Well it finally quit raining for a bit last week and I was able to get outside. Our bulbs we planted in the fall are finally starting to emerge. Now I just gotta work on keeping the grass down in the flower bed. We have not seen any honeybees out this spring so Annmarie has plans to open up the bee hive this weekend to see if they are still alive.
I was able to go out and fill the barn with food for the sheep and since I was out in the barn lot I decided to fix the new gate that the cows bent over. I ended up rolling the gate on one end about eight inches in an attempt to tighten it. The problem was once I did that I could not get the bottom of the gate to stretch into the bottom wire. So I ended up installing a second ratcheting tightener on the bottom also so that I can just tighten the bottom and top at the same time. I got the fence pretty tight but when I went to the middle and hit the top, like a cow, it bent over again. I ended up having to install some triangles to stiffen the fence. Now, the cows cannot just push it over and we can still open the gate if needed without too much difficulty.
I was able to use some Tried & True finish on the oak trim in the bathroom. I needed to finish the trim before I can install the rest of the crown molding that I had to take down to install the cabinet. I even found the correct crown molding, after my third attempt but then I could not find the correct white nails so I had to order some more. Hopefully, I can install the crown molding this weekend.
Annmarie has decided that since I have had pneumonia twice this last winter that I need to workout to stay in shape. My version of working out and hers are not identical. I want something productive to come out of physical exertion. So now as long as it is not raining I am changing clothes when I get home and going out to work on the rock wall. I need to redo about 60% of the completed and then finish the rest. For some reason I kept scooting the wall outward and did not keep it in a straight line. I started digging it back in the middle and once I got it deep enough I found the original base. I still don’t know why I did not do this the first time. It will take a while to get it done but I am starting to make some visible progress.
It has not frozen in two weeks and everything is stating to turn green. I am going to plant peas this next week in the garden and maybe even spinach. The beets we planted in the fall have all snapped back from winter and are starting to grow again. I am going to have to get the two used horse troughs out into the garden and start getting them filled with gravel and dirt. I really want to grow some blueberries but am unsure where to plant them in the garden. I am thinking I may plant them out in the orchard proper along the fence. I still think I want to grow them in elevated bins. This will really help with the deer, sheep and bunny rabbit issues that we have out here.
I feel like an apology is due, this is the longest absence I have taken since I started writing this blog (March 2010). Initially, I started doing it as a way to track changes on the farm. When we first moved here I had Annmarie create a website but that was not easy to upkeep. You had to actually know how to program and the updates took hours. We have multiple old pictures of the farm and can see changes and know the history of others but I wanted some other generation to know what happened. That was my initial reasoning, after 15 years I write the blog for myself. I enjoy the process and I enjoy documenting the changes. I even occasionally go back and reference the previous entries for data or dates. I am really just documenting my farm therapy sessions.
Life has been catching up to us and we had a lot of things going on at once. In the six weeks our daughter got married, I have had two visits to the ER, had a scope, and have had pneumonia twice. Annmarie closed down her parish, worked on multiple wedding dresses, got sick, and kept everything going. The energy necessary to blog has just not been there. I will catch up the last six weeks.
We sold three cows and had a new group do the slaughter/cut/wrap. They did a great job and the meat look great! They will be doing the other four this month. We just sort them the evening before and leave them in the corral for pickup the next morning. It works well for everyone.
The sheep decided to lamb during wedding prep and wedding weekend. This caused a decided lack of tracking on my part. I could search through all the text messages and get close but I decided to just publish the results:
Date of update- Feb 14, 2026
# of Lambs born – 38
# of ewes who have delivered babies – 23
# of ewes still pregnant – 4 in area, I don’t think they are all pregnant maybe 2 but they only have 30 days before we call it a bust.
# of single lamb births – unknown
# of twin lamb births – unknown
# of triplet lamb births – 2
# tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-unknown
# tagged female lambs-unknown
# of bummer lambs – 2
# of lambs who died in first two weeks – 6
Total # of lambs on farm -30
% birthing rate- 165%
% production rate -130%
% survival rate at birth – 95% (two still born, very small, we think triplets)
% survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 80%
We will keep the sheep separated for another month and see if any of the last four have babies. Two look like they may but who knows. We won’t be selling very many lambs this year. We will need to save most, if not all, of the female lambs as replacements to our herd. We like to be around 35 ewes and we culled very hard last year. So we will only have 27 ewes this summer that can be bred to give birth in January 2027. The following year we will have 40 if we hold everything this year. We will need to cull again so that will drop the number down to our goal. We probably just need to keep 5-7 every year so we are on a rotation.
I took a three hours and ran all of the bagged grain we had in the machine shop into edible pieces. My repair job on the first grinder, done last summer, did not work and after an hour of fighting with it I went over and got the new one. It finished the last half of the grinding in 20 minutes. I took all of the cracked grain to the barn to feed to the sheep. They get grain at least once a day. We also keep a protein lick outside for the sheep to eat on all day. They are nursing and the calories are necessary to keep them from getting so skinny.
The cows are doing great! We have five bred females (maybe) at least 3 are obviously pregnant and the other two are first time mom’s. They are not due for another 8-12 weeks. That will leave us with three calves from last year for slaughter next year. We have not sold any yet as we are waiting to see how many we will need to save for our own consumption. We are still running two cows herds, mommy/calf and eaters with the bull in Alcatraz unless he is out working.
Our bulbs that Mr Rainman and I planted on the new flower beds by the rock wall (right side only) are already growing out of the soil, some of them are 4” tall already. I messed up the left side of the rock wall and need to tear down about ten feet and put an actual string line up so the wall does not meander towards the running water. I need to move it back about 12-18”. I also need to finish the floor in the gazebo. I am going to need another 40 bags of sand to get a deep enough layer to effectively use the compactor.
If I am lucky I will be able to squeeze in a new roof on the fencing shed. Annmarie wants me to put a tarp on the back of the bee enclosure. The wind blew rain into the bee hive. I am thinking about putting up a gutter also. The chicken coop will need dug out this year along with the barn. I need to work on Alcatraz. We have a spring seep along the back fence and it is eroding out all of the dirt. I need to toss some more dirt over the fence with the tractor, to get that built up in a 30’ section of fencing. Ideally, I also need to dig out the old lamb barn. Lots of stuff to do outside.
I have started to try and grow house plants from seed. This is not going so well. I started with 96 plugs and have only managed to get 8 plants to come up. I have tried twice now with smaller mini greenhouses and have managed to get two plants to survive. I figured I better up my Christmas game for this year so I am starting early so the plants are well established. I have two grow lights, three heating pads and a set of shelves dedicated to growing new plants. Everyone has gotten my current plants for several years now so I figured it was time for some new ones.
Outside work may be my priority but I have officially been working on the downstairs bathroom for greater than 12 months. So it is now the number one priority. I have the inside trim sanded and just need to cut it to fit and install. I need to just drag out my compressor, hose and finish nailer to the front porch so I can just take a weekend to install all of the trim. I will do that once I get a good dry fit. I also need to finish installing crown molding now that the cupboard has been installed. Hopefully, I can find three full pieces to finish it.
I did manage to spend a day on the tractor moving horse poop and shuffling our compost piles. It was drizzling lightly and after I got done with the stacks we ended up getting 3/4” of rain in the next day. Disturbing the piles helps them get oxygenated and allows more water to seep down into them. Plus, the horse poop was piling up in several places.
I had to weld up new anchors for the 3 point weight last summer. The welds held but the thin sheet metal did not. I do not know why company’s do this. I will have to weld an angle iron cage to the entire outside of the sheet metal to give it the structural integrity to carry the weight. I have the entire thing filled with horseshoes, it makes a great counterweight when I am moving large bales of hay with my little tractor. I should have just made the entire thing myself but I did not think I would need to do that. I should know by now that a lot of things just don’t last anymore.
We moved the bone yard back up onto the hill as far from the animals as we can get. The boneyard by the wheat fields was bringing the coyotes down for more than just water. It takes about 45 minutes to drive up there and back with the small tractor. We have not seen any coyotes down by the house since we moved it. Unfortunately, the neighbor saw one crossing the road out of our field last week. So they are still around we just are not seeing them as much.
Stewart Creek Somethings 