December has been a busy month, fraught with chaotic activity. Not all of the activity has been chaotic, however the month was kicked off to a screeching start by our Nibs kitten deliberately hiding in the dryer in an attempt to surprise us. Unfortunately, the surprise was on him as wet laundry was being thrown in there and no one saw him; he was rescued a few minutes later and rushed to the vet's with a severe concussion and full-body bruising.

He is now being considered the most lucky kitten on the planet by some, among whose number is included both us and not only our regular veterinarian but also the emergency veterinarians who monitored him overnight that night. Not only did he come out of it with no broken bones and no internal bleeding (this sort of situation usually results in dead kitties), but he has by now made a FULL recovery, and he is up to all sorts of mischief, including jumping onto the washer while laundry is being prepared or changed over. The only sign that he has learned something from the experience is that once in a while when the dryer is turned on while he's in the laundry room, he'll go tearing out in a brief-lived panic.

We've been jokingly referring to it as a Christmas miracle, but after all, it happened well before the start of any of the various winter holidays. Still, we're very relieved and thankful and tell him on an almost daily basis that he's used up three of his lives in one go with that - and to never do it again.

It's been a very busy month in other ways, with charity work and baking for the neighbors, but also with quite a lot of work around the farm. Several barrels of wine are now bubbling happily, the yeast in them doing its work to turn large quantities of honey and fruit juice into something which will be both delicious and unique when it's finished its composition. We hope to offer it for sale next year.

More wine recipes are under discussion, but the most recent work has been sheep-related. Having lost several sheep to scouring and suspecting coccidiosis, we have begun a deworming in earnest. We sold several of the cull flock on Christmas eve, and having faced down the losses, the remaining culls gained reprieve for their troubles in order to replace the losses; these were caught, tagged, dewormed, given a hoof trimming and marked with sheep paint, then herded down to the pasture prepared for them. The ewe flock which we call the nunnery was then herded up to the work area, and the ewes given the same treatment. The rams and Mitey and his harem will be receiving the same treatment in the very near future.

One of the ram lambs we lost to coccidiosis we put out for the scavengers; the ear tag was not saved and when we went to salvage it, the entire corpse had been taken. We'll have to do some forensic discovery of which number is missing in sequence.

We lost a hen to owl strike, resulting in our renewing the overhead netting and purchasing more hens. Of the new hens, only one didn't make it, having been going through a fairly savage molt and succumbing to the stress of the move and the cold weather. The others have settled in very quickly and nicely, however, and we have been getting eggs almost every day.

The coming year brings promise - of wine, of education, of good food and good drink and good companionship. It is our hope to all our readers that it brings the same to you.

It has been a busy and invigorating November. Despite periods of intense rain (enough to trigger local flood alerts) and even some snow, the frost has not prevented us from being quite busy with the procuring and chopping, crushing and pressing of many apples. As you can see, we are old-school in our fruit-pressing business, and many malic acid-bearing fruits went to their doom in our medieval torture device.

The resulting pomace left over after all the crushing and pressing was put beneath one of our volunteer apple trees, to the great delight of the geese, who now find this to be one of the best places to graze and relax.


So far we have not yet seen the geese turning up tipsy or drunk, but then, one would have to wonder how we would be able to tell the difference; not always the most graceful of birds, they've yet to slip up to us, weaving as they slap us on the back with a wing to proclaim their love of their 'good buddies'. It's been business as usual - 'wark! Where's the food, jerk?' and the usual excitability whenever delivery drivers turn up with packages.


The ducks have been less interested in the pomace, or perhaps bullied away from it by the geese as usual. We have ten new Muscovy hens thanks to FedEx running over one of our previous hens, having tracked down a semi-local breeder - the new hens have settled in fairly well, and while still a little cautious of us, have taken a cue from our brown original flock in showing up for food, and staring fixedly at us in the hopes that we'll get with the program outside of usual feeding times.

The sheep are doing well also - Mitey's flock is the breeding flock this year, and the girls are definitely beginning to get that look - the look which says 'pay me no mind, this totally isn't a watermelon I'm trying to smuggle past customs, inspector'. They dive into alfalfa as a starving cannibal might into a well-fed Lutheran missionary whenever it's presented to them. All in all, a good start to the winter on the farm.

Autumn has truly entered our little realm, and the geese and the sheep have been grazing mightily. With the rains of early autumn came a second growth of grass, which has been a delight to them. Also a delight to us, as it's meant they require a little less hay, for now.

We've lost a number of the cull flock, which is regrettable in that they didn't end up in our freezer for winter, but there are still a number left, and even have found a customer or two interested in meat. All in all, a happy run through fall.




The winery grows apace. A lucky find meant we got an excellent deal on apples and pears - as we are now fully licensed both with the state and federal government, this means that we have been able to make batches of apple & honey wine and pear & honey wine, using Granny Smiths and Bartletts respectively.

With much work, we have realized that our equipment may be a trifle under-muscular for the job at hand, and have taken steps to add to our arsenal of fruit-crushing and pressing tools. The obtaining of a bottler has been achieved, and an order placed for bottles; next will be things such as labels and label design.

We had one bad bout of pinkeye with a ram in our bachelor flock, but fortunately isolating him for a few weeks let him get through it safely without it being transmitted to the rest of the flock. We did lose one of the culls to it, however.

More equipment is on its way - both for wine-making and sheep-tending - and we gear up for a long winter of living off the fat of the land until spring thaw. In the meantime, the harvest-time is busy, but rewarding, with fat apples on the oldest trees and sheep grazing under them.

The seasons turn on, and after summer's last hot hurrah, the temperatures have dropped appreciably. The rains have returned, which many are grateful for after the long, unusually dry period. There had been local fire watches and a couple of mercifully small bush fires along with a full-out burn ban which has yet to be fully lifted until it's known whether the rains are here to stay.



The cats are appreciating the change in season, idling while we humans work. A fence has been erected around the garden area,
enclosing the chickens' area. While it needs to be shored up, still, it is sufficient to keep the eight hens and one rooster in - and has been pressed into triple service as a clinic for ailing sheep and lambs.



One lamb from the cull flock had been stricken by likely anemia and parasite load, so he was taken out and determined to be potentially savable. A friend was taken, and the two ram lambs put
in the enclosure with ample sweet feed and mineral and access to grass and water. Ailing lamb was treated with Ivermectin (a standard dewormer) and while it has taken time, he has gradually grown stronger with a minimum of further assistance. We are


hopeful that within the next few days, we will be able to return him to the rest of that flock.

With the cooler weather, the sheep water consumption has dropped, although we farmers still must see to it that their water is topped off (along with our coffee). The bachelor flock has shown signs of smelling the first hints of rut, with Northern Spy going at it with the two blond rams at times.

So far there shows no question but that he will win out over them, every time. The larger rams in there - Kingston Black, Hercules and Bolivar - show no real interest in their fighting, for whatever reason. We do intend to deworm everyone sooner rather than later - the cull flock especially, to give them time to pass the dewormer out of their systems prior to culling. For Ivermectin, this is 11 days. We have an additional round of deworming to do, however, and we are still discussing what the most effective way to do this is.

Currently we are making progress with our licensing paperwork, and if all goes well, this autumn will be a busy one for us. We hope to be in a position to crush a ton or so of juice for blending with honey in our fermentation tanks. Even if it is delayed, however, the process of paperwork and preparation for inspections combined with deworming nearly 80 sheep will keep us quite busy
indeed.


We intend to face down the winter with a freezer full of lamb and mutton raised ourselves, and hope that with nestboxes to be built, there will be eggs and chickens for months to come. Should all else fail, there are also the ducks and geese, and one of the two mature duck hens has gone broody under the porch, so we are hopeful of more ducklings to come. Even in lean times, country folks conspire to eat and drink well.


For now, it's a return to the work of the day, and with cheerful looking forward to the long snoozy evenings with mulled cider, perhaps, and something savory to snack upon; hot apple pies and mutton stew, full of potatoes and root vegetables, fresh-baked loaves of bread and slices of aged cheddar. Old Man Winter's breath is on the pane, but the farm continues on.

Farmy of one

One farmer is off elsewhere, so the one left behind tackles the maintenance and the development of the farm alone for this weekend.

Feeding the sheep is improved by two factors: getting regular delivery of hay from the farm store (a saving in time and convenience, if not money) and splitting the flocks which means that the hungrier ones can get extra attention.

This weekend the hungriest flock of all (the ewes in poor condition post lambing) were fed by felling an alder and a douglas fir in their paddock. They fell to, and rapidly reduced leafy branches to twigs.

The process of enclosing the garden to be a chicken run as well continues slowly but steadily. Hardware cloth is not as easy to work with as regular fencing, but is necessary for the tighter gaps desired. The chickens are growing well, and will certainly be capable of scratching up much of the garden with little effort.

The chickens have proven to be true to their omnivorous reputation, and will eat anything from poultry feed through meat scraps to marmalade. This makes feeding them and disposing of kitchen scraps much easier.

We have suffered four losses. Jojo, our oldest sheep, was weakening, and in her weakened state parasites started to proliferate beyond all management. The vet gave her opinion that if it were her sheep, she would be put down so with some regret but a sense of duty, Jojo was euthanised and buried near an apricot tree. There was hardly enough on her to make soup, so the tree will benefit more.

The three very late lambs also succumbed to a couple of cold nights and possibly also stress from the movement of flocks. In any case, they were very small and we left them for scavengers to discourage eagles.

Given our losses, we deemed it reasonable to take two otherwise desirable gimmers from the cull flock, and put them in with the recovering ewes. Two handsome gimmers with white spotted faces were selected, tagged, had their hooves trimmed, and were carried over to their new home. They did not enjoy the process and objected strenuously, but with any good fortune they will prosper and extend the white spotting genes in our flock. We want this because it makes sheep identification at a distance easier.

We have had no predation losses, but fresh coyote dung has been spotted. A farmer stands occasional watch with binoculars and a rifle to try to stave off predation.

The ducklings are now large enough to be at little risk from the cats so we are letting the barn cats roam free again, much to their delight. We have spotted cottontails, which with any luck will avoid the feline patrol to the benefit of our trees.

The farm has been busy of late, and the great cull of ought-eleven has begun. Over 20 lambs have been set aside for selling, whether for meat or as live stock to other farms or for our own freezers over winter, and 3 lambs already have gone to the great grassy paddock in the sky. It is a difficult thing to do, at times, but the phrase 'cruel to be kind' becomes the most appropriate one. For our available land will only support so many animals, and better a merciful end now, than a slow one from starvation later.

The cats of course have been blissfully ignoring the hard work of we farmers, choosing instead to find their pleasures on the otherwise unoccupied bed no matter the weather out of doors, be it sunny or cloudy. We've been fortunate in that this past weekend was neither sunny nor actually rainy, allowing us to work out of doors without the harsh glare of summer sun and heat while not being drenched with rain to make us uncomfortable and sheep horns slippery.

The separation for culling was only one part of our work this weekend; every sheep in our flock was examined for health and condition and their hooves examined and trimmed. They were then divided into various groups depending on our intentions for them come the breeding season; Mitey has a harem of his own this year, as our principal breeder. More than a dozen ewes are keeping company with him in our largest paddock, an acre (approximately) in size.

A bachelor flock's been set up out of sight of that, with ten rams in it. Hercules and Bolivar are relaxing for the season in this, aside from any potential stud use they might face. Northern Spy (Double Nickel's son by Hercules, so named because his original tag was 007) and Kingston Black (001, Hercules' son by Teed's Tlingit and a right chip off the old block) are in with them, along with two blonde ram hoggets and some ginger and mixed ram lambs from this year and last year's breedings.

Kingston Black comes by his name honestly, as can be seen here. He's a magnificent young creature with just a single white spot on his head, not visible in these shots. We have expectation of beautiful lambs by him someday - but not yet today. If we set up a separate breeding flock this year, it will quite likely be with Northern Spy as a fledgeling flock sire, in order to preserve Double Nickel's traits within our flock. While he has a twin sister (as yet unnamed), they are our only genetic links.

In addition to breeding, cull and bachelor flocks, we have a nunnery flock as well, consisting of ewes whose condition we weren't entirely happy with and the small handful of unweaned lambs which were born so late in the season. They're being given as much as they care to eat, so they have no real reason to complain - not that this stops them, every time they think we might have treats for them! Two bales of hay today and a scoop of feed kept them mostly content.

It was a long and grueling amount of work, involving 87 wrestling matches with sheep ranging in size from tiny lambs up to Hercules himself. We're still recovering, but look forward to continuing to do business. The cats merely yawn and laugh at us, and demand our exhausted affections when we try to collapse in reclamation of our bed. Good luck with that!



The garden is doing well; we should be getting tomatoes and herbs definitely, and the kale is doing nicely, with one of the artichokes already fruiting. Neither peppers nor cucumbers show any real sign of fruiting, disappointingly, but better something than nothing! Meanwhile, the chickens are growing in their combs and slowly developing their voices, although for now they are still very quiet.


The ducklings, on the other hand, grow bigger by the day and come running fearlessly whenever they think a farmer might have food for them - which is pretty much any time a farmer comes out the door. They've learned dodging and weaving tactics which allow them to swoop down upon food pellets from under the very beaks of the geese which would be the envy of most football quarterbacks - the geese attempt to bully them terribly, but the agile little things sweep past and around, eat, and then head to the pond to paddle about duckily while nibbling at the fairy moss. Summer is not yet dead, but it is lazily beginning to consider moving south in favour of autumn's sway.

We have had a happy week upon the farm. In addition to our late-born new lambie of tiny proportions, one of our ducks has finally hatched out a clutch of eggs! Five tiny little ducklings have been seen waddling after mama everywhere, and paddling about on the pond nibbling the duckweed while she watches protectively from the shore.



The geese still do bully the ducks - and now ducklings - away from the food, so it requires a careful eye and a bit of oversight. However, the geese haven't been having it all their own way - an owl was seen last night being bullied by ravens and crows and jays until it moved further away, from tree to tree. Whether it left entirely or not we're not yet sure. Hopefully so, for the sake of our flocks.


An eagle was seen flying over the main road today, being similarly bullied away by a raven, and a cottontail rabbit and a wren were having a bit of a pow-wow on the side road. The pow-wow was broken up by the arrival of cars, and mister or missus cottontail headed into the deep brush while the lady wren fluttered away.




Little lambie kept having trouble keeping up with the flock, requiring a helping hand from time to time from a farmer - especially during the heavy rains. Lambie is doing quite well by now, however, and we've figured out how the older lambs were escaping - a temporary fix has stopped that for now, although too late for one lamb foolish enough to stick its nose quite literally into the fence of the neighbors' dog paddock. One eye was destroyed and it had to be culled. Sad though it was, at least the meat has proven delicious when properly cooked.

We may be able to finish the newest paddock this weekend. If so that will give them a couple of weeks of fodder, and hay delivery begins on the first of August, which should save us time and wear and tear on vehicles. Hurray for hay!

Summer rolls merrily along, being one of our nicer summers - not too dry although we wouldn't mind yet more rain than we've been getting. On one of our dryer days, a curious-looking moth landed on the windshield on our way out.

Summer has been oddly lamb-filled as well; today we came home to find yet another newborn lamb born to one of our smaller ewes - although not one of our hogget ewes.

We're going to have to figure out why so many ewes went into season so late this time around that Hercules was able to impregnate them!

The barn cats have been settling in well, although we're beginning to consider making our own cat food from scratch. Omaha and Tootles even get along fairly well - bright eyes and all.

Our farm now includes a chicken coop, and a total of nine chickens - 2 Delaware hens, 2 Maran hens, 4 Olive Eggers, and a Blue Maran rooster. They're all between 2 and 3 months old, so the soonest we can expect eggs will be in another 3 months. We have a little more work to do reinforcing the area they're in - both so far they're healthy and alert, and, well, about as intelligent as chickens ever get. Our goal of self-sufficiency for meat purposes (and a good supply of organically produced eggs) grows ever closer!

Happy 4th of July to all who are reading this, be they domestic or abroad. As the pictures show, there has been some domesticity around here - and a couple of kittycats just want to help. All of the cats have been getting kept inside a lot, less due to weather and more due to the visit the other day by a massive bald eagle which landed on our lawn, not twenty feet from our front door. The geese were made nervous by this - and so the barn cats are indoors, continuing their socialization training with occasional outdoor privileges only no matter how wistful they sound.

We lost one lamb who'd escaped and instead of allowing us to round him up, forced his way into the neighbours' dog kennel. Two labradors + one lamb = one very dead lamb. The neighbour came over to apologize after finding what was left - the dogs were playing with the head. Poor neighbour. But that lamb effectively culled itself from the flock as 'too stupid to live'. Better finding out now than later, we suppose.


We've lately put in duckweed and water hyacinth, along with some friendly bacteria to help settle our pond ecology down. Imagine our surprise when a couple of days after, not only is the water much clearer, it's become apparent that we have at least one fully mature carp of some sort swimming around in there! Impressive hibernation skills; that pond freezes clear to the bottom in winter! We're considering adding some lily pads and a couple more carp to present a balanced ecology.

The sheep have been getting moved from one pasture to another, particularly today - some of our other neighbours like fireworks at the 4th. They like fireworks enough to begin two whole nights in advance, resulting in very panicky, nervous sheep. Thus today once they're done grazing, we'll be moving them to the furthest corner of the property and hope that it helps them be a little more settled. There's just a limit to what we can do for them, and if last year was any indication, the fireworks are likely to last three or four hours. The weather is unfortunately altogether too perfect for fireworks - no hope of a last minute cancellation. Poor sheep!


We have been installing fencing along our northern border, intended to keep the sheep out of the other other neighbours' vegetable gardens. Once that is installed and we have done the southern border as well, all we'll need is a gate - or something to block the driveway, in any case - and we'll be able to let them graze with only modest supervision. It is a day we look forward to with much joy. It will also enable us to observe them to begin preparing the cull list; this winter we plan on separating them along strictly sexist lines, to give our ewes a break and help them regain condition. Our many sheepy minions shall have a pause in their increase...

The sheep have been fattening themselves upon the summer grass with great glee, as everyone can clearly spot. The wool is gradually shedding, so that by now some of our sheep are practically nude. A fair amount though by no means all of the shed wool has been collected; at some point, likely when we go to deworm them, we'll see about rooing the ones who haven't shed.



One of the garden trees died completely and we've planted a replacement; however, dead though it might be, it looks very picturesque among the daisies and tall clovers and with bits of grass and moss about.









And surprise! We have a brand new ewe lamb as of this morning, born to one of last year's ewe hoggets, fawn in colour. A first lamb for her, obviously - and coal-black all over. We're fairly sure from when Hercules came back from Oregon (June 22nd) combine with today's birthdate that she's one of his. There's an outside chance it could be Hercules' oldest (and largest) son, ram lamb #1, but considering we saw him sniffing for fertile ewes when he returned and his determination for dominance...

The grass has indeed gotten high. Can anyone count the sheep?








Maybe this makes it easier.








Or this...








Or how about this?








Nibs is confident that we have enough sheep. He's also confident that that length of baling twine isn't going anywhere without him having something to say about it. Don't you agree?






The barn cats continue to receive their refresher training in more polite people manners. The training comes with some perks, such as hotel accommodations. Shh, they're going over their notes!

It is midsummer on Silver Cat Farm, and the lambs are getting fat.

There will be some few (not many) apples on the trees come autumn, if the birds and insects and sheep don't get them all.

The barn cats have been inside for refresher training in civility and affection.

Summer may be halfway over, but it's only begun to heat up.

The work doesn't end, but neither do the joys. May all of you have a joyful midsummer, and the rest of the summer as well!

June has thus far been a remarkably attractive month, filled with delightful moments amid all the hard work. Tink and Slightly have been working just as hard, as you can see - in fact, they've been catching thrushes and sparrows for hearty consumption, and in one case had to be told rather sternly that while they could keep their catch, to eat it outside, please! Some people just don't understand the kitty heart.






The sheep have also been enjoying the warmer weather - it's been cool enough that they don't need to constantly take shelter, but sometimes they do just for the heck of it. It gives things at times almost a fairy element. Sheep among trees - sound the retreat! They've been a bit of a handful lately; getting to graze on an almost daily basis means they've been getting rather spoiled, and prone to ignoring shepherds whenever they can. They remain most manageable when there's two or more shepherds on duty.

And with June's weather there have been glorious signs of plant life and pretty little flowers. Some of the grasses are already going to seed, as seen here, with the red seeds among the little yellow flowers.





And here, with small purple flowers and white daisies - one of the sheep delights in eating these daisies, so seeing a ewe wander by with a daisy dangling from her mouth is not at all an uncommon sight.





A closeup of the daisy, because of the rather striking pattern its folded-back protective leaves have.







Even smaller purple flowers among the clover.








And spring irises, which begin opening in April or sometimes sooner and last until summer gets too hot for them, backed by more of those tiny yellow flowers.

It has been a very eye-catching June, and we'll be sorry to see it go!