Farm

All I wanted was a nap

Ann Marie HardinLeave a comment

I’ve been fighting the holiday plague this year and so stayed home on Christmas Day. Really, all I wanted was to go back to sleep in the hopes that I could finally and completely kick this bug. The big dogs were outside and had asked to come in, so I opened the door, and heard the dreaded cry of a lamb. I am physically unable to ignore that cry. Yes, I know that nine times out of ten, it is just a temporary separation between mamma and baby, or the first cry of a newborn, but that one time out of ten when there is a problem keeps me going out to check. So, I came back in and drug my sick carcass back to the laundry room where the cold weather gear lives. I suited up and trudged by way out. Sure enough, there was a brand new little single. The ewe was attentive but jumpy and every time I tried to move the main horde out, she tried to follow, with that little newborn in tow. Since it was clear that she was attentive, and the lamb was doing well, I opted to just lock everyone in so she didn’t drag the poor little thing out into the falling snow.
Newborn lamb surrounded by ewes.

Mika was standing at the entry to her dry area looking pretty miserable. I think her healing foot gets a little achy when it gets cold, so I let her in and brushed the snow off her foot while I was out there. By this time I had exhausted my energy reserves, so I went back inside for my postponed nap.

A few hours later, it was approaching an early feeding time, and the ewes likely needed a chance to get some water, so I once again donned my cold weather apparel and waded through the snow out to the barn. The single was fine and had been joined by yet another new arrival. No, not a twin, although I thought that was the case for a minute, but one of our yearling ewes was paying attention to the newest arrival. She, however, was just as jumpy as the first mamma, and I just wasn’t up to the rodeo. Everyone was doing there jobs so I once again opted to leave them alone. I did open the doors and let everyone go to water if they wished. They apparently were no worse for the wear, as there was not a rush to go out in the snow. It was late afternoon by this time, so I went ahead and fed, mostly to keep the new mothers inside and calm as they adjusted to their new additions. I really do enjoy hanging out watching the babies bounce after I have fed, and I’ve missed this as the ram had made it impossible unsafe to just hang out in the barn. I find I’m not missing him very much.

I texted Steve (he and Sarah had gone to his mother’s house in town for Christmas dinner) that there were two new singles in the barn, and that everyone had been fed. He would just need to make sure everyone was in their designated nighttime locations and close gates and doors when he got home. He must have been enjoying his conversation as he did not respond, but I was ready for another nap. When he got home he delivered my gifts and plate from dinner (thank you Robbie) and went out to settle everyone. He found a total of three singles, all from first time mothers, but all doing well. But really, two trips out to the barn were not in my plans for the day.

Barn demise

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Annmarie is still not 100% but on the mend. This means I am still on chore duties until she gets better. I opted to start the day with oatmeal, toast and coffee. I am never in a hurry in the morning so I was prompted to speed up and get outside. I had shut the wooden chicken coop door last night as it was still a little light out when I got eggs. The finches were inside the coop, there must have been around 12 of them freeloading on the chicken feed and I did not want them coming back in or the chickens leaving. The raccoon has killed 5 chickens so far as they are too stupid to go behind the locked door when it gets dark. So I let the chickens out first then headed to the barn. Well there were three new babies in the barn and they looked like triplets as only one momma was paying attention to them. I ignored them and opened up the barn doors so the sheep could go outside and get a drink of water. Next I went to check on the momma with twins I put in the stairway area. Only one baby present, I had to dig around in the straw to find the little demised fellow. I went to the slider door to let the momma’s out and found another dead lamb trapped down next to the door! It had fallen down into the 3-4 inch gap and was on its back and could not get out. So both the carcasses went out by the gate and will be taken up to the boneyard soon. They will be well preserved in the snow until after the holidays. I fed the mommas and looked out into the barn and there were now three ewes with 5 babies and one huge orange baby covered in slime who keeps hollering and walking around. No one will claim the baby and after two hours I had to take the baby inside and dry it off so Annmarie could feed it and get it warm. Another bummer for the housekeeper, her 7th one this year and so far they have all survived. I tagged and banded all the babies before coming inside with the bummer. I wanted to give her a chance to bond and I needed to empty out the baby area and start over.

I went and got tools so I could do the two essential repairs to the barn. The first one was to dig out the straw and install a low board below the new feeders so a lamb could not slide under the feeder and get trapped. This went fairly smooth.

Next was to fix the gap problem at the sliding door. The opening is 3-4 inches wide as my 3 inch wide tape measure is buried in the deep end of the door. I had to do some digging to find a couple of scrap pieces of wood that would work, amazingly it was tongue and groove flooring and the tongue was intact and visible. I was able to find a piece of leftover tongue and groove flooring unfortunately the barn is crooked so I beat it into place and see a diagonal line across it. On one end I trimmed off almost two inches and down to nothing at the opposite end. I screwed in two boards to fill in the bottom support then cut my floor board on the table saw so I could make it fit.

Here it is with less than a one inch gap between the door and the floor. I even placed a 2×4 outside to keep the door from kicking away from the floor creating another gap. It looks kinda funny as this wood is perfectly clean but that won’t last.

While I was working on the barn Annmarie texted me to tell me there was a ewe with twins out in the snow. I told her no there was not as I had gotten everyone in and fed an hour earlier. I looked while we were on the phone and yes she was right, twins covered in snow with momma trying to lick them clean. I chased all the ewes back into the barn then swung a gate panel to create an opening into the momma and baby area. The brand new moms from today are in this enclosure. They all did well.

I had to go out late tonight to lock everyone in as its Christmas Eve and that same ewe had both her twins out in the snow. They had frozen snow every their entire body. I chased the ewes inside and tossed the babies after. She was already calling for them.

It snowed and the chore time doubled

Steve HardinLeave a comment

We are going to have a White Christmas this year. It is always amazingly pretty to see all the snow, it blankets the ground and covers all the imperfections. Unfortunately, it brings its own set of problems. Everything is harder as I now have to slog through six inches of snow. I attempted to shovel the sidewalks and a couple of paths through the yard but was unable to find a snow shovel. I was positive we had one in the wood shed, I was wrong. I ended up using a broom to clean off all the walkways, cars and front porch. I also looked for the extra 50# bag of ice melt I “knew” we had left over from last year. Nope, it was nowhere to be found.

After creating paths, cleaning off the walkway and a path all the way out to the cars I cleaned off the cars themselves. It got just over freezing so I was hoping the snow would melt after I cleaned it off. I was fairly successful with this technique. Now that didn’t include the time I ended up on my keister after my feet become horizontal faster than my body. I hooked my car battery up to the charger. We just got the car back from the auto body shop and the next day it would not start. Now it was a very cold morning so I am not ruling out a bad battery after sitting idle for 3 weeks but the charger will let us know if it is truly dead or they didn’t get something hooked up correctly.

When I made it out to the barn, there was a new set of twins and a very jumpy mother. I tried to casually sort out the mother with little success. There were four ewes with white and black heads. I finally managed to corral them all into a corner and jump on a white and black headed ewe. I was wrestling her to the ground and trying to pin her down when I realized she was the wrong one. I gave up trying to catch her in the barn and opened up the chute, about half the mothers crowded in. The one I wanted foolishly followed them and I was able to wade in and snag her. The trouble was I had her babies in the main barn and she was stuck in the chute. I ended up just heaving her over the pen wall into the baby area. It was a struggle to get her over the wall. I snagged both babies and dropped them over with her. I found one under the feeder again! I had stuffed more straw under the feeders but the sheep keep dragging it out and the babies keep laying under it. Next summer I will be installing boards so that the sheep cannot get under the feeders. I just need to make a spot where the cats can get in so no mice have a predator free zone.

Next was driving the tractor up to the boneyard to drop off the ram carcass. I had to use speed, four wheel drive and positrack, to get up the back hill. We have a good six inches of snow on the ground. I was able to get up the hill after a couple of tries. On the way down the dogs and I stopped to let the mommas out to water and to lock Mika into the old milking area. It is now covered in straw and she will be spending the days and nights in there to keep her hoof dry while it heals. She does not like this so I will let her out this evening to go drink while I do the sheep chores and then lure her back with food and grain. The horses and sheep are very compliant when you offer them grain.

Next was clearing the driveway down to the road of snow. I like to do this whenever we have any significant amount of snow. This comes from living somewhere with lots of snow. Always count on the next day bringing more snow so you need to get it removed every day or it will get away from you. I also need to move a large bale of hay down to the cows. This is very hard when the snow is deep. I drug and pushed a path all the way down to the cow gate. I then got the dogs and pushed a bale down to the gate. The dogs were placed just inside the open gate to keep the cows from escaping and bum rushing the hay bale. I pushed the bale to the far end and wrestled the feed panels around it so the cows could not stomp it all into the snow. This should keep them happy for the next five to seven days. Mouse decided that he needed to save me instead of guard the gate. He is still a little too eager we need another year to mellow him out. By this time I am cold to the bone and headed back inside to warm up.

I needed to get Annmarie’s birthday present finished. I had a custom cutting board made for the kitchen insert out of Madrone with black walnut accents. The problem was I gave the measurements incorrectly. I measured from the 1 inch mark and forgot to subtract that extra inch. I took it out and ripped 3/8 inch off each edge and sanded it back down. I will use one of the cut off pieces to add a lip on the front of the cutting board. The lip is so when Annmarie lays it on the counter to use as a bread making board it won’t slide forward. I just need to get some black walnut 1/4 inch pegs to make this happen. I put it in place and put a bow on it as today is Annmarie’s birthday. She is miserably sick and has slept most of the day. We had to cancel our birthday dinner plans for tonight.

When I went out do do evening chores there were another set of just born twins! These are tiny little babies and both were wet. I ended up chasing everyone else out of the barn and laying down straw in the stair area. It’s its own area that we normally don’t use. I made a thick layer of straw and put hay and grain in it. I snagged both babies and dropped them into the straw. She came right in but kept running out when I tried to shut the gate. I finally managed to get the gate shut on the three of them. Hopefully, she will finish cleaning everyone up and be well bonded by the morning. No way those two twins would have survived the ram.

It’s supposed to snow some more tonight!

The deed is done, it is now safe to go out to the barn

Steve Hardin3 Comments

We slept in horribly late this morning, till 0700. Annmarie thought it was decadent, I told her once every couple of months of not getting up at 0500 was not going to hurt us and most people would not consider 0700 sleeping in. I had big plans to go outside and work on the Christmas present but alas it was not so. I was thwarted by the ram one time too many. It happened again, another bummer lamb this morning! This is just not acceptable. As promised I switched my schedule around to accommodate the demise of said ram. After breakfast I had plans to put him down and a helper was coming out at 1130. I would have been at it for a while by then but there was a true emergency that took priority.

One of my mother-in-law’s cats was stuck on her roof and it needed to be brought down. Annmarie and I went down there, me with a large ladder. Annmarie crawled around on the roof top trying to catch the cat who did not want to be caught. There is a large tree next to the house that I am sure assisted the cat onto the roof. I hollered encouragement and comments while she was chasing the cat. It had been up there for 3 days. My reply was it was not hungry enough. Turns out that was true because someone had fed the cat on the roof so it would not get hungry. Annmarie finally managed to corner it on the outside edge of the roof and snagged it. The cat tried to pee on her out of fright. Everyone ended up coming down off the roof safely and my mother-in-law was happy, a job well done. I did actually put the ladder away where it belonged for the first time in six months.

It took both of us over ten minutes of searching to find the 10/22 rifle. I thought it was in the gun cabinet until Annmarie brought me the 243. I was never sure how she knew what rifle to bring as it was always a crap shoot as to what caliber I got when I asked for one. Turns out guessing was her main tool. She did not know that the caliber was written on the barrel and she could just look. We did not find the 22 rifle in the gun cabinet, or the coat closet or the laundry room or anywhere else we thought to look. I gave up and grabbed the ever trusty Walther P22 pistol. Annmarie questioned my choice as the pistol has a questionable kill ratio. We were discussing the merits of the pistol vs my proficiency with it when I spotted the 10/22 rifle leaning up in a corner behind the display case. I had moved it there when I was painting the stairwell wall and had forgotten it. I went with Killer, and put Laser Eyes back in the closet.

We had had multiple discussions about the best way to put down the ram. The general consensus was that a 22LR directly between the eyes would probably not kill him. They have an incredibly thick skull. I opted to test this theory and shot him in the barn near the door from about 15 feet away. He did not do anything but turn and run out the door. I had to wait for the sheep to mill around and get out of the line of sight so if I missed no one else got hurt. I did hit him in the head every time and he did finally go down. Luckily he fell with his head pointed down hill so I was able to cut one set of carotids with a knife and he bled out very well. This is important to keep the meat from tasting as gamey as it could be. By this time my helper had arrived, a slaughter virgin. He had never skinned out or cleaned an animal before.

I got the tractor and the virgin tossed him into the bucket. I tried to back down the hill to the little foot bridge but the hill was causing me to slide into the fence. Next thing I know the virgin was hollering at me because the tractor was on three tires and trying to tip over or slide through the fence. He stood on the upside of the box blade and I was able to pull right out. He didn’t realize that sliding around on three tires and almost tipping over are normal events for me. I lined up on the bridge and drove straight off the hill and over the little bridge and through the little gate. It was faster than going around. I then proceeded to clean out the animal giving instructions to the slaughter virgin. Once cleaned out we hooked onto it with spreading bar and lifted it up onto the skinning pole with the tractor. We then skinned it out and boned it out. The virgin only cut himself twice and managed to not do it so deep that he bled on the meat, extra bonus points for this. I had brought out five knives but no sharpener. We needed the sharpener. It is a lot harder to cut meat with a dull knife. We took it inside, washed it all up and proceeded to turn it into stew meat. I could not bring myself to turn the backstrap and tenderloin into stew meat. I cut it all up into steaks. The ram was incredibly fat! There were huge goblets of fat throughout his entire inner cavity and along the outside of his back and chest. Now that he is no more we are hoping we have to feed less.

As you can see in the picture below, Annmarie is incredibly sad that her nemesis and torturer is gone.

When she went out to feed the sheep tonight there was another set of twins born in the barn. They were both with their mother and bonded and doing well! If this continues it will be worth it. Even if we had just removed him for our safety it was worth it.

It has snowed 2 inches since it got dark tonight. Another reason that will cause the sheep to want to stay in the barn. It is now safe to just walk through and feed or play with babies without worrying about getting injured.

Come on people!

Steve Hardin3 Comments

It never ceases to amaze me how little control we have over life. I know that a large majority of us have the illusion of control and we do pick and choose to some extent, but do we really control our lives? Or do we adapt better than others and handle life’s curveballs with perseverance? Sometimes I truly feel that just gritting your teeth and getting through the day with your head up is a great accomplishment. The farm is a constant reminder that no matter how much we think we have done and how far ahead we have planned that there will always be something unknown lurking around the corner. This week has been a great example of this. We had two more bummer lambs! This is five lambs we have given away this season. This is the most we have bummered out in years. On a positive note, we have not had a single lamb fatality. This is also unusual. We usually have 1-2 deaths that we never know the cause. We attribute them to still births most of the time. Our ram needs to go, he is now picking on the lambs, the problem with this is time. To sort, kill, skin, clean, debone, cut and wrap will take me around 6 hours start to finish by the time I have cleaned up all my tools and put everything away and prepped the materials. Where do I carve out that six hours with Christmas and Annmarie’s birthday coming up in the next four days? I don’t as I still have one more Christmas present to fix (measure twice, cut once for all you woodworkers). This takes precedence as I have been planning this for months.

The real problem is Annmarie is so mad at him that if I put a bullet in his head and drug him up to the boneyard she would be satisfied. He is painful and not safe to be around. He is now ramming the door if she is hiding behind it in an attempt to try and get her. I had to have a slap fest the other day to keep him away from me. I just don’t want to waste the meat but safety is starting to be compromised. I spent two hours before work helping Annmarie sort sheep and getting the ram out of the barn so we could snag the two bummers. The plan is to lay out a day after Christmas and just do it! I said the same thing about a mean rooster we had a few years ago only to come home and realize that it had foolishly decided to attack the woman of the house. He ended up on the bone pile before I got home, problem solved.

Zeke, our older border collie, has suddenly decided that he must get out of the yard again. He is jumping the front fence again. I worked all last night and came home to him greeting me in the driveway. I spent 30 minutes and restrung some electric fence wire that we had used to top our front fence. This was supposed to keep him from leaping up and launching over the top railing. An hour later I am in the pickup driving around trying to find him. I just wanted to go to bed but Annmarie said we needed to find the dog, I was tired and mumbled that “we had two dogs and the smarter one is still home”. Next thing I know I am in the pickup driving all around the outside of the property calling for the dog. I spent an hour looking for him to no effect. It could have been shorter but I forgot my cell phone at home and missed the call where Annmarie told me she had spotted him on the back hillside and had to walk out to get him. Somehow he was unable to “hear” her until he realized she could see him. I did eventually manage to go to bed for a few hours, I was only awake for 20 hours.

We have not had snow yet this year, it is late for us but supposedly we will have a white Christmas. I keep counting the hay bales every time I feed hoping it will be enough. It is going to be super close. I need to buy a little more next year or really I am becoming one of those paranoid farmer types that worry about everything.

I would love to go burn the rest of the upper prime squared field neighbor. I still need a name for the new fields. The far end field will always be known as the “7 acres”, that just leaves the two upper bottom fields. I want to use the name “upper prime squared” for the new pasture on the hillside that still needs to be fenced in. Annmarie only wants the fence for the ram pasture completed and the downstairs floor done. She wants results not talk! LOL. I can talk for hours about the changes I would like to make. Occasionally, I go back several years and read the blog myself just to see what I was thinking and to see the changes. Every once in a while I need to remind myself that we really are making progress. I laugh about some of the plans that I said I was going to complete in the next 1-2 years and five years later I still have not done them.

I have an alarm set in the morning to call the tile place and order the custom grout for the floor tile. It takes two weeks to get here. Unfortunately, I did not put the phone number in my phone and the business has changed locations. I don’t know the location and cannot remember the name of the place. So I have to call the trim place and ask for a referral again. This time I will put the number in my cell phone. I add notes to my contacts, like “does wood trim”, “contractor”, “plumber”, “heating guy”, “wooden fence stays”, “hay” so that when I inevitably forget their name I can do a search in my phone and find out who I need to call. I always recognize the name once I see a list but can never seem to pull it out of thin air.