Good Thursday Morning

With Liz away in Pittsburgh we are somewhat short handed.
We are gettin' it done though.

The boss is fixing up the barn for winter, replacing stall dividers that the cows tore out, putting in windows etc. We fixed up the water hose too, where that idiot trespasser with the trailer tore holes in it. It wasn't leaking too bad for a while, but went completely south this weekend.

Frost last night, trucks are coated. I took the camera to the barn to try to take advantage of the incredible light. With the sun so low in the sky and sunrise so late it slants like a big spotlight, picking out all the subtle colors of the oaks, poplars and sumacs that still have leaves. I didn't get too many as I had to work...sigh....but I will look at them pretty soon and see if any are worth saving.

Cows are getting so shaggy. They do not look one bit like their elegant summer selves. Even Mandy is growing a thick warm coat. I hope this doesn't promise an extra cold winter, although if it killed off the darned ticks I would put up with it.

New EPA Rules for Chesapeake Watershed

Bad news for NY.

Ag and Markets estimates that this would cost NY $250 million over the next fifteen years, despite the fact that NY leads the nation in regulating run off....and water leaving the state already meets EPA regulatory guidelines.

Keebler

Rainy Night....in NY

It felt like Halloween out there in the dark last night...while we were putting the girls up to pasture. Light streaming from barn windows glowed golden on steaming cow backs and made them seemed like hulking monsters. I turned my flashlight off to save the battery, while I acted as a fence, there were they got out this spring, and as they surged past me on the way to their dinner of green chop they seemed even more monster-like.

Huffing and puffing and slapping their hooves down in the mud, pushing and shoving, hurrying to eat. Flashlight beams crisscross over them, lighting up the sky, as whomever is driving gleans the midnight dark barnyard for stragglers....it was like a scene from a low budget horror movie.

And as always, just at the conclusion, one of the monsters makes me turn on my flashlight. Big, old, Bayberry, Alan's retired show cow, has to come over every night and check me out for my own potential monsterish characteristics....am I going to eat her? Jump out of the darkness and scare her? Grab her long tail and skijor through the mud behind her?

Nope, its just that old lady playing fence....again....and she rejoins her charges for the slog to dinner.

Incidentally, there were stars out there last night, albeit rather misty ones, and I hoped for a decent night. Alas I am not sure what time it was, but a front went through in the middle of the night slashing horizontal rain against the windows loud enough to wake me up. Dang it! It is so muddy the boss is having a terrible time getting just the most essential of chores done, let alone actually catching up on anything. Enough already. Also enough with whomever sees fit to drive his semi by at around 3 AM and blast on the air horn. Liz is in Pittsburgh, buddy, she can't hear you!

New Outdoor Wood Boiler Regs Tabled

Hallelujah!

Our membership in NY Farm Bureau is worth every penny it costs us because of their efforts on this issue alone. Add in the convenience of E-Lobby, their hard work on trucking regs, farm labor, and many other issues facing farms today and it is a real winner for us.

Dairy News Aggregator

Dairy Insider

Sanford Stud Farm Kitchen

I loved these kitchen items and the rooms themselves. They reminded me so much of camps owned by relatives when I was a kid...the same style of wainscoting and dishes and all.

More Sanford Stud Farm Photos

Mare and foal barn

Medicine Cabinet in Jumping Barn

Kalamazoo track rake

Down the aisle of the mare barn

Sunday Stills....Fall Foliage

The Village of Ames, NY, one of the prettiest places I know

Behind St. John's Lutheran church, Freysbush, NY

Most of the best is over here, but we found a few trees that still look kinda nice.


For more Sunday Stills.....

This one is from the archives of a prettier year

Sanford Stud Farm

Also known as Hurricana Farm. Today we were fortunate enough to be given a personal tour of the restored barns that are now under the care of the Friends of Sanford Stud Farm .

What an incredible place. At one time it covered a thousand acres, or so I have read. It was one of the largest stud farms of its day, housing as many as 150 breeding horses, sending one winner to the Kentucky Derby as well as an American horse to win the Grand National. Native Dancer, northern Dancer and Big Brown spring from horses bred there.

Mare and foal barns, not included in reconstruction area...alas....

The farm barn, which housed teams of pure white mules and dairy and beef cattle
Also unrestored

Saddle racks

Hand made stall hinges, made on site by the farm blacksmith

Saddling area

Jumping horse barn

Today much of the land is under Walmart and many of the buildings are gone. Those that remain are simply amazing. In the jumping barn the stall walls are inch-thick solid cherry. In the mare barn you can still see the marks where the race horses kicked the walls, and the edges of the doors (which are nearly as high as my head) that were chewed by generations of thoroughbreds. The atmosphere in the stables and rooms speaks of a time when life was much different, long before supermarkets and highways. (In the early days of the farm the race horses were walked to the track at Saratoga.) We were most grateful for a chance to glimpse the glory days of racing through our visit to this historic spot.

A medicine cabinet in the jumping barn

Solid Cherry Stalls

Gibson Oat Grinder, the only one in the US

"Suicide Ladder"which goes to the oat bin

Computer Problems

I got 'em.

Not sure which update screwed things up...Firefox updated, Picasa updated, AVG antivirus updated (I think that is the one that did the bad) Java updated.....However, something slowed the whole works to a turtle crawl and things are going gnorw.

Google Chrome, which Alan uses so we can have separate log ins and all, vanished completely and I had to uninstall and reinstall it. Can't get AVG to uninstall....gah!

If I haven't answered comments it is because the darned thing eats them or takes half an hour to load the page.

As soon as I get things figured out I will get back to answering comments and all that stuff. Meanwhile, have a great weekend.

Snow Last Night

In October...somebody call the global warming people...oh, but they are not calling it that any more are they? Because it is so hard to convince folks that things are warming up when it snows a month early in a warm spot like here on the river.

It didn't snow much mind you, but I went out in the rain with a flashlight and some of the rain drops were swirling in slow spirals instead of splashing straight down. That is snow where I come from.

Farm Side Friday

The Decline of Dairy Farms

Another Sad Story of Farmer Suicide

From John Bunting.

This is a sad tale of a hard-working young family caught up in the very vortex of the dairy price cyclone. If you think current somewhat higher milk prices are a panacea you need look no farther than the price of corn and fuel and the scary activities of the futures market and cheese to see that things are still ugly and not getting prettier fast.

Jersey Plus Shorthorn Equals....

I am smart and I know it.

I was loose in the barn this morning and gave the boss lady quite a run for her money.

We have been waiting more than patiently for Liz's Jersey, Moments to calve. She is the one who aborted her baby last year at this time when hunters were harassing the heifers. We sold Hillbilly, the other animal affected by the affair, but nobody had the heart to part with Moments...even those among us who prefer the black-and-white cow or the milking shorthorn to the little brown cow. In order to get her bred back as quickly as possible she was serviced to our shorthorn bull. She started looking as if she was going to pop any second now about two weeks ago. That is kind of a Jersey thing...they always seem to do that. We kept her up in the barn and barnyard and watched....and watched....and watched....

Not sure what to think about all this

Liz stayed up all night with her on Tuesday. I ran to the barn far more often than was convenient yesterday.

No calf.

Then last night right after milking she got down to business and popped out a little girl in just a little more time than it took to tell the story. She is quite an interesting color as you can see. Except for a dished Jersey face and a black nose she looks a lot like a shorthorn.

First milking with the machine.
Moments was a very good girl about it. Liz hand milked her last night.

Prodigal

Back in September, over three weeks ago, our house cat, Elvis was sent into backyard exile for household transgressions too egregious to accept. (The boss put him out). He was a reformed barn cat and should have been all right.

Instead he instantly vanished. We regretted our hard hearts and looked for him constantly....actively...I wrecked my foot plowing through the wet grass and it is just now mostly healed.

Two days later we found a mangled cat in the highway in front of the house. There wasn't much left...a couple paws...an ear...marked perfectly, right down to the tiny dots on the back paw.

We mourned...more than is reasonable for a bad-mannered cat. We acquired Simon, who is indeed a cat, although about ten times a day someone would say, "He's a nice cat, but he's not Elvis."

He can't help not being Elvis and I treat him well. Even if cat nip makes him sleepy.

I never stopped looking though...just a wishful glance into the tall grass, telling myself I KNEW he was dead, but still wanting him back.

Last night Becky went over early from chores ...I don't even remember why...and came back screaming. I thought she was hurt...or the cows were out. Alan was at the playoff game with with big brother and sister in law. What could have happened? She scared the heck out of me I'll tell you.

There was a cat that looked like Elvis on the back porch.

Yeah, right. That only happens to other people.
In stories.
Liz and I ran for the house just the same....no cat.

I went out into the tall grass and called the special call that always brought him down the stairs, hurtling like a juggernaut, in search of his dinner.

No cat. We started to go into the house and there he was. Thin. Burdock bedecked. Bearing a few battle scars and spots of missing fur, but there. I picked him up and put him in the kitchen and he immediately began demanding canz.

I am still kind of stunned. I wonder where he was. Certainly not here. There is cat food on the porch and I am outdoors all the time. I would have seen him I think.

He and Simon don't think highly of one another. Still, they are both used to being crated like dogs, when Nick comes through (Nick thinks of cats kind of like a succulent menu item) so we just set up a second crate... a second litter box....a second water bowl. I think I can make it work. I WILL make it work.

On another cat-related note, we have been stocking up on barn cats for the winter. Coyotes, fishers, and wild game of all sorts devour our working cats with depressing frequency, so we put out the word. So far we have a little silver and white girl cat, now named Triton, her daughter, Keebler, and a nice yellow and white Amish cat, which Becky and I are calling Lord John (we may not have the final vote on that). Now someone has dropped a big ugly tom by the driveway...kind of wild....brown tabby, long and lanky, with a small white spot on his nose...

Mike Rowe Talks About Dirt

America must return to Dirty Jobs

I too could tell you a lot about dirt. In fact I could give you some up close and personal demonstrations about dirt without ever leaving my kitchen. Even as we speak I am puzzling about where all the hay came from.
First cutting, kind of coarse and discolored....who tracked it in?
And how do you track in hay anyhow?
Oh, well, where's the broom?

Wordless Wednesday

Fuel Stop

Not our beans

Sometimes it seems as if we work for BP here at the farm. The Birdie Pancake stop and shop that is. We are awash in migrating robins, on their down from the far north and heading south to visit our good friends in the warmer states.

They are all business, chirping earnestly and hurtling from sumac to Virginia creeper to river bank grape (our equivalent of hard rolls with butter, donuts, and plum Danish), intent on getting breakfast, before they rejoin the caravan of voyageurs rolling south for winter. Their behavior is nothing like their tentative manner in spring, when they test out this perch or that for is acoustical properties, singing a few warbling notes from each before choosing the finest for their dawn and evening concerts. Now they are on the move and in a hurry. A flash of white underpinnings, a hint of russet breast feathers and they are gone.

We still have a few singers though. White-throated sparrows toss off half of an off-key "old Sam Peabody" as they glean the bushes and hedgerows. Chickadees chick and titmice whistle. Gold finches chink and cheer. Jays shriek, crows crawk.....And the other morning early when I was out seeing to Nick, the last BC in my world, I got my own personal serenade. One of the male mockingbirds must have been sleeping in the red delicious apple tree; I must have startled him awake (it was o'dark thirty as usual). He burst into short but vibrant song, just a few lush phrases before he woke up enough to realize that it was fall and he needn't bother with all that. His song was like a golden apple glowing in the dark, so sweet and strong and lovely. I was much richer for the experience and thanked him kindly for his efforts as he winged away down the old orchard.

As fall segues relentlessly into the sleeping iron of winter we must take the wonders where we find them. Mockers and robins do it for me.

Munday, Munday