New York Second Amendment Petition

If as a New York State resident you are concerned about the recent trampling of the Constitution, resulting in the criminalizing of thousands of law-abiding New York citizens, by their elected "representatives" during closed door sessions, you can make your position known by signing State Senator Kathleen Marchione's petition.

You will find it HERE.

Although Northview Diary has held a spot on the gun blog lists almost since it began, and indeed many of the nicest bloggers I have met, either in real life or via the Interwebs, arrived from there, I always felt like an impostor. My main focus has been and will continue to be farming, family, and the wonderful birds, animals, plants, and people that running our dairy brings us near.

However, the events of recent weeks have brought out the gun blogger in me I guess. How many amendments can a handful of well-protected politicians toss out the window to make political hay before people speak out? People worked hard to craft laws to protect the rights of Americans, resulting in documents that have served to do so for generations. Now a few spectacularly arrogant law-makers are hard at work tossing them out in as big a hurry as they can manage.

I see this petition as one way to let them know how many thousands of people noticed what they were up to and didn't like it much. 

Here's an interesting alternative to putting up with NYC legislators messing with your life.

Rewards

Yesterday, what with only three of us on the clock, the steer to ship, the normal run of work to do and all, we were all of us pretty pooped by supper time.

However, in between loading the steer and getting started on evening chores, I made a big ol' pot pie out of that turkey, with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, corn, and biscuits.

And I baked sweetened biscuits and thawed rhubarb sauce and some strawberries I froze last summer.

For shortcake you know. 

Just because there are only three folks still living at home doesn't mean we can't still have a feast.....

I think everyone thought their rewards were well worth their labors.....I know I did.

And today.......today, I am giving them.....leftovers!

Calf Shaming

I Can't Post this Here

After all, I am already banned in Iran. 

However, Jeffro can. Go watch (if you can stand it.) After all, what with our government jumping the shark so much lately we all need a good laugh. And I admit to slapping the table....with both hands....and hoorahing...over this one.

***Disclaimer. This is kinda naughty. If you are sensitive, stay here where you are....mostly....safe....

Snow

Nowadays equals panic here in the Great Northeast. The weather folks are all, "OMG, OMG, OMG, snow!" 

They name the storms and the squalls and the spits and sprinkles. Close the schools, continuous coverage. Facebook is awash in storm updates.

I think we may....may mind you....have two inches. And the dog, who is black, was kinda whitish when he came in.

What am I missing?

Shipping

Can be terrifying. I hate it, especially sending steers to the meat processor. The steers are raised for beef, we don't mess with them a lot, so they are not terribly tame. Also, they seem to remember that they were once bulls and hold a grudge about it.

We sent a big one out today, with just Becky, the Boss, and me doing the work, along with the gentleman from whom we purchase hay, who provided the truck..... Liz is at a professional conference and Al is down in the city.

For some reason the steer wouldn't go out of his stall no matter what we did. He did, however, manage to push a big ventilation fan over on me while trying to get under the tie rail. Didn't hurt me but it took a couple of hours for the adrenaline to wear off.

Finally the boss put a halter on him and led him out of the barn. Quiet as a clam. Not bad for a guy looking at 65 next fall.

Then the fellows left with the steer and Beck and I turned the cows out to eat their hay. We are probably going to catch H-E_double hockey sticks, because we turned out a couple that have been been being kept in because they got out of the pasture fence.  We figured they could use some exercise and the barnyard is more secure so......

We shall see....

Albany is So Out of Touch

I like English sparrows almost as much as I like the NYS Legislture

With Upstate that is a real shame. Even as this is typed our legislators are passing rules that will regulate guns, in many cases for simple cosmetic features. Of course these laws will only affect the law-abiding....

Meanwhile, commentary and polls around the region range from 85-90+% AGAINST these  new measures. Gun shows are busier than ever, with people eager to show their support for the Second Amendment. Waiting lines an hour long for admittance are not uncommon. 

Does anyone in the capital either know or care what their citizens want?

Sadly, the answer is obviously no.

And even more sadly, by a week or so from now, some new hot story du jour will have taken center stage and by next November everyone will gleefully reelect these clowns.

Maybe it is time to move west.

Tools 'n' Levers

I used to be tough. And not just for a girl either. (Or at least I thought so.) I Indian wrestled brothers and sons, played tackle football with the guys and held my own, squeezed hands with the best of 'em and generally was rugged as all get out. I could throw off a load of hay almost as fast as the boss and if I pushed on a cow to get her over in the stall, she moved.

I opened cans and bottles for grandmas and thought of myself as all that and a bucket of rice, as Liz would say.

Then along came arthritis and all the other associated fun of old age...or at least oldish...and I couldn't do nunna them things any more. NONE! 

I can still carry a bale down the manger to feed, but A bale is about it.

I HATE to be a puppy and have to ask people to do stuff for me, although I do nowadays, and way too often for my taste.

Enter the wonders of tools and tricks. The pliers are never far from my hand. Granny grippers for bottles and cans. Sharp knife, hammers, and such, right where I need them.

Shaking up bedding is problematic with hands that won't grip a fork handle for more than a few seconds....but if you balance the thing just right you can get the cows bedded just the same. Same goes for climbing up to unplug milkers in the high part of the barn. Ain't easy, ain't fast but.... And if I can't get the hook off the big back door to let some air into the barn without a fork handle to pound on it....well, at least it gets opened.

I miss being tough, but will still find a way to get things done...for at least a while longer.

NYs Brewing Claim to Fame

Caption this....

During the mid 1800s NY was pretty much the hop-growing capital of the world. One of the barns below is our hop house, evidence that our own farm was involved in the boom.

I love reading about the renewed interest in hops in the region and hope they do become an important niche crop. I have long thought of buying a hop vine or two just for the heck of it, but I haven't done it yet.

Sunday Stills....Old Barns

Foggy morning

Hop House

Corn crib

Old hop house in the fog

Perfect one for a farm like ours.....For more Sunday Stills.....

Will They or Won't They

Make it up the driveway with the new stove today? It is all sanded, but we sure do have ice...everywhere. We turned the cows out and they were tippy-toeing real carefully up to their round bales. 

We discovered burnt off wires on the old stove so it is being retired...it belonged to the boss's mom before we started using it so it is pretty old.

Thus we counted our blessings that the house didn't burn down around us and went and picked out a "scratch and dent" at the place where we do business. Hopefully it will be successfully delivered today so that I can cook that poor turkey.

Next question, will the milk tanker make it up the other driveway? That one is all sanded too, but it is steeper and icier. Ah, well, the driver is a real expert, and we are going to put the cows in and open all the gates before he comes so he doesn't have to stop on the hill.....

Welding in the Kitchen

Dinner anyone?

Last night Beck and I and the pup were sitting here in the kitchen waiting for some sausages to finish baking for our dinner. They had been doing so all through milking....


Suddenly the oven element made a sound just like an arc welder and a big orange flash began to occur inside the stove. I shut it off, but it just got brighter and brighter until it glowed a brilliant white that embossed itself on the eyeballs just like a welder would. 

The boss hurried out and helped us pull the stove out from the wall and unplug it.

The flash darkened.

All was well although it took a while for our eyes to get back to normal. Thank God it did its bad thing while we were sitting right here so we still have a house!

We let the sausages finish cooking on what heat was left....

But, but, but......I have a turkey all thawed in the fridge, which I was planning to roast today.

Now what do I do?

Pat Leimbach Passes

Sad news indeed. This wise and eloquent lady was a great inspiration to me and no doubt to thousands of others as well. It seemed as if she could find the humor in almost any situation from lining out rows of grain at planting to fading denim on a fence post.

She was kind enough to correspond with me years ago when the kids were small and I was just getting started at writing. Her words of encouragement lingered long in my mind when I took over the Farm Side and wrote a weekly column myself.

If you haven't read her books, you are in for a treat, if you track them down.

Rosie Revisited

She seems to be feeling pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

There Oughta be a Law

Used to be a comic strip. 

Now it is the mantra of press, public, and legislative leaders every time someone, who is already breaking twenty existing laws, does something evil, egregious, tragic and awful.

Instead of lamenting the failure of enforcement, the failure of parents, the failure of the very fabric of our society, and the triumph of evil or even just willful stupidity, everyone screams, "There oughta be a law!"

After all, we have hundreds, thousands even, of legislators, sitting around with nothing to do but write new laws....and we are paying them aren't we?

And so somebody crafts one, folks lobby for it on Facebook, and it is passed, either to fail because of lack of enforcement, or even the utter impossibility of enforcement, just like the laws which existed at the time of the nefarious deed, which didn't stop it in the first place.

But everybody goes home feeling good.

The folks doing all the hollering for new laws have done nothing to prevent future instances of whatever crime horrified them. Drunks will still drive under the influence. Monsters will still kill.  There are some people that all the laws in the world won't stop. We call them criminals. Jails stop them at least a little.....until someone lets them out....but laws don't.

After all, have you noticed how well the prohibitions on illegal drugs have worked?

But folks feel good, so all is well.

All too often these feel-good laws impinge on the rights of decent, law-abiding citizens, and remove the protections that our nation's landmark of laws, the Constitution, granted them early in the history of our nation.

But no one really learns history in school any more and certainly very few read it for the lessons it can teach us about mistakes that went before and really should not be repeated.

People with substance abuse problems and a lack of personal responsibility in their make up won't wake up with it tomorrow just because of a new law. New gun laws don't remove guns from criminal hands. They will keep theirs while the law-abiding are handing them in........Ask Australia about how their crime rates declined under their own strict new gun control measures.

But go ahead, make new laws that only affect the law-abiding, who never broke the laws already on the books, but who will feel the noose of pointless legislation choking off their rights as Americans.

After all, we want to feel good, don't we.

Excited

I was scrolling through some blog entries from a couple of years ago....March as it happened...and realized, that even though it is only January with a lot of winter left, tax time looming, short of feed as usual, it is only a few weeks until things begin to change.

Right now we are deep in redpoll season. The yard is alive with juncos and goldfinches and  other winter odds and ends. However, in just weeks we will hear the first cheerful blackbirds, the first eager killdeer, the return of grackles and robins and all the other early birds of spring.

So, I am excited.

I am also excited that Beck has been elected to the library board of trustees. How cool is that? And she is chair of the Media Materials committee, which means she can suggest new acquisitions, something which she is often asked to do anyhow.

I am, alas, considerably less excited that our boy has been called back to NJ and NYC. He spent a number of weeks at a local job, which, although demanding, let him sleep at home at night. 

I liked that. He only left a few hours ago, but we miss him already.

Frosty

The single-digit nights and relatively warm days we've been seeing make for amazing mornings. The sky is as pink as the inside of a shell and all the twigs and branches are covered with hoarfrost. 

The slanting light of the sun as it rises, long after folks are afoot and wandering, lights it all up with crystal rainbows. 

 

I am not a fan of winter much, but there is no denying that it can be as lovely as it is treacherous.

Farmer Shaming

Cats in the milk house

Two by two

Calves in the manger

Shame on you! Or on all of us really, but these are fairly minor indiscretions and easily fixed

Nick Nack Paddy Whack

Hey, I'm not Nick, I'm Gil, and you never give ME any bread!

Give the dog his bread. Nick has become a very old man, 13, and showing it. He is pretty much blind, selectively, but effectively, deaf, he doesn't really recognize Liz a lot of the time, and he loves to bolt off down the driveway.

He has been lately getting thin and his coat wasn't looking the best either. He had kind of lost his appetite.......However, he has always loved bread. His excitement when someone reaches for a loaf is quite funny to watch. Puppy gambols around the kitchen, old-dog toe nails clacking, slab-sided, half-balanced, but all happy.

Thus every morning now, I give him a slice or two when he comes in from his morning peregrinations. It makes him happy and he has gained some weight and his coat looks better. After he gloms down his wheaty delight he trots into the dining room, wherein lies his bucket of dog food and eats that too. He has even gone back to stealing kitty kibble.

Bread isn't supposed to be terribly good for dogs, but I guess at his age I will let him decide what he likes. Therefore bread it is.

Exports from China

Our local news and weather guys, in between trying to get something going on the gun control front (so far their comments are at least ninety percent pro-Second Amendment...wonder if they will listen...) are showing weather maps of China.

Seems as if record cold has hit there, in many places minus fifty F, and times are hard. According to this article people are waiting for a public heating system to be installed.

Local weather gurus suggest that this cold will soon break loose from China and head our way. At least we are mostly allowed see to our own indoor temperatures, although this may not always be the case. I don't like the cold much.....