Last of the Garden

With a frost expected it was time to harvest the last of the garden stuff. My only other 2 crops were melons. One a watermelon and one a cantaloup type.


The only one that got very big was the cantaloup. It's not ripe yet but I harvested it anyway. Better gardeners than I have said that this year was especially tough for heat loving plants due to our cold wet spring. So the lack of fruits may not entirely be due to my black thumb. I guess I'll try again next year, maybe.

Last of the Hay for the Year

Judd got the last of the hay baled and delivered today.

We buy hay from the neighbors and this second cutting looks especially good.

There was more than we expected. We won't need any additional hay for the year and are well set for winter. Next job is to send a sample off for nutritional analysis testing and then fine tune the sheep mineral.

Paonia Mountain Harvest Festival

Sunday AM down to the Town Park for the Mountain Harvest Festival Farmers' Market.
Ray came to help at the booth and took care of it so I could take a break occasionally.

Monica from Small Potatoes Farm selling potatoes and garlic braids.

A good day, lots of sales of meat, socks and even some yarn.

Farm Tours & Sheep Coats

No Pictures. This morning before the big main farm tours started as part of the Paonia Harvest Festival we sorted out some of the sheep and put coats on. They are now in the winter corrals on hay. They look a bit silly in their coats but it keeps the wool clean.

Promptly at 11:00 the tour folks started arriving and I was doing solid tours from 11 until 5:30 pm. No pictures unfortunately. It was a good day, something like 75 people came to the farm and learned about how their meat and wool is produced.

Weaning Time

Today we sorted out all the ram lambs from their mothers. We have several who are already sniffing the ewes. I just hope they weren't fertile yet! We also weighed all the lambs. Most are looking really good. A few are not as big as I would hope for but they are also young. Lots of baaing tonight I am sure. No pictures. We were too busy to stop to take any.

Evening Light

Sun after the storm.

The Laying Hens

Here are the new laying hens.

A Silver Grey Dorking.

A Welsummer.

Culinary School of Rockies Dinner at Zephros

We were invited to the Culinary School of the Rockies dinner at Zephros Farm.



Here the students are busily working on the feast.

I got several shots of the students, both with and without the chef instructors. This was just before the rain.





We had a brief downpour and all the plates got wet. So several students quickly dried everything off.




It was nice after the rain and we had a good time.




In back Monica and Sue and in front, Gretchen, Mike and Riley.

Ken being silly!

Selling Sheep & Thirsty Lamb

We've started our fall sheep sales. This batch of lovely yearlings is heading off to MO to a new flock there. They are also getting two adult rams. Meanwhile another small flock of three ewe lambs and a ram lamb will also go to another new flock but they aren't sorted out yet.


Meanwhile...

This ram lamb has decided that a fresh flowing water fountain is better than drinking from the ditch. It's the same water. I guess he just likes it running.

Culinary Students, Ram Sorting and Chicken Processing

The Culinary School students came back today for more farm work.

Today we evaluated all the adult rams, trimmed toes and gave dewormer as needed. Then we took a field trip to Karla's to pick up our chickens that were butchered yesterday. The students got to see a bit of the butchering process and then came back to our house and helped us turn our chickens for the year into piece parts for our freezer. We got 24 chickens dismembered in 1 hour. It was sure nice to have additional knife skilled workers to help deal with the chickens.



Here are the students from left to right, Erica, Kade, Leah and Garrett.

Thanks folks, we had a great time and really appreciated the help.

Edited to correct spelling of names, Sorry!

Labor Day Labors

Today we had 4 students from the Culinary School of the Rockies out to help on the farm and learn about where food comes from.

We had a busy day, starting at 7:30 this morning we worked most of the flock. We had several task to perform, most important was to vaccinate all the lambs. We also took the opportunity to evaluate all the ewes and lambs. We have to start selecting sheep for slaughter and for sale so having extra hands to hold sheep, scribe, vaccinate and move sheep was most welcome. A job that would typically take Ken and I 2 or 3 days to finish got done in one very long morning.


I did not get many pictures at all. This is Kade holding up a ram lamb for his shot and evaluation.

I was really please to be a host farm for these students and we had a great time. I hope they learned a bit about what goes into producing good local food in a sustainable manner.

Kids Pasta Project Historical Society Benefit

The Kids Pasta Project here in the North Fork servs up a pasta meal every Monday. all proceeds after expenses go to various local non-profit organizations.

This coming Monday, 7 September, the recipient will be the North Fork Historical Society.

Cost is a minimal $10/person, less for seniors and kids. So come on out and show your support for our history.

Make reservations by noon on Monday via e-mail at:

kidspastaproject@gmail.com

Hope to see you there!

Tanked Sheep

We've got the adult rams in the corrals to let the grass grow a bit before letting them go graze again.


I guess this ram got tired of being butted while he slept and decided to find a more secure place for a nap, in one of the empty water tanks!

My Black Thumb Strikes

The second crop from my garden was going to be corn. However this is the sum total of the ears we got.


Most of them are only partially filled with corn kernels.


This is the best of the lot.


I threw away a lot that looked like this.

I noticed that when I was picking them there were lots of earwigs in the tops and the silks looked like they had been eaten before the corn for fertilized. Can anyone who is a better gardener confirm this?