Well we survived the international flight and made it home. I was ready to be done with vacation, we saw some amazing things but home is the best, even the brown desert of Eastern Oregon. As we pulled into the driveway at 1000 there was a “dead” black colored sheep out in the orchard. It was flat, neck stretched out and belly looked a little bloated so I added carcass disposal to my list of tasks to be completed immediately.
I had to check on chickens, baby chicks, upper sheep (feeders), upper cows, bull in Alcatraz, our new bull, lower sheep (momma, babies and ram), cats, dogs, horse and alpaca. I even drove out to the orchard with the tractor to pickup the “dead” sheep and discovered that it was gone, it had been merely sunning itself. The alpaca can look dead also if you don’t really look at them carefully when they are sunbathing. No one died while we were gone!
I went out to look at the grass hay that was still on the ground. It was pretty dry but it needed to be rowed again so I could bale it early Saturday. It was way too hot to bale any hay, there needs to be some moisture or else the grass is too slick and it won’t roll up into a round bale. Of course since we were still on vacation time change a nap was required!
Saturday I went out at 0530 and baled until about 0830 when it got too hot. Another nap was required and we went to a wedding and visited friends. I am truly going to take my actual vacation this time and try and rest. Sunday, I was up at 0430 and had the rest of the field baled and ready to go by 0745. Mr Flow came over and we picked up all of the hay in the field and got it into the barn. We stacked it up and got most of the bales that were still drying out moisture checked and into the barn. We had about 15 bales that had to be turned and six that need to be fed to the bull in Alcatraz, they are never going to dry out.
We did some work picking up stuff at my mother’s house then started digging the footings for the back bridge. This was not easy as we kept hitting scrap metal pieces and rocks. Once the footings are dug I will build them up with wood so we can pour some concrete. The back creek is almost dry again. It happens every year and even as dry as it is it still has a little water in it. I suspect it will be bone dry by the end of July. We need to get the bridge in so I can make an area in the wood shed to hang all of our bee frames and store all of our extra bee boxes. This will keep them all contained to one area and easy to find.
Stewart Creek Somethings 