Specifically, Houdini has taken refuge within our herd and has taught them one and all how to escape from a perfectly comfortable barn, with it’s locked gate intact. We have had wolf sightings in the area, and I think I may have even seen 4 of them on the way home tonight. They were a ways off, and too large to be coyotes, too small to be deer, and very very black. I couldn’t swear to it, but I’m fairly sure that I saw at least a part of the wolf pack that inhabits our fine county. Now, I have nothing against wolves in general, I just don’t want them thinking my livestock (any of my livestock) is on the menu. So, we’ve been locking the sheep up at night in the barn. It would be more accurate to say that we have been attempting to lock the sheep up at night in the barn.

Sheep heading out of the lean to.

Fresh straw ready for Winter.  Top left is a chicken.

We are still trying to decide how to get power to the barn.  Since I haven’t even rewired the bridge lights yet and the barn isn’t done yet lights are a low priority.  Annmarie found some battery powered low level lanterns.  I hung three out in the barn today.  When it gets dark at 1600 it makes it very hard to see inside of a dark barn.  I moved the old hay right next to the entrance of the storage area.  This way we will be forced to use the old stuff first. We have a whopping 9 bales or approximately 700 #. 

I put the pressure cookers away.  Two large pressure cookers and I cannot find weights for either one.  Both were gifts so I need to track down some weights to make them useable.  We ended up water bathing the tomato soup for 45 minutes.  It turned out very good.  I was in the root cellar (four time a year event) putting these away and snagged some homemade concord grape juice and put another four shelf rack in the cellar.  It was on the front porch for the thyme debacle (we started 900 plugs with creeping thyme seeds on the breeze porch.  By the time I got them planted last month at Annmarie’s grandmother’s garden only 90 had survived.  Not a rousing success.  I am thinking about trying to grow some lavender this winter!!).  This added more storage space to the root cellar.  I need to install a low/high thermometer so I can have some idea of the temperature swings.  I think I need a book or two on how to use a root cellar.  It is about 10 ft x 10 feet and about 4.5 feet down into the ground with rock walls on all four sides.  It needs some concrete filler around some rocks.  A later project, one that needs to be ready before the apocalypse.

New barn lantern, and empty area waiting for hay.

Hay stacked in walkway so it can be used first.

I went out and did battle with the Chicken Butler.  The whole point of buying the damn thing was to protect my chickens and more importantly make them low maintenance.  It is not low maintenance if I am having to repair the thing every two months.  The string gets tight and the motor has to be removed, allowing the string to stretch out.  I tried to put the door on a straight timer for opening and closing.  No go, it would not operate correctly with that configuration, despite the instructions saying otherwise.  It works again.  I wire tied all the loose wires down and the plugs are tied in so the chickens cannot unplug them easily.  Hopefully, it will go at least three months before I have to do anything again.  I cleaned out all the nest boxes.  I threw out all the eggshells and bedding and filled the nest boxes back up with fresh bedding.  I am at least hoping we can tell how many eggs are getting eaten a day. 

My luck is holding out, after dinner Annmarie went out to lock the sheep up.  My mother-in-law called to say that a stray dog had went onto her front porch and killed a cat.  So Annmarie wanted the sheep locked up to keep them safe.  She happened to look over at the chicken coop and found all the chickens trapped outside the coop.  The Chicken Butler had closed already.  She had to put 48 chickens into the coop one at a time.  I obviously need to reset the timers for my door and the light.   Annmarie told me that the light was not working.  The lack of light could be the reason I am not getting very many eggs.  The light problem will have to be fixed in the morning. 

Our sheep.

The ram pasture, it is no wonder the sheep are in heaven.

The other night Annmarie woke me up at 0230 to say that a chicken was squawking outside.  I usually sleep through this but it had woke me up also.  I was prompted to go outside and investigate.  In an attempt to be stealthy I dug around in the dirty laundry for some pants and only came up with some scrub pants and an old t-shirt to hastily don.  I ran downstairs grabbed a flashlight and paused to consider my weapon choices.  Normally, I would go for the Walther P-22 with laser, this being my normal weapon of choice for nighttime predator patrols.  But after the story of the dogs being afraid of leaving the front porch I figured I had better beef up the armament.  I grabbed the pistol grip shotgun and as an after thought shoved the .357 pistol in the side pocket of my scrubs.  Unfortunately, I did not take the time to tie the waistband of my scrubs.  By the time I got out to the chicken coop I had a very wide stance and my pants were riding on my thighs.  I spotted a possum six feet from the coop and blasted it with the shotgun.  I spent another 20 minutes scouting around with a very dim flashlight and repeated attempts to pull my pants up to my waist.  I attempted to go back to bed but had a hard time relaxing.  At 0530, I was woken up again by a chicken squawking and had to go out again and make a patrol.  No predators.  I did figure out that my chicken butler was not working again.  It had gotten unplugged so I plugged it back in hoping this would make it work again.  Not so much.  I had to lock the chickens up by hand last night.

Annmarie and I opened up the orchard to the ram pasture and chased the sheep over.  The horses didn’t want to come but we left the gate open.  Of course, one of the little boy lambs keeps getting out of the orchard.  I have put him back in three days in a row.  I have no clue how he is getting out.  Hopefully, with them staying in the ram pasture his wandering days are over.  We chased the sheep up into the barn and caught the two biggest boys so they could be weighed.  There is an old wool scale in the barn, we caught the sheep and I sat them on the scale.  The oldest by (tag #2) weighs 90#, so he is going to be sold for lamb chops.  I already have  buyer.  Boy #2 (tag #3) only weighed 70# so he needs some more time before he is ready.  I had told the butcher 2 lambs, I will call today and tell them it is only going to be one this time around.  They are coming out on Saturday or Monday.  If they are in the area they add on the lambs so a special trip is not made for a few sheep.  It works well for both of us. 

We also spread out the straw in the lean to for the sheep to bed in this winter.  Sarah had cleaned it out earlier.  It is amazing how little room 21 sheep take up.  We could easily fit 60-70 sheep in the space we already have.  I want to get them into the barn next year.  It will just make things easier all around.  Far more room to work in and set up a sorting chute with a built in scale. 

As in all things in life most of us don’t account for ALL the details.  We make plans and adjust accordingly as they go awry.  No big surprise then that my chicken experiment failed.  We kept the chickens locked up for two days and only collected nine eggs total.  My premise was that I would get an accurate count of all eggs produced.  I was assuming that some hens were sneaking off and not laying in the coop (hence, the reason I am not getting any green eggs).  I would also be able to keep the egg suckers (cats) out of the coop.  I wanted to be able to make some informed thinning decisions.  All this depended on some cooperation on the chickens part (willing participants) and I forgot to account for a chicken’s pathological fear of all change.  A happy chicken lays eggs, an unhappy one doesn’t.  An expected side benefit to this experiment was to keep the chickens safe (they were locked up) but even that didn’t happen.  Three of them decided to not go into the coop at night and one of them got eaten over the weekend!

Annmarie said that out two dogs were too scared to leave out front porch first thing in the morning after being let out of their kennels.  She had to go out and stand on the porch and coax the dogs off the porch.  She said she had heard wolves again howling that night.  We aren’t sure if it is the wolves or a cougar scaring the dogs.  This just means we are going to have to go out armed first thing in the morning.  It is amazing to me that we live in a modern society and at our house we go out armed first thing in the morning ready to battle mother nature.  I would expect this if we were living in Alaska not Eastern Oregon.  After the whole raccoon incident, Annmarie isn’t taking any chances (or prisoners!).  So far this year we have not lost a single sheep to predators.  The local paper had an article recently that Oregon fish and wildlife was going to kill another two wolves from a known pack after confirming over nine separate livestock wolf kills.  The wolves don’t seem to be a personal danger.  Everyone I know that has encountered them personally has fared well, except for their dogs.  They are incredibly territorial and will kill all canines.  I am far more concerned a young cougar may come down to the house.  The joys and tribulations of living out in the country. 

The wheat truck is unloaded and ready for hay.  Sarah and I put away the left over cedar from the bridge project (yes, I know it was finished quite a while ago) over the weekend.  We have enough cedar to do another 32 feet of fence.  Annmarie and I are still trying to determine where the fence is going to run.  This will most likely entail putting out stakes and some marking tape so we have some visual references to help with the decision.  This is a next year or year after project.

I have managed to fill the entire floor of the clean and organized (was) tool shed.  It will most likely take me a good four hours to get it all straightened out.  It is mostly tools and yard sale finds in boxes and buckets.  My newest favorite container is a five gallon bucket.  You can just throw the tools needed for a specific job in the bucket and go.  It works great until you do this four or five times and then all the tools you need are spread out in various buckets.  I guess the moral of the story is put away tools every time… this may take a lifetime to learn.

We got a quote to fix our heating system.  Currently, we spend about $2400/year in propane for heat, hot water and cooking.  In the winter it is not uncommon to burn 400 gallons of propane in a bitter month.  This makes for a crazy bill.  We found out that our original heating company (forever nameless) had undersized our feeder duct to the downstairs by over 50%.  Replacing 20 feet of supply duct work in our upstairs bathroom will gain us another 1300cf of hot air downstairs.  Our hope is it will cut our propane consumption.  My theoretical goal (insert arbitrary number) is a 25% decrease in propane used.  It might be wishful thinking but you have to have goals.  The new contractor (whom we like and is very conscionable) is going to make the supply duct larger and wire in a third control zone.  A zone is an area of the house with its own thermostat that opens and closes a duct damper (valve) to regulate the temperature independent of the rest of the house.  Our third zone is going to be the breeze porch.  We had considered putting it off (Annmarie) until later, but if I install more flooring in the attic I will cover up the duct dampers making it that much harder to go back in and install.  We are going to get this corrected (repaired/fixed/put right) for the low low price of about $2000.  This is supposed to occur near the end of this month.  If our luck holds true it will be on the coldest day possible. 

Annmarie and I have started to negotiate the winter projects (I whine, she lists them off, I re-prioritize, she list them off again, I whine) for this year.  It seems having the beautiful stained glass lights in the stairwell covered with plastic and unusable for the last four years is long enough.  I need to put a second coat of paint on the stairwell walls (20 feet tall).  The large light is a three foot diameter upside dome that hangs four feet from the ceiling.  There is only six inches of clearance on either side of the light from the wall.  I love the light but it is going to become a huge dust/bug collector.  With it located over the stairs there is not good way to reach it to clean it our or even change a light bulb.  How on earth would I do it when I am seventy years old?  Two years later I finally came up with an idea.  I can go up into the upstairs bathroom and cut a 2×2 foot access into the wall.  You will be able to pull the door out and just reach through the wall.  The light is only six inches away from the light.  Simple and elegant, plus the wall that will contain the access door is only visible from the top of the stairs. 

Here is the project list as prioritized by the wife:
1.  Paint stairwell and make stair lights functional.
2.  Redo spare bedroom walls and floor (fix sheetrock, paint room, sand and stain floor).
3.  Thanksgiving project is to build a cookie sheet cupboard to go between the stove and counter (about 12 inch space 38 inches high with a couple of dividers and open front).
4.  At this point if I have finished the above I can kinda pick and choose from the other projects.
a.  Make the laundry room door close (I shot expanding foam around the door and it expanded too much so the door won’t shut).
b.  Make spare room closet door shut (it sticks on top).
c.  Strip and stain breeze porch door.
d.  Finish wiring in attic light and power so I can work in the attic after dark.
e.  Finish floor in attic
f.  Empty old house so it will be ready for conversion to a wood shop.
g.  Tear out divider wall in old house.
h.  Level old house so windows and doors close.
i.  Any kind of barn work.
j.  Repair old fence.
k.  Move sheep crap piles away from barn (need room to work on outside walls).
l.  Clean up around farm so I can mow with the tractor without running over every thing.
m. Organize all the farm equipment into one area.
n. Tear down old grainary (before it falls down).
o.  Repair and tear up part of the sheep shed.
p.  Fix irrigation pump.
q.  Find and setup irrigation line
r.  You get the picture…

Well I finally managed to get some tractor time in yesterday.  Since I cannot get the 10 ton of hay yet, I decided to put away the tractor and its attachments.  This involved getting diesel for the tractor since I only had a little over a gallon from the dealer upon purchase.  Did you know that all gas cans now have safety features?  They have an actual valve so they cannot tip over and leak.  This makes them a lot harder to use, but since beggars cannot be choosers and I need a 5 gallon can for diesel I am the proud owner of a plastic gas can with this hokey plastic handle valve contraption.  I did manage to get the fuel in the tractor without too much difficulty (took forever).  It fired right up (after I went back in the house and got the key, forgot it).  I managed to flop the post hole driver into the bucket and drive it all to the lamb shed.  I had to let the roll bar down to get in the main door.  I had to move an old sheep panel out of the way and managed to flop the post hole digger out onto the ground.  Of course that meant I had to back out, turn around and back in again to get the mower off of the tractor.  I pulled the three pins and kicked on it till I managed to move the arms out of the way (was wishing for a hammer).  Supposedly the PTO connection is just a splined piece of metal and I should have had to just pull to get it disconnected.  I pulled and pulled, ended up cleaning all the weeds out and still couldn’t see very well due to the safety covers that were keeping my fingers away.  I finally got the right angle and it pulled right off.

Now it was time to do some work!!  The main driveway needs to be scraped to fill in the potholes.  I purchased a box blade for this purpose but have never used one before.  Instead of just winging it and trying to smooth the driveway I figured I had better practice with the box blade first.  The salesman told me there was a learning curve associated with the box blade.  What he didn’t tell me is that it can be hard to hook up.  Especially, when they set it on uneven ground with the attachment points pointing downhill and stuck on a piece of protruding iron hiding in the weeds.  Said iron pinned the blade in place (it is very heavy).  At one point I was frustrated enough to break out the directions!!  Damn things did not help so I had to go back to just figuring it out (back up, align the holes and put the pins in place, Duh?).  I did it eventually (45 minutes later).

Off I went to the orchard to tear up some ground.  About 5-6 years ago the front creek got flooded and it tore up the orchard, causing a channel to be created.  The bad part was there is about a 60 foot section that is deep and shaped like a narrow V, this caused me to go onto three tires both times I was mowing the orchard.  Three tires are not very stable.  I almost tipped the rental tractor over.  The V needed to vanish.  I started to just drag the box, not a whole lot happened. We have some form of large grass clumps and the box would latch onto those and stop the tractor!  I made a couple of passes with very little effect.  The solution to this is to lower the ripper blades on the box blade.  I extended them as low as they could go (have to do this individually by moving a pin) and started again.  I ended up making multiple passes to just rip up the ground.  I spent a lovely 2.5 hours dragging and moving dirt with the bucket.  I only had the tractor on three wheels twice, only almost tipped it forward once and only got stuck four times!  Annmarie came out and made me quit.  There is nothing more relaxing than to be on the tractor, playing in the dirt and listening to tunes on an i-pod.  I need about another 4-5 hours to finish it up but it looks much better now and the head of the V is gone.  I just need to take the steep part of one side of the V down now.  It is so steep that you cannot take the tractor along it, you have to go straight up and straight down. 

On a side note, the horses like the tractor far too much.  Every time I stopped and got off they would run over and start exploring the tractor with their lips.  I am making a mental note to not leave the tractor alone with the horses. The great chicken experiment is kinda working. Two leghorns are boycotting the chicken enclosure and roosting outside somewhere.  Now there is only one leghorn (Farm 6, predators 16).  Stupid chickens.  I didn’t get eggs yesterday, Sarah will get them tonight and we will see how many green eggs have been produced in the last two days.  Then I will make some culling decisions.