Spring is coming.

Custom drawers soon.

The weather is definitely changing.  It is starting to rain fairly frequently and I am only scraping off a light frost on the car windows at 0400.  I am not sure we really had a winter.  It didn’t really feel like it.  We have a whole lot of grain hay left.  The sheep are not starving as they are really picking through it and not really eating much of the stalk.  Its super dry and needed to be baled a little earlier to keep the green in it.  I just feed a lot of it and realize that the early summer barn cleanout is going to take a while.  I always hire this out to some lucky teenager.  I am not sure who it is going to be this year, time will tell. 
Zeke is getting out of the front yard.  We have come home twice and he was gone.  Mouse will be in the yard but no Zeke.  Unfortunately, that has meant Zeke stays on the run while Mouse gets to run around the yard all day.  It doesn’t seem fair but Zeke is pretty sneaky when it comes to getting around a fence.  He made a mistake on Friday though, he showed me his sneak out hole!  He literally gets in the creek drops his belly down in the water and crawls under the fence straddling the front creek.  I don’t have the fence down in the water because the fence catches live detritus and builds a dam.  It looks like I am going to have no choice if I want to keep Zeke in the yard.  I need to cut a small panel that will drop down into the water and I can remove it easily to clean out the detritus. 

Our custom walk in closet is making progress.  The three drawer inserts magically appeared in our closet last week.  I am hoping this means the drawers are done also.  After that, its hanging shelves, closet rods and some trim pieces.  I am hoping two more weeks before we are finished.  Once it is done then the great clothes purge of 2016 will ensue.  Both Annmarie and I will be doing our part.  We want to get rid of our dressers. 

I have only one job now, so I started back in on the house.  I installed the grey colored outlets in our kitchen.  They look very nice.  I went to do the three light switches put the grey ones were only single pole and I needed double pole.  I ordered the correct ones and they should be here in two weeks.  I saved all the outlets so I could use them elsewhere.  I will need outlets for the rental and the old house, same with switches. 

Old outlets

New outlets

Tethered learning

I have to say that feeding the animals can be a chore.  When everyone needs feeding it takes me over an hour to get to all the different critters.  This may seem like a long time but surprisingly it can be pretty relaxing.  Now that all the sheep have had babies its just a matter of wading in and getting hay in all the bins then shooing the sheep away from the grain feeders long enough to throw in a stream of grain.  They will literally mob you when they know you have grain.  If you are not careful you will end up on the ground under a pile of sheep going for the treats.  They do not care where you are in that mad scramble to eat more grain than anyone else.  The horses just want their grain.  They don’t really care about the hay and the price of the grain is being petted from above.  They try to lean away and still eat the treat but it is not possible.  They know this but still try and lean away.  We just keep petting them, they are calm enough they just keep eating.  They are not real big on something coming at them from above. 
I need the dogs to keep the cows out of the machine shop while I am dragging a large bale out with the tractor.  Otherwise, the cows get into the hay and start tearing it up.  Zeke keeps them at bay.  The puppy, Mouse, does not like the tractor but is stuck to Zeke with the harness so he is getting used to it.  The alpaca get a few flakes of hay and then it is off to check on the chickens.  My baby chickens are starting to lay.  I have a had a few tiny eggs in the last couple of weeks.  Pretty quick I am going to have to thin out all the boys and only keep one. 

Today, I worked on the front fence some more.  I thought it was dog proof, but Sprout proved me wrong.  I have to put some wire over the gate next to the trash shed/out house.  He can squeeze through the slats in one place.  Mouse has been staying off the run and in the yard.  We are still putting Zeke on the run.  He is far more persistent at finding holes in the fence.  He will also jump through the fence between the barb wire strands.  It cuts him but he doesn’t seem to care, hence the reason he is on the run and the puppy is not. 
We went out to feed the new alpaca some bread and apples.  Only the new black colored one would eat from Annmarie’s hand.  No one else was willing to try it.  I did feed our bull some apple.  He is such a good boy.  We had a second calf today!! I saw it when I got off work this morning.  It is doing good, I have seen it eat a couple of times and it walked the length of the driveway once today. 
I spent about an hour today picking up old metal pieces of scrap in front of the machine shop and over by where the old blacksmith shop was located.  Every spring I do this, the metal just seems to float to the top of the ground.
Mouse has been able to go out with us without the buddy leash to Zeke the last couple of days.  He will listen to us and return to us even with the animals present.  This is a first big step for him.  We need to be able to call him off the animals at any point. 

Our walk in closet is starting to come along.  The cabinet builder was building drawers the end of last week so hopefully they will be installed this week.  It would be nice to have a useable closet again.  Our clothes are starting to stack up all over the house. 

I have

New walk in custom closet in progress

Dog proofing front fence

We decided it was time to make our front yard dog escape proof.  This seems like an almost impossible task but the overhead run is causing a boredom issue.  Both border collies have decided it is very important to dig multiple holes to China.  Our front yard dog run area looks like a prairie dog den.  There are holes everywhere.  It is not safe to walk through that portion of the yard at night.  We decided to go with a 12 g woven wire and I cut it to fit between each 4×4 post and shortened it to only go up to the second wooden railing.  I also dug a channel in the gravel and buried the fence a few inches.  All this is to keep Sprout, the little dog, inside the yard.  He won’t stay out during the day when it is hot outside but it would be nice to let him out when the weather is perfect and not worry about him sneaking off.  Our hope is with the whole yard to roam the border collies will not get bored.  This is the hypothesis, the test will be when I get the yard done. 

I hope to have the fence completed in a week.  Its good to have a goal.

Now that we have separated a cow from the herd, the bellowing has begun.  The bull is hollering because he cannot get to the heifer, she is hollering because she is not with the herd.  Its going to be a long night.

Close up shot of front fence

Brand new calf, first of 2016

She then stated that the momma was pulling away from the baby and it was only able to latch on for 15-20 seconds at a time because momma kept moving around. This promoted a cancellation of church attendance and all of us putting on work clothes so we could get the momma and baby into one of our new fancy corrals.

New momma and baby area in the corral.

The bull knows she is no longer pregnant, what a guy!

It is that time of year again. Our back creek is running.  It just started on Friday night.  It is composed entirely of snow melt and mountain water.  I hope it runs into July or later before it dries up.  It has started earlier in previous years, but here’s to hoping it runs at least six months.  The good news is we can still see snow on the mountains from our living room window so there is still a lot of snow up there.  It continues to snow and build up a good frozen reserve.  Surprisingly, this has not stopped the horses from crossing the stream.  Usually at the first miniscule amount of running water the horses stop crossing the streambed.  This year they are still willing to cross the moving water, it will be a good thing if they get over their fear of water.

Back creek running January 29, 2016

I had a few things to do on Saturday while I was outside and in my mud boots so I decided to clean out the barn lot stream of all vegetation.  It looks good and I am hoping the banks will green up and firm up.  I am trying to get the creek to stay in a narrow channel with swift water instead of a slow wide stream full of detritus.  I did plant the back hillside behind the barn with grass seed but between the chickens and the sheep I am not sure how well it is going to turn out this spring.  We have moved the sheep off of it, but I am about to move the new momma cows onto it so I don’t believe it is going to get the rest it needs.  Maybe I can move the new momma cows in with the horses and sheep and keep the back barn lot clear of any animals.  Its worth a shot.

Front creek back barn lot cleaned out

Saturday was cleanup day.  I had to haul the dead alpaca carcass and dead lamb carcasses up to the boneyard.  It is a slow and smelly project.  I managed to get it done without any gagging.  I am a nurse by trade so it has to be pretty awful before I gag (unlike some people I know).  I let mouse and zeke terrorize the farm and follow the tractor.  They had a hoot and wore themselves out running all over the farm.  Mouse has not gotten to go that far before off leash.  He did pretty good.  I stopped at the top of the rocky hillside and knocked rocks loose from the ground with the tractor for about 70 feet.  My goal is to create a smooth area, rock free for tractor and vehicle passage.  I have to knock the rocks out of the ground when the soil is wet otherwise I cannot get them out of the ground.  In the dead of summer when I actually pick up rocks the tractor cannot get them out of the ground.  Its a slow process but every year I move a few more rocks and cleanup the place a little more. 

The upper prime field is looking good!  I took a picture.  The greenest patches are the areas that had the most organic matter on the ground when I spread out the grass seeds.  This provided the seeds with added moisture and protection.  I am hoping the rest of the field will perk up when we get an actual Spring.  I will spray some broadleaf herbicide on the field when everything gets to about six inches tall.  This will help the grass establish itself. 

4 acre field I planted this fall by hand