Highlights

Smiling for Grandma's camera

In between doctors and insurance companies, real life goes on. A few bright moments from our week on the farm. 

In her cow-cow jammies

Playing Favorites

In no particular order, these are my four favorite songs..... This is subject to change, although I am fairly loyal. The top one has been on the list since we were still milking cows, as has the bottom one. 

Boolavogue, by the High Kings

The Island, by Skippinish. Peggy loves this one too and asks to sit on my lap and have me play it almost every day. 

Sounds of Silence, by Disturbed. Unlikely I know, but I seem to have to listen to it at least once a day.

And Spring Dance, by our good friend Robert Dennis. I don't have a link for you, but it is about the happiest song I know...cheers me up every time I hear it.

What are your favorites? Seriously, I would really like to know. Could be I will find a new favorite. Thanks

And this one is just a little bonus, because I am so fond of all of you. 

Saving Miss Daisy

You can imagine how things are around here. The phone rings almost continuously, mostly with people who want stuff from us, and none of them talk to the others, so duplication is the word of the day. And there are doctor visits, and the boss isn't driving yet. He is doing better though, thanks. 

Thank God for Liz being willing to drive him and for Alan finding us a good car so we are not stranded. I am comforted that it is another Durango. Say what you will about your gas guzzling SUVs. The old green one was a great car and served every purpose we chose it for. The new one is fancier, but it shares the same useful features plus more.....

Becky has done a lot of walking to and from work...we are both looking for greater fitness so there is an upside to that. Although I worry....she has to pass some pretty unsavory places....

Anyhow, to add to all the fun we came home yesterday to find Daisy with her nictitating membranes up across her eyes.

Darn it. I knew something was up with her the past few days, but she wasn't showing any major symptoms and we are......dealing.....all the time....with stuff....

However, we have been down this road before. The little fool will every now and then decide not to drink. At all. I used to mix her canned food with so much water she had to practically suck it up with a straw, but she hasn't needed that in months.

Back to the drawing board I guess. Liz and I talked about it and she really has no excuse. I wash the doggy water bowl and fill it every day....and so does she....so it gets two good cleanings a day.

Anyhow, she ran out for some Gatorade and I syringed it into the little stinker's mouth about 20 ccs at a rip. Within an hour she was up and running. I mixed her night food with another half a cup and this morning she is back to her old self.

What a weird little dog. I think if we didn't intervene with the Gatorade she would just lie down and die.

Anyhow, hopefully she will continue to recover. Meanwhile, a very happy birthday to the boss's brother, who has one today. 

And top o' the morning to you all. Hope you got your green on.

Yessir, yessir

Bearded Belgian D'Anver Bantams

Three bags full....well, really, one bag, but there is lots left over. 

I love these little birds

The kids had a friend stop by yesterday to shear the ram and ewe they are keeping and to take the other one over to today's sale. 

They also brought home a bum lamb that another friend gave them. I am most glad that it is not me who has to traipse to the barn so many times a day with a bottle of milk. I have been there, done that, and enjoyed it too, but I am still glad it's not me doing it.

Klondike and Echo

Varmints got most of the lovely little chickies the kids were raising, so today was bird moving day. Now the remaining chicks and one hen are in the coop the boss, Alan, and Jade built last winter. We had one like it back in my chicken days and they benefited from the mistakes we made and have an even better one now. I used mine for 20 years or more.

The big Cochins are now in the small free-standing coop right outside the back door. Matt gave it to us a few years back. I love having them out there where I can hear them and see them from the kitchen. The coop is too cold in the winter, but it does them well in summer.

Enough wool for an ostrich nest with some left over....
if ostriches built nests from wool that is

Anyhow, no one has any use for the wool from the sheep, so I grabbed some to put in a mesh bag for bird nesting amterial. I am going to ask Liz to save me a bit in the barn too, so it stays dry so I can put more out later, when the nesting season really gets going. The chickadees are already picking at it!

Winners All

Yup, Candy Crush, before her hair is even brushed in the morning

There were no real losers in the Great Chipmunk Wars.....not, however, because I didn't try.

Liz just walked through the dining room and noticed that one of the birds on a bag of cracked corn that our nice bird seed man gave me last month was moving. Since it was just a printed birdie there was something wrong with that picture.

The next thing I knew she was hollering, "I got the chipmunk, I got the chipmunk," as she hurried through the kitchen in her stocking feet, with the top of the bag squeezed tightly shut. It was rustling wildly though.

She was just going to turn the little monster out on the step, but I wanted it a little farther from the house. I had shoes on so.......Daisy was still markedly uninterested, so Liz suggested I take it up to Ren's run to let her have a go.

Yes, I am just exactly that much of a meanie. Alas, although Ren was game the munk was faster, and so it is now outdoors under the horse barn. 

I would imagine even as you are reading this that it is showing off its big fat belly and bragging to the other chippies about the great restaurant it found. I just hope it turned off its GPS......I can just hear the Garmin lady now......"Proceed due north toward the big white house. Turn right and race across the driveway. Watch out for that hawk.....three hops ahead and turn left at the cement step. Turn left. Turn left.....recalculating......"

I'll bet there are a million sunflower seeds under the hutch, but I'll be darned if I'll move it again.

Tamias Redux

Why, yes, there is still a chipmunk in the dining room.....despite efforts by much of the family that would have made a good reality show if there had been anyone here to film it.

We moved the hutch. The hutch is large and has glass thingies on top of it, which are (very) rarely dusted or moved. They are now dusted. They are now moved. 

Not unlike honey badger, chipmunk don't care.

Becky went upstairs and retrieved her giant black cat, Demon. Demon is such that I was wishing I could use him to dust as opposed to old towels and Clorox wipes. He is fluffy. He is foofy. And large. He is not particularly interested in chipmunks.

Alan stuffed him under the old green desk, whence he emerged indignant, covered with cobwebs and dust, and sans chipmunk. The chippie simply scurried into the front hall, repository for every object that no one has a place for....for two families....it is not tidy.

Thankfully he later returned to the dining room, where at least there is some hope of someday catching him.

While I was sitting here early yesterday morning he knocked over a bag, which knocked over the baby doggy gate, setting Mack into paroxysms of barking. He hates that gate.

Later he sat on the other side of it cheekily staring at Liz as she drank her coffee.

When, after a day of finding and assisting in the installation of a new washer so we can stop paying off the national debt at the laundromat, I was sitting in my Sunday chair, he ran right up to my feet.

Then he ran right under my footstool. While my feet were on it.

There is talk of glue boards and other trap setups, but we must be safe with a toddler in the house. The air gets a bit blue at times.....I used to like chipmunks.

I Wonder Where the Chipmunk Sleeps

Not the ones outdoors They sleep in the hay bales along the foundation, resting up so they can steal sunflower seeds off the bird feeders.

No, I mean the house chipmunk. I was sitting here at the computer early this afternoon, after a morning of general aggravation. Suddenly Daisy hopped up from where she was sleeping by my feet and darted into the dining room. 

I caught just a glimpse of her target.

Something small and dark and scuttle-y.

My first thought was rat. Or mouse. Or something else from the order rodential (class mammalia wouldn't you know.)

It ran into the living room and under the dozens of giant plants I keep there. Daisy was hot on its heels. We moved this and shifted that and cleaned up other clutter, but could only catch tiny glimpses of it. Just enough to know that Tamias Striatus had come to call.

Better than a rat anyhow.

Daisy finally got tired and lost interest. Soon Ralph saw it in the dining room. Good choice. Couple hundred pounds of dog and cat food there. Sunflower seeds. Peanuts. Cracked corn and millet. Yeah, practically perfect.

Daisy is a stinker. It was RIGHT THERE, but when she was done she was done.

We called in Mack. Jack Russell terrier. Born and bred to chase rodents right?

No go; he found and ate two stale potato chips by my chair, ran off with a fair ribbon someone was using as a bookmark, and then widdled on the rug from excitement. What a dog.

And so....I wonder where it is right now....where is it sleeping, waiting to make my life miserable on the morrow when we will need to hunt it down? I wish I knew. I wish it knew that it is supposed to live in deciduous woodlands and not our house. I used to like chipmunks. 

Class Mammalia

I was grumpy this morning, stumping up to the stove. I went along with Liz yesterday on a trip to the auction barn and to meet a couple of chicken and hatching egg customers....she needed a Peggy watcher.... and for some reason it plumb wore me out. 

And then I was greeted, right at the stove, by one of my favorite critters. It appears that the Carolina Wrens are setting up housekeeping in the eaves of the horse barn, right next to the stove. It was fun to watch them noodling around in there and to listen to their friendly chatter.

Geese are still at it by the legions and all the other birds as well. On the trip yesterday, besides the sweet pair of people, we saw two Red-tailed Hawks sheltering side-by-side on a tree branch, only inches between them. They were gently touching beaks as they sat there in the rain....such devotion in such simple creatures.

Mammals are much in evidence as well. The yard is like a 101 level course in what lives here.

Something took a cottontail on the path from the house to the stove last night, right in front of the dog yard. There was nothing left but a thin smear of fluffy fur, from the old chicken house to the Winesap apple tree. I wonder what it was.....I am not particularly possessive of the bunnies....there are many....but if it was a canid it was closer to house, pets, and hens than it needed to be.

Then as I stood at the sink filling dog dishes a mini-bear gallumphed across the lawn from the sheep pen garden to the old hen house foundation. You could tell it has been an easy winter, because it was still fat enough to ripple and flow like water as it made plans to attack the leafy vegetables and eat all the beets. Marmota Monax, a great big woodchuck, already out and about. Yippie skippy. I suppose I should be glad that it's not a real bear.

There is a small brown mouse under the arbor eating bird seed.

The chipmunks are back. 

Alas. 

I have so enjoyed NOT having them on the bird feeders.  Hibernation is one of the few aspects of winter that I like. At least they are smaller than grey squirrels.

We have had deer all winter....they never went south to the yards, but just stayed here on the farm. Not too many of them, but there have been tracks all along. I imagine we will soon have them on the lawn again. They are beautiful, except for the ticks and the garden eating part.

It is nice out though.

 I am sure there will be more cold weather, as is always the case, but the birds and animals are ready for their annual fresh start.

Thus I am not allowed to be grumpy, no matter how sleepy the morning finds me. Suck it up, buttercup, spring is here.

Heart

Saw the sweetest thing today. A man in rustic barn clothes much like we wear most of the time, holding the hand of a tiny, very elderly lady....she barely reached his shoulder, and was stooped and bent with the weight of her years....as he helped her up the steps into their barn. She was dressed in clean work clothes too......

It moved me. I nearly cried as we drove past. How beautiful.

No Woodcock

If we had one I wouldn't be able to hear him over the cardinal chorus, the Carolina Wren, and the chicken clucking of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker anyhow. But I keep listening.

There is a warm spring rain, so light that when I went up to the stove, I didn't really get wet, but I could smell its soft goodness and feel it if I turned up my face.

Caring for the stove. So easy. There is split wood right up next to it. I walk right up in the weather, which has been extraordinary, listen to the birds, thousands, and love being out. There are so many geese down along the river they are like a waving curtain when they get up to fly.

Then I open the door. Carefully, because that is the right way to open a boiler. Let the hot gasses escape before I fling it wide and fling in wood. Ten pieces or so mornings. The same at night. The men split them big enough to hold a fire for eight or  ten hours if I put in a goodly pile, yet small enough that if I am careful I can toss them. You were right, Alan, I am getting biceps. I have always been willing to do this job, but there was never wood....

We all, except the boss, who is housebound for obvious reasons, took the baby up to the horse pond yesterday. So sweet to watch this little flower bloom. She is all farm girl, striding along in her boots, chattering about the trains across the river, "Choo-choo train, choo-choo train!"

And the geese. We were looking at a big skein waving in, but she stomped her boot and pointed straight up, not off at the horizon where we were watching. (Oh, yeah, she has a temper.) "Goose! Goose! Goose!" Sure enough there was a pair right over our heads that we hadn't seen. She knows.

We are doing okay and thank you, every one of you, for the phone calls, visits, and kind words here. By noon I will probably be snarling at insurance companies and their ilk, but for now, peace and plenty. Plenty of firewood, plenty of good food, plenty of good people, and plenty of cardinals, enough for any feast of comfort. 

When only grandma's hand will do

Two Birthday

Princess Thistledown

In and among all the other excitement was Peggy's second birthday. She understands the whole present thing now and is a strong advocate of cake. In fact, she has been promised cake for breakfast this morning.

Even Uncle Alan liked it and he's no fan of cake

There is one piece left.....it is even tastier than it looks....and she earned it more or less. Story about THAT in the comments.

Anyhow, thanks to her other grandpeeps, her mommy and daddy, and her aunts and uncles on all sides of the family, she is well supplied with Paw Patrol stuff and toy horses and a new bike helmet and all. 

She got to experience the library in all its glory yesterday...went right to the shelves and started checking out all the books with animals...."Cow-cow. Pig, pig, pig. Cow-cow."

She knows what she likes!

Man Glitter

These guys came down on Sunday

And helped these guys

Turn all the logs that were left into this

And they all got covered with man glitter

Can't thank any of them enough. Now we can be warm and have hot water.  We had birthday cake after and it was delicious.

Awash in a Sea of Gratitude

While tides of despair tug me to and fro.

There was a terrible accident Friday morning. Ralph had just left to take Becky to work when the fire whistles began to wail and we could hear sirens, many, many sirens. I always worry when I hear them, especially when loved ones are out and about.

And then the phone rang and everything as we knew it changed. Someone had crossed into oncoming traffic and although Ralph evaded as best he could, there are guard rails and there were other cars....nowhere to go

He was coming home to cut wood, meet a hay customer, and work on the floor so we could get a new washing machine. The laundry was piling up. Still is, as far as that goes.

Instantly none of that mattered any more. I thought Becky was with him and was incoherently begging the man who called to tell me if she was all right. Thank God he had already dropped her off. Thank God Jade just happened to have come home from work early. He raced down....this happened maybe two-tenths of a mile from the house. He helped get the boss out of the car, which was jammed and mangled and steaming and smoking.

He got them to let me walk down to be there and got me into the ambulance for the ride, and he and Liz ran crazy getting phone calls made and Becky home and hay customers fended, fires tended, and all that stuff. And for Scott and Jen who came and held my hand which unexpectedly needed it. I am tough, but not that tough.

Alan raced home from NY as did my brother. Everyone, everyone, rallied around and was good to us in more ways than I could list. Yesterday the kids cut wood, and car shopped, and brought food home and tended and cared for everything. And cleaned house too, because there will be people who need to come here and we are an untidy lot, with so many things to do that are more interesting than sweeping and dusting.

Thank you to all of them and to anyone I forgot. We know we have good friends and the best family any one could ask for, and we celebrate them and are grateful every day. However, something like this is a strong, if harsh, reminder of just exactly how fortunate we are.

Ralph also wants to thank the many kind friends and strangers who offered help and strength and comfort and so do I. Neighbors on the fire company who called family to come. EMTs who were gentle and good drivers and so kind. The sweet doctor at the hospital who kept coming in and out of the room exclaiming, "You are a lucky, lucky man."

And nurses, row upon row, who did what nurses do. The police investigator who called after it ended and offered much needed words of kindness and comfort. He was so gentle, and I so needed gentleness. Friends who called and texted and offered to do anything they could to help. So many good people....so much better than the network news would make you think.

So thank you all, and thank you kids and step kids and in-law kids....all good kids, good people, whom I am grateful to know and love......and be loved by too....you guys are the best. 

Prayers for the family of the other gentleman. In time perhaps we will know why and how but for now, just prayers from the heart.

Ralph is home, and can get around with a walker, a far cry from the man who makes hay and firewood and does all our driving, but he is here. That is all anyone could ask for.

Today is Peggy's two birthday, as we call them around here. I am thankful for her other grandma and grandpa, who will be making it a big day for her, and for Aunt Becky, who already made sure she is well supplied with Paw Patrol fun. The best we have to offer is her Pa Pa, who is still here to get hugs and put Nickelodeon on his TV when she comes out to see him.

Bones

Coyotes dragged this set of vertebrae and ribs out in the field, whence I removed them, so they wouldn't end up in the hay machinery. This was a large doe, the one Jade got last fall....and yet all these bones only took two fingers to pick up. It was a surprise to find them to be so light.

The same critters found this Mountain Dew bottle somewhere and played with it
 just like Mack does and then left it in the middle of the hay field too.

Living at the Edge of a River

Crunching along on the river bottom, revealed by the winter draw down of the water
There are millions and billions of Zebra mussel shells covering the entire area...crunch, crunch, crunch
Like walking on popcorn.

Means that if you want to get out of the house for a bit it's about a five minute drive to hundreds of Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks, a few Common Mergansers, sometimes a Scaup, or a Hoodie,  and to bits of amazing American history....the Irish built the Erie you know.... a general good time for all. 

From the North

The boss and I went down last week. You can't imagine how bright the green heads of the mallard drakes are this time of year. They are like little green beacons all over the water and shoreline at sunset. My photos came out kind of blurry, so I didn't share, but the colors were spectacular.

Or South

The aqueduct is always worth a few shots. 

Sunset on the cornfields on the river flats down by the Schoharie is so much more than up here on the hill.

The Schoharie itself boiling over the rocks after recent rains was sure different than its usual flat, grey self.

I love to visit the river.