Signs of Spring

Sign #1 - The barn is clean. A mountain of manure now awaits spreading. It is composting nicely; although we got 18 inches of snow March 5-6, none accumulated on the top of the manure pile and steam can be seen rising from the pile in the mornings.

View from the front porch two days after the storm. Initially, the snow was really pretty and the trees and fences were outlined in white. But the melting started before the snow stopped falling and I didn't capture any of those pictures. The heavy snow broke off numerous limbs around our place, and we lost power for most of Wednesday.

Sign #2 - The sheep are shorn. March came in like a lamb before the shearers; 2 very full days, 76 sheep shorn, four wool bags packed. Only three or four ewes appeared to have no udder development, and a couple of those may start showing later as their due dates get closer. So it is confirmed; we will be busy with lambs very soon. Lamb-weather was soon followed by a lion of a snow storm, 18 inches over about 8 hours. Thanks to above freezing temperatures and a big rain, by yesterday (one week after the storm) there was very little evidence of snow...just a lot of mud. But we are thankful for the moisture; this was the first measurable snow of the winter.

 Sign #3 - The garden is awakening! Crocus had been blooming for a while now, but after the snow melted there are even more crocus out and the very first daffodils opened today. Now I really need to get out there and clean off the beds, trim the butterfly bushes, and start working on the vegetable garden. We also have some blackberry cuttings from Brian's mom that desperately need to get in the ground.

Sign #4 - No electric net fence in the fields. We took down all but three sections of fence in preparation for the snow storm and piled it in the barn to keep the snow from damaging it. The newly shorn ewes moved to the high-tensile field where we could keep a close eye on them and feed round bales of hay. The fall-lambing ewes and their lambs moved to the barn, and we finally got the lambs separated. A quick trip across the scales this weekend showed that the 10 lambs averaged 60 pounds. They are ready for the Easter market and will be sent to New Holland this weekend. Yesterday we started setting fence out again, preparing to move the fall-lambing ewes to New Hope, the rams to Brian's parents, and the spring-lambing ewes to the barn and the field surrounding it. The first group of ewes will go into the drop pen in the barn on Sunday.

In other news, we found Ramathorne (Thorny), our original ram, dead in his pen the day of the snow storm. He was nine years old and served us well. We have six of the 2012 ewe lambs bred to him, so they will be our final crop of his lambs.

On a happier note, we framed in the utility room at the barn this Saturday. It turned out nicely, just needs a little more work to move in our supplies. The electrician was scheduled to come last week, but had to help with power outages during the snow storm. So he is rescheduled to come tomorrow and we are a few steps closer to having lights and power at the barn and power in the basement kitchen. Saturday was a good day all around as we also got to spend time with Brian's family and meet our new niece Eden.

We have been working to get the barn ready for lambing, setting up jugs, hauling hay and straw home, and re-stocking all of our supplies. We ordered some panels to modify the layout of our working area a bit, and it looks like the order will arrive just before we start lambing. Ready or not, it's about to get crazy in Craigsville!

A new roof, and the return of fresh eggs

February is flying by, and yet there isn't that much happening. How is that possible? Just the day to day stuff that doesn't seem that interesting for blog fodder, but then again, that's why I started this thing in the first place.

So here are bigger items from the last three weeks that have created enough buzz that they stick out in my mind.

The week of February 4th we got a new roof! You may recall the roof was damaged back at the end of June during the derecho storm. It never leaked thankfully, but we lost a lot of shingles. The insurance adjuster agreed it needed a total replacement, and we had been wanting to put on a metal roof. Since we had the insurance money to help, we were able to kick in the extra and we now have a beautiful standing-seam metal roof. Brian's mom's cousin (Does that make him a cousin once-removed? I can never keep those genealogy terms straight.) did the project and did an outstanding job. A crew of 4 guys did the project in 5 days. I think it looks fantastic, and we shouldn't have to worry about leaks or other roof issues for many years to come. The color is baked in, so there is no need to paint it every few years either.

The roof project during construction.

The finished look.

After the roof project we spent a couple of days hauling the ewes home from New Hope in preparation for lambing. It has been really nice to have everyone at home. Much less running. The girls are starting to get that round belly, waddle-when-you-walk look that is a good indicator of how busy March and April will be. We are expecting lambs from 81 ewes this spring, beginning around March 21. Shearing is scheduled for next Friday, and we'll get a better look at everyone then. But right now, the marks from breeding season say we could have 22, 22, and 29 ewes due in the first three weeks of the lambing season. Including 19 due on a single day (March 23). Wow.

So what are the ewes doing in these last few weeks?

One of the Dorper ewes, basking in the sun.

A Dorset ewe ruminating.

Two of our home-grown replacements, who are about 75% North Country Cheviot, having a standoff.

Another Dorper, check out that belly!

This is 145. She's a friendly Suffolk who was raised as a bottle lamb by our neighbor. She is a famous live Nativity star. This will be her first lambing.

The boys get a few months off. This is our new Dorset and Suffolk rams, Duff and Heath, in the foreground and Bruce, a North Country Cheviot in the background.

Sleeping in the sun.

The Dorsets have cute faces with their short little ears and wooly necks.

The weather has been a see-saw of  warm and cold with temperature swings of 30 to 40 degrees nearly every day this month. We had a couple of days in the upper 60s, and the flowers are poking up all around. There are daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and surprise lilies waking up, as well as new growth on some of the perennials. Sometime last week the first crocus opened up, but I didn't take a picture. They have been blooming since then, and yesterday I managed to get a photo.

Not the first bloom of the season, but the first one captured.

And the last bit of news is that the chickens have also started to take note of the increasing day length and have started laying eggs more regularly. We got about 2 a day for most of the last two weeks, then Wednesday I got four, and yesterday there were 6. Including the first egg from the new pullets!

You recall we had a bunch of roosters in this last batch of chicks? Here's one of the Rhode Island Reds. They are quite striking, and I am amazed how much shinier the roosters are than the hens.

Eggs! The pullet egg on the right is about half the size of a regular egg.

I just love the color of Barred Rocks!

Barred Rock rooster in the foreground, another Rhode Island Red in the back.

These roosters are really big compared to the hens.

Well, that's about it. The fall lambs are still not separated from their mamas, but they aren't really nursing that much anymore. The skid loader has arrived and we've been working on cleaning out the barn, but it is a slow go. We have a mountain of manure stacked up waiting for drier conditions so it can be spread on the pasture, and we still have half of the barn to finish cleaning. We need to place an order for a few more panels and make some modifications to the barn layout, and we're hoping to (finally) get the electric run and build the storage room before we start lambing. Actually, it would be great to have the electric in place before we shear, but that is not looking too promising.

Home again

All of my scheduled travel is over for a while now, and it is good to be home again.

I have had some wonderful visits with family in the past four months, but it seems I've done nothing but drive to Pennsylvania recently. Five trips between October and January. It is no wonder the blog has been neglected. Well, that and the cold weather makes it too easy to crash in front of the tv for a couple of hours every night instead of doing something productive. Ah Netflix, I love you and I hate you.

So, what's been happening on the farm over the last month and a half? As of January 12, all of our 2012 spring-born lambs have been marketed. We sold 42 and kept 6 of the best females for replacements. This is the first time since our first year (when we only had 6 lambs!) that all of them have been ready to go this early. Have I mentioned we like the barn? We did not lose any lambs after weaning this year, and I think that is in large part due to them not being on pasture and not being constantly plagued by worms. The fall-born lambs need to be weaned and separated from their mamas, hopefully we will get that done this weekend. At least at this time of year they aren't suffering from parasites on pasture, and we have been feeding them grain and hay, so they seem to be doing well. I am curious to get them on the scales and see what they look like. As the ewes have dropped off in milk production, there are some obvious differences in the lambs, so I'm curious how big of a difference it really is in weight. Part of the delay in weaning them is that we've been waiting for our skid loader to arrive so we can get the barn cleaned out before we put the lambs in it. That was a year-end purchase, which I am told will be so useful we won't know how we got along without it. I don't know about that, but if it helps get the driveway fixed that would be great. The chickens are completely on strike this winter. Most of them are pullets who haven't started laying, but the older hens have shut down. I have two eggs in the refrigerator and 43 chickens to feed every day. Something is not right with that equation! I did find a fresh warm egg in the nest boxes this morning, so maybe we'll be back in business soon. We have discovered that there are four or five roosters in the group of 30 pullets. We had noticed there were a couple that were larger and slightly different colored, and any questions were quickly answered a couple of weeks ago when the boys started learning to crow. This is not likely to work out for them. The Rhode Island males are a bit too aggressive for my tastes, and we already have one rooster. Some of them are probably going to end up as stew. I would like to be able to hatch out some chicks on our own and this could give us that opportunity, so maybe they will get a reprieve. Good behavior will go a long way with me. Randy roosters, take note: first one that attacks me is in trouble!

We enjoyed spending time with our families over Christmas, and both sides of the family expanded in January. Our new nephew, Jonah, was born January 5, and our new niece, Eden, was born January 31. We live too far away from all of the nieces and nephews, but at least these two are pretty close together. Who knows, they may end up being in the same class at school. What a small world, that my sister and Brian's sister would end up living 15 minutes apart, and both of them are nearly 5 hours from their hometown.

I leave you with a spot of cheer that helps the long winter days seem brighter. I received an amaryllis bulb and a potted orchid for Christmas, and both have bloomed recently. The amaryllis is finished now, but it was beautiful with four full flowers. Just as it had faded, the first orchid bloom opened. Definitely a bright spot in the corner of my office!

First-ever Fall-born Lamb!

There's a rhythm to sheep farming that I have become accustomed to. Today is...syncopated.

We returned from ram relocation (i.e. moving the mature rams to Brian's parents' lush pasture to prepare them for breeding) to find that the first of our fall-lambing ewes had delivered an adorable speckled ram-lamb. You could almost literally see 'clean out the barn' moving up on Brian's priority list! Meanwhile I was trying to remember all of the things we usually do at lambing time. Funny, it was second nature in April.

Mama and lamb are now safely tucked into a lambing jug for some bonding time, and now we wait for a flurry of lambs over the next couple of weeks.

A face any one could love!

This speckled baby boy is our first-ever fall-born lamb. He is definitely out of Dalton and his mama is definitely not full-blooded Dorper since she never fully shed her wool coat.

We spent most of last week sprucing up the farm in preparation for having our Bible study group here on Sunday. We rotate between houses, but we are so far off the beaten path that we aren't in the regular rotation. We mowed and ran the weed-eater, cleaned the garage, and just generally cleaned up the stuff that accumulates as we move from project to project. So things are looking really good around here right now. Which is a good feeling that I will thoroughly enjoy as long as it lasts! Plus the weather has really taken a turn towards fall with daytime highs in the 70s and overnight lows in the upper 40s. I even grabbed a jacket before heading outside to feed this morning. In the pocket of said jacket I found my headlamp, and that is perfect timing as I will be needing it for late night lambing checks.

Fall favorite: Autumn Joy sedum

Some kind of maiden grass, which I dug up from along the driveway and is now thriving. Gotta love that clear blue sky that comes will fall.

Asters. I have tried to grow these several different times from bareroot cuttings and had zero luck. So when I spotted these beauties at the Wal-Mart garden center I had to get them. When I planted them I discovered that some of the tulips that I planted in little pots (in an attempt to protect them from being eaten) last fall were completely gone. It was too late to tell if they had rotted or just died, but there was only powdery dirt and a papery outer skin left in my pots. One of these days I will resign myself to the fact that most tulips have to be treated as annuals, but for now I am still annoyed!

A Red-spotted Purple butterfly. I also saw the first Monarchs visiting butterfly bushes in the yard this past week.

Flowers and wild things

We have seen so many different creatures this summer, but I wasn't really sure which of them was responsible for nipping off my strawberries. One day last week all was revealed. I was sorting through a stack of books, looking for the one I planned to send Easton for his birthday, when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.

I looked up to see a small doe up in the raised bed munching on strawberry leaves. I went to the door to shoo her away and I saw she was traveling with a friend.

This is one of the three young bucks we've been seeing on a regular basis. From the width and height of their racks, we are pretty sure they are all related to the huge deer we saw a few years back (who has since been poached by some ruffians in our neighborhood).

Butterflies and hummingbirds have also been frequent visitors this summer, especially in the last few weeks. We see the hummingbirds nearly every day and I can't even count the butterflies. They don't call the plants below butterfly bushes for no reason!

I think this is a Black swallowtail

Eastern tiger swallowtail

Another Eastern tiger swallowtail

 

 

 The yard is full of lots of color in addition to the dahlias, sunflowers and butterfly bushes you can see in the pictures above. There are still many black-eyed susan blooming, the four o'clocks and angels trumpets light up the evening hours, and the sedum and warm season grasses are just beginning to put on their show. A few of the daylilies are re-blooming as well.

The crepe myrtle finally bloomed! After seeing these blooming everywhere, ours finally caught up.

The delicate purple spikes of the obedient plant, which one of the ladies Brian used to work with dug up and gave to us.

Mammoth sunflower that has mostly finished blooming, but now is the time the gold finches have started hovering, waiting for the first delicious seeds.

The other sunflowers are still going strong!

Rambling Update

Broccoli! Saturday we set out 480 broccoli transplants. Rather than start them from seed, we purchased plants this time around. A lot less effort for about the same price as our "special" commercial pepper seeds. They look really good so far. 

Broccoli plants waiting in the garage

The same can be said for the lambs. We have weighed them a couple of times now, and they are right at 50 pounds and growing about a third of a pound each day. There is a lot of variability in the group, but overall they look good. 

The chicken on the hay feeder is one of two hens who flew the coop and have taken up residence in the barn. They have a stockpile of eggs, which I am hoping they will brood. I will give them a few more weeks, and if there is no evidence of setting, then I will have to clean up the old eggs and start gathering the fresh ones.

The pigs are also growing. They love getting sweet corn cobs as a treat and have started coming up to investigate us rather than running away at top speed. A friend suggested treating them with marshmallows, apparently pigs love them, but we have not tried that yet. We got four barrows this time, but they are all different colors. I can't pick a favorite because they are all adorable. But I notice I did take more pictures of the red one. The black spotted pig is a troublemaker who got out a couple of times a few weeks back. We seem to have gotten the fence right now and haven't had any escapes recently.

Our fall lambing experiment is just around the corner. Sunday I counted 10 Dorper ewes that have udders developing. I don't see any development on the Dorsets. We need to run them through the chute to separate out the Cheviot-Suffolk ewes and get a close look to see how many settled to the spring breeding and didn't slip lambs in all of this crazy heat. We should start lambing in about five weeks. 

The garden has really not been that productive this year. Between busy schedules and hot, dry weather, it is quite behind. We picked our first green beans of the season over the last 2 weeks. The first picking was just enough to eat, and I canned 11 quarts the second time around. First tomatoes of the summer this week too, yum! I also finally got some pictures of the garlic.

The larger bulb here is German Extra Hardy hard neck garlic, and this is an average bulb (the other pics are also of this variety). The smaller bulb is a California White, soft neck type, and this is the largest one we grew this year; most of the others are half this size. So, first year experimenting with hard neck...so far, so good. And it's delicious!

We have been doing a little pest management and harvesting deer under a damage control permit. What better way to use the meat than by corning and smoking some heavenly pastrami. Here are a few of the hams fresh from the smoker.

A pile of pastrami.

And my favorite way to eat this delicacy - pastrami slathered with coarse mustard and wrapped around a dilly bean. Now my mouth is watering.

 The deer aren't the only wildlife we've been seeing. This summer has been full of interesting visitors.

Brian found this beetle in the bed of the truck one morning. It was dead when he found it. It is huge! I think it is a female Eastern Hercules Beetle, which is a forest beetle. This is the first one we've ever seen.

I see the turkeys almost daily, amazing how much the little poults have grown!

We sent five cull ewes to New Holland Saturday. As we were loading them I got a good look at one who is the fattest sheep I have ever seen. She did not lamb two years in a row, and she's been in the barn eating free-choice alfalfa-grass hay since April. FAT. 

Brian has been traveling a lot the past two weeks and will be gone all week this week as well. In the meantime, I've been holding down the fort and dealing with only the occasional animal issue. One morning it was fishing a ewe out from underneath a truck, then chasing a wormy ewe around the field for a while. 

The ewe under the truck scared me at first because I figured she was dead, I mean why else would she be under there? As I got closer to her I saw she was quite alive, but when I tried to pull her out, she didn't come out easily. I stopped pulling and checked to be sure she didn't have her head caught on wire or her ear tag snagged on some mysterious metal. Nothing, so I grabbed her two front feet with one hand and her two back feet with the other and gave it another go. This time she popped out, and stood wobbling, looking at me a little dazedly. I think her legs must have been a bit numb, but she got herself together and teetered off to the water trough. 

A few days later I was moving sheep again and the wormy ewe was again at the tail end of the group. The fact she was still standing was very encouraging, as we have had very bad luck treating ewes once they are that far gone. We had wormed her a couple of weeks earlier, at which time she had very pale eye membranes, an indirect indication of worms. On the day of the truck incident she had clear symptoms of bottle jaw, a swelling of sorts under the lower jaw. But I could not catch her on my own, so she did not get wormed that day. Well, by the time a week had passed she had slowed down a bit. I moved the whole group of ewes from one field to the next without incident. Then I had to go after number 32 (the wormy one). Instead of running into the field she found a small opening between the tractor and the barn and got out into the yard. Where I proceeded to chase her in circles around the house. After a while I tired of the game, plus I had to run over to New Hope to feed the other ewes. So I left her in the lilac bush by the driveway and went to feed the others. By the time I got back it was almost dark, and my first glance around the yard revealed no sheep. I found her in the flower bed, chased her around the house once, and she ended up back near the lilac bush. She was worn out at this point and still refused to walk (I left that out, but that is why I had to leave her before, I finally caught up to her, wormed her and put on a halter, but she just wouldn't budge). I knew it was not a good idea to leave her out overnight. So I found a plastic feed sack and rolled her on it, keeping her on one hip and pulling her along by her upper body, using the feed sack as a sled of sorts. It worked beautifully, but I was going uphill backwards and I knew I couldn't get her all the way back to the barn like that. So I shut off the power to the fence, slid her over close to it, and put her front feet through. She leapt out of my arms and ran across the field to be with the other sheep. Two days later when we were moving the ewes to the barn so we could load them on the trailer and haul them to New Hope, she was again at the back of the pack and we had to help her through the fence. She didn't seem steady enough to go on the trailer, so she's convalescing in the barn for now. Poor thing, I do hope she can get her strength back as she seems to be quite the fighter.

Finally, a stroll through the flowers. I really need to update this more frequently as these photos are already behind what is actually happening outside. The dahlias are blooming quite a bit now and the sunflowers are in full bloom. The obedient plant has also just opened in the last few days. 

Dianthus - you can clearly see the beautiful petal edges that give these flowers their common name, pinks. I loved using the pinking shears as a little girl, so these are nostalgic flowers for me.

I am a flower fan. But if I had to pick just one flower (for summer any way!) it would be the sunflower. They are just so cheerful.

Mimosa tree in full bloom. The flowers attract droves of hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. We didn't see hummingbirds as early as usual, but there have been plenty of them here lately.

A pretty gladiolus in the shade of a butterfly bush.

Another cheerful summer favorite, marigolds planted in the garden.

Drama queen. I love that the hibiscus has these tropical, extravagant blooms. It is all done for this year, but what a spectacular show!