Work

Someone said when we sold the cows that work expands to fill the time allotted. Seems to be true.

Of course we have more people here now. The kids moved into a huge room we weren't using and are bringing their other horse here, maybe this weekend. Be interesting to have a great big Haflinger cross instead of just the ponies. 

Stall building and fence building are moving forward apace on his behalf. Although I haven't participated in those activities, I have watched the baby a bit to help make them possible. She likes her mommy better though for some reason.

I expected the other dog to be a problem but Ren is a sweetie. So soft and kind and gentle. Alas she doesn't like Daisy too well, but I think that will work out in a bit.

Planted a lilac bush for Jeffro. Hopefully the lawn mower will miss it for a few years and it will grow to be significant. It is an offshoot of a pink miniature one I bought years ago when we lived in town. I moved it up here along with the rhubarb and such. Then it thrust up a lovely shoot right in the middle of the rhubarb...

The boss and I dug it up Thursday and moved it to the house garden, right next to a big field rock, all scored by tillage tools over the years. Seems fitting I think.

Wrens are getting loud when the parents come by with insects. Hearing them out there is about the best thing of the day. A garter snake came on the porch yesterday though, and was too quick for me to catch. Since then, Beck has been collecting all she can find and taking them over to the other side of the creek. Several made the move yesterday. No wrens on the reptile menu here we hope.

Anyhow, seems we are busier than we were when we had three times the cows and the work to go with them. I don't mind. Busy is better than bored.

Sun is Up

On a rainy morning. Woke up at 4 to a flashing digital clock and a flashing sky...seems we had a thunder storm. This is the first of the year so we will put to the test a theory the boss read that the first frost of autumn will occur in about six months.


Guess we had better treasure these warmer days, huh?

Visited the library book sale yesterday and found a few books and an especially good brownie. The sale is still on so if you didn't get over yesterday, you can still make it. They have nice plants too.

Also visited the folks and were visited by the first Baltimore Oriole and Eastern Towhee. Very nice. Got to see a back porch bug delivery too. I had gone over to see what was making a weird noise up in back...the guinea hens, I should have known...and just happened to catch a stealth wren feeding the babies in the hard hat.

It is amazing to have them out there. We walk through that porch dozens of times a day and they don't even react. When the hen was brooding she didn't even fly off the nest....in fact we didn't even know she was in there. Should be interesting when those babies fledge.

Gratuitous Peggy Pictures

Long Ago and Not So Far Away

There is a story behind the old, grainy photos of a pair of chestnut horses that I shared for WW yesterday.

Many moons ago  a couple of friends and I saddled up our horses and headed for Murphy Lake, up south of Wells. It was a long ride. Out and back took three days. Our mounts were a stallion, a mare in the mood, and a young gelding who thought he was all that...a manly man, if you get my drift.

Along the way we camped on the Great Sacandaga, near a little inlet that is now lined with berths for boats.

I saw common mergansers for the first time on that trip, when I stumbled down to the lake with my glasses off to brush my teeth one morning.

I have told the story of the inebriated fellows in search of nature's rest facilities who blundered into the horses in the dark. I have no doubt told the story of riding a black horse in the woods on opening day of early bear season. 

And the story of catching a nice trout while I was sitting on a log over the water untangling someone else's line, with the bait dangling just over the water. 

I am not sure I have, or should, ever tell the story, of the soap opera of equine romance that took place among the three horses all weekend. Talk about a love triangle.

Anyhow, I will always remember the location of every single bridge between Broadalbin and Northville. This is because the mare, Molly, didn't like them and jumped into the center of the road every time we crossed one.

Or a broken bridle, which caused Magnum and me to make the trip with only a halter and lead rope...he sure did neck rein at the end of all that.

Or the utter insanity of galloping up the hills of the last few miles...the horses wanted to be home and so did we. So what if it was dark. I plead youth and foolery and no one was hurt in the making of these memories. I think there was a foal born the next year, and although Magnum...the gelding...was willing and eager, I am pretty sure Lad, the stallion, was the daddy.

Anyhow, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Cows are Smarter than Activists

Please let me come back to my stall....pretty please?

The anti-GMO foods and all-organic movement is determined that conventional cows don't go to pasture.

And of course ALL cows are happier at pasture right?

Well, don't tell Moon. She doesn't like the flies. She doesn't like the sunshine. She doesn't like the grass. She is standing as close to the house as she can get, staring at the back door, and mooing whenever she sees someone.

She wants to go back to the barn. And don't be taken in by how sparse the grass is where the cows are. Up to the east of them there is lots and it is lush.

She's nuts. I like the grass.

Wordless Wednesday

On This Day

I really want this rock!

The sixth of May...Bama and Neon Moon went to pasture for the first time this year.

They were at once funny and sad. Bama bounced around like a new spring lamb, which since she is expecting a calf late next month or maybe in early July, was quite a sight to see.

Moon however, missed the other cows. She kept mooing and looking around for them for quite a while. Eventually however, after giving us fits sloshing around in the muddiest, most dangerous part of the field, they paired up and headed off out of sight.

I imagine we will have lots of fun finding them and getting them back in tonight so we can milk Moon and keep them filled up with hay. This time of year with the lush new grass you always have to worry about bloat and grass tetany. we didn't turn them out until early afternoon so they....hopefully...won't overeat.

In other news, there is faint peeping coming from under the hard hat on the porch. Sounds as if the wrens have hatched. There has been quite a clamor of parents coming in and out all day. Pretty smart birds building their nest in an OSHA approved structure like that.

And in addition I put up some of the lovely bird feeders my friend, Linda, (thanks) sent last week. One is in front of a new window for feeding. Wonder how long it will take them to find it. I will get some pics once the birds start using them. 

Also, the boss cleared off some garden area and put composted manure on it. And the hops are up. Never a dull moment during this, the best time of year....

Oh, the Migrants You Will See

American gold finch

And hear. The boss and I went out a'fencing yesterday and there were birds everywhere. There was a whole darned flock of what I think were probably bobolinks, but I took the little binoculars instead of the big binoculars so that I could carry a corn knife to cut brush.

White-throated sparrow

I never used the corn knife at all, and the little ones didn't have enough oomph to let me identify the noisy chatters. We got up close with a vociferous brown thrasher though. What a delightful fellow, so loud and bold. First of the year.

And then down near the buildings the barn swallows showed up. Grey catbird this morning. I think that sweet sweet sweeter singer I've been hearing is the yellow warbler, although I am waiting to actually see him to be sure.

Song sparrow

Chipping sparrow

Truly this is the best time of year for a birder and I treasure every day.

Friends We have Never Met

Still matter and sometimes quite a lot. I never met this fine man in person but we have talked back and forth for a number years. That makes him a friend as far as I'm concerned. I can't imagine how hard this loss must be for his family and friends.

Rest in peace, Jeffro....you will be missed.

A Rainbow

For Linda

Who likes them....

Look at all the Happy Creatures

Becky called me to see this wild turkey hen right on the lawn behind the house

These ladies went NUTS!

Get off our lawn, you varmint, you!

And then the boss called me over to see this one and four others,
which got away before I got to the camera

Dancing on the lawn. There are eastern cottontails and woodchucks too. I shudder to think of the beating the garden is going to take, should it ever dry out enough so we can actually plant it.


The wild things are on the move....new migrants showing up every day too. It is cold. It is grey. It is windy. But it is spring and there is no denying it.

Sunday Stills......Ed's Picture

For more Sunday Stills....... our challenge was to manipulate Ed's photo. I only made a couple of changes...HDRish and Pixilate, but it is certainly different. 

Ed's original photo

Two Bears

This is a long ago, but very fine dog, named Two Bears. She liked to jump and play so much that those pics show her leaping for a tuft of grass. Photos were probably taken on a very long ago trip to Colorado, which encompasses many of my favorite memories. Ah, to be young and s̶i̶l̶l̶y̶  confident enough to travel a good half of the USA camping in the back of a pickup truck with two dogs along.

This is a somewhat more recent story about two bears. I shuddered when I read it. They do not make guns big enough for me to face that kind of bear. go, read, be glad you weren't along on this camping trip.....

Not the world's fanciest camper, but a great companion...Brandy.....there on the hood.
And travels from NY to Florida to Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and many more states to remember.

Like a Compass Needle

Drawn true North, Daisy's pointy little nose is directed at the door at the bottom of the stairs. Somebody open that please....her boy is home.

And so, soon, will be everybody else. I must ask you please to excuse the lack of posting. Things are changing, people are moving, the telephone is out of order, and repairman expected, and life seems to be moving along, as crazy as ever...or crazier.

True smiles from tiny Peggy yesterday, golden coins of laughter and joy. She finds the world an interesting place and lying in the living room kicking an interesting activity.

We find watching her grow to be interesting as well. So many years since there was last a baby here....the other most recent baby drives a Camaro now and is of great interest to a certain little dachshund.

Have a great weekend. I've got to go move a few hundred recycled soda bottles so the repair guy can get to the modem.

Traditional Wisdom

Suggests that the mothers of infants nap, shower, or indulge in a little "me" time while their babies are asleep.

Or, if you are a Northview girl, you could tear the vacuum cleaner apart and repair it.

Just sayin'......

Suspended

Before the rain..sunset reflected

By the rain. Our spring plans that is. You probably can build fence under the pouring sluices of the cold, lonesome rain. Maybe you even should.

So far we haven't. Thoughts of throwing Bama and Moon out into this weather after long labors on our own part aren't all that appealing.

Lots of babysitting going on though. A minute here, half an hour there. It's well enough for now....but she is a real mommy and daddy's girl and the grandparents are pretty much chopped liver in her lexicon.

So we do a little book work and we do a little barn cleaning, and we wish the rain would stop. Soon.

We moved the last two little ones up into the "new" part of the barn night before last. Thor and Vigo now are housed where the better of the two stable cleaners can help keep them clean and warm and dry. The other barn cleaner was a factor in parting with the cows. It was worn so thin that a few extra hours of valuable organic dairy cow by-product would actually snap the big, formerly-thick, Patz links right in half. A new one would have cost six grand. And the drive unit is pretty tired too.

Now there is just one cow on that section, old Bama, and she doesn't stress it too badly.

It has rained a lot this week. The sump pump in the barn clicks and whirs every couple of minutes. I shudder to think how badly the barn would flood without it. The barn was always dry...those old timers knew how to site their structures and how to build them right....until the new road went in in the late nineties. Blasting must have disturbed a vein of water somewhere because it's been kind of soggy ever since. but then, we have also had a lot more rain since then...

If it ever dries out the boss is looking to start chopping hay as soon as the grass gets a little taller. We are still buying feed, and, although nineteen head are a lot easier to keep supplied that over three times that many, much larger critters, forage is scarce and expensive this year. We have been seeing cows and heifers out on pasture since mid-March....

Anyhow, if spring ever comes, you are going to see farmers flying to get ground worked and corn and seeding planted. Across the nation planting is lagging way behind

.

Singing

Grandpa is singing to Peggy.

Daisy is singing to Peggy.

Well, really, she is rolling around on the floor begging for attention, but you can't have everything.

Favorites

The nice young man who bought Broadway and Rosie put up a video of them going out to pasture with his herd for the first time, on Sunday, on Facebook.

It was wonderful to see them. I don't permit myself to linger in memory, but try instead each day to focus on forward, ......but...it was wonderful, wonderful I tell you, to see the red and chocolate roan of their bright spring coats, as they romped with their new herdmates, drawn by fresh green grass like filings to a lodestone.

I cried. 

All fifteen times that I watched it. Could have been twenty as far as that goes. Or more.

 I can't help it. I still think of myself as a dairy farmer. Do two cows count?