Sunday on the Farms

Alan and I partook of breakfast at my cousin's fine restaurant yesterday in the company and as guests of my brother and his lovely wife.

Pandora the Painted Cow

it was excellent.

Then we stopped to see my dear aunt and uncle in their new home, themselves having retired from farming after a fine career in the field. To our surprise, naughty drop-ins that we were, the whole clan was there, more aunts, uncles, cousins, and their offspring and spouses. 

Better baler daydreams

We are fortunate enough to enjoy the kind of family who gathered us in and offered us further sustenance, of which alas, we were unable to partake...see above.

However, we were hugged and loved on and welcomed and teased about kindergarten photos and such, and went away feeling in fine family fettle. Such good folks..... I love them all!

A pretty Jersey, udderly unconcerned about the crowd

Hence to Sundae on the Farm at Karen's Produce, where I had been invited by my boss at the paper to attempt some photos for same. No idea if any of them will ever see print, but we had a great time...a pretty venue, lots of fine farm folks, lots of folks visiting to learn about farming, and a fantastic day weather-wise.

Then the boss wanted his turn to shine so we went for a bit of a Sunday drive. Found our favorite orchard absolutely thronged with people enjoying the weather and picking apples and pumpkins and that was good to see. I always wish them the best of seasons!

Percherons

There are very few days as lovely as that, although the evening brought a taste of cold. It is early days yet and us old folks could have put on sweatshirts, but the boss changed the routing of the hot water in the cellar so it goes through the heating plenum on the furnace.

No turning on the forced air or anything, just a little passive warm air movement for the convenience of our miss Peggy......

Pretty much a good time had by all and I am downright thankful for it.

Kidz 'n' Dogz

Free Chipmunks with Every Purchase

The Hickory Tree

Actually we're not selling anything but hay, and not much of that yet, as there is still plenty of green grass out there....hay selling is a winter kind of thing I guess.

Thus you don't even need to buy anything, just come 'n' gettum. 

You see, the chickadees, titmice, and Downy Woodpeckers have come back and are looking for sunflower seeds and suet.

So is a Carolina Wren, which thrills me by being first bird every morning when I am out walking the pups.

So are five-hundred and twenty-seven chipmunks.

I counted.

Oh, all right, I didn't count them, but the boss has seen seven at one time and they are everywhere. They gather up great maws full of seeds and cart them away only to abandon them....leaving a great mess and wasting them almost entirely. Now they are harvesting my scarlet runner bean seed pods off the arbor....and it just so happens that I want to bring them in to dry for next year, dagnabbit.

Thus if you happen to stop by you may take home as many as you like....take a couple....take ten...take a dozen...heck, take a baker's dozen....no returns though...as is, where is......

I'll give you a tomato for a sandwich for every one you take....I'll even supply some bread and mayonnaise. 

Shamelessly stolen borrowed off Facebook.
 The guy in orange is our boy doing what he does.....

My Mama

Has a birthday today and I want to wish her a very happy one. Love you, Mama!


You can visit the website for the bookshop she and dad run if you would like to....right here.

67

If you see him out and about wish him a happy birthday.....

A Kettle of Hawks

Some Canada Geese up at Montezuma

I was hanging up laundry when the boss brought Mack out for a visit. He was racing up and down the lawn between us when I heard the cry of a Red-tailed Hawk, quite close.

I looked up to see if there was danger. Big hawk. Very small dog.

Far, far up in the sky, as far as I could see with naked eye, was a large swirl of some kind of raptor. I watched for a while and then pointed them out to the boss. Wings looked too short for vultures, but they were way higher than you normally see hawks...eagle height at least.

Then they drifted a little lower and I could pick out light-colored breasts and a definite buteo shape. 

A little lower still and a Red-tailed appeared out of the group.

By definition a kettle is something over a dozen hawks. Since there were at least thirty, and probably more like forty, I'd say we had us a kettle.

They may or may not have all been Red-tails, but whatever they were, they are a landmark for me. I have never seen such a grouping, or indeed any flock of migrating hawks, here at the farm ever....and I am always looking up.

However, thanks to Murphy and his infallible little law, I never see anything that cool when walking with camera and binoculars and deliberately birding. Nope, it's a laundry hanging sort of phenomenon.

Puppytoes

Brace yourselves for more puppy posts. Sorry, but I'm in love, and you know how that goes. This little dog has the whole family utterly charmed. He is sleeping on my toes right now, warming my feet and feeling secure. Puppytoes! He spent last night...and the night before...on the Boss's lap, wrapped up in his blankets. If you think farmers are tough guys and all hard and grumpy, just check out this duo.

It's a sweet deal for me- I get to play with a puppy all day and still sleep at night, while the little guy snuggles with his babysitter and both are utterly content.

Meanwhile, when I brought him in from his morning constitutional (he has a morning, second morning, three-hundredth morning, oops, oops, noon, second noon, oops, oops, tenth midnight....you get the idea, constitutionals.....thank God it's not winter)....anyhow, when I brought him in he ran and got Daisy's dish and banged it against my ankles, so yesterday wasn't an accident.

Alan bought him a puppy bed, but he likes sneakers better...and they are a perfect fit

Whenever Peggy sees him she hollers, "Dog, dog, dog," and blows him kisses. He seems to think she is pretty cool too. We are careful with their interactions, as they are both babies, but I think they will grow to be great friends. It is good to grow up with a puppy.It ain't bad being pretty old with a puppy either.

Life with Mack

He is quite a guy. Just left his mother Saturday and already manipulative, bossy, and smart enough to pick up Daisy's food dish...a Cool Whip container...and cart it around whining when he wants to eat.

I have had puppies before....I could write a book about nothing but dogs and not run out of material.....

And I have had terriers before, several of them, and am familiar with their ilk.

However, I have had no experience with such a creature as a Jack Russell Terrier, and I can see a very interesting learning curve in the near future. This is one smart and devilish little dog.

But fun! Yes, he is lots and lots and lots of fun too.

Alan wanted to keep him downstairs to sleep in his recliner with him...when he has to hit the road for the city very early that is where he sleeps...

He put him in his little crate when he left for work at two. I came down at four and found him sleeping in the boss's lap.

We don't need no stinking dog crates.

Not when we have indulgent men with warm, soft laps handy.

Teenie Little Super Guy

One of the prettiest places we have visited....and so quiet

Yesterday started well before dawn with a four-hour drive to Western NY. We breakfasted just after daybreak at a Cracker Barrel near Binghamton....who knew there were Cracker Barrels in NY?

Then we traveled through beautiful hills and quiet valleys dotted with small towns that clearly cater to farming and hunting. Feed stores, farm stores, grain elevators, sporting goods stores were everywhere, with small farms lined up out in the country. Despite impending rain and general gloom it was really nice land.

We turned into the hills upon a narrow, but scenic dirt road, and drove until we landed at a lovely little gem of a farm and kennel, where logging is done with 19-hand Belgians, American Fox Hounds are trained and used to hunt, and a few Jack Russell terriers are born to come home to places like Northview. 

We met the horses, all the dogs, and were licked and nibbled by many friendly dog mouths. Although Alan is a good friend of the man who raises and trains all these amazing animals, it was a first meeting for me.....you know those friends you just haven't met yet? It was like that with him and his lovely wife. We talked and talked and talked. Dogs, horses, construction, farming and family.....so much in common, so many good stories.

Then it was time to make the four-hour drive in reverse, this time with a teeny puppy in my lap.

He had already baptized both of us with a little nervous barfing....he sprinkled his new doggy bed a bit too, until we learned that when he wiggled and waggled and tried to get down, he need to GO. I'm sure we smelled just like him by the time we got home.

Daisy seems to like him, as does Peggy, although both seem a tiny bit jealous of all the attention folks seem to lavish upon him. 

He only woke me up to go out at 3 and 5, which I suppose wasn't too bad......although it felt pretty awful at the time. Now if we can find something he actually likes to eat. I can attest that he was full of dog food when we met him, as we both ended up wearing some of it, but so far he isn't crazy about anything we have here.

Anyhow, meet Mack. We tried on a least a hundred names over several weeks until one fit, but he answers to it already, so I guess he approves.

Demoing Daisy's toys already

Never Forget

Carl DiFranco

Always Remember

The World Trade Center

Little Things

Contrasts

The Little Blue Shirt

I don't suppose this day will ever pass unmarked here. Memories of these terrorist attacks  are etched in acid in all our brains. 

The people we lost. 

Innocence lost. 

So very much lost.

Repairs that are still ongoing and often involve family members.

This is a great nation. I firmly believe that we are among the most generous people in the world, but the World Trade Center attacks shattered more than the foundations of New York City.

They injured us all, in ways that may never be healed.

I was awakened not too long before midnight last night by the ringing of the portable phone, which I cart upstairs whenever my boy is on the road. He and my brother are both working in the City right now, so today has a bunch of extra worries for me....

I clawed up out of restless sleep and fumbled in terror....that is what terrorist attacks do...they leave an aftermath of fear even in those not damaged directly. It was okay....it was Lifeline calling to tell us that an elderly relative had taken a little tumble, but had been checked out by paramedics and was A-Okay and fine and no worries mate.

It took me a long time to go back to sleep.

Stand strong friends and neighbors...we are all there for each other.

I Hope You Can Stand

I was trying to sneak up for some candids, but Kegan spotted me right away

A little more stuff from the fair....this time my dear brother and his  son working on getting their hit and miss engines running in their display at the fair. They make the cornmeal and it is delicious. I have a bunch in the freezer and as soon as the weather warrants I will be baking corn bread with it again.

Obstacle

Look who got roped into offered the amazing opportunity to help set up one of the draft obstacle courses.

All the while this was going on the horses in the previous post were being groomed or readied for the class or exercised in the arena nearby. They seemed utterly unperturbed. 

The nefarious noodles.
These are placed so ponies have to walk between them with them touching on both sides
Ooh, scary!

Sheer Terror

Horse in close proximity to a train. Train had stopped for a few minutes, but was starting up making lots of train noises..
Liz says this was a truck-in horse that had just arrived. You can see by his ears that he is noticing the train behind him. His driver is off to the side...you can see the reins going off to the horse's right

There has been a particularly irritating little meme going around the Interwebs lately showing a smug, self-satisfied, young fool standing next to a NYC carriage horse while holding a poster saying, "Horses are terrified of traffic and loud noises".

No problem

She may even believe it.. The horse is resting, hip-shot, head at a comfortable half mast, eyes drooping, ears akimbo, obviously to anyone who has ever been around a horse...or for that matter watched a John Wayne movie...half asleep and perfectly contented.

Another one.
She was at the fair all week...you can see just how worried she is about the trains and commotion there.

And yet a visit to this girl's page yields reams of comments of the same ilk. Poor, poor frightened horsie, he needs to walk in green meadows with unicorns, far away from awful human beings and their scary stuff.

I just love self-proclaimed equine experts.

But they don't know nuttin. Can't even tell a sleeping horse from a runaway. I actually stepped outside the boundaries I usually set for myself on this stuff and confronted a couple of people about care of the NY horses. It is a damned shame that they want to remove this last little bit of actual nature from the stone and concrete jungle because of their own ignorance.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts...or trains...or much of anything

I also took a few pictures over at the fair of horses in conjunction with railroad trains. The tracks abut the northern edge of the fairgrounds and run right past the stables....mere feet away from hundreds of horses, every single year.

If I were a horse...alas I'm not but....I would think that thousands of tons of hurtling, whistle-shrieking, thunder rumbling train racing past might just be a little scarier than a few cars and taxis....well maybe the taxis are worse but...

Anyhow, within a day or two, usually even in just a few hours, most horses grow accustomed to the trains and the noise from the midway and the hundreds of people pushing strollers and trailing broods of noisy kids and ignore them completely.

Just like people do. They are adaptable beasts, not too stupid to learn to cope with their surroundings. The anti-animal-interaction activists cannot, in my opinion, make the same claim.

This is worth a look too.

Draft Horse Show

The judge awaits his class

Standing for the National Anthem

Here they come

We visited the fair yesterday for the last day....end of summer..it is now autumn in the Great Northeast, no matter what the calendar says....and enjoyed the six-horse hitch class at the draft show. 

Turn your sound up to get the best of this little video. There is nothing like the pounding of the hooves and the jingle of the chains.

Sunday Stills....Happiness Is

I could fill this post with photos of family, cows, plants, birds, frogs, road trips to exciting places, babies, and everything around me. They all bring joy every single day. It has taken over six decades but I am contented a good deal of the time and happy often.....something some people are born with and others have to work for. I work for it because it is worth it. Oftentimes I fail. I fight with fear every day, irrational but powerful. I expect most folks do. Prayer helps with that, but it is always there. We are so terribly fragile....

Anyhow I had to think about this for a while....and finally decided that I am closest to how I imagine Heaven might be on the porch at the cabin on the lake at sunrise.

So, here are a couple of the sunrises of fire and tinfoil that I enjoyed this summer.

Hope your day is happy.

For more Sunday Stills....