A Sea of Lilacs

Sends a tide of sweetness, washing over the beaches of our lives. They bloom for such a short time, but they are such a joy while they do.

I'm glad we moved the dwarf pink one up from town. Wish I could remember its name. I bought it years ago with money I made taking care of a neighbor's horse for a while and it is a favorite. Hope the shoot from it we planted for Jeffro does well and blooms true.

Tangerine and Kiwi

Yesterday was packed with doings....cows out, cows in....all two of them. Sick calf doctored on. New kittens fussed and fooled with. My middle name is "sucker" now, as Becky has two of them up in her room. Oh, well, she works hard, but if I smell cat, there will be two new occupants in the barn.

Liz planted some garden while I watched little miss cranky pants. She didn't have a real good day yesterday. Something was hurting, tummy ache or some such thing, and she was not a happy camper. Poor little girl.

Then there was the voting. School budget and board. Glad to see that a local farmer and the father of Alan's best friend was elected. Common sense and business experience is a fine thing in politics and we see way too little of it.

Came home to a good dinner, monster burgers, a Northview recipe and family favorite, and then got to talk to my boy for a while....always a good way to end the day.

His pic was in an area paper, during the tractor cavalcade in the Duanesburg Memorial Day Parade. He is the guy in the orange hat, and the lovely lady behind him is his fiance. Of course we are delighted that he is engaged to a girl who can drive a tractor.....

There it is, all the news that's fit to print......enjoy this lovely, sunny day, for I fear the rains are making a comeback.

Oh, yeah, I forgot...this happened too, right behind my folks' house!

Clean Water Confusion

Pink lilacs have nothing at all to do with this story......

Been researching EPA proposed changes to the Clean Water Act. 

Yow! 


Talk about confusing. And dangerous to property rights and national commerce, and especially to farming.

Seems that whenever the government sticks its oar in, the waters get muddy.

I admit to not having read every single word of some of these pages, but even a quick skim will scare you.

Except perhaps that they require water to grow

Or it should.

Some links:

Rapanos v. United States

Update on a National Shame

The Grey Lady weighs in

Fox has its say

Google Books too

The Daily News

American Farm Bureau

I have many more if you are not bored yet. This week I am earning my stipend......

And these clouds contain water...but don't worry...the EPA regulates that too.

Update: Here is another ridiculous overreach the boss brought to my attention.

Congratulations are in Order

For my amazing sister-in-law who just graduated college with honors, while keeping their small family farm running, and taking care of her family, watching over our folks, weaving and many other interesting things.

Congratulations, Lisa! We are all proud of you!

Schooled

Clinging to the screen. I think if I had opened the door they would have come right inside

Right offa my own porch! The little wrens fledged yesterday. I missed the show, as they were pretty quiet about it, but at almost dusk, when I was sitting in my Sunday chair, eating stir fry cooked by Liz, they brought the party right to me.

My chair is right opposite the door to the sitting porch. The babies came right to the door and clung to the screen. We are quite accustomed to tame hummingbirds visiting the doors and windows, but this was amazing. I think there are three babies, but it seemed as if they were everywhere, beeping and cheeping and fluttering.

Just about dusk last night

And the anxious parents, which have totally ignored us through the whole saga of nest building, incubating, and brooding, inches from our heads on the back porch, went nuts!

What an uproar. Screeching and screaming and carrying on!

This morning, thinking that they were probably gone, I dared to step out on that little sanctuary in hopes of conducting my normal new species scan and taking some shots of the sunrise.

OMG! Wrens scattering in every direction. I sat down for a minute in my little red chair, but the parents came right to me and scolded me loud and roundly.  Pretty funny to see one peeking up over the edge of Grandma Peggy's little yellow fernery, inches away from my face, and cussing like a sailor.

'All right, all right, it's too darned cold to sit out here anyhow.'

I came back into the warmth and left them alone....as the babies seemed to be coming right back after fluttering down across the driveway for a minute. Between the freezing temps...we brought all the geraniums back inside last night...and the birds...I wonder if I am ever going to get to enjoy that porch this spring.

Maybe I should call this the tale of two porches.

Waiting for me to leave so they could come back on the porch this morning

Weekenders

What a weekend. Flooding...inside the kitchen no less, from a leaky thingumabob under the sink. I think I have that mopped up and the boss has stalled it, but whoever plumbed this place was not a pro or very foresighted. No shutoffs where you need them....

A funeral, for Jade's cousin. Long day for them. Lots of wren noise. Lots of rain. Today the sun is doing its thing, but it is cold for May...way, way cold.

Days with my boy, which mean a lot to me, btw. There are few things more delightful than sitting on a porch with someone you love. And we have lots of love and a pretty darned good porch for it too.

He scored a long weekend at home, before a long, nasty spell away, and we took full advantage. Talking of potential property acquisitions, trying on futures, and watching the birds come in. Slowing down the woodchuck onslaught, one pellet at a time....why is it that all the herds of coyotes that trammel the lawn each night and day never eat them?    Fixing windows, moving things too heavy for mom and not of interest to others, general home improvement, enhanced by good company and warm talk. He is off today for two months far away and lonesome and we will miss him. At least he will be a little closer than Virginia, which was way too far. But, first, driving a tractor in a parade today...I hope there will be pictures.

Chicken dinner. Steak dinner. Vanilla ice cream with homemade strawberry jam from last summer. There is almost always good food and companionship in this house. People coming in and out to eat and talking and talking and talking. Big dogs. Little dogs. Big horses. Little horses....not in the house, of course, but you can see them from the kitchen window.  Feeding cows and calves, heating milk, hanging buckets. Grass that is slow to grow where we want it and all too quick where it has to be mowed.

It is quite a thing to have everyone home at once...But this is a big house and can hold them all quite well, and a good thing too. It seems to like the noise and bustle and gets its glow on when everybody is home....well, except for that blasted flood in the kitchen. I think it likes to have its rooms full and busy.

Sunday Stills....One Subject

Ruby-throated hummingbird drying off in the early morning sun

Ed's challenge for this week was to choose the one subject we would photograph if it was the only one we could use for the rest of our lives.

Carolina wren with a beak full of bugs, feeding the babies on the back porch

As you would probably guess, although i love taking pictures of our little one and farm animals and trees and frogs and all, the birds are first on the list of what I like to picture.

These are from Saturday morning.

For more Sunday Stills.....

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.