Can't Complain

Of course the lawn is nice and

green and Sadie the pound puppy/deer guard is liking it

About the weather....because it is so much worse in so many other places, but dang it!

We have had the worst spring, rain, and rain, and more rain and so cold they said it was going to snow last night.

The cows should be out to pasture, crops should be getting planted, the garden should be half in, fences built etc. etc.

Instead the cows are languishing in the barn, we are running out of feed, and we can't do a thing about it. Bring on the proper spring weather please, and bring on the green grass! It's time for Pete's sake and past time!

Oh, and locking the gates...yeah that worked. Not. I felt so much more secure with it locked until last night an Amish kid came to the house just after chores to ask if he could hunt (no). And he had come from the barn side and climbed right over the gate, ignoring the dog. Guess we need a longer chain.

Musical Cows

Yesterday we burned a CD for the barn, taking turns choosing what songs went on it. Thus it was downright eclectic and various.

This morning it was playing while we milked, early, because Liz and her BF had important commitments elsewhere.

Along about the end of the task the cows got to bellowing for their grain. They care nothing for our schedules and passionately about their own and it was TIME.

The CD player hangs in a window on my side so I turned it up.

And they turned it up.....the bellowing that is.

It was painful (can't grain them while we are milking or they will stomp all over us.)

We raced to get done so they could have breakfast and we could have sanity.

Then Sherry, by the Four Seasons came on the stereo.

Instant cessation of the mooing and hollering.

Only one cow let out a soft moo the whole time the song played.

Then as soon as the next one came on they were back at it.

Who knew that they were fans of the classics?

Wordless Wednesday

The 11th Highest Property Taxes in the Nation are Right Here at

Home, sweet home....and yes, we had noticed the pain.

But it still really is home, sweet, agricultural, home. Second graders from our local school did pretty darned good in the statewide My Favorite Food contest

Finch Event...or Alternatively Not a Finch

This IS a goldfinch

Went out to fill the feeders after morning chores today. As usual there was a noisy cluster of goldfinches hanging around the apple tree and honey locust awaiting that event.

As I neared the tube feeders a small, gold-finchy bird sat on the clothesline between them fending off any regular goldfinches that got impatient and landed nearby.

I couldn't make it look quite right. Although it was close to the color of a female goldfinch, it appeared to have stripes on its breast. When I got really close I saw that it was a pine siskin. We do get them pretty much every winter, but this one is really late.

It also must have been really hungry because I walked over and held the yellow scoop up next to it and it jumped right in and started eating seeds.

I couldn't believe it. Over the years I have hand trained chickadees many times and have a pair that greet me every day when I go outdoors. (And let me know in no uncertain terms when they are hungry.)

However, never have any other birds come in to eat like that, and certainly not wild arctic birds like a siskin. I don't think he was sick because he lit right into other birds like he owned the feeder.

It was pretty cool. I hope he gets all fueled up and gets to where he is going.

A Little Skeptical

About what will happen next. Or maybe worried would be a better word. Delighted though, just delighted.

Sunday Stills...Rust

*****Click any photo to enlarge

No shortage of rust around here.

For more Sunday Stills.......

While the Cat's Away the Mice Will

Mirror, mirror

on the wall

Keep a close eye on everything, and lock the gate, and listen hard for the dog to bark if anyone messes around the barn or tool shed.

Today is the Sprout Brook Auction. Go! Have fun! Say hi to the boss and most of the rest of the family, who will be there. The boss is auctioneering and everyone else is just watching the bargains and schmoozing with friends.

Except Becky and me. We are here, holding down the fort, keeping safe the cows and listening for that dog. I don't mind a bit except for the repelling boarders part. Chores are done, cows fed, bedded and milked, barn clean, peacocks fed; time for breakfast. It is for the moment peaceful and calm and we can hope it stays that way.

****Oh, wait, I do have a dutiful destination in today's peregrinations. Gotta go out and take photos of rust for Sunday Stills. Shouldn't be too terribly hard around this place. No lack of material.

The Royal Wedding

Lovage, an appropriate herb for a wedding rant, don't you think?

Is perhaps the most annoying event in history. Why does anyone care? What is so awfully special about them-there two rich and privileged folks anyhow?

Weddings should be about family and friends and caring couples, not bazillions of strangers and a lot of money and obsessing about every meaningless detail of every pointless tradtion.

The boss and I did it right. We got my brother to do one milking for me at the farm where I was working as herdsman and eloped.

Just drove up to Johnstown to Justice McVean and got married in his living room with our two best friends to stand up for us.

It was quiet, sweet, and moving. It meant so much to me that I struggled to hold back tears...and I am not exactly the queen of overt displays of emotions.

And it was private.

When we were well and truly wed, our friends took us out for Chinese, the first time I had ever eaten Chinese btw. Heartbreakingly, my dear-best-girl-friend-ever had such terrible health problems that a few years later she couldn't remember anything about the day, and sadly she is gone now. We will always remember her with particular love though...always...

The marriage has lasted almost 26 years now (and so has the liking for Chinese food). I wish the royals as much fun and challenge and struggle and satisfaction as we have had.....but I sure wonder whether the world will let them have it.

Floods

What a week of insane and horrible weather for the eastern half of the US. WW has some photos and links to flooding in her area and the Dacks.

We are just wet and soggy here, (and I do mean wet...the garden is under water and the boss is having to fork feed out of the bag for the cows, because he can't get in with the skid steer) but there is flooding all over the rest of the state. They have even delayed the opening of the river because of high water and debris.

Liz's boyfriend drives truck down in the southern tier and he snapped the photo and emailed it to her. He actually had some others of worse stuff, but she deleted them. Thanks Jade for the photo.

The kids have good friends who live up near where the Frankfort tornado touched down. I guess they haven't been getting much sleep, with tornado warnings and watches. The other day we were under five watches and warnings at once, including tornado watch, severe thunderstorm warning and watch and flood warning and watch. Up here on the hill we are pretty good when it comes to flooding, but last year's Glen tornado started right here at home, right over Alan on the tractor....which was not so very comforting...

Here is a report of some survivors of the devastation in Alabama. The folks down there will be needing our prayers for a long time for sure. I don't know when the normal weather is going to show up this year...if it does....but it could come along any time now.

The Future of Farming

Here is a video from Channel 9 about Kirsten Gillibrand talking to farmers about the ongoing loss of farms due to high costs and low milk prices.

Oh, Baby!

The sweetest baby we know needs your vote for a fun thing her mama is doing. If you could take a minute to do a couple of clicks it would be appreciated.

Find the Hidden Object Game

At the far, far end of the lawn behind the house.

Wicked Weather

We just got regular spring thundershowers. (Not like we needed the rain or anything, but not much harm done.) However, up west of here, right near the homes of some of the kids' friends it was really wild I guess.

Meanwhile, Liz bought me my first ice cream of the season. I took a ride up west with her yesterday as she had to get some hay and shavings and feed all the horses she and the BF care for. She stopped at Auntie Kim's and got me some sort of orange pineapple concoction that was perfect for our first really hot, sunny day of the year.

I also discovered that the weather this winter simply wiped out my herb garden. The lovage lived, as did the garlic chives, walking onions, regular chives and orange mint.

Pretty much everything else seems to be completely gone. Can you imagine a winter nasty enough to kill spearmint!?!

I began a complete do-over, re-dig mission so I can get some new thyme and such for the empty spots. Sadly the speedwell also bit the dust after nearly ten years of out-bluing the skies and jays. That will probably be hard to replace, since I have only ever seen it for sale once...the time I bought it.

In honor of the warmish weather I made hummingbird food this morning. They should be back pretty soon, cold or not.

Where the Wild Things Are

Pileated woodpecker lunch counter. Must be some bugs in this cherry tree that he wanted to eat.

And this gold finch must have had a real wild night; (prolly up at the bonfire) he still has his sunflower seed party hat on...

**sorry about the less than great photo...taken through the kitchen window.

Franklinton Vlaie

Goose fight! Look at the lady goose egging the fellas on

And stay out!

Click for details on the bout

A few of the many swallows hunting the water

Vlaie is a Dutch word for swamp. Franklinton Vlaie is located in Schoharie County NY right along Route 145. Alan and I took one of our now and again birding and picture taking trips down there Easter Sunday. For a gloomy, grey, almost raining day it was not bad at all. We saw:

Red winged black birds by the dozens

Flocks and flocks of tree swallows with one cliff swallow thrown in

Canada geese

Robins

Song sparrows

Common crows

an Osprey

Great Blue herons

Blue jays

Common grackle

Northern Flicker

Turkey Vulture

Sunday Stills...Flowers and Wild Flowers

Poplar flower

Box Elder Flower

Blood root, showing its opinion of the season

This one really was a challenge. Not so much that there isn't a whole lot in bloom here in the frozen north, but the weather was lousy almost all week, rain, snow, sleet, bah humbug. However, we did find a few things.

For more Sunday Stills....

Happy Easter to All

Music of Our Days

Woke up from good sleep to a cardinal.

Singing, seemingly two inches from my ear.

Felt like someone sliding a letter opener into my head. He must have been perched on a twig right next to the window.

Thought with all that singing it might be sunny.

Nope, rain through Friday.

At least.

This cold, wet, weather is setting crop planting back, right across the nation and messing with the commodities markets something fierce, or so I have heard. It is messing, in a quite literal sense of that word, with everything here. Lotsa mud. Lots.

Not only is getting on the land a distant dream, but just cleaning up is going slowly.

But back to music. After I wrote about my new song, my dear brother arrived on a mercy mission involving mom and dad's frozen food (which has been staying with us due to the death of their freezer, but now it can go home to their new one), with a CD full of songs he had burned for me. Then Jinglebob sent me three fantastic songs that he made.

I am awash in riches....just swimming in musical joy. Thanks!

And yesterday morning when we went out the daffodils were prostrate under the weight of a frost from night so cold it defied description. They were just getting pretty, the earliest ones a couple days in bloom

I despaired.

However, by the time we were done with morning chores they had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and were shining their sunny faces right at us. Such a glorious resurrection seems particularly fitting to me just now.

The Good

Northern mockingbird, following us around while we built fence.

Since July of last year I have been trying to track down an mp3 of the RW Hampton song, Donnie Catch a Horse for Me, without success. You could get it on a hard copy of an album CD, but if it was out there for single purchase I couldn't find it. RW put up a link to a file of the song on Facebook yesterday, so I gave it another listen.

Still liked it.

Shared the link.

Came in from chores last night to find that a particularly dear friend, who has been known before to surprise me in sweet and wonderful ways, had found the song and sent me an mp3 of it in an email. Bet you can guess what I will be listening to today.

I dunno about you, but I use music as a crutch to get me through the boring parts. I can even do dishes, my single most hated job, and not even notice that I am doing them, if I have my favorite play list running.

I named the list Little Niagara after a river in a story I read once and it is pretty eclectic in its make up. Chris Ledoux and Elton John. Todd Fritsch and Queen. Dire Straits, the Allman Brothers Band, the Eagles, Garth, Jason Aldean, the High Kings, Emerson Drive, Lonestar (I only like one of their songs, but I like that one a lot), Jimmy Buffett, Bach's Tocata and Fugue in D Minor and lots of other stuff that only fits together in my head (although now that we have a CD of parts of it in the barn, Beck has become a Doobie Brothers fan). Now it will have Donnie Catch a Horse too.

Grin.