farm life

Hawk ears

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It happens every year, we have our first bummer. The weird part is it’s almost always caused by humans. When we first started having sheep they would go down near the front spring and have babies and the babies would get wet and cold or drown. Annmarie convinced me to start locking them up at night in the barn by making me get up at 0300 many times in the dead of winter to search for a mewling baby lamb. This is not fun and became good incentive to get the barn redone. Every year the sheep find a way to become bummers that we had not anticipated. Today is a prime example. We had two more sets of twins born in the barn last night. I was sent out to the barn early as Mrs Hawk Ears (aka Annmarie) could hear a new baby that was in distress. Now she heard this through a barely opened bedroom window on the second story of our house through the great big tree and through the walls of the barn which is 60 yards away. Her students wonder how she can hear them whispering in the back of the classroom, the woman has better hearing than anyone I have ever encountered!

When I got to the barn I could hear the baby also and it was in distress, so I did not feed the meowing kitten or the whining horses and instead opted to go right into the barn. Going into the barn is still a risky business as I am not using the dogs. The ram and I have come to a mutual hate agreement. I carry a big stick and he stays away from me. Neither one of us trusts the other to keep his word. So I was searching for the baby and trying to keep the ram in sight. I spotted one momma and one baby but could not see the complainer. I could hear it loud and clear. I moved the sheep away from the newly installed wall feeders and saw four little feet under the feeder. The little bugger must have laid down close to the feeder and rolled under then stood up. Once upright she could not figure out how to get out. The real problem is this normally happens during the birth process so the mother doesn’t bond with the newborn lamb. There was no sorting off the momma and baby with everyone in the barn so I went and opened the outer door to let them out of the barn.

The ram followed me to the door and got within four feet of me but never tried to ram me. I had the pitchfork handle in my hand the whole time. I keep trying to use the old pitchfork heads I find laying around and they fall out of the new handles all the time so now I have a $15 club. I got about 2/3 of the herd out when I decided I had better shut the outer momma pasture gate until I had checked in the barn. I didn’t want the new momma getting out because then I have to go get the dogs and run everyone in again and sort them all over, a process that would add an hour to my outside chores. This endeavor would not disappoint either border collie as they would get to move the sheep.

I headed back into the barn and lo and behold there were two mommas and four babies! The little buggers can really hide amongst the sheep. Normally, we would just keep walking through the herd until we spotted them all but the ram is preventing us from our usual routine. Luckily with no pressure most of the mommas will hang back with their babies. So I shut up the barn and watched them, the little complainer got pushed away by both ewes. This is not a good sign but I figured if I could stick all four babies and both mommas into the smaller momma area maybe the one would change her mind. I went down to the spring and got a large bucket of water as I was going to trap them in the barn instead of allowing them free access to the spring. I had the baby area all ready and had to lure the mommas in by catching the babies and holding them out and walking to the baby area. It works even better when the lambs cry out loud for mom. I even rubbed the twin to the complainer all over the complainer hoping the scent would rub off. No go, Annmarie came out to check on me while I was watching the complainer and we just opted to call it a bummer. So she carried it to the house in her church clothes holding it out away from her body to keep her clean. I finished the morning chores and came inside. Annmarie feeds the babies way better than I do, so she offered to stay home. I sent her on her way and mixed up a bottle. We keep formula mix in the freezer for just this occasion. The lamb hollered loudly and continuously until I fed it. I then went upstairs and got our small dog kennel and turned on the gas stove so the baby could get warm. She fell asleep after the first feeding. One more time she woke up hollering and slurped down another few ounces of formula. She is a good eater, actually head butted my shoulder until she got more milk and had her fill. We have a wonderful lady who comes and takes all of our bummer lambs. We give them to her free of charge so that they can have a good chance. She has about a 50% survival rate over the years. Sometimes they are just too small. Although with this new ram that has not been a problem. His babies are gorgeous and healthy which is only reason we are putting up with him for another 3 months. I want him to impregnate all the ewes so we can have another set of his offspring. Once that is done he will be sausage. It’s just not safe to go out into the barn with him. We also don’t believe in selling our problems to other people. It’s not fair to them and most people won’t believe you when you say he is mean. Because he was tame first he has no fear of humans which makes him even more dangerous than normal as he is not skittish or unpredictable, just mean.

Here is a prime example of his behavior. Today, once I shut the gate and trapped in the last 1/3 of the ewes to check on the baby he hung around the gate waiting for them to come out. I leaned my pole up against the fence right next to the gate. I opened the gate to let the last of the ewes out and our super friendly brown ewe slipped back inside and the ram followed her. I switched sides of the gate I was standing on so I had the gate between us. All the ewes ran out and he saunters over to the gate and spots my handle leaning up against the fence. He stopped and head butted the handle multiple times until he had knocked it down on the ground and then tried to prance through the gate opening. I smacked him a good one with the gate! He is not afraid of me only of the stick. He did run off after getting blindsided by the gate.

He is not safe to be around and we have people who would like to come out and see the babies. So we will have to let them into the baby area from the outside so they can avoid him. Ideally, they would be able to just wander through the herd in the barn as everyone mills around but that won’t happen this winter.

I wanted to paint

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This morning as we consumed breakfast, me fried potatoes, onions, Italian sausage covered in cheese with hot sauce over it all while Annmarie ate a homemade smoothie with Greek yogurt, frozen and fresh berries (consistency trick), and a raw farm egg with a single slice of toasted bread, Annmarie mentioned that I should go outside and fence. She specifically wants me to fix the lower fence on our back hillside so we can use the ram pasture. I had only had one cup of coffee and the prospect of going out and battling fence did not sound fun. I used the fact that the fence repair would take me about 25 hours and the weather was most likely going to change before I could get it finished. I instead voted on painting the stairwell. I still need to get the upper stairwell painted the chocolate brown. I continued to nurse my coffee while Annmarie went out to feed the horses, cats and check on the sheep and let them out of the barn. Before I knew it she was back inside telling me I needed to come help as we had new babies and she could not get the mother and babies separated from the herd.

This problem could be fixed if we would just finish off the ram and make summer sausage out of him. He is not safe, Annmarie cannot get in the same area with him as he tries to run her over. So I went out and we moved the sheep around and managed to start letting a few out of the gate at a time. This resulted in the ram being on the same side of the fence as me and nearby. One time he thought about ramming me but decided not to, I kept turning my back on him and Annmarie kept an eye on him while I kept an eye on the momma ewe so we did not accidentally let her out. So as we are sorting the sheep all run down to the creek. There is a dead end that ends in a “V” shape. The sheep were literally squirting under and through the fence. It looked more like a strainer than a fence. Just prior to this Annmarie was grabbing loose strands of wire from the same fence and telling me it needed to be fixed. I blamed the horses as they are the ones who push down the top wire. After we got the momma and twins sorted off (little twin boys, very cute) I capitulated to the fencing needs and told Annmarie I would fix it.

I tightened the fence from both ends, I cut out the lousy metal twist on stays that I put in place years ago when I thought they would work. The horses bend them when they lean on the fence, so do the cows. I now only use tamarack wooden stays, they last a long time and the animals cannot bend them or spread the wires apart. I also fixed the little bridge, placed it on some rocks and cleaned out the creek through this section. Since the sheep know there is a weakness in the fence they will keep testing the fence in this spot. It looked great when I was done but I was afraid with continual pressure they would be able to loosen it up again. So I put in a used 16 foot cow panel and wired it in place, now the sheep cannot get through. I also used a five foot chunk of cow panel to close off the last four feet of the “V” shaped dead end. This way the animals cannot pressure their way out of the fence like cheese whiz coming out of a can. I had to replace a large amount of fence clips as they had been knocked loose from the force of animals hitting the fence. All of this took me a measly five hours.

I had also told Annmarie I would clean up the front hillside from the leftover summer fencing mess. She wanted me to remove it totally. I guaranteed it would be picked up and placed in a neat pile so that I could return later and remove it. This still took me another hour to get it all contained and straightened out.

We are having issue with the feet on one of the horses again. Its the same one that had white line disease and we spent 6 months getting better. The farrier says she has it again and the vet is coming out next week. The area behind the barn is very muddy. I put the straw from the barn there in an attempt to create some soil so I can get grass to grow. Today I made a bare patch down to the ground in an attempt to get the horses out of the much when they go down for water. What I really need to do is dig another channel next to the barn a couple of feet deep and fill it all with gravel and make it go to the front creek so the water runoff won’t sit next to the barn. Maybe I can get that done next year. Every year we try and improve the water runoff in the barn lot.

Today while I was working on the fence my fence stay guy called! I had paid for 500 stays early this summer and had only picked up 200, he wanted me to come pick up the rest. I did this as soon as I finished puttering around with the tractor. The bad part about this is I discovered an antifreeze coolant leak in the pickup. I think it is coming off of the radiator but I cannot see the leak only the results. Its not horrible yet but as soon as my car gets out of the body shop. The pickup needs to go to the shop. Tonight just before dinner Annmarie tried to toast some pumpkin seeds in the oven. I had made homemade pumpkin soup last night and cleaned all the seeds so she could roast them. They started popping in the oven! They were splitting open and bouncing all over the oven. We had to keep the door closed as the oven cooled down so we did not end up with seeds every where. Once we tried again after dinner they did just fine, they must of had quite a bit of moisture trapped inside of them. They still taste very good.

Guests are coming

Steve Hardin1 Comment

It has been one of those weeks, long and stressful. Luckily, the farm has not been cooperating either so it helps break up the daily stress. We have been feeding the kenneled cats out in the barn but it appears that something is eating their food through the bars of their cages. We suspect a raccoon but don’t have any proof. I am going to have to set up the game cam to see if we can capture something. The cats really don’t care for humans, the single one today hissed and growled at me as I gave it water and food. I am hoping it will beat up on whatever is damaging our barn kitty. He is back to hobbling around on three legs and it looks like something bit his front left paw.

Annmarie printed a knob for our gate latch last week and I got it epoxied onto the handle. Now you don’t have to reach over the gate to unlatch the gate. Yes, I know I need to take the chisel and make my chewed up area look neat, but I have not done that and its too cold to put stain on the fence now. I also figured I could adjust the gate just by tightening and loosening the gate tension wire. Its super easy and fast, not sure why I didn’t do it before.

Wednesday I went out and did morning chores. Now this is not a normal occurrence, our new deal is I don’t leave for work until I have showered, pottied the dogs and fed them breakfast. I do all this so that Annmarie can do her Yoga in the morning. Every morning Gizmo comes down and does stretches next to Annmarie while she does Yoga, it is very cute. I keep trying to figure out how to get a picture that will be allowed to be posted on the blog. But so far I have not managed to capture one for public consumption. But we just had Hughes Net install satellite internet on Monday afternoon and Annmarie was on the phone with the help desk trying to get it to work right. She has spent about 4 hours this week on the phone getting it programmed right so that it actually works. So anyways, I volunteered to do the morning chores before heading to work. It had rained the previous night and I didn’t bother with mud boots. I just planned on giving the horses some food and letting the sheep out of the barn. I ended up having to feed and water the cats after feeding the horses. I was just about ready to go around and open the door to the barn for the sheep when I heard that sound, the bleet of a baby sheep! I scanned the barn and found a set of newborn twins. So I slowly walked into the barn, hoping the ram would not take offense, and pushed the sheep toward the door without upsetting momma enough to cause her to leave also. Luckily, I was able to single her and the babies out. I figured I might as well feed for that night since I was already out there working. Annmarie finally came out I was taking so long! The babies are solid black. We don’t have any solid black ewes yet and today we checked and they are both girls. My shoes were covered in sheep and mud leavings. I had to go change my shoes before heading to work.

Here is a picture of our safe. We do not know the combination and we want to be able to get into the safe with a combination. It is a four tumbler design with a wheel that goes to 99 so basically 10,000 possibilities. I am offering $100 for the person that gets it. I am sure I will have droves of offers. No damaging the safe during entry, straight combination only.

Today we went to town to get Thanksgiving groceries. We are having prime rib and fixings. The first store only had boneless prime rib. This deprives you of a whole second meal! It can be barbecued ribs or an amazing soup but it is always better the second time around. So we went to Safeway and had them cut us a 10# bone in prime rib, for the seven of us eating. I think it will be just enough meat. We do a salt casket bake and I will start doing a dry rub on the meat starting tomorrow until D-Day.

I spent the morning putting a new kitchen table together. I hate assembly furniture but we wanted to try out a new arrangement and we like it. Its a two person table with storage. I now need to make a custom table based off of this design and we will buy a solid piece of granite for the top. Annmarie will be able to bake and roll out dough very easily on a solid piece of granite.

So when we got home Annmarie ran out to run the momma into the barn in her area then the sheep into the main barn. As I was unloading groceries in the house Annmarie came in to tell me that there were cows in the wheat field. This sucks, but the good news was they were not ours! So we had to go try and put them into the upper prime pasture until we could figure out who owned them. They would not cooperate. Annmarie was way out in the wheat field attempting to yell directions to me. Now this would work better if she had her cell phone, nope, or if the person she was talking to was not a little hard of hearing. To top it all off, I had the dogs and kept yelling directions to them and it was cold so I had a big warm fuzzy hat with ear flaps on covering up my ears. It was very hard to hear her. She wanted me to get in the pickup and drive around and she did not want the dogs. So I did this and then spotted her head lamp from the road and walked out into the wheat field. She hollered at me to stay put and she would walk out to me. When she arrived she stated the cows had gone into the upper weed patch and she had shut the gate. There was some animals scratching at a bush along the fence line and she didn’t want to walk past it with no dog and no weapon. I really need to burn off the upper weed patch. Hopefully, the cows will still be there in the morning. The fence is not intact all the way around that field. This chewed up about 90 minutes of our time. We had some leftovers while sitting at our new breakfast nook and I was working on the blog when Sarah called.

Sarah had hit a deer. Sarah is 21 years old. Sarah has totaled 4 vehicles now. In her defense this time a driver going the opposite direction hit a deer and threw it into her lane and she ran over it. The radiator is caved in about 6 inches, the timing belt is off and the frame is bent on the front. There is deer hair stuck under the vehicle the entire length of the undercarriage. We had tossed a chain into the back of the pickup and Annmarie towed the car while I drove it back to our house. I am very unsure if it is repairable. I will need to look at it in the daylight hours. It leaked all the radiator fluid out onto the road.

Babying the horses again

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Every once in a while we have to count the cows. I fed them a new bale on Friday. There are 13 cows in the picture. One is hiding behind the feeder and one is a baby hiding behind the bull. The cows think me starting the tractor up means meal time every time they hear it. This leads to a lot of disappointment. We will have two cows for sale in the spring if anyone wants to finish them off. We should have another 4 babies this winter, maybe 5.

The director from PAWS called us today. They had some reject cats for us. The only reason they are rejects are they don’t like people. This makes them very hard to adopt out to homes. We use two dog kennels and we feed and water the cats for a couple of weeks. Once they recognize us and that food and water come from us then we will let them out. We feed the cats every day when we feed the other animals so they can just live in the barn. There are lots of places to hide and to stay warm. The cats are all neutered so we don’t get kittens and the cats get to live life on their own terms. An added bonus is the cats control the mice in the barn so the hay does not get destroyed. Everyone comes out a winner, the cats, us and PAWS. We got three adult cats today. If you look closer at the picture you will see our other PAWS kitten on the steps, three cats in the kennels and look up at the barn door opening and you will see Mouse standing on the hay looking out!

The side barn area was muddy again. We have put gutters on the end of the barn, I have put in a drain line from the down spout to the front spring. I dug a small drain line over by the horse enclosure to catch the rain coming off the barn that was forming a mud puddle. That seems to be helping. What we really need is a long 80 foot trench running down the center of the back alleyway. This idea did not excite me but Annmarie had a hard time getting to the cats in her not mud boots. I started digging the trench today with a Polanski and a shovel. I was about 10 feet into it, down to my long sleeve shirt only, even had to remove my hat, it was too hot when I realized this decision was going to take me two days of back breaking labor. This concept tore at my soul and lower back. Suddenly, it dawned on me that this summer I had purchased a trenching device for my tractor! I had not had a chance to use it. I promptly gave up the shovel and jumped onto the tractor. Once I got the box blade off the back of the tractor I realized I needed three pins. I had to dig around the machine shop and came up with two and reused one from the box blade. I got the trencher on without too much difficulty. I just lined up over the area I wanted and drug that thing up and down the path. It doesn’t like to go through solid rock. There is a rock bluff just under the surface of the dirt about 6 inches down near the back of the barn for about four feet. I am sure this is why they built the barn here, a nice rock base. I still had to shovel the dirt clear but I had the whole thing done and filled with gravel in under three hours! Now to see if it works.

Gizmo has this perverse habit of watching anyone who is in the shower. I think he is afraid you might drown and he needs to save you. Who knows? He got a bath last weekend and the water was brown, he is a dirty dog. He has been sneaking out to the barn to play with the kitten, Soot (Annmarie named it this week).

Benevolent dictatorship

Steve Hardin3 Comments

Today was the day to pick up straw for the barn. We usually use 25-30 bales a year for the sheep and horses. I like to buy 60 bales at a time and just store them in the barn. The nice thing about straw is it just gets drier! Therefore it works better at absorbing moisture.

Unfortunately the new toy, hay elevator, is in the way. So I will need to move the old alfalfa out of the way, the grass hay to the other side of the room and then pile the straw into the previously occupied corner. A whole 60 bales equaling 2.5 tons of straw costing $150. I of course used my fancy 7500lb capacity trailer. It only had 5000lbs on it and it looks like it is crying every time I load it. I had to beat out the tire fender on the left side again. I keep hitting stuff with the trailer, maybe. I never feel the trailer hit anything. I think something is attacking my trailer with a hammer. I think its gremlins. I noticed a second new dent while the trailer was being loaded. I am seriously considering airbags or an extra spring leaf to stiffen the trailer. It’s on the list to do something about. Annmarie reminded me that I need to advertise the enclosed trailer so we will have the cash necessary for a used stock trailer. We want a decent one 10 feet long. I would like a stock trailer as they are sturdier than a horse trailer. The dogs and I had a discussion about our ruling style while we were feeding last night. I started out with the democratic process and told them we were going to the barn to work. They seemed super excited and came running. Then they did not want to stay in the hay area while I fed the horses. So we switched to a benevolent dictatorship model. This appeared to work until they got bored then they tried to sneak away. I finally put them in the sheep area to hold off the sheep so I could feed. I have not had to have a clubbing match with the ram yet this fall and am attempting to hold it off for the entire winter. The dogs are my solution to him wanting to be macho man all the time. I was in the hay room, the dogs were in the sheep area and the sheep started to come in. I cannot see anything but I hear much commotion and start hollering automatically at the dogs to stay still. When I came around the corner both dogs were laying down but Mouse had advanced another 10 feet closer to the sheep. We had to switch to a strict dictator model and I gave them both a severe lecture about the politics involved and why it was necessary. Usually, we operate on the benevolent dictator model and the dogs do fine.