by Oogie | Dec 31, 2015 | Livestock Guardian Dogs
Last day of 2015. Sofia goes out with us to feed every morning. Here she is learning how to sit quietly and guarding the hay. She also loves the rams. There is one that comes up to her to have his face licked every morning and evening.
by Oogie | Dec 27, 2015 | Farming Life, Weather
Delivering a big bale of hay to the ewes. Almost plowed out enough to feed the ram lambs.
by Oogie | Dec 26, 2015 | Farming Life, Weather, Wildlife
The deep snow up high has brought the elk back down to the valley. This big bull is eating the old hay we spread as mulch last fall. Meanwhile, Ken is trying to clear out enough snow from the aisle way so we can get in to feed the ram lambs.
by Oogie | Dec 25, 2015 | General Farm, Weather
Well we don’t have to worry about having a white Christmas! So much snow we probably couldn’t get out even if we wanted to. Solar panels are covered and not producing much.
by Oogie | Dec 23, 2015 | Weather
The snow is now deep enough to block the sheep pens. We’ll have to get it plowed out to feed the sheep.
by Oogie | Dec 22, 2015 | Weather
Well winter is here, we’re getting a lot of snow. The gate where we come in is getting blocked. Ewes are not happy. Snow even under the hay barn aisle.
by Oogie | Dec 8, 2015 | Livestock Guardian Dogs
Sofia is growing fast. She is going out with the ewes under supervision and doing well. We are really pleased, she has the best instincts at a younger age than any guardian dog we have ever had.
by Oogie | Dec 1, 2015 | Black Welsh Mountain Sheep, Technology
We are again doing research with the USDA National Animal Germplasm Program. This year we are collecting blood samples as well as other data on the ewes to evaluate their ovulation status. The experiment calls for blood collections every hour so we have a lot to do....
by Oogie | Nov 5, 2015 | Weather
First snow of the year.
by Oogie | Nov 3, 2015 | Wildlife
Every year we have to take the irrigation pipes apart before winter sets in. They are drained out so they won’t freeze and crack. This year Ken caught a small trout that was in the pipes. He brought him down to the big pond. We’ve rescued several trout...
by Oogie | Nov 2, 2015 | Wildlife
Ken got a deer tag this year and today he got a nice buck out back in the cedars. We gave the buck the nickname Trevor. It’s a rather long story but started after Bob and Carolyn shared with us the Australian poet Bill Kearns and his poem Entrapment. You can...
by Oogie | Nov 1, 2015 | Livestock Guardian Dogs
Sofia has arrived and is settling in. She is small enough to get out of every pen and can crawl through the welded wire panels. She is so excited that we are concerned she will run the regnant sheep a bit too much so we are keeping her separate from but adjacent to...
by Oogie | Oct 31, 2015 | General Farm, Meat Products
It’s finally here, we are ready for Garvin Mesa’s Celebrate! event. Come out and get your own personally signed copy of Bob’s book, “Much Ado About Mutton”.
by Oogie | Oct 30, 2015 | Farming Life
Cleaning up before Garvin Mesa Day. Who says backhoes can’t have high technology? Here’s our version of Bluetooth. š
by Oogie | Oct 29, 2015 | General Farm
While Bob and Carolyn were here we arranged for a visit to Joe Sperry’s flock of Polypay sheep and watch them being loaded onto the truck to come down out of the mountain. Joe has a lovely flock of sheep. He moves them to his ranch in Delta using big trucks...
by Oogie | Oct 27, 2015 | General Farm
We got word that one of the range flocks was going to be moving their sheep through town down from the mountains off to the winter pastures. We rushed off in search of the sheep.We found them, passed through the flock and rushed to get in front so Bob could take some...
by Oogie | Oct 25, 2015 | Livestock Guardian Dogs
It’s time for us to get another guard dog puppy. We need to have dogs coming up all the time to be sure we have enough dogs to guard our sheep. This time we’ve selected a Karakachan puppy. We are eagerly waiting for Hopping Acres Sofia to...
by Oogie | Oct 24, 2015 | Meat Products
Bob and Carolyn are showing us how to make a special boorvoorst sausage. We are using a mix of our mutton, our beef and pork from a neighbor’s pig. The recipe also used cider vinegar made from our apples. Here they are just before we start. The spices are...
by Oogie | Oct 23, 2015 | General Farm
This year for Garvin Mesa Celebrate! Day we will be hosting Bob Kennard for a book signing. Bob is the author of “Much Ado About Mutton” a wonderful book on the history of mutton as a premium meat. We will also be serving smoked mutton taste samples. Come...
by Oogie | Oct 12, 2015 | Wool Products
Most folks do a spring cleaning but we’ve added so many products and sold out of others that I decided to completely re-organize our farm shop. I think it came out very well. I’m adding in many of the new items to the on-line store. We’ve now...
by Oogie | Sep 23, 2015 | Black Welsh Mountain Sheep
I use a variety of characteristics to evaluate our flock of Black Welsh Mountain sheep each year inĀ theĀ fall. I also look at their NSIP EBVs for important traits. We’ve sorted the rams and the ewes and yearlings and only haveĀ the lambs left to do. Every year...
by Oogie | Sep 6, 2015 | General Farm
We’re cleaning out a bunch of stuff so I’ve decided to give away and sell some of it. Nothing will be shipped, you must be able to come pick stuff up at our farm in Paonia on Garvin Mesa. Some things are gone.Ā I’ll be addingĀ more later. Free Stuff...
by Oogie | Aug 31, 2015 | Poultry
This past Saturday was chicken butcher day. We rent a trailer and hire additional help to process all of our birds. It went very well. After scalding the chickens are plucked. Then into the inside for gutting and chilling and finally packaging. We were a host farm for...
by Oogie | Jul 10, 2015 | Poultry
We’ve been looking for a way to put food and oyster shell in for the chickens in the chicken tractor. Our existing standard round feeders don’t work well and dishes waste a lot of feed as the chickens scratch it out. I looked at a number of on-line DIY PVC...
by Oogie | Jul 1, 2015 | Black Welsh Mountain Sheep, Poultry
We’ve had a lovely visit with our friend Alan. He’s a much better photographer than I am so I’ve included a few of his shots here. flickr photo shared by cogdogblog under a Creative Commons ( BY ) license Moving sheep flickr photo shared by...
