24 October 2010
Cool & moist
Working together, we've managed to divide the west paddock in two by fencing it off properly. The process made us further aware of what a poor job the workmen we'd hired had done; fenceposts 10 to 16 feet apart or more in places, a lack of plumbing on the wooden posts so that they are not approximately true, insufficient or lazy clipping of the fencing to the posts, insufficient or no tightening of the fence via comealong or other methods. However, it has held up to date, with only two regular escapees, so there is that.
The escapees are one ewe yearling lamb and one ram yearling lamb, the former escaping from the ewe pasture to wander around eating grass. She does not go very far from the fence as they don't like to be too far from the flock, and while she appears able to get back in on her own, usually when she's out we end up letting her back in by way of the gate at feeding times.
The yearling ram lamb had been escaping into the ewe pasture from the ram pasture by going under the fenceline where the workmen had been particularly and exceptionally loose with the fence and posts. He was the only ram to be doing this, but when we saw him giving the ewes the glad eye, we decided it was time to take some more serious action, especially as our attempts to tighten things up were not quite enough and he was still able to go back and forth.
Fortunately, some shepherd friends of ours cut us in on a deal they were making, trading some of their ewes to someone on craigslist in exchange for some fencing materials. They lacked a ram to trade to the fellow, and did we happen to have any going spare...? Why, yes, as a matter of fact...!
He proved a bit difficult to catch, being wary of netting and in the ewes' pasture, which is wide and open, shunning getting close to the fenceline, He did pop back under the fence to the ram side, being leery of all the harassment he was getting from us, and thereupon one of us stood by the gate with the shepherd's crook uplifting unmoving, alfalfa just inside the gate. After one false attempt, he was hooked, dragged up and over by the horns and popped into a cage and taken for a drive.
Thus Silver Cat Macfree is off running a new pasture with a handful of ewes all to himself. The USDA vet still needs to be notified (legally required) but we received in trade five rolls of six-foot deer fencing. This amounts to excellent value for the money, and we'll put that to very good use indeed; we could use forty rolls of the stuff and possibly not have enough.
There is still a great deal of canning to be done, as we have five pecks of apples to process. The current plan is apple butter and apple pie filling; the first attempt at apple butter provided us with quite a lot of apple sauce, but it wasn't quite buttery enough.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Passing of a Season, and an Era
13 October 2010
Sunny & cool
Shelley passed away of a heart attack Sunday night, almost in our laps. She was a wonderful cat who was with us for more than fifteen years.
We'd decided early on that a house without cats in it was something unfit to be lived in, and so we went to a local animal shelter and picked out, ultimately, four cats, which was just about double what we'd intended. One of us had spotted two sisters, kittens who'd been dumped, and so the other had to get two to 'be fair' and keep things even. The other two were both males, a little older, fully grown, and unrelated.
The boys ultimately were named Argent and Wimsey. The girls were Shelley and Omaha. We moved them in, and the girls had to wait a week or so for appointments to be spayed, whereas the boys already had been altered.
Shelley went into heat that weekend, demanding Wimsey perform the honours. Up until this point she'd hissed whenever he was nearby and wanted nothing to do with him, being a somewhat nervous kitten. While the girls weren't quite feral, they were very nervous and skittish of human contact, and of the other cats.
Wimsey was delighted. She finally wanted to play! He batted at the tip of her tail and tried to play with her until she, in furious desperation, lashed out at him with a growl. While she was fixed a few days later, she never got over her grudge against him and her nervousness, although she did gradually mellow, curling up with us in bed and collecting cuddles from her daddy in particular.
She eventually became fond of her 'mother' as well, and could be counted upon to purr ferociously and yowl if petted and stroked and scritched with 'rough love' in the right way by us both. She loved to cuddle in bed with us, and while she was never a terribly sociable or talkative puss, she knew she was loved, and once the household was down to just her and her sister, she became quite open about looking for love.
Fifteen years just doesn't seem like it was long enough. Her passing wasn't quite as quick as we'd have liked, but it wasn't lingering, either. We miss her greatly, and the house seems all the emptier for her passing.
Omaha is bearing up well - better than we are, in some ways. We are spoiling her immensely, and her latest thing has been coming up onto the bed as we're trying to drift off to sleep and demanding love and curling up on top of us and purring aggressively. She has been informed that she isn't allowed to pass on for at least another year and preferably another five.
In other news, autumn is very definitely here, and there is the hint of winter in the air. Hoarfrost has been appearing on the grass in the mornings, and the sheep are hungry for as much hay as we'll give them. The little ram lamb's been finding his way back into the ewes' pasture, and is disconcertingly wary of being caught; this weekend we'll be trying to set that straight.
We'll be hitting up a livestock auction soon, to purchase a couple of sheep, goats or other livestock for butchering purposes, and filling the freezer in the garage for the winter. The winter is likely to be a harsh one, and having plenty of food on hand seems like a good idea.
At present, things are going reasonably well. We are spacing out major purchases and making notes on farm items we wish to procure. The barn cats are sleek and happy (and happy to collect any excess kitty hugs in the wake of Shelley's passing), and they are catching vermin left and right. The geese and ducks are doing well and we haven't had further losses lately - we are going to be taking steps to obtain motion lights to help frighten off night-time predators.
We will be getting a cylinder stove as well, in case of power losses this winter. And at present we have about a peck's worth of apples slowly cooking down into apple butter for the winter also. There are approximately two pecks of apples more to be stored or made into pie filling or other stowables for over the winter and into spring.
When spring comes and the ground has thawed, we will go to the nursery and select a suitable tree for Shelley to be planted under. Due to her lifelong antipathy to Wimsey, her tree and his will likely be planted far enough apart for harmony's sake. There is, after all, no harm in honouring her wishes, even now in death.
Sunny & cool
Shelley passed away of a heart attack Sunday night, almost in our laps. She was a wonderful cat who was with us for more than fifteen years.
We'd decided early on that a house without cats in it was something unfit to be lived in, and so we went to a local animal shelter and picked out, ultimately, four cats, which was just about double what we'd intended. One of us had spotted two sisters, kittens who'd been dumped, and so the other had to get two to 'be fair' and keep things even. The other two were both males, a little older, fully grown, and unrelated.
The boys ultimately were named Argent and Wimsey. The girls were Shelley and Omaha. We moved them in, and the girls had to wait a week or so for appointments to be spayed, whereas the boys already had been altered.
Shelley went into heat that weekend, demanding Wimsey perform the honours. Up until this point she'd hissed whenever he was nearby and wanted nothing to do with him, being a somewhat nervous kitten. While the girls weren't quite feral, they were very nervous and skittish of human contact, and of the other cats.
Wimsey was delighted. She finally wanted to play! He batted at the tip of her tail and tried to play with her until she, in furious desperation, lashed out at him with a growl. While she was fixed a few days later, she never got over her grudge against him and her nervousness, although she did gradually mellow, curling up with us in bed and collecting cuddles from her daddy in particular.
She eventually became fond of her 'mother' as well, and could be counted upon to purr ferociously and yowl if petted and stroked and scritched with 'rough love' in the right way by us both. She loved to cuddle in bed with us, and while she was never a terribly sociable or talkative puss, she knew she was loved, and once the household was down to just her and her sister, she became quite open about looking for love.
Fifteen years just doesn't seem like it was long enough. Her passing wasn't quite as quick as we'd have liked, but it wasn't lingering, either. We miss her greatly, and the house seems all the emptier for her passing.
Omaha is bearing up well - better than we are, in some ways. We are spoiling her immensely, and her latest thing has been coming up onto the bed as we're trying to drift off to sleep and demanding love and curling up on top of us and purring aggressively. She has been informed that she isn't allowed to pass on for at least another year and preferably another five.
In other news, autumn is very definitely here, and there is the hint of winter in the air. Hoarfrost has been appearing on the grass in the mornings, and the sheep are hungry for as much hay as we'll give them. The little ram lamb's been finding his way back into the ewes' pasture, and is disconcertingly wary of being caught; this weekend we'll be trying to set that straight.
We'll be hitting up a livestock auction soon, to purchase a couple of sheep, goats or other livestock for butchering purposes, and filling the freezer in the garage for the winter. The winter is likely to be a harsh one, and having plenty of food on hand seems like a good idea.
At present, things are going reasonably well. We are spacing out major purchases and making notes on farm items we wish to procure. The barn cats are sleek and happy (and happy to collect any excess kitty hugs in the wake of Shelley's passing), and they are catching vermin left and right. The geese and ducks are doing well and we haven't had further losses lately - we are going to be taking steps to obtain motion lights to help frighten off night-time predators.
We will be getting a cylinder stove as well, in case of power losses this winter. And at present we have about a peck's worth of apples slowly cooking down into apple butter for the winter also. There are approximately two pecks of apples more to be stored or made into pie filling or other stowables for over the winter and into spring.
When spring comes and the ground has thawed, we will go to the nursery and select a suitable tree for Shelley to be planted under. Due to her lifelong antipathy to Wimsey, her tree and his will likely be planted far enough apart for harmony's sake. There is, after all, no harm in honouring her wishes, even now in death.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Hunters and Hunted
It's been a busy weekend so far. Friday we had the vet out to examine Hercules, our dominant ram, prior to driving him down to Oregon for stud purposes. For the next weeks or months, his sole mission in life will be to reign supreme over, and impregnate, a flock of strange Soay ewes.He was not terribly difficult to catch, and we roped him by his horns to a gatepost in expectation of the vet's arrival. The vet pronounced him healthy after an inspection which involved various ignominies being visited upon him, and then he was bundled into a crate with plenty of straw for padding and some water for the trip.
We also had the vet examine Shelley, one of our two remaining housecats; she turns out to have a bad heart murmur and will be put on medication once it arrives. There is presently some room for doubt as to whether she'll make it until then as she has taken a turn for the worse. We are doing our best to make her comfortable and she seems appreciative, purring at us when we stroke her. She's been with us as long as Wimsey was - over fifteen years, now.By contrast, the barn cats have been in fine fettle and exceptional hunting spirits, daily bringing in strange things with which to shock and perplex the farmers. Friday morning it was a six inch crawdad which was apparently hunted up from the nearby stream - the vet confirmed what it was, and warned us that this should be discouraged as raw crawdad consumption can transmit a lung parasite to cats and humans both. Should we see the barn cats coughing, we should call the vet at once, without delay, so they can be treated.
Last night it was a squirrel of some sort, which they'd caught, killed, and dumped into their water bowl so that it floated there eerily. They are remarkable hunters, but determined to display their trophies in ways which would have gone over as modern art installations in the sixties.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
A light trim around the back
It has been a busy weekend. We obtained fencing tools, including a nice set of fencing pliers which were put to heavy use immediately, yanking out some of the last remaining bits of barbed wire stapled firmly to wooden posts. We're much happier with this hazard gone.
More trees are being gradually limbed now, letting light through to our neighbours to the north, as well as making it easier to build fences there too.
We had wanted to build fences already, but as all too often is the case, doing one thing led to first doing a dozen other things. Mercifully, the local burn ban has been lifted, so that we can get rid of a lot of combustible rubbish that way rather than having it sit around as a fire hazard.
The primary fly and mosquito season has passed, and this is quite welcome. We are getting around to giving our animals their autumn deworming. This should put them in much better condition for the next six months.
Between deworming, fence construction and so on, we should be kept very busy until the end of the year.
More trees are being gradually limbed now, letting light through to our neighbours to the north, as well as making it easier to build fences there too.
We had wanted to build fences already, but as all too often is the case, doing one thing led to first doing a dozen other things. Mercifully, the local burn ban has been lifted, so that we can get rid of a lot of combustible rubbish that way rather than having it sit around as a fire hazard.
The primary fly and mosquito season has passed, and this is quite welcome. We are getting around to giving our animals their autumn deworming. This should put them in much better condition for the next six months.
Between deworming, fence construction and so on, we should be kept very busy until the end of the year.
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