#stewartcreeksomethings

Flooded bathroom

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It all started out so innocently. I needed to water my upstairs plants and finish planting my starts for Christmas presents. This meant that I needed to plug in my expandable water hose for watering the breeze porch. Now I had a kerfuffle a couple of weeks ago and the hose leaked causing a significant amount of water to leak out onto the floor. It took me four shower towels to absorb it all and clean up the mess. This time I worked on repotting plants and watering all of my plants and totally ignoring my hose connection in the bathroom. Forty five minutes after I started working on the porch I finished and went into the bathroom to shut off the water. Yep, I should have checked the water in the first five minutes of using it. It took me seven towels (all the unused ones we had left in the cupboard), two rugs and two hand towels to get all of the water cleaned up. There was so much water I had to get a garbage sack to hold the towels so I could carry them down to the washing machine without making a water mess all through the house. On the plus side, when we installed the upstairs bathroom tile floor we used a waterproofing paint on treatment and then used a pool synthetic grout to create a space that would hold water in case the toilet overflowed. Well the toilet has not overflowed a single time but I have flooded the room twice so far.

I fired up the washing machine and about 20 minutes later the machine started to make funny noises. We have been having some issues with the machine not being evenly balanced when it spins. I have been sitting on the machine when it spins to counteract this effect. So as I am sitting on the washing machine I notice the sound getting louder and a weird smell emanating from the machine, almost a burnt smell. The washer died about five minutes later. Of course the machine is half full of water and soap. I fished out the towels and placed them outside over our fence. My hope was they would lose about half the water out of them before they froze solid. So now we have no washing machine. I will call for a repair on Monday but with the holidays I am sure there will be some delay.

The heating company fixed our drain pump again. There is a new condensate pump and there is now a waterproof tray around the pump with a water sensor. So if the pump fails or leaks the water sensor turns off the entire heating system. I am tired of repairing the craft room ceiling after the pump leaks. I have the repair on my list for first thing next year.

Hopefully, the chicken wire will go up soon enclosing the entire chicken yard in a metal protective mesh. One could hypothesize that the area will be predator proof but there is no real such area. It will be predator resistant.

It has been cold lately and the alpaca have finally come in off the hill and are now hanging around the cars and eating on the large bale of alfalfa. Annmarie keeps treats for them in the trunk of her car so when she pulls up to the house they all come running for “alpaca cookies”.

Lambing week 4 update 2023

Steve HardinLeave a comment
  • Date of update Dec 17, 2023
  • # of lambs born — 15
  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 8
  • # of ewes still pregnant – 23-29, I don’t think they are all pregnant
  • # single lamb births – 2
  • # twin lamb births – 5
  • # triplet lamb births – 1
  • # tagged weathers (neutered boys) – 9
  • # tagged female lambs – 1
  • # of bummer lambs – 1
  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 4
  • Total # of lambs on farm – 10
  • % birthing rate – 188%
  • % of production rate – 125%
  • % survival rate at birth – 100%
  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 67%
  • # ewes with clipped ears for culling – 3

Well it has been a long week, we had all of our triplets die. We are still not sure of the exact cause. We switched the supplement we were feeding the newborns as we cannot get any more locally. We have ordered more and will be switching back to giving the supplement the first day of a lamb’s life. We are hoping that the supplement change is the correction we need. The latest twin mother forgot one of the lambs and after being in the jug with them she rejected one lamb so we had to bummer it out. All of this and no more births has totally tanked the 2 week survival rate and our production rate. The sheep are deciding to take another break in birthing. I am hopeful that we will not go another three weeks before lambs start to appear again. The sheep come into a fertility cycle every 3 weeks.

We have installed our creep feeder into a section of the momma/baby area. It has been two days and no lambs are going in to eat yet. I am hopeful that the lambs will discover it soon, as it takes quite a load off of the momma sheep.

To correct our lamb survival rate we are clipping the ear of any ewe that loses a lamb this round. We will cull every single one of them this spring. We have more ewes than we currently want and this should help stabilize our survival rate. We will know next year.

Since we are both going to work early now, I have been getting up at 0345 to go out to the barn and take care of all the sheep and any new lambs. Annmarie is now doing the evening chores as it fits in better with her new work schedule. I feed the cows and the boys in Alcatraz every other day.

No new lambs

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The sheep never cooperate, we have been locking them up in the hopes that the babies would start popping out. Not a single one has had a baby since the first set of twins! The twins are super healthy and active so I don’t think she had them early. Mr Rainman came out yesterday and we spent two hours in the barn setting up jugs, alleyways and future expansion areas. We usually just set up a few jugs then expand as we need. The same is true as we move the large panels inside to change the overall space arrangement. The trouble with this is as the floor bedding gets deeper it is harder to move the panels. So we set up the entire thing, moved all of the heavy panels and are now ready for lambegeddon. We have eight jugs ready to go for newborn pairs and two future expansion areas for the mommas/lambs pairs. This was a much better plan than fighting with it later. We did run out of steel rods for the panels and had to use some rebar. It works but I should probably order another ten large steel pins. The changes we made last year with the creep feed area and setting up eight jugs takes a lot more pins. We did have enough panels, so the last few we purchased the previous year caught us up to where we need to be. We also have enough buckets and feeders finally. It seemed like we could never find a bucket when we needed it. We have plenty now, after hanging them in the jugs we still have extras hanging up near the wall. Again, this makes things much faster when we are out in the barn at 0400 trying to sort lambs, get pairs into jugs and then feed and water those pairs before going to work in the morning. We had visions of the sheep having babies all Thanksgiving weekend while we were home and so far they have not had a single lamb. They are going to wait until its super cold or a work day, I am sure of this.

I have been driving up to the far end of the farm every morning while I am off looking for coyotes. So far I have not see a single coyote. Mr Rainman found another old skeleton last week that we had not seen before so the coyotes got another one early in the summer that we had not counted yet. Predators 17/Farm 5 definitely not a farm winning year. On the plus side, a nice coworker who is leaving the area brought out some extra chickens this week. I am the proud owner of 12 new laying hens! The only real problem is they are not going into the coop at night so I have been catching them and tossing them into the coop at night. Tonight I only had to chase 8 into the coop but there is one stubborn long legged silver hen that is crazy and fast. She was flying around after dark when I tried to catch her to toss her into the coop. She is either going to learn to go in at night or we are going to find out just how fast she is at night when the raccoons come for her. So far my bet is on her, she is pretty agile.

The puppy has no fear and will crawl up onto anything. Her latest trick is to sleep on top of the table to either look over the porch railing or into the large window staring at us in the living room. She currently has the cone of shame on for licking a spot bare on her side. She hates the cone but has finally learned to walk around in it. The only down side is she just pounds into things with the cone, so you have to be careful if she sneaks up behind you so she doesn’t knock you down.

The main sliding door into the barn is dead. It has warped and is currently unable to be opened or closed. So Mr Rainman and I took the door off and then took the track down. We straightened out the track, closed up the track hangers and rehung the entire thing on a 2×10. Our hope was that if we pushed the door away from the barn a couple of inches the bow in the door would not rub on the side of the barn. The door is fairly easy to open but still very hard to close. We used the tractor to hold the door while we moved it off and on the track. The door weighs several hundred pounds. I ordered two new wheeled hangers and when they show up we will attach one and then cut the door in half and hang both sides of the door. This should take out most of the bend in the door. I like to use this door to go in and out of the barn. So hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have it back up and functioning. Mr Rainman convinced me to work smarter not harder by using the tractor to move the door around instead of fighting with it and trying to muscle it into place!

Lambing has begun!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Slowly but surely we continue to get little things done but nothing holds back Mother Nature. Yesterday one of the ewes gave birth to our first lambs this birthing cycle, a set of twins! Of course the sheep were on the back hillside about halfway down to the schoolhouse. Annmarie happened to spot them from the driveway when she was returning home. I walked out and tried to catch both lambs but could only get a hold of the little brown one. Both lambs were still wet and the mother had not passed a placenta yet. The little black one ran with mom all the way back to the barn. Annmarie caught it as it was trying to get into the barn. She used the lamb lure to get the mother to run into the momma/baby area. The barn lights are amazing! You can clearly see in the needed areas but you have to plan ahead as you can only use two light strings at a time. It is a huge improvement, I should have done it two years ago when I saw the conversion on YouTube. We will keep the momma and babies separated. We have the momma/baby barn lot run locked off so the grass is about eight inches tall in that area. The ewe will be happy. In three days we will let her out with the twins and they can start to get in and out of the barn by themselves. I believe there are 38-39 ewes and not all of them are pregnant. We will count as we go. I will start the statistics after we get a few more lambs. There were no new babies this morning. I will be doing morning duties so when I wake up at 0400 I will now be going to the barn to check for babies first thing and feed and water any new mommas and let everyone out of the barn.

Mr Rainman came out midweek and got the large hay bales covered. The grass in field 4b is very tall. I may end up putting up a fence around the hay with a large removable wire gate for the front. I would need to put it far enough away from the bales that the cows and sheep could not reach through it to get the hay. The old road sign tarps are very heavy duty! We will see if they can last through the winter and wind over the next four months.

The new chicken door came and Mr Rainman installed it. The door closes just after it gets dark. It has a built in solar panel so the AA batteries will keep charged. It has a flashing red light that starts up and means the door will close in 30 minutes. I know this as I have been looking every evening to see if the door actually shuts. I am doubtful that the chickens will learn that they have 30 minutes once the red light starts flashing. It has been pretty dark and the door is still open. The door does cycle and the chickens really are that stupid. Some know to get into the coop before dark but others want to be out late and miss the curfew. Those chickens have to wait outside until the next day. My hope is with the new run door they will be protected despite their tendencies to stay out late partying. The last step will be to put in some overhead 2×4 rafters and run chicken wire over the top of the run so that the chickens are truly protected from all predators.

I got a new outlet wired in the root cellar stairs so when the new LED lights come I can install them quickly in the ceiling of the root cellar. I had left a empty wire conduit for just this purpose on the side of the box. What I failed to realize was how much harder it is to add things after the fact. I did actually have to turn off power in the box so I could get it all wired up. I also cleaned up the last of the barn wiring supplies so the barn is ready for the lambs. I have been doing a lot of little tasks. They all need to get done but I get frustrated, it feels like I am working the last 10% of a project; I am but it is still annoying.

Fall is definitely here and since the ewes cannot go on the back hillside anymore I am using them to clean up our front hillside and make the leaves in the yard disappear. The dogs do not particularly like staying in the house all day, especially the puppy. She wants to be outside digging, I filled in four huge holes in the yard yesterday. But after she learned to jump the low fence from the garden area she cannot stay outside. I don’t want to install that side fence permanently until after we manage to get the siding replaced. We are still looking for a contractor! It is very hard to find someone reliable and good.