June 23 - 29, 2014

This has been a pretty routine week.  We got more rain, and the pastures are continuing to grow like crazy.  We had the sheep in the lower main pasture and they finally chomped it down to a reasonable level.  They prefer the upper section, but thanks to our electric fence we can keep them where we want them, and it's working out great.  When they had finished cleaning up the longer grass, we let them have access to the tender new grass and weeds that are farther up the hill.  They just love it up there- each sheep has their own spot where they like to sit on the hillside, and our llama, Dolly, does too.  In fact, I watched as she got really annoyed with one of the sheep who moved in on her spot and there was nothing she could do about it- the ewe would not move,  Dolly stomped around a little bit and finally conceded defeat and moved down to a different spot.

I had help again this week for weed control.  We started in on the new pasture where there is a big patch of Mullein.  Two of us working with shovels for 2 hours made excellent progress.  There are still some left, but I should be able to pick away at them over the summer and get them before they go to seed.

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The garden is starting to produce- we tasted the first raspberry of the year, and the old cherry tree is loaded with more cherries than I have seen in the 6 years I have been here.  They are all plump and red and no worms!  We don't spray or treat in any way, so this is somewhat of a miracle.  I have picked about 12 lbs so far- made clafouti with the first batch, and pitted and froze the rest for future use.

Finally got around to making some more dog treats.  We use the livers of the lambs that we butcher, and have a simple recipe that uses whole eggs (including shells), cottage cheese and whole wheat flour.  The dogs go crazy over it, but are rationed to one a day.  Even so, with 4 dogs, we go through a lot of them.