Grandpa

Today would have been my maternal grandfather's birthday. He was such a good man.....

Kind, gentle, generous, and funny. I wish we had recorded his stories. They were many and amazing......and long, and rambling, but good. 

By the time we knew him, he was older and not in the spring of his wild youth. However, I have always loved the story he told of riding a wild horse for a relative who was something of a horse dealer.

The horse was unbroken and large and generally unrideable, but he got on, wrapped his long, thin legs around and pointed him out of the yard. It was Powder River, let 'her buck from there for nearly four miles, cross country. Any country. All country.

The stable was in Johnstown, but the horse jumped fences and forged creeks all the way to Sammonsville.

 Grandpa's eyes still lit up when he told the story many decades later. 

Guess the nag was tired enough at the end to return home in a more docile manner too. I'll bet they called him broke after that. Must have been fun.

Grandpa also grew rhubarb, the best I've ever enjoyed. I still have some plants he gave me that I have moved from house to house for forty years. He was a grandpa to be loved and fought over with the other grandkids and generally depended on for anything anyone needed. 

I miss him. July second will never be the same without him. 

Almanac

June is all about thunderstorms and flowers. With all the hay under cover, except that which is on the wagon with the borked wheel, the boss just spent the week mostly storing it. It is a slow process, as he has a lot of leftover misery from his injuries, but good Lord willing it will be done by the time it dries up enough to mow more. It is hard to watch him struggle to do stuff, but he is a tough cookie and will get 'er done.

We sure had some gully washers over the past couple of days and a little bit of wind and lightning too. So far no harm done. The gardens are drinking it all in...as are the weeds. I will sure be busy when it dries out.

Our beloved blue invader, chicory, has come into bloom at least a week early. Normally I can count on it for my Independence Day birthday, but this year it is raring to go.

Bird activity is slowing down in a big way. I actually got a little bored doing my daily assessment of what's happening on the Long Lawn and environs yesterday. Not much around but our trio of common warblers, a scattering of sparrows, robins, starlings, and the ubiquitous Cedar Waxwings. Been a long time since I've seen an ooh-ah bird and we are missing some common regulars so far, such as American Woodcock and Great Crested Flycatcher.....

Beating the catbirds at their own game

That being said, pretty much everybody that is around is working on a second...or maybe third...brood. Serendipitously, a gentleman who reads the Farm Side and enjoys the bird columns particularly, stopped by and got to see the male Ruby-throated Hummingbird fly his mating loop-de-loops right in front of the porch....something I have only ever seen twice now.

Good deal!

I don't often do this

But here is a favorite Farm Side from earlier this year: (You can read the Farm Side every week in the Amsterdam Recorder Weekender edition.)

A skeptical eyebrow of moon looks down on all the green at daybreak. Just weeks ago all was cold and quiet. Now riotous growth offers welcome to all manner of summer visitors.

One of our favorites, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, arrived on the 14^th of May, tattered and ever so tame. Every feather was ragged and she was clearly as empty as a just-rung bell. She sat on the string on the porch, hunched and humbled, barely able to fly.

Every few minutes she would flutter over to the feeder and drink and drink, clinging to the edge on nearly vestigial feet. Thanks to a friend who lives near the Schoharie, whose birds arrive just days before ours every year, we knew to expect her. The sugar water (plain with no red dye thank you, one part sugar to four parts water, and fresh every couple of days) was waiting.

The next night hard cold hit. We figured she would be done for. Such a tiny heartbeat, after such a long voyage. How could it not be stilled by bitter temperatures and vicious winds?

She and her bright emerald, ruby, and silver partner lived through the cold snap though. They visit every day to partake. However, somehow, after arriving with a full fan of tail feathers, albeit badly rumpled, she now has only two.

I often consider these tiny, tyrannical birds (they weigh about as much as a penny) and marvel at how they manage to return year after year to fly tame in human gardens and sip all day from feeders designed and maintained by us. They travel so very far, coming here from Central America, often across the Gulf of Mexico. They make the ocean trip, five-hundred miles or so, in non-stop flight. It takes them less than 24 hours as a rule, and they cannot, of course, land or rest over the open, wind-tossed water. No wonder ours looked tattered.

After that gigantic leap of flight, they head north to brighten summer days, about 20 miles at a time, feeding as they come.

Strangely, what with their barely-functional feet, they are scientifically related to swifts. We have those too now, Chimney Swifts, nesting in the unused chimney next to the kitchen. Even in the hours around dusk they can be heard gently twittering to each other in there. We like them quite a lot.

So much has changed since the cold evaporated. As the sun goes down, you can smell something blooming, faintly lemon against the freshening air. Goldfinches stay all winter, snuggled up in drab brown feathers. Now their bright yellows are only rivaled by the other yellow birds of summer, Yellow Warblers.

Yellow warblers are yellow. (Well, duh.) Not the screaming neon yellow of the finches, but rather a rich, buttery color, much enhanced by thin red stripes across the breasts of the males. They sing all day, bragging about how very fine they are, “Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweeter sweet.” We watched one, of an afternoon, sitting comfortable on an ash twig and darting out, just inches, into a swarm of bright-winged gnats, nipping up a couple every trip. It must have eaten fifty or so while we observed.

Let’s see now. At least a dozen pairs of YEWAs times fifty bugs in five minutes. Seems like good company to have in your back yard.

We had some mystery birds show up this spring too, although we soon found out that they had been spotted here before. An insistent call, kind of like snee, snee, snee, sneeze, came from several different box elder trees around the yard. I simply could not find anything that matched, so I made a short video with sound and posted it to a bird group.

American Redstart. Huh, we saw some last year, out in the old horse pasture, but they sure didn’t nest within a couple dozen feet of the house. Of course after the ID was made we spot them every day now. The drab females, kind of olive with yellow flashes at wing and tail, spend hours gathering spider webs and cottonwood fluff, evidently to line their nests.

How convenient that the cottonwoods are just beginning to shed the seeds that gave them their name. A few thousand of them clogging a screen or draping over the garden pond do look a bit like cotton don’t they?

It is perhaps not too surprising that this small farm offers a home or handy stopping place to so many species of birds. Grassland farming, such as is practiced in Upstate NY, is kind to birds, whether those of forest, fields, or edges. Habitat loss is perhaps the single biggest factor in the rapid decline of many once-common species. How many of us grew up to the monotonous all night song of the Whippoorwill? How many have you heard lately? For me it has been over thirty years since I have seen or heard one, despite the many nights they kept me awake when I was younger. It is a common trend.

At this date, not quite half way through the year, we have counted sixty-two different species of birds on our land. They range from House Sparrows and European Starlings, neither of which is particularly welcome, to a Cerulean Warbler, quite a rare little creature, spotted ironically on Global Big Day, when birders across the entire world were out counting birds. (Alan and I spotted 42 species that day.)

In 2015 we found 82 species on this little place. Whether we will meet or surpass that depends on many factors, but clearly the open land dotted with woods and water that makes up this region is welcoming to many birds.

Come late summer, when the hummingbirds begin their reverse journey and the winter sparrows head down from the tundra, I hope we will be sending out many more individuals than arrived here this spring. Some birds, particularly robins, are on their second broods already.

Conservation is an unsung aspect of grassland farming that happens every day.  

Soggy Tufted Titmice

Null

A couple of Red-eyed Vireos sang in the box elders. Mosquitoes buzzed me, drilling for the ruby ichor the could find behind my ears.

Nuff Said

Happy Birthday

To the older of my duo of handsome brothers. Good men, both. They both do things for people and care for people routinely, not because they expect thanks or reward, but because that is how they are wired. This one makes great music as well.

Been lucky that way. When they passed out little brothers I was first in line for the top of the line.

Happy birthday, Michael. Hope it is a wonderful one. 

I Have Always Wanted a Lawn Flamingo

Keeping Company with other Men

I love my family....you know I do....

And I generally like having them all around me.

However, sometimes, just sometimes, for a few minutes I like to be by myself.

That being said, an overactive mind is a terrible thing to have. I don't do boring stuff very well.

Thus, thanks to Becky's ingenuity, J. P. Beaumont joined me in housework and in weeding the beans and onions today. He is a companionable sort and spins a great yarn. So, until I got sick of my phone shutting him off for some reason, and the audio book stopping at every single chapter end, forcing me to constantly drag the phone out and fix the situation I enjoyed his company.

Then I lost the book entirely...oh, it's still there on the phone, somewhere, but not where I can access it....so I reluctantly bid J.P. adieu and found some other fellers to entertain.

Started out with Jerry Jeff. Then Lucky Man and Brad Mates' amazing voice took me back to the Fonda Fair 2007. Up until that time I had listened to Becky go on and on and on about the band and just put my fingers in my ears...hmmmm....hmm...hmmmm....

Not my kind of music. Until that concert. Until I actually heard them live. After that I joined the girls in road trips anywhere they played within driving distance (and we were pretty darned liberal about just what constituted driving distance) until they stopped playing in the US much.

Anyhow, nine years later there are still five favorite songs by them on my phone and a lot more on this computer. I change the phone list up every now and then.

After some good Irish fellows sang for me and some Scottish gents, I realized that my arms were tired of hoeing and I hadn't seen the leader of our particular band in quite a while.

So I put the tools away and went looking for him....over to the barn...nobody in the mow....started up the hill...he'd been working on the baler...

But nope, not enough gumption for that.

So I came in the house to wait for him and there he was. He had walked right past the garden without seeing me, and with all those nice guys singing for me I hadn't heard him.

Huh.

Anyhow, no matter who stops by to hang around in the garden, I always dance with the one what brung me.....eventually.

Fledgling

The sun came up all the colors of the Sacred Heart, glowing, beating, filled with loving power..... reigning over the morning.

It was fine indeed. 

Also fine, if rather raucous, is the season's crop of fledglings. 

In the old cow barn, back in the bull pen, a clutch of Carolina Wrens, no larger than walnuts with feathers. So cute they could be Peggy toys, flitting in and out through the fan.

Baby robins, dot, dot, dot, screeching like crazy and hopping everywhere. So many clutches, on ledges, limbs and unlikely spots under eaves. One built a bunch of dried out Egyptian top onions into the nest. Looked pretty funny dangling down.

House Finches, oh, how noisy, following dad around all day. If I was him I'd give 'em a good swift peck on the fanny!

Other babies actually seen: Savannah Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Grey Catbirds, European Starlings (oh yay) House Sparrows (ditto), Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Bobolinks, Eastern Phoebes, Tufted Titmice (one first-day-on-the-new-wings youngster flew right through my hair!!! Oops), Black-capped Chickadees, Purple Finches, Song Sparrow, White-breasted Nuthatches (on the feeder right now...beep, beep, beep), Common Grackles, and probably more that I am forgetting. The boss had a whole family of Kestrels hunting when he was raking hay.

Birds singing on territory and clearly nesting: American Redstart, Yellow Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Red-winged Blackbird, Indigo Bunting, Willow Flycatcher, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Northern Cardinal...oh, heck, there are a lot of birds around.

I think I am hearing that Cerulean Warbler, but I don't see it and it always comes around singing when I am working in the yard with no camera to record the song. I'll get it one of these days....hopefully.

Anyhow, now that the sun is back, as soon as the baler is definitely fixed, time for more hay and hopefully some strawberries for jam.

Solstice

 The Solstice is my kind of day. The summer one that is. The only good thing about the winter one is that the days start getting longer....far too slowly.

This full moon day, it was light enough to see outside at 4 when I got up...Good thing too, because I practically tripped over a deer....eating my beets dagnabbit. 

............Mikie B, I hope you are reading this!

I was worried about my folks, who lost power last night due to a tree down on wires. When they have no electricity they have neither water, nor cooking, nor cooling abilities and I was concerned about their safety and comfort.

Turns out it came back on at 11 last night but still.

We are all making the most of this lovely long day.

The boss went down for gas for the Massey really early and we unloaded the two loads of hay that he had baled, then he baled another and we threw that off too. Then a hydraulic line on the baler broke...to the tune of $78 bucks..... so he is debating whether to make one out of hose or buy one. As of a couple of hours ago the rest of the hay wasn't ready yet anyhow.....alas, since it is going to rain.

The kids are out getting some ground ready to plant. I suppose I had better collect up the tomato plants and get out there but we are enjoying orange floats right now and I kinda want to savor mine.

 A whole bunch of Red-eyed Vireos flying around.....how cool is that?

Farmers and Ranchers

Looking for ideas (well, really, looking at the lady on the porch with a camera)

I started writing the Farm Side, part time, in 1998. Alan was 8, the girls 10 and 12. We were dairy farming with our whole hearts and all our hands and deeply involved in the ag community....fingers on the pulse, so to speak. We served on coop boards and the school board, and the Farm Bureau board and coached youth ag activities and drove kids to Dairy Promotion events and then drove them home again after.

Now the kids are all grown, (although we are still close). Instead of barns full of cows and calves and heifers, there is one with poultry, sheep, a pig, and some bunnies, a few ponies and such, but the business end of the business is mostly about putting up a few thousand bales of hay to pay the taxes.

Although I keep in contact with the world of farming via the Internet, perhaps those same fingers spend too much time on the camera shutter button and not enough in agricultural pies (especially not cow pies thank goodness.)

Thus I would like to ask of those of you who are still active in the livestock and cropping end of it....what issues are on your radar now? In the forefront? Keeping you awake at night and stopping you from sleeping that extra ten minutes in the morning?

I have written about just about everything you could imagine from the origin of corn to a floating dairy in the Netherlands. In recent weeks there have been the birds of summer, women in ag, and June is Dairy Month.

Now, I would love it if you would share an idea or two, an opinion, something that makes you happy or cranky or passionate and proud. All I need is a starting point.

Deadline is Wednesday noon.

Thanks in advance!

Father

This is your day, Dad. Hope it is wonderful. Hope they all are really. You and Mom make a great team!

Love you!

Almanac

I subscribe to the state DEC's Hudson River Almanac and I highly recommend it. The citizen generated reports are fascinating, some as simple as what is happening in someone's backyard, some as complex as the contents of fish sampling traps running down on the big river. Alewives to Black Bears, it's all pretty cool.

I realized as I read it this morning that this missive is a lot like that almanac, except that it covers a much smaller bit of territory.

So here is today's Northview Farm Almanac

This morning I was awakened by an owl....a Great Horned I think....didn't sound right for a Barred. I have been trying to count an owl for several years now, and even though I find signs all the time I simply haven't seen one. Two years ago one was hunting the barnyards every morning when the guys went out.....however, if I went out too it was never there.

I was excited about this one and jumped right up and went out, but the distant hooting was drowned by the noise of a train and Thruway traffic. No go for positive ID. Maybe it will be back.

The sunrise was worth it though, as sunrises often are.

Yesterday the boss went out just after dawn to mow hay and had his own story to tell of the deer. A different doe was coddling twin fawns when he got to the field. She sprang away and one followed, but the other lingered to stare in wonder. Mama quickly hopped out of the hedgerow and gave him a solid spanking with her head and then butted him out of sight.

Lessons learned the hard way even in the world of the Whitetail. Tough love.

The first load of hay went into the mow yesterday afternoon. What a comedy of errors. First I dropped my hay hook into the maw of the big elevator. We had to shut everything down to look for it....never did find it, so we'll have to be on the lookout.

Then a big pile of bales came crashing off the top of the load right into me. Back in the day I would just stand up to such as that, let them bump around me and crash to the deck and just go to unloading. Yesterday I was much buffeted and am sporting a nice new set of hay punctures on arms and legs. 

Getting old is not for weenies.... And that should larn me to wear long pants and a long sleeved shirt....and maybe football pads too....when pulling apart loads.....

But it won't.

In the fields fledgling Savannah Sparrows use the hay wagons for observation perches. Ditto Song Sparrow youngsters. At the house various birds are bringing the new hatch in to learn the feeders. A quarter of noisy White-breasted Nuthatches peep around all day, and the Purple and House Finches are both joined by tufted youth. The Chickadees mostly look as if they were run over by a train....I think the tidier, well-feathered among them are chicks of the year....

And so it goes. More hay today if all goes well.

Ghost bunny on the daybreak lawn

Little Things

They can go in both directions.

The boss has always been one of those annoyingly fortunate souls who can whistle loud enough between his teeth to be heard on top of Seven-county Hill.......from the barn.

Despite the pain caused by being too close to that whistle it has been handy too. 

Like today.

He needed me to stand in the driveway to plug and unplug the cord to the motor that runs the cross-mow elevator...just to be sure everything was going to work right, before we started unloading hay onto it.

He went up in the mow to watch while I waited to unplug quickly if there was a problem.

Normally he would whistle, start or go, or stop in a big darned hurry, but thanks to the accident he has no front teeth. Thus he was only able to manage a weak little tweet.

A good stout holler was required in the end. It was kind of sad.

The little male American Redstart that was so obligingly showing himself clearly and singing to me while I waited for action in the plug department was louder than that whistle.

But that's the thing about little things. Losing a whistle is a bit of a pain, but losing a good husband would have been a lot worse. 

And getting to see a Redstart from ten feet away may have been a little thing, but it sure made my day.

Secrets

Vetches

The other day a White-tailed doe was hanging around in the heifer pasture right behind the house. I mentioned her to the crew...... I thought she was going to drop a fawn out there. She was as round as a bowling ball and acting like a cow getting ready to have a calf, all creepy and hidey.

This morning when Mackie-boy and I first went out there she was, walking cumbersome through grass nearly high as her head.

Behind her lolloped a little shadow of herself, barely able to navigate, and having to hop high in the air to get through the tangled stems.

Sure enough. I think she laid him....or her.....or them....down behind the trees on the lower ridge as they never emerged to my sight after going in there. I guess it's about as safe a place as she could choose, right in sight of the house and with the old cows there to scare off the yotes.

The things we see for only the price of watching.

June

My favorite month, all sad now, for missing Miss Daisy. So much dog for such a tiny package..... this is utterly true about Dachshunds.... 

So yesterday was a day of reflection. We only had her for three years, but it certainly felt like more....Today, well, life goes on and Mack comes in for a lot of extra pets and playing,

However, such a month as June will not wait by the wayside while you get your feelings in order. The sun simply WILL come up around five and fling gold and orange and red banners all over the place. And it will set in blazing glory or a gentle waving of delicate clouds.

The birds will bring their babies in to learn the ropes of coexistence with this big artificial structure plopped right down in the middle of the wild. This morning I was awakened by the strident, shrill monotony of a baby Eastern Phoebe, like a two-year-old asking, "Are we there yet?" over and over and over.

Not my buddy from last night....his mother maybe

Last night I shared the porch with that young male Ruby-throated Hummingbird. He wanted to sit on the strings across the opening where the plants hang and tank up on sugar water.

Believe it or not you could see him getting fatter and fatter as he drank, until his belly hung like a pendulous grape. Every few minutes he came back for more and more and more. I finally went inside, even though I really wasn't ready, so he could get fueled up for his overnight torpor undisturbed by my movements. 

It is also the season of stepping outside the door to pick dinner. At this point only herbs are ready, but what flavors! Garlic scapes, Orange Mint, Parsley, Thyme, Lovage, and fresh Egyptian Onion tops all wait for the scissors. We had stir fried beef with green beans from last year's garden last night....with all those good tastes and scents mixed in. It was nice. And if the woodchucks are willing, in a few weeks there will be fresh beans.....

In the depths of winter when we are eating out of the freezer and freezing ourselves in the gloom, it is hard to believe in June, or even remember what it offers. However, now we must seize the summer, grab the glamour, live life for all it's worth.....June is here in all its glory and it isn't going to wait for us.

RIP little Brave Heart

June is Dairy Month

Here are a couple of stories I used for the annual Dairy Month Farm Side.

Floating farm planned for Rotterdam

Northeast Dairy Settlement

Also talked to some good people, including our favorite veterinarian who stopped by to do some rabies vaccinations.Besides talking dairy, we discussed birds and speculated about a future Montezuma trip....hey, Alan, we figured you into the equation if you want to.....

Meanwhile it has been cloudy and cold and so windy the petunia baskets have been like cats, in and out, in and out. So far I have kept them from being beaten to death, but it takes persistence. The boss mowed part of the 30-acre Lot and it has rained nearly every day since.

This female Rose-breasted Grosbeak is rushing the mulberry season'
They are NOT ripe yet, but she comes in with her beak covered with red pulp and juice.
She and her buddies got all the wild strawberries before I even saw one.
Good thing I like birds

The dining room has resounded night and day, first with the strident screechy screaming of baby quail, and then with the much more dulcet tones of chicken babies.

I can ignore chickens unless they sound distressed, but those quail...fingernails on chalkboard doesn't begin to describe the sound they make.

Over the weekend, since the weather was not conducive to running up to Montezuma to see the Garganey, Alan and I redid the bathroom. I thought he was nuts, but you can indeed remove old tile from the floor, paint it and paint all the walls and ceilings in a few hours if you have a dedicated dervish on your team. It looks so nice! Glowing, and bright and inviting. 

 And I was delighted to go to the store for yellow paint and manage, fifteen years after the bathroom and kitchen were first painted that color, to be able to find the exact same color. Without a paint chip and a different brand.

The guys also put an upright under a sagging beam in the cow barn. Talk about a caber toss. I was quite impressed.

Anyhow, as always, never a dull. Stay tuned, stay warm, or cool, as the weather may demand in your neck of the woods.

And, the CamCam is back and looking good

Like a little Border Collie

And a really nice outrun too.....

Anyone who has owned a Border Collie is probably familiar with the way they like to gather things together, sheep, cows, ducks, family members.......

If they can herd all of anything or anyone into one spot and hold them there, then all is well with their world.

Peggy is just like them.

She wants all her people together all the time.

If she gets up in the morning and someone is missing she wants to know why.

"Aunt Becky?"

"She's working honey..."

"Why?"

"Because..."

This morning, "Where's Daddy?"

It's as if she knows it's Saturday and he should be home.

But.... "He's working honey."

"Why?"

Last night I was talking to her Uncle Alan as he drove home from Washington. (Yes, on speaker.)

She trotted up and demanded the phone....and being an indulgent grandma I handed it to her. Then I told her it was Alan.

"You coming home?" she asked insistently.

And then again, "You coming home?"

"Yes, I'm on my way...."

She thrust the phone at me and ran away to dance and dance, whirling and twirling and giggling with glee......

Yep, just like a BC, happiest at gatherings of her flock.