Keeping up with the Joneses

Ha! I am half of the Joneses, and I can't keep up with us. I don't know how nearly a month has passed since my last post, but sure enough the calendar says it is May. The thermometer said August earlier this week. We had a high of at least 93 degrees Wednesday. I don't know how much higher it went; I stopped looking when I saw 93 sometime that afternoon. The two batches of chicks seem to be weathering the weather okay, although I threw open the doors and all the ventilation possible this week. At nearly 5 weeks of age, the older group is pretty adaptable at this point, all they need is constant feed and water. But the younger chicks are approaching 3 weeks of age, and I worry more about all the fluctuations with them. It really seems to be important to get them off to a good start in the first couple of days. The older chicks were stressed when they arrived and went through a heat wave back in early April, and we've lost several from that batch. The younger chicks had a much gentler first week, and are doing very, very well.

Lambing is all but finished. Just one more ewe to go, and everyone else has been done for a week or so. We had a rash of unexplained lamb deaths. Otherwise healthy lambs that looked fine and then were dead. Very frustrating, but the storm seems to be over now. All the ewes and lambs are out on pasture and the lambs have discovered the creep feeder and are growing like weeds. They always look good this time of year, but we're hoping the creep feeder is going to help them with the transition at weaning time and help the smaller lambs keep up a little better. Our spring breeding experiment is now almost half over. The CIDRs went in with no trouble, and were pulled every two days in an attempt to allow the rams to keep up with the girls all cycling at one time. There were a few hitches. Like a breeding soundness exam on our new Dorset ram that revealed he had a very sub-par scrotal circumference and only 10% live sperm. That was his second black mark because the earlier DNA test showed he was QQ. So he's now BBQ. We decided we couldn't waste any more time on him and wanted to sell him. The guy we usually sell lambs to didn't have any immediate openings, but lucky for us, a few minutes later he got a call from some Mexican guys looking for a barbecue lamb. Perfect timing! The breeding soundness exam also included Dalton, our Suffolk ram we bought a couple of years back. He had great sperm, but his scrotal circumference was also pretty small. So we were a little hesitant to put him in with a group of 33 synchronized ewes who all needed to be bred in a small window. That might be a stretch for him. So we arranged to rent the services of a friend's ram. He is a high-dollar Tamarack Prolific ram, which could give us some nice replacement offspring if he successfully covers any of our new Dorset ewes that are out of a Tamarack ram. The first two days the rams were in with the ewes their marking harnesses kept falling off. Turns out some genius (yours truly) had put them on backwards. Once we fixed that, ewes got marked rapidly. So, we don't know if the ewes whose CIDRs were pulled on the first two dates were bred or not, but many of the third and fourth set ewes were marked. We'll be leaving the rams in for another 20 days or so to give them the opportunity to have two full estrus cycles.

It seems like we should have accomplished more in a month's time, and we probably did do some other stuff. But, those are the highlights. Which brings me to this week's events. Some weeks are just frustrating. If sweating your butt off in May wasn't enough fun, try untangling lambs from fence wire that has inexplicably traveled to the middle of a field and wrapped itself around a fuzzy leg. Or, unsticking a lamb who has somehow hip-locked himself in the creep feeder. Or...

 The epic fail that was my deviled eggs for a dinner at church on Wednesday. I put them in the back seat of the truck and when we stopped at the store to pick up a few groceries, I didn't even think about them before I opened the door to put the groceries in the truck. Apparently overhead compartments on airplanes are not the only place where a handy warning sign that says "objects may have shifted in flight" would be appropriate. When I opened the door the egg tray sailed out and landed upside down in the parking lot. Only about 6 eggs actually fell out, but the rest were not in any shape to be set on the table at a carry in meal. I made these into egg salad. I don't know what became of the ones we left in the parking lot, hopefully some small rodent had a delicious surprise meal.

And today my latest grass shipment arrived (that's ornamental grass, just to be clear) and the plants look fantastic. Shout out to Santa Rosa Gardens, they have an incredible selection of ornamental grass, which is perfect for folks like me who are addicted to the stuff. Anyway, these healthy plants are great, but you may notice "one of these things is not like the others." One pot of Calamagrostis Eldorado (feather reed grass) is clearly not Eldorado (it's the one on the left).

Also today, in an attempt to be both frugal and handy, I decided I was going to find the problem with a float valve that is not working. I had previously figured out that it was different from the other float valves, but I wasn't sure if there was a missing piece or a broken piece causing the problem. So I found the manufacturer's web site and located a parts diagram. After deciphering that and watching a helpful assembly instruction video, I was certain I knew what the problem was. There is a little plastic piece called an orifice that should fit under the hose gasket; we no longer have this essential little piece of plastic so the float valve never shuts off, which defeats the whole purpose of the float valve. The manufacturer doesn't actually sell anything, that's all done through distributors. So I found one online. They did not have the particular item I need listed, but the site gave a phone number to call in such a situation. So I called and talked to a nice fellow who said they don't stock that part, but maybe they could order it. After I hung up I realized this was a wholesale company, and there is very little chance they will actually call me back so I can order a single piece of plastic that very likely costs less than $1 (based on the cost of the parts they did actually keep in stock). So I thought I'd try Tractor Supply, which is where I bought the float valve to begin with. The first girl who answered the phone was quite up front that she didn't know jack squat, but she'd get me to someone who did. The second girl who answered the phone informed me that they did not stock replacement parts and that she would recommend just throwing it away and buying a new one, because usually it would be more expensive to special order the part and pay for the shipping than to buy a brand new one. So, I'm in a situation where the manufacturer's product description clearly states "all parts are replaceable," and the manufacturer makes and lists a replacement part (I even have the item number). But, no one sells the replacement part? Really? I know $12.99 (the price of a new one) is not a lot of money, but if I could fix the thing for less than a dollar, why would I not do that? What a wasteful society. Before I buy a new one, I'm going to go to a hardware store and see if I can find something that will work. To be frugal you also must be a little stubborn! 

These are not big deals, but sometimes I sweat the small stuff.

This week is a study in patience. I'm doing the best I can. Hey, I got great egg salad and probably some free grass out of it, so it's not all bad!

(Update: Santa Rosa got back to me less than an hour after I emailed to let them know what happened, complimented me on my photo, and offered to replace the grass or give me a credit. Not one to waste money -even if it's not mine- on shipping a single plant all the way from Florida, I opted for the credit. If karma is real, I should have just gotten on the plus side here. So maybe that wholesale company is going to call me back and send me the orifice!)