Ag Blogs

Here is a nice list of blogs dedicated to food and agricultural topics from Agriculture Proud.

Almanac

The constant rain has spawned an infinite number of mosquitoes, large and small. I forgot to apply insect repellent to myself and the pups this morning with regrettable consequences. Sure makes things grow though. The yard is a jungle even with Jade mowing whenever the rain lets up.

The Carolina Wrens that nested at the cow barn have found the feeders and have brought their collective sense of humor along for the show. Several scolded frantically as I changed Finn's water and cleaned his run.

Then one dive bombed a chipmunk and drove it right across the yard. That cheering you heard was me....little beggars, tramps and thieves, that tamias clan. The wrens are nearly as bold around me as the chickadees are and the latter barely fly from me. In fact if the feeders aren't full they don't fly at all, preferring to let me know in no uncertain terms that I have work to do. The wrens cuss me out every time I set foot outdoors but they don't fly far.

Alas, the local baseball season is winding down, but those among us with the patience to sit among the mosquitoes under the lights have enjoyed a good number of ball games this season. (Although I love baseball I am not included in that number. ) Peggy took in her very first game last night courtesy of Uncle Scott. I can't wait to hear the deets.

Meanwhile, although it is still high summer, migration is beginning. Alegedly only shorebirds so far, but with the spreading out of young from their families we are seeing a lot of birds....that is if I am willing to brave the ticks and skeeters. Sometimes I am....

All summer long, we in the not-as-Great-as-usual Northeast have sought a way to send rain to our dear friends in western drought and fire stricken regions. Last week a Facebook friend from South Dakota shared the video below. It is one of my favorite songs anyhow, and has been since Toto released it in 82. In fact I have it on my other computer which is out for repair. It is going back on my phone as soon as I can access all those files.....

Anyhow, this version is phenomenal all on its own, and thank you Carolyn for giving me something amazing to play on the endless juke box in the back of my head. I have played this video every day since you shared it, often more than once.....and it provides something much more tasteful than hearing jingles from kids' shows in my head day and night.

But the best part is that it contains lots and lots and lots of rain. I am sending it out in hopes that it works for all of you who are suffering the lack of water. Do turn up your sound to capture all of the rain.....

Wild

About that Hay

Our two big mows look much like the one in the video

A reader shared this nice video of how baled hay is made in the comments the other day. It is so well done that I want to make sure it is out here where everyone can see it. Well worth the three minutes it will take to watch it. 

Hand-hewn beams in the cow barn mow.

The Heifer Mow

Bull

We were driving along up on Fiery Hill when the boss exclaimed, "I don't believe it, that's a dead cow in the ditch!"

"What? Really......I didn't see it."

We turned around to check it out. When we got there though its tail was flapping.

It was a Jersey bull, chained to the guard rail with no food or water anywhere nearby. It was also quite some distance from any barn or building, just down the road from his late grandfather's old farm, but all by its loneself.

Liz noticed that he had injured his leg on the chain, which is probably why he was lying flat out when the boss saw him. Cows usually don't.

He thought about turning it in to somebody, but didn't really know if it is illegal to tie a bull to the guard rail and leave it. We still could I guess. I am sure he hasn't been moved in a while and probably isn't going to be.

This is a lot of bull any way you look at it.. .There was certainly nothing to stop the animal from hopping over the rail, which wasn't very high at all, so he could be a danger to passersby. He doesn't look too awfully comfortable either.

Encore

Since the rain just won't quit and it's still too wet to even get on the fields to mow more to get rained on and too wet to get the gravel back up the hill and onto the driveway we went birding.

It was plumb rewarding. Got a Great Egret right up the road a couple of miles. We saw dozens up at Montezuma Sunday, but they are scarce on the ground down here.

Good Folks and Good Birds

Teddy is a pretty boy

And good food too. We ventured about four hours west yesterday to meet Amber's folks. That was pretty amazing in itself. Really nice people, incredible food, pretty horses, fat cattle, and a lot of fun. We got to meet and see everybody and everything Alan has been telling us about for months.

Caspian Terns

We had an easy drive out there and got to bring home that spectacular homemade sherbet that we love. 

Trumpeter Swans

After an enjoyable visit we headed home because....see 4-hour drive above.....

I had hoped to visit Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, but we traveled a road that was easy to drive but took us well south of it. Oh, well, there is always another day....but then again they have been seeing a White Pelican in Benson Pool. Pelican....Upstate NY....amazing.

Great Egret in the pool where the pelican has been being seen

As we pulled out of the driveway the boss said, "See if you can get directions to the swamp on that phone of yours..."

"Really? But it's so far!"

"Nah, it isn't that far and I don't want you to miss it when we are already all the way out here."

So I spoke into the phone as Alan had showed me, "Take me to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge."

And the Genie in the Box, who is usually referred to in considerably less flattering terms, did so. As usual she took us on twisted back roads rather than handy-dandy interstates, but that allowed us to see some fantastic farms and farmland. The crops out there are about three times as nice as here. Tall corn just tasseling out, rows upon rows of soy beans, fat and thick and dark green, wheat all golden brown and ready for the combine, with some fields already stubble and big, bright, bales headed for the barns. It was a treat for farmers from the eastern part of the state where crops are not looking so hot just now...too much rain and a cruddy spring have set things back quite badly.

Great Blue Heron

Once there we stopped to count the Purple Martins at the visitors center and then we were off. What a day! 27 Caspian Terns within the first ten minutes. Black Terns. Trumpeter Swans. A Dowitcher of some sort, which shall remain uncounted because my photo is so bad, but still...dowitcher! And lots and lots of other goodies.... No pelican, but that was kind of a lot to expect after all.

We didn't get home until nine to find the water heating complex the guys built was down, but I say again, what a day! I am still grinning.

Anybody care to venture an ID for the little guy in the foreground?

Notabear

But close enough for government work. I've been fighting the good fight over my little garden all summer. I gave the kids the big plots to plant and reserved a few square feet by the driveway for my own enjoyment and productivity.

There are several containers of herbs, chard, tomatoes, and such, and we've already finished off one crop of lettuce.

The main bit we covered with landscape fabric to try to control the weeds, which burgeon outrageously in the fertile soil. Beans, flowers and summer squash grow over there, and we're starting work on a new herb garden.

It is pretty and pleasant and nice to work in....

But full of bunnies eating the beans. They don't care about expensive repellents. Fabric softener sheets worked for about a week and then they came back. Several feet were leveled last night....

Tonight after our trip to the far, far west, I am going to try putting up a little bit of fencing I have. It isn't very tall but a couple of pieces of it deterred them from gobbling up the Swiss Chard earlier in the summer.

I hope it works. We love fresh beans.

However, this morning the ultimate garden outrage met me when I ventured out with my pups. The biggest, fattest, blackest, woodchuck I have ever seen trotted nonchalantly away as we walked across the drive. He was so fat that his butt jiggled like a great big jelly.

He was so bold he utterly ignored my little Jack Russell buddy, Mack! He wouldn't be so brave if it wasn't for the bull. I can't let Macky loose because he goes after the bull rather than the rodents he is supposed to chase. 

The darned thing looks just like a miniature bear! We think there is a real bear hanging around over by the old cow barn. Wouldn't it be perfect if he ate that darned marmot and then had a couple of bunnies for dessert?

Farming

Sometimes you're the windshield...

Summertime

And the living is.....frantic....so here are a few tranquil photos to tide you over until sanity resumes....if it ever does. 

Good Omens

If you found these structures clustered around your kitchen floor, what would you think?

Rusticating Rednecks Return

Moving fast as striking cobras, they skim along the crowded sidewalks. All skinny, all toned, all tanned and prettily polished.....except for the fashionably pale ones that is.

They are relentless in pursuit of the fastest path down the sidewalk, but seem to see little else. Every single one of them is skinnier than I am, fitter, swifter, and a whole lot shinier.

Like thousands of freshly groomed Standard Poodles compared with a shaggy dog like Finn. They were not impressed with the contrast....

Not quite A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but
A Weed Grows in Manhattan....

..... home never looked so good. 

See, Alan needed to go to the Big Apple yesterday to take refresher training in how to act when working in the dangerous climate of the city subway. He didn't want to make the many-hours-long trip alone and wanted his lovely girlfriend, Amber, to accompany him. However, he had to stash her somewhere during the class.

34th Street and 6th Avenue was the chosen location. As an afterthought he suggested that I might join her so there would be two innocents abroad rather than one...perhaps not the worst idea in the world.

So picture two women, one of whom was walking the earth when early hominids were pounding rocks into little bits to make dirt, pretty much utterly unfamiliar with the area, not inclined toward city life, accustomed to the relatively slow pace of a rural locale,being  turned loose at at quarter to six on a weekday morning a few yards from the Empire State building.

Scary, huh?

We decided to find a Dunkin' Donuts and sit inside reading until somebody besides street sweepers and homeless people were awake.

But oops, the local Dunkin' was just a window on the street, through which sugary fat bombs were passed. No seating.

So we rented space in a Starbucks. I paid for a spot at a table with a caramel frapucchino, she had water and a muffin.

In the city where no one notices anything people stared at us....all the other patrons gave us a good ogling. Eh, it bought us half an hour of a place to sit that was off the streets. Well worth it.

We wandered some more and found a little two-story McDonald's with air conditioning and sanitary facilities. Amber rented us a booth with the purchase of a couple of parfaits, which we consumed at the speed of Galapagos tortoises at the zoo when confronted with heads of lettuce....slow, sleepy, turtles with sloppy dentures.....

Another hour went by. We began to attract glares from a manager, and so returned to the streets, which had awakened during our furlough.

We toured assorted stores just to get off the street and out of the heat. I was personally accosted by one of these guys, who had a placard in my hand and a bracelet on my wrist faster than I could say, "shoo." Little creep.

We spent an hour or so walking faster than is natural and avoiding being trampled before we almost literally stumbled onto a little square near Macy's with CHAIRS!!!

We nabbed a couple. They were razor-thin instruments of posterior pain, but never has a sight been so welcome.

Guess what I did while we sat......Yes, you are right, of course..... I made an eBird list on my phone. 90 Rock Pigeons. 1 Herring Gull....which was flying around and around the block terrorizing the pigeons on each pass. 1 European Starling. 2 House Sparrows, which hopped eagerly around our feet looking for crumbs. They had to be quick, because with all the passing people feet any crumb was obliviated in seconds.

And two, yes, two, Peregrine Falcons, flying up and down the city canyon. I only had my phone camera so no photos, but I had not left my enthusiasm at home. I pointed them out to Amber, watched them land on a window ledge near Macy's, and decided it was worth all the madness. Not that I have never seen peregrines before or anything, but these were the first of the year for the state. It was cool to watch them using buildings as cliffs and city streets as canyons.

Eventually Alan finished his class and we returned to the relative sanity of home. Ahhh.....