Category Archive: farming
Today came/went
I sat down to write this post and realized that it is dark and I have not put the sheep in for the night.
Sheep are in – I don’t know what happened to today’s hours, but they are gone – they came and went FAST. The sheep are such fun when I let them out in the morning. The babies leap and run and leap again for the joy of life. Tonight when I got up there to put them in, the babies and moms were in the barn. But in the dark, it’s hard to tell who belongs to who, so I ended up leaving the stall doors open and let the mothers sort out their offspring. The sheep who were not bred this year, were put in a different area. I am so thankful for having indoor facilities for them.
I am so thankful for help! The strawberries are weeded and hoop house is cleaned out and new seeds are started. This young lady can only help me 2 days a week, but she gets so much done, it is enough. In fact, it is wonderful! Next week, we will work in the barn.
Spinning, planting, shearing
A bit of spinning,
50 potatoes planted which is about 1/4 of them,
and 5 sheep are sheared. The lambs are getting reacquainted with their mothers and the rams are in a big fight. With their coats removed, they don’t know each other. It got to late to finish the shearing, so the others will be sheared in a week or so.
More Monster trucks and miracle of birth
Here are more trucks – that’s as many Monster trucks as this quilt will have. Mary came over and we were digitizing – or rather, she was teaching me, when I felt restless and decided we should go check on the sheep at the barn.
I knew tomorrow was due date, but that doesn’t always mean anything, Surprise! The bag had broken and before we got her in a stall, she was in this stage.
We talked her the 4 feet into the stall where she lay down. She was showing little feet.
This little fellow rushed out and
before she finished cleaning his head, he had a brother.
They are still wet, but all are tired and taking a bit of a nap.
Then it was time to try to stand.
Time to figure out how dinner is served. Both were born and trying to find dinner within 20 minutes. I will never tired of the miracle of birth.
More big trucks and sheep
Here are a few more big trucks. It’s going slowly because I have to keep an eye on the sheep. 3 more to lamb. One is technically due today, one mid May and one anywhere in between. Of course then there are the other things like meals and visiting people in the hospital. All of you know what I mean.
Evil eye from mom because she doesn’t want to let me near this baby.
Getting a peak at the baby
Finally — the baby!
If someone will explain to me how to download a video here, I’ll take some photos of the little ones playing and show them.
Spidron finished, barn work
Here you see the front and back of the Spidron Mini Table Topper. It took 4 fat quarters and 1/2 yard for the back and measures 18″ across from point to point. The pattern is available from CD Designs. It was only 9 years in the making.
And here is the definition of a spidron: “In geometry, a spidron is a continuous flat geometric figure composed entirely of triangles, where, for every pair of joining triangles, each has a leg of the other as one of its legs, and neither has any point inside the interior of the other.”
We also spent some time in the barn today. The plan was to plant potatoes until the neighbor called and said we had a sheep stuck in the rose bush. I had to cut branches off to get her loose. So we decided as long as we were there to clean water troughs and give them clean water, and move several bales of hay. Just before we got there, another of our ewes gave birth and has one healthy baby and one that apparently didn’t get out of the sac in time. I’ll try to remember to get a photo of the little one tomorrow.
Clothes and barn supplies
Clothes either wear out or just don’t fit well anymore. So today was the big shopping for clothes, barn supplies, and whatevers. I like the prices at Costco, so buy whatever I can there. Yes, I could go to thrift stores, but that takes more time than I have to go through the clothes and try them on. So I opt for Costco, where jeans cost 14.99 and actually fit me. So 3 pair of jean, a swim suit, and a summer dress should keep me for the rest of the year as I still have some winter tops. I will need some summer tops, but didn’t see anything I liked.
Then off to the farm store, where I have to describe what I want, because I never know the real name of the product. The people who last had the barn did some strange things to it, including taking all the hardware off the doors. So I brought two kinds of wheels to keep the doors in place. I will decide which it needs and take the other back and come home with 5 of the right ones. In addition to that, the hooks are off the doors, so they can’t be kept closed. The sheep have figured one of the doors out, but the second one is in a track, so they haven’t come all the way out.
A GIFT
My daughter and SIL brought this lovely scarf back from Thailand for me. They had a marvelous time and highly recommend the trip.
Finally some quilting:
The name of this small table topper is SPIDRON. It was supposed to be English paper pieced. The date I started it says 2008. OK, I cheated. I had all the pieces ironed around the little cardboard type papers and was supposed to whipstitch them in place. I tried and it looked awful. Then I ironed everything out flat, drew around some of the pieces, and just machine stitched it. Had I known that was going to be the way to do it, I would have cut the pieces with 1/4″ seams, instead of random seams. It is now in one piece and needs to be backed and possibly quilted. I am so glad this is done. I am not in love with English paper piecing. That is the way some of my ufos have happened. Do you have those kind of ufos – where you just don’t want to do it?
Shepherding and weeding
Not only is shepherding hard work, but is certainly brings a meaning to some of Christ’s teachings. Sheep are pushing, shoving animals while goats will wait nicely in line. Sheep are smart, just that they want what they want yesterday and you just might be in the way. When I let the 12 girls out in the morning, I have to hang onto the doorway as they crowd on both sides, nothing orderly about them – each wants to be first out. Goats learn their order and will file in the order they have learned. A sheep will push past all of them to be the first to get the grain. Sheep also tend to stick together so where the leader goes, they all go, even though it might not be a good place to go.
And, yes, the ram, there is meaning there as well. He will not tolerate anything getting between him and his family. They are his and he will not tolerate what he perceives as competition (doesn’t matter whether it actually is or not – it is what he perceives). He is also there to protect them with all his energy. (If you way 250#, that is a lot of energy) Ours has knocked the door off the small hay barn, because he wanted in. Apparently, he thought that he should make sure they had food.
On the good side, the lambs are obedient and stay by mom, generally not getting far enough away to get into trouble. When mom calls, they are instantly at her side – or if small enough – under her. And if dad is in the same pen, he also watches over the little lambs. And that is just the beginning of what one can learn from sheep.
We spent a part of the morning moving sheep into different pastures. Since we don’t have a herding dog, we have to try to outsmart them, which takes time. Usually, it just takes some grain, but today, with all the lush grass, grain was not a very good enticement. By the time we had them all where we wanted them, we were tired and ready for lunch.
After lunch, it was time to attack weeds in the hoop house – another example Christ used. Do you know what this plant is?
Here is a close up of the same plant. I think I could make a fortune off this plant if it had value, it doesn’t “get it” when I keep pulling it all up.
Since I forgot to take a photo of the aisle before starting, I’ll show you what the middle aisle looks like so you can get an idea of what this aisle looked like.
Of course I have to keep weeding to keep it this way. I have a lot of plastic feed sacks that I will put down in this aisle and see if that helps.
And when I tired of this, I sat down at my neglected spinning wheel for a bit of spinning.
Happy sheep
These sheep are so happy. We had an 11 hour power outage yesterday because of high winds. So instead of getting the shearing done, we were able to get the fence tight enough for the sheep. And that is why the sheep are so happy (still need to finish hot wire for dogs). Don’t they look wonderful in all that grass?
Of course, not much else was accomplished because when power was out, nothing works, not even the well. We are so blessed in this country to have secure buildings with heat and water. When we are out of it, I start to realize how much more difficult our ancestors lives were. Not only our ancestors, but many in this world are still without. We, who are so blessed, have a responsibility to pass these blessings on to others.
Quilts are one way that I can help and the sheep income will be my financial gift.
This is my yardage accounting for the week and year.
Used this Week: Apr 7 9.5 yards
Used year to Date 75.625 yards
Goal: 300.00 yards
Yards to goal: 224.375 yards
Added this Week: 0.00 yards
Added Year to Date: 13.00 yards
New Yards to quilt goal: 237.375 yards
Net Used 2017 62.625 yards
Do what you can
Today my motto has to be just “do what you can” because it has been a backward day.
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Shearer postponed for another day
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Mother and son sheep got out. I put them back in and then thought I secured the door. As I was leaving she pushed the door so hard, that I hit the ground. So they are temporarily in another stall, but they could get into the main part of the barn. Other than make a big mess, that won’t hurt anything.
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Dog has been getting out of pasture, but maybe that has been conquered.
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I had a lot of stitches to take out of this table runner because the thread jumped out of the tension disk.
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People are dying. 3 people from church in the last 2 weeks is just too much. One of whom was a good friend. I got to thinking maybe I could spend my time better. What if I reorganized everything so that if I passed on, it would be easy for someone to come in and disperse all my things. Never mind, won’t happen. I can’t get that organized and still work. But there are areas that I could and should clean out. I’ll have to give that some more thought.
