Fall Grazing

Hendrix and his group of ewes have been in the back pasture since breeding season started and they have been at the north end of that pasture for a couple of weeks. Since hardly anything is growing (start the rain dance please) I figured that they couldn't do too much damage leaving them that long. I thought that maybe that could take down the dallisgrass and they actually did a pretty good job of it in most of the pasture. It is still a challenge however along the ditch and the fence-line. (If you search dallis  in the blog search you'll see several posts about my attempts to conquer it.) This is the north end of the property. Notice the blackberries on the north fence. I cut these away in the spring to uncover the electric fence wire on the inside of the field fence. The sheep could help in that job except that this time of year the dallis grass growing in and around the ditch keeps them from going over there. It may seem hard to believe that a grass keeps sheep from something, but this stuff is so coarse and strong it's like hacking your way through a jungle. And it's very sticky now from a fungus that grows on the seed head. Several years ago I found a ewe whose horns were so tangled in it that she was stuck upside down in this ditch. The only reason that I knew she was there was that she was baaing.  The sheep in the photo above are in the ditch because I trampled some of the grass and put alfalfa there.  This photo shows that they are making progress. Now I can actually see a ditch and the sheep can get through it to the side with the blackberries. They are finding the hay in the blackberries and it makes it worth their while to work their way through the grass.

After about a week we have worked our way through the ditch and I'm putting the hay near the fence.     Then I moved beyond the blackberries and had them trample the dallisgrass along the rest of the fenceline.This is the east fence and it looked almost as full of grass before I started this project. It is more overrun with blackberries. The sheep have eaten some of the leaves off. I think I have to get in there with clippers now though. There is an electric fence hiding in there somewhere.

Molly - 19 years

Molly was the garage cat. Many of you who come to work in the barn or to see the sheep never saw her because the dogs are usually with me and Molly avoided the dogs. Molly's hangout was the garage. She was Dan's cat. Dan rescued Molly in 1994 when she was a tiny kitten and we had a dairy. He found Molly trying to lap up milk leaking out of the dairy cows who were waiting to be milked. A baby kitty wasn't going to last long while standing under the cows so Dan brought her to the house. I've been looking for photos of her and this was the only one that I found. This was an attempt at a family photo for our Christmas card. Molly is the little kitty in the middle. Katie and I are holding Stripes and Myrtle, two cats rescued from the Barn Cat life. The calf was one that lived on the back porch for a couple of months after being born as a premie. I named her Sequoia to give her a name to live up to. We had dogs, but I guess we thought it would be a bit tough to get this photo with dogs too.

Fast forward to 2012 or so when these photos were taken.When we first moved here in 1999 Molly went missing. I was driving the kids to school and saw her up the road running between haystacks. I brought her home and we made sure that she had a safe place in the garage. Dan uses the upstairs of the garage as his office/man-cave and that became Molly's home base. I probably had the dogs with me when I took this photo because that is how Molly stared at them while holding her ground.   Molly lived a good life for 19 years, but a couple of weeks ago it was time to say that final goodbye.

Red & Green in October

I put the rams in with the ewes on October 1. This is Day 16 so it's time to change the marker. The ewe's heat cycle averages 17 days. If one of the previously marked ewes is remarked then I know that she wasn't bred in the first cycle. If multiple ewes are remarked I may have a  ram fertility problem.    I changed the markers for all four rams from red to green. Hendrix was not very happy about being tied up.  All he wanted was to get back to the ewe in heat. The young ram, now named Santana, (second from right) wasn't put in with the ewes until October 7 but several ewes have been marked. As I was working with the sheep I heard geese honking. It's that time of year.And here is the gorgeous evening sky.

Breeding Season

It's time to think ahead five months to lambs. But that won't happen if I don't do something about it now. What with events and classes the last few weeks it was hard to get all the rams and ewes sorted into the right places but they are there now.   Faulkner's ewes were first to sort because at least I knew where I would put them. They are staying in Faulkner's pen. He has 7 ewes.     Hendrix, with 18 ewes, tried to get started right away. He didn't choose the right ewe.  Miller, with 9 ewes, had no problem figuring it out. Each ram wears a marking harness so that I know when each ewe is bred. I will change the markers to another color after two weeks. If the ewes are marked again then there may be a problem with ram fertility. Presley is another adult ram but I don't plan to use him because he is closely related to the others. (He is for sale.) He was hopeful when I moved him to another pen, but he gave up after finding that there were only ram lambs.    I wanted to use one of this year's ram lambs for the fourth group of ewes. I had a hard time choosing among the rams I have saved. My first choice was a four-horn ram lamb who I think has promise and also placed well at the summer shows.   Unfortunately, he was very sick with bluetongue (insect transmitted virus common in the fall) a few weeks ago. He pulled through (I lost two others) but with the 106+ temperature I can not be sure that he is fertile. He may have his chance next year, but this year I needed to find another ram.   I chose a two-horn ram whose wool I like. He wasn't happy about the whole thing. The ewes were a little rough on him the first day. I could just hear the comments under their breaths "little pipsqueak", "a lot of gall thinking he can handle us", "take that" (rib-bashing)There were times when I thought that this ram would do OK, but most of the time I found him lying down away from the ewes. I started to wonder if he also had bluetongue because he acted so depressed and showed no interest in food or the ewes. I finally removed him and chose a second ram. Now I think that he just wasn't ready to breed and the ewes knew that and beat him up. Most Jacob rams are ready to breed at six months, but not always. This guy seems to be interested and ready to go.  He weighs less than all these ewes but that doesn't seem to bother him (or the ewes). Hendrix has been with his ewes for a week and seven are marked.Miller has five marked.Poor Amaryllis is exiled for the moment. I don't want the rams fighting through the fence so they are all in areas with no fence-line contact. Besides the four ram groups there are the non-breeding ewes (spring lambs, summer-lambing ewes, cull lambs) and non-breeding rams.  That doesn't leave much space for Amaryllis since she has to be on a grass hay diet without pasture (she broke the grazing muzzle) or alfalfa. So she has her own corral for the moment.

Multiple Warp Twills-class with Sheila O'Hara

The sub-title of this workshop could be "I think my brain is about to explode". At least that is how I felt at the end of the second day after I had woven only this much: My friends consider me a prolific weaver, but this was a humbling experience. In my defense, I had a lot of distractions because the workshop was at my place. So I was looking for the right height benches, setting up lights, finding an umbrella (for the journey to the porta-potty in our first storm of the year), and I did my share of chatting with the other weavers. It has been years since I have taken a workshop and I jumped at the chance to take this one from Sheila O'Hara, whose work I have long admired. I was glad to host the workshop because it meant that I could stay home and not drive to Sacramento three days in a row. In addition, Sheila stayed here so I had the chance to get to know her a little better. On the fourth day I did go to Sacramento where Sheila presented a great program to the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild.

Our pre-class instructions were to wind two warps of different colors, using multiple colors in each warp and we were given the threading draft (order to thread the loom). We had seen photos of some of Sheila's work using this method.These are Sheila's scarves. Each scarf has two completely different sides but in some the yarns from one side show through to the other. Using a 16-shaft loom you can have 4 layers of color and the compu-dobby (computer interface that I have on my big loom) can aid in keeping track of where you are in the weaving. We used 8-shaft table looms for the class because a floor loom doesn't have enough treadles to accommodate the treadling required for this.

Here are photos from the class:Thanks to my expanded space we were able to fit enough looms in the room. Gathering around a loom to talk about this sample. We wove a series of sample treadlings that showed varying amounts of each of the two warp layers and then we learned pick-up, changing sheds (opening between threads) three times in each pick (row of weaving)... ...where the lower layer showed up as a distinct design in the upper layer.Evening walks helped clear my head. This first rain of the season cleared the air and washed the dust away from everything. I welcome fall.   --   Back to weaving.  We spent some time with graph paper and colored pencils learning how to create other designs.  This task was to draw a design and, using 4 differently colored warps (horizontal in this photo), fill in the shapes using threads from the different layers. Yes, these designs could be woven on the same warp...if the brain can handle it. We looked at everyone's warps and discussed the weave structure and color interaction. Weaving paparazzi?  More of Sheila's weaving samples.She has recently woven images using photographs taken by Edward Curtis in the late 1800's to easy 1900's.   These images are woven using a Jacquard loom in which each thread is individually controlled. Sheila used to rent time on one of these looms but now has her own.   Autumn in St. Helena.

Sheila has a wonderful sense of humor and incorporates it into her presentations as well as her weavings. Make sure to look at her weavings on her website. You can contact Sheila or me to purchase them.

I am glad to say that I added to my Sheila O'Hara collection. I already had the Spring Flockettes.Now I have the Winter Flockettes as well.

Epilogue:Back home by myself I started weaving again. I think I have figured out how to do it right.

National Heirloom Exposition

I forgot that Sonoma County could be drizzly and cool, even when northern Solano County is sweltering. I spent 3 1/2 days as a vendor at the Heirloom Festival in Santa Rosa. It was nice to be out of the heat, but I would have welcomed a little sun on Days 1 & 2. I brought sheep as well as the booth, so I used 2 canopies as well as the sheep pen area. Since we were outside we could spread out as much as we wanted to. Just beyond my booth was an area where other fiber vendors/artists, representing Fibershed, were stationed.Jackie demonstrated the peg loom and Colleen demonstrated needlefelting.Mary and Chris, the "zoomers", wove on the Zoom Loom, as well as demonstrating other fibery skills throughout the show. There was a lot to see at the Heirloom Expo and I took advantage of the hours in the morning before the gates opened to the public to look around.   My sheep spent the night in the barn and were in the pen at the booth only during the hours of the show. There were a lot of bee and honey displays. Vertical gardens. A great use of old doors. Notice the screen to the right as well.          Are Dona and Jackie solving the problems of the world? Or just satisfying their caffeine addictions?

Red and Purple Field Trip

There was a fun field trip here today. About ten women from the Red Hat Society chapter in Sacramento came for the morning. We started out in the barn visiting the sheep and Amaryllis, but I didn't get any photos. I did get photos of Rusty showing off sheep herding skills, but he will use those in his blog. I had planned a simple needlefelting project in the shop. I provided felt and colorful fiber and, although, I had prepared some simple sheep and chicken outlines, most people created their own designs.  This was a lively group of women who were very interested in the animals and the farm and who seemed to have a good time here.

Sheepy Morning

The sheep follow me, always hopeful that I'll switch them to a new paddock. They are in luck this morning.  The young lambs don't always figure out going around the post.   Now they're going the right way. Sheep aren't the only thing in the pasture.Can you tell what I'm looking at?The mosquitoes haven't been too bad this year, but that has changed now. The pasture mosquitoes are out in force. I don't go out in the pasture without my long sleeved "mosquito shirt".

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.

Things Learned While Moving a Hay Stack

 The view from the top is interesting, but not always reality.Gravity is your friend......but when that doesn't work, use leverage.  Don't wear your best jeans.    You get what you pay for. (Don't be fooled by the duct tape. This is a great hay hook.)Be aware of your surroundings. Dogs aren't much help when moving hay.Use brains when you don't have enough brawn. That's 80 bales of hay, about 100 pounds each. If you don't use it, you lose it. But if you use it too much, go for the ibuprofen.One down, more to go.

Real life farming is not always pretty

DISCLAIMER: You wanted it real, right? At least that's what I hear from some people who say they want to know what it's like to raise sheep. So this post is real. No pretty pictures; in fact, some down-right yucky ones. A few sad stories. It's the other part of life on the farm. Skip this post if you don't want to know. Over the last couple of months  I have had to deal with several relatively minor veterinary issues. If I had to call a vet for each of these I might as well give up raising sheep. There are some things you just have to do on your own. But also note that if I hadn't dealt with these issues as they arose they would have become much more serious. As it is, they are mostly nuisances, taking time away from other things on the never-ending list of things-to-do.

Problem: Ram horn growing too close to jaw. It doesn't look too bad here but... ...here is how it looked after I cut the horn. There was already an open sore on the skin which is the perfect place for infection and fly strike to start. This ram was never registered and destined for butcher because of his horns and his personality. In fact I had counted on using his very cool striped horns for dozens of fabulous buttons. The sad story is that his horns were lost at the butcher facility and no one seems to know what happened to them. Discouraging.

Problem: Ram horn growing into skull. This is Miller. He started life out with nice looking horns, but after one broke it started to grow in the wrong direction. (Those photos will be another post.) This is looking down and you can see the horn going into the top of his skull behind his ear. This is the kind of saw that you use to cut horns. It's a wire piece with two handles. I can't find mine so this belongs to a friend (thanks, Jackie).   Here is a close up after cutting the horn. It's hard to tell but the horn had already gone into the flesh making an open wound. This is the same view covered with Swat, an product that keeps the flies away. It comes in clear or pink. I like pink because I can see that it is still there. Sorry boys. I took these photos in mid-June. It's early August and this horn needs to be cut again. I just looked up the wire saw on-line because I need to buy one. I read that the wire gets dull with use. No wonder that when I tried to cut this horn again I couldn't get anywhere. I will buy two of these wire saws (with the wire that can be replaced) and give one to Jackie.

Problem: Ewe depressed (not in the psychiatric way), not eating, getting worse quicklyOne morning I found Hattie, an otherwise healthy 3 year old ewe who was in a group of ewes I had recently weaned, not wanting to eat and not responding to much I did. I was teaching a class that morning and couldn't do much other than put her in her own pen and get back to her later.

Do you see Hattie's posture in the photo above? That is known as star-gazing and sometimes is a result of a thiamine deficiency. I didn't think Hattie could see--not a problem with the eyes, but a neurologic problem. From Sheep101:

Polioencephalomalacia 
(PEM, CCN, polio, cerebrocortical necrosis)
Polioencephalomalacia is a disease of the central nervous system, caused by a vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency. Since the rumen manufactures B vitamins, polio is not caused by insufficient thiamine, but rather the inability to utilize it. The most common symptom of polio is blindness and star-gazing. 

Polio most commonly occurs in lambs that are consuming high concentrate diets. Polio can also occur in sheep that consume plants that contain a thiamase inhibitor. Polio symptoms mimic other neurological disease conditions, but a differential diagnosis can be made based on the animals' response to injections of vitamin B1.

  I knew that an injection of thiamine would clear this up if that was the problem so I called my vet (Dr. M) to get some. I gave Hattie the injection and saw no response. I talked to Dr. M and she asked if she could come out and bring some students who were helping her. (She said that if nothing else, I would be adding to the students' experience.) In the long run, we gave Hattie thiamin, calcium, and glucose to no avail. She died within a few hours. I took her to the Food Animal Health and Safety Lab at UC Davis and the necropsy report showed copper toxicity. That could also be the subject of another post someday. There have been a few other deaths associated with Cu toxicity and I don't know the source of the Cu.

Problem: Ram lamb with broken horn (and lots of blood and flies). That is not the normal position of a horn. The lambs often break horns when they play and fight, but they usually break the outer covering off the horn, leaving a bloody core. It's messy, but if you do nothing (except use Swat on the head to keep flies away) it will dry up and heal and the horn will continue to grow. But not this one. This is looking down on the ram's head. The lower horn broke at the base of the core which leaves a hole in the head. In this case you can't just put the horn back and expect it to reattach...and you have to be careful of infection and fly strike. I ended up taking this horn off entirely and then having to cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding.  Swat again. I kept the ram in a pen for a day with a fan blowing to hopefully keep the flies off. The second day I decided he was better off in the field instead of the barn. He is now a 3-horn ram and is in the butcher line-up.

Problem: Ram with swollen jaw. Remember this guy? This is the one from the first photos. I noticed a swollen jaw. My first thought is bottle jaw (caused by worm overload). On closer examination I saw something else. This is a view of the underside of the jaw.  Here is the solution. Cut the horn, take a photo, then apply Swat.

Problem: Ram with gooey eye. This is Miller again. I noticed eye looking gooey and let this one go for a little while. (It's more work to catch the rams.) After I took a closer look I realized that the gooey eye was a result of a wound (probably from rams fighting) and not due to illness. It was not only gooey, but the lids were swollen. Clean up was in order. More clean up and then Swat.

Problem: Ram with swollen jaw.  This ram lamb has no horns to speak of so that is not the problem. At first I thought this one was bottle jaw also and I think I treated him with worm medicine. The swelling never subsided and then started to change from an even swelling to something that felt more like an abcess. I just realized that I have no more photos of this one and that's probably a good thing. This was a big abcess, probably from a foxtail. I treated it and kept the ram away from the others, but I could never get it to clear up well. This ram went with the last batch of rams who were butchered.

Back to pretty pictures next time.

Summer Lambs & Other Fair-time Observations

From a management standpoint having new lambs in July is not very smart. It's like managing two separate flocks.  On the other hand, it's always fun to see new lambs. More importantly I like to support the efforts of UCD and the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in presenting the Livestock Nursery at the CA State Fair. It is a major attraction and helps to provide much-needed education to the public. This year I took five pregnant ewes to the fair, and I visited the fair yesterday. Dona has twins.  I bred some of the ewes to Faulkner, the BFL, as well as to a Jacob ram. It was more important to have lambs, any lambs, than to have purebred Jacob lambs. I decided that in breeding out of season using two rams would be safer than counting on just one and that by using Faulkner I'd be able to tell which ram sired the lambs. I think that I have one of each here. The lambs are quite different looking. Phyllis had a single ram and Clover had twins, all sired by Faulkner.  Isadora was bred to a Jacob ram and has a nice single ram lamb. I had a phone call today that Foxglove has also lambed with a single ram.  Here is a view of the nursery first thing in the morning. When I left at noon the place was packed.

I wandered around the fair for a little while before I left. I thought I'd check out a few of my favorite spots. I won't get much time to do that once I get there with the other sheep at the end of next week. There is a memorial to September 11. In the background is a steel beam from one of the towers and in the foreground is a sphere on which is inscribed the names of all the victims of that horrendous tragedy. It floats and spins gently on a cushion of water. I breezed through the art show. This caught my eye. That is plastic bottles (400 of them) pouring out of a culvert. Here is a sculpture made of nails.

 In the California Living exhibit I saw a crocheted bicycle...or I guess it is a bicycle with crochet touches. Lots of beautiful quilts.Solano County always prides itself on winning awards for the exhibit in the County Building. This year's display was a bit different. It not only included the rich agricultural diversity of the county, but told the story of Travis Air Force Base.  My last stop was The Forest, a relatively quiet and cool spot in the busy, sun-drenched fairgrounds. This time, with the AZ tragedy still fresh in my mind and my fire-fighter sons both working now, I took notice of this memorial.

Across the Road

There are sunflowers growing across the road from us. Here is what we saw last week.   You would think that Rusty would be afraid here......since he is so afraid of these, but the helicopter doesn't bother him.  

What is wrong with this picture?

I see something wrong here. This may not be obvious to anyone but me. How about in the next photo?Look more closely.I wish that I could draw arrows on the photo but I don't have the right software. See the sheep on the left? How about the sheep in the back with the white horns. And the sheep in the right center with his head down. Yes, those are rams in the pasture with the ewes. And Amaryllis is in the ram pen. OOPS! Someone didn't latch the ram pen gate after she cleaned out the feeder.BUSTED! You guys have to go back in.Sorry, boys.

Camera Shy Rams

I was trying to take ram photos today. It's frustrating because they all stay in one cluster. I think part of that is due to the flies that bother the sheep this time of year. They stand together with their heads down. This isn't exactly the kind of photo I'm looking for.Or this.Rusty helps move them around.I had the best luck getting photos of this ram with the white horns, but he is not one I'm keeping for a couple of reasons. His lower right horn was already cut to keep it from growing into his cheek. The lower left is almost growing into his jaw and will need to be cut.  He also shows no respect for people and as he gets older I think he could become a danger.  Both rams in this photo are a year old, born at last year's State Fair in July. I am keeping Hendrix, the one with the black horns, at least for now. He just recently broke his top horns which is unusual for an adult ram.This is a photo of the same ram taken in February. Do you see those ridges on all the horns a few inches from his head? There must have been some kind of stress (illness, parasites??) at that point in growth that results in a weak place in the horns. Now, as he fights or......rubs on a tree (even with electric fence there...ACHHH!) those horns have broken off where they were weak. (Also notice how far out they have grown since February.) While we're looking closely at ram horns...   ... take a closer look at the ram with the white horns.

So after dozens of photos this morning I didn't end up with the full body shots I had hoped for. I have a few head portraits.  Hendrix (Mud Ranch's Hudson x Meridian Shelby)Miller (M. Clapton x M. Mable)Presley (Sweetgrass Clint x M. Vicki)   Larry (Ruby Peak Linden x M. Spring)

Wish I Was There

It was 107 degrees today and the weather people are predicting 6 days of 105 degrees or over. After a few days of this already I am thinking about a hike we took a few weeks ago. This is a trail in the El Dorado National Forest from Wright's Lake to Twin Lakes in Desolation Wilderness. We went with my son, Matt, my brother and nephew (who were going to continue into Desolation for a backpacking trip) and, of course, the four dogs. With my 40 mm lens I get views both ...... grand and ... ...close.  It's dry in the valley and foothills now, but at 6000+ feet there are still plenty of wildflowers.

I love the granite boulders and huge views in the Sierras. That distant mountain is Big Hill, where there is a fire lookout and where Matt sometimes works.Dave and Jack were to continue hiking and discussed the options with Matt who knows this area well. It's not always easy to get a group photo of all four dogs. We are so fortunate to live in an area where we can get to the mountains in just a couple of hours and that we are able to enjoy it by hiking.

But this is what I'm thinking about today as the temperature soared.Silver Creek cascades over granite and forms beautiful waterfalls and refreshing pools along its length.      That's Matt with Sam and Kirin. I took a dip too and I would relish that now. Rusty and Maggie like their water a little more shallow.We hiked about 8 miles I think. Toward the end Maggie didn't want to leave the pools. I think the water felt good on her feet.This is one of Twin Lakes in Desolation Wilderness.

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.

Getting Ready for BSG

It always takes so long to get ready to leave on a trip. This time it should be easy. I'll only be gone for 4 days. Dan will be here to feed sheep and dogs. I'm not packing up a vendor booth. I am taking sheep, however. Friends and I are going to Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon for four days. Dan has been fixing up the box on the truck that holds the sheep. New gates, new paint, new wood. Pack the tack box. Check. Match up the coats to fit the sheep so that they don't get full of blowing straw in the back of the truck. Check...well sort of. I found the coats and dumped them out. I'll have to figure out sizes tomorrow a.m. Figure out which fleeces to deliver and have made into felt. Scratch that one. No time. No energy. Deal with the bills and paperwork. I did go through the piles to find the sheep registrations that I've been meaning to mail and will now deliver. Good thing. I found my AAA membership bill...now expired. I'll call in the morning and get reinstated. Jacob Sheep registrations. I was going to get a pile of those done tonight. Nope. Water my pathetic very late-started garden. I finally just threw zinnia seeds in the larger empty area. It would be nice to have something growing even if it is not edible.  Move more boxes into the shop so that it doesn't look so messy outside. No time for that. Tarp it again. Paint shelves so that they will be useable when I get back. I cut and painted three. Work on truck. Dan changed the oil and rotated the tires. I cleaned the inside, including the console that collects all the junk--I'm not sure that has been cleaned out since we bought the truck from my son years ago. Notice my little mower there. I mowed one paddock this morning. Dan will irrigate while I'm gone (that's worth going all by itself--having someone else irrigate.) (Chris, if you read this, notice the hood up on the jeep--didn't start.) Remember that I didn't plan what to do about signs for over my sheep pens. I found a magnetic white board that the magnetic sign fits perfectly. It will hang from a PVC pipe framework painted black.Getting late. We put the box on the truck about 11:30. I guess we'll be doing more to get ready in the morning.

Time to Go, Stephanie

This was a tough week. I knew that it was getting time to think about easing Stephanie out of pain. Stephanie was a Toggenburg goat that my son, Chris, got in his second year of 4-H. She was born February 15, 2003 and we brought her home as a few-day-old kid and bottle fed her. As the years went on Chris raised many other goats from the offspring of his only purchased goats, Susannah and Stephanie. Stephanie is the goat who stayed here after Chris got out of high school and moved on to other things. In the last three years or so I have been the goat care-giver and Stephanie has been my friend.I can't find any baby photos of Stephanie but this is her at about 6 months at the State Fair.  She first kidded at age two and Chris showed her every year along with his other goats.   That's Stephanie on the left in this photo. She was never as productive or showed as well as the other goats, but she was my favorite to milk, because she had hand-sized teats instead of finger-sized ones. That's Stephanie in the lead in this photo and Chris' favorites, Trista and Suzannah, along with SparkleBerry, a Nubian who somehow ended up here.  Dairy goats are bred to produce more milk than their kids can handle at first and we milked the does and bottle-fed the kids. That's my mom drying one of Stephanie's newborn kids.Stephanie might not have been the top show goat, but she had her good days. Reserve Champion at the State Fair in 2006.

Chris graduated from high school in 2009 and after he showed goats one more summer, most of the goats were sold to people who wanted to show and/or milk them. I didn't want to do either. Stephanie became a "personality" here.

 She knew how to intimidate Rusty.

In 2010 I bred her to kid at the CA State Fair Nursery, where I also take pregnant sheep to lamb. I handled this  like we do with the sheep and Stephanie got to raise her own kid.   In the last couple of years I often found Stephanie "hiding". I think that maybe she was annoyed by Amaryllis, the donkey, who though of Stephanie as her best friend. I don't think the feeling was mutual. Stephanie was beginning to have less mobility and she couldn't easily move away from someone who was bothering her.  For the last year or more Stephanie had her own stall at night so that I knew that she would get enough food. She was too stiff and arthritic to walk out to the pasture unless the sheep were grazing the closest one. Last winter was hard on Stephanie. I put a coat on her and gave her a heat lamp at night. The recent heat wave (though short at 2 days) was equally hard for her and the summer will only get worse. I talked to my veterinarian about her the other day and told her that I don't think Stephanie ever lies down anymore because she is so stiff and sore. I would find her sleeping on her feet with her head resting on a bale of straw. We agreed that it was time for her to go. As the vet said, it's better to make the decision a week too soon than a day too late. Stephanie died this morning as sat on a bale of hay and held her head. It was very peaceful and she didn't suffer at all. This whole thing makes me think of my mom who died of Alzheimer's 5 years ago. It would have been kinder and more respectful of her had she been able to die long before she finally did.

Views of the Farm

As much as I love to read, when I look at blogs I'd rather see photos...especially good photos. That is one reason I like Celi's blog, thekitchensgarden . I don't know how Celi finds the time, but she writes a daily post and it's fun to keep up with what is going on at her farm. Celi recently posted a request to see the views from her readers' back porches. My back porch view isn't too exciting: The back porch looks directly at  the back door of my on-farm shop where I teach classes and sell fiber and yarn and related equipment. It's less appealing right now because we have been remodeling it and it's essentially a construction zone for the time being. Nevertheless, Farm Club members enthusiastically encouraged me to send Celi a photo.

Celi's idea made me think of other views that I thought I'd share. How about the views from the barn?  From the second story of the barn looking northeast. That's G-2 (Dan's hide-out) on the left, and G-1 is hidden in the trees. My shop is barely visible in the break in the trees on the right and the house is behind that. By the way, none of those trees were here when we moved here in 1999. I'll have to post before and after photos some day. View from the barn looking south. I irrigated yesterday so the sheep are all locked in to the barn area. Normally they would be in the pasture, which is strip grazed using electric fence. View from the second story of the barn looking northwest. We are on the western edge of the Sacramento Valley and those hills are the easternmost part of the Coast Range. The mound in right foreground is the all important manure compost pile which features prominently in several  Lamb Game Videos.

What about a view OF the barn?Here is a view of the barn looking west. The sheep are on the non-irrigated side of the fence since the pasture will have to drain for a few days before they go back out. The house and the shop are to my right in this photo.This is from the pasture looking north. And if I turn slightly and look more north I see the end of the shop and the house that my mom used to live in. Our house is right behind that one.

What about a view INSIDE the barn?This isn't all the sheep. There are about 60 adults, counting rams, and 80+ lambs. There is Amaryllis in the upper right. The sheep can go under that fence, but Amaryllis has to stay on the other side so that she doesn't get the alfalfa I feed to the sheep.

There is another view that is important to me. We have only 10 acres, but it feels like much more because we are fortunate to live across the road from much larger farmland. This year's crop is sunflowers. It doesn't look like much now, but in a couple of months I know I won't be able to put my camera down when I walk over there. This is the view of the field from my mailbox. I have been taking a photo of this same view once a week since January with the idea that it will be interesting to see at the end of the year.   Remember, without irrigation the Sacramento Valley would be a desert all summer.