Fiber Converstion Fire

The girls called from the road down just north of 20 and asked us to put on channel nine to see where the huge fire was. I looked out the window and was stunned. These photos were taken over several hours from the living room window....terrible! The smoke can be seen for many miles at least 30.

Another twenty-something and one fewer teenagers at Northview

Fittingly her gifts so far have been books, books, books and I hear tell there is another in the offing.

Almost a meeting

You will need to click to see how thick the snow was...

Liz and I ran Becky over to college this morning, after milking (and after the motherperson got up at four to finish the Farm Side for Friday), and then headed to Oneonta for a farm meeting (the boss stayed home to calve a cow.).

It was put on by our feed company.
With good speakers.
Brook's Chicken.
Great door prizes. We really wanted to be there.




We hopped on I 88. There was rain predicted. There was squally wind predicted. However, nothing that we heard prepared us. Or not enough anyhow. It was a boy who cried wolf sort of thing. We have canceled several tempting outings this winter because the forecasters called for blizzards and other apocalyptic weather conditions and nothing happened. We decided to ignore them (or I did...Liz wanted to stay home) and we paid the price. The wind was so fierce on 88 that Liz could barely hold the car on the road. We got off onto 7...not much better. We made it to Richmondville, called Becky and told her to skip class, picked her back up and headed home (with a quick detour to Wally World for dog food.)



What followed was 30 or so miles of the worst driving we have seen this winter. It was bad. I have pictures. I didn't take them until it had actually let up some.....The snow was horizontal! Now that we are home it is sunny again.....

****Update...to add insult to injury, not one, but two milk inspectors just stopped in to tell us that our milk hauler will be charging us another $300 bucks a month to haul our milk and we can't change haulers. Milk is about the only commodity where the producer pays the hauling to the buyer. (Everyone but milk buyers pays their own darned shipping and handling.) On the positive side (and there always is one) one inspector said that the barn looked good. Milk inspectors NEVER tell you that your barn looks good. (I think they just didn't want to get us any madder than necessary.)

Blond joke

Someone dear to us sent me this and I thought it very fitting for this weather so.....

As a trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door.
The trucker lowers the window, and she says "Hi, my name is Heather and you are losing some of your load."

The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street.
When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again.
She jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door.

Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they've never spoken, the blonde says brightly, "Hi my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"
Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street.

At the third red light, the same thing happens again.
All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, and knocks on the truck door. The trucker rolls down the window. Again she says "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"
When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light.

When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde.
He knocks on her window, and after she lowers it, he says...
"Hi, my name is Kevin, it's winter in Upstate New York and I'm driving the salt truck!"

Something's brewing

We crawled out of bed a little early this morning because Liz is going to help out on a Farm Bureau membership drive a little later in the day. We were nearly done milking when the sun came up. Its rising was at once ominous and glorious. At first there were bands of purple and sandy tan. Pretty enough, but in a Martian sort of way...the colors were simply not of this earth. Then the strange dullness slowly dissolved into a sea of red so bright that it shone right through the house from the living room to the rippled old glass in the dining room windows. There the red was exuberantly bubbled and wrinkled by the ancient panes until it looked like lava flowing down between the curtains.

The milkhouse wall was stained bright pink for a few seconds too, like a sunlit villa tucked against a hillside somewhere on the Mediterranean. I hurried back into the barn to call everybody out to see, but by the time I turned again the color was gone and the sky had faded all to grey. Because Liz was in a hurry to get Becky over to school (the latter is paying the former for chauffeur duties) the breakfast above is not what we are having today. However, a week ago Sunday was another story altogether. Anyhow, between the red sky at morning and the weather forecasts I guess we have a storm brewing. Sleet. Freezing rain. High wind watch. Bah humbug!

*****Visit Pure Florida today to see the kind of photos of Herkimer Diamonds that someone who knows what they are doing can produce. Mine are feeble by comparison.... even though the stones are just as bright and even somewhat larger.
It is kind of neat to walk outside with a flashlight here at night, as all the Herkimers and slabs of mica from Richter's Mountain sparkle like, well, like diamonds in the night....maybe someday I will get the knack of photographing them.

Reese Cates?

*****UPDATE: I now have much better pics of Reese here and here


Liz says so and he does look like his picture on his fledgling website. I put his picture up because I have had a number of hits from searches for pictures of him....so, here you go, folks.
Here and here are more pics of Reese

Also one of my favorite blogs has gone private access. Not sure what to think about that, since I am not one of the folks permitted to read it. Guess I will have to take the link down, but I really hate to do it. It was one I visited almost every day and really liked a lot.

More PBR Albany

Travis Briscoe won it all. There were 31 successful rides for an all time highest record and so many 90 point rides in the short go that guys with 90 points (6 of 'em) were fighting for third and forth place.
Amazing!

One real bad, heart wrenching wreck....Vince Northrup..that's why I don't go to more rodeos. I was praying every one of those guys from the chute, to the ride, safely off and back. It is just so horrible when they get hurt.

Liz's and my favorite, Cord McCoy

Another favorite, Kody Lostroh

Becky's favorite, Luke Snyder

PBR in Albany

(Or, watching your kid on TV is really cool.)

Photo stolen from Liz, taken at Vernon Downs last summer

The Professional Bull Riders Association came to Albany last night and brought along some great bulls and even greater cowboys. Such famous names as Travis Briscoe, Guillerme Marchi, Paulo Crimber (who danced and Liz has video) and Adriano Moraes were right here in upstate New York and riding their best.
Liz had a ticket for a seat not far from the chutes. At nine-thirty it was televised on Versus and of course we watched.

She really got lucky too. It was one of the best rodeos I have ever seen. Lots of good rides, (although nobody hit ninety), no really awful wrecks. My heart jumped right up in my throat though when Reese Cates' bull nearly flipped over forward (his face was digging into the ground) and Reese had to put his hand right down in the dirt to save himself from falling under him. Close one!

Cord McCoy, who is Liz's favorite, (and a really nice boy-we met him at Turning Stone) had a great ride for fourth place. She got to talk to him for a minute at the end which was nice too. (He encouraged her to buy a baby bucking bull though, which plumb makes me ner-r-r-r-v-ous....she is just the kid to actually do it.) I love to see Cord do well, partly because he came out of a terrible injury to do what he loves with a zest that is contagious. You never see him without an ear to ear grin.

Anyhow, all through the show we scanned the stands for her. We knew she was right down front and right near the chutes. Sure enough Alan soon spotted her..... taking pictures for BuckinJunction. I kept trying to watch for her too, but the action in front of the chutes kept distracting me.

Tonight the second go round and short go will take place (well, really this afternoon). Liz has tickets for today too.

And....(dum dad dum dum)..........One of them is mine...(we earned this trip by milking cows for five weeks without so much as a milking off when the boss was hurt....there will be no whining from the cheap seats). So if you watch Versus at nine tonight you can look about five rows back right by the chutes for the excited cow girl with the camera and the old lady with her hands over her eyes. See you there.

Iditarod

The start of the race is fast approaching, so here is a link to Cabela's Iditarod site. It is the one I use to keep track of things. I will put it in the blogroll until the race is done so it will be right here handy.

My personal favorite is Jeff King. He is an amazing innovator and this year is no exception. He will take to the trail with a cooker in his sled handlebars so he can have warm food on the trail. Cool...er, hot.... (BTW, to whom it may concern...King is 50).

Looks as if at this point there are 111 mushers entered, which will be a mighty large field.

Garth Brooks benefit concert

Liz and I stayed up past our bedtime to listen to the concert Garth gave to benefit California wildfire victims. We heard some of our favorite songs, but others were preempted for commercial breaks, which seemed interminable....as in one song, ten commercials. We are about to give up and go to bed when Friends in Low Places came on. We both stood there waiting to see if he did the third verse.

He did, so all was redeemed. It was worth waiting through all the commercials.
It made me sad to read that he really means to retire after finishing the series of benefit concerts. I hope the lure of the stage proves too strong though and he continues to perform at least occasionally. One of my dearest friends always meant to take me to see him, but passed away before we got the chance. I have always regretted that we didn't manage it.......Beaches of Cheyenne came out and I heard it for the first time on the way home from a dog training outing with her. I couldn't wait to ask her what she thought of it, as I liked it immediately. Sadly I never got the chance to ask that question either as I never saw her again. It was a very hard time...at that point in my life I had never lost anyone so close to me and the pain was darned near unendurable... that song will probably always bring me poignant memories. (and of course it was one of the ones they cut in half for commercials.)

Today was a good day though. We began the day laughing ourselves half sick over I don't remember what and ended up laughing over that third verse. I guess there are worse things than a day bracketed with laughter (even though in the middle of it we had to clean out a cave in of bridged feed in our grain bin, a long, miserable job, which involved hammers, mallets, screwdrivers, shovels and four of us...ugh.)

Gestation Stalls in Nebraska

Below is the text of an email I received today from Trent Loos. I was delighted to read that HSUS finally pitted their propaganda machine against the farmers and ranchers in a predominantly agricultural state. Usually they win dubious victories in states where there are few farms. Research has shown that pigs are not much affected by how they are housed but emotion will overrule science every time if the animal rights fringe gets into the deal.

"Victory was realized today for American consumers when science was recognized rather than rejected. Within 24 hours of introduction, LB 1148, which would have banned gestation stalls in the state of Nebraska, was withdrawn thanks to the charge led by the Nebraska Pork Producers.

Initiatives such as this have the potential to bring about unity within the agricultural community that has been needed for quite some time."

A personal thanks to Wayne Pacelle and the Humane Society of the United States for creating this unity opportunity."

Milking Shorthorn Holstein cross calf

Here is one we had born a couple of weeks ago. (I wanted to take his coat off, but it is pretty cold this morning.) As any of you who visit here regularly know, for the past three years or so we have kept a milking shorthorn bull to breed heifers. It has worked out quite well, but the boss has taken a good deal of flack from folks who are puzzled by our choice. It is not common in this area, although many people keep Jersey bulls and black Angus bulls for their dairy heifers. We have done so in the past, but wanted to get away from those breeds because of temperament issues (here in the east Angus tend to be mean as stirred up snakes) and the low value of half-Jersey calves.

Then I saw the our bull on the internet. I fell right in love with him. He was a beautiful mahogany color with little white snowflake-like spots all over him as a baby. It took nearly a year, but we got him bought and brought him home.

We just sold him a couple of weeks ago and actually got more than we paid for him. Now we just have to go up to Vernon and pick up the semen from him, then we can AI the pen of heifers we are breeding now. The calf in the picture was a terrific surprise though. Most of the crossbreds have been black or mostly black, with only two other red ones in all the time we had him. We had no idea that Licorice, his mother, was a red carrier, but it is kind of neat. We are keeping him and he will be raised for beef for our freezer.

Anyhow, I have mentioned the shorthorn cross thing in the Farm Side a time or two over the years....and, just the other day, the boss was driving by a farm in the area covered by the paper where they run beef bulls with the dairy cows (don't ask) and there, in place of the usual gigantic Hereford, was a milking shorthorn bull. Hmmmmm

We just had a crossbred heifer born this morning and she was up and walking around the barn when we got in at 5:30. Surprising since the boss checked at 11:30 last night and nothing was happening. The new one is plain black though. Guess Pop Tart probably doesn't carry the gene for red.

Tucker

I finally found the dog pictures I have been looking for. This is Tucker, a lab and junk yard dog cross we got for the boss way back before we were married. He will be featured in this week's Farm Side on Friday and maybe here too if I get a chance. He was a good dog. A very good dog...we still miss him all these years later.

Faded photographs

I have been looking for some specific photographs of a certain dog who used to rule here (he needs a nice Northview memorial post)....I simply can't find them, but here are some that I came across during the search. As any of you who know us will see..........we have aged.......

I am very nervous

We have to load the pigs today....I'll let you know how that turns out.....


****Update....here we go...

The bait

The arrangements for moving from home trailer to travel trailer.

Don't wanna

More bait

Done

Then, right across the driveway...

For some reason the pigs look small and cute in these pictures. Blame it on the camera, because really, they are much larger than they seem. Meaner too. They bite and try to knock you down if you are in charge of feeding...which we were when the boss was hurt. their tenure here has been fraught with pig induced peril to the point where they were the stars of two Farm Side columns when they got out and ran through the cows, down to the road....and just about everywhere else.

Today, two loaded quite well. The third...not so much. He wouldn't come out of the trailer for milk or corn or coaxing. The other two were barking and squealing up a storm in the front half of the travel trailer, which didn't calm him down either. We were under an unexpected deadline as the guys over at Nichols were only going to be there to take them in for an hour and we didn't know it until just before we started the loading process. I am very grateful for Martin Luther King Day, which, besides closing schools, afforded us tons of help, mostly used for gophering. (Gopher corn. Gopher string.)

Finally the boss tried the time honored method of moving a reluctant hog. (Gopher a bucket). He put a white pail over the pig's head and backed him out of one trailer and over to the other. Even that took a few interesting turns as the pig ran between his legs (big pig...almost a disaster), lay down in the pig feeder, and generally made his opposition known. Eventually we had them loaded though, along with more corn for getting them back off the trailer, the trusty white bucket in case they get stubborn and don't want to get off and some sand, since the driveway at Nichols is always icy. Now I am just hoping the trip goes well.

Irony

Does anyone else see the irony in a former gun-control advocate getting arrested for gun law violations? And check out his nick name...so perfectly fitting...

Dreaming over a lawsuit?

Mike

Or simply happy that the sun warms the dining room floor just there and he can steal Grandpa's old sweater and the quilted baby blanket from where they block the drafts coming under the hallway door and grab a snooze on a cold afternoon? You be the judge.....


****UPDATE on the sue-age thing.....monkeys can't.....yet.....

A man who wants to give animals the right to sue us

And has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee. Be scared....very scared.

Lawence Tribe

Sarpy Sam Obama Animal Rights

(How's that for a string of words?)

One of my very favorite bloggers, whose opinions I have come to greatly respect, has a rather frightening post today about Barack Obama's stance on animal rights. Sarpy Sam says it better than I can, but Obama's position illustrates a classic farmer/rancher dilemma. We probably understand our animals better than anyone who isn't a farmer or a rancher. After all, we live with them and their very lives depend upon our good care. We wouldn't work at such a challenging job if we didn't love them. Yet every Tom, Dick and Harriet in Hollywood and Washington wants to tell us how to do our jobs.

Kitties on the garden pond two by two

Wait a minute! There's Max, but where did Teak go?



******Update-there she is!