Sheep

Multiple irons

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I have been playing catch up last week.  I am trying to do multiple things at once.  This is not working well for me. I just keep flitting from one thing to the next. I had to put the baby chickens outside. I wanted to paint and they are so dusty I needed to dust every day. I called it quits when they started sitting on top of the water dish. They are growing like weeds out in the baby area of the chicken coop. I have also managed to not catch the coop on fire this time with the heat lamp. I have enough concrete board to line the baby area this summer so it is fire proof.

I am currently trying to convince a coworker to raise two geese for me past the gosling stage or about 2 months old. I want to try keeping them up at the spring head and see if they cannot keep the waterway clean. If they can then I will move them to different sections of the waterway to keep it clean versus me having to pitchfork it clean three times a year. I am trying to let some livestock work for me. I hope it works. img_5553

I have one wall in the dining room done and the kitchen done. Next up is to get the color on the wall near all the windows. Our trim is stained and ready. I just need to get it delivered and then start installing it. That will be a big job. I figure it will take about 2-3 weeks to get it all in.

I am so small

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We had another set of twins born four days ago. They were premature and absolutely tiny. This puts them at a high risk to not make it but their mother is psycho crazy! She bolts and bounces off the fences and gates whenever we get near. We managed to lock her in the barn for two days with the twins. The first one died that night just too little to live. The other one is hanging in there. We locked them in the momma area and let them out of the barn but the crazy momma got the baby stuck across the fence then would not go into the barn. No matter what I did she just kept bouncing off fences and bowling the baby over. I finally just let all the sheep in and mixed her and the baby in with the herd so she would calm down.

This strategy of mixing her in with the herd has worked so far. The baby is still alive and she is giving it a workout. We are now using the sheep to mow the yard and front hillside. This serves three purposes:1. I don’t have to mow it.

2. The sheep get extra food.

3. I don’t have to fertilize it.

This is a win win situation. Its called natural growing, the only problem with it is you have to be very careful walking down the concrete path for about a week until they are done and I have had a chance to hose off the concrete and bridge.

Someone messed up

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I was called by the lovely wife the morning following the bull escape. I had made it to work and was playing catch up. She called to tell me that the alpaca were out in the lower barley field. Now the field is actually growing wheat but the “Lower Barley Field” is its name as it was a field her dad developed to prove to his father that he could, hence the name. Now how on earth could the alpaca get into that field? Well, when I went into the field to chase the bull I left the gate open just in case the bull would not turn around, he could go out into the house area of the farm then we could run him into the correct field.

The problem with this is after we put the Bull back in I proceeded to walk the fence line down toward the school house to make sure there were no holes. Unfortunately, on the way back to the house we walked on the road so my shoes and clothes would not get muddier and wetter. I also forgot about the open gate. I recognize this violates the cardinal rule of gate operation where livestock are present. The animals always figure out when a gate has been left in the incorrect location.

Annmarie used the dogs to move the alpaca. This is not the best technique as the alpaca will band together and run at the dogs. Luckily there are two dogs and they are sneaky. The alpaca get tired of one or the other sneaking behind them and biting them on the ankle. There was a large stare down contest going on as I pulled up to help. Annmarie had them all out of the field before I could get out of the car to assist.

In my defense, I came right away and did not complain or offer excuses for not shutting the gate.

Friday morning I went out to feed the animals. Normally, Annmarie does this but I was going into work late so I said I would. I bundled all up as it is getting cold again and was down to 18 F. I went out to feed the horses and the barn kitties. The sheep had spent the night in the barn but I had not locked them in. I went out and found a lamb curled up in the corner. I thought it was asleep at first then I thought it was dead. I touched it and it moved ever so slightly so it was still alive. I took it inside for Annmarie to warm up and feed and Tisha to come pick up. It was one of our #1 ewe’s twins. She is getting old and forgot to make sure it followed her out of the barn. Its 48 hours old so it should have been fine. We have now decided that all babies and moms need to be separated for a few days from the main herd. I asked Annmarie to talk with Tisha about a buy back program for all the bummers this year. No go she is going to use them to diversify her herd! It was worth a try.

Zeke has been doing the escape thing from the yard again. He thinks he is a cat and cannot be corralled. I tried stuffing some panel pieces alongside the creek to stop him from digging out on Thursday, by Friday he was out of the yard again. He had dug a new hole over by the bridge. So this time I blocked it off with yet another panel piece then rolled a 200# rock down next to the fence. He will not be moving it any time this century. I may have to get another rock for the other side once he tries that section of fence. He is so painful to keep in the yard.

Bonus room, kitchen demo in progress

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We took the plunge today and started tearing up the kitchen floor. It’s do or die time. I have 11 days before I have to be back to work. We need to be complete and still have 72 hours to let the grout cure then clean it up and after that put the kitchen back together. It will be tight. I think only five more days on the kitchen to finish the floor but we only have half a day tomorrow. Like I said it is going to be real close.

There were a few challenges today. The floor is very well attached and we are only ripping up one layer of floor so we will be at the same floor height as the rest of the house. We will most likely have to mix up some mud to float the subfloor in so there is no give to the floor. We have to install kickboards under the new cabinets and the stove top cabinet. Luckily, there is enough room in the dishwasher hole to tile under the dishwasher. This will make it much easier to slide in a new one when this one dies.

I was using my new fancy Makita Multitool to scrape the subfloor and was working next to the wall trying to get some flooring up and suddenly saw a spark and smelled smoke. I was able to reach under the wall with the scraper on the multitool and cut into the wire feeding the outlet. It tripped the breaker so now I will need to replace the wire. I was able to do this because there used to be a doorway in the wall where I was working. One more thing to fix. I have a light socket not functioning in one of my fancy stained glass lights in the living room also. I am hoping it just came unwired and will be an easy fix.

You cannot tell but I spent an hour vacuuming and cleaning up the floor. Its still not safe to walk on without a hard soled shoe. There are screws sticking up everywhere. Mr. Experience had to leave just after lunch so I vacuumed the whole house and cleaned up our mess. We are currently working around the safe. I am still offering $100 crisp new bill to anyone that can open the safe and tell us the combination they used. We are pretty sure its empty but we would like to use the safe and these old safes can be very pretty inside.

It was time to feed the cows today. Now that we have two feeders I only need to give them food every two weeks. This is actually very nice. I am not sure it is $500 nice for the feeder but now that we have it I like it.

I went out and drug the driveway with the box blade. I am attempting to fill in the pot holes and break down the washboard effect occurring in our driveway. I also had to throw down more straw in the barn as the rain all day yesterday caused the barn to be fairly wet from all the sheep traffic in and out. The babies are getting big and cute. We will be tagging and banding the last of the group this weekend. Annmarie and I think that our old #1 ewe is still pregnant. I think she has 2-4 weeks to go before she has any babies. She must not have liked the old ram. She is our oldest ewe in the entire herd. Super friendly, but no longer the boss, that belongs to the dark brown ewe now.

Day 7, tile down.

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We started tiling immediately this morning in hopes of being done by noon. Mr Experience needed to make a couple of stops and go to Hermiston and I needed to go to Hermiston to pickup the supplies for the kitchen and pick up our grout.

I decided to let the sheep out of the barn area today and allow them to roam in the entire barn lot. There is some green grass and the lambs can play king of the hill on the large dirt piles. I told Mr Experience that they would be out and about and he would see them when he was outside. Once he commented they were out on the hillside. I looked out and spotted them in the barn lot and gave it no more thought. As we are leaving the yard to go to Hermiston I spot the sheep and horses on the back hillside where they should not be. There is only one way to get there and that is through an open gate! We have had some young male visitors that had left open two separate gates allowing the animals to escape. The dogs love this as they actually get to work the animals. Once the sheep spotted me with the dogs they ran down into the upper prime pasture on their own. I was trying to move them into the barn lot but Mouse was running on Mouse directions not sheep dog directions so he got the dominance treatment of pining down by throat and staying next to dad while Zeke got to run around and chase sheep. Mouse did get to run around the barn lot in the evening and he even followed a “go left, circle around” command. Now he did it at an all out dead run but he did do it. There were no sheep it was just to make sure and to give him the practice of listening.

We did our errands and picked up the grout, while at the new flooring store I spotted some granite and inquired about the price. If I do the install I can get a sheet for $30/sq foot, this means I can build a custom breakfast nook in the kitchen. I am adding that to the list of needed items. Upon our return to the house we decided to just finish! We figured it would only take a couple of hours. We were wrong it took four hours.

I am so happy with the results. Hopefully, tomorrow we can get it all cleaned up and ready and the grout installed. I want to get all the furniture back in place and ready for Annmarie’s return at 1600 on Saturday. We will see if I can make it .

I tried to show her a picture of my new hat last night and she asked me if I was gaining weight! Who would think that I am binging on cookies, candy, pop, chips, no veggies and lots of beans!? I was offended. I told her it was all muscle from the hard work. She told me 6 days was not enough time to build up that much muscle. I may eat a carrot tomorrow in her honor.