And Bailey

Another one, just to keep you from getting bored while I fish and swim. Also from 2012

Even though winter has been fairly benign so far, seed catalogs hold a great deal of charm. Thus there are piles of them at strategic locations around the house to fend off gloom and empower dreams of brighter seasons.

However no seed catalog could fuel the uproar that a livestock supply catalog in the hands of our male offspring generated the other day. And all he did was read aloud the names of some of the products offered for sale therein.

The first product mentioned was a sheep chair. My mind was instantly filled with the image of an older sheep, perhaps a bit grey around the temples, but quite distinguished, glasses perched on his narrow, patrician nose, frowning self-importantly while he perused the WSJ from the comfort of his recliner. He might be wearing slippers (wooly of course) and be smoking a polished cherry wood pipe in his tastefully decorated den. (I know you can see a sheep doing this too; they are such mockers.)

Then I envisioned a granny sheep, rocking comfortably back and forth in an old Boston rocker near the wood stove in the kitchen, while she knitted wooly mittens for the little lambs playing around her feet. They would be leaping and caprioling on and off a blue and pink rag rug, their little hooves thundering on the wide planks of the floor. I could see it clear as day.

However, reality was much more prosaic. (What a letdown.) The sheep chair in the catalog was just a little canvas sling thing used to confine sheep comfortably while their hooves are trimmed.

And then there was the lamb and goat chariot. Okay this one was easy. The only hard part was whether the goats would be harnessed to a little wagon and driven by lambs in Roman garb, or the other way around. Or maybe they rode together and had a pony to pull the chariot. It could possibly even have referred to a low budget remake of the 1959 classic, Ben Hur, sheep and goats being a bit cheaper than chariot horses.

Ah, but no, the lamb and goat chariot was “designed with the sheep showman in mind” (and not Charleton Heston either). It consists of a two-wheeled metal cart (hence the chariot part I guess) with places to halter either lambs or goats so they could all be trained to lead at the same time.

Having had occasion to attempt (and I use the latter term advisedly) to train sheep to follow along politely on a halter, I truly understand the need for a chariot. You would think upon observing a sheep, small compared to a cow, soft and wooly, not usually possessed of great big horns or a long tail to batter you with, plus a buttercups-wouldn’t-melt-in-its mouth-expression, that a sheep would be easy. Not so much. With a low center of gravity, sharp little hooves for extra traction, and a hair trigger panic button, sheep are tougher than they look. And when something trips that panic button, if they can’t go around, they will go over, under, and/or through anything that gets in their way. In retrospect I can see many uses for that “four head” chariot.

The catalog also features “Mother-Up” spray intended for grafting lambs, foals, calves and kids (the caprine kind). No twigs, tapes, or ties involved in this operation though, just something intended to convince reluctant mama animals to accept babies that aren’t necessarily their own.

A llama chute, but alas, no water park or slide, just a stall intended to facilitate clipping or medical work. Stone tattooers. Waterers, weaners and weather stations. Tweezers, twitches and six kinds of tape-duct, fencing, illuminator, measuring, umbilical and weighing….. (The scary part of that is that we have and use all but one of those here at Northview, and Alan uses the other one on his job in the city.)

The best item we found in the NASCO catalog was not a bit strange however, just wonderful. We use a brand of automatic water bowls made by the Humane Company for the cows’ comfort and entertainment. They are shiny robin’s egg blue things with yellow plastic paddles. Each one is suspended between a pair of cows, which, when thirsty, press the paddle down to run fresh water into the bowl, then drink their fill.

When they are finished drinking they let the paddle spring back up and the flow of water is shut off. (Except when springs break or dirt gets into the valve or the cows bang on the bowls hard enough to break them off the water line. Then we find a lovely flood the next time we go into the barn and emergency repairs and water removal occur.)

However some cows get bored, or even learn bad habits from other cows who got bored at some point. They take their nice fresh drink, then spend hours and hours and hours licking at the water in the bowl, flicking water out to splash on the floor. Determined cows can create near-floods and big messes that require big clean up.

Just such a cow is Bailey, number 155, who stands in my line and is otherwise a nice, unassuming cow, who doesn’t bother anything. However, all day long when she isn’t eating or sleeping or being milked she slaps water out of her bowl. Some days it is enough water to flow down two stalls to the walkway, down the walk way and into the gutter. It makes a slimy mess of any feed left in the manger too.

We have discussed putting an individual shut off on Bailey’s bowl and turning her toy off when we are not in the barn. We have never done so though because it seemed kind of mean and not fair to the cow who shares that bowl.

And there in the catalog was the perfect solution- a splash guard for a Humane water bowl, held on with a simple muffler clamp.

Perfect.

Bacon

Just to keep you busy while I'm at camp...some old Farm Sides this week. This one's from 2012

What element turns a couple of slices of ordinary bread, a mundane tomato, and a leaf or two of lettuce into an indescribable culinary delight? What tastes great crumbled on salad, served up fried with eggs and toast, wrapped around a hot dog, or even baked into a muffin? What is said to be the single gateway food that lures more folks back to the omnivorous fold from vegetarianism than any other? It is made into edible roses, quiche, and even ice cream.

You guessed it-bacon. 

            At one time all pork was called bacon, but in these modern times we use the term to describe meat from a pig, usually from the belly, back, or side, which is cured using large amounts of salt, seasonings, nitrites and sometimes smoked as well.

Here in America we prefer the sides and belly of the pig to make what is called “streaky bacon”. Canadian bacon on the other hand comes from the loin and is much leaner. Other nations tend toward the leaner cuts as well. The word itself is thought to have originated with various words for “back” in French and Germanic languages.

Salt curing was one of the favorite means of preserving foods before the invention of refrigeration. Some sources trace the practice of salting meats to keep them from spoiling back at least to Ancient Egypt. Other meats and even vegetables were preserved in a similar manner, in order that people could survive outside of the growing season or travel away from traditional food sources. Indeed early Christianity relied heavily on salt fish in order to meet the requirements of Lent far from the sea.

We Americans like our bacon and I mean, we really, really like it. It is tied with pulled pork for popularity here in the US, where we enjoy 1.7 billion pounds annually. There are popular blogs devoted entirely to bacon; The Bacon Show, and Bacon Unwrapped are a couple of examples. The former features a new bacon recipe every single day, and according to the header will continue to do so “forever”.

Bacon is versatile. The Paleo Diet, which restricts folks to eating like cavemen, allows bacon.

Even our conversation is laced heavily with bacon-related sayings from “bringing home the bacon” to “saving one’s bacon”, which merely means to save one’s body from harm.

“Bringing home the bacon” is a phrase with disputed origins. Some sources claim that is was first used in Dunmow, England where men who could swear that they hadn’t argued with their wives for a year were given a flitch of bacon. This is contested by folks who insist that the phrase originated in reference to a boxing match in 1906, wherein one of the contenders was said to have managed to return to his domicile bearing cured pork.

It matters not; folks who use the phrase today obviously consider bacon to be synonymous with success in any endeavor.

And why not? Bacon goes well with almost anything, including for the adventuresome of palate, milk shakes.

Original bacon recipes probably featured curing the meat in a heavy coating of salt and spices with smoking to follow. Today commercial bacon production involves injection of nitrites and brine, vacuum tumbling, combing, thermal processing, smoking, chilling, pressing, slicing and packaging. Although the process seems more elaborate, it really isn’t all that different, with the changes relating mostly to quality control and the handling of large quantities of material in a standardized manner.

There are also a number of recipes for making homemade bacon, but the ones I looked at had me shying away from concepts such as botulism, which was mentioned in more than one article on the topic.

With all this fondness for salty, smoky, flavorful fat meat, the press was in a swivet a couple of weeks ago when the National Pig Association in the UK announced that a worldwide bacon shortage was inevitable. The organization cited drought in the US and Russia as making it more expensive to feed pigs and causing farmers to sell off their herds.

However here in the US a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council said that, although some pigs are being liquidated because of the high cost of feed, it is happening at a much slower rate than in other countries.

It seems however, that universal price increases for bacon and probably other pork products can be expected. With a five percent rally in corn futures prices just this week it is almost inevitable. Food giant mandates for changes in hog housing aren’t going to help the availability of pork products, including bacon, either.

Steve Meyer of Paragon Economics, a consultant to the pork industry said on CNBC, “I’ve been talking about [rising meat prices] since 2006 but nobody would listen until someone said we’re not going to have enough bacon. If I’d known that I’d have used different words. Don’t take away their bacon!”

Meyer went on to say that even marginal increases in prices for foods, including bacon, cause harm where it can least be withstood, “Anytime you drive up retail prices — beef, pork, chicken, turkey, eggs, milk … it falls on people with low incomes and fixed incomes,” he said. “The people who can’t afford it.”

It makes one wonder whether Marie Antoinette, if she were alive today she might have said, “Let them eat bacon.”

At any rate, whether or not there is a shortage of bacon in the offing and whether or not we will continue to be able to afford the salty treat, we can certainly rally around celebration of International Bacon Day, which traditionally (at least since 2000) has been celebrated on the last Saturday before Labor Day. Participants have been known to commemorate the event by gathering to prepare bacon-based menu items and then consuming them. Sounds like a plan to me.

In fact I propose celebrating every Saturday or maybe even Sundays and week days if the opportunity is afforded. After all-it’s bacon; what’s not to like?

Decline Free Offer

Despite painstakingly doing everything I could to stop Microcrud from updating this poor old thing to Windows 10........

Despite reading everything I would find on how to avoid it.....

I still got the dreaded screen with the x that isn't exit.

Thanks to Kim Komando I knew enough to not click that x, which begins the install, but rather to click...twice....the decline free offer button.

Because yeah, I need a word processing program and mine (from what I have read) doesn't play nice with Windows 10. Don't want to buy another one. Don't want to mess with another one. I know how to use the one I have.

This is not a big problem for me personally, although it is annoying in spades.

What is a big problem is that I am going away for a week, tomorrow, and the boss will be playing with this. We share.

He is not tech savvy. He forgets.

If I come home from camp and find this thing running a program that won't run the stuff I use for work I am going to be really ticked off.

I am not sure what to do about this. How do I make sure he doesn't accidentally update?

Brotherband

Doin' Stuff

Of course I love the Brotherband books....just my kind of thing. Much to teach, all contained in a darned good yarn.

Even more so I love my own small brand of brothers, who are fine and fun, and although they don't venture to explore the seas of Scandia, they do have some good stories to tell. They also teach the young who are learning......things to help with life's good yarns.

Today is my baby brother's birthday. He is far away, at work in another state, but I hope you will wish him a happy...

As will I....Happy Birthday, Mappy. Thanks for all that good brother stuff over the years. Love you!

Finnbar

All the young people who promised so vociferously to aid in walking and so on will be held to those promises......because you talked me into it...you really did.

Almanac

Bama Breeze

The corn lilies are in full bloom, as are the seasonal breakdowns. Borked machinery is not my favorite part of farming, especially when I personally am expected to know where the Allen wrenches are.

I don't. 

So there.

Our 30-Acre Lot seems to have been recently enhanced by the addition of a multitude of cow pies....good fertilizer, you know.

Meanwhile, our meager three animals could not have produced such largess, and are still in their proper pasture....where I truly hope they stay....anyhow. I wonder whose cows got out......and how hard they worked to catch them.....

Next week is camp. This week is the week where I annually do two of everything. I am about done with the second Farm Side for the weekend we come home, but it is one I have been tweaking and twisting for quite some while. Frankly I am sick of it. Oh, well.

I have never been so slow about packing. Just can't seem to get in the swing. At least I am filling up the garden pond and putting in its needed enhancements, such as algae killer and water prep. 

There are going to be some ticked off hummingbirds though. I take the feeder down when I go away...no one to change the nectar every three days, you know. There is one we call Chatty, that is full of sound and fury and signifying outage whenever I clean it even now.

He...or she...I think it is a young of the year, chatters and chirps and carries on whenever it visits. If the feeder is gone there is a tumultuous uproar.

Sorry guys, I wouldn't want you to get sick on my watch. I'll be back a week from this coming Saturday and will fill your jar forthwith.

On a sad and sorry note, the days are already getting noticeably shorter....where is my summer going? 

The Stories you Discover

During weekly research:

Imported fish recalled

Serious Danger......"This is a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death."

Birthday Birds

As a sort of an early birthday treat, Alan took me up to Montezuma yesterday. We "unwrapped" an amazing array of birdie gifts ..... Three lifers in one day for me. At least four for Alan.

Just the road into the place offered Osprey nests in rows, some with adult birds perched on them, one with nestlings peering over the edge. We spotted thirteen species of birds before we left the parking lot at the entrance.

Of course, we quickly discovered the requisite unidentifiable LBB. Little brown bird. There is one on every trip... I think, after perusing the one foggy photo Alan was able to nab as it flitted in and out of the cattails, that it is a Marsh Wren. It never actually showed itself to me......wrong side of the car.....I have it up on the Facebook Bird ID Group of the World The members thereof have held my hand through a lot of tough birds and taught me a lot about how to look and what to look for. Where was the Internet when I was a kid learning to bird? *Update: Marsh Wren confirmed.

Once into the refuge proper, although numbers of birds were a bit thin, rarities abounded.

Cheerful Purple Martins are busy near the entrance. Note the chicks in nest number 12

First, we saw Black Terns. These are NYS endangered birds that nest there, which we had not before seen. We were scoping out one of the pools that could be fairly well seen from the road (cattails obscure the view in a lot of places) and they came swooping in in good numbers. What a thrill! 

There were American Coots in great numbers, Pied Billed Grebes everywhere, a few Blue Winged Teal, and best of all, many had chicks and ducklings. We had previously seen a grebe here and a grebe there on our visits, but they were everywhere yesterday.

Most people are quite courteous, but this guy had that NASCAR thing going on,
racing around the roads and even going the wrong way on the one-way parts.
There's one in every.....

We crept around very slowly, with cars passing us constantly. Didn't matter, we were getting the birds. A couple of Common Moorhens noodled around the mats of vegetation with the coots.

Over at the Tschache Pool, we climbed the tower, as always. (This time I managed not to slice my hand open on the railing) Thanks to the one what brung me, who has incredible eyesight, which I much envy BTW, I got to see a bucket list kind of bird, which I had despaired of ever actually finding. 

Way down on the now-dry pool, two cinnamon-colored birds grazed together at the edge of some dry vegetation. Not lifers for me, as I saw plenty of them in the west and south on long ago trips, but I had wanted to see Sandhill Cranes in my home state, and there they were. Oddly, we only saw the young birds, no adults, but a very distant photo Alan was able to take assured me that they were just what we hoped that they were. That was a biggie for me.

Next we drove over the May's Point Pool, which never seems to disappoint. Before we even parked Alan pointed out big white birds sitting on top of muskrat houses (every house seems to sport nests of some kind, or at least groups of birds perching on them.)

At first we were pretty sure they were Trumpeter Swans, but after second guessing for a while, I have them listed for the experts. There were cygnets..... Cute, fluffy cygnets. I had never seen any before. Update: confirmed Trumpeters

All in all, it was, as usual, a great day. Who knew that after all these years of listing, I could tick off three life birds in one quick day trip right here in our home state? Ain't life grand?

Any takers to ID this little blur? 

And, perusing some really distant shots of little birds on the edges of little pools, I found a something....smallish rail-sized, but white with a dark head and wings and a curved bill. What could it  be, what could it be.....stay tuned.

Little birders. Peggy has her baby on the windowsill watching birdies.

Here's our list for the day:

Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
Tree Swallow
Purple Martin
Fish Crow
European Starling
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Yellowthroat
Brown-headed Cowbird
Song Sparrow
Great Blue Heron
American Robin
American Goldfinch

*And then we left the parking lot for the actual refuge*

Red-eyed Vireo
Blue-winged Teal (ducklings)
Virginia Rail
Chipping Sparrow
Eastern Kingbird
Common Grackle
Killdeer
Canada Goose
American Coot (chicks)
Ring-billed Gull
Pie-billed Grebe (chicks)
Black Tern
Barn Swallow
Common Moorhen
Tufted Titmouse
L. Yellowlegs
Mallard
Mourning Dove
Black Duck
Herring Gull
Turkey Vulture
American Crow
American Redstart
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Sandhill Crane
Bald Eagle
Yellow Warbler
Cedar Waxwing
Trumpeter Swan (cygnets)
Kestrel
Marsh Wren

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