Category: Animal Husbandry
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Winter Again
It’s winter again. Our January thaw has officially ended. We got between eight and ten inches of snow last night! Today is the day to put the backup rams in with the ewes. So, Ken had to shovel a path to open the ram pen gate. I was able to catch both boys fairly easily,… Continue reading
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More Bread
For Christmas, we spent the entire day baking the bread we started on Christmas Eve. We made some changes to the Cooks Illustrated No-Knead Bread recipe. The basic recipe is as follows: 15 ounces of flour (weighed) or 3 cups1/4 teaspoon yeast1 1/2 teaspoons table salt3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons… Continue reading
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Bread, Second and Third Try
Here are my second and third attempts at bread. The loaf on the left is the whole wheat variation. The one on the right is the regular one. For both loaves, I weighed the flour rather than using a measuring cup. For the regular one, I increased the second part of the baking (sans cover)… Continue reading
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Hervey and Friends
This is Hervey the ram and 2 of his girlfriends. When we first saw them, the one in the white coat was sleeping on his shoulder. As I tried to get the camera out, the other ewe came up and started bothering them. I sure hope that that means they’re in heat and we’ll have… Continue reading
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Monmouth Caps
I’ve been working on a replica of the Monmouth cap for a while. The only extant original is in the Nelson Museum.* My first attempt was based on several published patterns that are frequently referenced. You can view them here and here. Using our new, bulky, pure Black Welsh yarn, I did the provisional cast-on.… Continue reading
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Off to Slaughter
This year, I vowed not to go into winter with as many sheep as I had last year. Our fall slaughtering has started. We’ve already done 16 adult ewes, and today we sent off 10 young rams. We have to schedule slaughter dates over a year in advance. I have 66 slots reserved for this… Continue reading
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Emergency Preparations for a Farm
Watching the news about the big fires in San Diego yesterday and today prompted me to review our farm emergency plan. We used to live in Ramona, San Diego, one of the towns in the path of the fires. The latest data indicates that our old house was either on the very edges or was… Continue reading
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Back From Taos
I had a lovely time in Taos, and I didn’t come back with more wool than I took – that was good! I did find a pair of patterns for knitted dragons, so I bought two types of roving to make a knitted dragon like our logo. My test sample looks pretty good, so I’ll… Continue reading
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Hay, Rain, and Sheep Selection
We’ve been busy! We just got a huge shipment of hay in – fortunately, it was right before over an inch of rainfall. Last year, our entire second cutting was destroyed by rain. We buy hay from a neighbor, and we’d already contracted for it, so we were out the entire cost. This year, we… Continue reading
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Nitrates and Grazing
Typical farming news today. We planted oats in a new pasture to provide some grazing during the summer slump. We repeated that in the early fall for our sheep to enjoy as temperatures started to fall. We always do testing on our forages to balance the minerals we give our sheep. Before grazing the pasture,… Continue reading