Ain't this Cool?

Al and Jen went to a pumpkin carving party yesterday. Alan found a photo of this on the Net, drew it on the gourd, and they carved this. I thought it was really neat. 

Rrrowwrrrrr

Boo

Had to walk to the barn late last night....it was dark...the moon was fuzzed all around with a little ice cloud, and the stars were burning softly.

But there was something out there. Every step I took things rustled in the bushes. Sometimes it sounded like a few sleepy birds fluttering away from the light of my flashlight. Sometimes it sounded like a bunny bouncing off. Sometimes it sounded like a dozen zombies bent on wreaking havoc. Or a grizzly bear.

Must be the wild things were getting ready for Halloween. I did not waste any time on my trip.

Marv certainly was in a holiday mood. He appeared on the back lawn as I was starting to put dinner together. Just what I wanted to see. He had gotten left behind when the old cows went to pasture and instead of going where he belonged, he scooted under the electric fence and came a visiting.

 Interestingly we discovered that feeder calves that are being raised on pasture can run.

I mean really run. At least he confined himself to the horse yard so he couldn't run very far. After some serious chasing, we tried letting him out of the yard. He was tired and ran back where he belonged faster than you would believe.

Alas, dinner was late....

Hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween.

Turkey Talkin'

See the kitty on the phone? Pet him and he'll purr.

Our boy is home for most of five too-short days. He loves to mix things up and the place is humming. He and Peggy play on the floor a lot. She used to hate to get down on a blanket in the living room, but now she loves it, and a patient playmate makes it that much better.

You should hear her growl. Her daddy taught her that quite some time ago, and she growls at her food, at her toys, and at us. She growls at towels. She growls at everything just before she grabs it and chomps on it.

When she gets a little older all she will need for 'talk like a pirate day' are a few 'Ahoys' and a couple of 'Mateys', because she sure has argghhh down pat. 

Wanna taste the lollipop?

Al came to the barn with us yesterday morning for chores and on the way back over he did some turkey talking. He is good enough with just his mouth, no call, no box, no toys atall, that he used to drive his professors crazy at college. He would get in the stairwell and do a few little hen calls and then leave. People would look all over for the turkey.

Hmmmm.....

Yesterday the birds in the turkey tractor went nuts when he called them. The toms began to gobble, feathers fluffed, tails fanned and then began to strut in earnest. The hens were utterly perplexed.

It was pretty funny. I can call well enough to get hens to come down off the hill....sometimes.... but I swear he could talk them right onto the table. He once stalked one quietly enough to walk up and touch it when it was sleeping. It woke up right quick though, I can tell you.
 

A loaf of Liz's peasant bread. Look, ma, no kneading!

Anyhow, things are pretty lively right now...nice to have him here....we will sure miss him when he has to go back to DC.

A Big Sad

This wonderful, much-loved, super special dog, Fuzzy, from Life on a Colorado Farm, has passed away....I hope Linda doesn't mind me borrowing his picture, as I never met him in person. However, everyone here at Northview felt as if we knew him and his best buddy, Boomer, and all the cats, and chickens and all the other characters from his Colorado home.

Dog lovers know...there is nothing like a favorite dog and losing one is poignantly painful. 

Good boy, Fuzzy, RIP.

We Don't Need No Stinkin'

Naps!

Contrary

Cinnamon's tail several days after the escapade.
The majority of the burrs are gone

There are only five cows left here. Well, actually, two cows, one heifer, two bulls and one steer. You might expect that so few would find fewer ways to get in trouble.

Alas, all it takes is one. A few days ago someone (not me) didn't quite chain the barnyard gate, which leads to the back of the home farm (which is not the one where the house is...go figure).

Marv, drinking from a muddy puddle.
There is a clean watering trough
a pond
and a creek
but mud is tastier, dontcha know?

Moon, Cinnamon, Marv and Bama Breeze discovered that open gate and exited in search of better and more abundant forage than can be found on the huge pasture they have all to themselves (said pasture has been known to feed fifty-one heifers from spring to fall without supplemental feeding in good years). Yeah, the poor things are obviously starving.

Anyhow, when I got to the barn to give the boss a hand that evening I had no trouble at all knowing they had been out.

Where there are cows there are no burdocks. They love them and eat them right down to the roots.

Where there are no cows there are plenty. Add cows in autumn and you have a terrible combination. Bama's tail from root to tip of switch was so covered with burrs that they were flaking off in sheets.

Heaven forbid she try to switch her tail.

 

Bama, days after the debacle
Imagine about ten times this many

The other three were not quite as well-endowed, but there was no shortage. 

Turns out the boss had to hunt them down with the tractor as they had been over quite a lot of ground and he has a bad knee. The ground was evidently rich in burdocks.

Where do you think he found them? Right in the other pasture, grazing on the pretty ridge overlooking the river, and joined by a bunch of deer.

Portents

The mystery sparrow

Spent a lot of time outdoors yesterday. It was just too nice not to. 

Dark-eyed Junco

The sun dogs flickered on and off, not too strong, not so bright, so maybe they didn't have much to say about the future.

Pine Siskin

But the Pine Siskins on the feeder? The flock of a dozen of them mixed with winter sparrows and house finches? 

Now that may have meaning, although I surely hope not.

And then there were the oddly marked Woolly Bears. One had a little black on its butt, a reasonable amount of it on the front, and the widest orange band we had ever seen. What's up with that?

House Finch

Went out to watch that rocket launch last night, only to find after I stood outside for a good long while, watching a distant plane, that it had been scrubbed.

Of course it was. The sky was clear here for a change for a nighttime sky event. Normally, all eclipses, comets, meteor showers and launches that are visible on the East Coast are obscured by clouds.....and here is our Tuesday night forecast: 

Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low 56F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Oh, well, we should be used to it by now. 

If the little sparrow I caught, sitting in the Mt. Ash tree is a Swamp Sparrow, which I believe it is, I picked up two year birds for the farm count in one day. Also got news that our Christmas Bird Count, unless something changes, will be after Christmas rather than before. If you have ever tried to cover a territory that takes in malls and shopping centers the weekend before the holiday, while driving slowly scanning for birds, you will understand why this was great news.

Is this a portent of a good winter's birding? One can only hope.

Shipping

With our change of auction barns we have to ship on Sunday for a Monday sale. Thus nine head went yesterday, the remaining four heifers, Abbekirk, Cedar Key, Loki, and Tequila, and five steers. 

Really only wanted to send the steers, which we kept for this, but our taxes went up...a lot....again....

At least we have a nice new trucker, who is kind but firm with the animals. She and I got most of the heifers on the truck while we were waiting for the boss. Wish we had found her when we were still in the dairy business, as far too many of the other truckers we used were either hasty and abrupt, or downright incompetent, or both. I have always hated shipping stock! 

If you want her number give one of us a shout. So far she has loaded with us twice and both times went well.

Anyhow, the place will be pretty bare for winter. Only a handful left now. I need to find a direction right soon. Discovered that retirement does not suit my temperament one bit.

Sunday Stills...the Letter C

Camaro

Chick

Calf

Curve

For more Sunday Stills.......

A New Broom

The owl tree

A brisk wind yesterday swept away most of the rain, and picked the much maligned towels up off the ground and dried them enough to bring inside

It also dusted us with a nice array of birds.

First on the menu were hundreds, if not thousands, of Red-winged Blackbirds. I tried off and on all day to scope out the flock with the binoculars, hoping for a Rusty Blackbird, or even a Grackle or some Cowbirds.

Alas, either the windows were covered with condensation, as the heat was hopping, or they flew off, or some other thing. They were certainly in constant, swirling, motion.

Then there was a large feeding flock parsing back and forth between the woody area up behind the hop house and the feeders here at the people house. The Tufted Titmice have returned in strength, we have more White-breasted Nuthatches than I have ever seen, lots of Chickadees, woodpeckers, both Hairy and Downy, a handful of northern sparrows and the usual Song Sparrows, a few Robins, Cardinals, Blue Jays and all sorts of other odds and ends.

And Carolina Wrens....can't forget them. There needs be a hole big enough for them to ingress and egress this winter left in the buttoning up of the back porch. They come in through the crack around the new door all the time, and sometimes sing at me through the screen door.....

It was, however, one of those days when the light was so poor a Flamingo could have flapped by and you would only recognize it by its outline. 

I did see an owl the other morning though.....

Finally.....

The guys have been seeing one hunting over in the barnyard or up on the three-bay shed all year. It has never been there when I went out no matter how early or late.

I will call it a Great Horned Owl. It was a big, big bird, flapping silently over toward the big cherry up in the Sixty-Acre Lot where they have roosted and spat pellets for decades.

And much to my delight, I discovered that I can see that stately cherry from the stair landing where I pause several times each day just to look. We have many trees, but a few of them stand out....the hickory tree that stands just south of the Hickory Tree Field. The big poplar that spans the creek in the center of the heifer pasture just below the old pond. The
cherry in the hedgerow between us and the housing development to the east, the downed, but not dead ancient maple near the heifer woods, where the raccoons used to hide out....

And the big cherry where the owls have always roosted. I guess it is visible because so many of the leaves are down, but there is no missing its shape, standing tall on the hillside up there on the southern horizon.

It is good to see.

Close to Home

NYC didn't used to be close to home to me. It was a far-distant, strange, and very uncomfortable place, profoundly dedicated to things that are as foreign to me as Cairo and I don't mean Cairo Durham.

I still have enough fingers to count the number of times I have been there and won't run out any time soon. It is not where I go to have fun and frolic, being much more concerned with chickadees and real cowboys than with chic and the naked one that runs around down there.

However, since our boy and my dear brother work there most of the time, it is suddenly close....today, far too close for comfort.

When are the powers that be in this sad relic of America going to do something meaningful about stopping the plague from shlepping in on a plane or trotting across the desert to visit?

I don't normally do this, and won't in the future, but here is a Farm Side (you can read the Farm Side every Friday here if you wish to) I wrote recently:

Biosecurity matters on dairy farms. Farms often welcome visitors for various reasons and it is paramount that they don’t bring disease along with them.

Out of respect for the health of farmers’ valued herds of cattle, veterinarians, milk inspectors, salesmen, and people visiting for educational tours willingly wash their boots with disinfectant before entering. Often they add those awkward, slippery, one-size-really-doesn’t-fit-anybody, plastic booties that are pulled on over footwear, before shuffling ignominiously through someone else’s barn.

I remember them from tours, clinics, and classes we have taken and barn meetings we have attended, and not one bit fondly either.

On many larger farms visitors are not even allowed in animal areas without a specific invitation. Then they are expected to respect the farm’s biosecurity practices. Some of the contagious diseases that affect animals can cause economic devastation, so farmers and animal care professionals work hard to prevent them spreading from farm to farm.

Sometimes these precautions seem like a pain in the neck, but animal health is a keystone to good management strategy.

On hog farms protocols are even more stringent than they are on dairies. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln lists 28 pages of recommendations to keep pigs safe from outside diseases. Suggestions range from washing the wheels of vehicles to isolating incoming animals in quarantine until they are clearly seen not to harbor disease.

It is recommended that even the clothing worn by workers be worn only in the barn where the work is done and washed onsite. Many barns require workers to shower before entering or leaving.

Risk assessment of visitors is suggested, with people who visit other farms or own animals considered high risk and treated differently from those who have no animals and visit no farms.

If visitors are allowed at all, they are often required to shower, or to remove shoes, hats and outer clothing and leave them in a designated room. Then they must walk over a grate, wash thoroughly, and don clothing provided by the farm.

In light of the recent appearance of porcine viral diarrhea in the US, many farms have banned visitors altogether.

As you can see, farmers understand clearly the potential for disease to spread among different populations of animals and they take great precautions against allowing dangerous microorganisms  entering their premises.

Now imagine that the USA is a giant farm full of valuable mammals. In this case their worth to their families and friends goes far beyond that of food-producing animals. PeTA may think a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy, but most of us see our loved ones quite differently.

So, why on earth do we as a nation not take every possible step to protect our families from foreign disease, at least half as assiduously as farmers protect our bacon?

Biosecurity needs to be addressed at the national level in regard to human disease at least as diligently and intelligently as farmers pursue it at their farms.

Of course I am referring to the recent diagnosis of the dreaded disease, Ebola, in Texas.

We can’t just let death walk off a plane and wander willy-nilly among our children, without protective clothing, without isolation, without much of any oversight at all. We are used to our freedoms, including the freedom to travel at will, and we are happy to share these with anyone who stops by for a visit. However, the anarchy of deadly disease does not equal freedom.

Hog farmers quarantine incoming hogs until they are clearly free of disease. If we are to continue to allow visitors from affected regions to come here, maybe quarantine would help protect our families.

We didn’t used to be afraid of it. During the polio epidemics of the twentieth century homes were routinely placed under quarantine, and the restrictions were strongly enforced. In 1909 violators were fined one hundred dollars, a small fortune in those days. You could buy a horse for seventy during that decade. Quarantine was widely used even against self-limiting diseases, such as measles, wherein patients were required to stay at home until no longer infectious.

Granted the family of the Ebola victim was placed under quarantine, but they quickly violated this and left their home. Meanwhile, according to the Guardian Newspaper, “At midday on Thursday, a child peeked out from behind a red diamond-pattered curtain in one of the apartments while at ground level a team of three contractors – none wearing any sort of protective clothing – power-washed the front porch. A stroller stood at the bottom of a staircase.”

Yep, you have to shower and change your clothes to visit a pig farm, but you can clean up toxic medical waste with a tool that creates airborne particles in large numbers, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and then go home to your family.

Mistakes are being made and excuses offered. Somehow I feel as if a nation as advanced as ours should have been prepared and now that the disease is here and in danger of spreading, should take whatever steps are needed to stop it in its tracks.

Flight restrictions, increased monitoring of incoming foreign flights, strictly enforced quarantines of people who are exposed should careful oversight of their health prove inadequate, all should be considered.

The thought of our military being sent with scant training, into the firestorm boggles my mind. Doctors taking full precautions are getting sick. How will thousands of military workers be protected?

Concern for the safety of our people should come first. If farmers can do it, then it can surely be done if the will is there. 58% of Americans are in favor of temporary flight restrictions to and from epidemic areas in Africa. Although authorities claim that such actions might interfere with aid flights, American safety should matter more. It is too early to tell how Ebola will affect us, but hopefully it is not too late to institute measures that could have prevented this man from wandering among us, possibly spreading this plague.

  

Afterword, I believe that many of these numbers have changed since this was published. People want travel stopped or at least a lot better controlled. I never thought I would be glad that my boy is in Washington and not NY, as the drive when he wants to come home is ridiculous. However, until the nation gets serious about stopping Ebola, I will be glad that he is anywhere that it isn't.....now to worry about my brother....and millions of other innocents.....

Towels of optimism sag on the line, dragging damp toenails down in the mud.

It's been a fine, dry fall, but that's all over now. It was raining like blazes at four AM and it hasn't stopped since...I think I just saw Noah.

Interesting stuff down at the bottom of the driveway. Big, fat cow pie right by the there.

First thought....Moon? Bama? Cinnamon?

Then Liz takes a closer look. Nope.

The pie fell right between the tire tracks of an Amish buggy.

Somebody leading a cow somewhere. You'll get that.

Sound before Rain

Hay for sale....seriously, we need to sell some.
Looks as if this guy would buy if he had pockets to carry his money

Eerie how sounds carry when rain is in the offing. Trains haunt, whistles flaunt, pitting distance against stability, tracks rumble and thunder under weighty wheels, rattling the windows and waking the sleepers.

If I had a dollar for every wheel that passed in front of this farm, even for only an hour, I would be rich indeed. 

Imagine how many pass in a day, with two state highways, one on each side of the river, a bike path, the NYS Thruway and the busy train tracks over there! I would take a day's worth in dimes and never worry about a dollar again.

The valley funnels travelers past, all hours of the day and night, until if there is a pause, say at three AM, we all awaken and listen in restless concern...what is wrong, what is wrong?

The roosters crow right here in the kitchen, deep and throaty, high and squeaky, the young entry being heard from.

Did the barn creep up to perch on the window sill sometime in the darkness?

Or is just the lowering clouds and emptying branches snuggling all around us, bringing the busy valley and the early animals to intrude on the morning?

I don't know, but it focuses attention on things usually ignored.

Yesterday was one of those restless days before a storm. I made a batch of cider jelly before the sun came up, filtered and froze the rest of the cider, and puttered all day, propagating mint plants, watering things, and doing household chores.

No one could sit still for long. Even Lazy Daisy was antsy and busy about the burying of biscuit ends in corners, under tiny pieces of paper that utterly failed to shroud them, and prancing about a job well done.

Or clicking toenails an hour before dinner and shoving her dish around pointedly.

Even the birds were busy with the Jays finally braving the feeder right next to the window. They had been avoiding it until then. They are still swift and loud in their dining.

I like to note first bird each day...many days a Carolina Wren. Yesterday a Chickadee, today a what the heck? Something chip noting happily away....I think maybe a robin....hmmm.....too dark to be sure.

Dog Law

An especially dear friend from childhood has been calling me several times a week about a friend of hers, who has been targeted by a proposed new law, aimed specifically at her dog rescue.

 The lady's dogs evidently do some barking and the neighbors decided to go big and go long about the matter. Never mind working with her to perhaps keep the dogs indoors at sensitive times...they are always fenced....no, they need to pass a big new law to make her get rid of the dogs or move.

If I understand it correctly, the new rule would mean that anyone with more than three dogs would have to provide a heated, separate structure, 1500 feet from their nearest neighbor and keep their dogs in it. I hate listening to dogs bark but....dang,

Is that nuts or what?

I was thrilled to read that a large crowd showed up at the public meeting on the subject last night to protest, long and loud. Can't wait to get a paper so I can read the whole story.

Good for them! They at least got the rule tabled.

We don't live in the town in question, but bad law like this tends to spread like kudzu. If the kids get me that puppy they are talking about, all our dogs would have to move to the barn and we would have to heat it, if we lived under that rule.

Say what? Daisy likes to sleep on the blanket we keep on my chair in the winter. Ren prefers her mommy and daddy's bed. I am assuming that new pup, if we get him, will like to lie by my feet, so as not to miss any action should I choose to stand up. Border Collies are like that.

And I don't think that is anybody else's business. 

The Leaving of LIverpool

Well, actually the leaving of Fultonville. 

We did get a hard frost last night, cold enough to leave ice lying around.

The birds are taking it seriously and leaving in droves.

This morning the Red-winged Blackbirds are coursing over like hounds hot on the trail of Hell. There is no looking back, no pause in their travel. Although the individual flocks are small, a dozen here, a hundred there, I would imagine by the time it warms up thousands will have passed over the house.

As the sun rose their red epaulets flashed like stop lights as they flew over the Robins and Cardinals and Blue Jays that are still here.

A few starlings flew up to join their urgent quest, then settled back into the bare ash trees. Not yet. Too lazy. Too content to natter over the pasture, gleaning seeds and insects.

The leaves are living up to their name too

Their path crosses that of westbound geese, evidently still enjoying the river and the freshly harvested corn fields around the area.

I'm not ready for this.......

Gleaning

I would have passed these vegetables by, just a few weeks ago. Big old beans gone too mature, missed under heavy leaves somehow and forging into to leathery toughness. At the other end of the spectrum, tiny beans, no more than threads, but succulent and sweet.

I should not pick them. They will fit right down the sink drain in a swoosh of water. I'm sure that isn't good for the plumbing. I should just eat them right off the vine instead. Or leave them.

Left to grow they would only get fatter and better.

However, there is no more left to grow this year. What the meteorologists euphemistically call "the end of the growing season" is upon us.

Killing frost.

The big freeze.

It will fall tonight sure as November, unless somehow this icy wind holds it off. I don't think so. But maybe

Minuscule squashes, barely more than blossoms, a single grape that the wind tore off the apple tree. One apple just to see if somehow the Winesaps taste better this year than last.

I know better than to test them before frost, but they always tempt me beyond reason. It will be dry and bland and mealy, just as they always are until the frost turns them tangy

We will have a stew tonight of mostly homegrown. Beef from the big steer, the beans and squash, and a few store bought carrots...ours are all gone alas...though they surely were delicious.

After a breakfast of French toast made with eggs from the kids' hens, topped with jelly made from apple cider that Alan helped squeeze....delicious stuff, think i'll have some with dinner...we will feel well-fed indeed.

The electric fencing is holding so far, down on the chicken coop, although there were reports of an outlandish howling out there in the night, as if something had tried to crawl through and got zapped.

And zapped.

And zapped.

And zapped again.

What a shame......

Sunday Stills....Guess the Challenge

I guessed the color green or perhaps the letter G, so I went with grazing, green, and golden....lots of all those around here this fall. I meant to put a cap on a pumpkin, but it rained....pretty cool challenge, even if I got it wrong,.

For more Sunday Stills.......

So Far, So Good

Did anybody get the number of that truck?

The kids spent a lot of time yesterday and last night putting up a electrified grid of cattle panel over the heifer barn door and putting a very hot fence around the turkey tractor, oh, and Becky put a bunch of used kitty litter down where they were coming in from the north. I went out an hour or so ago and all the birds were resting quietly.....

I would have liked to have been watching when the foxes checked out that fence...so hot the charge zapped Jade through a stick.....maybe a trail cam would be an asset....

A minor, but entertaining, murmuration of starlings

In other news we have several hawks hanging around hunting the birds, which fortunately are well protected against assault from the air.

However, something went after a chickadee right outside the kitchen window and it fled, striking the window. I ran out to find it upside down, but alive, on the step.

I warmed it in my hand and set it in a flower pot. A little while later it was upright and soon after gone. I wish it well. 

Chickadees share the favorite bird spot in my world with Carolina Wrens. Guess I like to root for the little guy. I would also like to be sure the accipiter I see every day hunting in the backyard is a Cooper's. I have seen several sharpies and this bird looks larger....too fast to be sure though...so far.

And that did Too

These guys are.....or were....much bigger now

I'm thankful for a phone call this morning. Normally I just let Daisy out the back door and maybe stand on the porch while I wait, or possibly even come in and get her dog food ready.

However, this morning Alan called me to chat for a while before he went to sleep for the day, as he is on nights, way down in the big city.

Thus I went out in my bathrobe to enjoy the dawn, the talking with my boy, and just being alive.

Heard something wrong. Saw something out of the corner of my eye that didn't look quite right. The big chickens down in the barn were making a monotonous alarm call as if they had been at it for a long time. They sounded tired.

Then Pumpkin, the fluffy logger cat, ran up the driveway and I thought, 'Okay, they were alarming at the cat."

But they didn't stop. So mini Dachshund in tow I meandered down toward the heifer barn where the big hen flock is. Sneakers untied, eyes still blurred with sleep, not exactly at my best.....

Out of the barn sprang a huge, motley-looking red fox, literally licking his chops. This was a really big fox. Usually when I see one I am surprised by how small they actually are. Not this guy.

I hustled down to find the wire all mashed down on the brooder, some beady, terrified eyes looking up at me, and bodies mashed under the wire. 

Yep, he got the chicks Liz featured on her blog in a post she wrote just yesterday.

I called the kids out to look at the situation. The fox ate eight chicks, and killed a couple others, leaving only six out of sixteen. The six are now in a cat kennel in the dining room, Driving Miss Daisy plumb crazy. She came to us because she is a poultry killer herself and did much damage in a past life. She would like to finish what the fox started I fear. Thank goodness for the kitchen baby gate (which has been keeping dogs in the kitchen for over twenty years.)

So....although I am always glad when my boy calls me, but today I am extra glad. Now there are big jobs to be done before that son of a gun gets the big hens, or the coop full of guineas, turkey and a couple of chickens up on the lawn. 

Or Heaven forbid the turkeys.