Happy Birthday Becky

Wishing our middle kid, the caretaker who watches over all of us, a wonderful day. I know it's kinda hard to do when you are super-duper sick, but I hope you will try to have a good one.

Love you!

Gift of the Woods

Sunday mornings are quiet here in the valley. Less traffic and all. As I stood in the creaking, crispy, cold-as-all-get-out snow this morning,  Mack quivering with excitement over something over the mulberry trees, I was able to hear it.

A single Great-horned Owl hooting from the cherry woods in the heifer pasture. Lovely to have something make your day so early.

Don't know what something was. Probably a bunny, but it was awful loud for one. See above though. Sounds are ever so much more audible when the cars and trucks are still. Maybe there will be tracks in the fresh fallen snow once the sun comes up.

For now I'll be thankful for the distant song....

Hard to Find

Exciting birds this time of year, but we have searched out a few. A Common Redpoll on the feeder. Just one, but nice to see.

More Cooper's Hawks and Rough-legged Hawks than I have ever seen before, sometimes three or four of each on a single short drive.

And this young Red-tailed Hawk we found last night down at Schoharie Crossing SHS. He didn't want to fly and only sailed a few feet above the ground maybe a quarter of the way down the little alfalfa field there.

After that he walked. As you can see his (or her) crop is pretty full and he is wet as a bird can get, so maybe that was all that was wrong. Dunno. We contacted a local rehabber. Not much else we could do.

Finn is becoming a fine squirrel deterrent btw. He wants them and they would prefer not to meet him.

Any thoughts on this weird little guy? Clearly a White-throated Sparrow..
But what's with all those stripes? Only one like this.

No Straying Today

Nasty out there. Ice. Rain. Fog. Roads closed all over the place. Accidents everywhere. Ugh. I didn't even ride down to the river with the boss and Becky this morning.

Had good talks with two very dear family members over the past couple of days though. I am still feeling the warm and happy. Music and childhood memories.....Love you Mom and Michael.

Now I am making applesauce out of apples we bought last fall at our favorite orchard....and listening to the eclectic mix of music on my phone. Thanks Becky...

1000 to 1

To be the title of this week's Farm Side. As in, one word could describe an entire thousand about the EAT-Lancet report.

Links to research:

Pork take

Psychology stand

Spectator

Drovers  (my favorite)

More stuff

Still more

Farming UK

Let's just say that it is pretty darned easy to find a plethora of material debunking the whole premise that we should give up meat and dairy for a vegan diet....even in the words of the study's main author. "In principle, the ideal study would take 100,000 people and randomly assign some to eating several servings of red meat a day and randomize the others to not consume red meat and then follow them for several decades."

But they didn't do that.

Bah humbug

The Winter that Waited

The doom hawks were out in force yesterday

Checking in safe from Winter Storm Humbug......

It took until the middle of January for winter to gain any traction, but it is going hard now and looks like a full pull.

I had to push firmly to get the back door open this morning and poor Mack had a puppy asthma attack from breathing the fluff, because the snow was up to the chest of a big Border Collie. A little higher than that on a Jack Russell Terrier but he really couldn't wait for me to shovel a path.

Then it rained and sleeted and now gigantic flakes are falling thick and fast. All styles of winter precipitation while you wait.

Meanwhile Jade is still recovering and will be a long time doing so. Thinking mid-summer. Liz is relief milking on a neighboring dairy. Peggy has a nasty bug and we all feel really sorry for her. The kids bank account got hacked...second one in the family this month. You would think the banks would figure out how to prevent that. Situation normal afu.

Yup. Fun and games in every direction. At least, utterly coincidentally, Becky has the weekend off so the boss doesn't have to drive to town for a bit. Good deal.

The Letter P

Okay, I know..... it's O for Opossum.
But here in the bOOnies we call 'em 'Possums

Perky Peregrine

From yesterdays pursuits

RePeat of 'Possum

Fire and Ice

Burning leftover board ends

Cutting Ice

Ice Saw

Amish Prius

Lonesome Kittyhawks

We went down to the river the other day...we go almost every day. It's worth it when you see at least six, and really probably ten, Bald Eagles all in one place at one time.

Anyhow, as soon as we parked the boss said, "Look at all those cats."

I did and saw two yellow ones, my favorite color of cat btw. There are often cats there, usually yellow or black ones. Someone must have such cats nearby.

But he said, "Look, there are black ones, and yellow ones, and some other kinds too."

What! All I could see were one marmalade and one light golden one. But then the rest emerged from where they were hidden from me by the doorpost of the car. Cats everywhere on the opposite shore of the Schoharie. Eight of them!! At least. One was even Siamese colored.

When I got out of the car to look for birds down at the confluence I could hear them crying and howling. Many of them were right out on the ice. I have to assume that they belong to the black and yellow cat people whomever they are, but they sure didn't think much of the river.

I felt kind of sad for them and hope they had a home to go back to and quickly found their way to it. And that the eagles don't notice them first, in all their bright and lovely colors down there on the cold, silver surface of the river.

Of Priorities and Grocery Bags

When we were struggling dairy farmers, whose world was colored by need versus want, and loving cows and land, our priorities were different.

Boots for people were important but sometimes paying feed bills and having groceries was importanter. Thus when someone's otherwise still  functional rubber barn boot sprang an unplanned leak we took action for traction rather than running to the store for new ones. After all....all that rubber in landfills and all....Sometimes boots that were darned near brand new got leaky. Frustrating indeed.

However, a plastic grocery bag placed over warm socks....or a bread wrapper....bread wrappers work too, although they are kinda weak these days....rendered the boots functional long after the leak began. Sometimes all winter. Bags used in such a manner quickly wore out but we always had new ones to replace them.

Recycling. Farmers do it every day whether it is feeding the cows good stuff, then spreading the result out on the land to grow more good stuff for them, or composting household leavings...it is taken for granted on a farm. I am not saying all farmers put bags in their boots to save them, but I know there are a lot of people hoarding them right now because they use them again and again. 

We have two sacks full in the pantry, saved against various needs. When they run out I guess we will have to buy stuff for those purposes, which I suppose may be the end goal these days...spend, spend, spend. Or maybe bread wrappers will do those jobs until they outlaw those as well.

Meanwhile, I don't think our scattershot governor, spraying new laws willy-nilly and rewriting NY in ink that he calls "Bold", ever had to worry about which bill to pay first or how to get the kitty litter to the curb. Or wet feet either. I am sure if his boots spring a leak someone sees to new ones for him. 

Oh, well, we will adapt. That is something else that farmers do quite well.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to corn based plastics? I once had a wonderful pen made of corn and at the farm shows they gave out....you guess it....bags that were made out of corn plastic rather than petroleum based plastic. Said to be biodegradable and everything.

Research Redux

Evening sky just as it was at Schoharie Crossing the other day

Does it seem as if I am repeating myself a lot lately.....?

First, best news, I was rejected as a juror before I made it five feet into the collecting corral....er....room. To say that that made my day....nay, my entire week....is not saying too much.

We celebrated with a little birding, although new species seem to be pretty thin these days. Lots of Canada Geese though. Lots and lots.

The Farm Side is finally done and sent, so here are a few research links I thought you might enjoy.

Wanna buy a duck

The Duck Guy

Prez at AFBF convention

Wanna buy a duck to support Fonda-Fultonville School FFS? Yeah, go ahead. you know you want a duckie! Personally I want to know how to buy one of the retired ducks. Rubber duckies have always been favorites of mine, and after this event even more so.

Now to play catch-up with the other stuff I need to do.

Another evening, this time the "Noses" also unedited

Dread Redux

Not-an-owl An extra dark Rough-legged Hawk masquerading as somebody exciting

So today's the day. Off to the chilly courthouse to be herded around and told what to do. Ugh. Up early to get an eBird list done before the day begins too. I haven't missed submitting at least one list for 743 days and I don't want to let this stop me. The first Northern Cardinal will show up on the little round tray feeder just before dawn and the winter sparrows won't be far behind him....

What a morning though... I thought I might have heard a Great Horned Owl while still abed so I didn't turn the yard light on while walking doggos. The stars... Oh, the many glittering cold-hearted beautiful stars.... Imagine how they look up in the Adirondacks far from all the light pollution of the towns and villages.

Red-tailed Hawk, fluffed against the cold

Venus for the second morning in a row is brighter than the lights of the village across the river, like a big hole in the darkness letting the light shine through. The air is as still and silent as the inside of the fridge before you open the door.....only colder....

No owl though. Still, I am 90 some odd percent sure that the two hoots I heard were a GHOW so I will be watching and listening. Tis the season for love and joy among the big predatory birds. We have the above sort on the farm and have as long as I've been here. Doesn't mean we often see them though. Maybe another morning.

Look! A Moose! Or at least a moose shadow

Dread

Traffic jam in Upstate NY

So.....I've been called for jury duty here in our home county for next week. I do not "people" well at all and can't begin to tell you my level of dread.

Suffice to say I am in a state of fretting well out of proportion to the real threat here.

But....who among our local friends and neighbors knows what the rules are for taking reading material along? The last time I was called upon e Readers were not invented yet.

However, we had to sit in the nearly empty courtroom for hours waiting for things to happen. I took a "dead tree" (thank you to my favorite author, J. A. Jance, for that term) book along and attempted to read that. Now I read on my NOOKs for the most part.

 I have two. But can I bring one? Will I be allowed to use it? Or must I peruse the stacks upstairs of tomes both recent and ancient (including a good many by the author above) for something to tuck in my purse to engage the frantic gerbils on the tiny wheel in my mind while I sit there filled to overflowing with the panic of proximity?

Thousands want to know. Or at least I do.

Thanks!

False Witness

There were at least sixty of these in the yard today. They were devouring fruit and delivering misleading information.

The Things you See

Sunset the other day

With jury duty looming next week and tax time hard upon us, I have been and will be pretty busy. When you don't even file for months on end it can get pretty awful in the little room I hate the most.

Lyker's Pond is not very inviting

Wonky Raccoon the other night
Rabid or just ......

The Amish are grazing their herds in the picked over cornfields

In fact I call it the awfice. 

The old cow barnyard is now pretty much a wood yard

So, here are a few photos of the things we have seen, just to pass the time.

A little Amish family walking to a skating party. There were two cute
little girls in that wagon

A hot one!

Hill Therapy

I can't remember the last time I was able to get out on the land so early in the year. 

There were plenty of open winters back in the '70s. A good friend and I went trail riding on our horses almost every weekend. I was even able to take a New Year's Day ride several years and pick Johnny Jump Ups too.

However most winters since then have been much colder and more confining. 

Our hills are so steep that if ice and snow aren't an issue then mud is. However this morning's 12 degrees gave the mud a bit of backbone, and although there was ice it was easy to step over it or pick my way across on stones and grass. In the down vest department I was overheated, while on the facial front it was more like frozen.

Not many birds around, although a Common Raven came croaking and creaking right over the barnyard. Then he spotted me and took his leaving, swiftly north on cantilevered wings and gone. There were Eastern Bluebirds calling, "Queedle, Queedle" from both sides of the farm and down in front as well.

Halfway up the hill the camera battery went dead. Dagnabbit. I meant to put one in my pocket before going out, but the dog needed to be walked urgently and I forgot. If there is no photo it didn't happen right?

But, aha! The cell phone where bird lists are created has a camera. It isn't exactly the sweet little Canon, but desperate times and all....

Thus I can share a little of the sheer relief of getting out and going up....out on the land....up on the hills....

I only made it to the 30-acre Lot, but it was good. Very good.

And btw, Jade is home. He has a long recovery and more surgery ahead of him, but he is back with his family at least.