Month: December 2017

Fencing will never end

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Here we are again doing that thing that never ends, fencing. Annmarie called me this morning to tell me that two more lambs were getting rejected and I missed a ewe when I put the sheep in last night. I did put them in during the day time and I did look around the barn lot and did not see any strays. She would like to put the sheep into the ram pasture but I have not fixed the upper fence since I cut it this summer to let the cows out. Annmarie thought I would get to it, I never did and now we need it. It sounds like a broken record concept that I seem to never catch onto. One would think that eventually it would occur to me to stay ahead of it. But there always seems to be some other pressing emergency that takes up my time. At least that’s my perception, I suspect my other half might differ on this view!So I came home early and spent four hours outside working on the fence. I had to make a few crucial decisions to speed up the process. I really needed to add four strands of smooth wire but running all that out is going to take a while to do alone. I have not gotten my hitch mounted wire dispenser yet. Its a $100 I have just not spent. I have researched it and know where I can obtain one via the mail as no one sells it locally. This does not currently help me today. So I opted to install woven wire across the top. This solves multiple problems as I only have to tighten the one woven wire and I can roll it out. I threw out 38 wooden stays and rolled out four rolls of wire. I had to cut a little fence out of the way but managed to only get the uphill side tightened and wooden stays in place. I am hopeful that two more four hour sessions will see me get the fence up and tightened. The real time drag is nailing all the wooden stays up and in place. I am just going to wire in the gate in an attempt to get the fence up and in place. I need to replace one of the wooden posts in the spring as I cannot get the hole dug.

Annmarie ended up with two more bummer lambs. They got to come inside, get warm and get a belly full of formula. Tisha came and picked them up this afternoon. We have moved panels around inside the barn to make more room for the mommas but still leave a passage for the rest of the sheep.

I started painting the upper stairway wall to match the lower half. It is really bringing the whole thing together. I still have one more coat to put on the wall. I have a 12 foot roller extension which lets me paint from the ground. It is so much faster than getting up on a ladder.

This year we are going light on Christmas decorations so that we can move right into the floor remodel this January. I am getting excited about getting the hallway, living room and dining room tiled.

Hawk ears

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It happens every year, we have our first bummer. The weird part is it’s almost always caused by humans. When we first started having sheep they would go down near the front spring and have babies and the babies would get wet and cold or drown. Annmarie convinced me to start locking them up at night in the barn by making me get up at 0300 many times in the dead of winter to search for a mewling baby lamb. This is not fun and became good incentive to get the barn redone. Every year the sheep find a way to become bummers that we had not anticipated. Today is a prime example. We had two more sets of twins born in the barn last night. I was sent out to the barn early as Mrs Hawk Ears (aka Annmarie) could hear a new baby that was in distress. Now she heard this through a barely opened bedroom window on the second story of our house through the great big tree and through the walls of the barn which is 60 yards away. Her students wonder how she can hear them whispering in the back of the classroom, the woman has better hearing than anyone I have ever encountered!

When I got to the barn I could hear the baby also and it was in distress, so I did not feed the meowing kitten or the whining horses and instead opted to go right into the barn. Going into the barn is still a risky business as I am not using the dogs. The ram and I have come to a mutual hate agreement. I carry a big stick and he stays away from me. Neither one of us trusts the other to keep his word. So I was searching for the baby and trying to keep the ram in sight. I spotted one momma and one baby but could not see the complainer. I could hear it loud and clear. I moved the sheep away from the newly installed wall feeders and saw four little feet under the feeder. The little bugger must have laid down close to the feeder and rolled under then stood up. Once upright she could not figure out how to get out. The real problem is this normally happens during the birth process so the mother doesn’t bond with the newborn lamb. There was no sorting off the momma and baby with everyone in the barn so I went and opened the outer door to let them out of the barn.

The ram followed me to the door and got within four feet of me but never tried to ram me. I had the pitchfork handle in my hand the whole time. I keep trying to use the old pitchfork heads I find laying around and they fall out of the new handles all the time so now I have a $15 club. I got about 2/3 of the herd out when I decided I had better shut the outer momma pasture gate until I had checked in the barn. I didn’t want the new momma getting out because then I have to go get the dogs and run everyone in again and sort them all over, a process that would add an hour to my outside chores. This endeavor would not disappoint either border collie as they would get to move the sheep.

I headed back into the barn and lo and behold there were two mommas and four babies! The little buggers can really hide amongst the sheep. Normally, we would just keep walking through the herd until we spotted them all but the ram is preventing us from our usual routine. Luckily with no pressure most of the mommas will hang back with their babies. So I shut up the barn and watched them, the little complainer got pushed away by both ewes. This is not a good sign but I figured if I could stick all four babies and both mommas into the smaller momma area maybe the one would change her mind. I went down to the spring and got a large bucket of water as I was going to trap them in the barn instead of allowing them free access to the spring. I had the baby area all ready and had to lure the mommas in by catching the babies and holding them out and walking to the baby area. It works even better when the lambs cry out loud for mom. I even rubbed the twin to the complainer all over the complainer hoping the scent would rub off. No go, Annmarie came out to check on me while I was watching the complainer and we just opted to call it a bummer. So she carried it to the house in her church clothes holding it out away from her body to keep her clean. I finished the morning chores and came inside. Annmarie feeds the babies way better than I do, so she offered to stay home. I sent her on her way and mixed up a bottle. We keep formula mix in the freezer for just this occasion. The lamb hollered loudly and continuously until I fed it. I then went upstairs and got our small dog kennel and turned on the gas stove so the baby could get warm. She fell asleep after the first feeding. One more time she woke up hollering and slurped down another few ounces of formula. She is a good eater, actually head butted my shoulder until she got more milk and had her fill. We have a wonderful lady who comes and takes all of our bummer lambs. We give them to her free of charge so that they can have a good chance. She has about a 50% survival rate over the years. Sometimes they are just too small. Although with this new ram that has not been a problem. His babies are gorgeous and healthy which is only reason we are putting up with him for another 3 months. I want him to impregnate all the ewes so we can have another set of his offspring. Once that is done he will be sausage. It’s just not safe to go out into the barn with him. We also don’t believe in selling our problems to other people. It’s not fair to them and most people won’t believe you when you say he is mean. Because he was tame first he has no fear of humans which makes him even more dangerous than normal as he is not skittish or unpredictable, just mean.

Here is a prime example of his behavior. Today, once I shut the gate and trapped in the last 1/3 of the ewes to check on the baby he hung around the gate waiting for them to come out. I leaned my pole up against the fence right next to the gate. I opened the gate to let the last of the ewes out and our super friendly brown ewe slipped back inside and the ram followed her. I switched sides of the gate I was standing on so I had the gate between us. All the ewes ran out and he saunters over to the gate and spots my handle leaning up against the fence. He stopped and head butted the handle multiple times until he had knocked it down on the ground and then tried to prance through the gate opening. I smacked him a good one with the gate! He is not afraid of me only of the stick. He did run off after getting blindsided by the gate.

He is not safe to be around and we have people who would like to come out and see the babies. So we will have to let them into the baby area from the outside so they can avoid him. Ideally, they would be able to just wander through the herd in the barn as everyone mills around but that won’t happen this winter.

Chores

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Today was catchup day. This needs to happen every once in a while. The cows needed food but I didn’t want to go outside twice into the cold. So I held off going out until early afternoon and I could do all the chores at once.

We had our first set of twin lambs two weeks ago, then a second set a week later and a third set two days ago and another set today! Eight babies from four deliveries is mighty nice. The babies don’t know to be scared of humans and are very curious. Today this little nugget would not leave me alone and tried to follow me out of the barn as I was trying to shut all the mommas and untagged babies into the baby area. They are very cute and cuddly at the one week old mark. The ones born today were born this afternoon outside. They were still wet and the momma had not delivered the afterbirth yet. She was super flighty so I ended up having to close off the end of the barn and use her babies as bait to get her into the barn. We usually throw the afterbirth outside the barn window and the cats or magpies eat it.

The vet came out to the house yesterday and cut away the affected portion of Mika’s hoof. The White Line disease came back but its not near as bad as last time. An added bonus was not having to haul the horse into the vet clinic. We are still searching for an affordable used stock trailer.

The dogs have to help when I feed the cows. Especially, when the cows think they are starving. There was still a little alfalfa left where the feeder should of been. The cows had tipped the feeder over, I suspect that was the work of the bull. If I don’t take the dogs the cows will not stay back and let me put the collapsible feeder around the large bale. Its hard to move the feeder around when 13 cows are bum rushing the bale of feed.

I took the time today to dig out a loading platform out of the hillside. It actually looked like there night have been one there in the past. It doesn’t have a fancy platform but you can back a trailer up to it and load a piece of equipment onto the trailer. We may need it for the old tractor we sold and since the ground is not frozen solid yet I figured today was the day to make it happen. Especially since I think it will snow before Christmas. I even fed Bob in the machine shop. He has been sneaking down to Donna’s to get extra food. I saw one of the new feral adult cats in the window of the barn two days ago when I went to feed. Other than that I have not seen any of the three new cats. One died a mysterious death. Annmarie spotted another dead cat down on the main road. We honestly think its an owl or hawk. We have a resident hawk that is now coming up to the house and flying over all the time. It hollers and screams when it sees the dogs or cats or humans. We are the interlopers in its world.

I have had to change the way I am billing feed for the chicken spread sheet. Now that I cannot store large quantities of food (thank you mice) I can store up to 200 pounds in two large metal trash cans. I am just expensing out the feed for the month I buy it even if it goes halfway through the next month. I did manage to collect seven eggs today from 25 chickens. I usually do about 33% production rate in the winter so 8 eggs is what I would like to collect on a daily basis this Winter, not quite there yet.

There is one pregnant ewe that is almost as wide as she is long. It is a sight to see. I sure hope she only has triplets and that they are all alive. I didn’t have very good luck last year with keeping the ewe I had to pull lambs from alive. I have a 50% survival rate after pulling lambs from two separate ewes in the last eight years. Honestly, only having had to do it twice is pretty amazing considering we have had over 300 babies.

There have been several Mountain lions killed in the immediate vicinity of our farm. There is not even snow on the ground yet. We suspected one was hanging around the barn last winter so hopefully this year will be a better year or I might have to get a tag.

I am getting ready for the house floor tile install. I ordered screws off of Amazon and some extra driver bits oh and I did do a little Christmas shopping online and all of that will be here by in three days!! It is truly amazing how fast a purchase can get to us in rural America. Annmarie reminded me I need to calculate how much grout is needed and get it ordered. It takes two weeks to show up and its a custom order. So I will get that ordered next week.

I wanted to paint

Steve HardinLeave a comment

This morning as we consumed breakfast, me fried potatoes, onions, Italian sausage covered in cheese with hot sauce over it all while Annmarie ate a homemade smoothie with Greek yogurt, frozen and fresh berries (consistency trick), and a raw farm egg with a single slice of toasted bread, Annmarie mentioned that I should go outside and fence. She specifically wants me to fix the lower fence on our back hillside so we can use the ram pasture. I had only had one cup of coffee and the prospect of going out and battling fence did not sound fun. I used the fact that the fence repair would take me about 25 hours and the weather was most likely going to change before I could get it finished. I instead voted on painting the stairwell. I still need to get the upper stairwell painted the chocolate brown. I continued to nurse my coffee while Annmarie went out to feed the horses, cats and check on the sheep and let them out of the barn. Before I knew it she was back inside telling me I needed to come help as we had new babies and she could not get the mother and babies separated from the herd.

This problem could be fixed if we would just finish off the ram and make summer sausage out of him. He is not safe, Annmarie cannot get in the same area with him as he tries to run her over. So I went out and we moved the sheep around and managed to start letting a few out of the gate at a time. This resulted in the ram being on the same side of the fence as me and nearby. One time he thought about ramming me but decided not to, I kept turning my back on him and Annmarie kept an eye on him while I kept an eye on the momma ewe so we did not accidentally let her out. So as we are sorting the sheep all run down to the creek. There is a dead end that ends in a “V” shape. The sheep were literally squirting under and through the fence. It looked more like a strainer than a fence. Just prior to this Annmarie was grabbing loose strands of wire from the same fence and telling me it needed to be fixed. I blamed the horses as they are the ones who push down the top wire. After we got the momma and twins sorted off (little twin boys, very cute) I capitulated to the fencing needs and told Annmarie I would fix it.

I tightened the fence from both ends, I cut out the lousy metal twist on stays that I put in place years ago when I thought they would work. The horses bend them when they lean on the fence, so do the cows. I now only use tamarack wooden stays, they last a long time and the animals cannot bend them or spread the wires apart. I also fixed the little bridge, placed it on some rocks and cleaned out the creek through this section. Since the sheep know there is a weakness in the fence they will keep testing the fence in this spot. It looked great when I was done but I was afraid with continual pressure they would be able to loosen it up again. So I put in a used 16 foot cow panel and wired it in place, now the sheep cannot get through. I also used a five foot chunk of cow panel to close off the last four feet of the “V” shaped dead end. This way the animals cannot pressure their way out of the fence like cheese whiz coming out of a can. I had to replace a large amount of fence clips as they had been knocked loose from the force of animals hitting the fence. All of this took me a measly five hours.

I had also told Annmarie I would clean up the front hillside from the leftover summer fencing mess. She wanted me to remove it totally. I guaranteed it would be picked up and placed in a neat pile so that I could return later and remove it. This still took me another hour to get it all contained and straightened out.

We are having issue with the feet on one of the horses again. Its the same one that had white line disease and we spent 6 months getting better. The farrier says she has it again and the vet is coming out next week. The area behind the barn is very muddy. I put the straw from the barn there in an attempt to create some soil so I can get grass to grow. Today I made a bare patch down to the ground in an attempt to get the horses out of the much when they go down for water. What I really need to do is dig another channel next to the barn a couple of feet deep and fill it all with gravel and make it go to the front creek so the water runoff won’t sit next to the barn. Maybe I can get that done next year. Every year we try and improve the water runoff in the barn lot.

Today while I was working on the fence my fence stay guy called! I had paid for 500 stays early this summer and had only picked up 200, he wanted me to come pick up the rest. I did this as soon as I finished puttering around with the tractor. The bad part about this is I discovered an antifreeze coolant leak in the pickup. I think it is coming off of the radiator but I cannot see the leak only the results. Its not horrible yet but as soon as my car gets out of the body shop. The pickup needs to go to the shop. Tonight just before dinner Annmarie tried to toast some pumpkin seeds in the oven. I had made homemade pumpkin soup last night and cleaned all the seeds so she could roast them. They started popping in the oven! They were splitting open and bouncing all over the oven. We had to keep the door closed as the oven cooled down so we did not end up with seeds every where. Once we tried again after dinner they did just fine, they must of had quite a bit of moisture trapped inside of them. They still taste very good.