The weather was gorgeous today.  Sunny, warm but not too hot, mid 70s made for a nice day.  Hard to believe it is Fall.  They came and slaughtered our two sheep today.  It took them 30 minutes from the time they pulled in till they pulled out.  Amazingly quick.  I learned a few more things today about the slaughtering process.  Organs and fat can go to the rendering plant.  Heads and hides cannot.  This mobile slaughter discards the hides.  So I will be reading up on how to tan a hide with hair in place.  I could conceivably tan 5-10 hides/year.  Will definitely need to look into it.  It would be great to decorate our medieval pavilion with all animal skin rugs and bedding.  Especially, since our sheep are actually an Old World animal.  The real question is how much time does it take and how hard is it?  I will have to find out those answers. 
I locked the sheep back up in our front yard again today.  I remembered this late in the evening when I was looking out all the windows to see if the sheep had breached my fence repairs from Yesterday.  I had completely forgotten they were trapped in the yard.  The grass was getting fairly long and I would like to get one more mowing in before Winter sets in.  That way I can use the hose to spray off the sidewalk and back porch before the snow flies.  I figure one week on the yard and they will have it all eaten down again. It sure beats mowing, but it is hard on my roses. 
My light in the chicken coop is not working.  I went out there tonight and changed the light bulb and checked the timer.  The timer works and the the light does not.  So tomorrow I am going to have to get another fixture.  I am thinking about just intalling the one in the ceiling and running a temporary power cable.  The trouble is I want to get the power wired in the Library tomorrow so that pushes the chicken coop work back farther.  A new portable light fixture is a five minute fix.  Will most likely go for that tomorrow.
I got the Library all empty again and worked on cutting the outlet holes and running power wire from the switch to the outlet.  What I forgot was there used to be a door in that space and there are some extra 2x4s in the wall.  I had to cut a bigger opening twice, had to drill two seperate holes and peel the skin off of two kuckles then fish the wire down from above by blindly sweeping with a fish tape.  That four feet of wire took me about 1.5 hours to complete.  I also put in a support for the overhead light box. I smoothed all the sheetrock under the stairs and removed the scraps from the ceiling.  I can start mudding this space next week.  Trying to get everything done before Thanksgiving.  I even turned down two extra shifts at work today. 

Okay, I am almost positive I have the ram pasture fence problems fixed.  I spent the last five hours restretching fence across the creek and adding new panels over the creek in two locations.  I cut the panels to the shape of the creek all the way to the ground!
 I have now figured out that I am not really a fan of high tension wire.  It must have inline tighteners placed or it just goes limp.  The tighteners are around $15-20/each and you need one for each continuous stretch of wire.  So on a 6 wire fence it adds up fast.  They also make a spring you are supposed to insert for another $15.  The lesson here is you want a very long stretch of wire.  I have been thinking about using the high tension wire for my vineyard.  I will definitely use the tighteners and leave the wire loose at the posts so I can tighten it whenever I want. 
So the butcher called today and said they would be out tomorrow to slaughter Speckled Butt and Hershey.  So I herded them all into the loading pen with food.  I had all the sheep in there.  The problem is there was no real way to sort them out.  I had to stand by the gate to operate it.  I got it down to three sheep, then Speckle Butt leaped up at the gate opening just as I was slamming it shut.  Now the sheep managed to be about five feet off the ground and weighs in around 150#.  It would have taken me down!  I couldn’t get the gate shut fast enough and he escaped.    So I just locked up the barn lot and came inside to get more help. 
It looks like fence repair will have to be an ongoing effort every year.  I had to fix another gate today also.  I was hoping to leave it alone for the next twenty years…  guess that won’t be happening. 

I made all three buckets, the nipples are installed.  I put the one in for the baby chickens.  I have to move some more stuff around inside the coop to make room for those.  I think I am going to stick one inside and one outside.  Still contemplating where the outside one is going to go.  I think directly above the chicken door and ramp.  I dug out 50% of the bedding.  The coop smells like ammonia, which means the bedding is too wet.  So I dug out half and will finish the rest this weekend.  Then I will have to purchase some more bedding (more cost to my chickens!).  On the plus side the chickens are starting to lay eggs!!  I collected 20 eggs today, not too shabby from 27 chickens. 
The sheep are still getting out.  That is on this weekend’s list also.  To top it off the sheep get out of our pasture then the lambs crawl under a second gate and get out in the car area!  The adult sheep cannot crawl under the gate.  I think I have it figured out, will know after this weekend.   

Sometimes it seems that working on the farm is therapeutic.  It relaxes the soul.  I am going to go out today and make my new chicken water system.  We purchased some nipples and I am going to install them into the bottom of five gallon buckets.  They just let a single drop of water hang from the nipple, once the chicken drinks it another one appears.  The nipples never drop water.  I need to get them up so the chickens can learn to use them.  I don’t expect them to have any trouble with it.  Heck, they eat snow and drink dew off of the grass. 
I still have not figured out how to upload pictures yet.  Hopefully, this weekend Annmarie can teach me how. 
We have the butcher coming on Saturday or Monday to kill two sheep.  It was going to be three, but the one ewe is pregnant again.  This will be her third pregnancy.  She has not had a single live birth.  This is her last chance for redemption.  With the sheep being able to stay overnight in a locked protected area every night I expect her to come through this time.  It is still warm here so we have not been locking the sheep up at night yet.  The price is right for us.  The butcher charges a flat $100 for kill and cut and wrap for each sheep.  We just got a lamb from our in laws last week (prior commitment before we realized we would be butchering) and the cut meat weighed around 65lb.  The current market price is around $1.25/lb live weight.  We figure our sheep are running around 125lb live weight.  You get about 50% left over as carcass weight after slaughter.  So if we only charge $125/animal buyer, cost for cut and wrapped meat would be around $4.50/lb. If we only charged $100/animal it would be $4/lb.  We will see how it goes next year.  It seems kinda expensive, but I just did a quick price check online and the cheapest place I could find it is around $6.50/lb, with the average around $10/lb.  So we are going to have a lot of lamb to eat. 
 The coyotes were howling just over the ridge last night.  They haven’t been that close in a while.  The chickens were already locked up for the night.  I haven’t caught anything in my live trap in a while except chickens.  I had to let one out yesterday evening.  They just do not get any smarter.  I am getting more green eggs now.  I still have lots of small eggs.  They are slowly getting bigger, but it is seemingly taking forever.  I am back to selling all my eggs.  I have more customers than eggs.  So I will start doling them out again, especially as production drops off due to Winter. 
My new plan for fortune is to grow wine grapes on our barren back hillside.  I have started reading up on it.  It is very daunting!  Lots of information, especially about climate and soil conditions.  I am going to start researching things hard and getting some expert opinion.  Will see if it is an option.  I would like to see the farm go into production of something that can sustain itself.  I would love to grow hemp, but it is not currently legal nationally.  Oregon actually passed a law this year making it legal on the State level.  Tough crop that can grow anywhere and very useful as a fiber and soil enhancer.  This whole region used to grow it during WW II, so I know it is a viable crop for the region.  Oh well, not yet. 

Well, now that the cook shack saga is almost over (need to write a postmortem and create a “how to” notebook) I am back at the farm.  I went into town on Monday and got some free pallets and some more cow panels.  I had a heck of a time getting the “cow panels”.  The clerk was some girl fresh out of high school and had been there less than 6 months.  I told her I wanted a panel four feet high that was located right next to the hog wire panels.  She had no clue and I did not know they were called “cow panels”.  It took 15 minutes to finally get someone who knew what I was talking about and what I wanted.

sheep pens and barrier for wintering sheep.  Now if someone else could just do all the work…

 So I used the pallets to create two baby pens in our barn lean to.  We are going to use them to lock the momma and brand new babies together for about 3 days.  I also made a gate and chute on the end of the lean to so that we can herd the sheep in at night and lock them up!!  No more wandering around at 0300 in cold dark, half dressed with a flashlight looking for newborn lambs!!  I am stoked about that.  Since we are still having to lock the chickens up every night anyway, it isn’t even an extra trip.

 Here is the old milk shed entrance.  It no longer has a gate on it.  I used an old metal gate (on the far right side of the picture) last year to keep the cows out of here.  I stored the hay here last winter.  This year we are going to let the sheep stay in here during the winter.  They will be able to come and go as they please during the day and get locked up at night.

Here is the addition I made using pallets and a cut panel of fencing.   The cut panel is attached to the pallets and acts as a gate. When the sheep are in the barn it can be closed at night and they will be stuck in the barn all night.  During the day the large green gate opens and becomes part of the path to allow the sheep free access.

Here is a side view that better shows that.  The panel will swing over and connect to the corner of the barn.  The green gate swings shut also keeping the cows out of our pasture.

Here is the inside of the old milk shed attached to the barn.  If you look in the far left side you will see the floor drooping.  It is also drooping in the far center.  So I had to fence that all off, add two baby pens and bring a feeder in so I could feed hay inside.  I hope to keep it dry all the time this year and teach the sheep to come when we call.  There are two that come every time, but I would like them all to do it.  I figure we can get that behavior in place this Winter.

Here is the completed deal.  I have a fence on the far end to keep them away from the damaged floor (remember, this section of the barn is on the demolish and reuse plan, I just haven’t had time to do it yet).  I have a feeder and the pens are built.  I just need to add some USB board to the pen floors and walls so it will stay warmer.

I spent the last two days wiring the chicken coop for power.  It should have been easy.  I already had the conduit in the ground.  I spent 4 hours trying to get a single wire through the conduit.  What a pain in the butt.  I had to finally dig out the end next to the coop and cut off the bend.  Too much glue and it would not make the corner.  I only installed one outlet on the outside of the coop and one inside the coop for now.  That will get us through the winter.  Next year I will wire in a light and a switch and a light for the supply room in back of the coop.  One more outlet in the baby area so I can hook up a heat lamp easily.  As an added benefit I put an outside outlet on the back of the old house.  I still need to add an outlet out by the cars…  When I get the barn redone I think I will trench a line over to the barn.  I just want lights and one outlet for a water heater.  I really don’t want to have to carry hot water all over the farm in the Winter.  We have frost free hydrants so you can use them in the winter as long as you immediately turn them off!!  (I really don’t want to have to replace any more of those, they are expensive and a pain to dig down and replace)
We are going to have two sheep slaughtered on October 1.  An older neutered male and our neutered baby from this Spring.  I will let everyone know what it costs when it is all said and done.  We are guesstimating around $4/lb by the time you add cost of lamb, slaughter cost and cut and wrap cost.  Now the side benefit of that is they are all grass fed and very healthy free ranging animals.  It may end up around $5/lb.  We are just not sure.  Live weight is $1.25/lb last time we looked.  These animals are around 130#.  $65 is the slaughter fee and I am not sure of the cut and wrap charge.  We did not end up with any more sheep this year.  I would like about five more this year, but I have not had time to hunt around for a good deal. 
The pheasants are everywhere.  It is going to be a good year for hunting.  The deer are coming in and eating my plums off of the trees.  I did not get any golden plums.  Oh well. 
I did can some leftover tomatoes from the cook shack.  28 quarts!  We are set for the winter for tomatoes.  The chicken yard still smells like burgers and grilled onions.  I am sure it is from the grease that was mixed in with the compost.  The compost is gone except for a few onions. 
The chickens are starting to lay more consistently.  We are getting around 15 eggs/day now.  I am hoping to get that to 20 in October.  I have my light on a timer and it is going now.  They are getting 17 hours of light every day (optimum hours per some research paper I read on chicken production).  The chicken door accidently got shut yesterday.  I suspect one of the sheep tried to stick their head into the coop (the sheep like chicken food) and knocked the door down.  When I went out to lock the chickens up they were all perched on the step and ramp going into the coop.  I had to pick them up one at a time and toss them into the lit coop.  Some of them voiced their protest fervently.  One even tried to peck me, but I was onto her.  A few of the Silver laced Wyandottes are peckers, so I was ready.  She didn’t get me.