Mother Nature Lends A Hand

In my last posting I discussed the onerous job of watering the newly planted trees. Well, Mother Nature (a fervent fan of this blog) stepped in for me this past week. The whole week I was in Auckland we had sunny skies and NO rain. Coming up on Thursday night, it rained!! And it rained on Friday; and on Saturday...you get the picture. Mother Nature lends a hand so I don't have to. Keep on reading, M.N. you are deeply appreciated.

So since I didn't have to spend several hours lugging water, I turned to my seedlings. What remained of them. The rabbits and insects have pretty much destroyed most of my beautiful spinach, beans, peas, and coriander. Indeed, I can't even find where I planted that coriander. It was eaten down to the roots and beyond. I hope the rabbits ate far enough to encounter the possum carcess under the plants. Possibly the smell will make them think twice about returning for seconds.

This rabbit thing is pretty interesting. According to local yore, the previous owners' son had pet rabbits which escaped and now are eagerly populating across the countryside. Needless to say, the farmers are not pleased!

Also interesting is running an organic farm. This means no insecticides. Okay, I get it. But the corollary is that it also means many insects chowing down on my seedlings. I am busy investigating which plants would repel which insects but it seems to me to be a never ending cycle. If I plant, say Marigolds, to keep away beetles, then up comes some other creepy crawly who happens to adore Marigolds so then I have to plant something to keep them away. And in the meantime, back come the beetles to eat my spinach. I am seriously considering soapy water. No honestly, I am. No one wants to eat soapy water, not even insects. And the soap would be biodegradable, organic soap. I promise.

Since I had plenty of spare time at the farm this weekend, I started cleaning the wool. Dan built me the most elegant trestle table with room for the wool bags and everything I needed. He set me up in the garage where there was good ventilation and I could be out of the rain (once again, thanks Mother N.). My task was to take the wool, cut away the unusable parts (i.e., the poo drenched parts) and keep the rest for cleaning, carding, and ultimately becoming part of a duvet. We have 3 1/2bags full. It took me 1 1/2 hours to do 1/3 of a bag.

This is a major time investment. But the work is pleasant enough. I don't like the feel of wool lanolin on my hands so I bought rubber gloves. I was cheerfully snipping away when I realized that I had also snipped my fingertips. After some massive mental persuasion, I convinced myself that I wasn't really rummaging around in sheep poo; my fingers were mostly covered and the fingertips didn't count. I still have more than 3 bags to go and I don't know what my reaction will be to the next load of shit but I'll try for the power of positive thinking. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll grit my teeth and bear it.

L3

It’s been a great week for sheep. L3 (lamb no. 3 for those of you who haven’t read the earlier blogs) arrived Thursday. We got up to the farm in the later afternoon and there he/she was. Up and around; no worries; as acclimated as if she/he were 3 or 4 days old. I later found the birth remains and our quiet brown ewe had chosen to give birth halfway up the hill with no shelter at all except for the rest of the hill towering behind her. Some people say sheep are stupid; I don’t think so. But I do know that sheep are hardy survivors.

L3 is a dead ringer for L1 aka Starlight. So now we have two black sheep and proof that our ram knows his duty. When you consider that he was performing with a badly inflamed foot it makes you even prouder of him.

We only need one ram for our small flock so Snowball, the baby ram, is due for an alternate placement. Read that as on our dinner table come the Xmas season. I don’t yet know what L3 is. I haven’t gotten close enough to investigate; actually I never get close enough. First, the sheep run at the sight of me opening the paddock gate, and second, I can’t quite picture myself squatting behind some lamb’s hindquarters and lifting the tail to take a peek.

We had to switch the flock to another paddock and that went fairly well. Dan and I did it alone while Yael goofed off taking care of two kids, making dinner, starting laundry, stoking up the wood stove, etc. We moved them from paddock #1 to paddock #2 which was right next door. I confess that I thoroughly dislike paddock #1. It is straight up touching the sky about 150 ft above where it starts. Not to be climbed lightly. I didn’t climb lightly at all; I fell heavily. Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that rain, grass, dirt and sheep poo make a powerful combination – and really really slick.

I have tried to remember those golden days when I wore my professional garb – suits, coordinated separates, dresses with jackets. Now I wear an old parka I literally rescued from my scraps bag, some cargo pants I bought second hand at a thrift shop and whatever tee shirt is relatively clean at the moment. And I can honestly say that I am overdressed for farm work. My purple wellies are my signature piece in attire and I top it all off with a bush hat in khaki that protects me from the New Zealand lethal sun.

Luckily I have never been particularly good looking (passable would be the best I could hope for) so I don't mourn my lost beauty but there are moments when I remember Professional Terry with a small sigh of regret. And then I remember all those bum numbing meetings I had to sit through and I slap on my bush hat and saunter out into the farmyard; a happy camper once again.

Dan is still struggling to get in all the trees he bought and has finally winnowed the lot down to only 4 to go. I am smiling a lot because it rains every day now and I haven’t had to lug industrial sized watering cans filled to the brim with water to give the thirsty saplings a drink. Try making that trip 15 times and see if you can get your arms to move. I  could barely stagger to my bed and excused myself from brushing my teeth since my arms were too sore to hold the toothbrush.

But Spring is here; my seeds have sprouted; the rabbits have eaten all my coriander, lettuce, parsley, and spinach. Ah, life on the farm. Can anything beat it?

Dan shearing sheep!

Shear Bliss

The big day finally arrived! The shearers came and we hope to have wool aplenty and discuss the possibility of lamb chops in our future freezer. But first. Of course “but first”. First, we had to get the sheep down to the red, red barn to await the promised shearers’ arrival. This involved rounding up the sheep from the front paddock and moving them down the roadway about a mile to the holding pen.

I discovered something very profound in this roundup. The Lord family is composed of all Sheriffs and no posse. Each one of us automatically took charge. (Well, actually the sheep were in charge but you know what I mean.) Dan yelled to me, “Mom move to your right.” Yael yelled to me, “Terry move to your left.” I surveyed the rampaging sheep and yelled to both Dan and Yael to execute a flanking action. We continued to yell conflicting commands to each other and the sheep continued to run in every direction but the direction of the gate. Finally, I quit yelling and Dan and Yael just stood looking at each other. The sheep looked at us as if we were crazy and decided to scramble through the gate and down the road.

Yael took the car and the kids to block the sheep from going all the way down to the main road. Dan followed the sheep and I lagged behind. Far behind. By the time I got there, our sheep were cutting a wide swath around the roadway, the shearers were there, our neighbor Dave was there and it appeared to be chaos. But we had the expertise of a sheep dog.

I have never seen anything like it. One ewe started charging toward me and when she was only about 4 yards away, this streak of black fur threw himself into the air and hit the ewe on the side of her head with his body. The ewe, understandably startled, blinked at me and obediently turned around and headed back to the flock.

This marvelous dog is called Flight and I could see why. He flew up and down the roadway herding those sheep. He barked at them, he ran at them, he zipped through their legs and the sheep, who never paid any attention to human desires, meekly crowded into the holding pen and awaited the shears. I now want a Flight of my own. Even more than I want a quad bike, which is saying something. John and Paula says a trained dog will run over $4,000 which is a tad out of my league which runs more to a mutt from the pound. Oh, Flight is officially retired at the tender age of 12. He was just along for the day's outing. I guess sheepherding instincts are bred to last.

John and Paula sheared our sheep. They are a husband and wife couple who bore with our endless questions patiently and gently but firmly took off all the wool. For all that effort we got three bags of usable wool and a bag and a half of dreck (Yiddish term for junk wool from around the tail area, etc.). We also got the flock tailed (for health purposes) and checked out the nails. A complete going over. The best news was that the ram is in good health but has something like athlete’s foot which they treated.

What kind, generous people these Kiwis are. Dave let us use his holding pens and even gave us his wool. We plan to use it for insulation and the dreck we will bury to help our soil which is very clay-like. John and Paula spent an inordinate amount of extra time just showing us the basics of sheep and giving us a host of tips that will make us slightly less inept.

I have been researching how to clean wool (yep, the old book learning once again) and hope to start next weekend. Three bags isn’t much but it’s more than enough to learn with. I hope to get enough to stuff a duvet with and each season I will add to my knowledge and the kids will get another duvet. It seems that John and Paula had a claim on Dave’s wool which they graciously ceded to me. In exchange I promised to give them the results of all my research. Let’s hope I can keep up my end of the bargain so that they don’t feel ripped off. I feel a genuine sense of responsibility in this. They have been wonderful and I would hate to come up short. So, if anybody knows anything about wool cleaning, carding, or uses. Please get in touch. Thanks in advance.