Stewart Creek Somethings

Annmarie sent me a picture of the lamb who managed to get out of the barn lot. This happens every year, they squeeze through the fence in various locations and every year I try and figure out where they are doing it so I can stop it. We have only had one lamb manage to do it this year so Annmarie just chased it back in through the open gate and it has not occurred since.

I really did not want to mess with the three calves in the barn lot so I continued to just feed them alongside the horse. It was our daughter’s birthday this weekend and a party was being thrown for her at our house. So I spent three days cleaning house. Mind you since our housekeeper had broken her ankle and has not been to our house in a while it really needed the deep cleaning. So this was not a bad thing. I spent a lot of time “round filing” items that I found throughout the house. If I did not know what it was or we had not touched it in six months it went away. I filled up three large trash bags of junk. I did find some time to go up and clean off the breeze porch. I put all of the items into the attic. I needed more space for my plants. I have been transplanting 4-8 plants per week for the last few weeks. Some are starting to establish themselves in the new planters and others are just staying alive. Some of them take a few months to settle down into their new homes. I separated a Lily Orchard into several plants which I had never done before, I am hoping they survive. I would like to see them actually bloom again. I have four plants alive that I started from seeds. I have no clue what they are, other than houseplants. My record keeping is less than absent when it comes to the plants.

Saturday afternoon I was stacking pop in the mud room for party on Sunday and noticed that I still had a gallon of paint sitting on the floor. I am storing the paint in the mud room above the door. The shelf is about 8.5’ above the floor. I knew I could not reach it but I was too lazy to walk four feet and grab the ladder. Instead I grabbed the can by the bottom and side and tossed it in the air onto the shelf. It landed on the shelf, tipped onto its side and the lid popped off. The gallon of paint was almost full. I had paint on both doors, the tile floor and the concrete floor. I feel blessed that 90% of the paint went onto one of those super absorbent pet rugs! This kept it from spreading all over the concrete. It took another hour to get all of the paint off the tile floor and both doors. I smeared it around on the concrete floor and will need to scrub it off this summer with a bunch of water and a wire brush. I will need to wait until I can unload everything out onto the back walkway before that can happen.

I went out this afternoon to get the three calves moved over into the orchard pasture. After multiple attempts, the Gingerman, came over to help. The calves proceeded to tear down the removable fence going down to the spring (it will need to be retightened). They jumped over three dividing fences and got caught in one of them but managed to get loose before I had to cut the fence. It took us about 30 minutes to get them moved and had he not helped I probably would have been at it for another hours. I really want to keep the brown cow’s hide and get it tanned next year when it gets slaughtered.

A couple of years ago I started to keep a list of things that needed done on the farm. Annmarie wanted to make sure I had the appropriate items at the top of the list for this year. These are in addition to the spraying and haying that have to happen.