Stormy, Buggy, Muggy

Bout sums it up. A stinker of a storm smashed in all of a sudden last night and practically blew the house away. Seriously. I was just falling asleep and the wind and rain lashed in through my open window and soaked the floor six feet from the wall.

So, it was stumble around in the dark half asleep closing windows time. It banged around for an hour or so and then went on its way. No harm done that I can see, just a lot of wet stuff.

This morning the air is thick as molasses, but nowhere near as sweet. Feels like a wet, rubber sheet draped over your head. 

However, I went outside anyhow, as Jade brought me an arbor to hang plants on and I had to move some bee balm off a weedy bank he wants to mow. I planted it there when we moved up here in hopes that the lovely hummingbird friend would take over the bank. Instead the weeds did.

So I was out in the fog of mosquitoes moving it down under the arbor, which we put in front of the kitchen window. Hopefully it will take hold and grow there and I can keep it weeded out.

The Carolina Wren sure had plenty to say about my intrusion into what he considers to be his territory. he is still complaining half an hour later.

Guess the sunset was spectacular last night, with beams of light like rays of a star, shining up off the horizon. Saw some pics here and there. Alas I missed it.

And although my birthday isn't until tomorrow, people have been amazing me with wonderful gifts. Pretty wowsome. 

From my folks five books of my choice from their personal shelves. You have no idea what that meant. I learned my love of birding from Dad. He has bird books. And so.

 I felt guilty taking them, but they insisted. Found an older Nat Geo field guide that I sat down one night and read like a novel. I have the new one, but this older version, between name changes for many birds like orioles and different color plates and all, was just fascinating. Also chose a sea bird guide and a couple others. I should lug them all to camp to study.

Then our dear sister-in-law brought me some of her weaving, pretty new kitchen towels, which I love. if you want something special for your table or towels that will last forever and just keep getting better, her weaving shop is the place to go. The towels she has woven for us will probably be handed down to Peggy, they are so durable.

She and Matt gave me a set of blue ones years and years ago that still look as nice as the day she took them off the loom and they have been in continuous use...  The new ones are a soft, sweet, light brown with pale borders and are so soft and fluffy. I love them. Thanks Lisa.

From the boy of my heart...or should I say, young man.... stuff that he knows will never fail to get me. Fishing gear. Bobbers. Steel leaders. Hooks and spoons and spinners and some silly, gigantic pike hooks.

 He says they are so I don't catch any sunfish. Everybody knows I fish with #1 hooks, which are for the most part too large to fit in the tiny mouths of the sunnies. I love the brilliant little beggars and hate to kill them trying to take a hook out. Rock bass have mouths the size of rain barrels...so I would rather catch them.

Anyhow thanks everyone, for making my birthday, which isn't even here yet, so special.

Camp is coming up in just over a week. Everything camp related has been moved from its usual storing place in the front parlor. Can we find it all? 

The plot thickens.

Sticky

Sultry sunrise

I forced myself, as I trudged in from the barn last night, to remember winter. What would we have given for just one tenth of this heat last January? For even a couple of hours of truly being warm enough?

Seemed as if we were cold for months. 

It is good to be effortlessly warm.

 You have to take action when it gets this way though.

Lots of fans running, lots of ice pops chilling out in the big freezer. 

Alas, lots of misery for poor Miss Peggy, who does not understand and can't regulate her body temperature quite as well as we can.....

But after all, it's summer. 

Summer is meant to be HHH.

Second best season of the year.

And last night was purely spectacular. A sharp little storm jumped up, with strong winds, a few flashes of lightning, and about a dozen drops of rain. 

Dashing double rainbows at the end.

If we don't get a lot of rain today maybe the boss can get the hay he has down. I sure hope so. 

Stormy Night

But

beautiful. 

Where's my Coffee?

I have drunk Taster's Choice since the year it came out. Other coffees have come and gone....sometimes somebody comes along who makes good perked coffee and I will enjoy a cup. Sometimes we get high octane from a convenience store or fast food place to ramp up the energy level for extra-busy days.

However, I always return to my old stand-by.

And suddenly, we can't find it anywhere. The boss went to several stores yesterday...same story everywhere, "Back ordered,"  "Warehouse is out..."

What the hey?

How am I going to do camp without that perfect cup in the morning, out on the porch with fishing pole, camera, binoculars and writing implement? (A pen opposed to a word processor....but there are always stories to tell.)

Say it ain't so.

I'll bet the Chinese bought it.

Crops and Weather

We bunnies believe in the old adage, "Nibble the lawn while the sun shines."
Garden too

Make hay while the sun shines...that old adage is exactly right. Even if a farmer is chopping green hay for baleage or haylage, that is, fermented grass or legumes stored for winter feed, reasonable weather is required.

Tractors get stuck in wet fields and rut up the ground to ruin crops. Wet grass clogs moving parts and breaks shear bolts and makes farmers grumble and grouse. 

To make regular baled hay, two or three days of warm dry weather are required, and sometimes more.

And then there is planting corn. Although of course it needs moisture to grow, if the ground is too wet and cold, the seeds will rot, heavy rains will flood it out, the list goes on and on.

Click me! Click me!

This year has been pretty awful in that respect. it has been a rare week without significant rains. Thus even farmers with lots of good machinery and plenty of help are still planting corn, weeks after the usual planting dates.

And hay, oh dear. Some of the really huge farmers have taken off first cutting, pulling into the fields with large crews and gigantic machines, to shear and store grass, in hours rather than weeks. That very efficiency is one of the reasons there are large farms.

Economies of scale, and the ability to spread the cost of the large machines required to process so many acres over a large herd, and, because they can get over the land, feed the cows well. Big farms aren't factories at all, they just have darned good managers.

Smaller farmers work just as hard, but it is slower to put up hay a few acres at a time, and especially to put it up in small square bales.

With the little spell of dry weather we've had this past weekend, pretty much all farmers, big and small, have been going at it hard.

I'd like to have a penny for every small square bale that was made and stored in NY this weekend. We got in quite a few ourselves.

And now the rain is back.

Hay Day

Jade brought his tractor,
which once belonged to his great grandfather, down to the farm today

Waiting for the last load

Yep here it comes

Conference at the elevator

This is when I left, just before Jade crawled out on the cross mow elevator.

Girls too

Sunday Stills....Landscapes in Black and White

It was quite a week for clouds, so I included some in this, which was shot right out the back door.

For more Sunday Stills....

Waiting for the Garden

Beans are in bloom. 

Squash and carrots are up. 

Peas are getting big.

So are the varmints.

Summer Days

So what's going on at Northview Farm these days , now that most of the cows are gone?

Peggy is teething and having a time of it. Poor, poor baby, this too shall pass, but we can't tell you that, can we?

Bama Breeze is getting closer to calving every day and I am getting closer to worrying. She and Moon are almost exactly the same age, but Moon looks like a million and Bama looks...old....

She didn't shed all of her winter coat, although she is shining up some, and she is just kind of off..It could be because she has been dry so long. Hopefully she will feel better soon.

Saw my cousin on Fox and Friends this morning. He is on quite often, always very cool. The family is proud of this young writer and businessman. He grew up on the same farm where I learned to love agriculture.....

Breakfast of the boss's good omelets made from eggs laid yesterday by the kids' hens. You can't beat that.

Lots and lots and lots of birds, listed here. I am using my old garden blog to keep lists of what we are seeing. Not every day and not always complete, but something of a benchmark for next year. And here is another Northview blogger. When she has time to catalog her world, she sure has a way with words. 

Our boy is working from home for a couple of weeks, on a really scary, dangerous job. I worry about that too....but it sure is nice to have those hugs. He says that he rations them so I appreciate them better. Whatever. It sure is nice to see him.

Nice to see whole family every day. Beck helps the boss and me with the barn chores twice a day. Jade does the lawn, and lends a hand when he's not working. We see Alan every day. So good to get to talk to him so often....and he keeps the varmint population within bounds.

Nothing like having the whole family here!

For Holstein Folks..with a little on the Jersey Side Too

Dreamroad Extreme Heather

Here's a good story on the history of Osborndale Ivanhoe, including a bit on the lethal recessive that he and his offspring spread throughout the breed, due to their tremendous influence on the genetic makeup of the modern Holstein.

Recessive defects in dairy cattle. More on that.

Alan got a bit of interesting news the other day. A few years ago....maybe three...Liz had a nice little bull calf out of her venerable show Jersey, Dreamroad Extreme Heather. 

At the time calves were bringing almost nothing at the auction and Jersey bulls even less.

We had no use for him, but to send him to the sale and end up with nothing but a bill for trucking seemed foolish. Plus there was the fact that Heather came from a leading Jersey breeder of fine show cattle and the calf's sire was Sunset Canyon Mecca a bull that had done well for us.

So we let him stay for a while so as to puzzle out a sensible fate for him. Turned out one of Alan's good college friend's family raised registered Jerseys. Initially Liz gave the little guy to them, but they didn't think that was fair and paid her a decent price for him.

They registered him, raised him, and used him on their heifers. They rented him out to other breeders when they weren't using him and he bred those heifers too. As of now there are a LOT of his daughters around their area and I guess the farmers out there like them quite a lot.

And here comes the serendipity. He got to be a real big boy, too big for the heifers he was breeding. Thus his owners sent him to the auction barn, where he was sold to yet another breeder to go on with his Jersey-making career....and believe it or not, he was sold on the very day that our herd went, at the very same auction.

I am pretty sure this is a picture of the bull in question at about a day old

Ralph saw him sell, but of course didn't recognize him, as he was three years older and over a thousand pounds heavier than when he left our place.

Nice to know that an animal bred and born here at Northview and carrying the Maqua-Kil prefix, which Liz took over from his parents, went on to do so well for someone. 

A Bad Day for Birding

The fog you know. Not one of those pretty little mists that sometimes grace the summer morning, lying gentle on the land, and drawing back their silver curtains as the sun brings on the heat. Instead a pervasive sogginess, prickling on the skin, and making the porch floor tacky under bare feet.

Spider webs droop like tattered curtains, weighted down by the dampness, drab and dim and dreary.

And the birds. The yard burgeons and bulges with them, seethes fairly, as they shuttle between the shelter trees and rose bushes and the mulberries and the wild honeysuckle bushes. There are so many. You should see those mulberry trees shake when the Robins and Starlings, and Goldfinches, and Cedar Waxwings and Catbirds, and Purple Finches are all tearing off berries at the same time!

Except that today you can't see them. Even with binoculars. Only the close up Catbirds and Robins can be picked out from the horde.

And the Cedar Waxwings. I swear, this time of year every single bird that makes you turn for a second look, or grab the binoculars and whirl the little focus thingumabob, is a Cedar Waxwing. They are gorgeous. They are everywhere.

Frustrating....ish.....

And then, since I can't see the birds, I lean back in my bright red chair and just listen.

Cardinal, tuning up right near the porch. Willow Flycatcher, obliging from his usual post. Robins, triggered by the low light, singing everywhere. Mystery birds, shuttling back and forth....

Sometimes it is good to just sit and be quiet and let the sound wash around you. The trucks and trains are muted by the moisture and the valley is awash in early morning peace.

It's a beautiful day for birding, Cardinal, camera, and coffee, what more could you ask?

Well....since you ask...I would like to know if that litter of fledglings hopping all over the dead box elder were Chickadees.....

Building

As the air slowly fills with moisture and the temperature falls with pending rain, I am pulled willy-nilly back to camp, to summer at the lake, the loveliest time of the year. 

The air feels there just like this when weather is brewing.....full of the scent of water and woodland. One thing about this cool, strange, summer, is that the air has been remarkably good here even in the valley, up until these past few humid days. 

That is not always the case, what with the thousands of tractor trailers, trains, and cars, that ply their way up and down the many thoroughfares that wind between the Noses. At the lake it is always that way.

Just a few weeks left now until we are gone...... 

I won't rush them away. Summer on a farm is a pretty good place to be. 

However, after months of not even letting myself think of mountain love and the clear, clean, lakes, and the fish, and the eagles, and the frogs, and songs of the secret woods....I am letting just a glimmer shine through to light the future.

There are several of you who visit some years....you are always invited if I have forgotten to ask. PM, call, text, or send a pigeon...we would like to see you and sit on the porch that hangs out over the water and talk between the rhythm of the waves, washing against the rocks.

Meanwhile...it is going to rain...again....

Colorado, California, we have your rain! To claim it, you need only identify it and provide transportation to your chosen location......


Soon would be nice.....

Rain Delay

Hay rake in Amish field just up the road from here
taken through the windshield

The past four days have been spent in frantic pursuit of hay...yes, even Sunday, a day normally reserved for just essential chores and Sunday chairs. AS is universal in farming, things broke and needed to be fixed, putting on the pressure to get it done quicker before the weather changed.

Which it did.


It rained last night and much more rain is predicted to really slam us tonight, so it will be a day of other activities. In fact I am not going to get mad if the boss sleeps in his chair all day. Oh, he can store the hay he put in the mow if he wants to, but no suggestions are going to come from my direction. He has been going at it pretty hard for an old dude.

Happy Birthday, Brother

Today is my next younger brother's birthday. Being Irish twins so to speak we will be the same age for the next few days. 

He enjoyed this way too much when we were kids. Thank goodness for our nation's birthday, when I get to jump ahead again. Whew.....oh, wait a minute...we are so old now, it isn't so hot being eleven months older.

Anyhow.....

Happy Birthday, Michael. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Boidies

Blue Cochin rooster. I love the way he crows.

The kids got a new rooster Sunday and a few new chicks, plus Laura has her little brood.

Thus the coops are pretty well populated.

  

And so, it's Summer

Magnificent sunrise, all golden and peach. Fitz Bew ringing from the fence along the long lawn, where the Willow Flycatcher hides his nest, while the Cardinal tunes up his whistle, and a sleepy Yellow Warbler sweetens the morning, sweet, sweet, sweeter sweet.

The air IS sweet, as pure and clean and cool as if this little farm was perched atop a mountain way up in the Dacks. Dew drips from the eaves of the sitting porch, each crystal droplet lit on fire by the glow of the rising sun.

Time to tidy up the ravages of yesterday and get some writing done. If breakdowns of both tractor and barn cleaner yesterday are anything to go by, time to produce and process the Farm Side may be in short supply this week.

Get busy, get busy.

The screen door swings and slaps the wall, whine, bam, slam, as the young men head off to their jobs. Our boy is back in the 518 for a couple of weeks, as his other job in DC shut down for a bit.

It is an unfamiliar but delightful thing to have him here, even for a little while...we don't see him enough for sure.

And check out this addition to my garden rock collection. It is a NYC cobblestone, possibly from as early as the 1700s, 

It certainly is at least very early, as it was found 7 feet down, under a waterfront street in Manhattan. I am excited to have it, and to learn that it was placed small-side-up, rather than laying flat as you might expect.

Just imagine the stories this chunk of granite could tell... What famous people might have walked over it, how many horses and wagons and barrels of beer may have rumbled over it and its neighbors? No one could know but.....

Thanks, Mappy...

Good morning to all, and back to the word processor......

The Wild Side

Poultry style. The kids are building hen coops in the heifer barn and gathering up laying birds so as to sell eggs...speaking of which, we are eating the eggs they raise and they sure are good.

Anyhow, they are off to the swap this morning with a mean hen and a superfluous and bad-tempered rooster, plus a some herb plants to sell or trade.

While they were up in the old hen coop, catching the rooster, they discovered that Laura, the little banty Cochin that Teri gave us, has chickies. They were running in and out of the peacock coop, not a safe locale for babies, so Becky is out catching them to cage them safely with their mama.

Laura is an old chicken and a good, smart mama. She used to have a paramour of her own ilk named George, but varmints got him.