I'm gonna miss Yahoo

What with all the outrageous data breaches that Yahoo has experienced lately, experts are suggesting that users terminate their accounts. 

What a pain in the neck.

Actually killing your account isn't all that hard, but migrating everything you use it for to another address is a real nuisance. I have had that Yahoo address for years and years and years. A lot of the stuff that comes to it is junk. I will be glad to get rid of that without a hundred dozen unsubscribes. 

But a lot is not.

So that's what I have been doing instead of blogging and taking pictures and keeping the house under control...finding passwords for old sites that I still need to use...trying to organize the account I am going to be using so that I am not overwhelmed....getting situated to use one account instead of two.

Bah humbug!

A Strange Story

The boss had to run up to Hand's yesterday for a new lead cord for the fencer and the skid steer heater.

I asked if he minded taking me down to the river to see the ducks and geese. Alan has been seeing Brants down there and I wanted to try to find them and get some pics. (No luck, alas.)

He is always willing for such adventures, so we checked out the birds, did his shopping (and I went inside the newly done over store to see the incredible Christmas display and all the new merchandise. I have always loved Hand's. Who would imagine that it could actually get better but it has.)

Then we took a little jaunt down to another favorite birding venue to see if there were any birds. I once saw a Long-tailed Duck there and a few other goodies over the years. Nothing yesterday though. However, the sunset was pretty and the ice on the water looked like hundreds of floating mirrors. And there were hundreds of crows going home...talk about a murder!

Anyhow, as we started down the little road we spotted a hunter in winter camo, carrying a rifle and other hunting equipment. Nothing too  odd about that....

Since there were no birds, we paused instead for sunset on snow photos....it is sure pretty down there.

As we started to leave a car and truck came barreling around the circle. The car pulled right up beside us and the driver, who seemed to be of the female persuasion, offered us a good view of the finger next to her ring finger through the windshield.

What the heck is this heckin' stuff? We weren't doing anything wrong. Although our car was momentarily blocking the road, we were moving, having finished with our errands and wanting to get home.. And anyhow, as soon as we were out of the way she spun around and joined the hunter guy in the truck in parking down there.

But for the finger, I would have thought nothing of the whole encounter. Lots of people meet up down there for no doubt many interesting reasons. But that was just weird.

Murder

Under the Winter

No, not sick. This is just an unpleasant time of year for me. I don't enjoy the holidays much....just call me hermit....and I hate the.....

Short days. Hideous weather. Ice and wind and ice and wind. Snow. Ick.

Uncle Alan got Peggy some Lincoln Logs and they had a lot of fun with them

The Schoharie was full of mirrors yesterday

However, there is beauty and fun and a toddler too.

Goodbye sun

And better days are coming, it says here in fine print.

Myriad Mallards

Song for a Minus One Friday

Finnbar the hairy sheepdog

Had a very curly coat

And if you ever saw him

You would think he was a goat.

All of the other sheepdogs

Used to laugh and call him names

They never let poor Finnbar

Join in any sheepdog games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

The shepherd came to say

Finnbar with your hair so tight

Won't you find my ewes tonight?

Then all the sheepdogs loved him

As they shouted out with glee

Finnbar the hairy sheepdog

You'll go out instead of me!

Chaos

Not a recent photo, alas....

Look on the bright side, Liz, the pickle didn't fall in your boot.....

About chaos.....Not the ones in Sonic the Hedgehog, although we had great fun with those back in the day. (I was terrible at the game, but loved the sounds.)

Nope, the chaos of hay customers who call mega-early wanting a load, and the driveway is plowed and sanded, gates open, all in readiness, and no one ever shows. And no one answers the phone at the number they called from either.

Frozen water lines in the too-lightly populated heifer barn, so water must be hauled from the kitchen for very many animals. Not by me btw, but it sure ties up the sink... Bringing the cows down to the barn. There's a bit of chaos for you. We would have liked to bring them inside sooner, but with the warm weather there was every likelihood they would get pneumonia in the old, stone-walled, bank barn.

They are such dorks.

We brought them down in a white-out with the temperature hovering at twelve and a howling wind. Windchill down to 4. I could feel my cheeks freezing, as in actual frostbite, and had to keep thawing them with my hands. 


Of course the fools...nine years old except for the heifer!!....couldn't remember the barn. OMG, scary, scary, scary....the same cow lane they negotiated since they were calves. OMG scary, scary, scary. OMG a DOOR!!!! NO!!!

It took much longer than it needed to, but they are in now.

The birds emptied the feeders three times today, even though we filled them fuller than usual. Back to the big feeder tomorrow I guess. We take it down in summer because of chipmunks.

Sorry but I am not making that pie today....maybe tomorrow....I went so far as to get the apples out, but a sink full of animal water, three stubborn bovines, and absentee hay buyers put the kibosh on that.

It is a good feeling to have all the animals in with the night we are expecting though.

And about that pickle. The boss dropped one while making a sammich and it just missed Liz's boot. That makes up for a lot.

All I want for Christmas

Is NOT website updates. Facebook is bad enough. Every time they roll out something new, we all hate it. Then we all learn to deal with it. Then we forget it and move on.

Facebook is just for fun and all and if we don't like it we don't have to use it. Although changing things around almost randomly, such as the youngsters who manage it like to do, is annoying, it is not of any real importance.

However, the bank website is a horse of a different color. I manage a number of accounts for farm and family and use our bank's website frequently. Been doing so for years.

Just this week the company rolled out a fancy new site intended apparently for people who are too financially challenged to understand the difference between pending items and those which have cleared.

Thus the pending items are greyed out, making it ever so difficult for older folks such as myself to read the nearly invisible print. Oh, and they don't post totals for anything that is pending either....How very helpful of them to require me to use the calculator or do actual math....horrors.....

They also put lots of pretty pictures in the background and ads for pointless services right in the list of transactions. Just what everyone needs for Christmas, right?

They send me surveys on how well I like their services and such almost weekly...... I simply can't wait for the next one. This keyboard is gonna be smokin'.

The Terror of TB

This week's Farm Side will be about the horrendous government reactions to the finding of one TB positive cow that was imported into the US from Canada. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, let alone good friends.

Read about it if you wish:

Western Producer

A little background

Global News

Some history

CBC News

More from Western Producer

These are just a few of the stories I perused in the writing of this week's column. I do a lot of research almost every week, because I hate to get things wrong if I can help it. Trust me, reading these stories is going to break your heart. This is not just about cows, but about family pets, beloved horses, and economic and personal disaster. I hope somehow things get sorted out without too much more damage than has already occurred.

 Make sure you notice the projected source of this disease in this case and what is being done about it...which btw is nothing. 

Here is a link to someone who knows more about it than I do. 

Winter Equations

Everything has to have a good side, right?

Every cloud a silver lining?

Even winter?

But is that possible?

Well, for one thing, in winter there are more pockets available for birding gear and other sundries....little notebook, good pen, thin, yet warm gloves so one can write and adjust the binoculars without baring their freezing fingies. 

And those are just in the down vest. In other garments there is room for the midnight flashlight, a box of matches in case I get stranded in the backyard, and anything else I might want to carry...phones...books....all the wool socks so I can carry towels downstairs too without making an extra trip.......yeah, lots and lots of nice pocketses are a real plus in winter. 

And then you have mornings like Sunday, when the world was coated with frost and fine snow and the sun came up pink and blue and all was sparkly in those colors and every steam and smoke glowed as if backlit and you could see a sparrow a mile away against all the pastels....

Yeah, that was spectacular indeed and I hope you were up in time to savor it before it all melted and turned the world stark grey-and-white again. If I said it once I said it ten times....what a day it would have been for the Christmas Bird Count! You couldn't have missed a single bird, so brightly did they all stand out against the snowy, frosty, steamy background. 

It was like driving through a thousand Christmas cards, complete with evergreens and cardinals and chickadees. Of course we weren't actually birding, but rather shopping and visiting, but if we had been we coulda knocked one out of the park.

Today....too darned much snow and too darned cold, and too darned grey and gloomy, but on the plus side of the equation....a heated Milwaukee hooded sweatshirt with the battery charged and the switch turned on.......

Priceless!

Take that, Orion

Orion used to be my favorite. Constellation that is. You know how it is. As a kid you learn to find the Big Dipper. Maybe little ursa too. 

Then you get a little older and (maybe) wiser and along comes Mr. Complicated, Orion, so clear once you learn to recognize him.

Every winter you enjoy him striding across the sky in his seven-million league boots.

I always thought he was pretty cool....liked seeing him come back each fall, along with the winter sparrows.

Then we moved into this igloo and I became mightily less fond of him and his season. I have lived in cold houses before...the old farm house just down the road from here, which was heated with antique wood and coal stoves. That's where I learned to build and maintain a fire, as the alternative wasn't pretty.

And the camp. Intended to be a summer getaway for my grandfolks. No insulation. No inner walls. No heat source. No chimney even. It was there that I learned to heat with things that aren't really combustible. You CAN start a fire with wet wood if you are cold enough. I remember one night.....but I would rather not remember it, so let's not go there.

Anyhow, I now dread Orion's annual autumn appearance nearly as much as I dread April 15th. He is however, relentless alas, and ubiquitous.

But.....wait for it......

Early-early this morning I paused at the stair landing window. It was still plenty dark and the big stinker was playing mannequin challenge on the heifer barn roof. Darned show off anyhow. Seriously, how hard is it for a ball of stars to stand still out in the frozen darkness? Not very.

However, all at once an orange orb of light, moving slowly across the sky, revealed itself to be a low-flying airplane. It lumbered along on a collision course and then flew....right under his kilt.

I swear I heard him giggling as he fell off the roof, scattering stars and lightning like fireflies in a summer thunderstorm.

Take that, Orion, you big old phony, you.

Good Birds

White-throated Sparrow

It froze hard last night, so although the walking wasn't great, it was possible so I went out on a little half-mile count. 

250 Canada Geese

11 Mallards

Mourning Dove

Assorted small birds 

One Red-tailed Hawk.

And the highlight of the day, a male Common Merganser winging it west along the river. I saw him from the driveway so he counts, right? He is getting added to the farm count, which has stalled badly the last few weeks.

Downy Woodpecker

Farmer Christmas...or...a New Pocket Knife

Three things every farmer needs. A good knife
A good flashlight
And good coffee

Alan is not one to wait when the spirit is on him, so he gave me my gifts early. This is a young man who understands his mother....he chose a set of three small but powerful flashlights, and a new Swiss Army knife.

I have carried a pocket knife since I was eight. When dad bought the antique store there were several tiny knives in a box on one of the long, narrow, tables and he let Mike and me each choose one...probably to get us out of his hair for a while.

I seem to remember one with some kind of cow horn handle decorations..with a little silver on the rivet-y things and end caps. It was smaller than my pinky, but such a treasure to me. I used it to cut sticks for homemade bows and arrows or fishing poles and strings....everyone needs to cut strings!

I didn't take mine to school, although the boys certainly did. It wasn't that it was not allowed, but rather that girls were required to wear dresses and none of mine had pockets.

Over the years I lost that knife, acquired others from the store, graduated to actually buying my own knives of various sorts, and then someone, I think it was the boss, bought me a Swiss Army tinker.

I think the one Alan bought me is the fourth I have had over the past thirty years. I don't lose them...have never lost one...I wear them out.

They are usually sharp as I have good men to take care of that for me, and perhaps the most often used knives on the farm. Not because I do much other than cut hay twine and the like with them...but because everyone knows I always have one and so, "Ma, you got your knife on you?"

I always do.

Anyhow, Al, you knew I would love the knife, but wait until you try those flashlights! Talk about light up the night...wow...and pocket sized to boot. I am going to give your dad the silver one for going up to the stove. Thanks buddy.

Christmas Cacti

Are quirky things, not really cacti, but more like succulents, and notoriously hard to coax into repeated bloom. When we were kids grandmas stuffed them in closets to sequester them from the light. Seemed like an awful lot of work to me and it only worked sometimes.

Supposedly the faintest bit of light outside the normal hours of cactus operations would doom them to eternal leaf-full-ness, devoid forever of bloom. 14 hours of darkness is said to be ideal, hence the season when they bloom if indeed they do.

When my mama gave me my first one when I was somewhere under18 I despaired of ever seeing a flower. Then I inherited some from my grandma, bought a few, and was given others. I discovered that if you live in a cold, dark, creepy old farm house they will bloom their little hearts out nearly every single year.

With the sunrise cacti added in there are some in bloom almost year around. Hummingbirds love the sunrise cacti btw. 

However, I did discover, somewhere in a long since lost article, that there is one trick to keep them flowering that is often overlooked. When you move them, keep them oriented the same way towards the sun. I have followed this faithfully and they sure do seem to like it. I found another article that says if you turn them once they are in bud, the buds try to turn toward the light, weaken and fall off. 

I dunno. I think maybe they just like cold, dark farmhouses, but anyhow, above is one I was given a couple of years ago that has decided to delight us again this year....ps, since they are not cacti they need regular watering too.

A bud on the one mama gave me when I was still living home
It has been with me at least 46 years.

UpWest

Sweet Gums is clingers, but not bitter

We went Christmas shopping yesterday, Alan and Becky and me. Destination was the Bass Pro shop in Auburn. I had a particular purchase to make for a certain someone with whom I occasionally partake of adventure and that certain something is marketed by that certain company.

You could pretty much tell there was going to be a storm. Although we weren't going birding we saw a lot of birds.

Hundreds of Canada Geese floated, pooled in their own reflections, placid on the river, which seemed as if it had been painted in a swath of silver and muted sunlight.

In one spot not far from here they were pinned under the watchful eyes of a pair of mature Bald Eagles. I have been reading up on the latter, and it seems that they will already be refurbishing last year's nests for the coming nesting season....which btw begins in winter so the fledglings will be able to partake of the young of the year of mammals and birds while they are still inexperienced and going over fool's hill animal style.

Such as Canada Geese.

I coaxed our driver to pull into the parking lot at Montezuma to allow me five minutes to grab a couple of photos and look at ducks. (Stretched it to eight minutes and no one complained.)

There wasn't much shaking....or floating....or flying...and the wildlife drive is closed for the winter, but I did get to see some gulls and some Northern Shovelers, which are not exactly Fultonville birding fare. We must have seen fifty Red-Tailed Hawks hunting the highway too. Once you learn to spot them they are everywhere.

Goal was acquired, along with some cool things for Peggy like Lincoln Logs then we hustled home so our boy could head to Boston. Just another weekend in Paradise. 

Buddies

Sometimes it is all about the journey and not the destination These guys had a great day out in the fields and woods last week and came home grinning and joking. Only saw one deer and it wasn't in a safe spot to hunt it, but they seem to have had a real good time.

I was Never One

Biscuit required to get him to be still for a moment

To dress up dollies, or even to play with them unless they could somehow be coaxed to ride plastic horses or sit in toy cars that we ran down the tilted side rail of an old bed in order to crash them better.....(Barbie had it tough at our house)....

Undaunted, he eats the stove for dessert

Now I find myself dressing a DOG!!!

But is cold and he shivers so. And he loves his new jacket that Becky bought him.

And speaking of girls who play with toy horses.....do turn up your sound to hear the training instructions.

Just not

Feeling it these days. This is not a great time of year for me, with the short days and the mud and all.... I really can't walk and no birds around...whine, whine, whine.......Peggy and the boss and Becky have all been sick....

Makes it hard to find anything cheerful or cheering to write about. I did go so far as to put on a hunter safety orange sweatshirt this morning so if it doesn't get too cruddy out I might be able to walk a little. Maybe see something besides chickadees.

Meanwhile, the important things in my world seem to have dwindled down to watering the Christmas tree and washing the dishes....

Oh, and laundry....yeah, there is always laundry. I know, I know, there are plenty of people who have much worse things to deal with and they have my deepest sympathy....but I still hate this time of year and don't find myself writing much.....

And having finished whining, I will return you to your regular programming.

Country Girls

I think the love of animals, understanding of wild things, and rural life in general get in your blood....at a very early age.

Kids raised on farms and in country homes tend to get a grasp on reality early in life.

Thus, above is Peggy using her dad as a saddle horse. Alas by the time I got the camera she had dismounted and was leading him around with her mama's bathrobe tie. Cooling him out I guess.

And here are all  some of her ponies, safe in Finnbar's kennel, where the coyotes and other wild things can't get them. Of course if Finn was in there I think he might have some ideas for them, but he was outdoors. 

Anyhow, she watched the deer processing and likes the results, as do we. Venison sausage for breakfast, venison with California vegetables, rice and a nice salad for supper.....we aren't tired of it yet......

Fantastic Beasts

Alan took me to see it last night. He took Becky the night before..... 

It was excellent, a very enjoyable evening..... Lots of fun creatures for laughs and lots of slightly scary stuff for thrills. Pretty good CG, good characters, a few more falling bricks than might have been necessary to advance the plot, but it is an adventure after all. Not a great deal of plot, actually, but plenty of action throughout. It sure wasn't boring.

I could easily see why he wanted to see it twice. It is one of those movies where at the end you wish there was more and you keep remembering small details for hours afterwards. I will be looking forward to the DVD and movie night, a popular tradition here at Northview.

Mother Honey Locust

Decorated her children for the holidays......

Bird Strike

I was on my way down to the heifer barn, taking scraps to the hens, when a young of the year Red-tailed Hawk (it had a barred rather than red tail) lifted lightly from the Box Elders and floated up to the defunct telephone pole that sits just in front of it.

Oh, no. 

There are a few reasons why a hawk might be set among the chickens like a cat among the pigeons and most of them aren't good. I had to have Alan help me, but sure enough we found what remained of one of the Barred Rock pullets stuck under the cattle panel where the hawk had stuffed it while dining.

I shooed at it until it flew away west and went in to get Liz to pen up the birds.

No more free range for the girls this fall I guess. No need to provide free lunch other than sunflower seeds and suet. Sure was sad to see the little hen taken, but them's the chances you take when you have poultry outdoors.

And of course, they just started laying about three days ago.