farm life

Sheep roundup

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I had every intention of waiting to go get the sheep until this weekend when the Gingerman could help me but I got an offer I could not refuse on Sunday. The gentleman who had arranged for us to take our sheep over to Hermiston offered to come help me load up the sheep on Monday and then we could load up all of the animals going to the auction in his trailer and he would take them to the auction the very next day. They could spend the night at his house in a pen before going to auction. I had so many sheep for sale with all of the cull ewes that I was going to have to make two trips because they would not all fit into my trailer.

I went into work very early so I could leave, drive home, change clothes, load up all of the aluminum panels into the back of the old pickup and hitch up the stock trailer to drive to Hermiston. I beat him there and was able to gather the lambs and cull ewes into the main field from the neighbors. I got there just after noon. This is important because the sun goes down around 1630. The plan was simple to begin with, just put the panels together to create a wide chute and as the sheep go into it just pull the panel side around them into a circle so that they can be forced into the large stock trailer. It took about 2.5 hours to get those 77 sheep into the trailer! It was so painful. We bent two panels and tore the hinges off of one of those two. I need to look at the slatted steel short panels. The sheep just push when there are almost 80 and they can create a lot of force.

They just would not go into the trailer then when they did they clogged up the first eight feet only and then you had to get into the back of the trailer and battle them to get them to scoot forward. My poor hat took a lot of abuse as I was using it as a prompt to get the sheep to move forward. It sort of worked for this but not well. Three time we had to crawl up into the trailer and literally force them forward an inch at a time! It was brutally tiring. We decided early on that the eaters that were going home with me could just be pulled from the trailer after they were loaded! There was no way we were going to get them sorted out in the field.

We now needed to get the ewes from a neighboring field. The plan was to open the gate, in the middle of the fence, and chase them out into the driveway. We would then push them down to the temporary corral we had made, close it up and then drive them into our trailer. This sounds reasonable until or unless you have ever worked hair sheep with a dog. The pregnant sheep are not cooperative, how not, they would charge the dog! They just did not give a shit and would not do it. They got chased around for almost an hour before we finally got them out into the driveway and it was fairly easy to push them down to the corral. The ewes are a lot more likely to load up into the trailer easily. They know it is not necessarily and evil place. Once they were in our trailer we snagged seven eaters from Wil’s trailer and drug them over to ours.

I took the picture after I got home in the dark! I was able to back up to the chute and then open the gates. I expected the sheep to just run out but of course they did not do that. They could not see so they were not going to leave the trailer. I guess I could have just left the trailer backed up to the chute and they would have left eventually. I did not do that, instead I crawled into the stock trailer and started to toss sheep at the ramp to get them to go out into the barn lot. It took my about ten minutes to get them unloaded and all of the gates shut. The barn was ready so all I had to do was get them into the barn lot.

He ended up taking 70 animals to the sale for us on Tuesday. The cull ewes sold for $110/ea, the female lambs $120/ea and the whethers $140/ea. By the time we paid all of the fees we made almost $8k on the auction animals. I will be using some of that money to replace the panels we broke and to explore getting some steel ones to use for sorting purposes. All in all it was well worth the long day!

Still doing Fall catchup

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last weekend Mr Rainman came out to help for the weekend. The plan was to knock out the Lavender and get it all trimmed and weeded so it was all ready for spring. Fortunately or unfortunately, however you view it Saturday was a burn day! We have been trying to burn the pile for the last two months but we keep missing the burn days. So we got the pile of cardboard from the old house, the mud room and the pickup and then proceeded to light the pile on fire. It took off straight away so we decided to go down the driveway and start pitchforking the tumbleweeds over the fence and stuff them in the back of the pickup to be tossed on the burn pile. My Mother-in-law came out and said she had a bunch of stuff for the burn pile so we piled that on then noticed that the apple tree broken branch had been cut out by one of the nephews so we piled that onto the burn pile and kept one branch to start the new burn pile behind the grain bins out of sight of both houses.

We kept forking weeds over the fence until the wind was blowing so hard that we had to hold them on the fire with a pitchfork so they didn’t just blow away before they could catch on fire. We were losing weeds and figured that it was a waste of time to just keep going.

Annmarie has been cutting stuff out of cow hide for the progeny’s wedding on the laser. It smells like charred leather so I offered to hang them out in the old house. This way they can air out and start to smell good. It worked amazingly well! Nothing the smell of dirt and old wood cannot fix.

My car battery died because I left the dome light on. I let it sit around for a week before I put the ancient charger on it. Mind you when I put the charger on it you could turn the key and get the radio and dash lights. After 12 hours on the charger the battery was totally dead, nothing worked. I tossed the ancient broken charger into the trash can. Mr Rainman offered to come out during the week and install a new battery. I had been driving the gas guzzling pickup for over a week and had already filled the tank twice. I looked at the battery compartment and was dreading the attempt to install it. He had it changed out in no time and it works like a champ again.

The bathroom deadline is approaching quickly so I have been working on getting it completed. We shimmed out the wall on the inside of the door so it is ready for trim. The entire inside of the bathroom is ready for trim. I need to get the Sheetrock repairs completed so that I can put primer on the wall and get it painted. There is a lot of height difference in some places so I am going to have to build it out with the mud to make it look right. I am not the best sheetrock person but I can muddle through.

On Sunday it was supposed to rain so after feeding the cows and getting the barn ready for the momma sheep we went out to the lavender patch to trim it up. We had intentions of keeping nice individual plants. In places it is growing into a single row and we are going to let it. While Mr Rainman cut the lavender I worked on pulling weeds next to the yard and in the next walkway. The weeds were the worst in those two rows. In the spring after we spray the grass we are going to have to use some kind of growth inhibitor to keep the grass from invading again. We even spotted a few honey bees on the lavender despite the wind blowing pretty hard.

Predators 13/ Farm 8

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I did get the hand towel and wash cloth hooks hung in the bathroom. I had plans to go pickup sheetrock on Saturday but it was raining. I did try to get oak boards on Friday but they did not have any and the store I would have normally gone to was closed on Friday for the holiday.

Honestly, this is a stupid problem to have. After breakfast, I was relaxing in the living room, our daughter was feeding the baby and next thing I know the Gingerman is scrambling for the door. He grabs the 30-30 on the way out the front door and runs to the end of the front porch and shoots once out into the ram pasture next to the house. I am looking out the window but I cannot see a coyote. He leaps over the railing and then scrambles around in the snow. He gets one more shot off in the yard then almost falls trying to get through the gate into the ram pasture. I see him line up for a third shot and pull the trigger, click no boom! There were only two cartridges loaded in the rifle. I had not checked it recently. He had ran out into the snow in only his socks in an attempt to kill the coyote. He did not kill it and it had another chicken in its mouth! I am going to count chickens again tomorrow after work but at this rate I was already going to give the neighbor four chickens, I may have to to give him 12 and some chicken food just so we get some eggs through the winter. At this rate I won’t last two more weeks before they have killed every chicken. This is a stupid problem.

Sunday the Gingerman helped me pull down all of the Christmas decorations. We pulled it all down so the wife can sort and organize her village setup. Half of the boxes are for the village setup. But while we were in the attic the Gingerman points out that the side window would make a great sniper location for offing the coyotes. So we have removed the screen from the window and laid out a rifle. So now instead of bursting outside and the coyote seeing you coming we can just run to the attic, pop open the window and bingo, next chicken killer is out of commission. The real problem is that the Gingerman took a walk up to the CRP while the fresh snow was still present. The entire fence line looked like a coyote highway. He thinks there are multiple coyotes living up in the CRP. So it is not going to be a one and done kind of endeavor.

I had purchased some cedar oil a few months ago and had plans for rubbing it on our walk in closet walls and ceiling. That plan did not materialize and the full container has been sitting on a shelf in said closet for a few months. Annmarie went to grab a skirt and noticed some moth damage! Needless to say, I spent most of Sunday cleaning the closet, polishing the shelves and putting oil on the walls and ceiling. We also threw out the trash, junk and clothes that do not fit. By the time we were done there was quite a bit of closet rod visible. The instructions said to use the stuff sparingly and it is not a very big container. I probably only used about 20% of the small can, a little truly does go a long ways. We are keeping the door shut for a while so the smell does not overwhelm the bedroom. It smells like it did when I installed the cedar 20 years ago.

Annmarie made some bee food and I took it out today. I listened at the box and could not hear any bees, I also could not see any bees. I popped the feeder lid off, we have an extra box on top that houses two 1/2 gallon feeders that they can come up into from inside the hive. I had to pop the lid off and there were no bees. In their defense there was no food either, they had emptied both feeders. I did knock on the box once also. By the time I got done changing out both feeders I could see the bees around the outside entrance. They were kinda milling around without any real purpose. I even saw one fly for a couple of feet before going back to the hive.

I waited until Monday to finish the post. Annmarie had a great idea today, she said we should move the two angry brown alpacas to the field with the chickens! The alpaca do not like dogs and will cause a ruckus and try and chase them away. So now we have the two meanest alpaca we own in the same pasture as the chickens. I even put out a couple of bales in the middle of the ram pasture so the alpaca would spot any coyotes coming. I also counted hens once it got dark and there are still 17 hens and three roosters alive and well in the chicken coop. So I am still going to let the chickens free range for a while. I will need to lose a couple more before I lock them up. They will consume more food and they will need water that is not solid. This means more work for me and I am not willing to do more unless it is really necessary.

Predators 12/ Farm 8

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It was a sad day in Chickenville, many residents perished when the great big doglike predator decided to visit yesterday. Annmarie went outside with the grandbaby ready to depart the farm and spotted a coyote right next to the barn with a chicken in its mouth! She grabbed the wrong rifle and had a hard time getting a focus through the scope, they are all set for me. In the end she did not get a shot off. We have since decided that she can just grab the 30-30, it has open sights and from the house she can hit anything she can see with it.

She ended up walking the road up along all of our bottom pasture looking for the offender and spotted it ducking into the creek bed down near field #4. Again no shooting commenced, she does not believe that random fire in the last known location is an effective dissuasion. We differ on this belief but I was not the one out walking the field, I was in town shopping.

On a plus note the spring up in field #2 is putting water out again. It had dried up late summer.

When she came back and searched all around the barn all she could find was one lone hen and multiple different feather piles. There were no other hens near the barn. Annmarie was sure that the coyote had killed a rooster which is good as I have an extra. I could not count the chickens until after dark. They all need to go into the coop and settle down for me to get an accurate count. We do in fact still have three roosters, (they are hard to kill and are usually the last to succumb to the predators) and now only have 17 hens! This means we have lost 10 hens to the predators in recent days. I was pretty sure the count should be 25-27 hens. I had to look back three months on the chicken spreadsheet to find the last hen count.

Once again the predators are winning. It is a rare year that the farm comes out on top. We almost did it this year. When I was getting rocks last week I noticed a coyote dig under the fence into the wheat field. I am going to have to set out a trap again in very specific locations where they are crawling under the fence.

We had a bird hunter come out today and we asked that he watch for coyotes. He ended up shooting one coyote but no pheasants! Good for us, bad for him.

Sunchokes for the win

Steve HardinLeave a comment

On Sunday Mr Rainman came out again. We are now starting at 0900 so it is a little warmer when we are working. It was quite pleasant, I was able to work with just a long sleeve shirt and a wool cap on my head. There were still a few get ready for winter items to clear up before we could work on the garden and lavender. The plan on Saturday afternoon was to work on the lavender. It needs trimmed up again. But the longer I worked on the berm the more time I had time to think and prioritize. So we went out to the barn first thing and finished setting up all of the chutes and feeders. They were still outside and in the hay rooms from when it was dug out. There are no sheep on the property but we will have to bring them back in three weeks and then they will need to be sorted so I can take some to the livestock auction. We also tossed out food into all of the feeders and then tossed out bedding. The barn is all ready for the sheep. There are a couple of overhead lights that do not work, the ones in the hay rooms being the most needed. The damn raccoons have torn some of the wires out by crawling up and down the walls. I need to put in more zip ties and anchors that I screw into the walls so the wires cannot be pulled. I am not running conduit for those 12v wires. I will add that to my list but honestly it will not happen until I get the raspberries, blackberries and trees all trimmed up. I need about another month for all the leaves to finish falling off of everything before I can do the trimming.

We then filled the feeders for the pregnant cows and the two feeders for the feeder cows down below. We used all of the round bales from the second cutting at the neighbor’s. There were still a couple of moist ones but there was no mold and none of the bales were warm/hot. We managed to get the truly wet ones fed out immediately and the cows just ate them. So in a couple of weeks I will have to actually feed out some of the large bales of hay we purchased. I am super happy that we are not having to touch the purchased hay until mid December. That bodes well for maybe not having to purchase any hay next year for winter.

We now Winter is near when the quail start moving down towards the houses. We feed them during the winter and there are more buildings/shelter down near the houses for them to wait out the bad storms. So there is a large covey hanging around that we see every day. They are super noisy! You can always hear them usually before you can see them.

Once we had all of that done we had to see how our Sunchokes did. I planted them for the first time this summer. I planted about 30 small tubers. The plants got almost twelve feet tall and the sunflower bloomed very late. It was the very last flower we had available for the bees. I am not sure if it was due to the time I planted the tubers or if they are naturally late bloomers. I am unsure but we will know next year. Mr Rainman and I started to dig up the tubers after cutting off the dead stalks. I had read that you needed to be careful with sunchokes as they can turn into a weed and can be very invasive. Wow! We dug up almost 80# of tubers from a single 15 feet row of tubers. I planted one tuber about every six inches initially. It was crazy! We just kept pulling them out of the ground. There was no way we got all of them when we were digging despite going over the area several times. All of the wield small or shovel cut tubers ended up being the ones we replanted into the same row. I sent a three gallon bucket home with Mr Rainman and we put the rest in the root cellar. I did plant a row in the yard near the newly installed side fence. I want to plant a six by six foot patch on the other side of the fence gate but I was running out of steam. I will do that in the spring. I will need to put in a couple of posts and some wire to hold up the tall stalks so they don’t fall onto the house. Annmarie and I have not eaten any of the Sunchokes yet. The plan is this next week to peel and boil a batch and see how they taste. If we like them then we will probably plant some more. I have read online where people mix them in with potatoes to add texture and a nutty flavor to their mashed potatoes.

Once Mr Rainman left I took the Kubota tractor out to work on the culvert crossing in field #4b. The spring ditch is so deep now that you can no longer drive a tractor across it. The back half of the culvert was torn out in the last flood. The reason it got torn out was I did not install a rock wall face on that side. It was one of those things I was going to come back and finish later. The side that had the rock face survived the flood but the other side did not. It took a lot more dirt than I thought it would to get the back half built up. I did bring in two loads of very large rocks to place near the culvert. I need about eight more loads to complete that entire side but my chest was not going to allow it. The nice thing about the weekend was it was the first one in ages where I was able to work the entire weekend without stopping early to rest. Things are improving.