Snow on Christmas day.

Second set of live triplets on Christmas morning.

Twins on Christmas morning.

Mother nature decided to comply with our white Christmas request this year.  The funny thing is two miles away in town there is no snow.  The temperature is barely freezing and fairly pleasant. 

I went out this morning to let the sheep out of the barn and found our second set of live triplets!  Amazingly, it looks like the mother is going to nurse and raise all three.  We had stuck a pregnant ewe in with our new momma last week to give her company.  We picked the momma that gave birth to the triplets.  They were already isolated from the main herd.  I found another ewe with newborn twins at the far end of the barn.  She would not follow the babies when I tried to lure her to the momma pen with newborn babies as bait.  Annmarie had to come out to the barn and remind me to just push everyone else out of the barn so we could then bait her into the pen.  She went right in with no complications.  We are going to tag the little girl from last week tomorrow so we can put them back into the main herd. 

Because it is so warm here the barn lot is a huge mud pit.  It is difficult to feed the cows inside the barn lot. Two of those cows will be freezer cows in less than two weeks.  Annmarie came up with a plan to repurpose and move panels on the lean to behind the old lamb shed to allow us to feed the cows at night and keep the horses away from the food during the day.  I just need to implement the plan. 

Steve mentioned Thursday that the water line was broken again.  We called a different plumbing company and they came out first thing Friday morning (well, first thing to them, anyway) with all the equipment and parts they needed.  In short order they had dug up the line and found the problem.  As we had suspected, the previous repair job had not been exactly up to standards and had failed after just two months.  They fixed that and advised us to let the glue set overnight (always a good idea and something else the previous repair person did not do).  The only snag was that the conduit got broke.  They thought they had done it, and called their office to call in an electrician.  The electrician of course did not get back to them until late that day.  His response was that replacing conduit is usually more trouble than it was worth and we would be better off to patch it ourselves.  I was not surprised, but since Steve is at work all day today, it was up to me to seal it up well enough to withstand blowing water until he can get patched later in the week. 

Single gloves

I went to find gloves.  I wanted something different from my usual insulated feeding gloves, because I needed a as much dexterity as possible.  So, I dug in the glove bin and found lots of gloves, as you can see.  Notice, however, that those are not pairs.  There are some left gloves.  There are some right gloves.  Those are all orphaned unmatched gloves.  Well, I did eventually find a mate to one of them.  I’d have used unmatched, but there weren’t even two of the same type and and weight.  Color, I don’t care so much about, but it just feels wrong in the type and weight don’t match, at least.  Like socks.

I also found several sets of gloves that I would not categorize as work gloves.  Now, Sarah’s not very good about separating work gloves from non-work gloves and for the most part I really don’t care.  I did, however, care this time.  I found this lovely hand-knit custom glove that I started last spring in with the work gloves.  I’ve gotten distracted and haven’t quite finished its mate, but still, this lovely little wool-silk designed and created by me glove is decidedly not a work glove!

Definitely not a work glove.

I rescued the treasure and went out to farmerize the pump conduit.  Yes, I have resorted to the farmer-style temporary patch that consists of plastic bags secured with electrical tape.  When I looked closer at the conduit, I am not convinced that yesterday’s mishap was the first.  I think it was just the first that we were told about.  The conduit was broken in two places on the vertical leg.  The lower break was packed full of mud.  That likely only would have happened if someone else had back-filled over a break and not told us about it.  It was just too solid to have happened just yesterday as the pipe was being exposed.  I agonized a bit over what to do and finally decided that it had clearly been operating that way for a while, so I took a leap of faith that the insulation was intact on the wiring and sealed it up.  It must be fine.  The pump is working again, and there’s no smoking, arching or sparking.  No breakers have gone, so all indications are that I got lucky.  Steve can fix it right in the next day or two, but I really need to do some laundry.

Back barn lot replanted with new pasture grass.

I went out today and replanted the back barn lot next to the creek.  I replanted with dry land pasture grass mix.  The painful part was I had to plant and rake it all in by hand.  I only had a long sleeve shirt and a hat on and was sweating like a wrestler trying to make weight. I am hoping the grass takes off soon. 

I looked at the roof and could not see any overlap issues. I think it is a leak from old holes that I tried to fill with screws and didn’t get a good seal. Looking like a silicon party is in order early summer. We had another lamb today. The solid white ewe finally had a baby. This is good for her because she was going to get culled otherwise. The baby girl is a dappled grey color, very different than our usual babies. The mother is very flighty and when I grabbed the baby to use as a lure to get the momma in the nursery pen she would not come. It didn’t help that the lamb made no noise, none at all.  I finally gave up, set the baby down called Zeke into the barn then waded into the sheep catching the momma. She did not want to be caught!  I had to drag her into the nursery pen then snag the baby out of the herd.  Of course this time I grabbed the lamb it started bawling immediately until I put it in the pen with momma.  

Tonight when we fed we caught another very pregnant ewe and stuffed her into the nursery pen so the momma would not be alone. She had to be herded into the barn, just a little too flighty. So we actually shut the nursery pen door so she could not take the baby outside tonight. 

My chickens are going gangbusters. I got 8 eggs from 18 chickens tonight. This is pretty good for winter.  The water line has another leak by the pump. That sme leak has been repaired three times. We called a different company this time. So the tub and sinks are all full of water. 

Soon to be kitchen counter and backsplash.

Well it is finally going to happen, we are going to tile the kitchen counters and backsplash.  As an added bonus I will be tiling around the window.  I went and picked up all the tile today.  We are going to install granite tiles on countertops and wood like tiles on the backsplash. Annmarie and were surprised by how much the “wood” tiles look and feel like real wood!  It is pretty amazing. This bodes well for our downstairs floor.  We want to lay down tile that looks like real wood so it can stand the abuse a working farm with dogs and animals dishes out. I cannot imagine a real wood floor with a newborn lamb running around the house. Hopefully, that project will get started late fall next year. I need to save up so we can buy all the tile at once so it matches. 

Annmarie’s Christmas present this year is the kitchen update. I will start tearing into things the first of the year. I need to order some more tools!  Annmarie accused me of always needing “$500 worth of tools for every project”. I don’t think that is totally accurate. I will be spending $100 on a cordless Makita multi tool, $100 on a diamond tile blade for my tile saw, $150 for two Makita 3 amp batteries for my multi tool, $300 on instant wall supports to tent off kitchen and create plastic walled tile cutting area on breezeporch. So I will be spending $650 on tools. At least I didn’t have to buy the tile saw!  Oh, I need a $35 1 inch diamond tile drill so I can drill holes in the granite for the kitchen faucet. I have all the hand tools and 6 foot level.  I also have the pipe clamps for making the custom cabinet for our downdraft vent fan. I have the sawzall for cutting the exhaust hole through the outside of the house.  

I have done enough planning now to avoid most of the problems. I will install the countertops then take measurements for everything else. It’s going to make meal times challenging. I am starting to get excited about it. I love to finish all projects to the 90% completion point. The last 10% is painful.  

Our new counter and backsplash tiles, first time together to see how well we matched.

Kitchen soon to be construction zone.

Eastern Oregon, fog rolled in, that is the sheep on the top of the ridge.

On average I had 18.7 laying hens (every time I counted chickens the number fluctuated.  I think I has a couple living outside for a while.  This number did settle down in September after a couple got eaten by predators) giving me 9.5 eggs/day, for a productivity rate of 51% (Anytime, I am over 50% it is a great day).  I am feeding on average 1119# chicken feed/month (decrease of 1 lbs/month) for a grand total of 950# this year already.  My pounds of feed consumed per egg only dropped to 0.36lbs/egg (drop of 0.01 lbs/egg, so not much change). Good weather and free ranging chickens is doing wonders for the bottom line.  My monthly feed bill is $27.98/month (a drop of $1.85/month).  On average just feed costs are $1.77/dozen eggs (a drop of $0.52/doz).  I have collected 2618 eggs to date.  Total feed costs are $224 ($75 increase), supply expenses were incurred, I purchased some wood pellets for deep litter method and spare parts to fix chicken door  are $34.50 this quarter. I also purchased a dozen Buff Orpingtons on sale for $39.  My total expense for the production of eggs is $2.14/doz (a decrease of $0.51/doz).  I am now charging $4/doz.   I am ahead $322.12 for the year. 


This is amazing!  I have never been this far in the black before.  The craziest part of the chicken saga is the price of eggs has continued to rise in the grocery store.  As of last week a dozen organic free range eggs was selling for $4.25/dozen.  I am actually charging less money than the grocery store.  On top of that I have been super careful with my feed purchases. Bi-Mart had chicken layer pellets and scratch on sale and I bought 1000# total.  I stuffed them into grocery carts the first 500 pound purchase.  Annmarie was not very impressed, then we went out and I threw it all into the trunk of her new car.  I could not have gotten another bag in the trunk.  Not to mention it look like a herd of elephants were riding in the back seat. The next time a customer service gentleman got a cart and we piled another 500# on and put it in the pickup.  The pickup doesn’t mind the weight. 

I did an official chicken count tonight.  18 laying hens, one rooster and 9, three month old buff orpingtons.  The Buffs won’t start laying until March.  So they are basically freeloading for the next 3 months.  The nice part about running chicks over the winter is they don’t lay anyways and it is the least productive part of the year.  I don’t know why everyone buys chicks in the spring so they can eat and grow during the most productive months.  Plus, most people don’t give their chickens light in the winter so they don’t lay eggs at all.