Bah Humbug

The little red truck got him to NJ with as smooth and nice a ride as you could ask for. Half way to work, same exact spot to within a hundredth of a mile from where the Bomber stb and it died this morning.


I think there are rays or something. He HAS to get to work. This stinks.




***and we cannot do one danged thing to help him. Our car barely limps around town here; it would never make the trip. Plus the cows are relentless. You can't skip a milking or milk more than a little late or early....ever....sometimes I wonder.

Little Red Truck

The Blue Bomber coughed up her transmission on the highway in NJ last week leaving the boy stranded far from home and work. His uncle rescued him, and he helped us out all weekend, but he has to be back at work tomorrow no matter what. BB is still in a garage in NJ, so he bought this little, older, truck with what he had managed to save. His dad has been teasing him about gerbil power, but she is so pretty and rides nice and gentle.


I liked the size of old BB for all that highway travel; there is some truck there (!) but hopefully this little one will get him there too and also hopefully one of the impending crises has been averted.


***I forgot to tell about how at one dealership he was actually writing out a check for a car. The dealer asked where he worked and he told him...NYC, 731 laborer..and the man threw him out of the store. He drove up the road a few miles, bought the above truck, and drove it right past the first place. Can you believe it?

How I am Today

Sunday Stills...the Color Brown

 Brown cow...Dreamroad Extreme Heather, pictured at 12 years of age

 Brown eyes...and ears....Scotty

 Brown knot

 Brown tile silo

 Brown leaf

Gil, who is also brown

For more Sunday Stills.....

Frieland LF Bama Breeze

The business end....because a dairy farmer likes a nice hard-working cow with a decent udder.

A Momentary Calm

The kid has to find a vehicle before Tuesday. Anybody got a cheap clunker?


The pup seems to be improving. (If the racing around the kitchen is anything to go by)

And the sky has been spectacular. It drove me nuts all though milking last night. First a sharply defined mackerel sky, then all sorts of weird, puffy rows of clouds. No camera. By the time I got to the house it had mostly passed, but I got a little of it.

Then this morning, such drama in the sky.


Nice.

Son of a Pup

Waiting for his "mama"

The boy's uncle, who is truly a prince among men, has picked him up in NJ and is bringing him home. It takes a pretty special person to drop everything and drive about 8 hours round trip like that. Thanks, Mappy, you are a good 'un. He had his truck towed, dunno what the verdict is there yet.


The pup has been to the vet, a new vet to us, and is back home. Not sure what is going on, but thinks he will be okay, thankfully. He now has antibiotics and anti-nausea meds and can have some food tonight. Can't wait until he feels well enough to act his usually naughty little self.


The little wretch has had vomiting and accompanying back end symptoms, but is enough better to be hungry. He knows he gets biscuits in trade for object of theft so he is being hell on the towels and hats. Dagnabit.


Anyhow, we are still full of lots of worries, but not quite as many.

It is Hard

To be gloomy with the sun so bright and orange and the cedar waxwings are coming right to the shady cedar-draped front porch to feed.


But it can be done. Our boy is broken down along the highway in Secaucus, NJ. I know that, as he says, he is a big boy and will get it figured out, but I am a mom and must worry. Always.


And those blasted ratcoons on my porch last night...and yes I can spell better than that but I don't find them cute. They were after the porch cat's food; he was cowering in his cathouse and things were tumbling and crashing.


 I turned on the light and opened the door, TWO FEET from them!!!! and they didn't even move, just stood on their hind feet peering nearsightedly at me and waving their little paws around.


I had to scream at them to get them to leave. So now the cat will need a rabies booster and I guess I need some .22 shells. At least I know now what knocked down all the potatoes that were growing on top of the compost bin. They must have come up on the back porch after we went to bed and caused general chaos there as well, looking for who knows what.


And the pup is sick


On the better side......We have four new milkers, which will be good news for the tank, although it gets us out of the barn an hour later morning and night because their milk has to be segregated from the milk that goes in the tank for a while. 


We stuff them with hay morning and night to keep their tummies healthy. Transition, the time between being a dry cow, on vacation from milking from six to eight weeks each year, through having a calf, into getting up on full feed, and beginning to work hard making milk, is a challenging time for cow and farmer. A lot can go wrong, especially with the cow's delicate metabolism. 


A DA, displaced abomasum, or twisted stomach, is dreaded by all. One of the cow's four stomach compartments can flip over, closing off both its ends like a twisted plastic bag. Then surgery is needed. Not good. We try to keep everybody as crammed full of hay as possible to try to keep all those inner workings...well...working.


The four that have freshened (had a calf in farmer-speak) are Liz's Dalkeith, a second calf girl who stands in my line, Dublin, her full sister, a first calf heifer, who now also stands in my line, Becky's Evidence, an older cow, and Bonneville. The boss milks the latter pair. All had heifers except Bonneville. 

The elusive common yellow throat, 

you hear them all day long, but don't see them much

Bonneville is a miserable, mean, mean animal, who pinned the boss on the stall rail the first time he milked her this year the other day. She smashed his ribs up against a steel pipe and bent his hand up pretty bad...nothing broken we don't think, but he is a very tough man. She had him moaning and groaning and clutching various body parts... She is six years old and has been milked plenty of times, so she really has no particular excuse for such behavior. When Liz was milking her when she was a first calf heifer she knocked her right out cold jumping on her head. She probably weighs 14 hundred pounds!

Candelabra

In the valley......these Colorado blue spruces are like the birdy water cooler around here. There is always some kind of bird in them. This time some purple and gold finches, mixed quite happily. Right click to open in another tab, then click again to enlarge if you wish.

Give a Dog

A sour strawberry, and he will patty paw and sneeze at it, and snort all silly, nilly.


He will dance and prance and cavort around it as if it had a fuse and was lit and shrinking, fizzing, blinking.


He will take it to the toy box and wrap it in his towel. Push it away with big, soft feet and tuck it underneath the counter


Roll on it,


Stroll on it and drag it round the kitchen. After a while, when it is too dirty to recognize, no longer food, no longer useful, not much more than a red flannel scrap, he will choke it down with grimaces and groans that would do a toddler proud.


Give a dog a sweet strawberry.........and he will eat it.

WW

Ren

Yesterday was crazy busy...more about that later...let's just say there were strawberries involved and new calves...with more of both on today's agenda. Sandwiched in between was a quick visit with Liz to see little Ren, who in a few weeks will be her new puppy and a frequent visitor to Northview.


She is another English shepherd like Gil from the same kennel. We will be looking forward to seeing more of her soon.

Mob

I was under the illusion that these were MY berries. uh, uh....

Had one in the honey locust this morning. They were after something out there; what an uproar.


Every robin in the neighborhood was in on it, a dozen plus starlings, even a Baltimore oriole. Whatever it was was high up in the tree, where the heavy coating of leaves hid it from my sight no matter where I stood.


Saw a small, fast hawk from the kitchen sink a couple of days ago, probably a Cooper's. Wonder if he or she was perched up there somewhere.

I did spot this nest during my locust perusal. 

Right over my head all spring and I never saw it til today.

As high summer arrives in full force, the dawn chorus is dying down. a few minutes on the porch this morning yielded lots of catbirds, which are beating me to the black caps, cedar waxwings, the usual warblers and robins, but not much else. I thought that the berries weren't getting ripe, but instead the catbirds are eating them all.


I didn't know it, but they hover to pluck them. Quite a sight, but I am getting aggravated with them. I haven't had a singe berry and they are going fast!


Alan bought me a new hummingbird feeder yesterday and we were taking bets on how long it would take them to use it. He bet ten minutes. I just waited.


The verdict was about ten seconds, as long as it took me to hang it and turn around to sit down. They really seem to like it. He also got me a hose long enough to water the injured cow (sweet indeed-I didn't realize how much I was dreading hauling all those buckets of water until I didn't have to any more.) He bought me a smart phone too, but it doing to take a while before dumb woman figures it out. Took me about ten rings to figure out how to answer it last night when he called me.


Dalkeith had a nice heifer calf Saturday. It was weird. Normally it is pretty easy to see when a cow has calved or is calving. With her, there was just a little mucous, not much to see at all. She was all shiny and vigorous and had no calf with her, so we were really puzzled and checked her in various ways to see if it was out or in. 


Liz went up in the field and looked for ages and finally found where she had left this big, strong, wild as a hawk, black baby. Fun and games indeed getting that one to the barn, but with all the wild things around we didn't dare leave it out.


Anyhow, so far they are both doing fine, although Dally girl is really hawky and wild this year, after being very gentle and tame last year. I will be glad when she settles down. She stands in a tie stall to be milked, rather than a stanchion, so she has tons of room to move around. She also stands right by the door and her antics are disrupting the other cows when they are going outside.


Hope you had a great weekend. Ours was normal for a farm, full of joy and tragedy, love and disaster, worry and warmth, and never, ever dull.

Happy Father's Day

To all you fathers out there and especially to my own amazing dad, who has taught me so much and inspired me in so many things....even bird watching.


 I can remember when that started for real in my life when I spotted a cardinal on his feeder in the back yard.


I think I was getting ready for school when it darted in all red and glorious. Never looked back from that day.

Love you dad, and hope your day is a great one.

Sunday Stills....Clouds

For more Sunday Stills......

Only at Northview

Things are chronically odd around here. Not necessarily bad, but unfailingly weird. 


Not particularly tidy either.


For example, if the kitchen was a golf course, we would already have a sand trap...and a water hazard? Well, the pup takes care of that....although he is getting a lot better.


However, he runs around with his riding crop and sticks it under the stove to pull out whatever he finds there, just in case it includes a kibble or a cracker. There is stuff under that stove that really might better stay there. Unless, of course, someone hires me a maid, in which case....


And last night, Jade was mowing lawn in the dark...don't ask...and called Liz to help him find an electrical short on his new mower....something was sparking down there. She looked where he was pointing and picked up the source of the light on her finger-a firefly along for the ride.


Then there's this morning. Just before milking, the phone rang. It was the boss's darling aunt, who is in her nineties, but sharp as a tack and as sweet as a whole hive full of honey.


She is sharper than we are, that's for sure.


The reason she called so early is to wish us happy anniversary.


27 years of wedded bliss....or something along those lines...and we BOTH completely forgot about, as did all the kids. And if that's not weird enough...


Somebody just shot me in the leg with a squirt gun...


Monday maybe I'll tell you about calf mud wrestling....

Haying and Togetherness

Grey catbird at dawn

Making hay is what you do when the sun shines. It is shining this week, so that is what the boss is doing, as soon as the dew is off in the morning. In fact there is a load in front of the elevator waiting to be unloaded and another in queue behind it. Good times. Good times....

 After a winter of paying as much as five bucks a square bale for the stuff, every bale that chugs its way up that elevator looks good to me. And the boss puts in good hay...some of what we bought this year was worse than terrible. It hurt to have to feed it, but there was simply nothing around to be bought, thanks to the floods. We finally happened upon a really good supplier late in winter, on Craig's List of all places, and if we run out again this year, we have already discussed working with him again this year. A big relief that.

The boy came home last night and bought us all dinner, while Liz and Jade brought down the finish mower they found this week and worked on the hay field...er lawn...behind the house. Everyone all home at once, talking and enjoying being together...even better times.

Sun coming up on another beautiful June day, thank you Lord for the best times.....

Brome Grass

In bloom....right click, then click again for greater detail

Flame

Brome grass in bloom

Walking toward the house from work last night. 


Sun setting behind me, going down on a glorious day.


Last one out, watering up old Boston, who was injured by another cow and can't walk to drink for herself. She drinks a lot and the hose won't reach, but I don't begrudge her. She is a sweet old thing...poor bos.


Suddenly right at my face, right at my eyes, speeding, buzzing, blazing, comes a coal, glowing red, fiery orange, trailing flaming halos.


Whoa


I ducked.


Then laughed.


That's what the sun will do with a ruby-throated hummingbird that's tame and friendly and whirring over to say hi.

Bred in the Bone

Farming-it gets in your blood, it's bred in your bones. You hold it in your heart and it holds you. 


This story is a great example of how it takes you in to its soul and never lets you go.