I'm starting our new blog today. It's the first time I've done this, and am excited about sharing our stories with our customers and readers. My intent is to write a periodic summary of what's been going on here, highlighting the events of each week.
Since this is the first posting, I thought I'd give a run down of the past year or so, just touching on the highlights.
Since this is the first posting, I thought I'd give a run down of the past year or so, just touching on the highlights.
Luca (center) with his new friends 2013 was a productive year for us. It was the first year that I was able to be here full time, and it really makes a difference. I was able to put in a full vegetable garden, and keep up with the weeding. Putting up most of the food it produced was nice, too.
We bought a tractor with a backhoe, which has proved very useful for digging fence post holes and irrigation lines. Bill split and stacked all the wood from the 8 large trees we had removed, so staying warm this winter was a breeze! I was able to spend almost all of my time from November through March washing and dyeing our wool, and ended up with over 100 lbs of yarn. We also got another Maremma guard dog to help our two older ones with the guard duties. His name is Luca, and he was 18 months old when we got him. He adjusted right away and has settled in to become a very good hand. He is very alert and good with the lambs and works with the other two as part of the team.
We bought a tractor with a backhoe, which has proved very useful for digging fence post holes and irrigation lines. Bill split and stacked all the wood from the 8 large trees we had removed, so staying warm this winter was a breeze! I was able to spend almost all of my time from November through March washing and dyeing our wool, and ended up with over 100 lbs of yarn. We also got another Maremma guard dog to help our two older ones with the guard duties. His name is Luca, and he was 18 months old when we got him. He adjusted right away and has settled in to become a very good hand. He is very alert and good with the lambs and works with the other two as part of the team.
2014 lambs and their moms 2014 has been a good year so far. The snow melted off relatively early and the mud was almost all gone by the time the lambs started arriving. We lambed late this year, because of the shearing schedule, but it proved to be a successful strategy. We had 15 ewes, and even though there were 7 new mothers in the group, they all turned out to be good. Final lamb count was 23, with 7 of those being black. We made some progress on our fence building in April, but are taking a break since our weekends have become busy with other things.
Feeling slightly naked This last week has been a full one- I've been attacking weeds every chance I get. I hired some help to get the worst of it just outside the pasture fence. We filled about 12 large garbage bags with hounds tongue and cockle burr! I've also been planting the last things in the garden- beans went in about a week ago, and are already about 2 inches high. My experiment with mulching to keep the weeds down is mostly successful. There aren't many, and those that do show are easy to pull out. I'm also pleased with the weed-free paths. Last year I put down cardboard on the path areas and covered it with about 6" of wood chips from the trees that got cut down. So far so good- hardly any weeds are coming through this year. The sheep have been in the new upper pasture all week, and just today we moved them back to the big pasture which has been resting and growing for about 3 weeks. The three dogs all got a summer haircut- a couple of them were starting to get matts, so we had them shaved and cleaned up. They feel so much better, although they seem a little embarrassed to be seen without their fur.
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