Workin'

Some is workin' off farm jobs. Some is fencin'. Some is bookkeepin'.
All is workin' though.

'Cept for this little guy, who is havin' a stick.

Finally

Finally finished the Farm Side, which is usually fun, but sometimes frantically frustrating. 


Liz says it is hailing wherever it is that she is milk inspecting today. Gloomy and grey and cold here. The grass got up just so far and than stalled and if anything is going backwards, drying up and freezing off.Supposed to warm up soon though.


Burned up a lot of yesterday trying to paint this Godawful cowboy on a fence, which the man for whom I paint yard art wants hurried up because he has it sold. The thing is huge and just getting it out to paint on it was a pain...and then I discovered that I don't have any blue paint for the blue jeans. (Whine, whine.) Way back when I first began this job of painting wooden things, I didn't buy blue because I was painting ducks and cows and they are generally not blue.


Since we have to visit our accountant this afternoon to sign and send out the taxes, I guess a trip to Wally World is in order, (whine, whine, whine).


Heh, enough whining, time to get back to work.

I Shouldn't Read so Much

Yesterday was a day for major aggravation on the Internet for me. First there was a story from a large, but very animal-rightsy, newspaper in the region bemoaning the horror of raising fat, juicy turkeys and calling strongly for a return to nomming on old-fashioned, wild-style turkeys.


Because life is so much better for the skinny, stringy, wild-type ones you know. They live forever, happily mating and eating rainbow stew and are so much better for themselves and for us and for the environment and all.....Nobody eats them until they have lived out their happy lives...oh, wait, what about coyotes? And they die happy when we do eat them.


Anyhow, the story graveled the heck out of me. Especially since the guy bitching and moaning about modern agriculture is a legislator who wants to write new laws so we all have to raise and eat "heritage" critters the way the Shakers did. Cause it "seems" nicer. Which in a nutshell encompasses most of the touchy-feely, well-meaning, but ill informed arguments against modern farming methods.
Um, does anybody remember why the Shakers died out? I don't think their ideas would translate too awful well into feeding the hungry world. I don't think much of 'em at all, at all.


I think even less of wealthy, privileged, individuals abusing their position to dictate to folks who maybe can't afford to keep three or four turkeys like little pets, eat maybe one a year, and then pat themselves on the back for how humane they are. How about a little humanity for folks who have less and need to buy cheaper food or go without?


In past years the table in the dining room has been ringed with most of my family, and groaned under the food we cooked for Thanksgiving. There were oftentimes two turkeys, a wild (not too far removed from "heritage" ones) and a conventionally-raised, store bought one. Our guests enjoyed the chance to taste the wild bird, which was good even if it took a lot of gravy to make it tender and juicy.


 But there was barely enough for each of them to have one bite. The big ol' store brand tom though....that was another story. He was the one who sent them home sleepy and comfortable with fond memories of the feast. Folks used to know about hunger so they appreciated plenty...and they bred turkeys to grow big and tender and flavorful.


We can certainly all return to historic methods of food production. Been there, done that. We can grow our own here at the farm and process it from feathered to food. However there will be a few million folks starving in other places who wish we didn't. The methods by which livestock is raised for food have been evolving since mankind first welcomed wild animals to the campfire. They are followed because they are economical, sustainable, and use resources efficiently. This may not matter to wealthy folks who want to brag about how their food was raised, but in the end they are better for the many. Check out this article by a true expert on modern ag. It should be required reading in the NYS Assembly.


And then there was the HuffPo piece about what you shouldn't want in your food and how organic milk doesn't have any hormones so it is better than conventionally produced milk. As one of my Facebook friends pointed out, you can find stuff in the pen with the bull that fits in with the veracity of that story. All foods have hormones. Try a soybean. No wait...


Really, I need to stop reading this stuff.....

Shiverish, Windy

mourning doves

Last night, it was gorgeous at sunset. We all stood around out in the yard talking (and taking down laundry) after chores and just reveled in the lemon-gold sky and the tender air.

Robin

Then somewhere in the early hours an insane wind sprang up and things started popping and rattling and shaking. Sleep was pretty much impossible.

Robin

And baby it is cold out too. April in the Northeast is not to be taken lightly I guess.

Song Sparrow

We had a lovely Easter...a nice ham dinner in between chore times and the weather was the best it has been in a week or two. I went out to try to get a video of the mocker, but he was kind of just mumbling and the real blue jays and a song sparrow, which I think he had called in, drowned him out. Had fun taking bird pics at least.

Eastern Phoebe

Can't wait for grass though. Buying forage this year is not for the faint of heart or light of wallet....would be a lot better time to be selling it I think.

Sunday Stills...New Beginnings

A very Happy Easter to all wherever you may be. What a beautiful season of renewal.


 For more Sunday Stills....

Skid Steer Swallow

Or, mayhap Mike the Mechanical Mockingbird. Our skid steer beeps....you know that noise big machines make when they back up? Yeah, that, only it indicates a problem with something about it, not a reverse psychology.


Anyhow, the boss was working with it the other day and it was doing that beeping thing it does, while Alan was working on something else. Suddenly from behind him came another beeping skid steer.


He thought he was going crazy for a minute. Then the mockingbird flew out nearby. We had a good laugh over it later.


What a bird!


I listened to him last night after chores and I darned near never went in for dinner. I don't know if it is the same young bird that was so awful a couple of weeks ago, but I suspect that it is.


However, now he is amazing now. Talk about perfect pitch. If I wasn't actually watching him, perched up there in the wild rose bush, I would never take a second thought...definitely a blue jay. Then a phoebe. Robin. Killdeer.
Tufted titmouse, pee-oo, pee-oo. And on and on. Listening to him sing was a chance to brush up on my local bird call identification.....


I suppose I might have caught on when he threw a woodpecker drumming right in between two blue jay shrieks, but this year's mocker is the best mimic I have ever heard. Not a false note anywhere.


Can't wait for more migrants to move in and start singing...and if he gives another concert like he did last night I will try to record it with the video feature on the camera so you can hear him too...wow!


Then this morning an eastern phoebe was calling so close to the house that I could hear every raspy undertone in his call. Almost sounded like a different bird. I peered out all the windows trying to see where he might be perched....looking mostly across the driveway...when I spotted him right next to the big window just inches away. He was sitting at the very tip of the sumac I leave there so I can photograph birds, every feather on end, and dripping with dew, while he screamed out his first song of they day. He looked like a grumpy guy who had just climbed out of the shower and hadn't had his coffee yet.

Song Sparrow Serenade

Took Nick out for a walk this morning just before the sun came up. 

Song sparrows were singing from perches near and far, at least seven or eight of them, plus a few robins and a cardinal. Something was making a strange wooden chirp from the old apple tree and the mockingbird has finally learned some new songs.


Sweet indeed.


I hear we are going to be seeing rain all next week....which I really hope doesn't augur the start of another summer from Hell....but meanwhile I love the chilly, bird-filled mornings with the sun coming up like a cold peach sundae.

The Moon is as High

Been taking pics of the moon every night after chores. Too lazy to get out the tripod so I go lean on the generator, which is on the lawn (don't ask), to steady my hands.

 This one is the best so far.

Spooky....

Ephemeral

Working Hands

Our farrier, a lifelong friend and all around nice guy was here to trim Jack yesterday.

What are the Men

Doing today?


***Update Injector and number one piston from the old 930 Case. She is getting yet another do over. Alan says she has 18,000 hours on her, so I guess she has earned it.

What to Do if Your Dog is a Collie

Even a farm collie, and the company that makes the heart worm preventative that is safer for collies suspends production?


We don't know the answer to that question and it is beginning to seem like no one else does either.


We want to use Interceptor for Gil, as collie type dogs have been known to have life-threatening adverse reactions to the more common heart worm medicines, but Novartis suspended production in December.


We searched the net, called and emailed veterinarians, and looked into all kinds of suppliers to no avail. 


Although many online sources claim that production will resume soon, I called the company today and was told repeatedly, "We don't have a date yet for resuming production," with no further details.


This is troubling as English Shepherds are among the breeds prone to Ivermectin toxicity....


which is bad news indeed.


There is a test for the mutant gene, which causes the dog to be susceptible to toxicity. Maybe that is the answer for Gil

Another Cold and Gloomy One

But it is supposed to get nicer over the rest of the week. That short little summer we had was wonderful but what a tease! Still remarkably few interesting birds around....lots of assorted black birds, song sparrows, and winter holdovers, but the coot I saw on a national news show this morning was the most unusual sight all week. Where is our woodcock anyhow?


Opening day of trout season yesterday passed unremarked. I am too much of a wienie to fish in such weather...and really I think the fish are far too girly to bite when it is this cold too. The best trout catch I ever made was when a couple of friends and I rode horses for several days up to Murphy Lake and camped to fish. I was untangling a line someone had snarled up, sitting on a big rock with my toes in the lake with the worm dangling just over the surface while I teased apart the messy coils of monofilament.


Wham! A nice brookie that made a nice breakfast cooked on our campfire. Usually although I LOVE to fish I don't catch much.


I have written of that insane trip before. Only a complete and utter fool would ride a black horse into the mountains on opening day of early black bear season...and guess who rode a little black horse for well over twenty years.... (In my defense it was an unusual September season and we just didn't know, but still...when we came out of the woods to find the road lined with trucks and bristling with armed guys looking for large black animals...well....)


Anyhow, the calendar says spring, the buds on the tulips say spring, the daffodils are already folding their tents...now if the weather would just get on the same page.

Sunday Stills...Birdstalking

Gold Finch...slightly moth eaten from the molt 

Song Sparrow

Tufted titmouse, om nom nom

It is early to see much here, at least by the calendar. We don't even have a woodcock yet.
 I wanted to get up to the landfill where the Canada geese nest right next to the road and challenge cars willy nilly. Much too busy though so this is what was hanging around the yard this week.



For more Sunday Stills......


Song Sparrow

Today vs Yesterday

Two seconds before I shot the lower photo, yesterday when it was sunny and nice, vs snowy and cold, the cat was sniffing the daffodil. What a great opportunity right? Alas, too slow as usual. 

Redneck Landscaping

Yesterday I was complaining about the lousy "yellow lilac bush" I bought at Wally World ten years ago or so. The darned thing took four years to bloom and when it finally did it had tiny, white flowers that were so not lilacs. Little things the size of your pinky and drab as dirt

 A Match for any Lilac Bush

 I have been cutting it down ever since.


As I was lamenting its pointless persistence and wishing for a flat place to set the smaller bird bath, the boy said, "I'll get it out."


Always distrust that smug tone of voice in a young man...or even in an older man. They like to do things in.....well, a big way.....


And get it out he did, with a huge, thick yellow towing strap and the weapon in the top photo.


Can anyone say overkill?

The great, big, evil lilac bush

At any rate it's gone, roots and all and when it stops snowing I can smooth the ground and move the bird bath.

Farm Side Friday

Here

Morning Walkies

 Maples and Pines across the river

 A little rhubarb I started a couple of years ago

 Catkins follow pussy willows

Thistle

Alan came out with me this morning when I was trying to get some bird photos for Sunday Stills. Didn't get much in the way of bird shots, but I did get the fallen tree off the lawn and now the bird bath is level and visible from the house. Yay!

LFTB

Pink slime they call it. What a tempest in a tea pot, (although not for the people who lost their jobs or the estimated million and a half cows that will be needed to replace this safe, wholesome product, which has been in use for twenty years.) 

Way to go media activists and agenda-driven celebrities. 


Here are some links:


USDA fact sheet

No process can make an inedible product edible "The resulting product is very low fat
(95+% lean), which many consumers desire.  This process is very similar to the one used to
separate cream from milk." 

Sure the stuff sounds icky, but trust me, many aspects of producing food seem icky. Hot dogs..... And we've been eating it for TWO DECADES without it hurting anybody.


Our so-called "news" has become instead a mess of sensationalist fear mongering and incitement  to meaningless action with not even a hat tip to facts or science. I infinitely prefer the beef we grow for ourselves, but I am not afraid of the darned stuff at all after actually taking time to research it.


Meanwhile, of course I like our homegrown hamburger better. It is already lean....

Still Fencing, No Swords

Staples though, and insulators. Patching wire. Chopping bush. Freezing cold. And taking pictures. Wrenched my stupid foot the other day stepping out of a cow stall. It was pretty ouchy walking around with Alan making up the fence...well, really he did most of the work and I cut brush and kept him company. Another couple days and that one will be done anyhow. Two more to go.