Workin' the night shift...

No not me, silly. Our pyrennees, Peaches. Every evening about dark we corral the sheep and feed them. Then we set Peaches free to roam the pasture for the night. She stays up all night on guard for any danger to her sheep. I know she's awake and on guard because she barks at anyone who steps out the door to let you know not to mess with her sheep.

Promptly at seven in the morning, Peaches goes to her doghouse and crawls inside for some much needed rest. That is where we find her when we bring her food, latch her cable and let the sheep out for the day.

We'd love to let Peaches roam during the day too, but she's still such a puppy. She forgets when you weigh 85 pounds you can't play puppy games with baby lambs. So this is our compromise.

In the afternoon, Peaches holds court with her wooly charges. She is definitely the warrior queen of her domain.

Outwitting Mrs. Wylie Coyote

Yesterday in the middle of the afternoon there was a coyote in sheep pasture. A brazen Mrs. Wylie out looking for a lamb lunch. Brian ran in and got his rifle. He missed. Then she actually circled around and tried to get back to the lambs. Brian shot again - missed. She gave up and headed into the neighbor's woods. We set about doing a head count. We knew we'd already lost one lamb. There was another missing.

We haven't had any  trouble with coyotes up to this point so we hadn't really been worrying about them. Our Pyrennees has been confined to a cable since she broke her leg and she likes to roam. So she was no help at all. We quickly hot wire fenced a good area up close to the house and tried in vain for hours to convince the sheep that they should go in for their own protection.... and besides the grass really is greener on that side of the fence.The sheep have gotten half wild and skittish with being free on pasture so long. Finally at dark, we gave up, said a prayer for lamb safety and went off to bed.

During the night Mrs. Wylie  must have been back and brought friends. This morning we were down 4 more lambs. We spent the better part of the day working to corral the sheep inside the new electric fenced pasture inside hog panels, inside corral panels. Tonite Mrs. Wylie should not be able to find a tasty lamb snack.

We'll see what the morning brings.

Downsizing

It's time for tough decisions. Brian will start pre-vet classes full time in the fall. There will be less time for him to do things around the farm. I will still be working full time. So we are downsizing.

We'll be cutting back to 4 Red Wattle sows and 1 boar. We will offer the available animals to the folks that are currently on our waiting list. It's not been easy deciding who gets to stay. All of the hogs have personalities and traits that we have grown to love. With the smaller herd, we will continue to have RW pork for sale from the farm.

I'm planning to keep 4 Shetland ewe lambs and 1 ram lamb from this years crop of babies. The balance of the flock will be sold or sent to the processor. If you know of anyone who would like some very hardy Shetland sheep -  I've got them. We have been breeding for worm load resistance and great mothering ability on pasture. We will be selling brown, black, gray, and white Shetlands. These animals would make a great foundation flock for handspinning or a homestead flock for both wool and meat.

This flock reduction means we won't have any lamb for sale in 2011 but lamb will return for sale in 2012.

We will continue to have free-range eggs available at the farm. As soon as I can build up my flock of Buckeye chickens we will also have dressed birds for sale. And garden produce will be available at the farm stand.

Woolies, woolies everywhere

There is nothing quite as heart warming as little lambs romping in the spring green grass. There are 4 sets of twins and 1 single lamb. One set of all black twins. Two pair with one white and one black.  One pair that are black with white spots.

 We still have 4 ewes expecting. They are huge! I wonder if one of them will have triplets.

Peaches the Pyrenees

In the last six months, Peaches has gone from a ball of white fluff to a beautiful dog who knows her job - mostly. Sometimes Peaches forgets that guarding the animals is her job. She's still a puppy and she wants to play!

Yesterday I looked out the window and caught her chasing the sheep. I watched a minute to see what she was really up to. She would start to run then the sheep would start to run. Before it all got out of hand I opened the window and yelled "Peaches, NO!"

She sat right down where she stopped and looked at me as if to say: AWWW Mom! I was just playing. I wasn't hurting anybody.

I just looked at her and shook my head. I truly believe she wasn't trying to hurt the sheep, but she's getting really big. When she was littler she stayed with the hens and when she was bored she would hold one of the hens down just to here her squawk. She never hurt them. Once they squawked she would let them up. That's why we moved her over with the cows and sheep until she matures a bit. Still it's better to nip that behaviour before it gets out of hand. In the spring there will be tiny lambs and we can't have Peaches getting everybody all upset.

Lately, Mom says she hears Peaches barking at night. If you listen you can hear her go to the 4 corners of the pasture and bark into the night. I told her that is good. Peaches is letting all the night time bad boys know she is on the job and her bite is as big as her bark!

Great Pyrenees tend to patrol at night and sleep during the day. Peaches' favorite sleeping place is with the calves in a hay pile left over from one of the round bales. That is where I find her stretched out with the steers sound asleep when I go out to feed in the morning. She wakes up when the steers get up. Looks around sleepily, then ambles over to get a pet.

We need to get small

No not Alice in Wonderland small....

Brian and I have been doing alot of soul searching and number crunching this last week. We've decided that our farming endeavors need to get really small for a while.
Why did we come to this decision? Well, we've been pretty stressed this year with all the setbacks from wind and weather and it's started taking it's toll. We need to build a barn, put up fence, put out a fall garden and we still don't have our hay in. Our family obligations and needs have changed too. Brian's youngest daughter has moved in with us and her older sister has given us our first grandbaby, my daughter is getting married and my son and his wife will soon start on their homestead. This week my mother fell and broke her arm. She needs a good bit of extra help with things while she is in a cast. Our family needs us. We've decided it's time to pull back and give ourselves room to breath.
We are going to sell half of our heritage cattle and sheep. We won't be raising pastured poultry to sell next year and we are cutting our laying flock down to the bare neccessity of 35 hens. We've decided to concentrate next year on putting food by for our family. We will still have some produce to sell, but we won't be supporting a CSA. We will have pork and lamb to sell next year, but no beef or chicken.
We want to have time to go fishing with Kacie (one of her favorite pastimes) and play with the baby and to ride and drive our Haflingers. We want to have time to show folks around the farm when they come to visit without that little voice in the back of my mind listing off all the things that need to be done. In short, we've decided to cut back so that we are having fun farming again not stressing out all the time.

Peaches

Our Pyrennees puppy, Peaches, is on the job out at the egg mobile. :)
The other day the neighbors were picking up their silage in the field north of our line. Big trucks and machinery were coming and going all afternoon. It was loud and dusty.

Peaches decided all those machines were a threat to her charges. She gathered up all the hens and the sheep under the egg mobile. Then stood facing the "threat" and barking.

Good dog!! She may be only 10 weeks old but she's on the job!

Of Farm Tours and Ladies' Luncheon

This week we hosted the garden club at the farm. Eighten ladies came out to the farm to enjoy a tour and lunch.
While my daughter, Lydia, and my mom prepped the food, I took the ladies for a hike around the farm.
We started with the little chicks in the brooder that Brian and Kacie were loading up in the tractor bucket to haul out to pasture. Then we walked out through the tall grass to the 6 week old chicks and then stopped by to see the ten week old chickens that are ready to process this week. It was a nice way to show how the birds grow and change.
We hiked down through the woods, stepped over the little run in the bottom and headed up The hill with sheep scattering every which way. At the Egg Mobile I introduced the hens and the new puppy. Of course everyone fell in love with Peaches our little pyrennees puppy.
One of the ladies had her granddaughter with her. She wanted to touch a chicken. So I opened up the nestbox door and let her pet one of the hens. The hen wasn't too sure she liked the experience but she didn't want to get off of her eggs either. We also found 3 eggs out in the pasture. I had the little girl put them in her pocket. When we got up to the pig pens I let her feed the eggs to our Red Wattle hogs.
Then we had a little visit with the cows and their calves. Everyone laughed when they saw the "skunk" calf. We left the cows and headed back down the driveway. It was a little to wet to walk in the gardens but we talked about the wide beds we use, all the different varieties we are growing and our plans for the future.
After all the hiking, lunch sounded pretty good. Lydia served: Bloody Mary's, cucumber sandwiches, a lovey salad of our garden lettuces, goat cheese and pears with her homemade creamy dijon dressing. She followed the salad with gouda stuffed turkey burgers garnished with a roasted apple ring and arugula on a home made bun with a side of baked seasoned sweet potato chips.
For dessert there was a layered banana cream pie made with real made-from-scratch pudding and fresh whipped cream. Yummy!!
It made for a really busy day, but I think the ladies all had a good time and noone went away hungry.
Now we are gearing up for the Secret Garden tour in mid-July. This is a fundraiser for the garden club which allows folks to see gardens that normally are closed to the public. We will be giving tours of the farm on the hour. I'm really looking forward to it.

Of wooly boogers and DIY shearing

Our shetlands need a haircut!
This year we decided we would do the job ourselves. We read books, asked advice and bought a pair of shears.
So now we're ready to do the deed. Next week, Brian and I will round up the sheep, put down a piece of plywood to keep the wool clean and go at it.
This is definitely going to be an adventure... I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

Farming ain't for sissies

It would be wonderful if farming was all sunshine and baby animals frisking in the field, but it's not. Reality checks come in the form of 13 inches of snow that require you to stay up all night sweeping snow off the high tunnel where the hens live so the plastic doesn't collapse and frozen faucets on subzero mornings when the water tank is dry and all the animals are milling around waiting for you, and babies with life threatening scours.
And yesterday it came in the form of a still born lamb. Yoshi, my niece's retired 4-H ewe, had her lamb some time between when I checked on everybody in the morning and 2 o'clock when I went out to load up the horse we sold. It looked like she hadn't even tried to clean it off or nurse it at all. In fact, I stumbled over it in the snow. It was white and I didn't see it because I really wasn't expecting it. Yoshi, was no where near it. Odd.
I couldn't stop just then and do anything so I loaded the horse and got them on their way. Then I spent some time trying to figure out what happened. I found the placenta about 25 feet from the lamb and Yoshi another 25 feet from it. We won't ever know for sure what happened. Next year we will be sure to put Yoshi in a "jug" when she is getting close to term so she will be more likely to bond with her lamb and so we can keep a closer eye on her. We never thought of doing it this year because the Shetlands are so hardy they actually refuse to bring their babies in no matter what the weather is. We've never lost a Shetland lamb even in the worst weather.
If you've never tried to bury anything in frozen ground- don't. Pick axe and shovel. Tears and cuss words. I got the baby and the placenta buried so they wouldn't attract coyotes to the flock. Then went on to care for the other animals.
As with all things in life. Live, learn, keep going, do better next time. Still it is sad.