scooter who is not doing so well again. His extreme prematurity has compromised so many of his systems that if it isn't one thing it is another. Anyhow for some reason I just took off hiking after I looked in on him...maybe the need to get some red and green photos for Sunday Stills...maybe the knowledge that bad weather impends and there may not be many more warm fall days like this one. If you walk the farm roads you can smell poplar trees, a passing skunk, the fruity bouquet of river grapes and the lush green scent of crushed grass as you walk along.

Grasshoppers will rattle against your boots and butterflies, question marks (thanks Dani) sulfurs, cabbage whites and a little blue one I think is a Melissa flutter around your feet. Bees buzz. Dragon flies hum as they hunt. Of course there are always a few overly friendly flies and hungry mosquitoes too.



The grass is such a brilliant green that you would think it was August. However, scarves of yellow river bank grape flung with abandon across leafless trees give lie to that theory, as does the purple-red Virginia creeper festooning the hedgerows everywhere.



I stopped to pish a little brown bird out of the hedgerow between the 30 and 60-acre lots. It came right out to show me its stripey-spotted breast.... a song sparrow. A white-throated sparrow was singing lazily just down the way when I caught a slight movement to my left. There, right next to me, was a cat bird, peering to see what was making that funny noise. Too slow with the camera, but I will cherish the memory of his bright, inquisitive eye and lush grey plumage.




I thought to go up and visit the boss where he was chopping but he had changed fields and I was too lazy to hike the rest of the way up there. Just as well because by the time I got back down the hill he was right behind me. With high wind advisories for tomorrow, I am grateful for this one warm, sweet fall day.



There were tracks everywhere, of deer, raccoons, and possibly the fisher again.

Fisher track? (if its a raccoon it is a HUGE one!)

Deer slots with my boot for comparison

SUNY Cobleskill First Place Post-Secondary Dairy Judging at Expo

Yeah!

This is a great accomplishment for the dairy program at our favorite school. I love it when local kids do big things.

WW

Stop Factory Musicians

Found on Facebook

Tornado Watch

For Upstate NY.

Terrific.

The boss was going to go back and chop, but the rain started up again. Very weird weather today, first it is chilly, then hot again. A very restless sort of day.

The Down Side

Of the season...it has been a bit dry even here at monsoon-plagued Northview, so I suppose I shouldn't complain about the rain. The girls and I did chores yesterday morning so the boss could do most of his outside work before it hit. Now everything is black and grey and gloomy....and drippy..I think I need to migrate.

Or hibernate, whichever is cheaper.

Dire Straits

You get a shiver in the dark

It's raining in the park but meantime

South of the river you stop and you hold everything

A band is blowing Dixie double four time

You feel all right when you hear that music ring

Sunday Stills...the Letter S

Samaras

Sorghum and Sky

Sorghum Seeds

Sedum

For more Sunday Stills.....

Summer Squash (or Something with which to fend off a marauding bear.)

Moonie

The moon came up in a swirl of color, punkin' yaller, almost-orange, trailing fog like gypsy scarves all around her.

Of course I was out in the barn lane, putting cows up the hill, no camera, but eyes too see and marvel.

By the time I got in it was past the horizon and sailing forward and I am lousy at moon shots. But it was still a lovely thing, though not much more exciting then a lemon.

And then this morning the sun came up yellow too with the trees all fogged and dew dropped lit up dusty green. Fine weather for the harvest served up daily.

Deadly Silence

For the past two summers I have let some weedy sumacs grow up in front of the big living room windows. They are ugly, but the convenient perch brings birds practically into the house. Not your usual feeder birds either, but secret denizens of hedgerow and tree. Warblers, wrens, catbirds, even what I think was a red-eyed vireo this year (didn't have my glasses on) come to the shady shelter of sumac umbrellas to peer into the house or glean busily, unaware of our watching. It is delightful to have them so close and yet not scare them.

However, as winter winds approach, the need arises to remove the danger of the weak, but woody stems of the sumacs lashing against the window and breaking it.

Thus pruning time arrives.

I was miserably wielding my brush nippers, deep in prickly things, a cloud of mosquitoes feasting on anything not covered with Off! when a hawk drifted in on silent wings. He quickly hid himself among the Virginia creeper and river bank grape festooning the ash tree on the other side of the driveway and vanished. Had I not looked up at just the right time I would have never known he was there. So quiet. So swiftly invisible. ..and yet such a big bird. I barely caught a glimpse, but he looked like a red tail. I finished my nipper work and trudged back around the house just as he swooped swiftly down over the driveway by the old kennel, sending the chickens scattering like spilled popcorn. They raced under the bushes, screaming their alarm.

Well, that stinker. No wonder he was being so quiet. He was stalking our tame flock. I was just telling the boss about it and he says the hawk has been around all week, sitting in the big cedars that flank the front porch.
Now we know why.
Dang.


(He was indeed a red-tailed hawk btw.)

Bear vs. Zucchini

Zucchini wins