Desert Weyr Blog
-
Flat Stanley’s Thanksgiving Dinner
Flat Stanley joined us for Thanksgiving Dinner. We made mashed potatoes, bread, and a turkey. The turkey looked great, but it needed to cook for a little longer. Continue reading
-
Flat Stanley and the Sheep
Flat Stanley was freezing, so we made him some coveralls. We have to do some sheep work outside. This was his first introduction to our sheep toys. Ewes are in the chute, ready to be worked, with Stanley watching. Continue reading
-
Flat Stanley
Flat Stanley arrived from Tennessee to visit us for a while. Here he is with Larry and Andrew as they work on the new elk fence. Continue reading
-
Larry’s Back!
Larry’s back to do the next section of the big elk fence. This will be the last tall fence we put in. It will go from the hay barn to behind the house, and it’ll enclose a small section of the cedars pasture. We had to start taking down parts of the old fence so… Continue reading
-
Toe Trimming and Deworming
I finished trimming toes on at least half of the adult ewes today. The sheep have better feet this year compared to other years. We’ve been culling for poor hoof growth patterns for a while, but not very heavily. It seems to have made a big difference this year. Our next batch to do is… Continue reading
-
Sorting More Sheep
No pictures, but a lot of work. Today, we sorted all of the adult ewes into their breeding pens. I also got the toes trimmed on half of them. We’ve still got to trim toes on the rest of the adult ewes, all of the rams, and all of the lambs, but it’s a start.… Continue reading
-
Guard Dog
Winnie is now guarding the adult rams who have not only their winter pen, but the entire west side of the orchard to run in. We’re hoping they’ll clean the ground of fallen apples. Continue reading
-
Planning Breedings
I have the opportunity to run 14 primary breeding rams this year, plus two backup pens. Each primary ram will only have four ewes, and the backups will each have 28 ewes. This is a chance to use 16 different rams for breeding, an opportunity that is very rare and potentially very valuable. Trying to… Continue reading
-
Meat Cutting
We had the great opportunity to watch some of our sheep being processed at the slaughterhouse recently. This is the typical carcass of a US-line sheep. The first step is breaking the carcass in half. This is the cross-section. It’s not a very meaty loin compared to some of our sheep. We had one lamb… Continue reading
-
History Lecture to Small Vision School Class
I was asked to give a short lecture to a very small, five-person class of Vision students about clothing from between 1625 and 1750. I dressed in my mantua and full Golden Age of Piracy outfit made from Reconstructing History patterns. I’m not very good at spinning on a hand spindle. My spinning wheel is… Continue reading