An Addiction to Chewing and Swallowing

Mike Rowe on agriculture.

Jury Duty

Well, my number didn't pop out of the selection thingie, so I only got to spend three hours warm, comfy, and fascinated by watching the jury selection process before I came back home to our cozy little iceberg on the hill (it was fifty-two indoors here yesterday). I was very well impressed with the way the whole affair was run, by the kindness and clarity of the court officials in caring for potential jurors and explaining what would happen, and by how very interesting it all was. If I was retired I would go watch the whole trial.

Thieves

Broke into one of my favorite blog folks' Jeep the other day and did some nasty damage.

Some other creeps came across our posted property line RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR LIVING ROOM WINDOWS, cut down Alan's tree stand and stole it. It had been there for years...the first one we let him put up. I wanted to be able to keep half an eye on him when he was first out hunting alone, so it has been there at least 6 years. They had to come right up almost to the house to get it and spend a goodly amount of time getting it out of the brush around the tree. Must have done it while we were milking because otherwise I would almost certainly have seen them. I must look out those big windows a thousand times a day.

And the dogs would have barked.

Guess that is what you get when they put up a housing development right next to you.

Sunday Stills...the Letter W

Weaving...a Christmas present from Lisa

Winter!

More Winter

Winter friends

White

For more Sunday Stills......

Well, Duh

See this silly rooster? (Yeah, those are snow flakes blowing past him.) Liz' boss gave him and a couple of his brothers to us a while back. They were enthroned in the nice little chicken house Matt and Lisa gave us along with our old hens. Daily corn meal, table scraps and fresh water. Shavings on the floor, warm, and cozy, and nice for a birdie.

So what did he do? Try and try and try to get out until finally one day he evaded my hand and made it. Now he sleeps in a box elder tree with Mr. Fluff and wanders around in the snow all day. I feed them both next to the coop and he steals cat food but...... Sooner or later I will catch him, if the fox doesn't get there first, but I am calling him WD. (And not 40.)

Grace had her baby, a lively heifer. It was running around the barn when we got there yesterday (after all those barn checks). It would be nice to think we could make fewer extra trips to the barn, but now we have to start watching Zobaba, Booth and Magic, who are all due to calve in the next week or so. Then in February and March, watch out; sleep is probably going to be kinda scarce.

Have a nice, warm day!

New NY Commissioner of Agriculture

Looks like it. I hate to see Patrick Hooker go, and hope he finds another great position in ag leadership. He has done a great job as commissioner.

That being said, if he has to leave, Darrel Aubertine is a great choice as a successor. A sixth-generation farmer, he has been a tremendous pro-agriculture force during his tenure as a state senator and assemblyman.

Harbingers of What?

"This is a good time of year to be snug in the barn," Rose Magnolia

Yesterday we put the heifers up the hill so they wouldn't repeat Tuesday's adventure when the milk tanker picked up. (Someone insisted...might have been me.) While I was standing in the snowy sunshine being a fence, I bird watched....one of the best perks of this job is being able to bird watch while working....chickadees in the calf yard, starlings down in the barn eaves, tree sparrows and dark-eyed juncos working through the bushes. A gold finch sitting boldly in the tip of a box elder branch, soaking up the sun much like I was. I glanced up at a flock of what I thought were starlings, winging west in a hurry.

Wait a minute! White britches, russet breasts, chocolate brown bodies hurtling by...a whole double decade of winter robins right over my head. I thought I heard one in the honey locust last week, but I dismissed it as a downy woodpecker. I know quite a number of them winter over up here in chilly northern climes, but I am always delighted to see them.

Chasing, Not Amy, Nor Rainbows

The week in review...so far anyhow..it is only Thursday. Cold but mostly clear. A few lake effect flurries mornings, soon gone when the sun comes up. Coyotes howling right nearby most nights or so it sounds. The dog hustles to get back in the house then I can tell you.

Liz passed her milk inspector test...good job kiddo.

The white-crowned sparrow is still here and waits in the lilacs for me to put down seed on an old platform feeder, then hurries right out to eat. Geese and ducks still filling the open water, although I heard very few yesterday. I hope they aren't leaving...they are good company. They sing my lullaby each night and I will miss them when the river locks down for the winter

Some big dairies selling out on the west coast. Milk are prices high world wide, with supplies tight, except here in the USA or so they are telling us. I think maybe two people in the world actually understand what is going on with milk pricing, but I am pretty sure we are being cheated by players a lot bigger than we are...

Chased heifers with the car Tuesday. The men took the stock trailer through the gate and left it open for the milk truck. Five springers there, but they stay up the hill at a feeder and never bother....until Tuesday.

I could see they were feeling riley and wild so, since it was noon and I had not had time to get breakfast, I hurried over to the house for a piece of corn bread, glass of milk, and my book (the new Kathy Reichs, which has a mistake in it...just ask Becky, our McDonald's guru) planning on taking all back to the barn and watching the gate until the milk truck came.

We don't like our driver to have to get out of the truck to open and close the gate.

Well, I just about got back to the fence when Monday, dang her midnight-spotted hide, threw up her head and raced down the hill through the gate. I set my breakfast in the driveway, grabbed my keys and ran for the car to go down the house drive and up the barn one to head her off.

I got there in time mostly because the little snake went up the old pasture lane instead of down the road. All the others followed her and one of the black ones was down on the ice and had trouble getting up.

I won't bore you with the details of how I got in front of them to get them past the car, while making them think I was behind them too, so they would go back up the hill, but I got it done.

They went up and lay down among their feed tires, happy as clams. I watched the barn cats from afar while they ate my breakfast, and listened to my stomach singing four part harmony as if I was a cow, until almost two. That was when the tanker left and I could close the gate.

Just about then the men came back and apologized for leaving me in that fix.

I was nice about it even though I had been planning on writing the Farm Side while the house was quiet. There was still some cornbread left and since it felt more like lunch time anyhow I had it with homemade vegetable beef soup. I am sure the reason it tasted so good had something to do with how late it was.

However, the word is out. On tanker day those five heifers either go in the barn or up in the hill pasture.

Period.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies

Stay up all night texting girls from mid-western states (and west coast states....and New York State....and all over heck......)

Slow Dog Crossing

It took me a long time to finish this dog. Holidays and all. However, I started hearing noises about getting it done and so I have. Hope the customer likes it.

Belated

Here is a Christmas song, sent to me a little while ago by a friend, which you should really check out. Computer problems kept me from playing it until now....be patient when listening..these are so much more than they seem at first.

Straight No Chaser

Oh, boy, here is another fantastic one....I am going to see if I can buy this for my iPod.

****Thanks Jean!

It was Embarrassing

Corn bread and chuck roast from the steer

To watch Elvis the cat attack Nick, my good dog, and thoroughly school him, until he left his breakfast (which did not consist of the stuff pictured above) and ran and hid in his crate.....

First stalking him with glowing yellow beacon eyes.

Running at him like a puma.

Then buffeting him with giant paws, tipped with freshly-sharpened claws.

Cuff, cuff, cuff, until cowed and thoroughly policed, the poor guy ran for cover.

Danged devil cat. I should have named him Fluffy...then maybe he wouldn't have been so full of himself.

Poor gentleman dog, who knows the cats are off limits to him. I was THIS temped to say the magic words.

Get the kitty.

Sunday Stills....Best of 2010

This seems to be my favorite from last year's Sunday Stills

For more Sunday Stills....

Happy New Year

(It is easy to see why, when we think of Heaven, we look up)

To all our good friends around the town and around the world. I hope that 2011 is better for you in every way than 2010.

I hope my job description doesn't change in the coming year. Yesterday was a typical day for requests..."Mom, do you know the vet's phone number?" (Just for some paper work).

"Hey, could you come out and hold the gate while I clean the pen? Those heifers keep running up the hill on me."

"Mom, can you get some sawdust out of my eye?"

"Where are your safety glasses?"

"Well, they were down at the house."

Yes to all. And yes, yes, yes to a life that leaves me with the kitchen counter next to the sink containing, at last count, 1 Bobcat oil filter, 1 chainsaw wrench, seven flashlights, a hole saw blade, shear bolts, lag screws, washers, 2 sets of side cutters, more screwdrivers than I care to count, the grain scale, rulers, shot gun shells, .22 shells, a basket (large) full of assorted parts that somebody might need someday, and some flower pots and matches. Just to name a few.....

There are easier ways, but I doubt that there are many that are more rewarding.

Hope yours is rich and full and fine.

Down on the River

This is a terrible picture I know, but if you click, all that darkness, just above the highway is geese, filling one of the last pools of unfrozen water. They sleep there every night and shuttle over us all day long. I looked west from the river bridge at dusk the other day and they were swirling above the pool like a tornado vortex all made up of geese.

Another dark time barn trip. Still no action on the calving front; a few cows scramble to their feet to see if I have any grain hidden about my person, but the rest of them just look curiously at me.

Down on the river out there in the dark, oh, my. Ducks all up and down the broken pools in front are cackling like crazy witches, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK. The same pattern every time, but not the same duck....there are a lot of them, all doing the same thing. I looked here and came to the conclusion they are probably hen mallards. There are certainly enough of them around and the volume descends properly.

They are very loud and the calls come, one at a time, from a long stretch of water. It is something I have never heard before. They were yakking it up when I headed out to the barn and still at it when I returned.

Took a few minutes to walk down on the front drive and listen between the traffic. What a wild night, with that great big ducky party town, right in front of the house. The geese bugling gently as they keep their places on the relentless water are melodious and kind by contrast.

Sun

It is warm enough to shed all jackets and sunny. Been out doing small animal chores and feeding stuff with no hat, no gloves, just soaking up the sun. Thank you to all our friends to the west for sending us this wonderful weather!

Calving

On a dairy farm it goes on all year to some extent, but since we graze our cows in summer, we have a lot of our calves between the end of one year and spring of the next. It has begun.

It is a dangerous time...the whole having babies and being born business is fraught with many hazards. We do our best to keep them safe, and that includes checking the barn late at night, early in the morning, middle of the day....seems like all the time. Things happen though and sometimes not for the best.

We moved a heifer indoors to calve last night, and I got up about two hours before I wanted to so I could check her. She is fine so far, but I suspect that within a few hours she will have her first baby. Lots of trips to the barn today I guess.

Cows Save Farmer's Life

Read about it here.

Christmas Bird Count

Common Redpoll (Photo by Alan)

If you click you can see that the air is full of water

from these Mallards taking off out of the fish hatchery

We have been counting our little section of the Johnstown circle for many, many years. My mom and dad began, then asked me to join them, then the brothers joined in and now our grown children come along when they can. This year because the count was on a Monday there was no one available except Alan and me. They weather mages were threatening terrible weather.

However, even in the scant light of O'dark-thirty this morning, it was easy to see that we didn't get any snow at all...lots of wind, but not a flake.

All we could say was YAY!!

Since we don't get milkings off on Monday we had to do chores before we left and got a late start. Didn't matter atall. Before we even got to Mom and Dad's we saw a gigantic flock of crows and a big mess of pigeons and turned up the road to count them. There were at least 105 crows in the flock, and fifty pigeons.

While we were at it, we counted that whole road and were followed down to mom's house by a very nice lady who wondered why were looking at her yard with binoculars. See, we knew the folks who used to live there, but unbeknown to us the house had changed hands. Fortunately the lady was a dedicated bird person and glad to know what we were up to. We got that bird count sign on the car as soon as we got to the house though.

It was a surprisingly good day. We missed a lot of common birds that we usually count, but saw some good ones. A solitary red poll...a mess of cedar waxwings...mallard ducks at the fish hatchery. All in all a pretty good day.

(and some huge trout).

Our Numbers:

132 American Crows

1 Common Red Poll

4 White-breasted Nuthatches

15 Blue Jay

27 Mallard Ducks

93 European Starlings

30 Mourning Doves

231 Rock Pigeons or rock doves or whatever the heck they are calling them these days

2 Tree Sparrow

2 Brown Creepers (we walked into my aunt and uncles woods specifically to look for these and found them almost immediately...thankfully, because it was frigid!)

3 Red Tailed Hawks

29 Cedar Waxwings

18 Gold Finches

91 Black-capped Chickadees

6 Tufted Titmice

2 Northern Cardinals

11 Dark-eyed Juncos

1 Hairy Woodpecker

10 Downy Woodpeckers

3 House Finches

26 House Sparrows

Hope You are Safe and Warm and Out of the Weather

Looks like this storm is walloping a lot of folks on the East Coast and I do hope you are safely out of it.

Our Christmas bird count is today.....don't know why it had to be on a weekday, but it isn't me who gets to decide. Still pitch dark out here and will be for quite a while yet, but it doesn't look like we got any snow. Yet. Howling a gale, but no snow.

No idea what to expect in the county to the north, but I do know I wish the count had been yesterday. Birds were out in huge numbers, emptied the feeders shortly after noon. Saw a sharp shinned hawk while filling the stove....probably lured in by the throng at the feeders. I think we have the largest population of chickadees I have ever seen and the white-crowned sparrow is still hanging around. Tons of gold and house finches, titmice, juncos, field sparrows, tree sparrows, and the other usual feeder birds each day.

We will be starting latish on the count, because this is not our morning off, but got to get milking in a minute. Stay warm!