Lyme Disease

Watch out this fall. It is warm and wet and ticks abound. So far our boy was bitten by three ticks...at least...while hunting and is on doxycycline for it. Now the dog has the disease and it taking it too.

Lyme is no joke...bad, bad stuff. Thankfully that dreaded bulls eye rash left the boy within a day or two after he began his meds. Alas it is none too kind to his tummy so he is dealing with that, but worth it.,

Nick, the dog, got a tick, was limping a little on the front leg one day and could barely stand by the next. I had to help him out of his crate and balance him to go outdoors. He would just collapse and look sad, he hurt so bad.

Fortunately within a day after he began the medicine he was back to walking a bit and now he is just a bit lame.

Meanwhile he has become outrageously spoiled. Someone felt sorry for him and carried him to a spot in front of the electric heater. As soon as he could walk again it became his favorite venue.

And treats. He wouldn't eat...too much pain I'm sure. So he was plied with animal crackers and potato chips and biscuits (the baked, fluffy people kind, not the hard crunchies for dogs). Now he scorns the dog food....ah, well, he'll get over that soon enough.

(Can't thank the fine medical professionals who prescribed the meds enough.)

Meanwhile, please watch out for those awful ticks!

Danger

My parents' next door neighbor was tragically killed by a car a couple of weeks ago. Shock waves rippled through the area....he was a fixture...someone everyone knew and liked and his kids were best friends with my younger brother when we were young. We all visited a lot when we were kids and played backyard football and all and ran in and out of each other's houses tame. The accident was horrible and made worse by some pretty tasteless newspaper coverage.

There were phrases like "pedestrian error" and such bandied about, but those of us who visit that area or grew up on that awful road know better. Cars fly along that straightaway like they were climbing the curves at a speedway.

Just getting the mail at my folks' house or pulling out of their driveway is an exercise in fear (yeah, all right I AM kind of timid but still....)

Now this happened to the very house where my folks' neighbor lived. And the house is not real near the road or anything.There are rumors of drag racing.

I think it's time for some folks in uniforms to enforce the speed laws out there....just sayin'.

Sunday Stills...Backlit

For more Sunday Stills......

Sneak Attack

Sneak attack! Look out!!!! It's a deadly, dangerous, eyes-in-front predator!

Get her!

The cows were all turned out and waiting by the gate to be let up into the field to eat. I was just finishing up pushing up feed to Scotty, who stays in, and the bull and the steers and the big calves, when the dreaded Athena trotted down the barn aisle working hard at rat patrol.

Milwaukee saw her first. A predator! Oh, noes, and right in the barn too.

Big M lowered her head and hooked and snorted at the deadly threat so close before her. Towanda took up the cry, storming and stomping her feet and kicking her heels at the ceiling.

Next Cinnamon, Boondock, Brianna and Bling. Chrome and Lamborghini, Corolla and Pumpkin, all dashing, all dancing, all banging stalls and cupboard doors. Crash! Clatter! Kaboom and kabang.

Athena paused by the big pen and looked back in disgust. She is just an old barn cat and about as dangerous to those silly calves as air .

Meanwhile, they all shook their heads and snorted happily and stood around puffing and blowing. Another enemy vanquished and before breakfast too. Tuff girls one and all.

With the Sun

Come pictures

In the Misty Morning Fog

With our hearts a thumpin'

Well, kinda sluggishly....but they are thumping. Alan rigged up his mini-boiler again yesterday. Too soon to know how much heat it will provide, as it has to be uncoupled and unplugged when not actually working....and no one wants to stay up all night feeding it. Time will tell.....hopefully it will tell us we are warm.

Shiverish but Sunny

It is. Down into the mid-twenties last night, making it a very pleasant thing to turn on the electric heater this morning. It is tiny and it labors mightily to take the edge off the cold in the kitchen. Just now it is my best friend.

Not much of great interest happening here. We milk the cows. We feed the cows. Then we milk the cows and feed the cows. Somewhere in between the boss cleans the barn and fixes a seemingly never ending string of broken water bowls.

Feeding them with wheelbarrows is getting old fast, but on the other hand it is getting the fat old lady into shape, being wheel-barrower in chief and all.

There is a big wheel barrow. There is a little wheel barrow.

The boss brings down a bucket load of haylage with the skid steer and dumps half into them. He takes the big one and I take the little one and we distribute largess to the ladies.

Then he dumps in the other half of the load and I feed out both while he gets another bucket full.. It is heavy. There are ramps. There are cow heads reaching and slamming and grabbing on all the corners and ramps as everybody wants theirs NOW.

However, I find a very positive side to me doing at least some of the feeding. I actually know all the cows, who is dry, who is milking hard, which are still growing heifers that need a little extra, and I adjust their dinners accordingly.

Scotty gets a great big pile.....

And Lemmie, and Camry, and Blitz and Mandy....Not so much Zinnia, who is almost dry and about the size of a pick up truck. I KNOW that when they get their morning feed outdoors she stomps around and grabs more than her share.

I won't say that this has increased milk production, but they were dropping really fast and now the slide has stopped and they are holding. Works for me.

That Ain't Chicken Feed

"This is my own tiny kitteh bed....to you it may be a paper towel,

but to me it is special..."

Photo by Alan

A representative of a local fish and game club brought me some bird seed today...read the Farm Side late in summer about the shortage of high price of sunflower seeds...and just brought me some seed. Isn't that the sweetest thing?

Thank You

Global Warming. Not too bad here so far, although it is supposed to chill later in the week. I will take every passing warm day we get and rejoice!

Been reading in the local paper about all the hooligans being arrested for assorted crimes against wildlife and private property.

Imagine what would happen if they really got out there after them. They could balance the state budget in a wink. The boys caught two trespassers in one hunting trip here, both in full cammo, and there are more every day...just can't chase them all due to the whole having to work thing.

Wish the DEC would catch our band of outlaws for us. Alan went up in the field to have a look around yesterday and found that some yahoo with a pick up truck rutted a couple of new seeding hay fields all to heck...big fixit job there I guess.

They had to drive over rocks and trees and through a whole darned hedgerow to get in, right past a posted sign. Guess they poached a deer off us and were too lazy to drag it out.

Remember Melamine?

There's a talking head on my lawn

Another pet threat from China...Pet treats killing dogs....

Conservation Reserve

Has anyone had experience with putting land into the CRP program for wetlands? Any thoughts? Any problems selling property later?

Thanks in advance.

Sunday Stills...Bokeh

I have used this before, but it is an accidental example I think

I did what I could with this, but it is a bit beyond my abilities....maybe more than a bit. Here is the definition of Bokeh. I actually have a few examples of accidentally getting this right in the past, but alas, they are on the dead computer in the dining room.

For more Sunday Stills......

Leftovers

Lichen, not leftover, but it could have been

Some people dread them and whine and complain about the too much food thing. Hah, no such thing. No way no how. Personally I am very fond of them. It is wonderful to finish up the day and know the only cooking I have to do is to pull those wonderful square plastic tubs the boss bought me out of the fridge, pile them on the table and point the family at the microwave.

Here is someone who has scientific ideas about how to handle them.

I really like his thinking......of course he is the editor of the paper that runs the Farm Side....but, still, I really like his thinking. Kind of on a been there, done that sort of level.

***Here is another just put up today. Pretty darned inspiring.

Farm Side Freebie Friday

Right here.

Outlaws

Yesterday while the bird was browning and the women were working on the side dishes, the younger men folk went a-hunting.

While perched in the pasture tree stand, Bubba had a close encounter of the turkey poo kind. See, Alan spooked them up and they flew right over him...they had been eating grapes by the way. Guess you could call it the purple badge or courage...or really badges plural.

They did see some deer, but mostly they saw poachers. One guy had innocently wandered across the property line so Bubba just guided him back out to where he actually had permission to hunt.

The other one saw Alan and took off running.

Uphill.

We are quite well supplied with uphill.

However, Alan's new job entails thousands of critters rather than a few dozen and he sees a lot of action every day.

What makes a forty-something guy think he can outrun a rake-skinny farm boy who wrestles beeves and calves and bulls and dairy cows for a living ?

He couldn't. He didn't. After the kid chased him up hill and down dale for a while, and hiding in the bushes didn't work out well for him, (he was in full cammo..clever lad) he finally stopped.

Then he claimed to be an officer of the law and thus had a right to sneak around our posted farm in cammo and run away from rightful landowners and all. Or so he thought. Our former student of the laws of fisheries and wildlife explained the realities of the game and trespass laws and escorted him to a convenient boundary line.

Th two of them flat messed up the hunting for the boys so they came home and ate turkey. Don't know where the "cop" went, but as long as it wasn't on our land it will be okay.

Thankful

Light of dawn, like silky smoke, slides in from all sides as if it has forgotten east.

Cats clamor. Sate them with kibbles.

Put out bird seed.

Dog dances, ear scratches,

Sunday morning silence on a Thursday in November.

Chores will soon be finished.

Rest and be thankful.

Wishing each and all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday from all of us at Northview Dairy Farm. Hope your day is all you wish it to be.

When the Going Gets Cold

Mappy in Shadow

The cold go shopping. It was just miserable here yesterday. Atmosphere and temperature both. So Liz took Beck and me shopping for a turkey and everything that goes with it.

It was warm in the store. People were remarkably friendly and smiley and nice.

And it was warm. I have never enjoyed shopping more.

Now there are yams in the oven and celery and onions on the stove and it at least smells warm in here.

Hope you all have a terrific day tomorrow.

PS a certain grumpy someone just came home with an itty bitty electric heater. Maybe I should smile at him.

Arggghhhhh

Nuff said

Twin Cousins

Susurrus Samaras

Out on the porch watching the dog, who knows better than to stray, better than to bother heifers, better than to harass horses or chase chickens, or fight with cats, but not better than to avail his delicate-tummied border collie self of deer innards, (which will be removed TODAY or my name isn't mom.)

Something makes a soft, sweet, swishing sound, like pattering rain drops falling down.

What could it be?

The sky is cool slate grey, with milky yellow undertones, not a drop in sight or sound.

Mr. Half moon is sliding through the branches of the box elder tree that is playing host to that same deer.

It is pretty out, and kind of warm too, all things (like November for example) considered.

What is that sound?

Barely a puff of breeze ruffling the samaras on the box elder as it whooshes by. How sweetly sibilant.