Winter Blahs

Not much going on right now. The sheep are getting fat, we fill hay feeders, fill water tanks and repeat. I haven't been taking many pictures so not much new.

Last week we had help and got all the ram lambs toes trimmed. Still have all the ewes, rams and ewe lambs to do but at least it's a start.

After toes the next big thing will be shearing. We are currently scheduled for shearing the last Saturday in March. Should be interesting and busy then as we'll see how the wool is for the year.

This week we are starting the spring thaw. I know we'll get freezes and more snow but for now we are back to mud season.

Ponds

We have several man made ponds on our property. They provide emergency fire suppression and irrigation water as well as drinking water for the livestock.

This is the guest house, shop & Red Barn.


This is the main house and hay barn.


This is our lower pond. It has a liner so the electric tape is to keep the horses from going in and puncturing it.

More Brush Burned

Got another big pile of brush and old trees burned today. This pile has been sitting here for a couple of years. We still have one pile to burn but it's too close to the hay barn, we have to wait until there is no hay inside and be sure the wind is from the right direction.

Sheep on pasture

Pregnant ewes out on pasture.


They enjoy sitting in their hay.

More Brush Burned

Got more brush burned today. These are the last 2 piles in the main orchard pasture.

Brush Rake & Burning Brush

Larry brought up his brush rake to push the brush from our orchard into burn piles. You can't see it from here but the entire orchard is full of brush from pruning.


Larry on the tractor, Ken & Daniel with the brush rake.


Detail of the brush rake. This one is sturdy and flexible enough to float over most of the rocks.



In use, pushing brush into a pile for burning.


Starting the burn as soon as the pile is large enough but not too large.



Once it's going Larry uses the rake and tractor to pile more brush on top.




We got the east side of the orchard cleared in about an hour and a half. Then spent the rest of the day picking up the firewood . I got all teh electric fences out and ready to string up so we are very close to turnout of the pregnant ewes.

Winter Pruning

The west side of the orchard has been completely pruned this year and a majority of the east side has also been pruned. For some of the trees it has been nearly 20 years since they were pruned last. There is a huge amount of brush and wood. We're trading the wood for part of the pruning labor but the brush we have to burn ourselves. There are going to be a lot of bonfires up on our mesa this spring!

Winter Solstice

Farms mark the year by the solar calendar.

The solstice, the traditional mid winter festival when the sun starts to return. For us too the solstice is turn-around time. The days when the sun seems to stand still are our time to do a yearly reflection on the past year. We evaluate the goals accomplished and plans for next year.

Chores are delivering food and water to the critters. I spend my mornings watching fluffy sheep get fat and play in the snow. They make sheep nests in the bedding pack for warmth. I watch the breeding ram to be sure he is doing his job. The current one in with my control group of ewes may be a candidate for baatwurst. He seems to be butting the ewes more than he is breeding them. The ewes will get another ram in January so they should get pregnant. We'll know when they lamb who the daddy is and if Kai failed to breed ewes he's sausage.

Chickens are all hunkered down, snug in the coop but in jail and they are not happy so I take hay and chicken treats to them and talk to them when I gather the eggs. Chickens are actually quite social and like to be talked to so I cluck at them and pet a few friendly ones.

The dogs also make their own nests in the hay and the old dog snuggles in between warm sheep when it gets cold. The horses frisk in the snow in the warm sun but stand huddled neighing for breakfast when it's cold. I have a lot more time in winter so I am doing some hobby things that never get worked on in summer: knitting, spinning, doing a puzzle, reading. Winter is a time of reflection, more thinking and planning than doing on a farm. It's a good balance.

I hope you all have an enjoyable winter solstice.

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.

Rams on Pasture

Now that the hay is in we can put the rams out on the front pear orchard pasture to clean up the parts we cannot cut.


This is the first time that all the sheep are out on pasture at the same time. We have one ewe who is sick in a small pen and a ewe and lamb training the puppy who are in but I don't think those really count.

More Burning Brush

Ken,


Larry and I burned another 2 piles of brush today.

It was a lovely day.



Ken putting out small grass fires in the dry old pasture.

Larry using his tractor to push the brush up on to the pile.

We got almost all of the brush out of the east side of the orchard. Larry will bring his 4-wheeler and small trailer back and pick up the last bits and we'll burn one more pile on this side. The west side orchard has a lot more brush in it. It's going to take several piles to get it all burned.

Then we have to pick up the firewood. Looks like we've got a couple of cords of wood in the orchard at least. I've got a restaurant that does BBQ that wants some of it. We've got to get it all out before lambing next month.

Burning Brush

Today we started the spring brush burning. All the prunings from the trees need to get burned. Larry had a large pile made and Ken burned it today.

There is still a lot out in the orchard and we'll have several burn piles but at least we got started.

Calm Before the Storm

We are now in that last calm period of winter before the major storm of spring work hits.

We shear the flock on 28 March and that is the start of the busy season. After shearing we have to get our federal flock inspection done, all the sheep vaccinated, toes trimmed on any we missed over winter, and the irrigation and pastures ready for sheep. We could start lambing as early as 22 April and the ewes have to be out on pasture by then.

But for now the ewes are getting fat and sassy. The rams are fighting less and less and the yearlings are starting to look and act like adult sheep.

We hope for more snow or our water will be very short for the year. Right now though things are clear and nearly dry with most of the major mud gone.

New Sheep Sign

We got the second part of our sign up today. Now people will know what we have for sale here.

We also have a sign up by the barn that is the UK Association Logo because we are also members of that association. I'll get pictures of it soon and will edit this post.



Edited to show our other sign up by the barn.

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.

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.

Fall Farm Work

While the solar system was being installed we continued fall work. One task was to clean out one of the ditches. Ken used the backhoe to clean it out on 11 September. This area is where we will rebuild the pens for the rams for winter.

We have an apple crop this year and we want to try to make some cider. Our apple press is in need of work and here Ken is sandblasting the crusher parts to clean them. Some of the blades are broken so we have new ones on order. It's pretty close to done now on 13 September.



It's also time to bring the sheep in from pasture. We coated as many adult ewes as I had coats for and sent the rest and all the ewe lambs back out on pasture for a few more days. I need to get busy sewing more sheep coats before we can finish getting the girls in the barn for winter.



The two fields we planted this year had grown up in major weeds. The front one especially had hundreds of cockleburrs. In an attempt to keep them from setting seeds Ken decided to mow the entire field and hope he could kill the cockleburrs. It looked so good that he did the other field too. We've got the sheep off the field and hope that it will grow some more before winter and get fully established by next summer.