Frigid Friday

Brrr! As are several others among our favorite bloggers, I am looking for a January thaw. I hate to say it, but I don't think we are going to get one though. We moved animals yesterday making room for Zinnia's Whirlhill Kingpin daughter to have a stall in the milking barn.

She is now in my dear Rosie's stall and Rosie is up next to Boston in a tie stall. Frankly I hated putting her there because Boston's name really should begin with a "B" like it does, but end in "TCH". However, men have their agendas and sometimes their priorities are different than those of women.

Boston likes to claim the water bowl as her personal property and not let the animal next to her use it. This hasn't been too big a problem with big cows tied next to her, but Rose is only a yearling. Of course she is the granddaughter of Bayberry and the great granddaughter of Balsam, two of the biggest, toughest, meanest (to other cows that is) animals that we have, so maybe she will hold her own. If she has trouble the boss is going to drop her down a new water bowl that Boston can't reach. However, she is my very favorite among my animals and probably the best I own. I want her to be okay. I want her to go to the shows this summer maybe.......

Good Essay

On the folks involved in food production even at the largest levels and how they turn out to be just folks.

***I expect you may have noticed that not much original material is getting posted here this week. Sorry we are down one person, we need to get heifers housed indoors for calving, and are doing some serious clean up. Back to normal soon (I hope).

National Cheese Lovers Day

Let's all celebrate! Bring on the cheese.

***Thanks Luv, for the heads up!

****Someday when I don't have to go clean in the barn and move heifers I will post Becky's mac and cheese recipe. We took an old kids' recipe from the ADADC and changed it until it is completely unrecognizable, but really, really good (not that it wasn't good to begin with, but more is always better, especially when you are talking about cheese. And if you don't like boiling the macaroni first this is the recipe for you.)

Food Inflation

Yeah, spring will come and there will be daffodils....just not for a while yet

A top concern in the coming decade. Read number eight.

Interesting that someone finally noticed that we are running out of farmers.

Many Milk Mustaches

See them here........

***HT Dairy Goddess

NY Dairy Plant Closing

Century-old plant to close.

Lightening Up

It seems that wintry weather is causing misery just about everywhere. They say that there is snow in at least some part of 49 of 50 states.

However, there are ways to render it alll more bearable.

So go here to learn the rules for dating.

Or about the cat that was called for jury duty.

Fun in the snow with a calf sled.

Not so funny, but very interesting, a plastic town.

And some very funny British animal voice overs

Young Ag Leaders Conference

The Institute for Rural America is in Kansas City, MO this week, and so is Liz. She flew out Sunday and won't be home until Thursday night. I guess the hotel is nice and the speakers at the conference are really interesting. (Here is a pdf of the schedule.)

She spoke yesterday with a lady involved in the Missouri Prop B battle, who offered her email address so I can talk with her as well. Prop B was touted as an anti-puppy mill initiative. However, according to this lady, a certain individual who runs a large animal rights group, (whose name I won't mention here, as I don't need trolls filling up my comments)*** (but his initials are the same as the first letters of the words "Wall Paper") has promised to apply the bill to farm animals as well. Here is a map of how the vote went down last fall. As you can see it was divided along rural vs urban lines. Country folks, who actually live with and understand animals voted no. Folks in the city voted yes.

Later in the week Liz will be attending the National Farmers Organization convention in the same spot. Last year she attended as a young farmer representative. This year she works for the cooperative. It is amazing the opportunities that a life time in agriculture, a college degree, and her own hard work have opened up for her. When I was her age I was working at someone else's farm just learning to milk cows.

It is also pretty exciting for someone who has never been on a plane to watch their offspring fly off to distant cities to talk with and learn from important ag leaders. I get to some events here in NY and much enjoy them, but this is big doin's to me. Can't wait until she is home though. I am, after all, a mom first, and a farmer second.

And I am jealous of the bird watching. Eagles nesting right in view of the hotel window. Lots of water birds and maybe ospreys as well. They kinda make my gold finches pale by comparison. I hear there is a board walk and she may take her camera out for some pictures.

Quiet in the Valley

My favorite gold finch picture ever.

White-crowned sparrow, still here with friends

Why are the seeds below the perch?

Somebody needs to fill this feeder!

It is so still this morning. The smoke from the stove doesn't know which way to go. Few cars and trucks on the Thruway, you can hear them creaking in the cold, only a crow or two and one lonesome chickadee calling. I believe the river is finally frozen over, as I haven't heard or seen a goose in days. Bet they are down by the bridge now.

There were quite a few birds around the other day though....and while I was out sneaking around photographing them, the kids were photographing me through the window. Hopefully no one knows how to get that pic off the phone though.

Ethanol and Northview Farm

Read about it here. And, no, the article is not about us. We have fewer than a tenth that many cows. However, ethanol production and subsidies here in the US of A have raised our grain prices about double what they were just a few years ago. Believe me, it hurts to pay using milk prices that didn't rise comparably.

Sunday Stills...Macro Shots

I took these shots of cactus fruit for a post I am going to do on propagating sunrise cacti.

Do NOT step on this puppy barefoot!

For more Sunday Stills .....

Cold

It is just plain cold.

Cold like a shell

Cold like a mountain.

Cold all day and cold all night.

Oh, the stars sparkle, and the sun puts a glitter on the snow like a kid gone crazy but the cold drives you inside

Where it is less cold, but still cold.

Blankets on all the chairs, long johns, sweats over your jeans over your long johns and still you are cold.

Four shirts

A vest

An over

shirt

Still cold.

Wool socks, yeah, real wool

Still cold.

The wind was pushing the smoke from the stove north last night when we came in.

Does this mean south air and a warm up?

I hope so.

Whine over

We return you to your normal programming, thank you.....

Fox Hunting

All the excitement of riding to the hounds, minus the foxes. Guess all the fun of fox hunting wasn't about being blood thirsty and evil after all....the accompanying video is great fun and well worth the watching....almost like being there only you don't have to personally get wet.

Red Neck Tractor Pull

I don't post too many videos because I know they are hard to load with slower connections. However, this one, of the famous pulling tractor, the Supernatural, was simply irresistible! Do watch...all the way to the end. It is just too cool.

Ladies Who Lay

Can't Complain much about the weather...cold and blustery here, but we are warmer and have lots less snow than many of our friends to the west and north. Thus we will keep our whining confined to the kitchen when we are layering on the wool socks and vests and over shirts, because compared to Alberta and SoDak we have nothing to whine about....but it is still miserable to get dressed for the weather we do have.

Once you actually get out in it, it isn't all that bad. Kinda nice this morning really, after the sun came up. I caught the idiot rooster WD yesterday and put him in the coop. The head guy immediately started pounding on him, but I think he will be okay.

Found the first egg of the year when I went out to feed yesterday. Delighted that the ladies decided to start to lay. We only have four hens, but eggs are most welcome.

The lonesome and amazingly tame white-crowned sparrow is still showing up at the feeders. Today he brought three friends. One of them is quite inventive and figured out how to get its great big self balanced on the tube feeder while snatching a seed. Pretty funny to watch.

Once again I am having computer difficulties, so posts might be late or absent, and comments answered more sporadically than I like...please bear with me, I am trying to get things straightened out.

Word For a Wintry Wednesday Redux

Thickory

Word For a Wintry Wednesday

Smorgasbird

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.