Desert Weyr Blog
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Late Snow!
Yesterday, there was snow down on Jumbo Mountain. I didn’t get a picture – it was off-and-on cloudy, and by the afternoon, it had all melted. I don’t remember the last time we had snow this far down the mountain this late in the year, but we can get snow as late as June. It… Continue reading
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Planting, Marking, Lambing, and More
A lot has been going on, and I haven’t updated this much since we’ve been so busy. The white shed is now completely gone. We still have a few foundation pieces that need removing. They’re rotten logs embedded into the ground, so removing them will take a while. We also had a major hailstorm on… Continue reading
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Demolition!
We’re getting down to the last of the demolition projects on the farm. This old shed was near one corner of the front field. The wooden supports had been eaten by horses, and the siding was just particleboard that had been painted. It didn’t have any foundation – just some old treated telephone poles. It… Continue reading
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More Disking
Several passes later, the front field is looking pretty good. We still need to disk it once more to break up the clods, but we should be ready to plant later this week. As soon as it’s planted and marked, we’ll have to hurry and get irrigation pipes set up on it. The field below… Continue reading
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Disking the Field
Our front-west field is being disked now to prepare it for planting. We don’t have a big enough tractor or disk to do this sort of work, so we hire the job out to custom farmers in our area. We’re going to put it back to permanent irrigated pasture. We’ll be planting a mix of… Continue reading
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Sheep Mathematics
Caridwen is a sheep math wizard, or at least an A student. She can count to three! Not only does she feed all three lambs, but if she only has two, she goes in search of the missing one. The way this year’s lambs are running and bouncing around at very young ages makes keeping… Continue reading
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Final Electrical Inspection
Jake finished all of the electrical stuff except a few small finishing touches. There’s just one fixture and a couple of outlet plates left. The inspector came and gave us the final check-off on the electrical. This is great news for us. Ken can fill the trench now, and we can finish up the fencing… Continue reading
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Win Some, Lose Some
Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. We lost 109 Daron today. She went into an unusual labor, and I couldn’t get the lamb out. It felt weird. I talked to our vet about options. A C-section would have been $300 at minimum with no complications. Realistically, it would have been more like $500+. It’s… Continue reading
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Triplets!
Well, I spoke too soon! At this morning’s sheep check, at six AM, we found an ewe with three lambs. 298 Caridwen had all three lambs out, dry, and nursing. Two were ewes and one was a ram. Unfortunately, Caridwen can only count to two, so we put her in a jug on pasture until… Continue reading
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Burning Brush and More Lambs
Yesterday, we burned the big brush pile in our field. We have to call the Sheriff to get permission now. In years past, agricultural burning was allowed with no restrictions. It’s a bit of a hassle, but I guess because so many urban folks moved in and saw burning, they had to institute some sort… Continue reading