Sunday night when we were going to bed Annmarie asked me if I had locked the chickens up? Of course, I was upstairs in our bedroom half undressed. I had not locked the chickens up, so I trudged downstairs, grabbed a flashlight and some dog food. I figured since I was going outside already I would bait the live trap. I locked the chicken yard up and set the trap and baited it. The trap is literally four feet from my chicken enclosure, so any critter getting caught in it has aspirations of a chicken meal. We woke up Monday morning and are laying in bed talking when Annmarie says “Isn’t that a raccoon chittering?” I listen and then make an authoritative statement “No, just some birds”. We send Sarah out to the chicken coop to feed the babies and water first thing in the morning (she had not done it the evening before). She comes running back inside stating “There is a raccoon in the trap”. I guess Annmarie was right and I was wrong. I went out and dispatched the coon, then carried the trap to the pickup so they could drive it up to the boneyard for disposal. I heard later that Sarah was moaning because she got a drop of blood on her shoe when she emptied the trap. I still have not caught the other adult coon.
Farm
mowing pictures
Can you tell I spent seven hours on the tractor mowing? Here are the before and after pictures.
 |
| Ram pasture before mowing |
 |
| Ram pasture after mowing |
We have started pouring water onto the ram pasture after the mowing. Hopefully, the grass will take off. You can see the green about 1/3 out from the chain link fence. We would like that to go all the way out to the far fence.
If you look closely at the after mowing picture you will notice all kinds of stuff piled up along the fence. The dog keeps escaping from our yard. So I keep trying to add stuff in an effort to keep the dog in the yard. It is not working. Now one of the sheep and her babies have figured out how to crawl under and get into the yard.
 |
| Front of the house before mowing |
This is looking out from our front porch. You can see the corral gate that I had to wire a hog panel to the gate. The baby sheep had figured out that they were small enough to slip through the rails and go out and eat on this hillside. Well, the momma sheep just stood at the fence and bawled nonstop every night. So I installed the hog wire.
 |
| Front of the house after mowing |
Looks much better doesn’t it? I have to use the weedeater to get the stuff near the creek. The hillside was too steep to get the tractor down there. Yes, I did buy another weedeater. I went for a cheap $60 electric one. I can just throw it away when it breaks. I hate weedeaters right now.
 |
| Orchard near house before mowing |
This is the orchard from our front lawn. See the dirt patch at the bottom of the picture? That is where I had to dig up our water line last winter. That was another back hoe experience. Nothing like fixing pipe in the rain. It rained the entire weekend I was outside fixing the line. See the huge stand of Russian thistles?
 |
| Orchard near house after mowing |
Looks much better!! The mower was able to tear up the thistles, it just took a long time. At the bottom left of the picture you can see the post I ripped out to make my gate. I could have driven between the posts.
 |
| Me on the tractor!! You can see the orchard before I mowed here. Take a close look for the back fence, it is the one that is hidden behind all the weeds. That huge mess of thistles behind the cab is the road into the orchard. to the left and right is the front creek ditch. |
 |
| Orchard mowed |
This is the orchard mowed. The tall weeds in the center mark the path of the front ditch. I couldn’t get close enough to mow them. If you look from the post in the bottom left corner of the picture to the post just right of the apple tree you will be looking at the new fence line. I will start working on this again this week.
 |
| Orchard mowed. See fence line!! |
Boy howdy. Look at that fence line. The amazing part is that the field is green with no irrigation of any kind.
Sheep got out, didn’t think it was possible
I was sure I had it covered this time. I think they pushed on the lower movable fence over the almost dry creek. One of the momma sheep with her two babies was up wandering the hillside. Of course she is teaching them bad habits. Luckily, one of them is going to be food eventually. Sarah is outside chopping down thistles in our yard again. She thought she was done yesterday. Not so much. I will go check on the sheep and see what I can do about them sneaking out. I really did think I had it covered.
Houdini has been talking to our sheep
You’ll recall that I mentioned a few days ago that the sheep seemed to be dissatisfied with their pasture. After today, I’m pretty sure the problem is actually just the perverse nature of sheep.
This morning, I let the dogs out to do their business, and noticed some rather unusual animal life out by the cars. No, it wasn’t deer, nor moose, nor anything more exotic than 4 of our very own sheep. Oreo, the adult ram, and Longtail and the boys. Now, we’ve gotten pretty immune to seeing them out on the hillside, but not out by the vehicles. Besides the obvious potential issues, there is a very large open field not too far from where they were, that opens up onto the road a ways up. And no, there is not a gate on this end either. Just a nice opening through which the sheep could pass into this haven of freedom. Needless to say, they needed to be encouraged back to their more usual range.
Sheep are usually creatures of habit, so I thought this would not be too much of a problem. I’d go out, leaving the front gate to the yard open, encourage them to go into the yard they covet anyway, and everyone would be happy, since the side gate out of the yard opens directly onto their pasture. So, I ducked back inside the house to grab my shoes, and went out the gate. The dogs, of course, came with me. That’s when everything went wrong. Sprout, the little one, headed at top speed for Mom’s house (in the opposite direction from the sheep), while Bailey, the big one, headed over to try to mother the lambs. Needless to say, Momma sheep was not too happy about this, and any visions I’d had of calmly herding the sheep into the yard vanished as they darted back into the barnyard. Bailey, or course, followed. I’m sure she was trying to be helpful, but…..
So, I went back to the house, and woke the progeny to come man the gate at the upper end of the pasture. My thinking at this point ran along the lines of getting the sheep to cross the creek in the barn lot, and then go up the road and into the gate. The sheep cooperate in the beginning by walking up to the creek. Where they promptly mill about looking confused. Bear in mind that the creek is all of 2″ deep here. It’s a bit wide, but really, their feet will get wetter in the tall grass than they will crossing the creek. Once again, my plans are thwarted as the sheep insist on turning tail and heading upstream and out the barn lot as fast as their legs will carry them. At this point, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to have go get the pickup and find them so I can get them back to the general area of acceptability and then try to get them in.
Then, I notice them up on the hillside behind the house. Now, understand that this means that the contrary little creatures went just a little bit upstream and then crossed not one, but two creeks in order to get from where they had been to where they now were. I was only asking them to cross one creek and then go in a gate.
By this time, it’s become a matter of principle, and I must get them back into their pasture. So, I move Sarah to the other gate (the one that opens onto the back hillside), and I go out and straight up the hill in order to get above the sheep so I can circle around them to move them towards the gate. I probably haven’t yet mentioned that this is the hillside on which the star thistle are flourishing, nor that I didn’t bother with socks, much less boots when I started on this adventure. I am at least wearing jeans, but my ankles are fairly unprotected, and star thistle are sharp little buggers. I successfully circle around the sheep and come up on them nice and calmly. By this time they’ve remembered that food generally comes from us two-legged beings and we’re not all evil, and they calmly wait for me to approach. Then I notice that they are eating the little bitty short almost moss-type weed that grows on the barren hillside! Not the green grass growing right beside it. No, the nearly dried out browned bristly little lichen-stuff. And yes, there is plenty of this inside their fenced area. See, perverse. Anyway, this time they go calmly into the pasture, and Sarah shuts the get behind them. Then, she gets some corn and treats everyone so they can remember why they should come when we call them.
Then, I only needed to go down to Mom’s and get Sprout. At least I got to sit down and fish the stickers out of my shoes once I got there, and Mom came out and we had a nice visit while we watched the hummingbirds. Did I mention that all of this took place before 7:10 this morning?
Farm life practicalities
I find myself worrying that our recent trend of posts have offended some of you. Now, most of you are probably aware, at least on some level, that life in the country is not all idyllic and peaceful. Especially not when you’re surrounded by 100’s of acres of what is essentially idle land that has been planted in native grasses, trying to raise domestic animals that are by their very nature prey to the predators that live in those 100’s or acres of native grassland. But, Steve’s rather blunt about the measures that we have taken to protect our investment. I’ve tried to suggest that he move on, but he’s rather stubborn. I suppose that’s a good thing, as I’m rather stubborn as well. So, I hope you’ll stick with us and not judge us too harshly for having to protect what needs protecting. I promise this trend will end soon – or at least I hope it will. I’m not a big fan of searching for the angry racoon at 3:30 in the morning dressed in Steve’s robe, and carrying a 22 rifle and a flashlight.
In the meantime, I’ll gush a little bit about how exciting it is to have the barn useable this winter. No, the roof will not be repaired, nor will the entire floor be fixed. But, remember that the sheep had next-to-nothing for shelter last winter. Even with a big hole in the roof at one end, the rest of the barn will provide more shelter than they had last year. We’ll start repairing the floor at the end nearest the house, and stop when we run out of time. We’ll put panels up at the end of the good floor, and that will be where the sheep get to stay for the winter. We only have 7 of them (or will only have 7 by winter). They don’t need very much space to sleep and eat in anyway. The hay has been moved into a much more secure location (thanks to Hector), and we have a plan that will eventually allow easy access to that space for future unloading. And, it’s in the barn – right where we will need it.
You see, this barn was built by folks who knew how a barn was supposed to operate. There’s a large open space where the animals live. I suspect that this space originally had stalls for the draft horses, but that’s just supposition. And there are two very large feed bins. Bins is really not the right word. Imagine rooms approximately the size of a decent living room. But empty with a tunnel over the door. When Grandpa fed the sheep, he fed chopped hay, and the chopped hay was literally dumped into these rooms. The tunnel over the door allowed a person to walk in and scoop what they needed from right by the door. The feed would shift and re-fill the space, always keeping the feed handy, at least until the level dropped. Then you had to go a bit further in. Still, it was a good system, and it works just fine for baled hay too.
It feels like a win that we’re going to be able to salvage a good portion of the building and put it to good use again. It’s been standing for over 100 years. Here’s hoping that with a little rejuvenation and minor (okay sort of major) surgery, it can stand for just a little bit longer.
On another note, this is Sarah’s favorite of the photos she took. She doesn’t really like Steve’s favorite. Anyone want to weigh in with their favorite? We need some neutral voices to break the tie. I’m staying out of it, because I’m just very proud that she took the initiative and then took some great photos.
