End of the Year

Road plowed and sun shining.

Off to do shopping and get ready for 2009.

After the Wind and Snow

Well the wind blew the snow and there was more snow. This is the hay barn, we rarely get winds that blow snow this far under the barn.

Even the back side lane which should have been protected got a lot of snow.

The pile next to the tractor is from the driveway just in front of the house.

This is looking out the driveway.

Even the roof is drifted over. This is very unusual because the metal roof usually lets the snow slide off pretty easily.

All the animals are fine. We're a bit short of things like milk and fresh vegetables but have plenty of food in the pantry and freezers and worst case have a whole corral full of dinner on the hoof. Ken's going to try to plow the driveway again and see if we can get out to town today or tomorrow.

Fortunately the power is on, our internet is wireless so also ok and our phones are cell phones and also working.

Christmas Blizzard

We're under a blizzard warning now. Ken plowed the driveway yesterday and it snowed again.

Here's one of the ewes all covered in snow. The sheep are doing just fine, they enjoy eating the fresh snow. They are eating a lot more hay than normal but it's been cold and we have plenty so I'm not too worried.

Ken has to shovel paths to the horse feeders to be able to push the wheelbarrow out to them.

A white Christmas for sure.

Clean your Ears

Winnie cleaning the ears of one of the rams. He seemed to enjoy it.

We got almost a foot of snow last night, on top of what we already had.

A lot more Snow

A lot more snow today. Here are the ram lambs from this year

Even the ewes under the barn have snow in the barn. They all love the snow though, it's fun to eat snow cones.

Snow!

Well I was right, we got a lot of snow over the night. Flat Stanley is getting ready to leave us and go visit a friend in California. But here he is with Ken and the truck, covered in snow.

The Smell of Winter

When doing chores this evening I was reminded of the smells of winter.

It's the calm before a major storm due in tomorrow and the smell of coal smoke is in the air. Just a faint whiff, not like 30 years ago when a day like this had an overwhelming smell of coal smoke from the furnaces in the valley. Now it's just a hint of the fuel that has kept people warm since it was settled by whites.

Now the coal combines with the smell of wood fires.

It also smells like snow. You can feel and smell the storm before it comes. I expect a lot of snow tomorrow morning.

It's finally winter here in Colorado.

Being Filmed

I was interviewed for the movie Locavore Movie about local food, sustainable farming and the state of modern agriculture. I have no idea whether any of my answers will be in the movie. It is due to be produced only on DVD and available in the Spring of 2009.

Flat Stanley got his picture taken as well.

Flat Stanley has a Busy Day

Today was a busy day here at the farm. Stuff didn't really get started until the afternoon but we had a lot to do.


Our first problem was the septic tank. We've had some sewer gas backing up into the house when we do laundry. The plumber came yesterday and we found a trap that was dry but as a precaution he suggested we get the septic tank pumped. It was last pumped in 2000 so we are a bit overdue. Flat Stanley got to help Ken use the backhoe to uncover the tank.


Cheerful Cesspool Service came out and did the actual job. They were great to work with and came the same day I called.


I took Stanley to look for eggs.


Unfortunately our chickens are old and we haven't gotten any eggs for weeks. If they don't start laying, now that their molting is over, they will go to be butchered by the end of the year.


My next job is to go get the mail. Our mailbox is out on the main road.


We filled hay feeders this morning so there wasn't anything to do for the sheep. Desert Weyr Gwenda came over to sniff Stanley though.


Wye Hieghts Fychan AKA Wye Heights C-3 is by himself in a pen. He is scheduled for slaughter this week so is separated from the rest of the rams.


Last stop was to check out the main ram pen. Our guard dog Winifred aka Winnie is fascinated by Flat Stanley.

More Fencing

To get the back cedars section ready for Larry we had to take down the old fence that was there.

THis is where the new fence will go. Ken moved a bunch of rocks out and smoothes the ground.


Another view of the new fence.


Sighting down the new fence line.

New Divider Fence

With the front west orchard pasture now reseeded back to permanent pasture we needed to install a more permanent divider fence.

This fence is far enough away from the trees that we can get the tractor and marker down beside them but still not too far into the pasture.

With a good solid welded wire fence we can save this pasture for hay, or graze it with rams or just stockpile it for later grazing by the ewes and lambs.

Good fencing will give us more options in how we use this new pasture.

Sheep AI Day Three

Day three proved to be very hectic. We had poor post thaw mobility on the frozen semen for some reason so we had to rearrange and collect all the rams again and use fresh cooled semen.

With 56 ewes to inseminate and 15 rams to collect it was impossible to get any pictures of the procedures.


Our cell phone coverage is good if you use Sprint but poor for other carriers. Here is the sweet spot for Verizon users. Wish we'd known this was the right spot when we had other guests who needed to use it!

Sheep AI Day Two

Day Two was more ram semen collections.


Here the boys are in the chute waiting their turn.


Processing semen in the lab prior to freezing it.

Sheep AI Day One

We volunteered to be a test flock for a new sheep AI procedure. Day 1 was to give the ewes their shots to bring them into heat. I didn't get any pictures of the procedure as we were working fast to get them all done at a specific time.


For the actual inseminations we will be putting the ewes into this squeeze chute.



Our plan is collect semen for use in the AI and to donate to the USDA NAGP gene bank. Rams had to have their pictures taken and scrotal circumference measured.


The laboratory was set up inside the shop building where we had heat and plenty of light.



USDA-ARS people working in the lab.

Lovely Sunset

Lovely Colorado Sunset

Living with Solar

We've finished installing the solar hot water system and after a month or so I thought I'd post the first lessons we've learned.

Installing a solar system will not in an of itself make a huge difference. You will also have to change your behavior to take advantage of the system strengths and weaknesses.

For us this has meant a few issues with how we handle water usage.

The solar system includes the panels and a storage tank. During the day the tank is filled with heat collected by the solar panels. This heat is used over the course of the night to heat water and the house. At this time of year a full day of sun will not only fill the tank to its maximum temperature but we start dumping heat out the overflow loop. So the key to making best use of the solar energy we can collect is to adjust our use of hot water.

What we've found is that we can't really start using hot water until after a couple of hours of full heat collection. We also need to stop using hot water near the end of the day so the tank goes into night fully charged so to speak.

The biggest issue has been laundry. My normal mode was to start a load of laundry as required early in the morning. What works better from a solar standpoint is to start laundry after lunch to mid afternoon. That way we use the hot water from the solar panels but we still have enough time to finish collecting heat for the evening.

We've already made a difference in how much propane we use. We'll see how well it does after we've had a full winter.