Yesterday had been a good day. I hadn't lost anything; broken anything; or messed up in any significant way. So I made myself a celebratory dinner of mutton, asparagus and baked potato. I was still congratulating myself as I prepared to step into the shower.
And then my perfect day fell apart. Literally as I was sticking my toe into the water, I heard a loud, plaintive BAAA from under my window. Really loud!! As in "I'm not in my paddock. I'm here in the driveway." And she was! 'She' was an almost grown lamb who desperately wanted back to her flock.
The problem is that she could bolt, run down the driveway into a neighbor's property or even down to the road and cause havoc with the traffic. And it would all be my responsibility.
So I pulled a raincoat on over my wetness (and bareness) and ran sockless in my farm shoes into the garage. The sound of the garage door opening sent the lamb into a frenzy and down she ran. Off our driveway and 2/3 of the way down our shared driveway. I got in my car and followed. I parked beyond her and jumped into the too tall grass and waded my way up to her. My idea was to herd her into the paddock through the driveway gate.
Unfortunately that gate turned out to be locked and I didn't have the key. I did have grass up to my navel (did I mention it was wet grass?) and was distinctly uncomfortable. Anyway, at this point the lamb bolts back INTO our driveway, I run back down to the car, and drive past her to open the gate into the area before her paddock.
This is the area claimed as their own by my chickens who bolt themselves at this unexpected opportunity to race into my garden and destroy all my baby flowers. So then I drive back and secure my neighbor's gate and our gate to the main driveway. All this time the lamb is loudly protesting her enforced separation from the flock.
"Aha!", I think, "I've got her now. All I have to do is herd her into the chicken yard, open the far gate to the paddock and shoo her in." Oh, the best laid plans...etc. I get out of my car and start moving her. She moves all right. Back down our driveway to the closed gates. I sigh with relief a tad too soon. She bellies her way under the gate and dashes back down the road.
Reread the first few paragraphs. It all happens again! Finally I get her back into our driveway and this time I back the car up against the gate so she can't scoot through. This works and she darts into the yard. I shut that gate behind her. She runs over to the brush next to the barn and I open the gate into the paddock preparatory to shooing her through.
Wrong again! She bolts over the brush and falls into a gully on the other side. She is trapped; the other 46 sheep are not. They curiously start poking their heads through the now open gate. I spend the next few minutes racing back and forth keeping the flock away from the gate and trying to extricate the lamb. I finally fall into the gully myself as I push the lamb out. As I thrash around trying to get out, she saunters calmly through the paddock and rejoins her family.
As I get back into the shower, wincing at all my scrapes and bruises, I have one question. How in hell did that lamb know I had just eaten her grandmother? And was this a purposeful revenge? Okay, make that 2 questions.
Til later.
First, an two-pronged apology. The first is for not including a photo on this blog. The reason is simple. I "upgraded" my Windows and now cannot download my photos. Just assume that my photo of the growth of the chicks has occurred. The second prong is that I have not written for some time. My computer crashed and my rotator cuff still bothers me. Still, I'm sorry.
Okay, here is this month's update. All the older hens have been humanely dispatched to the great scratching ground in the sky. We waited literally months but no eggs equals no hens. The 10 chicks appear thrilled to no longer be terrorized by the big bullies.
Our 3 steers are not working out well at all. They came puny and remain puny. Not too puny however. When Dan and Yael tried to treat them for possible parasites/worms, one crashed through our fence and romped off with our neighbor's herd. A second smashed the gates. The third took his medicine meekly. It was an unbelievable drama to get #1 back and I personally can't wait for him to become hamburger.
Anyway: What is a Warkworth. Warkworth is the small town I live in. In the summer months (which is what we have now in the Southern hemisphere) our small town is overrun with tourists and weekenders. It is almost impossible to find a place to park. If you are one of the blessed few, the parking is free. (I told you it was a small town!). I have a book club meeting on the 1st Wed. of the month - today - and after much circling and muttering I parked in a 10 minute space and hoped the parking police were busy elsewhere.
About 20 minutes into the meeting, a librarian ran over and whispered that the traffic guys were getting a cup of tea in the break room before grabbing their hand-held computers and sashaying forth to spread a little Xmas cheer.
Three women recommended that I park (as they do) in the nearby supermarket lot. They assured me that they had never had a problem. Well, I was stuck so I took their advice. After the meeting was over I went into the supermarket to buy something. Guilt is a powerful force. I met all 3 women in there also buying stuff. No wonder they'd never had a problem. Neither would I if I continued to shop there. But that's a small town: the parking is free but scant and those of us who live here feel guilty about taking advantage of the shops and buy things we don't really need to say thank you.
You just have to love New Zealand and the small town mentality. At least I do!
No, friends, I am not dead but with both shoulders out of commission with rotator cuff injuries, there were times I wished I were. Anyway, that and bad weather and sheer laziness explain why I haven't written for six weeks. Oh, and the fact that there was nothing to write about!
That all changed today. In my down time we acquired 10 baby chicks. These chicks need a lot of TLC and are thriving as you can see. However, yesterday we moved them from the breeding coop to the big coop. What happened to our 9 chickens that had been occupying said coop? Well...
Chicken food is expensive and in order to justify that expense, the chickens have to lay eggs. From 9 chickens we were getting 2 or 3 eggs a day. This went on for several months. Finally it was time to declare that we no longer had chickens as pets. Then I had to discover which chickens were still laying. Not easy but eventually I caught 3 actually sitting in the laying boxes, marked them with Naavah's finger paints and the rest were doomed to be fertilizer. Dan did the actual dispatching of the hens; I did the crying.
But we moved on, sort of. After 3 weeks of chick sitting, I was ready to move them into the big coop. This meant displacing our 3 remaining hens to the small coop. Not as bad as it sounds since the weather is nice and our fowl range free all day anyway. So we made the swap - we chased chickens, blocked hen attacks and nurtured the hell out of the little ones.
Today I cleaned out the old coop (what a fun job; 3 weeks of chicken poo, etc.) and was trudging back into the garage for yet another trash bag when I spied the cat trap that Dan had stored in the other bay of the garage. Lo and behold, we had trapped a possum. And not just any possum but one who had left its weight in poo and wee all around and under the cage. Now I figure the genetic possum pool has just risen by several points because this one had obviously been born without any brain whatsoever. It must have snuck into the garage while I was cleaning the coop and darted into a cage that didn't even have any food to entice it. What a loser! Or was I the loser?
Anyway, I now had to finish the chicken coops and then dispatch the possum and clean the garage. And now I am going to have the world's longest, hottest shower. Drought be damned. I deserve it.
One of the most important things today's small farmers can do is to keep trying new things. Above you see our latest attempt: Bee Hives. Now don't get the wrong idea. We know nothing about bees and even less about bee keeping. Naavah, 4 year old grandchild, had to educate me on the number of eyes bees have.
Anyway, here we go with another joint effort to keep things humming (sorry!) here at the farm. What we've done is contract with a beekeeper who situated his hives on our land. He will have responsibility for the maintenance, gathering, etc. In exchange, he keeps us lavishly supplied with honey and takes the excess for himself.
This works well for us. We don't sell anything we harvest, reap, or grow here. But we do eat exceedingly well. Our eggs are for us, our meat is for us, and now our honey is for us. What we do get is the knowledge that the kids are eating the best food in the world. No preservatives, no hormones just organic everything. I am very proud of Dan and Yael for their commitment to giving the healthy best to their kids. After all, these are my super, exceptional grandchildren and only the best will do for them.
Til next time.
I know its been a while since our last blog but I haven't had anything to write about. How many times can I tell you that it rains a lot in the winter? That it is soggy and cold? That I am never out of boots, wellies, galoshes, rubbers or whatever? Anyway, it feels very boring to me so I can just imagine how boring it is for you.
But today I am happy to report that there is indeed something newl Three somethings to be exact and they are the three babies pictured above. They are 6 month old Black Angus steers and are hopefully destined for a cushy life for the next 2 1/2 years. Ultimate destination? The chest freezer.
We have had such great luck with all our other Black Angus steers that we decided to stay with a winner. I am sure that our butcher will be as happy about that as we are. If you remember he raved so much about our meat that we ended up giving him some.
So that's my big news. It's Spring and the willow trees are leafing up and the rains are slacking off and the temperature is rising. And we have 3 brand new additions to the farm. Doesn't get much better than this.
Til next time.
As you know, Dan works hard and plans meticulously to try and have the best possible grass in our paddocks. This year we even took off the steers so that the grass would not be eaten down as quickly and their tonnage would not chew up the ground.
So we were pardonably pleased that our paddocks stayed green, produced an abundance of grass for our flock, and were the envy of our neighbors. At least of our bovine neighbors. The above picture is our quarantine paddock. We use it only as a holding paddock when we buy new stock. The new stock acclimates to our sounds, smells, etc. while shedding all their toxins, chemicals, etc. through elimination (poo and wee to the less finicky). This way our other paddocks remain pristine.
Good, sound agricultural practice? You bet. And deeply appreciated by our neighbors. So appreciative are they that they have taken to butting their way through the fence on the right and into our paddock for some serious grazing. Imagine my surprise when, as I drove by, to see white heifers placidly munching through our grass. They barely looked up. They knew what they liked and they were helping themselves.
So I turned around and headed back up to the farmhouse and Dan. We called around and finally got hold of the heifers' owner. He was down to our paddock within 2 hours (he would have been there sooner but he had a sick child to take care of). He rebuilt the fence better than new and I have seen nary a cow since. That is what I call a 'good neighbor'. The heifers, not so much. But now you see the down side of doing everything right. Some 4 footed animal is sure to take advantage!
Til next time.
I am in the process of updating my resume to include Foster Mom. Yes, I am now an experienced !! ewe substitute with a living lamb as my credentials.
It all started on, literally, the coldest night of the year. So cold that we actually had a nice, crunchy frost the next morning. Anyway, that night ewe #9 yellow decided to give birth to twins. Since these weren't optimal conditions the 3 of us agonized over the kitchen table about what to do.(I suppose #9 yellow's agony was worse.) Should we bring in the lambs and risk having the mother reject them? Should I feed them in situ and hope for the best? Should we move them into the stalls, push the ewe in and pray? Or should we do nothing and let the Mom be in charge.
I was in favor of ceding authority to the Mom and that is what we did. Unfortunately, the Mom declined the baton and one of the twins was dead when I got to the paddock the next morning. The other (see above photo) was curled in a ball shivering violently. The mother had wandered some way away, obviously completely uninvolved in the proceedings. Another sympathetic ewe tried to approach the lamb but #9 yellow butted her away. The kid could die but no other ewe could have it. (Sorry, not kid, lamb).
I tried to get to the lamb but the ewe was ornery so I woke Dan and he got the lamb out of the paddock and into my shirt covered arms. I was very careful not to let any part of me get directly onto the lamb in case the mother would reject it for my scent. So there I was happily tucked up in my overstuffed chair warming a lamb. It was kind of nice! The girls played quietly nearby, coming frequently to see that the lamb was still alive. My cat, Smudge, sat on the bed nearby and gave it the prolonged cat stare. Hard to tell what she was thinking but I certainly didn't sense any hospitable approval.
Finally the lamb began stirring and bleating. The sun had warmed the paddock and we decided to risk reuniting mother and child. The lamb was eager, the mom standoffish but at long last she let herself be milked. She is still a lousy mother and this poor little lamb has to fight for everything but it is still alive. It runs around stealing a sip from other mothers and getting stronger daily but we still watch her closely and pray every morning that she is still alive. So far, so good.
