Great White Bird

Seen at the mall in Rotterdam today. It flew low across the road right in front of us. It seemed too small for a white heron, but had black feet so not a snowy egret. Hmmm.....

Portion Control

I think all this intrusive regulation and legislation aimed at getting everybody to eat what they are told, and those skimpy new school lunches, (clean up your plate...wait, no, don't clean up your plate....obesity you know) is aimed at getting us all used to being hungry so we are ready when the 9 billion folks who are supposed to be sharing Earth with us come 2050 show up. Just sayin'.......

Shiver me Timbers

And that's all the pirate talk you are going to get out of me this morning. 

Yesterday's deluge ushered in cold, soggy, fall-ish air, not the nice crisp stuff we have been enjoying. Just plain icky.

I got up at four to finish writing the Farm Side. Since the big computer crashed and I have been using this little laptop, I work in the kitchen. 

Everyone knows that the kitchen is the epicenter of pretty much everything on a farm right? I can vouch for the truth of that statement. If there is a political thing that needs to be argued, the kitchen is the gathering place. Dog need to walk? He parades around the kitchen. Phones ring? Doors slam? Oh, yeah, all that and more. Not conducive to deep concentration.

I actually have an office, but it is a dark, creepy little room with no lights. I either work by the glow of the ancient desk top computer there or drag in a lamp from another room. Needless to say that is not where I want to sit and write for the paper or blog or any of that stuff. I go in there to work on the books, an activity that seems to suit dark and gloomy places, but the brightly lit kitchen seems better for other stuff.

The commotion here is an unavoidable pain in the fanny though...hence the early hour of rising....

Which by the way worked great. The boss and Becky and the boy and the dogs and the cats got up just as I was clicking "send" and emailing this week's offering off to the editor.

Of course, now I am feeling just a tad disoriented........

Even Pests

This squirrel is a mess, all chewed up by something

Can sometimes be attractive.

On Being Prepared

******

For the Zombie Apocalypse.....

We had been a bit concerned, not being sure what just to stock in our team arsenal. However, as always, that ever-reliable source of all useful information and irrefutable facts and figgers, Facebook, came to the rescue last week.

To find your personal weapon for the great invasion, simply go to your local Craigslist. Check out the free stuff section.

Item number five is your weapon. 

So we did that little thing.

Since I am a bit nervous about putting my trust in five vinyl shutters, we have been checking back early and often. Added to the shutters, we now have a kerosene heater, five free kittens, and some boxes.

This seems to be a likely assortment, with any number of possible combinations. However, I am left asking, 'What color kittens?' 'How wide are the shutters?' 'Does the heater come with kerosene?'.......I am such a worrywart. 

I guess we will keep checking out the free list and I am sure we will soon be well-armed.

*****As you can see above, Alan is a real apocalypse-readiness type thinker. He is getting the &^%%$* paper off the beef so I can cook it for dinner without thawing it first. (for some reason they have taken to using those little boxed slices of paper to weigh the meat out and then sending them home frozen right into it...cozy.....)
However, rest assured I am going to have a word with those butchers the next time we take a beef to them. If I wanted paper frozen into my beef I would have had the zombies cut it.

What's your zombie apocalypse weapon today?

A Present from the Sun

Wrapped in layers of amazement, each morning lies awaiting. Time will gently tug it open like a present from the sun. 

Blue pearl fog is teased away, one strand here, another there, a cobweb scarf, stretching  softly up from the river and  quietly down from the pastures.

The threads collect to blur the sky with pink and blue and purple; then the light lifts them away to reveal.... 

The diamonds.

Glittering, blanketing blade and leaf, a gleaming water carpet.

 Your tapestry will stand uncovered, all the colors of the season serve as warp, awakening breeze as weft, all tugged together by daybreak and spread over every hill and valley. 

Jays embroider blue across it, calls as bright as the edge of autumn, smiling in the sunlight, happy as spring and sweet as summer. Finches jingle sing and robins carol, all for you each dawning.

Here's hoping every golden, round, and glorious morning will bring wonder smiling to your feet, like a puppy warm and loving, a friend for every day and every year, and ever and ever and ever.

 Welcome to the world Madeline Jean

Sunday Stills....Shadows of Ourselves

With the boss at the farm show

With dog

With house

Early morning sun on the side of my favorite cow, Broadway
right click for detail if you wish

All right now, that's just rude!

For more Sunday Stills.....

Montgomery County Sundae on the Farm

Today at Morgandy Farm, 642 Paris Road, Fort Plain, NY, noon to four PM.

Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to learn about agriculture, mingle with farmers and friends, see all sorts of farm animals and Morgandy's fabulous Morgan horses, and enjoy a fabulous fall day. 

As always, while supplies last, there will be a free ice cream sundae....enjoy!

You're a Mean one, Mr. Grinch

You really need a shave......

Happy Birthday to the boss from all of the cheap help here at Northview. Hope you enjoy your new Grinch hat and Mountain Dew jammies and shirt...I think somebody knows you. 

Ripe

And redolent and reeking. The air around Northview of an evening has a will of its own. I swear, you can almost see it. 

It wasn't enough that something is eating the cats (although Justin Bieber came back, battle scarred but alive....he won't come down in the barn any more though). 

It wasn't enough that a very large opossum is terrorizing Becky when she walks the puppy nights.

And the chipmunks and squirrels on the bird feeder. We NEVER had them before. Guess Sinopa was keeping them in their place. Without her they pillage at will.

No-o-o-o, even the coyote pup that is following the boss around every day while he mows and chops hay wasn't enough (it has discovered that the machinery uncovers a veritable banquet of mice and voles and is capitalizing on the largess).

No, now we have to have a nightly skunk. And from the way the stench rolls in through the open doors it is an old and belligerent one.

So Nick, who is old enough to know better and normally goes out alone to take care of his very sl-o-o-o-o-o-w geriatric doggy business, has to be carefully hand-walked with a flashlight and a prayer. Ah, the wonders of country living.....on the plus side, I am going to bed early these nights...the living room is the first point of attack.

Hogs without Harleys

Previous piggies here at the farm

But still on the highway. Kudos to the men who captured that big old hog on the Northway yesterday. Having been on the business end of corralling pigs that didn't wanna be, I think they did a heck of a job getting the beast off the highway and into that trailer. 

Northview pig loading-Rube Goldberg style

They got it done with only a reasonable amount of fuss, and nobody, including the hog, got hurt, which is worthy of respect all around. When the boss's pigs got out and ran through the cows a couple of times you would swear murder and mayhem was going on. It was never much fun to put them on a trailer either.

****Note to the nice commenter who kept calling it "she". You should prolly go back to biology 101 or take a closer look at the photos. Unlike with little kitty cats, with big boar hogs gender is pretty obvious.
*****Note to certain news folks. Pig did not look or sound frightened to me....outraged, furious, and ready to rend and tear the folks trying to catch it, yes, but scared, not so much.

Pig at the fair a couple years ago

Here are a couple of good stories on the affair:

YNN
Times Union

Bird Week

 Great Blue Heron, hunting

Blue Jay..these guys are eating from the tube feeder....very amusing

Molting Cardinal

Hurry Up or Depeche Toi

 Cedar Waxwing in the sunset

My week in birdies....

Amish Parking Lot

This buggy horse was tied far from any house or barn, right between the road and the wire fence. A ways up the road goats and calves were tied in a similar manner. Gotta stretch those pastures somehow I guess. Waste not want not.

Agvocacy..Worth the Effort

You know I'm nuts about you, right?

Dairy Carrie has placed a challenge to farm bloggers and tweeters to post about the topic above.

Is agvocacy, the practice of farmers both advocating for their businesses and explaining they whys and wherefores of what they do, worth the time and effort?

My answer would be a resounding 'you betcha'! The best antidote to contrived videos of alleged cruelty and hackneyed catch phrases like "factory farming" is to open a dialog with our customers and let them in on our world. Talk to them every day about what is happening on our farms and ranches and give honest explanations of farm activities. 

As I have read many times, it isn't about education, it is about communication. Not everyone wants to go back to school, but pretty much all of us love to chat, whether it is face to face over the back fence, at the coffee shop, or in our kitchens, thousands of miles apart geographically, but as close as the next heartbeat in our minds.

I suppose it could be considered a chore to sit down at the keyboard every day to "visit" with a bunch of wonderful folks like the ones I have "met" through Northview Diary. (And thank you all for visiting and commenting on the things that take your interest.) However to me it has become one of the greatest pleasures in my day.

And at least on a couple of occasions folks who visit regularly have set a person or two straight on one farming issue or another......

So, yeah, it sure is worth it.

Never to be Forgotten

When the 2996 Project asked bloggers to remember individuals who died on this day on that awful day 11 years ago, Carl DiFranco was assigned to me. Though we never knew him, our family will never forget him.

Nor will we ever forget that day. 

Now our son works often on repairing and rebuilding the site of that endless nightmare. He says it is still strongly haunted by the horrors that happened there and the good people who paid the price. It gives me pause for thought....often....

The Shallow End of the Pool

This movie review is making the rounds here in the region of "... the pure hell and suffocation of Schenectady and those Siberian environs...I've been up there and it's awful so don't tell me."(Jeffrey Wells is the thoughtful and generous reviewer quoted here and below. You can just tell that he is a big fan of Upstate NY.)

As well you might imagine, local folks are taking it just a tad amiss. See, besides denigrating the region in general, the reviewer also had some thoughts on the folks around here, and on rural folks in general. 

"I also felt that Mendes and Byrne are too hot to live in Schenectady. Beauty almost always migrates to the big cities where the power and the security lie, and in my experience the women who reside in blue-collar hell holes like Schenectady are far less attractive as a rule."

Ouch. 

There's more....go read if you can stand it.... Personally I always saw cities as something that was built on top of beauty, generally ruining it for all time, so folks had to invent things to look at so they wouldn't notice the lack.

Anyhow.....

I just finished peeling some potatoes for dinner. One of them was kind of fancy, heart-shaped and neat-looking as compared to the plain old red-neck potatoes that made up the rest of the bunch. I thought maybe it should migrate to the city where it would fit in better, being so extra-beautiful and all, far more attractive than regular potatoes in some rural pure hell and suffocation area.

But, wouldn't you know, it was rotten in the center. 

Hmmm....

Farmer Parties and the Cost of Food

The veterinary practice that takes care of our cows and horses puts on a customer appreciation picnic every fall. We all look forward to it and not just for the food (which by the way is always great). Every year it seems sweeter to sit down with folks  we rarely see because everyone is too busy farming and living and catch up on our news.

Yesterday was no exception and we came away warm with the comfort of dear friends and good neighbors.

As planned, we stopped off at our favorite orchard on the way home to pick up some early season apples for eating and maybe jelly making. 

Scratch the latter, I will glean our own trees for that. These will be eaten carefully as if made of spun gold.

I was chilled to see nearly bare shelves , with painfully high prices, and limits on how many of some varieties could be purchased. One of our greatest fall favorites, the ginger gold, was already sold out and picked out.

Earlier, when I opened a grain bill on Saturday I almost fell off my chair. Nearly four hundred dollars a ton for generic, not in any way fancy, low end, dairy grain. We have never seen expenses like this and coupled with the price of diesel for the tractors and the choking noose of property taxes it is no wonder dairy farmers are selling out in droves.

If this is a sign of things to come, the stocking up on canned goods and staples we have been talking about, but not doing anything about, needs to begin to take place immediately. I would feel better with the pantry shelves full of vegetables and the freezer full of bread and flour (I freeze flour to keep it safe from beetles and such...as long as I have room.) 

We have a beef ready to send and three more ranging from a baby calf to a good-sized Holstein steer growing in the cow barn. Liz and Jade have one that we gave them started too. They will take him home when they get moved into their new place after the wedding. Thus as long as we can pay the butcher and keep the freezer cold we will have good meat. 

And even if we can't pay the butcher, there is one good thing about other days in another life when times were challenging. I personally know how to dispatch chickens, rabbits, goats, squirrels, lambs, and even great big steers and prepare them for the freezer. I used to dress the boss's deer for him, as he was squeamish (he only hunted them for me because I like venison). Alan took a meat cutting class in college so he is much better at it than I am. 

I learned home butchering on the kitchen table and in the back yard, way before I met the boss...if we wanted to eat we grew our own back then and made it into something we could cook. The first animal was the hardest, but if you are broke enough that you wax poetical and get teary when someone gives you a bottle of ketchup, you learn to do what you have to.

I hope this winter isn't as hard...not just for us, but right across the nation...as I am afraid it may be. However, the drought that wrecked the corn crop, late frosts, severe hail and high costs for the folks who grow, process and transport food, are going to get in everybody's wallets sooner or later. 

Meanwhile I am going to have an apple snack for breakfast. 

Sunday Stills....Faces

A face in the clouds right over the heifer barn the other day,....just before the storm that wasn't....

The face of a sometimes angel, tired from all that concrete and grout.

A face in the pond...go hibernate buddy, the cold is coming soon.

For more Sunday Stills.....

What's up with This

A single crow is pumping northward across an awakening sky, along the edge of a bright pink cloud band, passing a jet trail by. Twittering from the hedgerow, sleepy, lazy tweets. (I wonder if they are on Facebook yet, those little woodland twits.) 

The sun's not up, but the farmer is. Cats fed, the old dog aired and fueled up for the day, coffee made, computer humming, kitchen picked up and ready for come what may.

But it's barely light at 6 AM

What's up with this whole dark-when-it-should-be-daylight thing anyhow?

Where is that blasted sun? I can't get used to getting up and getting all morninged up before he bestirs his lazy self and rises.

Dagnabbit!

Lifer

The little grey bird a few posts below was a lifer for me....a blue-headed vireo. Thanks to Cathy for identifying it. It also brought me up to 54 birds this spring and summer.

I was so excited. What with not going anywhere or doing much of anything but farm, house and book work, I don't see a lot of new birds any more. (I need to take a trip to Florida or something). Thus the last new one I saw was the yellow-bellied sap sucker a couple of summers ago. (I know, I know, they are common as heck, but I just never saw one before that. Sad to think, when our apple trees right beside the house show the lines of bore holes they leave behind. Hiding in plain sight I guess.)

I am still watching closely trying to collect up a couple of more species for the warm seasons before I start anew for fall and winter. So far among the missing are the pileated woodpecker, common around here, bald eagle, ditto, savanna sparrow, sometimes seen, even had a fledgling on the porch a few years back, and a couple others I have missed this year. With any luck I might see one or two of these or something interesting migrating through. Lots of fall warblers out there, but they are sooooooooo hard.

The weather is interesting...

Yesterday afternoon the cumulonimbus started piling up to the west and the air was crackling with electricity so the boss didn't start any field-work related activities. Weirdly enough, half an hour later the sky was clear with just a few hazy clouds. Rare to hear thunder like that and not get a drop of rain or much more than a light wind. I got a real neat photo for this week's Sunday Stills though...can't wait to post it.

Have a good one!