Mother nature cannot decide whether it should be spring or stay winter.  We had snow this morning, and yesterday the wind was gusting over 50 mph.  One of those gusts blew the front screen door into our porch pillars, denting a section of it.  Truly, if it is not one thing it is another.  I managed to wrestle the screen door into the old house without breaking anything.  The wind managed to break the window out of the back door on the old house.  So now I need to level the old house so I can fix the door then fix the window.  My duct tape fix did not hold the glass in against 50 mph winds, go figure. 

We had another lamb born on March 7, ewe #1 gave birth to a single baby boy.  So now we have two young babies and two very protective mothers.  Zeke and I went out last night to herd the sheep into the barn and the two mommas did not want to move.  The closed ranks and faced Zeke down.  He could not get them to move.  Plus the idiot keeps circling around them and trying to push them away from the gate we are trying to go through.  One time the lead ewe got mad and chased him down and rolled him a couple more times.  He jumped back up and I sicced him on her, he grabbed her by the hair on her shoulder and hung on for 30 feet before I called him off.  The sheep still would not move after that.  I had to help the dog and he was a little gun shy about facing off against them.  We did eventually get the sheep into the barn.  He is getting much better, but our sheep do not want to cooperate. 

Zeke is outside today running around the yard.  He just will not stay inside, rings the bell until someone lets him out.  This morning he ran down to my mother-in-law’s house and chased her cats around.  I have been keeping an eye on him since. 

We have decided to purchase a flat bed trailer.  We can haul lumber, hay and sheep (after I build some racks) using our pickup.  I only wanted to spend $1200 for a dual axle, electric brakes, lights, wood decked, stake pockets trailer.  I have just spent three hours on the internet and calling 12 different places, average price $2500.  I found one place that uses tubular steel frame and I can dictate the number of stake pockets.  They will custom paint it and delivered to Hood River, OR for $2000.  We are going to go with them. 

I did get lucky and win a unit of 2×8 x10feet boards at a fundraiser for $200.  This is going to constitute a large portion of the new floor in the barn.  Great deal, just need a trailer now to pick them up.  The water leak from the frozen pipe is getting worse.  So this weekend I need to change out the faucet.  We are starting to get a small swamp in back yard. 

I went out 1.5 hours later (I set an alarm) to check on the baby boy and he was truly rejected.  I found him five feet away from the ewe buried in the straw trying to stay warm.  The other lamb, boy, was curled up at his mother’s feet.  I gave him a little warmed formula which caused him to perk up some, but not very much.  So I wrapped him up in a hand towel and took him down to Tish.  She will hand feed him and take care of him.  She took our last bummer lamb.  Otherwise, I don’t know that he would have survived the night.  I think it would have gotten too cold for him.  I forgot to check the ewe’s ear tag so I could write it down.  Will do that tonight so I can put a red check mark after her name on the spreadsheet. 

Spring is here, even if I don’t want to admit it.  Over the weekend Annmarie had me spray the bugs trying to get in the house.  She said they were swarming on the sunny end of the house.  What an understatement.  I thought I was in a B horror movie, a bad one, when I started to spray the bugs.  They were in a huge soccer ball sized pile and then covering the entire sunny side of the house.  I fired up the little hand pump sprayer and bugs started flying every where.  I was jumping around and swatting bugs off my face and arms nonstop.  Not a fan of dive bombing bugs.  Luckily, I only muttered obscenities so no bugs flew into my mouth.  After I did our house, I went down and did the same thing to our in-laws home.  A couple of days later it kicked in and the bugs are much better.  I would have tried to attract the chickens over, but Zeke is being a pest and chasing the chickens at every opportunity.  I was hollering at him on Sunday for harassing a chicken and he came running back to me with a feather stuck to the corner of his mouth!  I watched the chicken get away, but he loves to chase anything that will run away from him. 

We had another set of lamb twins today.  Annmarie called me at had me get on the road early so I could be here to monitor the babies.  She had noticed that the mother was in labor and had locked the sheep up in the barn lot.  I came home and the ewe had one healthy baby at her feet, so I went into the barn and started setting up the pen so we could isolate her for a few days.  I came out with the water buckets and on my way to the creek I found a little baby covered in dirt all splayed out on the ground.  So I picked up that baby, her acknowledged baby and put them in the pen.  I then had to chase all the sheep into the barn then sort out all but her.  She kept trying to run out, after one failed attempt I did manage to get her locked in with her babies.  I then went and fixed a bottle, got some rags and went out to dry off the baby and bottle feed it.  I got it dried off and it ate about 1/2 ounce of milk substitute.  I then dragged the healthy baby next to the reject and left the reject wrapped up in towels to keep it warm.  I am not sure the mother will accept it.  So I will be going out every 1.5 hours to check on the baby and feed it.  It is a little boy.  I didn’t check the other lamb’s gender.  The healthy lamb is almost three times as big as the reject.  Not sure whether to blame the ewe or mother nature.  She will get a red check mark against her record any way.  If you are not a perfect mother, we are keeping track. 

Luna, our barn kitty, she was following us around.

Today it did not rain so I got to play on the tractor.  I love my tractor.  Annmarie may get jealous if I continue to praise the tractor and all its myriad abilities.  It is a huge force multiplier.  I spent about seven hours moving horse and sheep poop.  It would have taken me a couple of weeks to do it by hand.  The more I use the tractor the more amazed I am by how fast a job can get done.  I dug out all the horse dung alongside the barn and lowered the dirt level to create some natural drainage out of the horse pen.  There was a low spot right at the opening and it was getting pretty muddy and nasty.  Two of the gates could not be fully opened due to all the poop.

 This last fall I thought I could make it all winter without cleaning anything, but there is no way.  After this cleanup I may be able to go a whole year.  I won’t, I will do it one more time this fall after we fix the barn.  I want to be ready for winter.  I had plans to move both large piles of sheep dung to a single pile out in the barn lot. Just not enough time.  It is probably going to take a couple of days to move both piles.  There is a lot of shit!  I did move about half the pile that was closest to the barn.  This allowed me to break up the large dry chunks and to make space so I can back a vehicle up to the side of the barn.  My very first step completed on revamping and improving the century old barn. Next step is to crawl underneath the barn and start digging the dry dung away from the rocks so I can install new supports directly onto the bedrock.  I don’t want to put the new supports onto a foot of dried dung then let the whole thing get wet and soft.  So yeah for me, more digging under a building.  This is pure physical torture.  I might tear a couple of holes in the floor of the barn so I can stand up and dig.  Sounds like a great idea. 

Zeke thinks we are “working” so he is on the prowl for sheep.   This is all clean now.

We have decided to buy a trailer and I was talking with a local man who is in the know about a used trailer and he told me that I can buy my lumber directly from the mill in Rieth.  So I can buy three units of lumber for the barn.  They also make a tongue and groove board that is 2 inches thick for trailer beds that I could use on the floor of the barn.  I will be pricing that out soon.  He also sells scrap metal and has some old tin roofing.  I am going to go look at that also.  Things are starting to come together. 

Nice clear spot next to the barn so we can do some siding work.

Thursday night someone saw a cougar outside our mother-in-law’s house, less than 100 yards from us.  This doesn’t include the wolf sightings on the back hillside or the three coyotes I saw during the daylight hours last week.  Our house now looks like an arsenal.  I dusted off my 30-06 for the cougar and brought my father’s .243 over for the coyotes.  The 30-30 still sits next to the door for Annmarie to shoot the coons with and there is a pump shotgun with laser and flashlight attached on the other side of the door.  I use it to go out at night now when I am doing the patrol.  The .22 pistol is nice but the ante has been upped and I am unwilling to just take it on a night patrol now.  I will call fish and game on Monday about the cougar being next to a residential dwelling. 

Barn is to the left, I added to the dung pile and smoothed out the road in the process.