Author: Steve Hardin

Lambing update

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We had two more ewes give birth this week. We think there are two left maybe three but that is it. So I flopped the barn back to its lamb starting position. The main area is now for all of the mommas and babies and the small portion is for the rest of the herd (14 sheep). We have also opened up the back hillside behind our house to the main herd of sheep. They are working on converting their intestinal bacteria from a dry food to wet food (green grass), it always makes for mandatory rubber boot ware.

The sheep are just really stupid. I was headed inside yesterday when I thought I heard someone hollering. I had already pushed both herds into the barn and almost let this single ewe stay outside. I did not realize that her head was stuck in the fence until I got closer. I just had to turn her head and trip her so her body dropped when her head was turned to get her head unstuck. She ran right back to the barn and wanted inside with everyone else.

I found a little boy lamb that I had to carry off the hillside yesterday. Today, I had put everyone away in the barn and was headed into the house. I had not gotten chicken eggs yet so I did that and went the back way alongside the creek. Normally, I go around and go through the yard but for some reason I went the back way. I spotted the lamb I had moved yesterday. Francine had only taken one of her two bottles so I fed this lamb and brought it inside the house. Momma made the cull list since she only had one lamb to keep track of and she is not feeding it or being a good mother. Our normal nursery caregiver came and picked him up to go home with her.

Francine is doing well. She drinks a bottle in the morning and evenings. Tonight she only wanted 16 oz, she had been up to 24 oz but seems to be cutting back. The lambs always look like they are dead when they are on sunning themselves on the back hillside. They love laying in the sun.

The Gingerman got a set of large discs moved off the property. He had to take down a section of fence to get it out of the alleyway. The fence is all repaired and now the cows and sheep cannot play on or around the equipment. I was able to spread a little gravel on our main road in the problem area.

The plan for this week is to take the four largest feeder cows to the auction this Tuesday. I am told the prices are really good and we have 11 cows getting fat on the lower part of the property. We have moved all of those cows into the fields next to the Mother-in-law’s house. They are cheat grass and we are getting the cows and alpaca to overeat and stress the field. We are going to kill it with Roundup and keep it killed for the year then replant in the fall or spring.

Bathroom remodel day 40

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Well it is a mere 40 days I have vested into the bathroom remodel over the last 11 weeks and we are still closing in on it a bit at a time. I had a few grand delusions and figured I could get all of the crown molding up over a holiday weekend. First of all the crown molding is taking forever. I did not order the precut corners as there are 12 in the bathroom. This is causing me to cut each corner about 12 times before I am getting the angle right. I am just making little cuts but I put it up, measure it, then cut it and measure again and repeat it until it works. On top of that the nails do not want to go into the plywood ceiling so I am now pre-drilling holes with smaller diameter bit and driving the nails in with a nail set when they stop moving with the hammer. I love the way the cut glass light shades break up the light, it looks great on the tin ceiling.

I did get the toilet lid installed. It only took me three tries to get all the pieces in the correct order. It has a push button that releases the toilet lid from the anchor bolts. I had plans to install the three shutoff valves for the bathroom but Annmarie was making rolls on Saturday and I did not want to turn off the water then get in a bind the day before a holiday. I opted to do nothing with the plumbing. My track record with plumbing is abysmal, no need to flout my efforts before the gods. We would all pay for that attempt.

I was able to cut down a board and get it glued into the pocket door. My next stop is to pickup a two pine dowels, one 1” & 3/4” so I can fill both holes in the door. I will just drill a hole the entire thickness of the door and drive in the dowel. This will also help my large piece I just glued in stay in place. Once I have everything glued in place the end will be filled in with some stainable wood based putty. Once it is all smooth and ready for stain I will drill the lock and handle holes in the door.

Since this is Easter weekend I did laundry and cleaned up the house. Mostly, this meant putting away tools from the bathroom. They were stacked up in the mud room and before I could use my new birthday present, coffee bean roaster I needed a spot to store it. This meant cleaning out the mud room and installing the bean roaster and cooler on top of the food dehydrator. The coffee roaster only does 4 oz at a time, so I will need to do two batches to fill up my coffee grinder hopper. It took three batches of beans roasted to get something drinkable. Green beans are only $10/pound so I figure I can drink coffee forever now. The fresh roasted is super smooth and has zero bitter taste. The mud room does get a little smoky, so we have to keep the laundry room door shut. I have been opening up the back door but that is not going to work during winter.

I will keep plugging away at the bathroom. The progeny and Gingerman both got to use the shower and loved it. I need to get the door done so I can start working on the custom cabinet. I need the sawhorses and working space that the door is taking up.

Spring is here

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This is where it gets tricky. Spring is here and there are things to do outside yet our main bathroom remodel is still in progress. I have to stay focused on the bathroom but some projects still have to get done.

The pears and plums are in full bloom but we have had two nights of hard freeze so I am not sure that we will get any fruit! I sure hope we do this year.

I am mowing the lawn with the sheep again this year so Mr Rainman moved our chive planters to the back garden for a week so the sheep don’t scalp them. They tried to eat the roots last year they liked it so much. Unfortunately, our little dog Milo has learned that he likes to chase the sheep. It is cool. Our side fence is not a barrier for our little dog, he squeezes around the end and our border collie just jumps the fence. We tried locking them in the orchard but then both got into the lavender patch and then got into the garden area. The fences don’t seem to be much of a deterrent or barrier. So on Sunday the Gingerman helped me install the side fence. We made it very tall and the dogs are now contained in the garden area. It works great.

Mr Rainman has been spraying 2-4-D and Milestone on the bottoms. He has already managed to spray fields 1-3 and will work on the schoolhouse bottoms tomorrow. He is also going to spray the edges of the CRP ground we just purchased. The weeds are starting to creep in on the edges, so we are going to spot spray and see if we cannot get them stopped. We will also kill a little spot alongside the fences so the weeds don’t choke out the fences. It is way safer than trying to burn the fence lines later in the year.

I had to add a small 1”x2” board on the end of the shelf in the mud room that is over the outside door. Opening and closing the door is causing the items to move closer to the edge and then leap off to their potential death. The board is installed and now you do not have to wonder if something is going to fall on your head when you use the back door.

Annmarie and I have made a list of all current projects and it has ten levels of priority. This actually works nicely as it lets me plan out projects better and if I have a project I want I can add it to the list. Finish the bathroom is priority 1!

Bathroom day 39

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The bathroom project is moving forward, it might not seem like it but it continues to grind on. I just have to keep at it and not quit until it gets done. I have 39 days into actually working on the bathroom. It has been 10 weeks since I started the project!

Mr Rainman was able to rub on some Tried & True finish onto the blue pine and it really made it snap. I started on the ceiling one evening and after 1.5 hours realized that I had done it wrong, I had made a gap on the side when one was only needed for the ends. I had to take it all down and do it correctly the second time. This is just the main panels, I will need to get the crown molding on next to marry the ceiling and walls. The crown molding is going to be hard as I will need to be able to drive a nail into the shower grout. I have some diamond drill bits and I think I am going to have to predrill a hole. It will not be fun.

Once I had the ceiling panels in I installed the bathroom light. Of course, when looking at the light I did not check to see what kind of lightbulb it actually uses. It turns out to be some LED with a G9 base. I was only able to find two of them in Pendleton so I ended up ordering more on the internet. It is a little dark in the bathroom, I may end up having to order a brighter light bulb. It may take some trial and error to get the amount of light tuned in. I do really like the light design and the cut glass makes some interesting patterns on the metal ceiling tiles.

We had purchased some slate outlet covers but it turns out, that for some unknown reason, we did not order enough. So I installed the ones we had and ordered three more.

The wife pointed out that I had installed the light switch upside down and then pointed out that the medicine cabinet pull was upside down. I had installed the entire cabinet upside down. I just turned the light switch 180 degrees and it was perfect. The cabinet I just removed the handle and turned it 180 degrees! It is perfect.

I was going to put a shim//toilet extender on to get the outlet even with the tile but they were all very cheap and did not fit the old hole pattern. I opted to get an extra thick wax seal and see if it would work. I had Annmarie help direct the toilet while I moved it into place. I was happy to have to push it down about 1/4” to get the wax to spread out. I promptly filled the toilet bowl with water to stop the smell from coming into the house. I also managed to get three valves while at the hardware store. I will work on installing those next but they require me to shut off the water to the house and drain the lines. I also forgot to buy the decorative wall plates so those will still be needed. So the toilet does not work.

I will get all the crown molding installed before we bring in the bathroom vanity. It will be too crowded to move a ladder around with the vanity in place. The old door will work but I need to glue in a patch first and that is going to take me about an hour to custom cut the fill piece and clean out the hole. It needs to happen also, but I figure until we have a functional toilet I have some leeway.

Lambing coming to a close soon

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We had some help this morning with the lambs: Gingerman, Mr Rainman and the Lamb Whisperer. The Lamb Whisperer had not been out to the farm before but she fed Francine then caught lambs while I tagged and banded. It took us a couple of hours to tag and banded 59 lambs.

We had to bummer off one very healthy lamb as its mother rejected it. We are continuing to feed Francine morning and night and she must be getting milk from somewhere else because she is only taking a 12 ounce bottle morning and night. The nice thing is she hangs with her mother until the morning or evening feed then she hunts down a human and hollers at them until they feed her. She was so insistent last night that she ended up riding on the tractor with me while her bottle was getting mixed. She just rode in my arms without any difficulties.

One of the lambs had a piece of grass under its eyelid so the Gingerman washed it out and he and Mr Rainman got it out of the lamb’s eye.

We were able to catch lambs in one area of the barn and once tagged/banded they were let loose on the other side of the gate. This kept all the tagged lambs in one area, only a couple got out and back in with the mommas. It went fairly smooth. I was glad we waited as I had two boys that I was almost not able to find both testicles on when banding. I don’t believe I could have done it had they been any younger. By pure happenstance both genders ended up using #431. We use blue tags for boys and some form of pink/red for the girls. This makes it much easier to spot gender when looking at tags. Hard to believe that we have had over 850 lambs since we started raising sheep.

The Lamb Whisperer had done her part and proceeded to head home once she learned that installing the toilet was next on the list.

The stats had to be updated to reflect the number of lambs that have died and been born. Once we counted today it was a lot higher than I anticipated. We only have one lamb left to tag, the one born today. I think there are three more ewes that need to give birth. There is at least one for sure!

  • Date of update- April 13, 2025
  • # of Lambs born – 68
  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 39
  • # of ewes still pregnant – 3, I think
  • # of single lamb births – 12
  • # of twin lamb births – 25
  • # of triplet lamb births – 2
  • # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-32
  • # tagged female lambs-27
  • # of bummer lambs – 2
  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 6
  • Total # of lambs on farm -60
  • % birthing rate- 174%
  • % production rate -154%
  • % survival rate at birth – 100%
  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 88.2%