What the Heck?

Been deep in drought for weeks. Then we went camping, so of course it began to rain. Been wet ever since. Now there is a flash flood watch for most of the region. I shudder.

Weather Hype

Everyone was all in a swivet yesterday over the potential for dangerous weather. Tornado watches, storm warnings and all sorts of frantic stuff. Big charts and maps all vivid reds and yellows and lotsa panic all over the teevee and Facebook. Even the governor was telling us to round up our lawn chairs and all. I meant to go out and lay the heavy metal one I have by the garden pond down on its side, but I forgot (it tends to get flopped over and slammed around when it's windy).


When it got right down to it we didn't get much more than an intermittent drizzle...... which was just fine with me. I dreamed of much worse though, trees tumbling and thunder grumbling; it was good to get up this morning and get away from all that. Guess some areas did get nailed, alas.


It is all too easy to remember this week last year when there were several tornadoes the week of the Boonville Fair. The fair is on now too and the guys and maybe Liz 'n' Jade are headed to the tractor pulls tonight. Last year we went up for the first time in ages and were just missed by those twirly storms all day. Last year the crops up that way were a lot better than down here because they didn't get the ridiculous amount of rain all summer that we did.


Don't know what they will find this year. Around here there is a little good corn and a lot of spotty corn where it was wet and cold when planted and then dry as popcorn for a couple of months. I think we will indeed see higher food prices this winter. I think I would like to read an explanation of why milk prices are going up in the store right now, while farm gate prices are stagnant and low. And I know a lot of beef has been liquidated lately due to the drought, but we sent a really nice, large, handsome healthy young heifer to the sale and got thirty bucks for her. Wish we'd kept her now.




Ah, well, have a good one. It's raining right now, but I guess it will be nicer later. Please hold good thoughts for my lovely sister-in-law today as she is facing surgery.

Rain Birds

 Griping goldfinch

As the sun came out the other day, after a passing shower, the birds came out to dry as well. Some of them were pretty bedraggled, including the hummers, as you can see in the post below.

 Ragged Robin

 Soggy song sparrow

 Cedar waxwing directing Thurway traffic

Indigo bunting yakking it up

Right click and re-click for a better view of any of these

You've Heard of Wite Out?

Looks as if the USDA wants to Green Out farmers. The so-called science they use to support their theories comes from the UN and has been thoroughly debunked by real experts using real numbers.


Maybe it is time for the Department of AGRICULTURE to support agriculture, especially when actual science sides with the farmer.

More Mergansers

Jupiter and Venus

 Baby mergansers driven up on shore and held there by a mama loon guarding her chick

"Blaze strikingly in the dawn this week..." man, oh, man, that is no lie. I got up at 4 to finish up the Farm Side while it is reasonably quiet and there they were. Venus is so bright that it looks unnatural-like a glowing orb the size of a softball out there over the old pasture with Jupiter right beside it, smaller but still absurdly bright. Wow, what a treat-worth getting up for all by themselves. 


It is nice to hear our resident green frog croaking up a storm out in the water garden too..and it is blessedly cool and brisk for a change.


Guess I'd better get to work. Have a good one.

They DID Build That

I have been trying to stay out of the political fray lately....at least on here. I have friends on both sides of the discussion and most of them know how I feel. They either agree or are never going to agree, so why alienate them?


However, I couldn't resist telling you this story. My in-laws were special people...at least in my opinion. They worked like few people today (myself included) could ever imagine working, running the dairy and growing feed by day, then working at several sidelines in the evening, plus growing a huge garden for themselves.


 You see, seventy years ago they parted company from Grandpa Delbert's home farm, down where White used to be, and bought this little farm on the hillside. They had a few cows and work horses...no tractors for them yet.


They also had a mortgage. It had to be paid. They did not turn to the government for help and in fact never participated in any government programs until we took over in 2000.


Instead they raised strawberries and sold them. They raised baby pigs and sold them. They raised chickens and sold them. They raised turkeys and sold them. They smoked hams. My mother-in-law milked half the cows by hand because they didn't have enough milking machines. Grandpa plowed gardens for folks and worked out at any number of other things to whittle down that mortgage. They paid it off in two years.


At least in those days, before the government regulated whether or not you could have a soda bottle on your milk house window sill, laws were lenient enough that they could sell their products to the local grocery store. The storekeeper in turn sold them to the community.


As far as I know, nobody got sick from eating chickens raised on a farm and processed in a farm kitchen. Although I wasn't around, I hear the hams were very special and popular with local folks. Nobody got sick from them either.


Although both of them did go to school (grandma started in a one-room school at the age of three...she was one smart cookie) and use roads and all, they also paid taxes, a lot of them. Therefore, in essence, rather than the government being in any way responsible for the success of their small-business, they were in part responsible for the continued workings of the government, as are all taxpayers, then and now.


The bottom line is, I don't believe that the government can claim much credit for the hard work and knowledge that went into producing those chickens, berries, pigs and gardens, which in turn built this business that we are keeping going by the skin of our collective teeth.


The boss's folks DID build Northview Dairy Farm, pretty much all by themselves.


Today it would be impossible for us to pay off a mortgage the way they did. There is no market in town, and if there was it couldn't sell chickens we raised....against the law you know. 


We sure couldn't market home cured ham without spending a fortune on facilities and inspections mandated by the government. Rather than being much of a help to small enterprise government is a major hindrance. 

From Dust to Downpour

What a night! It started raining again just as the boss finished rolling up some hay to bale yesterday afternoon. Guess that is a loss, but we needed the rain.

Then when evening rolled around the thunderstorms rolled in. I don't think I have ever seen anything like it. Lightning flashed from every direction, continuously all night. Thunder rumbled and roared and snapped and cracked...and never stopped. If you closed your eyes you could still see it plainly....even facing away from the windows.




It was crazy. It was as if the house was sitting in the center of a giant Faraday cage with the show going on all around it.


I didn't stay up and watch, but you couldn't miss it. The power was on and off half a dozen times. Hoping the fencers aren't all fried this morning.


The kid was expecting to be laid off for at least a week and we were planning various pastimes. However, he was called right back and had to get up at two to head to the big city. We'll miss him, but he has to make a living I guess.

Anyhow, the world is like a big, dingy-grey, soggy, cotton ball right now, with muggy the key word in the morning forecast. Ah, well, maybe the sorghum will sprout now. And the poor cows really needed a bath; they were all dingy too.


Take care.

The Shirt

We were walking over from the barn last night, quite a drove of us with Alan home and all, when the boss said, "I'll eat my shirt if it doesn't rain tonight."


As farmers do, we looked at the sky. There were a few promising clouds, but there was no scent of water on the air, no sharpening breeze or tempting little chill....nah, we all said...ain't gonna happen.

And so we came inside and started picking out the shirt. Although Alan and I actually trekked to the laundromat after camp, washed the  blankets and soggy swimsuits and all, along with a week's worth of farm laundry, there is always at least one shirt around here that you probably wouldn't want served up with your meat and potatoes.

We had it all planned, how it wasn't going to rain, and we would hand him the shirt in the morning....maybe allow him a bottle of ketchup, or maybe even mayo.


Then along about ten o'clock there was a little susurrus outside the kitchen window. 


It WAS raining.....The kids went outside and whooped and hollered and danced around in it. After four or five years of monsoons, it felt strange to be glad of a rainstorm.




Saved by the drips.


It didn't amount to much...a sheen on the hood of the truck, a trickle for the starving flowerbeds, a glimmer for the dying grass, but at least it dampened down the dust a little bit.

Sunday Stills...In the Air

For more Sunday Stills...

Camp Week

 Flying bait

 Water ON a duck's back

Beck and Gil, foggy day

The Week that Was

Sunday Stills....Twofer

Sunset Friday

The two previous challenges I chose were Sunrises and Sunsets and Flowers. With all the wildfires wreaking havoc around the globe the former are spectacular....and despite the drought, with a little aid from the garden pond, the hostas don't look too bad.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Off to Camp

I hope and pray. The Blue Bomber broke down yet again on the way home from NYC last night. I think it is time for some changes there. Wish he had brought the little red one, but it is too late to worry about it now. 


Hopefully some of us will be off to camp today. I would be thankful for good thoughts for that actually taking place. Meanwhile, take care and stay safe this week, I'll be thinking of you.

Red Sky at Morning, Sailors Take

A nap prolly......I wonder if this bright red ball of fire floating on the sky actually means anything in terms of rain. I very much doubt it. There is an old saying I learned from my boss back when I worked on a farm instead of living on one....in times of drought all signs fail.

 And that tends to prove exactly true. Clouds build up in the sky, dry up and melt away. Red sky is just red sky, morning or evening. If you aren't in one of the drought-plagued areas you would probably be amazed by the dust. Just turning the cows up to pasture is a throat-clogging, choking experience. Normally we just open the gate, but with all the new heifers they have to be bunched up in a tight herd, then stuffed up to the gate, then someone opens the gate and they are followed and pushed through the next gate.

We feel like cowboys. We need bandannas. At least this bunch of newbies has been turned out in the barnyard before so they have some clue about acting like cows. The ones from indoor pens have no idea about fences or being in a herd or anything like that so they have to learn. It can be fun.

You would have had to laugh about the ones we turned out of the sawdust pen. The animal rights folks would have you believe that all animals are at home on the range and want to go to grass and eat clover and all that (studies have proved otherwise...given a choice dairy cows will eat at a feed bunk in the shade rather than walk to grass and
 overwhelming majority of the time), but it just ain't so. Cows like to graze all right, but they love their barn...what's not to like? Shade, cooling fans in summer, warmth in winter, fewer flies, good food....we serve it all up twice daily and they know it.


We turned six yearlings to pasture yesterday, two shorties, one Jersey shorthorn cross and a trio of Holsteins. The instant they got into the barnyard they ran to the sawdust shed pen to try to get in. They were crowding and shuffling around the gate and glaring at us and hooking at the three new ones we put in "their" house. Good thing they don't have horns or they would have torn the pen down.


So much for contented cows on pasture.


Anyhow, everybody stay cool and hydrated...with love from Northview Farm

Taggin' and Naggin'

We tagged heifers yesterday and put them in pens. They had a lot of fun once we turned them loose, jumping and clattering all over the place before they settled down to eat. We moved some other ones to stalls where there are automatic water bowls so they can get their own drinks instead of Liz hauling them water.


Chores should be a lot shorter tomorrow. The naggin' part is what it took to get the job started......one of those things that you want done, but you don't really want to do it...

Summertime and the Living is

Busy, still crazy busy. With two folks sick, even chores were a challenge. Lizzie soldiered right on through it, but the boss was coughing so bad he couldn't stand up, so he just fed (no one but him runs the skid steer when Alan is away) and went back in the house.


It is normally a hectic week anyhow, as I try to fit two weeks work into one, plus pack for camp...and, as is not unusual, I lost my packing list....again....so I am winging it and flinging it-if it looks like I'll need it, into the basket it goes. The most often forgotten items are the can opener, colander, and swim noodles. All are packed but the first, which is still in use. And matches. Packed them too. As long as we have food and fishing poles and swim suits all will surely be fine.


 And next week, I hope and pray, will include NO bookkeeping at all, only pleasure writing-no looming deadlines, no telemarketers, no political calls, and lots of nice fish. And family, always family.


It has been warming the very center of my heart to see posts on FB with photos from the Cooperstown Junior Show. Lovely animals, beautiful scenery and wonderful young folks, full of joy and promise. I remember those days so well. The kids took cows and heifers for several years of fun and excitement. And I can surely tell you that for every shining cow or perfect pig, or carefully sculptured show sheep, hundreds of hours of hard work and planning are hidden in the background. Those kids are amazing.


Congratulations to every single one of them! They give me hope for our nation's future like almost nothing else can.

Plaguedly Busy

C'mon out and play with me....please......

The boss and Liz have both been sick as dogs, so time has been short to non-existent. Both are on the mend, thankfully. 

Pic above is Gil and little baby Ren. They would love to play together, but we are afraid the forty pound clown will stomp the tiny little miss to bits so......

R Ant

I started writing the Farm Side, a weekly farm column in the local daily paper, 14 years ago, served for many years on the local Farm Bureau board of directors, and even started this blog, largely with the intention of helping others understand agriculture. I truly love what we do, wanted to be a farmer since I was a kid (or at least a cowgirl), the outdoors and animals are my life...not just my job.


 It has been a great run and I have met a lot of people who feel as close as lifelong friends even if I have never met them. It has given me an opportunity to communicate with experts in the field from all over the world, whether they be farmers, ranchers, folks involved in ag publishing or researchers. I have learned to bite my tongue....a lot.


With a mere one percent of the population actually engaged in producing food for the other 99%, as well as providing an unimaginable amount of sustenance for millions around the world, promoting and explaining ag seemed like an honorable goal.


However, I am about ready to give up. For every farmer trying to offer a voice of reason about how farming methods have evolved for literally thousands of years, as better and better ways of producing food were discovered, there are thousands, maybe even millions, of armchair agronomists regurgitating animal rights tripe. They would like nothing more than a vegan world...or better yet a world without humans at all.


 I'm tired of ill-informed people watching HSUS ads and sending in their money for the poor puppies and kitties, with no clue that almost all their dough goes to lobby Washington against hard working, truly caring farmers and ranchers. I am tired of people who have never shared space with a farm animal casually deciding that they know more than generations of successful farmers about caring for them. I'm tired of always being told to make nice when the other side has the gloves off and is flinging dirt in all directions.


Just plain tired.

These days it seems I have a strong inclination to just write...and think...about counting birds and taking photographs of same and let the activists change the world as we know it to suit themselves. As my late mother-in-law, born and raised on a farm, and a farmer all her life, said quite often...when the shelves in the grocery store are bare they will see things differently. Meanwhile, we know how to produce food and so we will just keep plodding along at same, with or without the well-meaning, but useless, and often even dangerous, advice.


Yeah, there is a cardinal sitting on the front porch, using the two story front hall as a sounding board for his whistled song...I'll go listen to him! He is probably the loudest cardinal in the country right now, and he knows what he is talking about.

Hold That Thought

What happens when a calf REALLY likes her bottle

Camp next week. Getting ready this week...a marathon task or so it seems. At the end of the day there is rarely any evidence that I actually did anything at all...but if I don't do whatever the heck it is that I do it certainly becomes noticeable. This week I am doing double of whatever......in preparation for next week, when I hope to do less than nothing atall. Have a great one!