There's Always a Story

Whenever we can we shop for the folks. Saves them going out and getting stuff to the car and from the car and fighting icy parking lots and all that kind of thing.

Today was one of those days.

A Friday.

I think it was also some kind of special payday because the store was crammed with people, most of whom missed out on Manners 101.

By the time we got to the checkout I was grumpy.

 I admit that grumpy is my default setting and it doesn't take much to return me to that spot, but let's just call it extra grumpy.

There were only five clerks running checkouts; self-checkout was clogged with a dozen carts, so we picked a line and waited.

And waited.

And waited. 

The boss hurt his hip and it was about killing him. He is not a lean-on-the-cart kind of guy normally but today he kinda had to. 

I enjoy the casual, and perhaps ill-mannered, habit of sneaking a peek into other people's shopping carts while shopping, especially after twenty minutes in line. 

Speaking of stories....carts tell them you know.

The lady in front of us had a number of huge bags of pet food, tons of cleaning supplies, and several small blankets.

And dog toys.

I speculated to myself....I'll bet those are for a shelter. How nice....

Finally her turn came to check out. She was obviously a pro at getting multiple large items scanned and quickly and as she flopped bags and flipped bottles, I overheard her speak to the checker.

Seems her father had passed away several years ago. Today would have been his birthday. Since she couldn't buy him a gift any more, she and her three cute youngsters hit the mall and bought a big pile of things for the shelter dogs and cats.

I congratulated her on such a selfless and wonderful act and she said...."oh, don't make me cry."

I gotta tell you, she wasn't the only one with tears in her eyes.

See there's always a story, even in a humble shopping cart in a crowded Friday noon mall.

Flipping

Black-capped Chickadee

Northern Cardinal

American Goldfinch

Eastern Bluebird

The bird (s)....no disrespect intended, of course....

In Summertime

I sit becalmed 

in trackless heat and rude humidity....

and dream of....

........anything but winter..

Anything at all...

In summer I allow no thoughts of winter to intrude.

It is as if six months or even eight vanish into a magician's cabinet never to emerge on the stage in my mind.

Looking out on sun baked green I hold at bay all thoughts of wide, white wilderness where nothing walks but the ice cold wind.

It is just as well to do the same for summer in winter, though harder. Imagining green only leads to wistfulness...

However, along about February, when it ought to be spring but isn't, damn the torpedoes, here's some summer.

You Can no Longer Say

Last night's giant super moon

Moonset this morning

That you have never been mooned.....

I Should have Known Better

Jack Russell Terriers come straight from the factory with the recall button replaced by the enthusiasm pump. They are enthusiastic about everything from yellow snow to green cow poo. However, they are selectively deaf and only know their names if there is a treat involved. That they grab quick and run away.

But still. I can sometimes get away with letting Mack run loose for a few minutes when the snow is deep and the temperature is low. Those dangly bits are pretty close to the ground and all.

This morning I was trying to write. I get paid to write...at least sometimes....and I was really into it.

The dogs decided they needed to go out.

Again.

So I put the leash on Finn...much more fur and higher off the ground...and let the little one run.

Great plan.

He instantly vanished. But for the highways nearby I would have let him. However, I didn't want to ruin anyone's day by putting him in their path. Otherwise he would eventually get cold and come barking at the door.

Instead I heard him barking down by the heifer barn. Tracks said there was also a cat. We have no cats, but evidently one has us. He was alternately barking at a hole the snow and jumping the fence to run down the hill.

I tried to lure him closer with a cough drop. Alas, although he is a greedy dog,  he is not stupid.

The cough drop was a fail.

The whole deal was a fail. I had on crocs without socks. Adequate to stand in the shoveled path with dogs. Not so much in ankle deep snow. 

The little creep kept coming back to check out the cough drop just in case it had somehow morphed into a sirloin steak, but alas, it was still just cherry and menthol. 

I knew I HAD to get my hands on him before he headed down to the road. He has no car sense atall...well actually no any kind of sense atall but...

There in a tree on the other side of the fence in deep, deep snow was a duck skin. See that weasel I wrote about a couple months ago got in the barn and killed all but a couple of my very favorite poultry...the Call Ducks. Evidently something had made off with a skin and left it dangling.

I climbed up the bank and leaned way, way out over the waist-deep snow and managed after several tries to get my hands on the flimsy scrap of feathers, lamenting the late duck as I did so. I really loved those ducks. Quacky little sillies all noise and flutter....

Then I basically fell off the bank into the barnyard.

I shook the thing at the dog. 

He was on it in a flash and I was on him even quicker. I lugged him back up to the house on frozen feet, while he wagged and smiled and was happy as a pig in mud. 

He is in his crate now contemplating the error of his ways (letting me catch him before he caught the cat and ate the duck skin) while my feet thaw and a second cup of coffee soothes this savage beast. Dogs...ya gotta love 'em. Sometimes more than others.

Eaves Akimbo

Roof shadows lean on the barn siding, poured across gravel and snowfield by the porch light.

Sad ghosts of frozen water buckets dot slumping snowbanks, mere skeletons of robust ice blocks that had to be half-thawed before they could be banged out of the buckets. But for the coming storm they would have been gone, exorcised by the howling wind and sometimes apricity of the late winter season. A new word for me this year, but a welcome one full of love and promise. Soon the snow will cover those ghosts preserving them for the next round of sunshine.

A seething snake of a water hose snarls itself in the bathtub. Animals come first in the farm world and if you have to postpone your shower so the sheep can drink, well, too bad for you. They are thirsty.

Hoses and buckets are constant chores in winter no matter how warm and cozy the barns.

The East Wind is already getting frisky all these hours before sunup and storm-due. Best send the boss to town for extra milk and eggs.And soon.

A storm is coming.

But hark! Lo! On yonder street side, down in the village in TWO places yesterday, we saw the first sapcicles of the season. Snuggled up against the river there the maples are warm enough for the sap to begin to run. It's a sign. I know it is.

As yet Unresolved

Many of last week's issues that is. No idea why. Meanwhile we are all a little bit better, thankfully, enough so that I even cooked yesterday...Italian Sausage Soup. Going to take a chance and take some up to the folks. Big storm coming....they can probably use some soup.

Birding has been okay. Got a Merlin yesterday, always a really hard one for me...only saw two last year. And a Common Grackle. Those are not nearly hard enough to find, but he was at least the first of the year.

Meanwhile, they can talk about how cruel April is all day long, but for me February is almost as bad as it gets. Kinda like a second December only colder.

Ugh.

Almost

At my wit's end. And the only reason I haven't quite reached that point is that I am too old and too sick to take the hop, skip, and jump I would need to get there.

The house is still a hot bed of fevers, sore throats, coughing, and assorted other miseries. I am still an unwilling participant in all.

After over two weeks. ...So is Becky. And Liz. Jade is recovering slowly but he will not be better until after another surgery and another long round of recovery. 

Thus when I attempted to send in my newspaper column, assuming that the folks in charge had received it, I was chagrined to get a note that they had not.

Sent it again with the same assumption. You know what they say about the word assume, right?

I have no idea if anyone at the paper has seen it and the only way I can find out, since email doesn't seem to be working, is to call on an actual telephone during business hours. Small thing, but important to me on a personal...and financial...level.

Meanwhile our boy's bank account was hit again. Don't know how they are getting his card number but this is getting really, really old. His job keeps him on the road all week, all over America. He needs the darned thing. We just got it straightened out a couple of weeks ago and now, here we go again. I end up doing all the dirty work as he has my name on the account so I can monitor it for him and I have all the paperwork and numbers handy. 

Thus disgruntled doesn't begin to describe the beginning of this day. It is still too early to do anything about anything so I will sit here and wheeze and drink coffee and whine.

Thanks for reading.

One of These Days

Schoharie Crossing State Historical Site

We WILL all feel better. Not yet though. Peggy is mostly over it and back to her usual frisky, funny self. Liz is still miserable and Becky and I are best not mentioned. Bah humbug.

However, this weird, spring-like weather is nice, isn't it? Kinda muddy and soggy around the edges, but after all that bitter cold and cast iron ice it is a treat.

Birding it is a treat even in the depth of winter

Been seeing some nice ducks on the river. I have been given to understand they come down here when the big northern lakes freeze, but I'll take 'em any way I can get 'em. Saturday we saw a single Long-tailed Duck diving among the mass of Mallards by the truck stop. Yesterday a sleepy Redhead floating among the Mallards and American Black Ducks was all the Super Bowl I needed. Nice birds for so early in the year.

However, I totally hate not being able to cook for my folks and help with their shopping and errands....don't dare take this bug to visit them though. Double bah humbug.

Not much else to report. When no one feels well only the bare minimum of stuff is done and not very well at that.

You could read this though and see what you think....I think it is madness! As the boss says, imagine housing a giraffe!

The Redhead with two Mallards

The Things you See

Been the kind of sick this week wherein rest was required between donning sock one and doing the same for sock two. Sometimes a fairly long rest.

Since Peggy was sick for at least ten days, missed over a week of school and is still coughing terribly, and Liz ditto except for the school part, I am not expecting a full recovery any time soon.

At least I am well enough to get out of the house a little and even to want to....but I am not yet eager for much of anything but morning coffee. And only one cup of that.

Btw, speak not to me of flu shots. The whole Schultz clan had them and were if anything sicker than the rest of us. So this is either not flu, although with the fevers and gripping pains it feels like it....or it is not the flu covered by the jab.

Oh, well. The boss hauled me out a few times this week...and please pray that he doesn't get it...he already took a nasty tumble, head first down a bank while putting wood in the stove...he doesn't need this darned bug.

And we had a lot better week than some folks not far from us, who lost a large cow barn night before last. We bought bulls from these good folks and knew them from farm events and the like for years and years. I feel terrible for them.

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.