Sheep

Winter is almost here

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Well, I can no longer say that Winter is not coming. It has frozen three times this week and we have had to turn our propane stove on. Last night when we went to bed, Annmarie wanted to open opposing windows wide open! I was freezing to death, so I moaned and groaned until she agreed to crack both windows only. It took me 20 minutes to get warm before I could fall asleep. I am putting another blanket at the foot of the bed just to add another layer over my feet!

Yesterday was errand day for me. I took a drive over to Hermiston to pickup our pig we swapped for lambs. The hanging weight on the pig was 199#. I brought three boxes home of frozen deliciousness. Our freezers were full but I had a bunch of frozen cherries from last year and the chickens are now eating those. I managed to get the whole pig into the freezer after clearing out the cherries, bacon before fruit!!! We had one pork belly turned into side pork. We have never done this before but we both like side pork and wanted to give it a try. You have to do the whole thing so we ended up with 7 pounds of side pork. As we had sausage this morning for breakfast Annmarie inquired if it was the new pig. I told her we had to eat the old pig first but I did get out a package of side pork for Sunday morning!

Annmarie is doing yoga 6 of 7 mornings as soon as she wakes up. I am on the “gonna workout” plan. The dogs have all learned that the yoga mat is a “no go” zone. Annmarie is not to be disturbed if she is on the mat and the dogs don’t get to step on it. It was not very hard to teach all three of them this rule. Yesterday, while running errands I had to pickup a package at the post office. It was some new yoga tights and dresses Annmarie had gotten on sale. This morning she told me there was a “no go” rule for me also after I violated the yoga zone.

We have had dumpster now for four weeks and have managed to fill it every week. I am hopeful this week that I will get the glass windows out of the lamb shed and break them into the dumpster. This was the sole reason for getting the dumpster in the first place. Annmarie keeps reminding me that if we can fill it for weeks on end maybe we should have gotten one sooner? It takes some concerted effort to keep filling it as I don’t just have a pile ready to go but I think we only have 1-2 weeks left before I will have them remove it. That will have gotten rid of 10-12 yards of trash.

The new barn kitty is still hanging out in the barn. It is a fixed adult black and white cat. Still in the barn and doing well. We feed the barn cats on a regular basis and it is settling right in. I did hear one big howling cat fight this week emanating from the barn but it settled down after a couple of minutes and we have seen the new kitty and our orange kitty both since then.

The chickens do not like daylight savings time either. This week I noticed that some of the chickens were not going into the coop at night. I opted to allow natural selection to occur, only the smart shall survive. Now, I have not seen a predator around but they are always there and yep I was right. Thursday we spotted a suspicious lump out on the back hillside visible from the kitchen window. The magpies were swarming it so it was pretty obvious. I went out and sure enough it was a chicken carcass. Imagine my not surprise when I went out to get eggs last night and every chicken was inside the coop and protected behind the automatic chicken door.

The cows are now getting fed on a weekly basis. Luckily, we have some big bales left this year. They are super handy to feed as I just have to push one or two out to the cows. I still need to get the tire fixed on the small pickup bed trailer as that is what I am going to hook up to the tractor to feed the small bales.

We are putting the sheep in every night now. The first four evenings we had to use the dogs but now if we go out after dark the sheep have already put themselves into the barn. We just give them a little feed at night as a reward. They are not starving as half a bale is enough for a reward and they leave some in the feeders. We are so happy with the new ram, he is super calm. We have decided that he only gets scratched under the chin so that we are not trying for dominance by reaching for the top of his head.

Corral and barn lot blues

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It has been a great weekend! Annmarie and I sat down and created a list of things that need to happen before snow flies. Now I realize that it should have already been done but I have been busy. So now that the prediction is for a wet and warm winter I can pile on more outside work. So there are only 18 things on the list, my full time plus job and 6 hours a week of college to juggle to get it all done.

I had started a burn pile in the barn lot when we cleaned up the corral area. So I lit it on fire Saturday and started dragging all the burnable materials onto it. I had three other piles of scrap wood that the animals had made into not piles that needed to be picked up. If a flame could clean it up I tossed it on. I went through the entire barn lot and tossed all the scrap wood onto the fire. I also picked up all the rocks in the barn lot and tossed them next to the lamb shed to fill in the runoff channel that the water was creating from running off the metal roof. I even managed to drag the entire barn lot clean of horse poop and straw from the barn.

Today I concentrated on attempting to finish up the bull/ram corral. I needed to finish the space between the lean to and the lamb shed. I also had a gate that needed to be installed. The problem was the railroad tie needed to be tied into the lean to before I could hang the gate on the post. The gate is beat up so I knew there would need to be some necessary latch adjustments.

There is no power out near the lamb shed so I used my battery operated sawzall to cut the lumber. I ran out of heavy wood anchor bolts and I still need about 10 more. I have four more boards to install and three more panels to remove before the corral is done. I am going to have to order some more online. Through Amazon they are about 40% cheaper than I can get locally. I just have to plan better so that I have them on hand before I actually need them. I had to finish cleaning out the corral and remove all the panels I had laying around. I found enough to go across one side of the barn lot. I have to install one more gate in my quick fence and we will have an area blocked off for the cows and horses. It’s not sheep proof yet and I think I really need to install a fence with three more rock cribs to hold everything in place. Maybe next year, or the year after that if I get time. You can kind of see it below with the opening on the left side of the picture.

I even managed to get all the horse and sheep poop drug out of the old lamb shed and I spread out one of the compost piles in the barn lot. I will hit it with the corral rake this week and smooth it all out then toss on some seed.

We are putting the sheep into the barn every night now after I had to get up and scare off the coyotes with the 22 pistol. We are also putting the horses in so they don’t continue eating new green grass 24/7.

I sprayed our door stops with clear coat today and installed both of our bathroom ones. They keep the door knobs from hitting the walls and making dents. Annmarie put screw holes in them so I don’t have to glue them onto the wall anymore. Now we can take them down if needed. I had to zoom into get a close up so you can actually see the design. Annmarie prints them on our 3D printer then we spray them with black paint, then she appliqués some brown paint onto them with a sponge and then we hit them with clear coat. They turned out very nice.

Winter is coming soon

Steve Hardin1 Comment

This morning when the sun rose fall officially announced her presence. The large cottonwood trees in the front were shedding leaves by the 100s in the wind, it was quite impressive. I attempted to get a picture with actual leaves in the air but did not manage it. Today was my day off of work and I had a nice breakfast with a friend and then went to D and B to buy the rest of my grass seed for the upper 8 acre field. It was all gone!! I made them look in the computer and there was none left. I should have bought all they had the week before! I knew I should have but thought I was close and then ended up using more seed than I had planned. I still should have just bought all they had, it was on sale! I then had to make a few phone calls to get information on a local source. I ended up getting 200# of seed from Mckennon station for $644. They told me it was supposed to rain on Sunday so I really need to get this seed in the ground. I was just heading home when the powder coating place called for the second time.

I turned around and headed to Hermiston to pickup the mailbox holders. They turned out very nice and will not corrode any more. We just need to get a white mailbox now. Donna already has a black mailbox to go onto her black holder. I just need to cut the wooden bases for the mailboxes to mount them onto the holders. They are still very heavy! I will need the tractor to get them out of the back of the pickup.

When I went out to start planting seeds in the upper field I noticed cows on the back hillside, they are not our cows. Annmarie called all the neighbors when she got home. She thinks she may have found out whose they are and have called and left a message. I am going to have to figure out how wide the upper gate opening is and attach a couple of gates up there to keep the cows out.

The upper prime field I planted last week is sprouting quite nicely. My hope is I can get the seed in the next field, it will rain and the seed will sprout and grow for a couple of weeks before winter moves in for the long haul.

I managed to walk out and spread seed over about 40% of the field and managed to run the tractor over it to press it into the ground. The rain did not wait for Sunday. I should have brought a jacket, the cold rain made my hands turn into icicles. I had to turn on my headlights to finish covering the last of the seed on the ground.

Tomorrow we are going to have to sort sheep first thing and then kill the three whethers we had saved. I hope to be back at the planting by noon.

Winter is almost here, maybe?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It is time for the final mow of the yard. The running cable that keeps the mower running after you start it with the safety handle is broken. I have the part, but no time so I went to Plan S for mowing the lawn- Sheep. I have been letting the sheep in for a few hours every day to work the lawn down. This gets it mowed down no matter how tall it is and as an added bonus the yard gets fertilized at the same time. Our ram is pictured below, he is doing very well. Annmarie says she was able to feed him an apple with no problems. He has shown absolutely no aggression and everyone is pregnant so he is doing his job. The only animals that despise this mowing system are the dogs. They have to stay inside while the sheep are in the yard. This causes much angst amongst them and Gizmo likes to think he is a herding dog and runs off the front porch to chase the sheep. They run from him which makes it that much better for him.

I had a dumpster delivered on Friday so that I can get rid of some old glass windows. I can break them over the dumpster and salvage the aluminum frames for scrap metal. I will be doing a little more cleanup around the place also. My goal is to fill the entire dumpster up to maximize the expense.

I spent Friday fixing the roof at our rental. It is all done, I did find another leak in the underground sprinkler system while we were cleaning up tools that will need to be repaired.

Rain is here

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I am happy the rain is here. The upper 80 acre wheat field just got planted this last week so the rain had perfect timing for it. I have yet to plant our 14 acres of grass but this rain should let me break up the last of the dirt clots and make a nice smooth dirt surface. That will be much nicer to cut hay from next year. Unfortunately, the rain brought forth a nasty leak in our daughter’s house. I went over and discovered two leaking places. I will have to replace a 8×16 foot section of roof and fix the leak around the stovepipe. It never seems to end sometimes. One crisis after another.

Normally, I would do it after work but the welding class is tying up two of my weeknights until 2100. I am learning but there is a definite disadvantage for those of us who are true newbies. I spend every moment of every lab trying to get a passable weld. I just started brazing and I am horrible. So it will take me another 5-10 hours to figure it out. I just keep reminding myself that I need this class and knowledge to get our projects around the farm completed!

I looked up how much rain we got, 1.6 inches! That is a lot of rain for a place that only gets 12″ annually. This means I have to wait a few days to get into the fields.

Annmarie found another dead sheep on the upper hillside. We have lost four sheep this summer and not managed to kill a single coyote or another other sheep eating predator. At this point I am starting to suspect it may be a cougar. We have had a couple of “silent” nights were every living animal at night stops making noise. This is not caused by coyotes. This is a stupid problem. We have lost enough sheep to justify the expense of a guard dog but only this year. We will have to sustain steady losses to make it pencil out financially.