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.