Author: Ann Marie Hardin

The grass is greener….

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So, apparently our sheep are dissatisfied with their pasture. Before Steve went to work, he chased a ewe and one of her lambs back inside the fence. This morning, I looked out the kitchen window and noticed two of the adult sheep laying out on the hillside next to the fence. It was already pretty warm, and the rest of the sheep were huddled against the woodshed or under the bridge. It was kind of odd to see these two out in the sun. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard the coffee girls in a while. They are quite vocal usually. So, I went out and checked, and sure enough, Long Tail and coffee girls were outside the fence. Speckle-butt was still inside the fence, but was apparently keeping Long Tail company while they all cooked their brains. I opened the gate and walked the wayward children back in. They rushed right over to the shade of the tree by the chicken coop and rested for a while. They appear to have recovered quite well, and the coffee girls are once again talking.

A little before 7:00, I was on my way down to Mom’s for some conversation and coffee, and I noticed that Short Tail was acting quite agitated, and her boys were not near her as they usually are. Then I noticed some unusual movement in the tall grass near the cars – definitely outside the fence. Of course it was Lucky and Darky, Short Tail’s boys. There was not a convenient gate this time, so I just urged them back towards the fence, and they wiggled under in what was most likely the same place the came through the first time. Now, the feed is a little dry, no doubt, but it’s no drier than anywhere else. Still, we’ll start a sprinkler next week.
On the barn front, our laborer returned today and made more great progress. He cleared another 12 feet or so today. I am absolutely thrilled with how much he’s getting done. And he’s gladly coming back tomorrow too. Conversation is a bit of a challenge, and even something as simple as “have a good evening” does not apparently translate well. Now, I have a tiny tiny bit of Spanish, but I don’t ever recall the phrase I need until after I’m back in the house and we’ve stumbled through with what little English he has. We manage, but it’s not easy. Still, we get the important points through. And, he’s an incredibly hard worker and seems truely happy for the job, so everyone wins.

Good help is hard to find

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But find it we did. Actually, our contractor friend, Lee, found it. He found a first-generation immigrant working at McDonald’s who was looking for extra work and was not afraid of hard work. Lee’s been using them for laborers, and we hired one of them to dig out the barn, since Steve keeps getting distracted by other more pressing projects. There just don’t seem to be enough days off for him to get it all done (that’s an observation, not a complaint). Anyway, Lee brought his laborer out this morning, and introduced me to a very small young man from Honduras. Now, I have known other small men who can outwork a larger man, so I wasn’t too concerned by his size. I was, however, a bit dismayed to see that he had no water and no food with him. It was HOT here today. That’s OK – I can supply a water jug, and a sandwich for lunch is not going to put me in the poorhouse. So, I took him out a couple of hot dogs (don,t look at me like that. It’s what I had, and they were all meat quality dogs) and a handful of grapes at noon, and refilled his water jug. I was impressed with his progress at that point. He’d dug almost as much in 3 hours as Steve had in 6. At the end of the day, I went out to pay him (yes, we pay the laborer by the day), and was very very impressed. In 6 hours, Steve had cleared just a little over one shovel length. We now have a full 3 1/2 shovel lengths completely cleared of buildup. In 8 hours, this little fellow had dug twice as much as Steve was able to remove in 6. I was concerned that he wouldn’t want to come back tomorrow, because it was hot, dirty, stinky, back-breaking work, but instead of complaining, he thanked me repeatedly for the work and promised to return in the morning, with his own food tomorrow. We are very spoiled in this country.

Spring

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One of the wonderful things about this part of Oregon is how very much the landscape changes throughout the year. We get snow in the winter, rains in the spring, and heat in the summer before autumn arrives and cools us off again and the cycle begins anew. The most striking contrasts occur between spring and summer. This spring has been exceptionally long and exceptionally wet, so the contrasts promise to be even more striking. Probably the best way I can explain this is to share a couple of photos.
This is the back creek now.


This is that same creek last August. The photo was take a little bit further downstream than the one above, but you still get the idea.

Quite the difference, huh? Yes, it gets hot and dry here by late summer. But, the hot dry only lasts a couple of months, just like the bitter cold in the winter. In between, we have lovely mid-range temperatures that are perfect for spending the day outside. Besides, we knew that when we decided to move home. That’s why we installed central air conditioning and heating.
In other news, I was getting some grain for the mamma sheep and went into the part of the barn where we used to shear the sheep. We aren’t out there very much, and I made two discoveries. First, there is a kitten out there that I didn’t even know had been born. Looks like we’re going to have some actually honest-to-goodness barncats that fend for themselves. The other discover was not quite so cute, and while it illicted some chuckles on my part, Steve’s reaction wasn’t nearly so……civil. I think I’ll just show you.
Yes, that is a pile of eggs in the barn, rather than in the chicken coop where they belong. 18 of them to be exact. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that all of the rebel chickens are laying fairly dark brown eggs, but I have. Steve thought he wanted to go for brown eggs instead of the green our first breed choice produced, so he purchased a brown egg laying hybrid chicken. These hens range much farther afield than our original flock, and are obviously not as imprinted on the coop. Further evidence of that fact was offered to me last night. Sarah had found a mostly eaten chicken (if anyone knows what predator eats everything from the stomach-side and leaves the skeleton and wings all intact, let me know), so I had decided to lock the coop at night. It was full dark, and all of the chickens should have been inside. But, I found five of these little buggers huddled on the old stump by the old house. They were sound asleep, so it was a simple matter to pick them up one at a time and carry them into the coop, but still……the coop gate was open, and that’s where they should have been. Stupid chickens.
Yes, the lambs are still doing well, and now I have to go off and write on my thesis. Have a great day.

Finally!

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This morning I had to go in early to administer an exam for another instructor, so I absolutely had to be out the door no later than 7:30. I was rushing out the door with 15 minutes to spare and happened to glance over at the sheep, and what did I see, but a little sheep standing next to that ewe I thought was ready to deliver about six weeks ago. I was only off by a little (in the grand scheme of things, anyway). Yes, I came back in and threw on some boots so I could check on the lamb. They were fine. Momma had done a good job drying them off, even though they couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours hold (their cords were still wet). They were both warm, and had full tummies, so they’d had their first meals too. I tried to entice her into a pen with them, but she wasn’t having any of it. I had to go to work, so I changed my shoes (again) and hoped for the best. Of course, it rained cats and dogs all day, and was only in the mid-fifties, so I worried all day long, and immediately went out as soon as I got home. The only thing wrong was that one of the babies had gotten stuck under the barn, probably because Momma had tried to tuck them up next to the barn to stay dry.

I really wanted to get them into the shed and out of the weather, so I had the kids help me with thinking that if we took the lambs, Momma would follow. Not so. She refused to leave the pasture where she had given birth, apparently convinced that her lambs were still there. I tried to encourage her out, but she just got more and more panicked. The lambs are still warm, and are only wet on the topmost layer, so I decided they must be fine, and Momma won. I did move the feeder over so they can’t get stuck (hopefully) under the barn again. They are shown in the photo still in their pasture. You can see the little black one laying down. This one looks an awful lot like Hershey. The other one is getting a snack, and is very pretty. I haven’t checked gender yet, and haven’t even considered names. Momma is very attentive and is doing a great job. I’m sure more photos will come.

New Respect

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I have a new respect for my ancestors. Particularly the female ancestors whose job it was to keep the house clean, and the people clothed and fed.

The newly dark-stained stairs are lovely to behold. They are also a particularly good backdrop against which to highlight the dog hair and dust bunnies. Now, dust is always and issue out here, and that is nothing new. The naked steps got equally dusty just as quickly, but since the color of the wood was closer to the color of the dust, it wasn’t quite so eye-catching. I’ve come to accept that daily dust-mopping of the stairs is likely to be a constant in my life for a while.
The new-found respect came as I was dusting those stairs and realizing that this would have been a daily chore for my predecessors as well. Along with the floors in the rest of the house. Then I looked up at the highway network of spiderwebs above the stairwell and added that to the list. And dusting all the furniture, and baking, and mending and laundry and …….. It would have been a very full day just to keep the house cleaned. And when you add on gardening and food preservation, well, let’s just say that they likely didn’t have too much time to twiddle their thumbs.
Some things are streamlined with modern tools and methods, but it is still not a small task to keep ahead of the dust in the middle of a farm. I’m beginning to see another reason for stair runners. We’ll see how this plays out.
On the sheep front, it has become painfully clear that I know nothing about how to determine when a ewe is ready to deliver. We’ve had the sheep in the yard for a month in hopes of not loosing another lamb. Now, the yard is not that big, and it can only support 6 sheep for so long. A month, it turns out, is the limit. And still no lamb. To add insult to injury, one of the other ewes (whose six-month-old lamb is still nursing occasionally) is looking bigger than the one I thought would go first. So, we’ve turned the sheep back out and are hoping for the best. On a more positive note, Steve finished the baby chicken run before he left for work on Friday, so we should loose no more chicks to the cats.