Mockingbird Magic

We had some high drama here last night, involving someone outside the family who said some things that caused much emotional uproar. Those words had nothing to do with the farm or the family directly so I won't detail them here.

However, there were tears and pain, not mine, but when it is your family sometimes they feel like they are yours, and no one slept very well.

At three AM I woke up, wide awake, trying to remember if I had turned the compressor that cools the milk on or not. The tanker picked up yesterday and it is always shut off while the washer cleans the milk tank. It is arguably my job to turn it back on every other day when we start to fill it up with fresh milk. Normally I make a point to think about what I am doing when I do it so that when I wake up at 3 AM I can say, yeah I turned it on and go back to sleep.

Yesterday I forgot to do that.

So, I got up, threw my barn boots on with my bathrobe and hiked to the barn. The moon turned the yards into a ragged chiaroscuro of light and dark, so bright it seemed as if you could see a faint tinge of green among the greys and blacks. There was the least hint of skunk on the air and it was almost as crisp and cold as fall, truly a beautiful night.

As I tugged the cold rubber of the boots on over my cold bare feet a faint sound came from the field. At first I thought it was a cricket. With the Thruway devoid of travelers there was silence except for that vague call. It came again, not a cricket...just ....something.....

Then suddenly the air filled with opulent sound as the pasture mockingbird (not to be confused with the house mockingbird) burst into gay and glorious song. His notes were round and full and fluent, the calls of all the other birds combined together, each more melodious than the one before.

I just stood there, soaking it all up, the breeze, the light, the magical song, even the distant skunk. There are people who have more fame and fortune than my most bedazzling moments could conjure, but I wonder how many of them get free midsummer serenades in a theater as beautiful as a late June night in the country. If I was counting blessings I would surely have run out of fingers and toes before I even got started. The hike to the barn, usually an onerous misery at night, was a treat indeed, not a mosquito to be had and that glimmering song trailing behind me like a train of stars.

The tank was on. River, who had twin bulls yesterday and was left in the barnyard to recover, was fine. When I went back to bed, the singer was still pouring out a sweet stream of secret music with no one to listen but him and me...and maybe mephitis mephites.

Taking on the US Census

If they had let this guy run the census....well...
it wouldn't have been any worse.
And his regular job, guarding the barn....he does that very well.

First came a blizzard of snippy little cards warning us that we had better get our census form sent back right-away-quick-like or else.

But wait! How could we? We got the little cards, but we didn't get a census form.

I was concerned so I called in for one.
And was informed that it was too early for us to get one; they were still being sent out.

More cards
No form

After a while I called again. It was getting late and we wanted to be counted.

They sent us one
I sent it back

A lady came anyhow to get us to fill one out. Drover her little car up the mountain goat path driveway like a regular trouper. I sent her on her way, explaining that I had already filled one out.

Another person stopped by for some similar reason...same reaction

Then a man came yesterday to verify that the house next door is derelict. I would have thought that the missing roof, broken windows and general air of.....er....falling down...would have been the first clue, but I guess they needed my name and address to prove that the poor man taking the census was telling the truth rather than skipping out on his job.

You would think I had done my part for the nationwide body count. I called for my form. I filled out my form. I sent in my form. I explained how nobody lived in the obviously abandoned house...and fairly patiently too, all things considered.

However, today the telephone rang and a very apologetic, poor, innocent, woman, who had obviously had a tough time recently, explained that I needed to fill out a census yet again. The data from a (large) number of forms in the area were not entered into whatever the heck they enter them into so they had to get them again. She told me that all I had to do was tell her how many people lived here and she would leave me alone. Or she could get our info and fill out the form properly.

I chose the latter and dictated everything I had written on the form I called for and sent in to her over the phone. I felt so sorry for her but I couldn't help but complain about the waste and inefficiency I had observed in the 2010 census. She admitted that she had heard the same complaints, over and over and over.

And rightly so. That is our money they are wasting with such incompetence and it is our country that will base aid and election districts upon what is obviously going to be pretty questionable data. And do you suppose maybe areas like this are being deliberately messed up? I mean this ain't exactly urban inner city or anything. If they make it hard for us plain old folks to get counted maybe it will be hard(er) for us to get representation too.

Whatever is up, we are certainly being cheated, in terms of bang for our census buck, right along with the harassment of repeated visits and calls.
If what I have heard from the census takers themselves is true, this stuff is widespread if not universal. Where is the outrage?

*** btw lack of capitalization of the word "census" is intentional and deserved.

Unexpected Visitors

Yesterday.






I hope they made it home before the rain. Their big brown horse would have had to do some serious trotting to get it done, but they only live a couple of miles up the road. First time they have stopped here.

Old fashioned horse drawn hay loader

They were interested in this...and in getting the boss to mow some hay on a neighboring farm. He can't do it for them though. We used to take that hay ourselves on shares and gave it up because the hills are so steep we were wrecking machinery on them every year. When you drive the raking tractor over the edge of the hill and you can't see the bucket loader on it in front of you, well, that is steep. Too darned steep. Different farmers have taken the hay from the out of town folks who own it, but most of them only do it for a few years before they decide it isn't worth it.

Cheap Dates

We all are...or at least very easily entertained by barnyard slapstick. First we were setting up in the milk house for evening milking. Alan called us all over to the door to watch the high drama going on outside. Chainsaw, the world's most obnoxious little black cat, was sitting among the cows like the king of his domain.

Except for the flies which were swarming around his ugly little head. Bite, bite, bite, slap, slap, slap, he snapped and pawed at the annoyance. It looked as if he was catching some too and eating them as a wee protein supplement to his usual diet of mice and rich, creamy warm milk. Still he never seemed to run out of them. We all stood quietly, watching, when suddenly things got Western.

He was so busy with the flies that he was oblivious to his surroundings. However, the surroundings were not so oblivious to him.

A big white heifer came tip-toeing over and snorted right in his ear. He clawed skyward in surprise, landed hard, and gathering the tatters of his dignity, stalked over to the edge of the yard, trailing his flies behind him.

The heifer followed him right over and snorted on him again. You should have seen his tail, snaking back and forth like an angry metronome.
He was so mad.
He turned his electric green glare on her and just stared right into her eyes.

And she backed down. Eleven hundred pounds of cow, maybe eleven pounds of cat and the cat won. Dang!

Then we went inside to sand the floor and get ready to bring the cows in for milking.
Becky was standing innocently near the window, just waiting.
Lemonade, her big show cow, stuck her nose in the window...unseen by her owner...and let out a mighty bellowing moo about six inches from her ear.

Didjaknow?
That girl can jump.
And I do believe that cows can laugh.

Sunday Stills....History

It was hard to decide which bit of history to post...we are so surrounded by history here in the valley and in this ancient house. I turned mostly to the china closet this time, for things of mine and favorite possessions of my late mother in law.

Here is a blue vase of hers, a souvenir of the 1934 World's Fair

And here is a button from my parent's antique store, which has been closed for years. I was just a little kid when I found it among the assorted stuff piled high on the dusty tables. They let me have it and I have always kept it through many many homes. It is about the size of a quarter.

Mom gave me this



And Dad gave me these


Found this up in the three bay shed



And this old cow bell belonged to the boss's mom too
It rings with a loud and raucous clang
that must have rendered the wearer easy to find on long ago foggy mornings.

For more Sunday Stills...

Let me Shoot It

Alan said of the grey fox tooling around the lawn in broad day light. "It's after your guinea hens."

"No", said I, "it won't bother them."

"You'll be sorry," said he, in disgust, as the fox bounced away into the bushes. "It's going to get them."

That was yesterday afternoon.

And this morning you can easily see what soft-heartedness gets you out here in the real world. The whole barnyard is paved with speckled and spangled grey and purple feathers and the only guinea left is the big purple male.

Of course they had to start sleeping in the heifer barn instead of the coop where the door can be shut at night. They are the dumbest things....

There is no tenderness in nature...lesson...learn it if you want to live close to it.....Okay, I guess I've got it now.

Meanwhile the remaining male has been alarm calling since o-dark-thirty . At least I discovered that Nick will work birds when needed. (Gael used to be my go-to bird herding dog, soft enough to never alarm them (too soft for much real work) yet steady and good at getting it done.)

Nick has never been worked on birds because he has eaten a chicken or two in the past (they committed suicide by dog, by flying into his kennel), but this morning I simply couldn't stand all the screaming. I didn't want the guinea rooster to wake the boss up as he is plumb tired out, so I took Nick out to drive the darned bird to the barn and shut him up. He took commands he has never been taught slick as a cat burglar..."walk up, lie down, walk up" (he does know "lie down") and "that'll do" when the job was done. It was sweet to work a good dog again, really sweet.

I shut the cat up so he could come in and have a big bowl of kibble with a tablespoon of bacon grease....good boy! Guess I will put the purple male back in the coop and maybe give him away unless the female that seemed to be hiding a nest in the shrubbery actually is.

Not My Own

My time that is. Farm days have become a hotbed of activity. Visits from milk company officials, an electrician, the steel guy, and on and on, with the phone ringing constantly until long after night chores are done. None of these are exactly bad things and I may even have some very interesting news for you in the next few weeks. However the down side is the days fly by with no pauses or stops and at the end I look back at what I accomplished and sigh. So much activity...so little to show for it. But even that has its upside. I usually have trouble sleeping during full moon weeks. I drop into bed now and sleep like the dead and wake up ready for more. (Sleep, not insanity.)

The guys finished one ag bag yesterday and went to buy another bag which they will put on the bagger today. Imagine an incredibly thick, heavy, white trash bag that measures 9'X200'....not easy to manhandle that around! Imagine stuffing that with chopped crop products, in this case green, freshly chopped hay, and fermenting it for a month or so and then feeding it out all sweet and tasty. Good stuff. They are going to try to get some baling done too if the rains hold off.

Finally got the tomatoes planted, late I know, but there hasn't been much time for playing in the dirt. If the blight doesn't kill them they will be fine even planted this late. If they are going to grow they grow fast.

When I finish hilling the potatoes (yeah, still at that job) and plant a few more squash it will be time to dig the garlic. It looks great this year and I can't wait. I simply can't school myself to save enough to plant enough to get ahead each year. It is so good that I want to cook with it, not store it away to plant next year. I bought some for planting last year, from a kid over in Cobleskill and we ate half of that before it got planted too. Have I mentioned that we love garlic?

Anyhow, it is time for chores. have a good one.

Happy Birthday Handsome Brother

For Michael

Hope your day is spectacular and that you enjoy being the same age as I am (ancient) for a few days..... before I once again pull ahead in the race to antiquity (I am not quite old enough to serve as the subject of my own Sunday Stills entry this week, but I am working at it. Thus you aren't old enough for me to run down and photograph you either but....you will get there grasshopper, you will get there....lol)

Anyhow we love you and hope the finest of music flows through your life like cool, clear water through a secret canyon, deep in the heart of the wild.

We love you!

Your non-big-sister for about nine days anyhow...

Super Milk

We made it again last year. The milk inspector brought us our little sign just the other day.

It takes a whole year of commitment to quality to get this little plaque and we sure are pleased with it.

The Super Milk website.

Friends

While we while away the summer wishing for hay weather, and patching and repairing and bickering while we wait, some of our blog friends are doing exciting things.

Earl is at Yellowstone National Park

Joated is in Dawson Creek BC

Linda P shows some flooding in Canada...all I can say is wow!

Rev Paul talks about bear attacks and the biggest fish you could imagine, caught by someone you wouldn't expect.

Linda B has some amazing photos of her part of Colorado. Make sure you spend a few minutes checking out recent posts for ancient rock paintings. They are incredible. It must be amazing to live near them

Sandcastle Momma has an update on the oil spill that is simply heartbreaking. Why are these wonderful people and this beautiful place being hurt like this?

Lisa has new baby chicks.



JB has rainbows (and I am so very envious)

Dani has rainbows too. You really should compare.

Hope you enjoy their wonderful posts today, rather than having to read complaining about raining...

Polydesmid Millipede (or at least I think so)

Becky spotted this critter on the bridge by the barn this morning. Never seen such a thing before but I guess they aren't terribly uncommon. It was about the size of my pinky finger and kinda gave me the shivers. Here is a bit of information on it and its ilk.

Fish Story

I have to write for my "real" writing job today so I leave you with this...Stolen shamelessly from a local friend who is also on Facebook.

I went fishing this morning but after a short time I ran out of worms.

Then I saw a cottonmouth with a frog in his mouth.

Frogs are good bass bait. Knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the frog in his mouth I grabbed him right behind the head, took the frog, and put it in my bait bucket.

The dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bitten.

So, I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey in its mouth. His eyes rolled back, he went limp. I released him into the lake without incident and carried on fishing using the frog.

A little later, I felt a nudge on my foot. There was that same snake with two frogs in his mouth.

Now That's Photography

Digital camera+Styrofoam+balloon= incredible photos of our planet

July 4th Milk Dumping Protest "Dump the Milk Day"

I had been hearing rumors of this protest here and there but this is the first I have seen actual published material on it.

A "Blizzard of 1099's"

Deep in the bowels of the health care deform bill, (and yes, I did mean to type "D") is a nasty little provision that will have every farmer (and other small business folks too) in the country sending out 1099s to every single entity with whom they do $600 worth of business in a year. This will make a sickening mess of bookkeeping for thousands of farm women like me, (and yeah, men too) who would much rather go hill potatoes than hunt around for tax numbers and do paperwork for the feds. It will cost businesses ridiculous amounts of money.

You can read a bit about it here.
And here
And here

Hold on to your stomach because this is really going to be ugly.
Don't we wish more people had read the stupid bill before they voted it into law? Um, yeah....

Sick

Not me, Alan. Woke up at three AM yesterday so sick he had to crawl to the facilities. Call for help? Of course not. He slept all day except for chores, in which he insisted upon participating, and was somewhat better, although still under the weather last night. Poor guy.

His dad worked alone and got a lot done just the same. Fixed the rollers on the chopper so they were the correct distance apart, chopped for the cows etc. I did bookkeeping and worked in the garden. Plugging away at hilling the potatoes. I never, ever leave enough dirt between the rows. Never. Side dressed my little bit of sweet corn with nicely composted cow manure. Weeded the peas, cursed the bunny rabbits, which demolished an entire row of beets.

We were hoping to bale today, but it is really cloudy and feels like rain.
Have a good one.

Saving Scooter

Scooter eating bits of bread

The big steer having a whole piece.

Regular readers may remember how poor Bailey had a six weeks premature calf not long ago. Alan named him Scooter and we have been raising him as best we could. We suspect that rather than being caused by some pathology, the early birth was caused by big, nasty heifers beating on the more timid animals. Bailey is a real wuss like all daughters of the bull Ricky that we had born here. Poor Scooter didn't even have teeth when he was born, but as you can see in the picture he does now.

Being born so early left him a bit compromised, but Becky has been faithful in his care and he has thrived, all things considered. Then yesterday he didn't want his milk very much. He seemed to be chewing his cud so we weren't too worried until the end of milking.

I had taken the camera and some bread to the barn to take some photos of the steers, heifers and calves eating it out of our hands. They love bread and go about half nuts if someone walks in with some. It is like dropping big pennies in a huge piggy bank...slices of bread are tiny compared to the mouths of cattle. Alan even offered Scooter a couple of tiny pieces and he ate them eagerly.

A few minutes later though Al ran out in the milk house, "I've got to give Scooter some water...he can't swallow his bread."

I explained to him how to put his fingers in a calf's mouth, on the corner where there are no teeth and to press a little on his palate so he would spit out the bread. However, he couldn't seem to do it, so I took over. To my surprise the poor little guy had a huge mass, not of bread, but of hay, plugging up his whole throat. It took some fiddling around to get it out without getting bitten by his tiny, razor sharp teeth, but I was able to. His relief was marked and he drank a bottle of water like it was going out of style. Apparently, although he has teeth, they are not quite up to the job of chewing up a lot of hay yet and it all got wadded up in his tiny throat.

I was so glad that Alan gave him the bread so that we realized what was troubling him. I hadn't been to worried about him not wanting his milk as he had just figured out how to work the big cow water bowl and we figured he was full of water. He seemed to be fine last night and polished off his evening bottle like a champ. BTW, that bottle is a two-liter Mountain Dew bottle with a lamb nipple rather than a big old calf bottle...those are too big for him.

Sunday Stills, High, Low

From low looking high

Low

For more Sunday Stills...

Happy Father's Day

Thanks Dad for the love of learning and the curiosity that has and does drive me. My life will never be dull....and a happy day to all you fathers out there. You mean a lot to your wives and kids and this day is just one way of showing it.

***The folks are here this weekend with their amazing array of rare books. Stop by and visit if you are in the area. If you can't visit enjoy their month-long online book sale here.


A bit off topic, but by the way, I read some of the drivel that was printed about this show and I was embarrassed to live in NY state. Good grief what ignorance.


It's okay lady, we gun people don't want idiots like you near our guns, so it all evens out in the end I guess.

The Roof is Done

Which means a lot to me. A couple of years ago we lost a couple of sheets of roofing steel. Couldn't seem to find any contractors that wanted to bother with it and the boss can't climb so...we just lived with the leak. then a severe storm early this year peeled off a good third of one section. The leak became an indoor water park, so much fun in a rainy season like this one. Once again we called contractor after contractor to no avail. Most of them promised and promised and promised, but were simply too busy to be bothered to actually show up.

Then the boss called a few Amishmen, got estimates, and within less than two weeks the job was done. I wish you could have seen them work. They were like squirrels. Really fast moving squirrels. Where I suspect "English" contractors would have erected scaffolding on the main barn where the damage was...very high in the air btw...the Amishmen put a ladder up by the milk house and scurried over the lower roofs until they reached the junction with the big roof and went up that way. I could not stand to watch them. They sauntered around on that high roof like it was the barn floor, no hands, no ladder, no nothing.

I would never have believed the job could be done in a day, but they arrived around seven in the morning and by four in the afternoon the tools were packed away and the new steel was shining in the late afternoon sun.
It was awesome.
They used lumber we had stacked in the heifer barn against just such a repair and had to tear the stacked pile apart to get boards long enough to fit their needs. When they finished, despite the boss telling them not to bother, they re-stacked the whole pile...for which we are grateful.

Hopefully the new roof won't leak (although we certainly don't need any more rain to be testing it) and it will stand up to the ferocious winds we seem to get every few weeks now. Time will tell.

I had to laugh this morning when I came down the stairs. I always pause on the landing to see what it is up out in the yard. This morning Mr. and Mrs. robin were lounging around under the big blue spruce. For the past few weeks their single young one has been following them around like a fat, speckled beggar, importuning them for food all day long. Apparently he finally went out on his own and they were loving it. The male was lying on his side in the driveway, for all the world like a barn yard chicken at its leisure. The female was popping around self-importantly, chasing English sparrows away from him. It was hilarious and I wish I could have watched all morning. Alas the cat was howling for his breakfast and if I don't get the old dog out promptly in the morning she makes me wish I had.....

Have a great day!