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 May 8th. I thought it took off lots of the apple blossom buds, but it only took off the ones near the tops. The ground was white like it had snowed, and the sheep were racing around, very upset.
During the storm, one ewe put her lambs in the dog house we added for the dogs this winter. These lambs seemed to really enjoy being out of the hail. Several other ewes also figured this out, and so there were several lambs from different mothers in there at one time.
On the 12th of May, the two fields were planted. We are using a mixture of meadow brome, orchardgrass, smooth brome, ryegrass, wheatgrass, festulolium, and oats as a nurse crop. We’ll see how it all grows this year, and we’ll frost seed some clover next spring if we don’t have too many weeds.
The fields got planted just in time. Starting that evening, and for the entire next day, we had rain. We got almost 3/4 inch of it – perfect to settle the seeds in and get them started. We still have to get the field marked and ready to irrigate, but the rain was perfectly timed.
By the 16th of May, the orchard was in full bloom. Despite the hail and snow, we still have a lot of blossoms. When you walk out into the orchard, the trees hum from all the bees. There are also lots of moths and hummingbirds helping with the pollination. We might actually have some apples this year if the blossoms are any indication.
The orchard looks really nice in full bloom, despite its age.
Yesterday, the fields got marked. Today, we have to get the irrigation pipes installed and start watering the fields.
Lambing is winding down. We’re pretty much at the end of the time for primary rams to produce lambs. So far, we’ve had 60 live lambs and three stillborn. 42 ewes have lambed, and 15 are left to go. Tomorrow, we plan to sort out the ewes that have not yet lambed and separate them. It’ll be easier to locate them that way. I suspect that none of the remaining 15 will lamb until the second period, which won’t start until the first week of June. All of the lambs are growing well, and I’m very pleased with their overall quality.
