Today or Tomorrow

The moon was sailing on the garden pond
 when I paused on the stair landing this morning

The wrens will fledge or at least according to what I have been able to glean from articles in the subject. 

It will be a mixed blessing. Their beeping and fluttering sets a cheerful background to the day, from the edge of dawn to the cusp of night. 

However protecting them from cats and garter snakes has been a constant job. Bad enough that our own barn cats wander up on the porch looking for handouts....we are as attuned to the wren alarm calls as if we were birds ourselves and run to scoot them back to the barn where they belong. And it seems to be the summer of the garter snake. i have never seen so many and they are so tame and friendly. Becky picks them up and takes them over on the other farm if she sees them, but nobody can see them all.

And then last night the wild grey tom was on the porch when we came in from chores. I woke well before dawn worrying about the potential for harm from him...

And about our own fledglings facing all the dangers of the world on their own two wings, while we hover over the nest peeping alarm calls....which, like all wise and wonderful fledglings, they ignore completely.

Ah, parenthood, sheltering wings and opening gates, hovering, and backing away like it was our job....oh, wait....

Got Land?

There is a shocking figure in this USDA article. I used it in this week's Farm Side, and found it so staggering that I came in from the barn this morning and looked up the original source to make sure I got the number right in the column

And I did. 

"In fact 3000 acres of productive farmland are lost to development each day in this country."

Three thousand acres....

Back when I was a young hippy sort of person I had a mural painted on my refrigerator. It contained this quote, "Buy land, they stopped making it."

Although I found it in a homesteading book I was using to learn how to raise rabbits and cabbages, it appears to have originated with Mark Twain.

One way or another, it is certainly true.

Nevertheless, we are letting 3000 acres of it be paved or put under buildings every single day. At the same time droves of activists complain about modern farming methods, which serve to make the remaining acres more productive.

Got hunger?

Still Farming

Only slower and smaller. More time for details. The boss turned several of the little bulls into steers yesterday and dehorned a couple. 

We have been having issues with Bruce, Broadway's most recent bull calf. He was pretty oxygen-deprived at birth and has always been kind of backward. After he was put in his own little stall, even though he had a big heifer next to him to show him how things work, he would not learn to use his water bowl.

This simply requires that the animal push a paddle with their nose to release a stream of clear, cold water.

Twice a day I had to hold his paddle down with a stick so he could drink his fill. In the time he has been there several other little calves have been taught to drink, but he just wouldn't learn.

The other day he got sick...no big symptoms, but off...I was sure it was related to his unwillingness to drink. Since the outside pen, which used to be our sawdust shed, and then became a heifer pen, is now clean and empty, as the heifers that lived there were all sold, we put him out there.

We cleaned the 150-gallon watering trough that serves it and filled it with fresh water, gave him some tasty hay and corn meal, and put him out there.

He was actually too ignorant to even drink from the watering trough. I had to hang a pail of water next to it until he found it. Now he is drinking and eating and doing better, but I am thinking maybe keeping him until fall might be unwise.

If he doesn't take hold and thrive we may just sell him.

Punching the Insect Time Clock

Within minutes after I opened the door for the first time at five AM, heading out to walk little Miss Daisy, the wrens were actively feeding the kids. I've been timing them since then, off and on, as I polish up the Farm Side for this week.

Speaking of which....I like writing, but I hate the final proofreading for commas, tenses, common sense, and the like. Ack. I try to let it stew over night and look at it with fresh eyes, but I get so picky and drive myself nuts.

Anyhow, not more than four minutes has passed between any two bug deliveries. Since they were still feeding at around nine or so last night, how many insects do these little birds extract from the environment? If I peep out the screen door I see a steady stream of caterpillars, things with wings, and unidentifiable bundles of bugginess. 

What hard workers! Everyone should have a couple of pairs!

For the Birds

Thanks, Linda, the goldfinches love it!

What does it mean if the robin sees his shadow?

Eastern Phoebe

For Heaven's sake, hide buddy! Season is open!

Gold finches and white-crowned sparrows

If you look closely you can see the Carolina wren feeding the babies under the hard hat.
This was taken through the screen door from the kitchen.

Three new birds for the Northview count yesterday...Northern Harrier, right in the old horse pasture outside the big windows, Willow Catcher right where they always are in the rosebushes at the edge of the long lawn, and a Wood Thrush down in the overgrown front field. The kids can be serenaded to sleep each night by his beautiful song. Maybe Peggy will grow up to be a birder!

So far we are over fifty species for the year and I haven't even been up in the fields much yet. What a year for birds! First time I have ever seen a Harrier down here. Wrens should fledge in about four days. I wonder if I can park the car close to the porch and use it for a blind...they are pretty tame. 

Goliath

Is what I call this terrible feral cat. He is a killer and tough as nails. 

I Shall Call it Fang

Diamond peeking out of her new stall

One of my Mother's Day gifts that is. Because it is a Bluetooth, and so should have a sort of toothy name. I talk to Alan a lot on the phone, as he is away most of the time, and the phone is as good as it gets.

Sunny and Jade

I get tired holding the phone up to my ear and cricking my neck for hours...and the battery gets hot enough to fry eggs, if I didn't mind getting yolks in my hair. 

So he got me a solution to that situation. I love it! Sat on the porch yesterday talking to him and birding in comfort. Becky got me books and GOOD clothespins, which are absurdly hard to find. I love them too, as I spend an absurd amount of time doing laundry and hate the cheap little buggers that fly apart and vanish in the weeds and do not stand up to the challenges of blue jeans.

It was perhaps the best Mother's Day ever. 

Had a whole FLOCK of white-crowned sparrows right on the back step. I could peep out the door and see them all over the place and hear them singing as they gathered up chicken scratch the girls had spilled on the step. They look like a group of butlers, lacking only a towel draped over their wings.
  

Then I got a life bird without leaving the sitting porch. First I saw this odd green bird. I got the binoculars on it for a better look and thought it was an oriole, but it was distinctly green.

Then what I thought was a robin began chasing it fervently through the trees. Dark chestnut breast, black on the head. What the heck? I couldn't believe my eyes. A pair of orchard orioles!

I have never seen them before and didn't know that they even occur here, but they are listed as breeding in Central NY, which is basically here.

When you don't travel and started birding at about seven or eight, lifers are rare. Maybe one every year or so. For the most part I'm down to adding warblers now and then. Wow.

Liz 'n' Jade brought their big horse, Sunny down too and put him in Diamond's old stall, Compared to the ponies he is huge!

So, all in all, a pretty nice day. Talked to mom a little. We went up to see her Thursday....hope your day was as nice.

Sunday Stills.....Wild Flowers

Spotted Adder's Tongue or Trout Lily

The lowly, but lovely, dandelion

Wild violet

For more Sunday Stills.....

Happy Mother's Day

To my beautiful mother, and to all the other mothers too......

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.