Last Tuesday we moved Tom to a pen by himself. Wanted to give him a rest from the girls, or is that a rest for the girls from Tom? Anyway, we moved him.
This morning we moved him back in with the girls again to give him a chance to finish up any loose ends. Will probably keep him there for another week or so then send him back to Clyde and Amber.
We worked on our new drip watering system for our big garden Saturday and yesterday. Need to get some more 20′ sections of 1/2 PVC to finish it out.
We also top dressed the area we are going to use for corn this year. Going to try some Indian corn as it was a requested item at the farmers market last fall. People use it for Halloween decorations in yards. Our corn crop last year left a LOT to be desired. It is going to be better planned and planted this year. The corn patch is about 20′x50′ so we have a lot more room.
Will get some pics when the system is done. Looks like it is going to be great though. It will use a lot less water for the amount of watering to be done. The main garden is 30×60. By using a drip system, you have a lot less evaporation than when using a sprinkler or over head system.
If it needs to be readjusted next year, it will be easier to move PVC pipes around and rotate crops.
Our garlic is about 6-8″ high now and looking real good. In the garden this year we are planning on planting: white and yellow onions, some type of peppers, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, squash of some kind, cucumber, beans, radishes, carrots, and a couple other items I don’t remember.
In the raised beds in the front will be scallions, lettuce, and the rhubarb is already coming up and looking good. The raspberry bushes are getting a slow start, but one has green showing already from the roots. We also have asparagus coming up. I have one lone current bush that is a 3 yr. old transplant. It has spread every year and gotten nice green leaves on it, but so far no currents. If we don’t get any this year, may trying to get another so it isn’t so alone.
Well that’s about all for today.
Later
April 24th, 2009
Posted by
Cindy |
Musings |
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Weather is warming up nicely. Not overly warm, upper 50’s, but still nice to be out without a coat.
When we went to do chores this morning, we patched up some damage done by the wind this last week. We lost a 4×8 sheet of plywood off back of barn. We dug that out of the sand and replaced. No real damage done, just another window for the horses.
Then on to the sheep pen. With Tom being in there and very protective of his girls, we decided to move him out of that pen to another for a bit. Easier said than done. First we had to get a rope on him. Ya Right! He had other ideas and the race (chase) was on. The expert roper in our group (cough, cough) only took 6 tries to get it on him. Then another 10 minutes chasing the end of the rope. It’s really not cool having one end of a rope, while there is a running 180-200 lb. ram on the other end going the other direction. It took 2 of us to finally get him on a short enough line that he couldn’t run. After that he walked out of that pen to the other like a gentleman.
After that fiasco was over, then we went in and did a couple minor repairs on the sheep shelter.
Then the wind started blowing and that shut down the rest of the day’s plans. Oh well, eventually the spring winds will pretty much stop, but till then, they are really nasty.
I’m sure glad I don’t wear contacts out here.
Later all
April 19th, 2009
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Cindy |
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At least we are not totally “lambless”. Clyde and Amber had 5 little ones they were bottle feeding. A couple of them got sick, and they lost one. All the symptoms pointed to a nervous disorder brought on by trama of some kind. They sorta think the 2 grandkids had something to do with it. By trama, I don’t mean cruelty, but more like they were greatly stressed. It wasn’t intentional, but you put 2 8yr olds with a bunch of new lambs,,,,,,,they were just being kids.
Anyhow, it was treatable with injectable vitamin B 12. The one was needing a little more attention than the others and with the kids and Clyde gone for Easter, they were a little more than Amber could handle. So she asked if we would/could take the little problem one. Well, you can imagine the answer.
This little girl has a few problems, but seems to be holding her own. She is about a month old now, and not drinking near enough milk, but she is nibbling on hay, eating some sweet feed made up of cracked barley, oats, and rolled corn and drinking water from a bowl.
Up to today, we were only getting about 6 oz of milk down her in a 24 hr period. Today she took almost 8 oz in 12 hrs. She has a hard time sucking, so we have to help her a little bit by squeezing the bottle while she chews on the nipple. She had a shot of B12 yesterday and seems to be doing a little better. The end results are still unknown, but as long as she is eating and drinking and performing bodily functions, she has a chance. Time will tell.
Catch you all later
Cindy
April 14th, 2009
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Cindy |
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Well, I think we are done waiting for new arrivals. We are convinced the ram we borrowed didn’t have the “balls” to get the job done. It is about 2+ weeks past the last date he was in with our girls. The last one “marked” should have had lambs at least 2 weeks ago.
Really pretty bummed out about this distressing turn of events. Soooo….
We now are extending hospitality to Clyde’s ram, Tom. He is a 2 yr. old and should be pretty ready to get the deed done.
I think I mentioned in an earlier post that the ram we had, had spend a month in with Clyde’s girls also. As Clyde’s babies started arriving, it was evident that the lambs didn’t belong to that ram. Clyde put Tom in with his herd after the other ram left.
The baby lambs are all Tom’s. This was decided on the arrival date of his babies. So, where does that put us? We “should” have a late summer or early fall batch of babies. We will breed back as soon as we can after lambing to get us back into the spring crop of babies for next year.
Everyone involved with this was more or less devastated at the turn of events. I guess that’s life on a farm. Drop back 1 ram and punt.
Other than that, things are perking along. We got another raised planting bed put together yesterday and getting seeds together for planting times.
Garlic that was planted last fall is coming along nicely in all beds. We also are getting ready to recover the green house. The cover got trashed over the winter and the manufacturer honored the 5 yr. warranty, AGAIN, and sent another cover for us.
A little off topic here: If anyone is looking for a new site for generating traffic needs to check out the banner below.
Time for bed here shortly, catch all later.
Cindy
April 8th, 2009
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Cindy |
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