Farms Keep NY Green

Last week World Dairy Diary (which is fast becoming the go-to place for breaking news on the dairy industry) posted a great video about dairy farming put out by people who know the real story about dairying. This week they have a post about the billboards which are being placed here to tell the truth about our business.

And it is the truth. Despite the absurd price situation they are facing right now, farmers across the state and the nation are doing anything thing they can to stay on the land and keep their animals. Some simply can't, but quitting is a tremendous, life-altering heartbreak. I thank the New York Animal Agriculture Coalition for the campaign and WWD for keeping me informed about it. See both the billboards and the video at the NYAAC site.

BTW, Senator Charles Schumer, accompanied by Kirsten Gillibrand and a number of other senators, followed through on a promise made to farmers at a local meeting, which Liz and I attended a short time ago. If you read my post about that meeting you will see a little John Deere back pack, which accompanied the cutest farm boy you could imagine. His mom, with whom my kids did dairy judging and dairy quiz bowl over the years, asked the senator to find a way to provide foreclosure protection for farmers akin to that being offered to homeowners.
Schumer said he would look into it.
Apparently he did so and I thank him for it. Farms are falling like dominoes around here and believe me, Northview is far from immune to what is happening. It costs roughly $16 to make 100 pounds of milk (around 11 gallons). We are getting paid around $9. I don't care how many cows you own, that is a losing proposition. We love our cows and our land. We want to keep doing what we do. I hope we can.

***(Liz talked to a kid in Texas yesterday about dairy farming down there. He told her there isn't a cow left for miles around, due partly to the price situation and partly to drought. Empty buildings and pastures everywhere. Beef farmers aren't in a much better situation there either. This is a crisis. Growing food is not something you just walk out and do. There is a tremendous amount of knowledge involved in care of the land and the creatures. America's farmers are aging fast. If they can't make a living and pay their mortgages and raise their families they are going to quit. The Soviet Union is still importing huge quantities of food because they killed their farmers and put people who didn't know how on the land. Zimbabwe is suffering a crisis of staggering proportions because they killed or displaced their farmers and put people who didn't know how in their place. I hope this nation learns from their experience. Before it is too late....which may be sooner than expected.)

The Birds are Back

Yesterday was another wild one. We had about every kind of weather they make for late winter here in NY.
The sun shown.
It rained.
It snowed.
It was cold and dark.
The sun came out again. Our little creek could be heard from the house as it enthusiastically moved melt water downhill.

The stove needed some TLC around noon so I went out with some assorted kindling material (denim scraps from quilting burn quite enthusiastically). As I stood in front of it amid drizzle and flakiness I heard a sweet singer, first of his kind for the year. Normally a few song sparrows hang around all winter. For the past several years a very tame one rummaged round the heifer barn yard, singing right at us from the fence as we walked by and fluttering out from under the truck right at our feet. However, this year I haven't seen one since maybe last November. I think the tame one may have died or moved along, because the one singing at the stove was different. Lighter colored with a much different song. However, it sang from the same perches as the old one and seemed to want to cheer me up, as it circled right around me, trying out trees and bushes for a new sound stage.

From behind the hill I could hear hundreds of red winged black birds, the biggest flock yet this year (and only the second one I have seen or heard). They set up a din back there as long as I was moving logs and shoveling ashes.

Geese are back too. I think this is the first recent winter that even the resident geese were forced to move south as I haven't seen any in months. There are still only a handful, a gaggle here, a pair there, but I am sure before long there will be thousands. Soon we will have robins, although they seem to show up quite late here on the south side of the river. This is kind of a hard time of year, trying to get by with only one tractor and praying that it doesn't get stuck (no way to tow it out.). Calving is starting so Liz won't be getting much sleep, although the boss will do the midnight checks and she will nap daytimes. Milk prices are so bad I have never seen worse. Four farms off our truck are out of business now and another neighbor sold out to the Amish.

The birds don't care. They are burning their bridges and getting ready to nest, devil take the weather. Maybe they know something we don't.

Global warming here at Northview Farm.
And here is a good post on the topic at Carpe Diem. Be sure and check out the comments.

Wild Weekend (no not that kind)

The Tower

What a weekend we had here at Northview! Saturday started out pleasantly warm and calm with a few sunny breaks in general cloudiness.
Outdoors was the place to be.
I dug out the door of Nick's run so he soon can get some exercise without endangering the old sheep and channeled some running water away from the back porch.

Probably not what you expect to see in Upstate NY,
but Liz says ice floes are building up against the bridge in town...

Then just after the sun went down a BIG thunderstorm hit. Alan and I were on the bridge when lightning flashed bright pink all around us. He hit the dirt, as he is terrified of it (with good reason) and I almost tossed my umbrella.

It was pouring.

Remember the three feet of ice on the bridge and in the barnyard? It was deep enough to channel the entire flow of water off the barnyard and probably some off the hill right in through the barn doors. Water was running across the floor into the gutters several inches deep and flowing out onto the platform and into the milkhouse. The girls started milking while Alan and I went out to shovel, scrape, scoop and dam (and damn) with assorted tools, up to and including the skid steer.

Eventually we got the flood diverted and the water indoors receded to where it didn't quite reach the cow beds.

Outside the big windows, looking in

When we went back inside Crunch was loose and running up and down the manger bawling and fighting all the cows who were still locked up.

Chaos.

Insanity.

She is a big cow and she was enjoying herself immensely so it took us a few minutes to get her locked back up.
Then the boss showed up innocently wondering why we were so far behind. We wasted no time in informing him about all that had gone on in his absence.
We did not get out of the barn until really late Saturday night.

Then Sunday morning the vacuum pump malfunctioned so I missed my morning off. I should probably be disgruntled, but I am so grateful to be warm! The sun is shining and it is nice enough to go out and chop up the crispy carcass of the Christmas tree and burn it up in the outdoor stove....great fun....and to take photos of how different everything looks with the snow melting fast.

Still more ice. I took these from the lawn and the river is quite a ways away so...

Sunday Stills...moi

The Sunday Stills challenge this week is self portraits. I am allergic to having my picture taken, really, really, really hate it, so you won't see many photos of me around. I almost blew off this assignment or cooked up some clever way around it...like maybe a tastefully decorated paper bag. However, early one morning, I looked in the mirror and thought...well, this is about as good as it is going to get. So here it is...moi

Blind, Deaf and KindaTippy

But at fourteen he's still quite a Mike

Cow Tax Bill in Congress

A sensible bill cosponsored by a New York Senator. Whaddayaknow....

Some Story

At the time this story took place we followed it avidly. Jeff King became and has remained my favorite musher, largely because of his interaction with this valiant local boy.

King of Heart

Herding Cats

Thanks to Moos for this one.

Wall o' Water

But not the tomato kind

Dairy Farmers Care

I had heard these spots were out and I thank World Dairy Diary for this commercial showing our side of the story. There are billboards too, or so I have heard.

The Marvelous Market

I have to write the Farm Side practically from scratch this morning, so I will offer you a link to a thought-provoking article on what is fast becoming one of my favorite blogs.

I thank my good friend, Numberwise, for pointing me to Carpe Diem, where you will find this post:
The Forgotten Daily Miracles of the Market.

I learn new things every day reading Carpe Diem. The insight into what is really going on in the economy, rather than the latest terror story intended to persuade us that the government is going to fix everything and give us milk and honey forever and ever amen, is quite comforting.

Irony at its Most Ironic

A chilly standoff in the Capitol and another at Northview

It is five degrees here at glamorous Northview Farm, way below (like about 20 degrees or more) the statistical norm for the season and the region. It has been cold like this almost every day since mid December and even November was outstandingly cold and nasty. This is not just a little anomaly here, this is one danged cold winter. The cows didn't even start shedding until well into February, when normally about the second week in January the hair starts flying. Every once and a while it actually gets warm enough here (indoors that is) to feel comfortable and we wonder why we suddenly feel so relaxed. It is sort of intense to be chilled most of the time......

Therefore this story just tickles my sense of irony all to heck. Global warming my foot...my blue, frozen, never out of double wool socks foot....

Trent Loos Does it Again

Here is a great article by Trent Loos on the Stimulus Plan and horse husbandry, which have more in common than you might imagine.

Wish Us Well

I hope you will wish us well today. We have to get the pigs over to be processed and haul a cow and a heifer to the sale. This is usually not such a big deal, but the ice is so bad the dog even fell down and had to be helped to safety. It is like living on an ice floe on the ocean or something. The guys sanded as best they could yesterday but.....

Sunday Stills Motion

Chickadees are always in motion

Seems as if our resident skunk is too

Kashette was busy this day

This week's Sunday Stills is motion. You woul think everything would be frozen in place around here this time of year, but a few things were on the move.


Believe it or not even this spider was moving right out....He was in the center of the skunk track area above when I spotted him. I though it would be fun to pick up the hunk of snow he was sitting on to take a close up. Hah! He jumped off my hand like a rocket. I tried five times before I realized that he wasn't interested in posing for anything that included the word still. When I left he was hustling across the snow going who knows where and going there in a hurry. Who knew that spiders ran around on the snow on sunny days?

Panning for Gold

In the dining room

With paper plates

Break up and the Farm Show

Beautiful downtown Syracuse, home of more red lights
than certain districts in the old days. That is a green one you see there,
but we didn't see many others.

We visited the NYS Farm Show yesterday. The show itself was very nice. I will try not to complain too long about the parking guys filling the farthest out lots first...2 miles away. About the insane shuttle bus driver. Standing up with camera, jackets, etc. in hand on a school bus with a death wish.
Pot holes.
Corners on two wheels. Praying not to land in the lap of the poor little Mennonite kid in the seat I was clinging to.
Walking all the way back after doing the show, because the buses were all parked. (I think it was a plot.)


No, I won't whine about that stuff any more than I have to. We talked to lots of very nice salesmen, who who were very generous with samples of a number of probiotic products that I can't wait to try. When a cow digests her feed via rumination it is really a lot of little bugs, microbes if you will, doing the job. When conditions get out of balance in her rumen, due to feed issues, or calving or who knows what, those bugs sometimes die, making it tough for the cow to process her lunch. Probiotic products put a new set of bugs on board so she can break down her groceries. We already use a couple of such products, but it will be interesting to try these new ones. We have a lot of calving coming up and so will have a lot of fresh cows needing extra attention.





I took a couple of through-the-windshield, slashing rain, howling wind and dark and gloomy conditions type photos on the trip. Below is the ice on the river beginning to break up. Experts are predicting a serious flooding situation when it finally warms up enough to move that ice and I suspect they are right.

We are driving on about three feet of compressed ice on our barn road. It has been such a cold winter that almost none of it has melted and our big concrete walkway that is about a foot above the driveway hasn't been seen in months. When all that is on the river and all the snow and all the many places where the ground is covered in that much ice all melt, I expect it to be pretty noticeable.



Despite being footsore from the hiking, the show was fun. Glad we went. Even more glad to be home.

Customer Appreciation

This week's Farm Side Friday

I Was Followed

Off to the stove.

Not a bad job in this weather, what with the sun shining and water tinkling off the roofs and cardinals and blue jays and gold finches livening things up all over the place.

Then I heard soft, sneaky footsteps behind me.

The stalker.

I don't know why she thinks she needs to keep an eye on me.

Trent Tomlinson

Is about as nice a guy as you could meet....the girls and I met him last summer and he acted more like the guy next door than a major country singer.

He played this song at the Vermont State Fair concert and we loved it the first time we heard it. Now he has released it on MySpace video so you can hear it too.
Go ahead, take a listen...the top one is a slide show with studio audio and the lower is live.



Trent Tomlinson - That's How It Still Oughta Be - Live Video


Trent Tomlinson - That's How It Still Oughta Be (Slideshow)