Almost

At my wit's end. And the only reason I haven't quite reached that point is that I am too old and too sick to take the hop, skip, and jump I would need to get there.

The house is still a hot bed of fevers, sore throats, coughing, and assorted other miseries. I am still an unwilling participant in all.

After over two weeks. ...So is Becky. And Liz. Jade is recovering slowly but he will not be better until after another surgery and another long round of recovery. 

Thus when I attempted to send in my newspaper column, assuming that the folks in charge had received it, I was chagrined to get a note that they had not.

Sent it again with the same assumption. You know what they say about the word assume, right?

I have no idea if anyone at the paper has seen it and the only way I can find out, since email doesn't seem to be working, is to call on an actual telephone during business hours. Small thing, but important to me on a personal...and financial...level.

Meanwhile our boy's bank account was hit again. Don't know how they are getting his card number but this is getting really, really old. His job keeps him on the road all week, all over America. He needs the darned thing. We just got it straightened out a couple of weeks ago and now, here we go again. I end up doing all the dirty work as he has my name on the account so I can monitor it for him and I have all the paperwork and numbers handy. 

Thus disgruntled doesn't begin to describe the beginning of this day. It is still too early to do anything about anything so I will sit here and wheeze and drink coffee and whine.

Thanks for reading.

One of These Days

Schoharie Crossing State Historical Site

We WILL all feel better. Not yet though. Peggy is mostly over it and back to her usual frisky, funny self. Liz is still miserable and Becky and I are best not mentioned. Bah humbug.

However, this weird, spring-like weather is nice, isn't it? Kinda muddy and soggy around the edges, but after all that bitter cold and cast iron ice it is a treat.

Birding it is a treat even in the depth of winter

Been seeing some nice ducks on the river. I have been given to understand they come down here when the big northern lakes freeze, but I'll take 'em any way I can get 'em. Saturday we saw a single Long-tailed Duck diving among the mass of Mallards by the truck stop. Yesterday a sleepy Redhead floating among the Mallards and American Black Ducks was all the Super Bowl I needed. Nice birds for so early in the year.

However, I totally hate not being able to cook for my folks and help with their shopping and errands....don't dare take this bug to visit them though. Double bah humbug.

Not much else to report. When no one feels well only the bare minimum of stuff is done and not very well at that.

You could read this though and see what you think....I think it is madness! As the boss says, imagine housing a giraffe!

The Redhead with two Mallards

The Things you See

Been the kind of sick this week wherein rest was required between donning sock one and doing the same for sock two. Sometimes a fairly long rest.

Since Peggy was sick for at least ten days, missed over a week of school and is still coughing terribly, and Liz ditto except for the school part, I am not expecting a full recovery any time soon.

At least I am well enough to get out of the house a little and even to want to....but I am not yet eager for much of anything but morning coffee. And only one cup of that.

Btw, speak not to me of flu shots. The whole Schultz clan had them and were if anything sicker than the rest of us. So this is either not flu, although with the fevers and gripping pains it feels like it....or it is not the flu covered by the jab.

Oh, well. The boss hauled me out a few times this week...and please pray that he doesn't get it...he already took a nasty tumble, head first down a bank while putting wood in the stove...he doesn't need this darned bug.

And we had a lot better week than some folks not far from us, who lost a large cow barn night before last. We bought bulls from these good folks and knew them from farm events and the like for years and years. I feel terrible for them.

Happy Birthday Becky

Wishing our middle kid, the caretaker who watches over all of us, a wonderful day. I know it's kinda hard to do when you are super-duper sick, but I hope you will try to have a good one.

Love you!

Gift of the Woods

Sunday mornings are quiet here in the valley. Less traffic and all. As I stood in the creaking, crispy, cold-as-all-get-out snow this morning,  Mack quivering with excitement over something over the mulberry trees, I was able to hear it.

A single Great-horned Owl hooting from the cherry woods in the heifer pasture. Lovely to have something make your day so early.

Don't know what something was. Probably a bunny, but it was awful loud for one. See above though. Sounds are ever so much more audible when the cars and trucks are still. Maybe there will be tracks in the fresh fallen snow once the sun comes up.

For now I'll be thankful for the distant song....

Hard to Find

Exciting birds this time of year, but we have searched out a few. A Common Redpoll on the feeder. Just one, but nice to see.

More Cooper's Hawks and Rough-legged Hawks than I have ever seen before, sometimes three or four of each on a single short drive.

And this young Red-tailed Hawk we found last night down at Schoharie Crossing SHS. He didn't want to fly and only sailed a few feet above the ground maybe a quarter of the way down the little alfalfa field there.

After that he walked. As you can see his (or her) crop is pretty full and he is wet as a bird can get, so maybe that was all that was wrong. Dunno. We contacted a local rehabber. Not much else we could do.

Finn is becoming a fine squirrel deterrent btw. He wants them and they would prefer not to meet him.

Any thoughts on this weird little guy? Clearly a White-throated Sparrow..
But what's with all those stripes? Only one like this.

No Straying Today

Nasty out there. Ice. Rain. Fog. Roads closed all over the place. Accidents everywhere. Ugh. I didn't even ride down to the river with the boss and Becky this morning.

Had good talks with two very dear family members over the past couple of days though. I am still feeling the warm and happy. Music and childhood memories.....Love you Mom and Michael.

Now I am making applesauce out of apples we bought last fall at our favorite orchard....and listening to the eclectic mix of music on my phone. Thanks Becky...

1000 to 1

To be the title of this week's Farm Side. As in, one word could describe an entire thousand about the EAT-Lancet report.

Links to research:

Pork take

Psychology stand

Spectator

Drovers  (my favorite)

More stuff

Still more

Farming UK

Let's just say that it is pretty darned easy to find a plethora of material debunking the whole premise that we should give up meat and dairy for a vegan diet....even in the words of the study's main author. "In principle, the ideal study would take 100,000 people and randomly assign some to eating several servings of red meat a day and randomize the others to not consume red meat and then follow them for several decades."

But they didn't do that.

Bah humbug

The Winter that Waited

The doom hawks were out in force yesterday

Checking in safe from Winter Storm Humbug......

It took until the middle of January for winter to gain any traction, but it is going hard now and looks like a full pull.

I had to push firmly to get the back door open this morning and poor Mack had a puppy asthma attack from breathing the fluff, because the snow was up to the chest of a big Border Collie. A little higher than that on a Jack Russell Terrier but he really couldn't wait for me to shovel a path.

Then it rained and sleeted and now gigantic flakes are falling thick and fast. All styles of winter precipitation while you wait.

Meanwhile Jade is still recovering and will be a long time doing so. Thinking mid-summer. Liz is relief milking on a neighboring dairy. Peggy has a nasty bug and we all feel really sorry for her. The kids bank account got hacked...second one in the family this month. You would think the banks would figure out how to prevent that. Situation normal afu.

Yup. Fun and games in every direction. At least, utterly coincidentally, Becky has the weekend off so the boss doesn't have to drive to town for a bit. Good deal.

The Letter P

Okay, I know..... it's O for Opossum.
But here in the bOOnies we call 'em 'Possums

Perky Peregrine

From yesterdays pursuits

RePeat of 'Possum

Fire and Ice

Burning leftover board ends

Cutting Ice

Ice Saw

Amish Prius

Lonesome Kittyhawks

We went down to the river the other day...we go almost every day. It's worth it when you see at least six, and really probably ten, Bald Eagles all in one place at one time.

Anyhow, as soon as we parked the boss said, "Look at all those cats."

I did and saw two yellow ones, my favorite color of cat btw. There are often cats there, usually yellow or black ones. Someone must have such cats nearby.

But he said, "Look, there are black ones, and yellow ones, and some other kinds too."

What! All I could see were one marmalade and one light golden one. But then the rest emerged from where they were hidden from me by the doorpost of the car. Cats everywhere on the opposite shore of the Schoharie. Eight of them!! At least. One was even Siamese colored.

When I got out of the car to look for birds down at the confluence I could hear them crying and howling. Many of them were right out on the ice. I have to assume that they belong to the black and yellow cat people whomever they are, but they sure didn't think much of the river.

I felt kind of sad for them and hope they had a home to go back to and quickly found their way to it. And that the eagles don't notice them first, in all their bright and lovely colors down there on the cold, silver surface of the river.

Of Priorities and Grocery Bags

When we were struggling dairy farmers, whose world was colored by need versus want, and loving cows and land, our priorities were different.

Boots for people were important but sometimes paying feed bills and having groceries was importanter. Thus when someone's otherwise still  functional rubber barn boot sprang an unplanned leak we took action for traction rather than running to the store for new ones. After all....all that rubber in landfills and all....Sometimes boots that were darned near brand new got leaky. Frustrating indeed.

However, a plastic grocery bag placed over warm socks....or a bread wrapper....bread wrappers work too, although they are kinda weak these days....rendered the boots functional long after the leak began. Sometimes all winter. Bags used in such a manner quickly wore out but we always had new ones to replace them.

Recycling. Farmers do it every day whether it is feeding the cows good stuff, then spreading the result out on the land to grow more good stuff for them, or composting household leavings...it is taken for granted on a farm. I am not saying all farmers put bags in their boots to save them, but I know there are a lot of people hoarding them right now because they use them again and again. 

We have two sacks full in the pantry, saved against various needs. When they run out I guess we will have to buy stuff for those purposes, which I suppose may be the end goal these days...spend, spend, spend. Or maybe bread wrappers will do those jobs until they outlaw those as well.

Meanwhile, I don't think our scattershot governor, spraying new laws willy-nilly and rewriting NY in ink that he calls "Bold", ever had to worry about which bill to pay first or how to get the kitty litter to the curb. Or wet feet either. I am sure if his boots spring a leak someone sees to new ones for him. 

Oh, well, we will adapt. That is something else that farmers do quite well.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to corn based plastics? I once had a wonderful pen made of corn and at the farm shows they gave out....you guess it....bags that were made out of corn plastic rather than petroleum based plastic. Said to be biodegradable and everything.

Research Redux

Evening sky just as it was at Schoharie Crossing the other day

Does it seem as if I am repeating myself a lot lately.....?

First, best news, I was rejected as a juror before I made it five feet into the collecting corral....er....room. To say that that made my day....nay, my entire week....is not saying too much.

We celebrated with a little birding, although new species seem to be pretty thin these days. Lots of Canada Geese though. Lots and lots.

The Farm Side is finally done and sent, so here are a few research links I thought you might enjoy.

Wanna buy a duck

The Duck Guy

Prez at AFBF convention

Wanna buy a duck to support Fonda-Fultonville School FFS? Yeah, go ahead. you know you want a duckie! Personally I want to know how to buy one of the retired ducks. Rubber duckies have always been favorites of mine, and after this event even more so.

Now to play catch-up with the other stuff I need to do.

Another evening, this time the "Noses" also unedited