"Blue" Birds

I hiked all over the farm to count Brown Thrashers,
only to have a pair show up on the long lawn the next day

We are not used to being so warm...or maybe it's the pollen...or maybe we are still not over the bug, which has laid Liz low....but anyhow, we are all so tired these days.

Thus I was nodding over a WEB Griffin book when the boss exclaimed, "Look, there are two Bluebirds on your Hummingbird feeder!"

"What! Huh?" I was suddenly wide awake, but more than slightly skeptical.

However, he was insistent that there had been a pair of Bluebirds drinking from the feeder...I have two now, as he bought me a wide-mouth, easy-clean one for Mother's Day (two new pond lilies too, lucky me, lucky me.)

I got up to see these wonders but they were of course gone....

Oh, well....... I wondered.....what could have been there? Hmmm....

Went out to the kitchen to get a drink and there on the blue feeder was an Indigo Bunting!

How cool! How EARLY!!! How awesome!

How glad I was that he can see the feeder from his chair and that he woke me up.

Liz is still struggling with what seems to be pretty bad pneumonia....maybe if she actually got some rest, but someone is a compulsive worker....anyhow, thanks for all your kind words, thoughts and prayers. I know they help! A Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are mothers. 

A good little dairy farm girl...this one loves her milk already

Good Thoughts Please

Peg brought home a really nasty bug from an Easter party last month. Some of us caught it. Some of us didn't.

Those of us who did were nasty sick....can't hardly work, dizzy, fever, horrific cough sick. Peg shrugged it off in a week or so, myself much more slowly, but I am pretty much over it....the boss still sounds like a TB ward, but he is back to work like a trouper.

However her mama went to urgent care last night and discovered...to the surprise of none of us...that she has pneumonia.

Poor kid. She works so hard and takes care of the baby and cooks and all, been working a lot on the garden, and she's allergic to maple trees, which doesn't help a bit..... I guess she just got run down and ended up real sick. She even had to get a shot...she is allergic to a whole bunch of antibiotics so they have to be careful....so hold good thoughts if you would. She was at least allowed to come home but she sounds.....well.....lousy.

Reforestation

You know how I mentioned that trees are a renewable resource? That was really driven home yesterday when I went up with the boss fixing fence in the heifer pasture. 

Although we call it that, for the past ten years or so we ran the milk cows up there at least part of the time. Last year we sold the herd ...And all that summer there were only four in a pasture that formerly fed sixty. Now we only have two old milk cows

Right now, those two old girls, Bama and Moon are still in the barnyard on hay. Although they know where they belong, the fence must be repaired in case a storm or hunters or something else panics them and they run where they don't belong.

Anyhow, I went out with him to see if I could spot the Brown Thrashers that are around....(check...Bobolinks too.).

All over the top of the hill, to the tune of thousands upon thousands, little Sugar Maple trees have taken root. I swear every samara that swirled down from the old trees since the cows left has sprouted.

With only two cows to turn out there this summer I don't suppose they will be disturbed much.

How long before it is a forest again?

Although you can't see him in this view of the Shagbrark Hickory,
(largest tree, just right of center)
there is somebody up there.

This guy

Tough

Little oaks from great tree stumps grow.....

A trio of marvelous old trees once graced the entrance to a pair of the farthest back fields on the place. We are believers in hedgerows and old trees and sharing with the wild things, but those beauties grew so huge that it became impossible to get machinery into the fields.

They had to come down; we have to work the land in order to pay the taxes to keep it in agriculture...I hate to tell you how fast this place would be developed if we let go. There have been many offers over the years.....and to eat as well, a habit of which we have grown quite fond. 

Years ago they did, recycled into firewood, which is a truly renewable resource. Oak is slow to dry, but long to burn.....

Just how renewable trees are was made clear when Alan took me all the way to the back of the land on Sunday. It had been a while since I had been back there. It is a very long walk and I am slow. No saddle horses any more, and only one tractor, which is usually in use.

I was amazed to see that the two oak trees on the southern side of the gateway had resprouted. One is not going to amount to much, just a witch's broom of random twiggery.

However, the other one has thrust up a whole new trunk and branches right out of the heart of its parent tree. It isn't as easy to see as it might be, but if you look closely you can pick out the muscular young oak springing from the stump of the old tree.

That's tough!

The Good Earth

This garden is on its third year from the scooping and poop piling stage.
You can see it below after Jade put it up in beds and Liz planted part of it. It had Zucchetta the first year, beans and peas last year, and this year onions and probably carrots.

There is pretty good land around here. Not all of it, but a lot. our front fields are slate, which is good stuff, the back clay, which is not so much. We make our garden beds over about two years. First the boss scoops out  the weeds and such with the tined rock bucket on the skid steer. Then he applies rotted cow manure a good foot deep.

Before Jade came, I planted it to squash or some other coarse, heavy-feeding plant the first year and then raked it off and grew whatever I wanted to in subsequent years.

Now Jade rototills it and kicks up raised beds or lays out flat places. Badda bing, instant garden.

Yesterday, the boss skimmed off an old garden I made the hard way...with a shovel and spade....when we moved up here. I had given up on it. Huge nettles and millions of reed canary grass rhizomes made it impossible to care for. We made quite a discovery while taking out the old fence and leveling the ground. 

Everybody gets in the act. This is a new bed Jade made where the old apple tree had to come out.

The telephone pole that feeds the house has been leaning a little for several years. At the base, where it had been hidden by a gigantic wild rose bush is a gigantic woodchuck warren, going right down the pole into the ground!

No wonder!

He called the power company as soon as we came back in the house. Don't know if they will do anything about it but.....

Some of the Candy Onions Liz put in. We ordered them in December
and finally got them late last week, in a totally crushed and open box. I think they will grow though

Anyhow, here are some of the gardens we are using.

The bed pictured on top two years ago just after the first frost nailed the Zucchetta

The Catbird Seat

After a busy day yesterday...the kids got a lot of the garden ready, onions planted, and chores done, and the boss sold a little hay....he and I sat out on the sitting porch enjoying the evening.

It has been closed up for many months with plastic and heavy fabric over the door and it is a real treat to get out there and listen to the birds and watch the moon rise. I spend time out there every day, as it is a good place to monitor who's back from the far south and I am picking up new arrivals almost every day.

We were talking quietly when I heard a faint call coming in from the south end of the old horse pasture...I listened as it came closer and closer. Sure enough....

First Catbird of the year... It was pretty cool to actually hear him approach. This morning there is no sign of him, so he may have moved along......Whenever the ones that nest here return they will find plenty of grape jelly and oranges, as did the Baltimore Orioles that showed up on the feeders yesterday.

Our big brown bat is back too. I hope he stays outdoors!

Ren, the big, pink dog

Attempted Hay Napping

Bad Moon Rising

Or, Curses! Foiled again!

As you may know, we sold the cows last year and changed our focus to making hay. Hay is not nearly as much fun as cows, but there is at least some potential to be able to pay the taxes and such at the end of the year.

In fact, it has been pretty good to us so far. The boss makes good hay and has had a lot of repeat customers.

Anyhow, big loads we sell out of the barnyard, but thanks to the driveway being more of a guideline than a rule, if people only want a few bales he takes it down to the bottom by the road and loads them there.

Yesterday he loaded out hay pretty much all day. Last load was just a little one to a new customer, so he put it in the skid steer bucket and took it down to wait. 

First an Amishman pulled up and offered him a little more than half what we are selling it for and was quite put out not to get a discount. 

Then, just as he was pulling away, some guys in a green pickup truck pulled a 180, spun into the driveway, jumped out of the truck, and headed for the skid steer.

Now, the boss is a man of average height and he piles the hay pretty high on the bucket. It's a white Bobcat and he was wearing a white tee shirt..... So I guess you couldn't see him all that well.

Anyhow, those good old boys walked right up to the hay before he said quietly, "Can I help you fellows?"

I guess they didn't even leave tracks getting back into that truck and peeling away.

We lost a few bales earlier this winter when the boss tried leaving a few at the bottom while he went up for more. I wonder if he found the culprits......

Anyhow, we had a real good laugh at their expense. 

Two Weeks

Upland Sandpiper

 
What a difference they make. Alan took me for my first ever quad ride two weeks ago before he went to DC. Things were pretty brown and there were very few birds around.

Today we did some of the same route, plus the east side of the farm, the portion known as the Dimond Farm, (spelled right...a local name) as that is who owned it before we did. There was such a change.

Green everywhere. Pink lipstick on the distant maples. Green lace in all the treetops.

Birds everywhere. The Savannah Sparrows are back...or at least a few of them are. Dozens of Red-Winged Blackbirds were staking out territories, and Song Sparrows galore.

We saw a pair of Upland Sandpipers.

There were deer on the move...still shaggy and grey, but nice to see.

It was great to see the land all dressed up and ready for spring. So different from two weeks ago when it looked more like October than April.

Here's a list, in no particular order, of what we saw on our ride, not including the birds that frequent the backyard.

Canada Goose
Mourning Dove
White-throated Sparrow
Red-Winged Blackbird
Northern Cardinal
Tufted Titmouse
Song Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
American Robin
American Crow
Common Grackle
Northern Flicker
Brown-Headed Cowbird
Upland Sandpiper
American Turkey
American Goldfinch
European Starling
Blue Jay

I also heard what was no doubt a Brown Thrasher, but it was far down in the woods and I wasn't positive. Thought I heard a Ruffed Grouse, but it only called for a second.

All in all a lot of fun. If at any moment I had croaked I would have died really happy.

Hay Tool

And tillage tool...and whatever else needs to be done. The boss put all the hay up with one tractor last year. It wasn't easy.

The younger entry bought this today. It should be better this year.

Congratulations Alan.

A Banquet of Food for Thought

First, a rancher's take on  a concept credited to Temple Grandin.....that we should breed wild instincts back into our cattle to protect them from predators. Dairy cattle are considered to be far less motherly than beef breeds, but ours were fierce in protecting their babies from coyotes...and sometimes from us. They would also protect our children if they thought it was necessary. One of Alan's show cows, Balsam, saw yotes hanging around, and scooped him against her shoulder with her head and pushed him down into the relative safety of the barnyard. Old Mandy did the same with Liz once when predators lurked in the fields.

However, all the herding or grouping or bunching instinct in the world isn't going to make a cow stick with the herd while calving...they are very vulnerable then...and predators are smart, persistent and capable. I don't think we are going to breed our cows to be better able to protect themselves very successfully. And as one of the commenters on this story said, we have all been breeding cattle for kind temperament for generations. Why would we want them to be wild and dangerous to ourselves? This is a good read and the comments are interesting.

Next, should farm kids be forgiven their student loans because farming is a public service? I have no real opinion on this, but I do believe that the will to farm is bred into nearly all of us. We just express it by nurturing pets and house plants rather than by growing food for our neighbors and the world. We feed our Jones for the outdoors in parks and camp grounds rather than by tilling acres and baling hay....it's in there though.....

Congratulations to the Capital District Dairy Bowl team. We did Dairy Bowl and Dairy Judging when the kids were younger. A lot of hard work, but both build character and teach kids an amazing amount about a plethora of subjects. As someone who didn't grow up on a farm and didn't even work on one until my mid-twenties, I learned a lot sitting in the back of the room waiting for the kids to be done practicing and driving them to regional meets and waiting some more...you do a lot of waiting when you are a parent. 

Later I had fun coaching the novice team for several years. It was amazing to watch kids who barely knew a Holstein from a Swiss go on to clearly understand and explain how the esophageal groove works, and all about rumen function. Three cheers for this fine group of farm youth, representing some of the iconic farms of our region. Their families and coaches can be very proud of them.

A little birding. Those regional song variations will drive you nuts if you start second guessing yourself. A little whistler has been whooping up a storm around here all week. I have always thought that this song, which always begins to occur in mid-April, belonged to a certain common sparrow that passes through each year...usually a couple weeks earlier than this year though.

However, I started listening to the songs accredited to this bird online.....hmm....not right...not right at all. Not even almost right. It took me days of trotting out at first light trying to get my tired old eyes to focus before I was really awake to discover.....that I was right all along....it was indeed a White-Crowned Sparrow.

This morning the binoculars gave me a clear picture of its little yellow beak parted in cheerful song right in the old Winesap apple tree. Give a listen at the link. Except for the chip notes, which match pretty well, ours doesn't sound anything at all like this....so much for birding by ear.

Ask Liz about driving to where her husband's truck was laid low by a blown radiator hose and fixing it herself with her own tools.....farm girls....ya gotta love 'em.

Green

We haz it. The deer are no longer the exact color of the grass upon which they graze and they probably won't be for several months. I am planning on doing my best to savor every hour of the upcoming NotWinter months.

Having become monumentally sick of same.

Went to visit the folks yesterday to take some pics for them of some incredible posters they discovered rolled up in a tube among the inventory of their shop. Real wow stuff about award winning school bands and John Phillip Sousa and all.

It was really interesting.

Oddly there are still very few interesting migrants around. By this time last year there were so many more here. The hummingbird map shows them in southern NY, but I don't know what they would do here. Perhaps nibble on the Colts Foot, which has finally showed up weeks late. Guess I will put a feeder out pretty soon, but I don't expect much.

Meanwhile all and sundry are missing our boy, who has been working in the nation's capitol for the past couple of weeks. We are wishing he would maybe make like ET.....you know, phone home.....

Yesterday Peggy had her pseudo phone and was banging on the upstairs door and yelling for him. I think she is trying to tell him something.

Cropping up all Over

Crocus

Squill

Anise Hyssop! I am so happy to see this fragrant little delight

Ice Follies...been naturalizing them
since we moved here and they are finally coming into their own

Finally! A warm spring day. Winter has been digging its claws in, refusing to loose its hold on the ground or on our hearts.

Ask any farmer and they will tell you...these crop up anew each spring as well!
For Grey

Planting History

NOT Datil pepper seeds. Leftover milkweed.....

I have been reading this blog pretty much since we got on the Internet...certainly most of the time that I have been blogging. From its author we have learned a great deal about all things Florida. He is the science teacher the rest of us only dream of...field trips out into the Gulf, snake excitement, birds, gophers of the reptile kind, exotic plants and all, with a friendly pack of incredibly literate Labradors thrown in as well.

Florida simply fascinates me. You know, from out of the far far north and all....They have different birds and plants and critters. Pure Florida feeds that.

For years FC has been offering Datil Pepper seeds for sale...He grows them himself; pure heritage, heirloom in the most literal sense of the word, seed stock.

This year we finally ordered some.

I planted them today, along with a bunch of assorted sweet basil. Now I am crossing my fingers for success. If they come along all right, all you Northview people who drown everything I cook with the hottest hot sauce you can buy are in for a treat. 

He sent recipes too. You should go to Pure Florida and search "Datil peppers" to learn how the tradition of growing them has been passed down in the family for generations.

Thanks so much FC. This planting history business feels like a fun project.

Sunday Stills.....Cows

Neon Moon

A wee skirmish over who is going to stand where

Cinnamon

We wuz only foolin'

Seriously

Thanks, Ed, for this fun challenge.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Shooting Bison in a Barrel

I wish I could tell all the people who milled around terrifying the loose bison yesterday that they probably contributed to the problem. Bison are wild animals.They wouldn't run up to a lion or tiger waving cell phones and taking selfies would they? 

Maybe they would.

Liz actually saw a post from a  news channel urging people to go get photos and selfies. It has since been taken down....

But maybe if people had stayed home and not run around chasing them waving cell phones they might have calmed down enough to be captured. Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, reading the comments on various news stories raised my blood pressure beyond the safe point. All those instant experts damning the family that owned the animals, the police, and anyone who dared make an intelligent comment. 

Wow. Do they talk to their mothers that way?

I saw suggestions that the owners should be shot too. That they were Nazis. Monsters. Bad business people. Liz went to school with some of the family members and none of those awful things are true, but all of them are hurtful.

There were lots of urban fencing experts too. Obviously in the utopia where they live, trees never fall on fences. Animals never panic and run through fences that would normally stop a train. I have seen a German Shepherd dog eat through the wall of a HOUSE!. It weighed a lot less than a bison. 

I had to stop reading. I mean, who you gonna trust? Cornell experts? Farmers? People who work with bison? Or people who never stepped in manure, but sure know how to pile it?

We once had a valuable, but overly nervous....kinda crazy really...Holstein heifer, jump a fence and head for the Thruway in the middle of the night. The same Interstate the buffalo were on. Call us monsters and/or Nazis if you will, but we consulted with the state police and together decided that if she got on the Interstate she would have to be shot.

The officers went out on the road to look for her and do the deed if necessary.

Luckily she was found and brought home before she got on the highway, but it could have ended very differently.

I don't care how good you build your fences. Trees fall in storms. People open gates. Stuff happens.

However, I fear that social media will soon remove our ability to keep animals at all, no matter what our motives, no matter what our methods. When the people who equate uninformed opinions and cliches with actual knowledge use comments as a courtroom, much damage is done. Common sense isn't going to help. It is too hard to find. 

Oh, and in NY, if someone had been injured by those animals, the farmer would have been liable......so preventing that from happening was probably a good business decision.

On the Land

Road trip yesterday. We needed to go to Sunnycrest to get some Slendrette bean seeds. Although we grow half a dozen varieties of snap bean, Slendrette, or Slankette, its other name, is my favorite for filling the freezer. It is an easily picked, prolific bean, that comes back all season, over and over again. 

Becky found a little filet bean last year that bore right up until frost as well. That one was not a freezer-filler, because of the tiny size of the pods, but oh, so tasty. Alas I don't remember the variety, so I am going to have to have her look it up for me if I want more.

For a gardener, Sunnycrest's greenhouse is like a visit to a spa for a girly girl. What feels like miles of vivid geraniums flanked by smiling pansies and hundreds....thousands...of other sunny, happy flowers. Herbs. Succulents in little dishes.

Honestly I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. It has been a LONG winter, and really it is still hanging on. Cold and clammy this morning, with snow all around us. I came away with a nice spearmint plant and a yellow and brown coleus that caught my eye. Of course we also got a half a pound of bean seeds and a bag of Yukon Gold seed potatoes.

Then we toured down little country roads, some of which we had never seen before. I guess the boss was happy to get his hermit down off the hill because he obligingly stopped at Bowmaker Pond, where the Canada Geese and Tree Swallows were whooping it up.

I tried hard for some photos of the amazing hill country down between route 20 and Cobleskill, but the rain made it impossible. Tried for duck ID in Bear Swamp too, with the same problem. No light. Lots of water falling on us.

We drove well over fifty miles, through what has always been dairy country and saw three viable dairy farms. Three. And all three were pretty down at the heels. Of course nobody looks their best in April, especially after a winter like this past one, but still....you could just feel the hard times rolling off them.

It is easy to recognize farmhouses that date back to Revolutionary War times. This is a historic area after all. However, far too many of these stately former farm homes were surrounded by five acre lawns, a few tumble down buildings, and brush. There were a few farmers on the land, more Amish than English. It was sad.