The Border Collie Dilemma

Seems to have been solved without any decision on my part. The female broke out of her run at her home and went and found her own boyfriend.

Sunday Stills....Pot Luck

Lots of fun this week!

For more Sunday Stills

Rustlers Caught

Suspects were apprehended in calf losses in Minnesota. They wanted to start a dairy farm and decided to get an unconventional start. Check out the comments...sure had me shaking my head.

Cha-cha-changes

What is with people wanting to see what I look like anyhow? I am not thirty any more and will never be again...not forty or fifty either...I sneaked through Sunday Stills last week without too much misery. Then I got the news that my old editor (a nice guy with a great sense of humor...he always came up with cool titles) is my new editor now.

And he wants a new picture to go with the newness of the editorial page. I have soldiered along writing the Farm Side since 1998...lots of wise cracks and parentheses (just because I like 'em) and the same picture of my grinning face....for all those years. And every year I would chortle to myself....hehehe...they haven't made me change my photo yet. I was just thinking that the other week while undergoing the agony of having my picture taken for SS. I guess I laughed a couple days too soon.

I took a bunch yesterday. (I have to send an assortment.) It hurt. Think old. Think weather-beaten old. Grey even. Think weather-beaten, wrinkled-up, grey even, whistling distance of 60 farmer's wife.

Ouch. I was enjoying my fantasy dag nab it! Above is my favorite so far....that really isn't me....really it isn't.....

Something to Write Home About

Nick

Rev. Paul has a post about the Iditarod. If we can just get to the other side of this whole winter thing we have that to look forward to. I do love sled dog racing and the Iditarod is the big one. We used to go to sled dog races all the time around here. We would stand in snow banks with freezing toes, watching the dogs go by on silent feet, only the sound of their breath and the swish of the runners to mar the silence of the winter woods...nothing like snowmobiles that deafen everybody for miles around. I miss it.

That Amish fellow that we heard wanted to mate my Nick with his dog has come forward and contacted me. I am afraid I am getting cold feet about the whole deal. Nick is a good dog and well worthy of passing on his traits, but I wonder what will happen with the resulting pups. One would come to me, but what about the rest of them? Will they be stock dogs on his sheep farm or dumped on the pet market, where good working border collies do not belong? I am going to have to talk to him some more I think. Meanwhile Liz picked me up a DHL booster and I vaccinated Nick, just in case.

I do want a puppy...and a puppy from the bloodlines we have worked here for nearly two decades would be perfect but.....

Truckin'

Years ago we lost a good deal of money at the hands of an unscrupulous cattle trucker who switched our cows with his own and sold our heavier, larger animals as his. We got the smaller check. As cows aren't weighed at the farm and he wouldn't tag them we had no way to prove this. However eventually he switched a huge 1400-lb cow for an 800-lb one and we fired him and bought a trailer.

We hauled our own ever since. However, we loaned our trailer to a neighbor, his barn burned, and the trailer was damaged in the fire. Recently the metal began breaking down very rapidly...so we decided that it was not safe to use and hired a different trucker to haul a cow to the sale yesterday.

She was a big one, one of mine naturally, my Encore cow out of the Trixy family. I really, really hated to sell her in the first place. We just couldn't get her pregnant and she was mean as a snake....bills to pay so she had to go.

First the trucker couldn't get backed up to the door of the barn. Mind you, Alan, at twenty, can back a bumper pull stock trailer in, one try, on ice, snow, you name it. ...I think he could prolly do it blind folded. The ground was clear, the barnyard all scraped and nice .....This guy had a goose neck and couldn't get it anywhere near right.

He finally set up with his open door out into the barn aisle so the cow had to turn and go around it and squeeze through a little bitty gap to clamber into his filthy, stinking, wet, slippery mess of a trailer. I got the boss to make him pull out a little because I knew she wouldn't do it. It would have been hard to load a show cow that way, let alone a gigantic loony-tune like Encore (she ended up weighing a few pounds under 1500.)

Then I asked him to let me throw some sand on the trailer...he had mats and it was just a morass, wet, obviously slippery. I hate to make a cow ride thirty miles sliding around like they were on a skating rink.

He flat out refused! I mean the sand was right there. The shovel was right there. I would have done the work so he didn't have to!

He said, "Oh, I had a cow go down there this morning...she got right up...." Patronizing as heck. What would a woman know about loading cows anyhow?

I was so mad I could have spit. Of course when we brought her down the aisle, the damnfoolidiot trucker got right out in front of her waving his cane. So....she wouldn't go around the door and jumped up in the stall with my beautiful Broadway, my very favorite cow in the world, just diagnosed pregnant and doing no harm. And proceeded to bang the heck out of her.

Getting Encore out and on that truck wasn't pretty. She didn't want to go, she was a lot bigger than we are and the trucker got her all stirred up and mad.... I didn't blame her a bit.

And then he wouldn't tag her. So there we were...once again trusting that we would get paid for our big cow and not somebody else's little one.

As soon as that trailer door swung shut, I just stomped off to the house fuming. Man was I mad. The boss hurried through his work and went right on over to the sale barn and stayed and watched her sell so we were sure to get the right one. Kids and I did the night chores without him...which isn't really all that big a deal. She did sell right and we got our own check and not somebody else's...only brought 44 cents a pound, which was a good bit less than I was hoping for, but that's an auction for you.

I 'll tell you what though..... We are either patching up that old Corn Pro or we are finding a used stock trailer. When the boss and I load cows, we set up gates, we put sand in the trailer (which is backed up right square to the door) and on the barn floor and we are quiet, and quick and in the right place at the right time. It has been years since we had any rodeos loading. The cows go down to the door and jump in and we close the door...nuff said.....We even got the big, horned, beef steer on the trailer last week without any fanfare, although I admit we were worried about him. There is no reason to do it any other way, except laziness or sheer, screaming, incompetence. I will not go through that again....ever.....

So if you hear of a used trailer for a reasonable price...stock style, give me a shout. I had all I wanted of truckers yesterday.

Price Takers, Not Makers

Here is an excellent article on the ongoing loss of large numbers of dairy farms, with some interesting suggestions for solving the problem.

And here is a story about one particular farm selling out.

The Incredible Sweater

Check out this amazing accomplishment by a farm kid. A lot of kids would just swipe a credit card through a reader at the mall when they needed or wanted a new sweater. This young lady has a much deeper understanding of how things happen.

Hallelujah Chorus in a Food Court

Thanks to Rev. Paul for this delightful video. Do watch and listen....you will be glad you did. An watch the shoppers....

Cold Dawn

Bur cucumber skeleton....they are a nuisance like kudzu, but interesting just the same.

The colors are not so very unlike June...pink...gold...faded blue and a little green where the lawn grass grows or the pasture is nibbled short. All as if muted by distance, far away from the hot, red tongue of sun, which would light them up bright and strong if it was summer. Softened by frost, silenced by summer's end. Bird calls are thin but bright. No dawn chorus when I go out to the stove. Just the roosters crowing, a chickadee waking up in the hedgerow.....a far away cardinal chinking but not singing. Even the crows are absent, not a goose is stirring down on the river. It is about as peaceful as it ever gets during this soft prelude to the day time.

November has its moments.

The holiday has left us with a pile of bookwork and barn work and household choring for the day so here are some fine reads from my favorite bloggers.

First a happy birthday wish to one of my most favoritest blog friend....Cathy at Looking Up

My kind of poetry about winter, from Linda at Just Another Day on the Prairie.

More poetry about the season from my first ever blog friend, Rosemoon at Moonmeadow Farm

Because this is a dairy blog, a daily must read on dairy John Bunting's Dairy Journal

Just in case you think the weather is a challenge here, a bit about daily life in South Dakota. If you farm or ranch you have mornings like this....but that doesn't make them fun.

Plus a blimp

Your morning laughs, just to get your heart pumping.

Something different but beautiful.

And mice, but cute ones

And there you have it. Now off to the barn to see what mayhem the girls and boys have thought up for us in the night. (We hoped that when we shipped the steer from Hell that the whole broken water bowl/flooded mangers thing would be given a rest...not so much, alas.)

Sunday Stills.....Self Pics

Didn't want to do this one, not one little bit. Hate having my picture taken, hate it, hate it, hate it.

However, it is done. The top one was taken back when I was thirtyish, on the late, great, Magnum. Bottom one taken Friday, by Becky, showing a Sunday chair moment....seemed appropriate for Sunday Stills and all. Please note the Peltor ear muffs, greatest marriage saver in the world.

For more suffering by Sunday Stills participants, go here......

Birds and Deers

Alan's best friend is home from college on break, so they have been doing some hunting together. Today they hunted here and the friend got his first buck and a skipper (antler-less deer). We were really happy for him.

Wednesday they were hunting here and, although they didn't get a deer that day, they had an amazing experience. They were sitting in Alan's two-man tree stand watching a flock of turkeys when suddenly the birds alerted. Alan thought he spooked them and asked his friend what he had done to scare them. His friend didn't think he had moved at all. The turkeys hurried over to the T-field, which is adjacent to the cow pasture where the tree stand is. Both boys were watching them through their rifle scopes, just taking pleasure in observing them, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, came the real cause of the spooking incident.

Dunno what the attraction is with the dog house,

but the hens crowd into it all the time. There are four hens and a rooster in there at one point.

A bald eagle on locked wings hit the flock from behind, scattering them in every direction. The point of potential impact was out of sight behind a knoll, so they didn't actually see the eagle hit the turkeys. However, it didn't fly up while they were there, so it probably got one. Not what I would have expected to be its normal prey, but what an opportunity for the boys. Eagles are still not very common here...still an event to see one, let alone one hunting right here on the farm.

****Speaking of eagles, big birds and all, here is a really interesting story courtesy of my friend, Elaine Shein. Years ago, when the boss's mom was still with us, we saw the most staggering flight of geese imaginable. They went over the barn from east to west, a wide band of them that filled the sky overhead, maybe fifty geese wide, from horizon to horizon.

There were no distinct Vs or anything, just thousands and thousands and thousands of birds. Maybe a third snows and the rest Canadas. We heard them going over, over the noise of the milk pump, which was indoors then and very loud. We all went out and stood in the barnyard watching them pass in awe....I can't describe the sensation of seeing that many geese....it had to have taken ten minutes for them to pass. We have certainly never forgotten it. Wish I was out there today on the great flyway seeing all those birds out there.

Black Friday...Rain Again

Just so you know...this is NOT today...I only wish it was

It is so gloomy that there really is no sunrise...just a sort of easing from glowing dark to dripping dawn. Dog and cat chores are done, barn awaits. Liz got her hand wrecked by a calf last night. Don't know how much she will be able to do today.... It was really black and blue and her knuckles were swelling pretty badly after chores.

Alan has a deer hunting thing going on here today...the boss decided to let some folks come hunt with him on our usually closed property. Hope that goes well and that they maybe get a deer or two. Hope also that the weather comes around a bit for him. At least it isn't freezing rain as was predicted.

Thanksgiving was great....a traditional feast in the manner of Grandma Lachmayer and the Allied Union (you who were members will understand.) Not quite as many folks around the table, but the spirit was there. Liz and I cooked for two days (while doing herd health and chores, which was an interesting feat) but now we won't have to cook for at least a couple more. I have to debate the whole turkey pot pie thing. I love to make it, but Alan doesn't like it....however, everyone else does....hmmm.....

Other than that, just a regular day here at Northview. The closest we will come to the shopping Juggernaut thundering across the rest of the world is me doing a little bookkeeping and paying a few bills. And that is plumb close enough. My mind simply boggles at the folks who have been standing in line...some for over a week...just to get stuff. And when they get done and they have the stuff, then what? I don't get it. I may not have all the latest, hottest stuff, but I do have a life.

Can't see wasting any of it in mindless pursuit of stuff like that.

***Jan at Poodle and Dog Blog has a dog story that will touch your heart....really worth a read.

Thankful

For more than I could list here, for friends and family like you all, for cows, and border collies, and turkey, and dressing and pickles and gravy.......and cranberries!

What with all the "thank a farmer" messages circulating on Facebook this week I thought it would be fun to actually thank one of the farmers who made our wonderful Thanksgiving meal possible. So here is a link, and I sent them an email to say thanks as well.

Thank you Habelman Family Farm for growing the red, tangy cranberries for our homemade cranberry sauce. From our farm to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

I also am thankful for all the truckers, those still out on the road today and those who are lucky enough to have made it home for the holiday, who helped make our meal possible. Since we have had a trucker close to our family we have begun to have an idea of what they go through to move our goods from place to place.

Chrome

What do you name the new calf from the Mandy family...the one that is long and black, with bright, white stockings up to here? Yeah, Chrome.

Gratuitous barn cat...Tux again

Our two days before Thanksgiving present from Neon Moon, a Fustead Emory Blitz daughter out of Mandy. Chrome is sired by one

of our herd bulls, Keeneland Astre Pat, K-Pat for short. Sorry to be so slow to post, but between the holidays (Thanksgiving and deer season) the cows, herd health, shipping the steer etc. time has been one thing that is in short supply. Hope everyone has a wonderful day tomorrow and thank you all for your kind words!

Yesterday

Was a medley of milk inspector, friends bringing things, Amishmen reporting poachers hunters who were trespassing tearing up a hay field with a 4-wheel drive, confronting the darned thugs, who have been confronted here before....next time the police get called...cows stuck in places where they don't belong...well, just one cow, but it was a big rescue project..... Cows out, cows in, feeding, milking, choring, bringing a little Thanksgiving to some family members who will enjoy it, and a small buck harvested for winter dining. Not to mention three roosters supplied for the same purpose, but placed up in the small chicken house for now.

Yeah, it's a wonder the door hinges didn't give up under the strain.

Today we ship the mean steer. Not looking forward to that, but it has to be done. Then writing the Farm Side, hopefully, and more getting ready for Thanksgiving...oh, yeah, Liz and I cleaned the fridge yesterday too and finally turned those Brussels sprouts into food.

Tomorrow, early hunting by Alan and friend and herd health. And cooking. And cleaning Thursday the dinner along with the usual chores and milking and a small prayer for nothing untoward.

Friday entertaining some hunters who take Alan hunting at their place every year. Saturday, who knows? Sunday...I hear that chair calling my name. Whoever called this a holiday week sure had a strange sense of humor.

May I Moon You Again?

Bears and Deers and Turkeys, Oh, My

There was a Department of Environmental Conservation check point up on the hill yesterday. In attendance were an assortment of deer on cars, deer that had been removed from cars, whether to confiscate them or age them or check them for something we have no idea, and the largest bear either of our folks had ever seen, hanging off both sides of another car.

And there were officers of the game laws.

Those officers signaled a certain someone to stop and roll down the window in the Durango.

And asked, "Do you have any deer in there?"

Our hero answered, "No sir, but I do have two turkeys."

The officer perked right up and inquired firmly, "And when and where did you get them?"

And Mr. Wise Guy announced proudly, "Just a few minutes ago in the freezer case at Hannaford."

See, Smarty Pants had been doing the Thanksgiving shopping with Becky.

Me, I don't make wise remarks to men with guns, but the boss just doesn't share my discretion.

The officer admitted, "I should have seen that one coming," and waved them on.

There were actually THREE turkeys in the car but only two were frozen......

***and I do know that the plural of deer is not deers...just a little local joke

Sunday Stills...High Tech, Low Tech

This was an interesting challenge. We had dozens of ideas, the hay rakes next to an antique wooden hand one we have, the manure fork next to the spreader (abandoned for aesthetic reasons), and many others. However when this one sprang to mind, I knew it was the right one. Above find Barbossa, a bull. Admittedly a very small bull, a milking shorthorn/Holstein cross, but a genuine pure-D bull.

The tote he is checking out is the boss's AI kit. We do use bulls now and then, but for the most part it is the yellow tote that gets the job done today.

So, you have your high tech, AI, and your low tech, all-natural, old-fashioned ways to keep your cows milking and earning you money (at least in theory.)

***You will have to excuse the not so great quality of the shot. Barbossa was not very eager to be photographed and it is kinda dark in that part of the barn. The gratuitous cat is Tux, who hates to miss anything.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Where the Air Smelled Like Snakes

Well, actually it smells like snow. The forecast isn't calling for much, but the wind yesterday blew in something different in the seasonal scheme of things.

It looks like November.

It feels like November.

And it smells like November.

Guess it must indeed be November. We are holding good thoughts for a safe opening day and the rest of the season, for good weather to the west of us so friends in other states can get their corn harvested, a good herd health next week, and a fulfilling and happy Thanksgiving for everyone.

What are you hoping for this fall?