November has rolled into December; but we haven't been idle on the farm in the slightest. The lab results have come in for five of our wine varietals, allowing us to be one step closer to getting them into stores. As you can see, Nibs and a friend are pleased as punch with this news, as are we. We have been in communication with our commissioned artist on the labels as well, and although the farm's cats may be sleeping off the snoozy wet weather, we are doing anything but.

 While the cats sleep, the elements have been unpleasant. Wet, muddy weather is the norm in this part of the world, but it hasn't been a particularly white winter; the cold wind and endless rain have caused numerous losses in our sheep flocks, which we've been dealing with as they arise. So far our best success stories have involved quick location of floundering sheep combined with judicious use of calorie supplements, blankets and hot water bottles. The trick is that many of them don't show signs of distress until it's just too late.

We did however have a white holiday. It didn't last long, but it was pretty while it did. The sheep were grateful for the respite and displayed absolutely no difficulty in getting around in the snow. Our goal is to see lambs in spring of 2013, and with a little hard work and a little luck, our wines on shelves around then as well. May 2013 bring us all the peace and prosperity which seems so sorely lacking in 2012's world, from us to all of you.

The previous weekend, we spent chopping and washing and crushing and pressing a lot of 650 lb of Granny Smith apples grown in state and picked earlier the same week. Having worn our muscles tired, we nonetheless greet the end results with great cheer. The pitch was made later on, and the honey shall be added in due course.

 It seems a fitting sort of activity for early November. The crispness of the air, the scattered clouds overhead, the last frenetic efforts on the part of local wildlife to fill their bellies, all proclaim the coming of winter in no short order. The last of the harvest must be gotten in, and any fattening not done for the winter must be done posthaste.

 The tailgate of the pickup truck made an excellent workbench for our efforts. The shortness of time lent vigor to our activities, with the need to be done before rain came, before daylight ended, before our all too brief weekend was spent, its wasteful hours not laid in vain but in honest toil, the sort of which the Puritans all too grimly spoke but in the end result of which we can proclaim our relief and pleasure.

 One farmer to wash and chop, one farmer to grind and press - much work in all too few hours!

 We shifted about halfway through from halving the apples to quartering them. This made the crushing and pressing go much faster in return.

 With hand-powered tools, there is no shortage of muscle wear!

 Of course, when setting off on a full day's labor, a hearty farm breakfast is essential - in this case, streaky rashers of bacon, oat porridge with or without a lick of strawberry preserves, scrambled eggs, and blackcurrant & crystallized ginger scones kept us going all day without need for lunch.

The grass is white.
The ducks walk across the pond.
The sheep stand huddled in thin, low rays of sun, waiting for it to warm their dark wool.

It's Winter.

Blessed relief

Perhaps it is hard for those who live in cities to quite appreciate the strain which unfortunate weather can put on farmers.  It seems like such a little thing, when radio announcers are confidently talking about glorious sunshine, beach weather and bright days.

We can't hope to communicate the situation in an entirely personal fashion, but watching a lamb nose around in dry grass for something succulent, watching the grass stop growing, and as it gets gradually grazed down, exposing the dust beneath, watching the water in troughs fall by inches every day as thirsty animals try to make up for what their grazing can't give them, fills one with a sense of impotence.

Dryland farmers are doubtless laughing at the idea that two or three rainless months are much trouble, and in the big picture they are right, of course, but when one's pasture consists of plants which are used to frequent water, and which quickly suffer heat and drought stress, even a single dry month can really change things in a hurry.  Three months is not catastrophic, but very troublesome.

The older trees have enough roots that they can water themselves from the water table, but we may well have lost a few dozen of the younger ones.  One hopes that the losses will be fewer than that, but dessicated leaves on young twigs tell their own story.

This morning at last the rains have come, gentle but apparently enduring rains which start to soak the earth.  We are trying to balance the activities of our grazers so that dust does not immediately transmute to mud, but in the end the rain is so welcome that this is a vastly preferable problem to have.

Hot and dry Autumn

August, September and now the first days of October have been nearly universally warm and dry.  Save for a little dew in the mornings, there has been no real relief.  The pastures are dry, and it is easy to pick out where water troughs have overflowed by the patches of greenery.

Some of last year's trees (which were largely seconds, not prime picks from the nursery) show signs of severe drought stress, and some will surely succumb.  Since we lack the permit to irrigate, we have to take it as it comes and accept the losses where they occur.

The sheep and the birds alike have been going through a lot of water, but we need no permit to water them.  This is good, because especially the sheep have been grazing the dry pastures and they need their water to keep up.

We are now past the autumnal equinox, and the days are rapidly growing shorter.  This gives some relief, and the days are cooling down, but it also means that we largely missed the late season growth spurt for lack of water.

There is some good news, at least.  All of our cultivated land is now enclosed, so that the sheep can engage in weed control all over.  We will have to have them inspected soon, and divided for the mating season.  Already the rams are showing signs of rutting temper.

We went to Oregon to obtain three ewe lambs of pure british blood for Bolivar, so that we can develop that end of our breeding strategy.  They are young, but in fine shape.

The rest of our flocks are also largely in fine shape, and we will be breeding more of our ewes than last season because of this.  This should help us establish the numbers to meet the needs of the USDA's scrapie export standards.

On the wine front, things are making gradual progress.  Having found that the micron scale filters clog too easily with merely siphoned wine, we have obtained a centrifuge for mechanical clarification.  Test runs have been very encouraging, so that we should be able to clarify and bottle wine in a couple of reliable passes.  We will of course have to have all our recipes certified by the TTB, but we have kept good laboratory notebooks throughout, and should be able to pass that hurdle without undue trouble.

The mead is light, very suitable for hot weather sipping, while the cyser we are making has more body and personality, and both are aging rather nicely.  As soon as the authorities are satisfied, we are sure to find some glad buyers.

We apologize for the delay in further posting; as you can clearly see, we were unavoidably held up. The summer has proven busy, and the cats have been stern taskmasters in keeping us focused on the work to be done at all times. Not that they have found it too unbearably arduous; even with such demanding work as keeping farmers busy at our purpose, they've managed to find some time to get some rest. Of course, not every restful nap is as sleepy as it looks.

What has kept us so busy beneath our feline masters, you may ask? Many things, not least of which has been further fencing in of acreage, rotating of sheep for pasture management, getting our porch screened in, baking countless loaves of bread, putting up gallons of strawberry preserves, guarding our chickens from owls and our ducks and geese from hawks, planting, weeding and generally maintaining our garden, and shooting not one but two skunks coming after our eggs.

The cats have been somewhat helpful in the last bit; one of our largest cats has shown great alertness and excitement when skunks show up, kindly informing us of their presence. Unfortunately, shooting them causes quite a stink - not so much with the neighbors as much as a more literal stink, which even now is still lingering, and in the hot August air, carries quite a ways. After the second one was shot, though, while we startled a raccoon in its stalkings, we haven't seen another skunk - yet.

The bees are happy that it is August, and put even we tired farmers to shame with their industry. Whether it's catnip flowers, daisies, or the humble dandelion, they can be seen almost everywhere, pollinating and collecting. Humble bumblebees these, for the most part, they present no real malice or menace, although the mosquitoes which have been showing up in the recent dry weather are driving us to distraction. Still, the fencing in of the porch means less duck and goose mess - which means fewer flies in the house. Always good.

There have been a surprisingly favorable number of ducklings hatched, although the percentage which make it to adulthood with our somewhat firm hands-off policy is fewer than we'd like. They are fairly adorable and tiny when they're new; by now, the first few clutches are only just beginning to pass out of adolescence, soon to be gaining their final adult plumage. The geese have taken a protective liking to the ducklings - inasmuch as the geese ever 'like' anyone or anything. They bully the ducklings, but not to extinction, and behave protectively of them while they are still small enough. The ducklings' worst enemy is always themselves, or occasionally an insufficiently careful mother duck; though the mother ducks can't entirely be faulted, when they've hatched out clutches of fifteen. Let it be noted for the record that however high ducks can count, it is definitely nowhere near as high as ten.

This moth was resting at length on the outer wall of the farmhouse. Its wings' patterning is reminiscent of Navajo or other tribal patterns; striking, and compared to the mosquitoes, if not welcome entirely then harmless. The cats however welcome the moths with great delight. Fun to play with AND delicious! This one at least was smart enough not to come into the house.

Our garden pear trees have finally borne us fruit! One pear apiece, to be precise, still hanging beautifully on the branches. As the trees are still quite young and have only been in the ground here at most 2 1/2 years (if that), we are delighted - and hopeful that next year will begin to see heavier crops. The volunteer apple trees all show signs of heavyish crops, despite the hot, dry summer we've had so far. It's a hopeful sign for our land and orchards in general, although we're keeping a watchful eye on our younger trees. The dolgo crabapples, however, are showing absolutely no trouble despite the heat and lack of rain, and are going like gangbusters. It's a promising development for the future production of our wines, and we have an order for some custom grafts of a couple of kinds of cider apples which we will be planting in the fall.

The garden is doing well also, although lessons have been learned; too many plants in too small a space, and while they're growing quite remarkably well, it's difficult to reach some of them. There are green tomatoes on the vines, there are pickling cucumbers coming in with increasing speed. There are pumpkin vines trying to take over everything. The beans, artichokes and peppers just never got big enough - possibly starved of sun too much by the pumpkins -  and the onions and potatoes seem happy as can be, while the cabbages, while not numerous, are showing every indication of forming heads considerably larger than a human's. We look forward to pickles and pumpkin puree and sauerkraut to keep us over winter, with tomato sauces and soups on those days when we haven't the time to do more than heat things up.

The skies have been lovely and blue - and lamentably clear, with fire hazard warnings everywhere. The sheep are not altogether thrilled with this warmth in their woolen coats, and we top their water off daily. A neighbor's dog had been going after tennis balls under the fence into the rams' enclosure; we've spread plenty of rich soil there and strewn it with pasture mix seeds to close off that opening. The dog, fortunately, wasn't malicious or violent in intention - but we prefer not to play roulette with the rams, who have been getting themselves into enough trouble as it is. In their efforts to graze, rub off wool, or otherwise stick their noses in where they oughtn't, they've been getting their horns caught on fencing with unusual regularity - fortunately, we've been working outside so much that we've been able to come to the rescue each time. It's an unusual thing, thankfully - but alarming if we weren't to make it in time.

Mosquitoes, moths and bees aren't our only nonmammalian visitors. This spider caused considerable curiosity until we were able to identify it as a fairly harmless local. It wasn't happy about holding still to have its picture taken, and thus has been immortalized in annoyance. Still, on the whole, as busy as we've been, summer has had its joys; now comes the real work of autumn, with sheep examinations and dewormings, garden harvest and canning and pickling, slaughtering and butchering the excess ram lambs and tanning the hides, planting hundreds more trees, finishing up fencing projects and fertilizing and examining the other trees, setting up the breeding roster for the next season, and winterizing garden beds and farm as a whole alike! It doesn't get much better than this; a purposeful life, involved in what we do and aware of our place in it all. And, usually, looking forward to bedtime.

Spring is giving way to summer, rather reluctantly. It has continued to be on the cool side, although not as cold so far as last summer had been. We have been keeping quite busy with consultations on wine label designs, animal management, planting and being completely dominated by cats telling us how adorable they are.

The bantams have been granted their own enclosure over the course of the weekend, along with some hens which proved to not be bantams after all being released into the general chook population. The sad news: both chicks have been lost. The first got itself into a water dish and drowned, prompting a revising of the watering system. The second was eaten by a skunk which was visiting the enclosure and may prove to have been the culprit who killed two of our hens a month ago.

The skunk was not allowed to roam free once more this time. A farmer managed to get off a shot from a distance, killing the skunk more or less immediately, although with predictable skunk results. The corpse has been put out for the ravens, who appreciate it and must have no sense of smell; the stench in the area in the enclosure is gradually fading.

Seedlings have finally been transplanted as well - cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins and beans being the primary but not only such. A lettuce bed is being planned, and there are some volunteer root vegetables - potatoes and onions - which will be planted soon as well.

Lambing has seemed to slow to a halt, although we are hesitant to say so for certain; we are at fifteen live lambs, which is all but 3 of the ewes in the breeding flock this year. As there is still our Miss Congeniality who jumped the fence this past winter, we cannot be entirely sure if we're done. But for now, at least, we have lambs aplenty. One of our ewes is vying for the title of Miss Congeniality in a more pleasant way - #15 of our flock is determined to get special treatment, coming up to us for treats, following us around (along with her absolutely adorable little ram lamb) and even once tugging on a pant leg when she felt there should be treats but weren't.

Onwards and upwards we continue - as does the grass. It's our hope to finish the big fencing project this summer, so that sheep may safely graze without constant supervision and running or swearing in their wake. And how exciting is it to think of preserves and stores for the following winter? We think it quite exciting indeed.

 We have decided to solve our problem of hens not sitting on their nests by acquiring some bantams, which we did at auction last weekend. While the majority were not breed specific (and have proven to potentially be young pullets just past chick stage rather than actually bantams), among our purchases were four Old English bantams  -  three lovely little hens and a proud little bantam rooster.

 They all fit comfortably into a standard pet carrier, although were less than thrilled to be so rudely acquainted; still, they survived to make it home to the farm, where we set about enclosing them in a mini-run of their own with straw bales and bird netting, to keep the other chickens separated for health, safety and sanity.

 While we worked on their enclosure, we also picked up the latest batches of eggs; it makes for a very pastoral image indeed, in a modern American way!

 The Old English birds were immediately and visibly less timid than the others, exploring their new surroundings right away. Only gradually did some of the other hens, the black ones, begin to follow suit, the buffs preferring to stay under cover.

 Perhaps the most amusing part of the whole thing is the new cock's crow; he gets into crowing competitions with the other two all the time, and he sounds just about exactly like a squeaky chew toy. It's a good thing we don't keep dogs!

 The apple trees are in particularly full bloom, with petals beginning to gently drift downwards. Standing under the trees means being subjected sudden loud buzzings; we couldn't tell which kind of insect it was, so we backed off just in case.

 Going into the sheep pen means there is the expectation that treats will be forthcoming, even to the point of risking sheepy nibbles at trouser legs. Denim tastes nothing like sweet feed, though, so it doesn't last long, and allows us to examine the shelters we built to provide the sheep a little extra wind, rain and sun protection.

Ample blossoms now should mean lots of apples later!

Lambing season has been steadily continuing, with sheepy presences making themselves woollily known. We are up to 13 live lambs from 13 mothers, including a pair of twins and a single ewe lamb who didn't last the full day. The sheep complain that it's beginning to get hot, with days occasionally and unusually creeping above 80 degrees Fahrenheit; their wool peels from them and hangs in dripping clumps.



The geese and ducks have been making it quite clear that it's also nesting season; while one duck has produced three ducklings (of which two so far have survived), other ducks have chosen far stranger and less sensible places in which to nest. Please note that the following pictures were not altered, nor set up in advance. This is exactly how we found things. Unfortunately, finding things was enough to cause the duck to abandon this nest - although 'unfortunately' might not be quite the right word.

That is, in fact, an outdoor extension cord which the strange, strange duck chose to use for a nest bed... and well over a dozen eggs in total were in and around the disused mailbox which she had converted into her pied a terre.


Sadly, one of our nesting geese is gone; she foolishly went for a midnight graze on her own and a coyote took her. We found some feathers, and in the woods we found her head, but apart from these ghoulish remains we found no sign of her. Should the coyote return, we hope to welcome it with open arms and a hail of bullets.

 The lambs are healthy, happy and vigorous, and surprisingly loud, as always. This little one already is beginning to have visible horn nubbins, a promising trend.

 Mitey is very pleased with himself - as he should be, the sire of thirteen lambs and counting. The count so far is very heavy on the ram lambs, so we will be culling in the fall. We look forward to tasty lamb sausages, chops, flanks and haggis.

 One ewe in particular, number 15, is always hoping for treats. She even has to doublecheck to see if the camera is edible!

 In among the lambs' gamboling, the ewes' escape attempts and the general placidity of life on the farm there have been other developments. We have a construction firm currently doing work taking down some unwanted trees threatening the power lines, and they have done a stellar job so far, and very quickly. They'll be doing another job for us very soon as well.

 In the meantime,we remain supplied with eggs thanks to our chickens, although we are still considering the addition of banties, as the hens just aren't good sitters or nesters. Half a dozen banties should be sufficient to take care of the problem.

 In the meantime, every day continues to hammer home one message in particular: lambies are so disgustingly cute that it constitutes an unfair evolutionary advantage!

Spring has sprung, with all the joy and sorrow that goes with it, and lambs have begun to appear. Three were born over the course of the day, three single births thus far, one ewe lamb and two ram lambs. The ewe lamb seemed viable but quite tiny but alas, did not make it. We found her dead around nine this evening, her mother desperately searching for her with calls and pleading bleats which must forever go unanswered.

It is one of the tragedies of this business, that brings one to a greater understanding of the give and take of life and death that cannot go unnoticed, but for which there is no answering. The ewe lamb was born to a gimmer ewe, one of our own breeding; as a first birth, it's not altogether shocking that it was a single birth and that it didn't survive, but it's sad all the same.

The two ram lambs were considerably larger, and we have hopes that they will do better. And there are fifteen more ewes who may well pop before long...

February has given way to March, but Mother Nature hasn't gotten the memo; while we've not had the severe snows January brought, we have had snow at least once every week in March, and sometimes more than once. Usually the sun comes out long enough that it's gone by three in the afternoon.

The spots of sun are being greatly appreciated by all of the animals on the farm, but that has not meant we have been without losses. A wind storm tore the roof off of a nesting shelter, and while the damage was not permanent, the goose who had been nesting there quite understandably refused to reclaim the nest. We have also had three other, more serious losses: Bo Peep died, a ewe of considerably advanced age. We had hoped to breed her next year, but considering her age, it's not entirely surprising that she didn't last.

We also lost two of this year's ewe lambs approaching hogget age; they were the smallest, and the flock had roundly rejected one of them. When she died, the other one only lasted another week before she too succumbed to the same fate, a combination of being bullied away from food and shelter and ending up soaking wet and hypothermic. Alas, poor ewelings, you were not to be.

In relation to this, our custom is to take the carcasses to a distant spot on our property and put them out for the scavengers, as a way of safely and neatly disposing of remains while maintaining the natural balance of things, particularly after a somewhat rough winter such as this one. When the first of the lambs died, the day after Bo Peep had, we discovered that Bo Peep's carcass had simply vanished. A closer inspection in daylight proved that it had been half-dragged, half-carried, which downgraded our alarm from being most probably a cougar to being more likely a bobcat. Still cause for keeping an eye out, but less in the 'be armed at all times and watch your back' level of keeping an eye out.

The chickens are laying most prolifically, which has resulted in our offering eggs to friends and neighbors. The alternative was to eat eggs for every meal and give a substantial amount to the ducks; this feels much less wasteful, and much less likely to upset our stomachs in the long run.

Spring is coming fast, which means soon it will be time to begin laying fences. We will be getting the supplies for that at the end of this month. April is sure to be busy!

It's been a busy January and is shaping up to be a busy February (really, we'll need to come up with a better means of opening these statements, since on the farm, all months are busy with very few exceptions). January brought some severe weather patterns in the form of lots of snow - snow deep enough that even the sheep found moving in it troublesome. February has involved cleanup from the resulting mess, and more preparations for the coming seasons.


Our miracle kitty is fully recovered, without any lasting damage from his trip in the dryer. He is full of beans and mischief, and has endless appetite for treats, strokes and games. All five of the younger cats have been glad for the recent (sadly, now ended) spate of good weather, as they'd gotten to go out and follow us around during the performance of our chores. Tink had adorable adventures involving a water trough, and then with curious ewes wanting to know: 'What kind of a sheep are YOU?'

(Please note the restraint in not making the obvious pun in the last sentence of the above paragraph.) Here, Hercules is taking in the sun; throughout the snowfall, he was the lone trekker to and from shelter and the fenceline separating his enclosure from that of the ewes'. None of the other rams were as hopeful, as ardent, as tireless and just plain darn horny as he was. It availed him naught - not during the snow, anyway.


However, AFTER the snow, one of the ewes (#228) took advantage of the massively compacted rotting old straw and hay where it's built up along the fenceline and JUMPED the fence into their pasture. We know she was not in there longer than 12 hours, as she hadn't been there at the evening feeding, but at the morning feeding, the ram headcount went '...eight, nine, ten ... TEN?!' Fortunately, that morning's feeding involved alfalfa, and a farmer was able to sneak up on her from downwind, grab her, and dump her (kicking and screaming) back to her own side of the fence.

A couple of hours of work with a manure fork managed to clear a trench and render it difficult to impossible for a repetition of that performance. However, eventually (once we shift flocks around to various enclosures later in the season) we'll need to clear it completely. We have some sketched plans for a compost chimney with which to turn our rotting hay into lushly enriched soil over the course of time and with the addition of plenty of red wrigglers.


The snow itself was truly impressive. We were fortunate enough to get our hay delivered before there was quite a foot of snow on the ground; by the time the snow was done, there was no likelihood of either deliveries or of departures. Added to which, the snow was followed by an ice storm, so that trees and fences were glisteningly lovely under a solid quarter to half an inch encasement of clear, cold, deadly ice.


The sheep were all smart enough to stay under wraps in this. The bird netting and trees were heavily bowed under the weight of this, and in many places, limbs broke and netting snapped; we took steps to clear a small space for the chickens and one morning before the ice arrived even had to go into the chicken enclosure and lift the snow-laden netting off of several mercifully still-living chickens. They were too foolish to get down and go into cover, and ended up pinned to the roof of one of their shelters.

During this period, of course, no mechanical aids could be used for feedings; hay was dragged as far as was needed for the sheep to be able to reach it, and ultimately we found it necessary to tramp a path for the sheep in one of the enclosures, so that they could move from the treeline down to a more convenient feeding point. Their shelter under the trees was at the top of the property, and the footing - always treacherous - being buried so deeply made for difficult going indeed.

It was still very lovely, and with a bit of hard work and a lot of ingenuity, the farm as a whole pulled through just fine, thanks to ample provisions (both animal and human) and steady effort. We did run low on poultry feed at one point, resulting in cooking up an enormous stockpot of rice and baking several loaves of 'junk' bread for them; we lost power three or four or so times, which confused the oven into thinking that the lower oven should remain locked. Ultimately we solved this by putting it in clean cycle, then canceling the cycle; poof, unlocked!

While we got relatively few eggs during this time, we did get enough eggs out of the chickens that we were never in any serious danger of running out. Since the nicer weather's arrived, and since the hens are laying but not gone broody, we're beginning to have trouble keeping up with consumption, causing us to consider changes in our dietary habits. Oh well. Eggs are a good substitute for red meat proteins, anyway!


Countless loaves of bread, batches of french toast, cookies, brownies, puddings and tarts later, the snow gradually (and only very gradually) melted away, leaving us with the memory of it, and grateful that such snow (and at such depths) is a very rare occurrence for us in this part of the world. Mobility was restored in more ways than one, allowing us to enjoy the luxury not only of driving into town for more poultry feed, but the simpler pleasure of being able to walk unencumbered.

Indeed, the snow was THIS deep. And now we are moving forward into February, having ordered plenty of garden seeds and expecting lambs as soon as March and at least one ewe which might lamb as late as July - thanks to #228!