Lambs & Hay

More new lambs. This ewe had twins.


First of the new hay is arriving. First cutting was 708 small bales.

Solar Panels, Ready for Hay & DNA Sweater

Time to get the solar panels up onto the shop roof for the PV system. It's quite a long way and everyone is using safety harnesses and ropes.









Hay barn is cleaned out ready for the new hay. SHould be arriving today or tomorrow.


My DNA cable sweater is also coming along, It's the brewery knitting so it has been going rather slowly during lambing because we don't go to the brewery much.

Weighing the Hay

All the first cutting hay is in. John came down to weigh some bales so we can pay for it. We buy the hay by weight not by the bale. First cutting ended up being 664 bales and 19.3 tons. Normally we get about 45 tons for the first cutting.


After the haying we needed to drown our sorrows. So down to Revolution Brewing for a lovely mix of their Cherry soda and Cherry Sticky Thicket.

Moving Sheep and New Hay

We moved the sheep to the other side of the orchard today and discovered that very new lambs are able to climb back through the divider fence. We managed to get them all back but it was a bit of a challenge.

Hay is finally being delivered. The cold spring made first cutting very very small. It's going to be difficult to get enough hay for winter at this rate.

New Feeders

We got the new ram lamb feeders installed today.


Here are the boys before we moved them back into their normal pen.

New feeder 2 pieces that connect to make one big feeder.

Feeding Sheep

Sheep are in the winter pens now. Here are the ewes eating hay and later a nearly empty feeder.

We are going through more hay than normal, but we also have more sheep than normal.

A good selection of ewes, ewe lambs and ram lambs for sale if you want your own flock of little black sheep.

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.

First Cutting Hay In Barn!

Judd came back and finished stacking the hay in the barn.

Here he is getting bales out of our front pear orchard field.

The last load of hay coming out of the field.

Putting the last stack inside.

All in.

First Hay in Barn

First load of hay got delivered late today.

Unfortunately the face was uneven and the stack fell down. Ken re-stacked it so the next ones would be ok.

Independence Day Thoughts

As we celebrate our independence day (2 days late from history but this is traditional :-) ) our town is having the annual Cherry Days event. This year there are actually cherries. Some years they have frozen, some they are later and some years like this one they are perfect. Sweet Black Bings (never shipped, only on for about a week) blushing Ranier's, regular Bings, and the pie cherries. We always eat too many and get sick and love it.

Sadly today we missed the Fireman's Pancake Breakfast, a fund raiser for the local volunteer fire department, and the parade (half the town is in the parade while half watches). High School reunions are traditionally at Cherry Days and each class holding a reunion rides in the parade on a float or car or wagon or whatever they can get. Everyone with a riding horse is in the parade and there are a lot of horse drawn buggies and wagons. Usually the ranchers who use horses to feed the cattle bring out the hay wagons and give rides.

We went in to town in the afternoon. I'm on the Historical Society Board and this is our one and only fund raiser, an ice cream social at the museum. There are cookies, ice cream and lemonade for a small fee and we have the museum and old Bowie schoolhouse open for visitors. We have no paid staff, it's all volunteers.

There is a carnival in the park, and music and the crowning of the high school Cherry Day King and Queen. The old tractors are on display (if they are not out in the fields working) and the old cars.

No fireworks this year. They have a habit of getting out of control making for a rather more exciting fireworks display than desired.

Small town, rural Fourth of July events, probably repeated all over this country today.

But because farming doesn't obey human calendars our hay guy was out there all afternoon baling. This is our small field and he got it all done before dark.


Hay Field Ready to Bale


Baling Hay

Hope you had a good day.

Happy Birthday America

Stone Brew Visitors & Haying!

Greg Koch from Stone Brewing, Susan Duniphin & Keiffer Koch arrived for a short visit today. We started with some picture taking opportunities at the edge of the mesa.




We had a lovely lunch at Flying Fork in Paonia and then got a great tour of both Revolution Brewing's new brewing facility and their tasting room. Of course I didn't get any pictures but Greg took video and it should be up on you tube soon.



Next stop was off to Monica's Small Potatoes Farm to see what to get for dinner tonight. She let us dig out a couple of potato plants, some fresh garlic and some lovely cooking greens. Then off to Terror Creek Winery for tastings. Greg tweeted from there.


Winery number 2 is Stone Cottage Cellars. Here is Greg, Karen Helleckson & Brent Helleckson in the cellar at Stone Cottage. Final winery stop was Azura Cellars. No pictures because we were running late by then.


Part of the rush to get back was to get home in time to do chores and let Judd in the field to cut our hay. Greg is enjoying a Revolution Beer while watching Judd do all the work.


This field has been years getting in shape to hay and this first ever cutting looks really good. It's about 2 acres so it will be interesting to see how much we actually get off it.

On Pasture and Big Bales of Hay

Today we got the pregnant ewes out into pastures where they can lamb. The grass is still not very high so we put out some hay.

We got 3 round bales to try. These are smaller than some, only 4 feet wide and about 1000 pounds each. Ken can move them with the tractor without a bale spike but it's not a long term solution.

I wanted to see how it unrolled out and we managed to unroll it by hand without too much difficulty. Then we let the sheep in and they seem to be happy to be out of the winter corrals and enjoying the alfalfa in the hay as a treat.

We are now officially within the lambing period. I expect them to really get started in a couple more days with next week being the big lambalanch period.

Farm Blather

Today (why always on a weekend?) Becky came in with a huge gash in her side. No idea what she did but after a trip to the emergency vet in Delta 30 miles away she is stitched up. We were given some stuff to keep her from chewing the drain and stitches but it didn't work so Ken made a cardboard e-collar. We'll go back to our regular vet on Monday for a real one.


The good news is that second cutting hay was very good. Especially nice after the disappointing first cutting. The barn is full of hay and we are set for winter. It's such a nice feeling to have hay in the barn to feed all the critters! It's really good hay too. Nice and green and very high quality. The sheep love it and we'll have to watch they don't get too fat.


Ken got the trench dug for the gas line to run the propane heater for the shop building. The heater has arrived and should be installed sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Some of the Horses

Here are a few of the mares out on pasture. We've run out of grass in back so they are getting hay.

First Cutting Hay In!

3rd of July and the rest of the first cutting of hay is in the barn. Less than half the hay we got last year, only 23 tons, but it's of good quality. We've already called and reserved another 32 tons from another farmer and we may buy more if second cutting isn't good either. Our late spring that was so cold followed by heat meant the grass never really developed much leaf area before shooting up seed stalks. Once it does that it's time to cut it no matter how much or little there is.

Painting Done and First hay

The painting of the new shop is finished. It came out looking really nice. Just a few more things to finish inside and we'll be done.

Today we got the first of the hay for the year into the barn. 3 loads of about 70 bales each. Then it started to rain. Now we have to wait for the rain to stop and the rest of the hay to get picked up out of the field. All we need is about 4 hours of sun and another 6 hours to get the hay up. Please, no more thunderstorms or rouge clouds till tomorrow afternoon! Hay prices are really rising this year, the cost of diesel is higher than gasoline and it's making the cost to cut and bale hay very high. We lost another custom farmer in our area who retired so the remaining 2 people are so overbooked that it's hard to get stuff done when it's ready. They were a couple of days late cutting and then an extra day late baling and now it's getting rained on. The equipment is too expensive for a small farm like ours to own so we are stuck. If anyone wants a good business there is a huge need for custom farmers in our area. High capital costs to get in, unless you buy used equipment and are able to do most of your own repairs. But a large and growing clientele.