Farm Day - help with sheep chores

Our first Farm Day of the year was on Saturday and five Farm Club members helped me get ready for lambing. I forgot to take photos at the beginning but started with vaccinating all the ewes. In the meantime we kept an eye on the two ewes who were supposed to be bred that day so that they will lamb at the fair in July.There was no question about Miller and Donna, but ZZ left me wondering. He seemed more interested in his buddies in the adjacent pen than he was in Clover although she was doing her best to entice him. I decided that I'd better try another ram so Faulkner was the one. He knew just what to do. While the rams were otherwise occupied and I had plenty of help it was time to clean the ram pen.Rusty usually keeps the rams away while I clean so he took his usual position although the rams weren't there.   The ewes watched through the gate while we moved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow load. Those red marks are just from the marking crayon we used as we vaccinated. After cleaning the ram pen it was donkey play time! Lisa discovered the bliss of brushing a donkey.Amaryllis had to hold still for me to measure her. She is about as svelte as she ever gets and I wanted to have a baseline measurement for her (670 pounds according to the tape, which is really meant for horses). By the way, I looked up svelte because I wasn't sure how to spell it. Svelte, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: thin in an attractive or graceful way; and a. slender, lithe. b : having clean lines : sleek. Hmmm. So maybe svelte isn't quite the right word to describe a donkey.  

Farm Club Retreat

Last week we had our annual Farm Club Retreat in San Francisco. Six of us were able to get away for 24 hours of camaraderie and relaxation (and one more member joined us for the evening). We started by visiting the Alemany Farm in southeast San Francisco and meeting two of the volunteers. The Farm's website states: "Friends of Alemany Farm is a volunteer group that manages the horticulture, volunteer, and educational programs at Alemany Farm, a 3.5 acre organic farm ecosystem in southeast San Francisco." The farm is on city property at the edge of a park and was formerly an eyesore. It has been developed and used by community groups in one way or another for about 20 years.  It was certainly nice to see a bit of color since our drought landscape seems so dreary right now.    Shelby tasted most of what we saw... …including the pineapple guavas... …which were sweet inside, but you really didn't want to taste the outside part.A small community farm in the heart of the city. After the farm tour we drove back to the NDGW Home where we met up with Lisa...

…and later Stephany, who had broken her ankle and wasn't up for walking the hills of San Francisco. We had a splendid dinner at a Green Chili Kitchen just up the street from the Home. We spent the evening lounging in the parlor with our knitting, spinning wheels, and Mary's wonderful cookies and pom-poms.

Unfortunately I somehow lost all the photos I took with my iPhone from the pjs and pom-pons in the parlor through the next day's field trip. BUMMER. The next morning we enjoyed the now traditional Lemon Custard pie (from Green Chili's)for breakfast and then five of us drove to Berkeley to visit Lacis, a shop filled with all kinds of cool gadgets and featuring a museum. The exhibit in the museum was a private collection of lace complete with the history of the development of lace and it's impact on European history, as told by the owner of the collection and of Lacis. Fascinating.

I look forward to our next FC retreat in January, 2015.

Amaryllis is a Good Sport

Rusty has never been a willing partner in taking cute holiday photos.  His friend, Moby wasn't much better.  Nor was Ozzie.Maybe it would have worked with a smaller hat. Some of the sheep are OK with it. This is Noel.Here is Paulette. But now we have a new star. Spinners' Day Out was yesterday. Most of the people here were part of Farm Club (which, by the way, anyone can now join as an e-Farm Club member) and they were willing (more like insistent) on getting photos with Amaryllis. Dona and Mary took these photos. "Would you get that thing away from my eye?"  

What did I do to deserve such Good Friends?

Farm Club (and others) came through again. Expanding the shop has been an ordeal that started five months ago. The last step was to paint. Farm Club friends volunteered to help so I set a date. If they hadn't offered I'd probably still be procrastinating. I have been looking at these paint samples for months and finally chose one. But first everything needed to be primed. This is where the new section joins the old.  This is part of the original  building. It's actually an old mobile home, which hasn't been mobile in decades. I painted it about a dozen years ago after we first moved here. This is at the south end. The window trim on the south end and much of the east side was rotten. The wood beneath was also rotten in some places. It has been very discouraging and overwhelming--trying to figure out how to deal with it. (Don't look up dry rot on Google unless you want to get depressed.) Some of this still has to be fixed before the whole project is completed, but we moved on with what we could do.   It was extra nice that a couple of husbands also volunteered to help. The more the merrier!   I don't know if Mary overcame her dislike of ladders, but she persevered anyway to paint the eaves. We worked all day yesterday with brushes to get that primer into the wood. Today I got out the new paint sprayer. I don't have photos yet of the completed job. There are still windows to fix and more trim to paint, but I am so grateful to my friends for their help that I wanted to write this now. In addition to giving up their weekend days, most of them had to drive an hour to get here.  I can't thank them enough. There will be another post when the job is completely finished.

Black Sheep Gathering - Road Trip with Friends & Sheep

Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon is a favorite event for my friends and me. We gathered here on Thursday morning, loaded sheep, and were on the road only a little behind schedule. We made it to Eugene in about 8 1/2 hours, settled the sheep into their pens, and found our motel. Some years I camp, but this year a motel sounded good. Friday was show day for the Jacob sheep.I showed ram lambs, ewe lambs, and yearling ewes. My ewe lambs took first and third place in the ewe lamb class.         My yearling ewe, Fandango, took first place in her class and was awarded Champion Jacob Ewe.

Besides showing sheep, what else is there to do at BSG? Admire several hundred sheep in the barn. This is a Bluefaced Leicester from the farm where I got my ram, Faulkner. Admire wool. Watch the wool show judging. These are the fleeces to be judged. After two days of judging the fleeces are for sale and dozens of spinners line up to be first in the door.

Shop! My friends are very good at that!Watch sheep dog demos by my friend, Shannon and her amazing dog, Kate.Take classes. Mary and Dona made these scarves in a nuno felting class.Relax with friends. Farm Club member, Tina, who moved to Portland last year, came to visit along with 10-week old puppy, Ragu.   It has become tradition now to eat dinner at La Oficina.    On Saturday afternoon all the breed champions are shown together and the judge chooses one to be Supreme Champion. Look at all those different sheep!  It was a fun four days, but it's always good to get back to California. That's Mt. Shasta in the distance.

Farm Club Goes to the City - Part 2

In the last post I showed photos of Farm Club's trip to Hayes Valley Farm in the middle of San Francisco. After visiting the farm we thought about what to do next. Kathy asked us if we'd ever been inside City Hall. We could see the dome from the farm. We decided to go there. I'm going to admit something. I've lived in the country all my life (well, I don't consider my life starting until after moving from SF to Cotati when I was 10) and rarely venture into "The City". Sacramento doesn't count. After I pass Vallejo going west I leave my comfort zone. I don't know how to do negotiate public transportation because I never go there. It was good to have friends who have experience with this (and the right apps). So we caught buses and streetcars for this tour around the city. Way better than driving downtown. First stop was City Hall. It is a beautiful building. There are interesting displays downstairs... ...and there are weddings going on upstairs. We people-watched awhile on the front steps. It seems that wedding parties leave about every 15 minutes.  After hanging around City Hall for awhile we decided to head to the Ferry Building ... ...to see the "foodie" shops there. I found this book that I remember having as a kid and then reading over and over and over and... to my kids.We found the right bus back to the NDGW Home. Being creatures of habit, we ate at the same (wonderful) restaurant where we have had dinner the last two years. Then we spent the evening knitting and weaving and chatting. We had a leisurely breakfast of lemon pie we had purchased from the neighborhood pie store the day before and we made it back home by the afternoon.

This was a very welcome day off and it was fun spending it with good friends.

Farm Club Goes to the City - Part 1

This was the weekend of Farm Club's third annual retreat. Our destination was San Francisco because we have a wonderful place to spend the night. Three of us are now members of the NDGW (Native Daughters of the Golden West) and we (and our friends) have a fabulous place to stay in the city. Look here for some photos of the NDGW home. We arrived in SF shortly after noon and began our retreat with an excursion to the Hayes Valley Farm. There is a fascinating story here. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake collapsed some of the freeways in SF the sites were abandoned. This parcel of land holds what is left of the on-ramp and off-ramp to one of the collapsed freeways. A group of volunteers started this urban farm project a few years ago and turned the blighted landscape into fertile ground with unique collaborations and composting. (One fact I think I remember correctly is that Google supplied 15,000 tons of cardboard used to compost horse manure and wood chips on top of ivy that was growing there.)    We saw unique ways of using found materials to grow plants.

This is the seed bank, outside... ...and inside. There were other uniques structures...... built from unlikely materials.

But the most remarkable thing is the landscape itself.Look at that soil and the vegetation. You almost don't notice the city behind it until you look from another aspect:  That's the SF City Hall in the background. Yup, that's part of the old onramp.This is a bittersweet time for the volunteers here. It turns out that this is the last week of activities here. The site is being used under some kind of temporary permit and the city is now going to build condos there. The person that we talked to said that even as the Hayes Valley Farm closes, it is providing a demonstration and lesson to all. There have been no protests, no marches, nobody chaining themselves to trees. They are dispersing all the plant materials, greenhouses, and compost throughout the city--some to schools who have developed urban ag programs, some to other urban farm sites in the city, and some to individuals. They feel that the program has been successful as a model of what can happen with the partnership of cities and volunteers and the benefits to everyone. (Celebrating Blue Tape as opposed to Red Tape.)

I am inspired to try planting nasturtiums again as well as a garden with a bit more freedom from even rows.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our adventure.

Meet the Sheep 2013

Another great day at the farm and another day that I'm so thankful to Farm Club and my other friends! Meet the Sheep is our annual spring Open House event. It is a big undertaking, but with the help of Farm Club and my family (and some luck with the weather) it went very well. Mary, Joy, and Gynna are three of the crew that arrived early to help with set up. Notice the threatening weather. Just before visitors were due to arrive I brought the sheep in from the pasture... ...and moved them to the pasture near the shop so that they would be ready to Meet the People.  Jackie set up a booth... ...as did Colleen. I resurrected some displays from my Shear Delight days.Shelby and Dona tried out the new photo station that was created by Dona and Rick.The scheduled demonstrations were very popular.  Alison demonstrated spinning. Colleen taught Solar Dyeing with Kool-aid......and how to felt a bowl using a balloon.   Julie brought baby chicks and bunnies and showed people how to handle the bunnies. I think she won in the Cuteness Category today... ...although Mary's triplets were popular as were the three bottle babies and the six newest lambs.  Julie also talked about dyeing fiber.Janis made this cool poster using wool from a fleece she bought in November. And that's it for my photos although there was a lot more going on. We were so busy that I was in the shop the rest of the day!Good thing that Dona brought brownies for lunch!

It Takes A Farm Club ...

I've thought about titles for this post for a couple of days, but I've been too busy and/or too tired to write it. It Takes A Farm Club to Run a Farm. Or Farm Club Experiences Life and Death. FC met here on Saturday. I am so appreciative of everyone in FC. I know that they are getting experiences they wouldn't otherwise, but I am benefiting tremendously as well. There was a lot going on that day. My day started with a ewe that I though might have milk fever. I treated her with calcium gluconate and put her with her lambs in a pen so I could watch her. The first FC members arrived as another ewe, Onyx was lambing. Lambing pens ......and the rest of the barn were cleaned while we kept an eye on Onyx. Onyx is a BFL/Jacob cross bred to a Jacob. She had a black lamb and a Jacob-looking lamb while FC looked on. I'm glad that she lambed in the barn. If she had been in the field I would have been looking all over for a Jacob ewe missing a lamb.Look at the horns on that lamb. Ouch! It's unheard of to irrigate this early in the year, but we have had almost no rain since December. The irrigation district charged the ditches so I put in a call for water. Gynna and Lisa helped by clearing debris from the ditch. We checked this ewe lamb's broken leg. I showed FC members my bone-yard ( a pen where I put skulls that are in various stages of decomposition). Shelby sat with the ewe who later died (not of milk fever, but  a metabolic problem similar to pregnancy toxemia, according to preliminary necropsy results).Then we had to bottle feed her lambs. (The day before I had just grafted the bottle baby I had onto a ewe. Now I have more bottle lambs.) And there are always plenty of lambs to hold. We checked all 70 lambs for split eyelids and number of horns and I gave them all BOSE injections. I don't have photos, but a guest of a FC member worked on my buttons--sanding buttons that I had cut out months ago.  We can't have Farm Day without Donna's brownies...and now Lisa's sheep cookies and  Mary's O'Henry bars.  Thank you to everyone who came and helped and then shared the warm afternoon sun.