Hope

There was a robin yesterday on one of the  big trees between us and the neighbors. The sun was lighting up his russet breast like a fiery coal from the wood stove. I was like a little kid when I saw it. Bout time!

I sure hope winter is mostly done with us. Reading stories of barn roof collapses in NY and PA this morning and I had to cry for the people and cattle involved. Too many folks don't get it, but farmers love their animals. They really do. It is not like dairying is a get-rich-quick scheme or anything. You have to love it to work that hard and ride the ups and downs of the weather, the markets, and suffer through tragedies like these, and plan for how to get going again.

If you get a chance read this story by my FB friend Sherrie Bunting....she understands what farming really is like and writes very well about it. 

As always the reaction of the farming community to tragedy among its members is stunning. We have been on the receiving end and there is nothing as humbling as knowing your neighbors are eager to go so far to help you, nothing

Trout Fishing in America

Dueling Plowboys

 In something like 25 days trout season will open here in NY. And, yes, I do need to get down to see a certain special someone in the Town Clerk's office and buy a license.



However, the way things are looking I am going to need an ice auger and tip ups if I want to start the season on time. 

Dagnabbit

The water garden is not looking its best these days

Just as the weather threatens to improve, I wind up hobbling around like an old wooden puppet. Went over to the barn to help the boss move the little steer the other day. Don't remember doing anything unusual, but when we came back my "good" knee felt odd.

Grandpa Delbert's old plow looks a little happier here

By the next morning it wasn't working. A few days later it is a little better but darn it, I want to go out and walk and do stuff, not creep and hobble.

Whine, whine, whine......

Liquid water......

Happy Birthday Peggy-Ann Marie

One year old today. And you can tell by all the baby toys and new books and all that she is popular around here.

Gratitude

I'm grateful for ponies. Isn't everyone?

The snow slid off the heifer barn roof yesterday and I am grateful. I remember when the horses...long gone fellows that gave us so much fun....used to stand next to that barn to soak up winter sun. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, they would bolt up the hill and turn and glare back down, manes and tails all a flutter, and eyes as wild as winter.

And then the snow would cascade off with a thunderous crash. Must be they could hear it cracking loose and got away before it could get them. 

Although it makes a big mess next to the barn and a lot of noise and all, I am grateful that the men who built these barns built them steep with steel roofs so they dump their snow before it hurts anything.

All over the Northeast barns are giving up under the snow load. Animals have been injured and killed and hopes and dreams and happiness destroyed. My heart aches for these poor cows.

 For the people who care for them as well. If you live with animals and have a heart, seeing them in distress is more painful that you would believe. Many a night's sleep has been lost around here when some cow or calf wasn't doing right and we weren't sure how to fix her.I can't imagine how awful all this must be for the farmers involved.

I pray for a respite from winter while things get cleared up and some of this snow gets gone. I also hope that the ignorant animal rights jerks who comment on heart-wrenching stories like this find jobs or something, so they can stop feeding off the misery of others. They know nothing about cows. Nothing. But they sure want to lecture people who do.

I guess there are some awful floods to the south as well. The guys are always complaining about our hills, and wishing for a farm on the level....all I can think is what the floods over the past few years would have done to us if we weren't perched up here. Today I am grateful for hills.

I am also grateful, more than you could possibly imagine, that the lambs have gone to the barn.

Lambs are LOUD! It is so quiet here this morning.....and they are happy to be able to race around the barn every time Liz goes down to give them their bottles. 

Lamb in a turkey tractor

If by chance you are one of those animal rights folks who is just stopping by to harass a caring farmer...little Klondike stays in the turkey tractor when no one is in the barn so the foxes, and weasels, and coyotes, and fishers, and owls, and eagles, and all the myriad other predators that share our land with us can't eat him.

Update...ht to a FB friend. Did you read this story? How could anyone call themselves an animal lover and do, or condone, something like this? Sick bastards.

First Dinosaur Book

Thanks for reading Uncle Alan.....it was a great big book so mama had to hold me.

At the Edge

Horse and pony tracks

Working on the Farm Side for this week and remembering a spring just before Liz was born. My brother Matt, whom many of you know, helped us out that year before he was deployed to Korea for a while. 

The weather was incredible. Snow melted before March. By April our oats and seeding were planted and growing, cows were out on ample grass, and we were getting corn in the ground. In theory this was a fairly normal scenario, but in Upstate NY it was downright notable.

We did lose some oats to torrential rain later, and some of the corn didn't germinate as well as we would have liked, but it was a phenomenal crop season.

It is not going to be repeated this year.

Nonetheless, we are perched on the edge of spring. Still no migrants and the birds are stupid tame, which is perhaps not a good thing, but the air is warmer than it has been in weeks and a melt-the-snow-quick wind is blowing.

I walked Daisy out in it early this morning and found a White-throated Sparrow sitting on the window of our car. I happened to be multi-tasking, filling the feeders while I walked the dog. Thus I held out a handful of seed to it. It looked it over, but didn't partake, and then stayed all the while I was outdoors before flying away.

Could have been the victim of window strike, but I think it was hiding from a hawk and considered me the lesser of two evils. Anyhow, I am sure it and its buddies are more than ready to head north for nesting time. 

And although I will miss their absurd level of tameness this winter, I am ready for Chipping and Song Sparrows to take their place.

Onward

Apple twig nipped by a Cottontail

........ to March. The sun is rising a tad more to the north and setting just a little later each night.


It is above zero for the most part now, so the bigger of the two lambs went to the barn the other night and seems to have acclimated just fine.

Yes I did say two lambs. The kids got another one, a little ewe, which is next to my chair in the dog crate. The house smells like sheep.

More evidence.
By the light color of those droppings I don't think they are eating too well.

I have heard rumors that it may hit forty later in the week. It will feel like summer. Even on this 22 degree morning I am down several layers. The wind is howling though so before I go outdoors that will have to change. Had to shovel a drift out of the back door to get poor Daisy out this morning. She wasn't real happy about that.

They are even eating the big branches.
 I shudder to think what is happening to our smaller trees under the snow.

We are ready for better weather and the wildlife certainly must be too.

Entrance to a bunny hiding place under some brush

Normally all the deer on our place yard up down in Schoharie County for the winter. This year a few stayed, probably lured by the open winter up until January. They seem to be real glad that the boss has to plow out some of the T Field to get at his firewood supply. They come in as soon as he leaves to eat the grass and brush he uncovers.

Another hide under the Red Rocket, which is mostly buried by snnow

Same with bunnies. The guys cut down an old apple tree that was getting dangerous due to hollow rotting limbs. The bunnies are congregating there to nibble apple twigs every night.

The yard is laced with trails......

Sunday Stills.....Action

For more Sunday Stills......

Chores and Birds

The kids are off to the NY Farm Show with Peggy, so the boss and I took the morning to clean out the ashes from the wood stove.

We have had pretty good wood this winter, so there weren't a terrible lot, but they were very dense. It was hard to dig them out. I don't like the way I have lost muscle since we sold the cows. Arthritis makes it hard to keep as strong as I used to be.

Found a weird knob in the palm of my hand the other day and an odd little red spot. I was showing it to Alan and worrying about what it might be, when he discovered that he had one too, in the exact same place.

The penny dropped. It's from carrying the milking machines around the barn...it's right where the hook end of the cane that holds the milker rests in the palm. 

Huh, never noticed it before and it has to have been that way for decades.

Anyhow, with Peggy not home it was okay to let the house get kind of cold while we did the stove housekeeping chores. Now there is a bright new fire taking hold and soon some dry oak will be burning to get a good new bed of coals going.

They had promised us a 35 degree day today, so we planned this all week, looking for the best day to do it. Alas, as usual, they rescinded that forecast and we will be lucky to get into the twenties, but it's done anyhow so it's all good.

I fear that we have lost a lot of birds this winter though. So far we found one dead White-throated Sparrow and one Chickadee and saw a White-throated with a lot of junk frozen into its tail feathers that probably didn't survive. Also a one legged female Cardinal.

This has just been the worst winter for the poor things that I have ever seen. We used to feed just enough to get a few birds to stop in so we could watch them. Now they wait outside the door for us, seeming to be starving, and we feed a couple of times a day. 

Most of what they might eat in the way of grass seeds and such is under feet and feet of snow. The Turkeys have been spending weeks in the burdocks up in the old pasture, pulling the plants down and eating the seeds.

Still, this morning both Chickadees and Tufted Titmice were singing spring songs....and the sun is just lovely.....haven't seen a Carolina Wren in at least ten days though....

Wordless Wednesday

Sdrawkcab

It was so windy yesterday that it blew the birds right off the log the boss brought me down to use as a table feeder. 

I had just tossed out the afternoon sunflower seeds.

A cloud of brown sparrows and crimson Cardinals had descended almost instantly to try to eat, when woosh, they were all swept away by the wind.

And then I saw it. A White-throated Sparrow was trying to fly to the log. The wind was so strong that it caused him to fly backwards for several feet, although flapping mightily.

It was weird. I mean, he wasn't exactly a hummingbird but he was moving backwards while flying forward.

He was smart though. When the wind swept him over the feeder, he just folded his wings and let it dump him right on it.

Later I attempted to look up into the honey locust to try to see which branch is grinding so ominously. The wind lashed snow crystals into my eyes, which sent me stumbling into the house in defeat. Couldn't see a thing.

Weather...we got it....but it doesn't mean we have to like it.

Walking and Tracking

Bunny trails

Jetsam, the mysterious disappearing cat

Diamond wants to come IN!

Ancient apple...no fruit in years and so.....

These tracks were made by a grey squirrel....really they were

Summer arrived yesterday. I don't know how warm it actually got...above twenty at least...but we were shedding layers like a maple sheds leaves in October.

So I went for a walk. Without snowshoes the walking is limited to where the guys have plowed but it was good to feel the sun for a few minutes.

This morning it is pretty cold again, but it is still, so it isn't too awful out. 

Sunday Stills...Green River

Will you settle for a green creek?
A favorite place to play when we were kids

Howsa about a green lake?

Green creek?

Green spring near a river? Manatee Springs right off the lovely Suwanee

Here is an explanation of this week's challenge from Ed, "Time for another musical challenge, this week it's from Credence Clearwater Revival waaaay back in 1969, its a great song. So, for the challenge its all about either the color green or rivers or a combination of both."

For more Sunday Stills........

Year of the Sheep

Lamb snuggled down in Daisy's bed

Daisy's revenge, resting in the lamb's bed

On the Lamb

Yeah, I spelled that right. Yesterday the kids picked up a bum lamb from a friend of the family in trade for some eggs. He is a cutie, Border Leicester and Clun Forest or so they say. I like sheep.

However.

I cannot begin to describe the chaos created by a baby sheep who thinks he is a person, a rotten little Dachshund who thinks she is a dire wolf, and a baby, who is already as animal crazy as her mother ever was.....remember Grandma and Grandpa's goat pen anyone?

It was so loud here last night that it was nearly unbearable. However, the rotten little dog eventually slept in her crate, and the lamb slept in a dog crate in the kitchen. I am assuming Miss Peggy, the new shepherdess of Northview Farm, slept in her crib. In my room, far, far away from any other room, I didn't hear them at least.

They named him Klondike in honor of our favorite Facebook game, and the weather. Please join me in hoping that it soon warms up enough for him to sleep in the barn instead of next to the kitchen sink. Thanks.

Can you Stand It?

Here are a few pics of farm life in the deep freeze. I will leave it up to you to judge whether it is still pretty or perhaps not so much. Stay warm....

Stuff goin' On

Taken from the driveway

Not much but sad news to report. Our area lost two very special people last week, icons in this small town farming world. One was the owner of one of the most famous farm stores in the state. He was someone we all liked very much and admired for the amazing things he did for the community....and a very special friend of Ralph's. Although he was not a young man by any means, the farming community was stunned by his loss. The wake is today.....

The other was a teacher at the kids' nursery school. Generations of area little ones called her "grandma", our own included. She was someone we have loved since my brothers and I were little kids ourselves. We grew up with her sons and went to her family's farm to pick out fuzzy little kitties to take home back in the day. We also went to that farm on field trips when we were in grade school. We weren't farm kids and we learned a lot.

The valley will miss them both for a long time I think.

Then there were the fires. This has been the worst year for fires I think I have ever seen. There were three major ones going on in the county all at the same time the other day, including this one right across the river from our house.

Although the people in these tragedies were uninjured, pets and belongings, in some cases everything they owned were lost......this area needs a break in this Godawful weather and soon.

Books

On March 6th Peggy will be one year old. I wanted to get her something she would especially enjoy, so I looked long and hard for some of those touchy-feely-type books for babies. You know, the ones with textured animals and fuzzy bunnies and all. I found one once for her cousin when she was smaller, and the sticky pig pen therein was a big hit.

Although I never did find another copy of that particular book, Amazon came through with a couple of similar titles. Not being the most patient of grannies, I gave them to her as soon as they came.

And........she likes them....in the photo above she is whacking her favorite with her stuffed giraffe, but that happened after she had "read" it to herself for an hour.

She even gets grandpa to "read" it so she can touch all the fuzzy and shiny and textured animals in it. Fun!

Now if I can just find the one with the pigpen. 

She likes lunch too!

All I have to Say