I had big plans for Saturday, I thought I may be able to finish the barn but the skunk Friday night had other plans. We had a skunk come into the front yard and Chance took umbrage. She ended up getting sprayed so badly that her neck turned a yellow color from all the skunk spray. She stunk so badly you could not get within ten feet of her. The skunk got away and we were unable to dispatch it. This meant that my priorities had to change. So Saturday morning I went to D and B and purchased some skunk stink free liquid and some soap that supposedly did the same thing. The liquid worked pretty good and then after rinsing that out I went for the skunk soap next. She smelled so much better after those two treatments that I figured I had gotten it all off of her. Nope, my nose had just been so abused during the washing process that the improvement had me believing I had it all. I did not and especially after she got wet again in the rain. I am going to have to wash her again. Skunks suck. I think the skunk had been eating my chicken eggs.
I messaged the nephews and Gingerman to see when we could arrange tag and band of the one male calf and tag the one female calf. Mind you the calves are four months old. Gannon wanted to do it right away as he was just coming back from helping someone else with cows. So the Gingerman and I went up and herded the cows back down to the barn lot. We got the calves separated into two pens and the female calf just kept smashing into the gate and fence trying to get away. We had to get a rope to tie her up so I could tag her ear. She made a cut on her forehead. The boy was worse, he was bigger and the bander would not fit so we ended up cutting him. Only the Gingerman knew how to do that so we held and he cut. Nope, I am definitely going to be tagging and banding way early from now on, that was fairly barbaric and traumatizing to Gannon! Luckily, the temperatures have dropped off and the fly population is low. We cleaned it up and put blue goop on it. It should heal fine but it was brutal. The pigeons currently number over 50 and the doves are everywhere. I am going to have to take some time next weekend to try and cull the population some.
Last weekend was spent going around in circles! We are trying to get about three acres cleared of cheat grass. The stuff has totally taken over the fields and there is nothing left but cheatgrass and thistles. I tried to plant grass about a decade ago without any success. It got choked out by the cheat grass. Our plan is to keep killing the cheat grass until we cut down on the number of seeds in the soil. I will keep spraying Round-up and plowing the field under until we just don’t get much cheatgrass emerging. We got a really good kill on the grass and I was trying out the new plow that the Gingerman brought over. It is an old rotating or flop plow that allows for the direction to be changed. It took a few hours to get the number of pulls on the rope figured out. It cycles through a transport/lower/lower/flip cycle depending on where you are in the rope pull cycle. Plus, there are a couple of springs that need to be replaced. I had to get off and kick the levers every twenty minutes. I do have the springs on our grocery list so I do not forget them. It took me two days to plow, disc and harrow the three acres. When the equipment is only 2-4 feet wide it can take a while!
Annmarie went out and checked on the bees. They are doing great and finding all different colors of pollen. They are not even bothering to eat any of the sugar water we put out for them. We pick up our second hive in the evening of May 1.
The new town chickens we were given are so stupid, they keep flying into the yard where the dogs are residing. Every day, Annmarie or I chase some chickens out of the yard. The kids came down to stay the weekend and they bring our older Border Collie dog Mouse. Our young Border Collie, Chance, just harasses the chickens all day long. She has not killed any yet. Mouse killed two last weekend. Honestly, we warned the chickens that the yard needed to be a no fly zone for their own safety and they ignored us. The chickens are just too stupid to live.
We keep trying to get ahead but it seems like the chores are winning. I am sure they are piling up faster than we can get them completed. My helper is busy and I have been doing a lot more general keep up so I have not made any movement on any project. We have been processing fruit nonstop. The tall upright freezer is full of six types of fruit. Annmarie has canned plum syrup and jam. We want to make apricot butter and maybe some pear butter also. We are still having to pick tame blackberries every four days and are getting at least 20 cups every time. I am waiting till the season is over to tally up the amount of blackberries that were harvested this year, it is a lot! We are still seeing a lot of bunny rabbits!
We are going to be moving our sheep back over to Hermiston the first week of October. They will be able to hang out for two months eating green grass and then come back just in time to start having lambs. We will take the lambs and cull ewes to sale as soon as they come off the green grass. They will have the most weight and best conditioning then. I have no idea what the sale price will be. I heard this week that feeder calves (500-600#) sold at the LaGrande auction for $4.25/# live weight! That is a crazy high price. We already have all seven of our yearlings sold for $4.25/# hanging weight and are going to stick with that price. Beef prices are going to leap up in the next 3-4 months.
We have started to process our nectarines. I did not think there were very many on the tree. There is probably 100#. I have been selectively picking them half a box at a time. Taking just the ripe ones off the tree. The golden plums are starting to come on and there is a solid 100-200# on the tree and the Italian plums have at least 100#. We have started to just pick fruit and take it into the hospital. There is a communal produce table where you can donate garden produce to other staff, free shopping. It is quite nice and most stuff disappears in 1-2 days so it does not go to waste.
I spent a day weed eating the yard and garden. The Gingerman helped me string wire up into the top gap in the side gate so the Border Collie could not jump through it. It seems to be working so we will be letting the sheep onto the front hillside to knock it down. It is starting to get out of control.
We did manage to get a single piece of oak plywood down on the saw horses and the saw rest assembled. I need to get a new blade for the skilsaw before I cut the cabinet pieces. I need to get that cabinet done.
I did take a couple of hours and cut all of the dead branches out of the nectarine tree. I will be cutting all of the fruit trees this winter. They need shortened, thinned and shaped. It cannot wait any longer.
I really need to get the sand and bricks installed in the gazebo but I have to repair the throttle cable on the compactor again. The thing vibrates and cuts the sheath. Once that is done the greenhouse is next. It is all a work in progress. The parts came this week to fix the little John Deere tractor so that will need to be done this weekend so I can dig out the barn.
On top of all of that and our daughter just had her first baby today and we are now grandparents. So we have been moving things around and setting up an area for the baby as the kids come down and see us almost every weekend. Both the baby and mother are doing well.
Within the next month I will need to hay again! I will be cutting a neighbor’s field that he was been watering since the first cutting. It is going to be a loaded fall season.
On Tuesday I did a walk around the house with the contractor. He wanted to return the overhead lift so he spent a couple of days finishing up the caulking on the upper part of the house. It is looking good. They just have to fix a corner of the front gutters, replace a screen in a window and finish caulking the lower part of the house. They got the yard all cleaned up and we are going to start putting some water on it to cut down on all of the dry weeds the dogs keep bringing into the house.
Mr Rainman came out to mow the fields and has missed coyotes two mornings in a row. Gingerman and I went out Thursday evening and Friday morning and did not see a single coyote. So maybe he managed to scare it off, no body, no credit.
On Wednesday, we had another big event, the dreaded lightning strike fire. We had a storm pass over Pilot Rock and lightning started four fires in a very short amount of time. A couple of the fires got controlled fairly quickly but the wind picked up and started to really spread the flames. The lightning continued to start more fires as it moved. Our area ended up with several big fires. Four days later and there is a state disaster team, agencies and assets from all over the state fighting fires around us. Highway 395 is closed down 39 miles outside of town and we are surrounded by smoke. The fires are continuing to grow. Luckily for us the fire never jumped the highway before town so we were safe and the wheat crop next to the houses is intact and ready to be harvested, not everyone was as lucky. I spent a couple of hours driving around looking for our Border Collie, Chance. She got out of the yard during the storm. She came back to the house as I was headed down the driveway. Annmarie called me to let me know she just showed up at the front gate ready to be let inside the yard. Milo is doing great, he is going to the vet to get neutered next week. He doesn’t know it yet.
Well I am officially out of the boot and able to bear weight on my healing foot as long as I wear a stiff soled shoe. I heard this on Monday so I started walking around with the boot as I did not have any shoes for the right broken foot. It hurt, pins and needles and stinging when I bore weight on it. After only six weeks no weight bearing I expected to just jump right back into the hard manual labor and, per the wife, I did not listen again. I didn’t want to listen, I don’t want to rehab, I don’t want to take it easy! But after having to sleep 10-12 hours each night after bearing weight I would say it is a lot harder than I expected. First thing in the morning when I put my foot down the whole thing has pins and needles. I am walking with a slight limp that progresses if I push it too much. So I am trying to take it easy for me.
Mr Rainman came out on Saturday and we went out and wormed the sheep. Most of the sheep look great but some of the ewes are pretty skinny so we worm when that happens especially since they are out and about on the farm. I was able to use the drencher device and it is so much faster than filling syringes. It still took us a couple of hours to go through the herd. He jumped in with the sheep in the chute and held them so I could dose them. You always get your feet stepped on when you are in the chute and I do not need that yet. One ewe had an abscess on her chin that I lanced. They get them from the cheat grass. We have been mowing and spraying the cheat grass but this year it is winning. We are planning on spraying Rejuvra on the fields this fall to help us control the cheat grass. This time in the barn pointed out that we still need to dig out the barn and the chicken coop. They are on the list. Mr Rainman wants to put the heavy panels in the hay room so he doesn’t have to carry them as far. Normally we take them outside the barn. This is a valid strategy he employed today to get the barn opened up today so he is ready to start digging it out with the manure forks on the John Deere 2520 tractor. The smaller tractor is the only one that will fit into the barn.
The plan was to hook up the small sickle bar mower to the John Deere tractor but Mr Rainman had to move equipment around in the machine shed first. I put away my auction winnings that the progeny, Gingerman and I picked up on Friday. The tools were brand new and looked unused, I should have bid on more tools. I did not win the large toolbox I wanted. I am looking to create a metric toolbox and a standard so that I can easily find the correct tool. I am filling up the big tool box and cannot fit any more open end wrenches or sockets in it. We wrestled the mower onto the tractor then spent an hour getting it greased up and the teeth oiled. I needed to mow the orchard and for it to be feasible we needed the smaller tractor and the smaller sickle bar. This was not the offending sickle bar that I broke my foot on. Except we were not sure that this sickle bar was in working condition. After doing everything possible to make it work I cut the orchard with it. It was brutal as the grass was too high. I also managed to hit one of the metal horse panels encircling a tree. Luckily, the mower belts started to slip and I quickly turned off the pto, usually I pop off a bar tooth when this happens. I was able to pry it off and get back to cutting. The plan was to just pick up the downed grass and toss it over the fence for the animals. The sheep and eater cows can get to it.
After all that I was whooped and needed a shower and some rest. I took a nap!
On Sunday, I cleaned house and moved upstairs back into our bedroom. I have been sleeping downstairs so I did not have to try and maneuver the stairs with a bum foot. So the puppy and I are now back in the master bedroom. Things are starting to get back to normal.
The progeny badgered me this week to get back in the groove and update the blog. It has been crazy around here and during Lent, Annmarie is super busy so I pick up farm work. We have both gotten sick. Luckily, we are super careful to keep quarantine protocols in place so if one of us starts getting sick we make sure to not be sick at the same time. I did get a bunch of little things knocked out. I had purchased a carved wooden chest several years ago and I took five hours to scrub at it with Murphy wood soap, blue non scratch pad, two different stiff small brushes, sponge and lots of towels. I just drenched sections of the carving in soapy water and started scrubbing away at it to get the dirt and grime off. I probably need another five hours to really get it clean but the time I spent got all of the obvious stuff and brought out a lot of details. I also soaked it in lemon oil. I had so much oil on it that I had to go back in an hour and dry it off again. It is fairly painstaking work but it did turn out nice.
Annmarie has the alpaca literally eating out of her hand now. She keeps treats in her trunk and feeds the alpaca randomly when she comes home. They all know not to bug her when she goes out to her car as they never get fed then. Since it’s random she is able to call them and they come running for treats! She has the three young siblings tamed down the most. The little brown one just lets her pet it all over. I can pet it’s neck and cheeks only. The plan is to shear the alpaca sooner than later. Which reminds me, I need to send off the blades to be sharpened! I will do that this week.
I started looking at Craigslist again. I had a friend who used to watch it all the time for me and let me know when something popped up that I may want. He is no more and I have not done much with it since. It’s a good way to see what people are asking for their livestock and to see if there are any deals that I may be interested in. I happened to spot someone selling Tamarack 50” wooden fence stays and was able to go out the next day and pick up 300. Between the great used fence and these stays I managed to pick up this winter I am almost set for fence building. I have seen an add for used metal T posts but I cannot use my tractor to drive in the used posts. They bend about 50% of the time so I have to waste too much to make it worth it. I simply do not want to drive 500 T posts into the ground by hand. I am too old for that. Plus, I don’t want to spend a week driving posts in the ground, as if my body would tolerate that!
I had purchased these plastic stackable bins for Annmarie’s office to hold her laser wooden sheets but they turned out to be too narrow to hold very much wood. Annmarie had talked to me about building something or else using a bunch of table tops and short legs from IKEA to make it. I didn’t do either one but after time I realized she was right. I also realized that I was stacking up extra plywood as the mud room build continued. So Mr Rainman and I spent a few hours and made her a shelf that was specific to her needs and could store boards flat. It is fairly heavy as it is made out of plywood and real wood. I don’t think it would have been fun to move if we had added another 4-5 shelves. Luckily, she needs a spot for the printer and laminator.
The sheep are making us crazy. We have three more ewes that need to give birth. We have one set of twins in a jug now that are only three days old. The damn chickens are laying eggs in the barn in random spots. I have two raccoons that are making rounds through the barn at night. I had a late Wednesday and didn’t go out to the barn until after 2000. I spotted two huge raccoons and instantly turned around to get a pistol, by the time I got back there was only one and it was fast! They are sneaking in and eating the cat food. The weather should be warming up soon and I can cut back on feeding all of the animals as the grass will start growing. It rained 3/100 today and 1/100 yesterday. My hope is we can get warmer temperatures and some constant rainfall in low doses. I don’t like it when we get more than 1/4” at a time. It doesn’t all get absorbed into the ground. The puppy is finally out of the cone of shame. We had to go through three cones and 3/4 roll of duct tape to keep them on her. Her foot finally healed once she quit licking it all of the time.
We will be sorting cows and sheep next week and fertilizing fields. Spring is soon to be here.
Stewart Creek Somethings 