Sunday Stills...Winter Pics

Some pics from this past winter, which despite the hot, dry heat I do not miss one bit!!!


For more Sundays Stills....

Elusive Number 51

Sitting here at the kitchen table with the back door open I hear a robin, cardinal, song sparrow and indigo bunting. A grackle just clacked by. If I go out on the front porch there is always a hustle and bustle of yellowthroats, yellow warblers, finches and others of amazing variety. I have counted fifty species of birds since April, just from the house and barnyard.


A few  minutes ago I heard the third wood thrush of the summer, cool, liquid notes of almost haunting sweetness. Three kinds of fly catchers are an everyday occurrence.


But that fifty-first barnyard and backyard bird count of Northview birdy just won't show up. I am sure that bird I have been pursuing for the last five years or so, with the subtle little song that exactly matches Liz's old alarm clock, would make fifty one. But I only hear it and never see it and can't match its call up to anything.


Or that thing that was whistling down in the field last night just at dusk. I whistled back, but no luck in calling it up. It was a new call for me and I am always listening. Hmmmm......


If I added winter birds from the feeder I would have a half a dozen more. If I added the bobolinks, harriers, etc. from up in the field there would be lots...but I am trying just to count down here.....where, oh, where is number 51. I can't even get a gull and normally we see three species.

Rustics

The boss has seven fields to go of first cutting and some second as well. It is slow going with just one man with just one tractor, but if I may brag a bit, this man puts up good hay. For the past several disastrous years of too much rain and no sunshine we have ended up buying feed a good part of the winter. 


Unless we pay top dollar for really premium stuff the cows like our own better. I've been helping feed heifers in the evening and it is a pleasure to cut a bale and toss it out. The new stuff in the mow is incredibly green, yet bone dry. Smells so good!


Praying things hold together so he can get the rest of what is out there.

Must be Annoying

Do you mind! I'm bathing

Trying to get all that dew off your feathers in the morning.

More Cows

Moments, scrounging for some of the very short grass. You can see she is a little on the thin side. You expect to see some rib on a hard working dairy cow, but she could use some rain to grow her some new grass. The shine on her coat tells us that she is good and healthy though.

Since This is Supposed to Be

A dairy blog....here are some pics of the girls

Red, White and Blue

Red sky at morning, painting dull white walls


White full moon patrolling 


Cool, bright negative of the world


Blue indigo bunting caroling in the sunrise.


Singing Happy Birthday to America and 

God bless the USA

Quiz

We put some heifers up the hill yesterday and they promptly destroyed the fence. Thus the boss and I spent several hours repairing it. (He repaired; I kept the new heifers from charging him.) I thought this tree bark was kind of interesting. Do you know what kind it is?

Answer here:

Spoiling Them

This is how we do it at Northview

Please may I have some????

July

A restless malcontent of a month. The heat can get dangerous, or at least mean. Storms ditto. Not that it has been too bad here. Foul weather close to us, but we dodged it. Yesterday it was 90, but felt 70 with a stiff, but pleasant wind all day. And very dry. The boss has been making hay apace and Alan came home over the weekend to help with fixing the stuff what broke over the week.

As you can see below, Liz got her own English shepherd puppy, Ren, this weekend. She is a little cutie, bright and engaging, already following the kids around, asking to go outdoors and coming to the barn for chores. She stays in a little crate out in the silo room, close enough for comfort but out of the reach of deadly cow feet. I like her. She looks like a little canine cream sickle. 


Working on the Farm Side early this week, because of the upcoming holiday and the general excess of stuff to do around here. Writing about the wonderful job the Peterson Farm brothers are doing in advocating for agriculture. They seem like a delightful family and remind me so much of a number of sets of farm guys up here. It's always fun to sit by our cows at the fairs and shows and watch them, all long, lean muscles, capability and humor....a great resource for the world, if only the world had time to notice.

Last night was kind of nice...spent a little time out on the porch listening to the bass fiddle hum of the birds named after the sound they make, while they came in for a last snack 'o' the day. A gold finch has been busily cleaning the big windows of any trace of cobwebs, must be for nest building. He was there, hard at work. He looks pretty silly with a big cap of webs all over his head, but before he tries to fly he wads them all up small enough to carry.




A careless catbird sang a casual cacophony of robin/thrasher/robin/meow calls, lazy with the lateness of the year, but still engaging. Birding has dried up almost to a desert now, but there is always the unfailing indigo bunting to enjoy and some finches are hitting the feeder. I like the late evening and early morning this time of year. The peace is always welcome.

Sunday Stills.....Roads

I did not go anywhere atall this week, except last Saturday to fight through the ridiculous construct between the villages. (Don't get me started! It is obscene that the state thinks it is okay to starve all the small, struggling businesses and gridlock everyone in the area for that project. There is simply no effort made to move traffic in a timely fashion.....argghhhh!!!!)


Anyhow, this shot of the driveway early in the morning is about as close to a road as I got.


For more Sunday Stills......

Ren Came Home

Yesterday. Not to our house, but to live with Liz 'n' Jade. She will be here often though as Liz comes home to milk and keeps her pony here. She had quite a few fleas alas, but has been bathed and is fluffy and nice now. I think she is going to be an excellent traveling companion for Liz...they are bonding very quickly.


Methinks after the girls dogs grow up........nah, I have to be here for Nick, who is an old man and deserves what I can give him.

Under the World Trade Center

***Photo by Alan with cell phone

The boy is working four stories down, under....


It's okay when he's with the crew, but sometimes they go topside to get coffee and he stays alone with his cooler and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (the broken down little red truck sure cramped his style...at least the jelly is Mom's strawberry).


Then it is different. He keeps talking about it. 


A glimpse of movement at the edge of his vision.


Nobody there.


Shadows that shouldn't be there, gone when he turns to look. 


A prickly feeling.....


I suppose there is no reason to be surprised at this. The other men sense it too and talk about it.


He got lost down there. Took him a while to logic his way out.


We truly need to remember......

ham and JAM and spamalot

Well, really just jam. Went out right after morning chores to pick a handful of black raspberries. Found a whole lot more than a handful so I went back for a little bowl.

Too much for the little bowl so I got a big bowl. 


Yes.


Not quite enough for jelly though. Then I remembered the grape juice from the fruit salad tree that I froze a couple falls ago because there wasn't quite enough of that either. Mix and match.


It took me all day to extract and can the jelly from the blackcap bushes in front of the porch (thank you catbirds for saving me some).


It was worth every minute.

PS, I add a little cinnamon to my blackberry jelly. Tastes just like pie.

De Tunder Boomers

Is rollin' in. This may be a real short post if I have to ditch and run around pulling plugs. 




Along with horror at having to purchase health insurance in the future...we let it go when Alan was still in school because the monthly bill got higher than the milk check...there is this whole days-are-getting-shorter thing going on.


Got up two days in a row now and the sun wasn't up yet. Darn that whole tilting thing anyhow.


That pic is a cucumber blooming happily on the bench in the living room, clear evidence that Liz is a busy young person. She has two flats of assorted annual garden plants on my bench. The tomatoes are two feet high! Ah, well, they are very pretty and I don't mind watering them.

Go Ahead and Kiss Him

He will turn into a prince...trust me on this one....and health insurance is about to become affordable and available to all.

Contrast

Sitting on the porch in the glorious morning sun. Goldfinches squabbling over something, swirling through the sky. Spider webs rainbow shiny. Birds everywhere.


Talking on the phone with my boy in the city.


 He is at the World Trade Center.


I am at the edge of a tiny town of 700 souls.

Screaming sirens wail through the phone at my ear, and people shout and mumble, cars rumble, trucks grumble...the sounds of the city waking up.

And in my other ear I hear an Amish buggy clopping by. I can hear that the horse (like most Amish road horses) is dead lame and his trot is more of a three beat gait than two like it ought to be.


Contrast

I'm Farming and I Grow It

These folks did a spectacular job with this!

Please Go

And offer whatever kind words you can find to my good Internet friend, Jeffro. He is one of the nicest guys you can find on the web. He lost everything he had yesterday. I feel bad about complaining about our bad day, which pales to nothingness in comparison.


From NY to Kansas there isn't much I can offer but thoughts and prayers, but they are certainly going forth.

Crazy

  
The weekend was long and crazy. Nothing to indicate the week will be any less so. it's only Tuesday but it feels like next Monday.


The collage above is just a few skies and dramatic trees from recent storm and sun cycles. Today it is barely out of the fifties and kind of cloudy. Boss went out to mow hay. He wanted to bale what he missed over the weekend, but it is most likely a bit too damp.

He managed to find me some boxes of Sure Jell and got me some more sugar, but alas, the strawberries are gone for the season. I told him to bring me home any other berries he could find!

There is much I could tell you about wallets and cell phones and big city life, but I have whined enough over the past couple of days. Suffice to say better days are coming...it says here in fine print.


At least the Farm Side is roughed out and ready for the final proof reading, which will probably take place tomorrow morning, though I wanted to finish today. My head is just spinning with percents and mix ups from this story. I hope, if you happen to click the link to read it, that you will pat yourself on the back for your evidently unshared wisdom. You know better than 40%. I know you do.