Liza and Manny on their first date This past month has seen lots of progress. The weekend before Thanksgiving our loyal friends Jeff and Maria showed up on a Sunday to help us make the final push that we needed to get the second side of the barn done enough to split the flock so all the sheep could have room at their feeders and we could finally start breeding. Thanks to our friends, we got two feeder bunks in place, built and hung two more doors and did a lot of cleanup. They assisted with sorting and trimming up the yearlings, and then we brought our ram, JC, up from the lower pasture. He sure was happy to see his girlfriends, and went to work right away! We put our new little ram, Manny, in with them also, but JC wasn't letting him get anywhere with the ladies. Besides, the puppy, Callie, still needs supervision around the younger sheep and was starting to get aggressive with Manny, so we separated him into his own space adjacent to the others and let him have a smaller yearling ewe for company. We hope that they will breed so we can see what the resulting wool looks like. (Any resulting lambs will be a cross between Romney and Cormo).
Nap time All three dogs are now with the breeding ewes and JC. At 7 months, Callie is almost as big as Cas, but is definitely still a puppy in every way. She still will try to nip at the sheep and pull on their wool, but the old ewes have plenty of experience with dogs and they just stare at her and stomp their feet, at which point she usually decides that maybe it's a better idea to find something else to do. JC head butted her the first time she tried it with him and she has left him alone ever since. She is pretty good about finding something to play with, like her chew toy or a random stick from the willow tree. It's hard being a puppy, full of curiosity and energy with only a couple of old dogs who are not the least bit interested in playing! She runs off her energy, then crashes into a deep sleep on the dry straw bed we made for the dogs. Even then, though, she has one eye open, as I have seen her jump up at the slightest unusual sound.
All lit up! After we got the sheep separated, I took a week or so off from barn building to get ready for Thanksgiving. We had the dinner at our studio with Bill's family and our friends Jeff and Maria. Bill's niece had just returned from two years teaching in Japan, so it was good to have them all here. And I have to say, it was very nice to take a break from working outside in below freezing temperatures and spend a few days in a nice warm kitchen. After the holiday we have continued working on the barn, but at a reduced pace. We got the clear polycarbonate siding on the uphill side, which was pretty exciting. It keeps the wind out, and lets lots of light in. We had a period of below 0 degree days where I discovered that breaking the ice on the water troughs was not going to work out. I spent 4 hours one day, and a couple of hours for several other days and figured I had better ways to spend my time. So I found some low wattage trough heaters and ordered a 250 ft length of very heavy electrical cord and made my own extension cord that just reaches from the house to the barn. It's big enough to power two trough heaters and the temporary string of lights that we have hung up, which is very nice. We are becoming very civilized! I have even taken a couple of days off to clean and organize the house, which is really a satisfying thing to do.
A river runs through it Just when we were starting to feel like we could relax a little, we had another episode that made us realize that things are going to be different for quite some time. A few years ago the Forest Service logged an area upstream from us, and it burned this summer. Now there is nothing to hold the water and every time it rains the runoff creates a stream that goes into the county road and back into McFarland Creek. This wreaks havoc with our water system. We had some unseasonably warm temperatures last week along with rain, and it was a mess. The creek was a swollen churning mass of brown water, and the county road above us turned into a river bed. The silt plugged up our buried pipes again, and it took a few days to get them cleared out. I think we will be dealing with this again in the Spring when the snow melts. But the good news is that as soon as the rain stopped, the road dried up and the next day the creek was running clear as could be.
Happiness is a full hayloft This past weekend we achieved another milestone- we got hay stowed in the hayloft. We have been getting one truckload at a time for the past couple of months, but we finally got our new hay elevator assembled and tried it out. It works great, and we now have over 200 bales in the loft with room for more. We'll do more next weekend which should be enough to get through the rest of the winter. Having a full hayloft is the best Christmas present ever!
We will have Christmas at our studio, with Katie's family who will be staying for about a week. It will be nice to have them here. We wish all of our friends and readers a very happy holiday season and look forward to updating you in the New Year.
We will have Christmas at our studio, with Katie's family who will be staying for about a week. It will be nice to have them here. We wish all of our friends and readers a very happy holiday season and look forward to updating you in the New Year.
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