Spring Busy-ness

There is never a dull moment on our farm. Well, it may be dull if you don't love sheep, goats, dogs, horses, llamas, and poultry and the baby animals they create, but I do and it keeps me hoppin'!
I take the month of March off from teaching so I can tend to the lambing and kidding of my flock. I only keep the very best of each year's lambs and kids and after ten years, have a healthy flock of goats and sheep that I know and love.

Weather in conversation

After a phone converstaion with my brother Phil in Denver,I realized when he asked how we are, I talked about the weather. Weather has a huge effect on my day, every day, as I spend at least one and a half hours outside doing farm chores. The weather also effects the thirty mile drive to work in Moscow, Idaho teaching at the Moscow School of Massage. The weather is of great importance to our safety and the welfare of the critters I care for. We heat our house with wood, and the weather has a large impact on our keeping cozy and the plumbing running. Our farm is located on the side of a river canyon, the road in and out is steep and winding. Weather has a huge effect on the safety of our driving.
So if I mention the weather in a conversation, please accept I am not making small talk, but sharing an element of nature I am intimately involved in.

homespun, handknit

Been knitting! The weather has been so frosty and cold, all I want to do in my free time is sit by the woodstove and knit. This is the first glove, I am hoping to keep a better understanding of the pattern for the second glove! With all the tearing out and reknitting of the first glove, I should really have a pair already....
This pattern is "Liidia's Gloves" from Nancy Bush's book Folk Knitting in Estonia. The yarn for these gloves is hand spun wool from my own sheep, which I dyed with cochineal.

Some kind of winter

Returning from a balmy 60 degree week with my family in Denver, the farm is in a wintery deep freeze. There is at least a foot of snow on the ground and huge berms where it has been plowed or slid off the roof. I don't mind the snow at all, it is clean and fun to play in, and so much better than mud! As long as the electricty does not go out so the water tank heaters are operable, chores are realitively easy.

We watched a flock of wild tom turkeys across the pond yesterday.

Helen, a Pyraneese/Akbash sheep loving guard dog, smiles her hello as I greet the sheep in the morning.

A path through the snow berm on my way to the barn.

CCCCCold

The current cold snap has my full attention today! Winter is a magical time, mostly. I am in a nice routine of an hour of morning chores feeding hay, filling waterers, taking nose counts to assure all the critters are doing as well as they can in below freezing temperatures. I discovered all the water lines frozen this morning, which meant all the tanks were also frozen due to an electrical malfunction last night. I have sorted it all out, and thawing has begun, and I feel lucky to have the temperature rising to 21 degrees today.
If it is not one thing it is another.......

Fall Harvest

I wonder sometimes why I make so many preparations for winter's eventual arrival. I think it is just in me to do, and the reasoning of it is as illusive as the last warm rays of sun.

I keep finding more food to put up, it seems such a waste to lose it that I spend day after day making applesauce, fruit preserves, roasting chilies, preparing cooking sauces, stuffing the freezers full. We have three freezers which are all FULL right now, with beef, lamb, chicken, pork, vegetables, fruit and natural dyestuffs, all of which was home grown. It seems so natural to me, until I visit another "normal" kitchen

filled with commercially prepared foods. I milk goats and we enjoy milk, cream, yogurt, kefir, (thanks to Lisa O'Leary) and a variety of cheeses. And we have a flock of layer hens giving us eggs every day, so grocery shopping will be limited to fresh greens, sweet treats, and bread.

I am grateful for the luxury of time and ability to grow and prepare our own food. We buy hay locally to feed the critters and buy firewood from neighbors, but we are globally connected through the satellite modem. Modern Pioneer or Regressive Farmer reinventing the wheel???

Fall

Fall is a time of abundant garden harvest, food preserving, firewood gathering and hay hauling for the two legged ones on the farm. For the sheep and goats it is breeding season, and things get frisky as the air cools and the hormones rise. I have four different groups of sheep that are separated, according to the ram they go with. Every mid September is a time of original frenzy getting the sheep separated, replacement lambs and goat kids away from the rams and bucks, hay and mineral feeders secured, shearing the rams and trimming their feet, then moving the selected groups to their respective pastures or pens. Then we all settle into a quiet routine for six weeks of daily feeding and frolic. At the end of the six week breeding season, the rams and bucks are removed , and put into a pasture I call the Testosterone Team. After spending a few days in a small pen, the rams become reacquainted without much room to back up and butt each other. Winter is spent in relative peace and hay munching.