Feline Monday - 3/5/18

Did all ya'll miss me on Friday? I missed you!
Ya see we had this little snowstorm and Momma got to stay home! Woot!

It was snowing pretty good when Momma and I went to bed on Thursday but those weather people never get it right so we didn't think we would get anywhere near the predicted 22".

Well! What do you know?! Those weather peeps CAN get it right once in a while!

When I finally dragged Momma out of bed for my breakfast, this was the view from Momma's quilt lab. While the weather usually comes from the front/right side of the house, this weather came from behind the house - we were especially surprised to find so much snow built up on the windowsill and on top of my bird feeder at the front of the house.

I growl and hiss at the snow to tell it I don't like it.
Do you do that?

Momma knows I like to go outside right after breakfast so she pushed the door open as far as she could. I think she was crazy cuz I ain't going out in that much white stuff. My great uncle Carl had so much snow just outside his door that he had to kick out the bottom panel of the door to move the snow. Yikes!

Momma got the door open just a tad more so she could get out and start shoveling. I went to take a nap cuz it was gonna take her a while.

I think there is a car under there.

I knew she could find it! Well, at least half of it.

It took Momma an hour to shovel from the porch to the car, uncover half the car and then shovel out to the road. Our driveway is 4 car lengths and then the plows didn't plow all the way to the grass (there just wasn't anywhere to push it) so that was another 3 feet of snow.  How could it possibly have taken that long? That's cuz it was three shovelfuls deep - about 19". Maybe next time she should shovel a straight line...

After another hour of shoveling, Momma went back to finish uncovering the car. I think she had kinda lost it by then...

Finally, after 2.5 hours of shoveling a neighbor came over to blow out the end of the driveway. That saved Momma another hour of shoveling. She was and is soooooooooooo grateful.

By now Momma's back was KILLING her so she was happy that her boss let her take the rest of the day off.

Since Momma was home I did my best to entertain her! Yipp...I do have 3 legs hanging outside my crow's nest and that is my purple Puppy dogtoy.

I also did my best to help her rest her back. I thought sitting in her lap would do just the trick!

By yesterday the weather was drastically different. Look at those blue skies! And look how the thin bits left in the driveway have melted. Momma was walking to the local mini-mart for more eggs (molasses cookie time!!) so I thought I would follow her. I don't think she wanted me to but that's a whole 'nother story.

This is my favorite snow sculpture in the neighborhood. I wonder how long that snow is going to hang off the roofs??!!

And now it's time for another nap...see y'all this Friday!

An InLinkz Link-up

Workin' Wednesday

This coming Sunday is the 6th annual Agri-Palooza and last night was orientation.

Wyoming County has more cows (48,700 in 2015) than people and June is Dairy Month so the first weekend in June is the perfect opportunity to visit a local farm. Especially since everything but the food is free.

This year's chosen farm is McCormick Farms in Bliss, NY.  Check out the video of their farm on this facebook page.

McCormick's is unusual as this year's A-P will be held at 2 locations - they deal with potatoes (headed to Wise Potato Chips!) at one location and milking cows at another. Apparently the calves are raised at a third location but they've trucked some in for the tours.

There are kids activities, tours of the diary barns and milking parlor, an exhibit on the "life" of a potato, ag vendors, food, music, etc. It should be a fun day with decent weather (unlike the 93F last weekend!). I may not get to see too much of the activities as I'm working "parking" which is no where near the fun stuff so that means last nights orientation was twice as fun.

Each cow has a chip in her ear that logs how much she eats, walks, drinks, and how much milk she gives.
It's like a Fitbit for cows!!
The distance a cow walks is unique to each gal and can help determine when she is getting sick, in heat, etc.

The only picture I took was of the "merry-go-round" milking parlor. This was super cool as it's pretty new technology. The girls are trained to walk into a slot while the machine is still in motion. As she nears the end there is water dripping onto the machinery which not only cleans the machine (have you ever watched a cow chew her cud?) but since she doesn't want her head to get wet she backs off the machine.

It also has fail-safes to protect the cows. We watched one cow not back out in time or try to get on again, not sure, but the machine stopped before she got stuck, backed up a little and then she backed away. Apparently 1 new cow in the crowd can figure it out pretty fast but it took a good two weeks of misery for the whole herd to learn the process.

What are you doing for Dairy Month?