L4 RIP

The reality of farm life is sometimes a bit hard for me. We found the newest lamb, L4, dead in the paddock. We don't know what happened. Perhaps one of the sheep butted it. Or it didn't go to shelter during the rain storm the previous night. We just don't know. And I don't know how I feel about it all.

I know that death is part of the reality of a farm; heck I even plan to eat some of the animals but I still feel disquieted. Maybe it is my suburban sensibilities where we mourned every kitten's death, every bird's. I don't know but I feel a tad sad when I go watch the flock now. I keep trying to figure out which ewe lost the lamb. We have 6 that all look alike but there is no hint in behavior that one is mourning.

So I block the whole death thing with some serious gardening work. I have finally gotten in my beans and green peppers (capsicums to Kiwis). Dan built me a cage to keep out possums, rabbits, birds, etc. and so far it has worked beautifully. It also keeps me out. There is a complicated system of flaps and doors and I don't have the key to the maze so I water from the outside and hope I learn the system before I have to start staking. If not, then Dan will have to do the weeding and staking. Hmmh? Perhaps there is a strategy here!

It has been a long weekend and we go back down to Auckland today. I always feel as if I could get a handle on things here if I just had a few more days. I think that is the lot of the farmer. Dan has been vigilantly checking each and every tree that he planted. We were stunned to find out that some arborist thief had dug up our silk speciman tree planted at the entrance to the farm and stole it. They actually took all the mulch with them!

There have been a series of thefts like that over the past year and finally Dan and Yael went to talk to the police. The officer was wonderful. Not too much that can be done but at least there is a file now and we feel that someone will keep an eye out.

I finally finished de-pooing the first bag of sheep wool. It takes forever and is smelly and is altogether not my first choice for a lovely afternoon. But it is done. Only 3 more to go. One of Yael's Kiwi friends told me that we get used to the smell after a while!! It never goes away unless you have it chemically treated professionally. That is so what we are not about but I wonder how we will feel if the kids' duvets smell lingeringly of sheep. Well, I have a long time before we find out. Three bags to go. I want to give it my all out best simply because when the hot weather hits, the smell will intensify and I am not looking forward to it.

Cattle Auction

First of all, we now have L4. Another black lamb and the ram continues to impress us. We now have 3 black lambs and 1 white. The first two, Starlight and Snowball are so big now that it is hard to tell them from the rest of the flock. But enough of my babies.

Monday I went to my first cattle auction.  We took Alessia and I promised to watch her so that Dan could wander around and learn. So she and I walked across endless two plank wide bridges that are ABOVE the cattle pens. She was hesitant but game and I was fine until we got to the larger groupings,. The pens with 6 or 8 cows were fine but some were really mashed in there. So off we went to get good seats for the auction itself.

Now I have to tell you that I only understood 1 word out of each 10. Partly the accent and partly the speed. I had been to estate auctions as a child and they sounded very similar. Perhaps it was partially our seats in the nosebleed section. Alessia and I (and later Dan) sat in the final row. The building is hot, Luckily Alessia is wearing the layered look. Over time she shed several layers and was still beet red. And this is not a hot day. Behind us was the aisle which rapidly filled with stockmen, observers, etc. I was wearing my tiny ponytail and someone put his arms on it and my head was constantly jerked as the cattleman reacted to the price flucuations,

These are pleasant men; no nonsense men; men hunched slightly against the constant New Zealand wind. They are generally overweight with strong, strong thighs (shown in shorts and boots or wellies). And most of them were older. As in 50s and more. I don't know if the younger cattlemen let the fathers do the buying or if there is a problem with young people staying on the land. I know its a hard life.

So cattle enter from the right into one holding pen and then proceed into a second. In the second they are bid on and then moved out while two more groups are moving in. The auctioneer does his rapid pace delivery. Spotters point to bids and yell 'OM' and a board tells the per kg weight average of the group being sold. The elderly man next to me was bidding; he barely moved his pink number paper but the spotters found him and he found himself the proud? possesser of several lots of cattle.

We watched for an hour. Dan hoped to get 5 head that were very thin and fatten them on our paddocks. But someone else got them. Perhaps we'll try again next week. It was like another world, with a foreign language and customs but it was fascinating..

Downside on the Farm

To explain what I mean by ‘downside’, I first need to take you on a tour of my living quarters. I live over a three car garage. You can enter through one of the three bays or from the house via a covered passageway so I am pretty secure from human invaders.

Not so for the rest of the animal kingdom. The covered passageway is latticed along the side not abuting the house or garage. This lattice is an open invitation (pun intended) for all sorts of critters. During the day we often leave the bays open so the avian population also comes to call; following the wind currents up my staircase and then turning left into my bathroom or right into the living area.

The doors to both areas are generally left open for two reasons. One is that I am a hospitable creature and enjoy the occasional guest and the second is that the doors have problematic locks. The bathroom door can only lock from the inside but it can be securely shut. The living room door can only be locked from the outside and any wind will blow the unlocked door open. Obviously I don’t lock my door when I am out and around the farm and can’t lock it at night since I’m inside.

So I get to the farm Wed. night still shaky and fall into bed at 6pm. Whatever illness I have had has been virulent and my recovery slow. I sleep for 12 hours awakening only for the calls of nature. On one of these calls, I move the 12 lb. weight keeping my door closed, step to the landing and discover a fair smattering of rat pellets. I sweep them up and return to bed.

The next morning I gather my laundry basket from the bathroom and head into the main house and the washing machine which is located right by the back door and the covered passageway. I bend over and pull up the first fleece jersey and out moseys a rat. Now I confess, I am not a fan of rats. I have faith that God made them for a reason but He also made me shiver and want to throw up when I see them.

This rat obviously has no harsh feelings toward me. She ambles toward the doorway and stops as if deciding what to wear in the great outdoors. My screams marginally encourage her to take the day as she finds it and off she goes.

I kick the basket outside. I still shiver to think what would have happened if the rat had decided to turn into the house rather than away. So here I am kicking the basket out to the porch. I then kick it upside down. Finally I start picking up my clothes – very carefully. Hordes of rat pellets splash out onto the bricks. Now I shudder at the thought of that rat nestled in my undies. Not a good morning!

But I am woozy and go back to bed. As usual I put the weight In front of the door and fall asleep. The weight is a recent addition. I never used to shut my door at all until I woke up one night to something walking over me while I slept. I have tried convincing myself that it was a stray cat but my heart knows it was something creepy. Hence the weight. However sometimes the wind is very strong and manages to push the door and the weight open a few inches.

This is what has happened on my fateful day. So I wake up midafternoon to see the door slightly ajar and my rat placidly wandering around my kitchen area. I yell at her to go away. With a hurt look she walks slowly to the landing. I can see her tail as she sits there. Luckily I had remembered to close the bathroom door so that area is off limits. I yell again as I get to the door and down the steps she goes. I slam the door shut , reposition the weight and return shaking to bed.

When I look back on events, I realize that that was one fat rat. I think she is pregnant and looking for a place to give birth. The idea does not please me. Lots of places to make a nest in a three car garage. What if she nestles into my wool? The possibilities are many.

Anyway, I don’t like rats and being a suburbanite, I had never encountered one before. I hope never to encounter one again. But this surely can be rated a downside of living on a farm.

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.

The Phalanx

The Phalanx

See the sheep? That’s the famous ovine phalanx with which they greet me whenever I come near. I don’t know where they learned the phalanx. I know it is described in Caesar’s Gallic Wars writings but I can’t think where they would have learnt Latin. Still, it is intimidating to me. But Thursday night I persevered and opened the gate to the front paddock.

Friday there were 12 happy sheep cavorting around the fresh grass. I have never seen them playing head butt, doing acrobatics over the ewes’ backs, and running for the sheer joy of it. I think it was mostly the grass but it was also that it wasn’t raining and there was a warm sun. Their fleeces are drying out and it is definitely time for the shearers to arrive.

The weather stayed perfect all weekend and when the family arrived Saturday night, Dan had brought me a present. A magnolia tree! I had one outside my window as a kid and still remember the marvelous fragrance. I can’t wait for this one to bloom. He also bought some fruit trees, nut trees and a stately oak (or it will be stately in about 10 years) perhaps they’ll plant me under it since my warranty should be up about then.

We had a great time figuring out where to put them and then actually putting them there. Dan also brought some lavender plants to replace some dead bushes around the house and I put them in. I don’t know what it is about plants, but the farm feels more ours now that we are investing in it long term with trees that will only reach maturity in 10 or 15 years. A great long term vision.

I planted the lavender and we all planted the trees and felt deliciously tired. Dan tossed my Raising Chickens for Dummies book into my lap and told me to get ready. Perhaps we’ll get some ‘chooks’ (local jargon) in a few months. My transition from city girl to country gal is almost complete. Anyone have a strand of hay for me to chaw down on? No. Oh, I forgot, I doused the hay with polyeurethane. So I guess I’ll just settle for the mental image. Til next time, folks.