Category: Farm Life
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Solstice!
It’s time for the solstice. Summer has now officially begun. I still haven’t killed the garden, so I’m pretty thrilled about that. Here is the corn. It won’t be knee-high by the fourth of July, but at least it’s still growing. The peas are doing well. I see a few flowers starting to show now,… Continue reading
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Lambing Is Nearly Done – We Hope!
Well, we’re near the end of lambing now. We’re at 144 days from rams out, and we have about 15 ewes looking ready to pop at any time. Here I am checking Cerridwyn for the proper positioning of her first lamb. She had an ewe. Much later, she had a breech stillborn. She never showed… Continue reading
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Sheep Trick
Some lambs start learning how to jump on their moms early. A few continue this into adulthood and stand on top of others to get the best hay. Continue reading
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Jump Starting a Lamb
Lambing is in full swing, and I thought I’d share a trick we now use on all lambs. I milk a bit of colostrum into a syringe case. Ken uses his finger to entice the lamb to nurse, then he squirts the milk into the size of the lamb’s mouth. This does several things: it… Continue reading
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Mowing the Orchard
We moved the pregnant ewes and mowed their old pen to reset the grass growth. We needed to chop the seed heads and get it back to growing more leaves. It should be ready to graze again in two to three weeks. Continue reading
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Dog House? Sheep House?
The new puppy is still unnamed, but he has a buddy. Is this a sheep in a dog house, or is this a dog in a sheep house? Continue reading
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New Puppy
We picked up our new guard dog puppy this morning. He is an Akbash. The sun was unfortunately shining in the wrong place to get good pictures. All of the sheep and Kimball came to investigate, and the sheep were very concerned. They will settle down with time, but it’s been a while since they’ve… Continue reading
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Chicks Have Arrived
All of the chicks arrived this morning. We raise one batch of meat birds each year. This year, we’re doing 100. We keep half for ourselves, and we sell the rest. We also got 25 pullets for egg laying. The egg breeds we’re trying this year are Russian Orloff, Dorking, Ancona, and Welsummer. We also… Continue reading
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The Garden Is Growing
Well, my black thumb hasn’t hit me too hard yet. The corn is up and doing well. Now, I’ve got to figure out if I need to thin the plants. The peas are doing well, too. I’m not sure about the melons yet. There are plants where I put the seeds, but I’m not sure… Continue reading
