Sheep

Some days life chooses your direction

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I came home on time today after picking up groceries for Easter brunch. The sheep are “mowing” the front lawn so you have to be very careful as you make your way down the steps, across the bridge and onto the stepping stones to the front porch, there are a lot of sheep bombs. I had two loads of stuff to bring in and on the first load I failed to latch the gate securely. This caused a mass exodus from the front yard out into the car area in front of both houses. I managed to spot it and stop about half the herd from leaving. So now we only need to get 40 sheep back in instead of 80. I told Annmarie I would be right back and took the dogs to get them back. We wandered out through the ram pasture. I have been popping thistles all week with my pocket knife and spotted a few I missed so I got those. As I walked by the bridge over the ditch I noticed that it was clogged with tumbleweeds so I waded in and pulled all those out and an old piece of tin I found. I slowly started heading to the barn. I let the horses out and closed the front barn lot off and left the main gate open so we could push the sheep into a secure area. This is when my phone rang, Annmarie wanted to know where I was as she was heading out to help and the sheep were now down at her mother’s house and she was trying to push them toward our house because the alpaca were herding the sheep.

We had to push them around her house and back up to ours. Just as we got all the gates shut and were headed back to the house Annmarie spotted a ewe that was stuck in the orchard and her baby was in our front yard. She went to go deal with that while I snuck off to take care of chickens. After grabbing my second egg the cell phone went off, it was Annmarie there were two separate babies separated and where was I? I left the eggs and went and helped corral the last two sheep. All the sheep were behind the barn and we were getting ready to go inside when Annmarie looked up on the hillside and spotted the Bull outside his area. He was on the open hillside which means he had to have pushed through the creek crossing after I tried booby trapping it. This contraption had lasted for almost three weeks without him thwarting it. I was able to go up to the hillside and have him follow me up and through the gate. I even managed to find a coffee cup out near the fence that I had forgotten when I was building my contraption. The bull ambled down toward the other cows and all was good with the world. We headed back to the house and just as we got to the hillside gate we spotted the bull going through the ram pasture. He had gone down and pushed through the creek crossing behind the house and then went straight to the creek crossing behind the barn he tore up last year and up to the fence next to the heifers. It looked like he had spent a large portion of the day alongside the fence. It was pushed over in areas and there was a beaten path alongside it. Annmarie tried to push the bull back out with the dogs but this went no where as the dogs kept circling around and pushing the bull the wrong way. Annmarie had to be in to town so I took over. It took me another hour of pushing him around to get him to go back down to the other cows.

It was painful for me, the bull and the dogs. I then had to go up to the incomplete fence line and wire up the upper gate and wire up the two bottom gates. I then went and redid the creek crossing behind the house. Then I went and got a heavy metal gate and wired and tied it in place over the ram pasture ditch crossing. I used a lot of bailing twine to get it to hold. There is no flex in that sucker now so he cannot shimmy under it. I also cleaned out the ditch for about 30 feet while I was here. I wear rubber boots all the time now when working outside. It works for me and I can easily clean them off. I need to get in here and rework this fence crossing. I have just about decided that I need to string cable across the bottoms of the ditch so I can clip in the panels during the summer so that the bull cannot lift them. I need to do five separate crossings this way to keep him in. I really need to build the bull enclosure inside the barn lot so we can keep him separate from the heifers when we want.

Tomorrow I will be completing the fence running up the back hill and installing all the gates in that fence permanently regardless of what the weather is doing. I need two fences between him and the heifers.

Gizmo and Bo, the cat were keeping Annmarie company while she worked until eh home office today. They were sucking up a little extra heat from each other and the freestanding heater.

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.