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!

General update

Between urgent events we have been working away at the usual farm stuff. We picked up 4 pigs July 2. They are nice looking barrows bred by a friend of a friend in Stuarts Draft. The boar they are out of is a beautiful Berkshire. I can't remember what the sows were. It was neat to see this operation set up in an old hog facility. The boars and feeder pigs are in a slotted-floor barn with self feeders and nipple drinkers. The sows farrow in huts on pasture and there was one giving birth while we were there. I had never seen baby, baby piglets. These were just a few minutes old and so very adorable.

It was great to find pigs close to home and even better to learn they had already been trained to self feeders and nipple drinkers. They settled right into their new home but are pretty skittish. We're working to get them calmed down a bit so they don't bolt every time we come within 100 feet of their pen.

Two words: Zoom. Lens.

We cleaned out the barn last week to make room for the lambs we weaned on July 7. We got all the sheep to the barn, separated ewes from lambs, wormed everyone as needed, and gave booster shots to a few lambs in record time. We love the new handling system and the barn!! We didn't weigh the lambs because we wanted to get all the working done as early in the day as possible to avoid the heat. Hopefully we will have a chance to run them across the scales this week and set up pens so we can feed them in groups by weight.

Cleaning the barn with the landscape rake - piece of cake!

Random pics of other recent events:

A beautiful sunset. Do you see the face in the clouds?

Full moon.

Laying plastic mulch in the garden on May 13. The mulch layer is pretty impressive; it buries drip tape under the plastic, flattens and firms the planting bed, stretches the plastic over the bed, and seals the edge with dirt.

We planted most of the garden in May, but didn't get the peppers out until June 16. This is a water-wheel transplanter we rented to help set the peppers. It punches a hole in the plastic and fills the hole with water containing starter fertilizer. Then the people who are sitting in the seats drop a plant in each hole. It is not easy because you are moving very fast (even at the slowest speed the tractor can go), but it is easier than doing this by hand. So far the peppers have had a rough go with a late start, pressure from a hungry groundhog, and then the derecho. We'll be lucky to get a handful of peppers at this rate. We're just hoping for a late frost...

The main garden on June 20. Mulched and ready to grow.

So far this year we've only seen one hen turkey with her brood and we've only seen them a couple of times. It seems like this is earlier than usual, I'm pretty sure last year we saw them in August. This picture was taken June 27, and I had seen them a few days before that on the side of the driveway.

Bird on a wire.

Bird nest on the front porch, complete with wool. This reminds me, I never have seen any baby birds in this nest. I'll have to crawl up there and see if the eggs are gone.

Another bird nest that used wool; this one is in the big lilac bush in the back yard.

We harvested garlic the last week of June. The softneck was maybe a little past when it should have been pulled, but the hardneck seems to have been just right. I didn't get a picture yet, but it is beautiful. I am a garlic lover, but I have discovered a new favorite way to prepare it - roasting, and I don't know why we eat it any other way! If you haven't tried roasted garlic, you really should. I put a little olive oil, salt, and basil or rosemary on some foil, wrap the garlic in it and bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 400 degrees. Roasted garlic tastes nothing like raw garlic. It is buttery, nutty, utterly amazing! Perfect squeezed on a cracker or bit of toast.

In other culinary pursuits, I canned 19 quarts of concentrated chicken stock last week. This little project removed approximately 30 pounds of assorted chicken parts from my freezer and took care of the 2011 chicken. I still have probably 12 to 15 pounds from this year to cook down, plus whatever we get from this current batch of chicks.

We harvested the wheat and are working our way through second cutting hay, with one really nice field worth of alfalfa and one rather mature field already in the barn as square bales. I forget the exact count, somewhere around 220, and there is still 20 acres to mow. We have had just enough rain here to keep everything green, although we are well behind normal. Last week's stretch of days in the high 90's did dry us out, but we got a half inch of rain over the weekend. Over in New Hope everything is shriveled up, dusty and crusty. The grass crunches when you walk on it and the corn has rolled up so tightly that it looks like broomsticks. At home we are closer to the mountains, on the very western edge of the valley and often catch more rain as it blows in from the west. But New Hope is much closer to the eastern side of the valley, and it is dry, dry, dry this summer. I haven't been over there since Sunday, but it looked like they should have gotten some rain in the last couple of days. Sure hope so, or our corn crop is going to be ugly.

That pretty much catches you up to what's been going on here. Still to come, pictures from our Pioneer trip to San Francisco and the much anticipated story of chicken coop 6.0.

November, the month of...

...travel. Too much travel. The first trip was to Pennsylvania for the annual Penn State Dairy Cattle Nutrition Workshop that I manage. Before it got started I enjoyed a few hours of hanging out with my sister, shopping and gabbing. The conference is a 3-day affair, and we had record attendance of 566 people. It went very smoothly and was generally a whirlwind of activity. Particularly for a hermit who spends most of her time at the computer. If I'm not there, I'm in a pasture or in a flowerbed... neither get many visitors!

I think it was the weekend after the conference that Brian and I planted garlic, spinach, and lettuce. A bit late for the greens, but we'll see what happens. They all sprouted, so that's a good start. We mulched the garlic heavily with straw, and I am excited to have some fresh garlic next summer. We tried a hard neck variety for the first time this year. I couldn't believe the size of the cloves, very impressive. We had three inches of snow on October 28, and then had our first frost on the 29th, so we were actually pretty close to on time with the garlic planting. No snow in November or so far in December. And it's fine by me if it stays that way.

At the end of two cycles in the breeding season, we were looking great with all of the ewes but one marked. A few of them have been re-marked since then, so it looks like lambing will stretch out a bit longer than a month. In other sheep news, we purchased a starter flock of Dorper ewe lambs. Dorpers are a hair-type sheep, which means they do not grow a thick wool coat that has to be sheared. Instead, the grow a coat of hair that sheds out as the weather gets warmer. They are meatier and I like the looks of them better than some of the other hair breeds that are too scrawny and goat-like in my opinion. The other major advantage of the Dorpers over our current North Country Cheviot crossbred sheep is that the Dorpers are less seasonal in their breeding. We are hoping to breed them in March or April for an early fall lambing. This will allow us to use the same lambing area with up to twice as many ewes. The other item off the check list in November was drawing blood samples to have our ewe lambs tested for scrapie susceptibility. We only keep those that are not susceptible, and we are making progress on that front. Out of 29 ewe lambs tested, 24 are not susceptible and will be kept around for breeding next year. So with the new Dorpers and our home grown replacements, our ewe flock is now up to 96. That's a 50% increase from last year and one-third of the way to Brian's goal of 300. Stay tuned to find out how we handle this; it could be interesting!

They are cute, and in great condition. We were told they never received any grain. Must have been some amazing pasture. But we believe they haven't had grain. We can feed the other lambs and these girls barely notice. If they were used to grain, we would know by now.

Okay, so all that activity makes it sound like I was home for a long time. It was just 5 days. And we didn't actually draw the blood samples until the 23rd. My second trip of the month was to Live Oak, Florida for the Southern Regional Dairy Challenge. The contest went very well; congratulations to all the students for all of their hard work! Before going there I wasn't sure if a "live" oak was a type of tree or just the opposite of a dead oak. I discovered it is indeed a type of tree. It's evergreen and has longer, thinner acorns than the oak trees I was familiar with before.

I was fascinated by the sphagnum moss growing on the trees. This live oak tree is at the camp where we stayed, but all the trees were draped in this stuff. You can see a holly decked with moss in the foreground of this picture. Cool and fascinating by day. Creepy by night. (FYI: as with all my posts, you can click on the picture for a larger view.)

The chickens have slowed their egg production pretty drastically. Four to five eggs a day is a good day right now. But we're only two weeks away from the shortest day of the year, and after that the days start getting longer again. I know it isn't by much. But progressively longer is better than progressively shorter. My moods get dark in time with the seasons, so I prefer the longer days! Here are some cheerful pictures from the day after I returned from Florida.

 I love these Barred Rock hens. Their bottom feathers look like petticoats, especially from behind.

 Ah, home sweet home.

 Yes, I'm a little nutty too.

The final trip of the month was back to Pennsylvania, this time to celebrate my Grandma Mowrey getting remarried at age 82. It was a beautiful day, and she and Bob looked very happy. All but one of my cousins was able to make it, and it was so nice to see everyone. Growing up we had so many family gatherings, now that I live farther away and have animals that complicate taking vacations, I really miss seeing everyone. We also celebrated Thanksgiving with my immediate family and attended our nephew Easton's baptism. I held Easton as much as possible during the five days we were there. He is a darling. Such a cute smile and a sweet personality. Even with our raucous laughter during the wedding reception, he just slept and slept.

 Windmills are popping up all along interstate 99. These were somewhere in the vicinity of Tyrone. Not a bad picture considering it was taken from the truck window while driving on the interstate. I love how the sunset was glinting off of the windmills.

 The gorgeous wedding cake, made by Robin, my sister in law.

My Dad and his brother and sisters with Grandma and Bob.

 My parents, aunts and uncles with Grandma and Bob.

 All the cousins and their children (except Suzy and Aurelia).

All the cousins and their spouses and children (except Jerry; Suzy, Michael and Aurelia).

Another of Robin's creations. This is a turkey cheese ball, which was gorgeous AND delicious!

So that was November. Surrounded by people most of the time and soaking up time with my niece and nephews, it was overstimulating for this hermit. Now I have to readjust to being alone. It's very quiet. I should get my Christmas shopping started and pull out the decorations. But I haven't found the motivation to do either one yet.

In these first few days of December, it's been more running, but closer to home. I enjoyed a beautiful holiday concert Sunday evening by the Celebration Singers. Six people from our church choir sing with the group, and it was a really nice selection of songs. On Saturday a friend of ours was ordained; it was a very nice service and a pleasure to be a part of that special day.