Where we stand

December has closed in, and brought a relatively mild Winter.

We had a few days of hard freezing, but always followed by a thaw so far.  The pacific oscillation is in a neutral phase (known as La Nada) which generally means mild conditions and this season that has been true for us.  We only had one lamb needing a little time under shelter, but after a week on the porch, eating good food and enjoying an infrared lamp he was ready to face the other bachelors in our ram flock again.

The USDA came and inspected our sheep, giving them a clean bill of health once more.  The vet (an epidemiological specialist) remarked that they're in good flesh.  He had never met with Soay sheep before, and was quite interested in inspecting them.

Bolivar's son, Bolero, is still in the pure british flock with his sire, dam, and a few other ewes.  Bolivar keeps his son well in line, but even so Bolero is growing handsome and strong.

We have been feeding our sheep ample hay as well as rolled barley and alfalfa pellets to keep them in good condition and it appears to be working.  They trundle along, rather than bounding like deer, which bodes well for the coming breeding season.

Those of our lambs we decided not to keep (seven, including a couple of hoggets who weren't doing well) we slaughtered.  We had a guest on the farm for the butchering - an apprentice butcher whose wife took pictures of the whole process so as to do a presentation for his butchery class.  We are given to understand that the presentation was a hit, and we all learned from each other as well.

Some of the fencing we had done by third parties a couple of years ago is not standing the test of time, so a farmer had to set out with sledge, pickaxe, chisel and digging tools to get the old, broken concrete and post out and reset the post in a fresh batch of concrete before mending the wires.

Our cats are being kept indoors, in the lap of luxury.  The chief reason for this is to temper their murderous urges, as well as keep them safe from the great owls which inhabit our trees at night.

Peter has not registered any objections to this treatment, although the others periodically stare wistfully from the window at all the beasts they could be eating.

One of our successes this year has been the choice of bantam chickens.  They were obtained with the intention of having chickens with strong brooding and mothering instincts, and that has been fruitful.  Feathery, but fruitful.  The bantam cocks have taken over and keep the maran cock under their control.  The dominant bantam cock, a little grey fellow, will even chase the maran cock around from time to time, just to reinforce his position.

Our wine making is continuing and we are purchasing machinery to automate the process.  We have a slicer which neatly bisects apples, we have motorised our crusher, and the next step will be to have a pneumatic press fabricated.  As it is, we have several score more gallons of juice fermenting from this season, and will soon be able to accelerate our production.

Winter isn't quite as dull as one might imagine.  While the plants are dormant and the animals seek shelter, there is still work to be done.  Our fruit trees are starting to show signs of forming canopies, and it will be time to prune some of the more aggressive ones soon.  We may even have some of our first cider apples this coming year, and then we shall know what manner of product we shall have.

The clouds gather for Winter

Things on the farm have gone fairly well.

We have taken another delivery of pure british Soay ewe gimmers (two lambs and a hogget) to keep Bolivar company.

On the other end of the scale, we had to take the decision to put Teed's Tlingit down.  Brokenmouthed, she could not chew hay well.  While she could eat alfalfa pellets, she was nonetheless losing condition progressively.  While she might have survived the Winter, it was very doubtful.  A swift death was definitely preferable to slow starvation.

At least she gave us a couple of beautiful lambs, and we hope that her sweet temperament and good mothering will breed true.

We have released the bantams among the full size chickens.  We feared for the bantams at first, since we suspected that the full size chickens might bully them mercilessly, but in fact the bantams more than hold their own and the copper maran cock is no longer on top of the pecking order.  The last couple of bantams on the porch are raising three little chicks, so at least the bantams make more successful parents than the full size chickens. 

The winery has been fairly successful in production.  We have two beautiful meads in barrels right now, and a very promising cyser.  We have crushed another thousand pounds and more of jonagold and granny smith apples, which now sit fermenting in two more barrels.  We shall obtain honey with which to enrich them soon.

We have submitted another copy of our label application to the federal government, since the first was rejected - not on the grounds that there was anything incorrect or incomplete, but on the grounds that it had been printed on letter size, rather than legal size paper.  This stipulation was nowhere to be found in the instructions as given.  Shackled by red tape, we have no choice but to comply.

Autumn has arrived. With it has come several rainstorms, including one with major power loss (when lightning strikes a substation, the electric company takes a deep breath and you can hear them wince) and following up with a nice flush of secondary grass growth.

The sheep appreciate the greenery, and we have moved almost all of the bantams from the porch to their permanent home behind the house. The exceptions are three: two broody hens who seem to swell larger every time we see them, and one bantam hen who had been in the company of two bantam roosters. The roosters have been captured; the hen remains on the loose.

Our full-sized maran rooster is old and no longer dominant, as has been proven by the frequent sight of him running and ducking away from one of the bantam roosters. We are considering putting him out of his unhappiness when we butcher sheep in a couple of weeks; we plan to cull the flock substantially, particularly tending to our oversupply of rams. In the meantime, we continue apace with our plans for winery equipment (one piece done, another piece about to be tested) and getting our hides tanned - that is to say, the pile of hides in our freezer from past butchered rams and the like.

Soon October will be upon us, and decisions will include whether or not to have a festive pumpkin on our porch. If only that were the largest of our tasks ahead!

 The summer has slid by almost without our noticing it; only the cats have been able to entirely take it easy and sack out, which they've been doing at every opportunity afforded to them. We poor farmers have been far more active, and a great deal of sheep-shuffling has been going on in the background, while in the foreground we've been busy with assorted winery doings: some of our formulas have been approved, label design has proceeded, and we are very near to being able to put our product in stores and on shelves.

 There was an audit done by the state on the winery, which we passed ably, while one farmer was out of town for a family reunion and hundredth birthday party of a grandfather; not even government could get in the way of that, of course! The rams are unimpressed, having no anticipation of making such old bones. They would far prefer to reach the tasty greenery of the ferns and forbs on the other side of the fence.

 It has been a dry summer, and there is now a burn ban in place. We've been taking pains to keep all our animals well-watered and at the peak of fire risk, dampening some of the piled dry straw to both minimize hazards and to aid in decomposition. The ducklings have been happy with our efforts in particular, although ducklings are too easy prey too often to the local wildlife, and our bantams have been at risk to skunks.

The winery has new equipment now as well, in the form of a designed-and-constructed-for-us fruit slicer! This piece of equipment should speed up our processing considerably, and reduce the number of blisters we get when chopping apples and pears - chopping a quarter-ton of apples by hand is no mean feat. We look forward to turning out many more barrels of wine in the not too distant future.


It has on the whole been an impressively busy year, with one farmer attending university classes simultaneous to farming and another farmer handling a lengthy commute while farming; but the work is proving immensely worthwhile and fulfilling. There's no feeling quite like seeing a line of ducklings freshly emerged from the egg being led for the first time by their mother down to the water. While not all moments are quite so idyllic, and farm life has its tragedies as well as its joys, such as having to tend to the miseries of a chick who's been bullied to within an inch of its life by roosters, the experiences are compensated by the knowledge that these too can display fundamental truths about life from which our modern existence all too often shelters us. We are better able to appreciate the conveniences when we peel them away in even modest amounts.

As the summer winds to a close, we look forward to roast duck stuffed with apples, content in the knowledge that we would have neither without ducklings and seeds.

It has been a while

It has been a while since our last post, but it has not been an idle while.

The grass is growing well since we had a June in which warmth alternated with rain.  We are rotating the sheep from pasture to pasture, letting the grass recover after each cycle of rapacity.

The bantams are growing well, and we are assembling our bantam chicken tractor to give them more varied scenery, as well as freeing up our porch.

The thistles enjoy the weather as well, and so we go forth with scythe in hand to discipline them on a weekly basis, or even more frequently. It is hot work, but well worth it.

The death of the coyote which had come for our geese resulted in an explosion in our local cottontail population.  This will probably be remedied in the near future, but for now the plants rustle with lagomorphic breeding activities.

Chickencloud

In an effort to improve the natural rate of increase of our flock of chickens, we have invested in some bantam chickens.  As things turned out, we obtained a couple of dozen, but we have had the first dozen for a while now.  Since they are a fancy breed, they are quite attractive.  Here is a picture of them settling down for the evening.

Do not be alarmed by their glowing eyes. The photographer was clumsy and the lighting was poor, but the picture does illustrate the variety of feathers which they display.  They are quite good at scratching and turning over hay scraps, so we are looking forward to constructing a chicken tractor, all the better to improve our land.

Our patience has also been blessed by a positive outcome.  Our first bantam chick has put in an appearance, and the mother (the buff lady at the head of the picture) is teaching it all the finer points of chickening.

We have a tiny flock of fourteen tiny sheep, lambs who have survived the journey into this world.  Murphy's Law is alive and well for us, since only two of them are ewe lambs, but that ensures a bountiful harvest of meat in Autumn.

The ewes are patchy as they shed their wool.  Fortunately the weather is warming up, despite a few frosty nights, and they are glad to fill their bellies with fresh grass.

 The lambs delight in their usual sport of forming a flock and racing around as a group.  Some of the more excitable ewes occasionally join them, but on the whole the ewes are more interested in the grains we have taken to feeding them by way of supplementation.

After all the trials and tribulations of the last year, we hope to return some balance to our flock at last.  In the mean time, we continue to wrestle regulation so that we can finally sell the hundreds of bottles of wine we have ready and waiting.

Tiny Triumphs, Tiny Tragedies

As the lambing goes, we do our best to serve our sheepy mistresses, and they do their best to bring their lambs up and into the world.  It is always one of the most heart-warming of sights, watching a newborn lamb rise to wobbly legs, and while the mother licks and grumbles encouragement, totter to the udder for those first nourishing sips.  In our first picture, we see Caroline and her newest offspring, while below we see other new mothers.  There are no few; we already have nine lambs trotting around the pasture.  Somewhat frustratingly, given our need to rebuild our flock, only one is a ewe lamb so far.

Here, more's the pity, is a picture of a ewe lamb who, as it turns out, did not make it.  Sometimes a lamb just does not get the knack of suckling, and we have yet to discover how to educate them on the point.  Her mother is eager and willing, and there's no failure of mothering.  Just a lamb who will not join our flock, nor respond to her mother's calls again.

Thus commences the lambing

At last the lambing opens.  A visitor to the farm had the privilege of holding the first birth of the season - a ram born to Teed's Tlingit, by Silvercat Golden Delicious.  We are delighted by the white markings, a trait we wish to breed into our flock, and the fact that the lamb shows signs of health and vigour.

Here we see Tlingit anxiously leading her new lamb away, before wicked farmers can harm him.  His white blaze stands out quite clearly from a distance.  He is still a little unsteady on his pins, but with the care and attention of his devoted mother, his chances of growing into a beautiful ram are excellent.

Sadly he will truly have her devoted attention since it seems that his twin was a stillbirth.  It is hard to find these things, and yet it is a part of the whole truth.  We strongly suspect that the stillbirth was a result of the stress recently placed on our flock by the dog attack, although that is effectively impossible to prove.

As yet we have no other lambs to add to the tally, although the ewes are broad and languid.  Their languour does not extend to when farmers arrive with treats - to help them recover what condition they may, we are lavishly feeding them hay, with robust supplements of alfalfa, in both hay and pellet form, as well as both oats and barley.  Their feeding is so lavish, in fact, that they are turning up their noses at regular grass hay, but given their otherwise precarious situation we're happy to indulge them.

Cool early Spring

We still have frosty nights from time to time, but the grass is starting to grow greener.

We have yet to lose any more ewes, although we have two sheep in the makeshift clinic on our porch, and one of the rams got too wet to survive.

We have lost a couple of ducklings to owls.  We strung up lines to interfere with owl strikes, but this is obviously not a perfect solution; more so because the ducklings like to wander at night.

To help the sheep, we are supplementing their diets with additional alfalfa, oats and barley.  The idea is to keep them going as well as we can for now, and to actively fatten them during the growing season as well as we can so as to maximise our chances of strong numbers over the next year or two.

The trees are starting to show buds, and a number of the trees we first planted are now over six feet in height.  In the next few years we should see signs of our first crops.  We do have more trees on order, but after replacing a few dead trees and filling in a few blanks on our fields we shall rarely need more.

Some days are good

Some days are good, and some days are less so.

A farmer went to feed the sheep today, and looked over to the paddock where the pregnant ewes are being kept.  There was a dog; a dog from next door, in fact.

In the interests of brevity, we shall gloss over a farmer finding the dead, and the hopelessly mauled dying, and delivering euthanasia.  The heads were too many for careful removal for the USDA, so a simple axe was used against a log as chopping block.

With sunset, the count was nine corpses on the ground, out of twenty-nine ewes.  More were stumbling or prostrated from fatigue and shock - we expect aborted lambs and deaths from shock.  One particularly hard hit one lies on our porch, with hot water bottles and rich feed to try to counteract the shock.  The flock at large have received lavish quantities of alfalfa - rich in both proteins and calcium - to help them recover.

In a few days we shall know more.

Spring is here

It seems early, and yet here it is.  The first ducklings of the season are waddling across the short grass, which is showing the first signs of growth.  Mama duck had cunningly hidden her nest, so cunningly that while we could tell from her behaviour that she must be nesting (as are a couple of others) we could not be sure exactly where the nest might be.  No matter, she hatched a fine clutch of ten fuzzy ducklings, and she shows every sign of being an attentive, careful parent.

We are not the only ones to have noticed the weather. On surrounding properties tractors are firing up and work is commencing.  There is no guarantee, of course, that we shall not get more snow, and we still have frosty mornings, but in general the air is clearing and the weather warming to the point that rather than huddle for shelter, the sheep roam and sun themselves where they will.

Soon it will be time to plant seeds, and to chase new lambs around the paddocks, but for the time being the ewes continue to walk around as if smuggling watermelons beneath woolly coats. We should also obtain another bantam cock to entertain the bantam hens we have, since the first one died sadly in Winter. Since the bantams show every signs of becoming broody at the drop of a hat, this should be a good source of chicken meat. They are a very good way of converting kitchen scraps into new food.

The close of Winter

Winter is starting to draw to a close.  The days are noticeably longer, and instead of snow we get clear skies, or drizzle sifting down for hour after hour.  With any luck we may even look forward to an early start to the growing season, which would be welcome.  That will let us judge which trees are alive or dead, which pastures are in greater need of relief, and otherwise improve our position.

Our loss rate on the sheep has reduced.  Both our improved skills in caring for the weak and the improved weather have meant that we still have nearly four dozen sheep, most of which are pregnant ewes, going strong.

The timber bamboo we have planted has weathered the season beautifully, and at this rate we should have culms of ten feet or more this coming year.

Of all our creatures, the waterfowl have been the happiest throughout Winter.  Their feathers laugh off the snow, their down laughs off the cold, and they are merely annoyed by the pond freezing over.  As soon as it thawed, they were merrily washing themselves and cavorting in it.  If they would graze as well as the sheep, we might stick with geese, but they will not take down the brush the way our sheep will.

When we do have to take the head off a sheep for the USDA, we have found that the chickens, particularly the bantams, are very interested in nibbling at the corpse or the dripped blood.  These are definitely omnivores, and not in the least ashamed of the fact.

Of all the brakes on our work, the paperwork is perhaps the most confounding.  While we understand the reasons for the agricultural census, the taxation paperwork, the certification of each formula and label, the animal record keeping and sampling, it adds up.  By our reckoning, we lose a month or more of every year merely satisfying the requirements of the government, a quantity of work which surprises even the deer which pass through the farm.

Winter takes a bite

No sooner had we posted concerning how moderate the temperatures had been this season, and Winter reminded us that it has weeks yet to live.


The temperature plummeted on consecutive nights to 20F or lower - not very cold by the standards of many places, but colder than our animals like and cold enough to freeze our pipes. Hoarfrost formed on trees, and the normally green and brown evergreens turned frosty silver.

The poultry were largely unperturbed, but the sheep have been snuggling up to each other for warmth, and more of them have shown signs of trouble. Farmers, now well prepared for these problems, paused between bashing open the ice on drinking troughs to carry sheep to the porch and dry their wool and wrap them in blankets with hot water bottles.

The heads of sheep who succumbed earlier have been collected, and put in boxes for shipping to the USDA. Sometimes, to get everything to fit, a farmer first has to cut off the horns. For those who are faced with this need, a regular wood saw works fine, and if the horn is slender enough (as in the case of ewes) a ratchet pruning lopper works well too.

The USDA would appreciate it if the heads were not frozen, but this is wishful thinking on their part. Everything not living is frozen, and is likely to remain so for days, and possibly weeks. In our corner of Washington this is merely a short part of the year. In Montana, North Dakota, Idaho and Wyoming this is months at a stretch, with no prospect of a break.

There are bits of fence construction and similar work to be done, but the frozen ground is like concrete, making any such work an exercise in frustration rather than productivity. The days are short enough that not much will happen in any case, leaving us to huddle indoors and reassure the cats that the sun will return in due course.

Entering 2013

The season so far has not been particularly cold, but there has been plenty of precipitation.  Temperatures on the farm dipped as low as about 20F, but snow has not yet accumulated to more than about four inches, nor stayed more than a week.  There is still time for that to change this Winter.

Nonetheless, the combination of wet and windy conditions has meant that our weaker sheep (young and old alike), more vulnerable to privation, have had losses.  Rams and ewes in the prime of life have had no trouble surviving, and many ewes are starting to show the signs of early pregnancy.  Our losses are around 20%, alas, but we should have somewhere around 30 pregnant ewes now, so with any luck we shall more than make up for our losses when Spring arrives.

The best predictor of sheep survival is their condition by the time Autumn starts to close in, by our observations.  That will guide our feeding this coming year.

When we find sheep which are suffering, we have a treatment protocol.  To try to rescue them, we use the porch, which is fully enclosed now, as a clinic. We can keep them warm there with hot water bottles and blankets, feeding them alfalfa pellets and nutritional boosters to get them back on their feet.

The trees are all fast asleep, so assessing which are alive is a bit tricky.  We had saved quite a bit of money by purchasing seconds - relatively weak trees from the nursery, with smaller root systems - and therefore we expect that not all of them will have made it.  We have more trees on order, and will replace the failed with living trees, as well as expanding our plantings.

The ducks are showing signs of mating, and early nest formation.  This is definitely a good thing.  If they multiply the way we know they can, we will be eating duck before the year is out, and perhaps having some to sell as well.

We are a few paperwork hurdles away from our first wine sales.  The lab work is in, we know what the numbers are, and as soon as the TTB approves our labels and formulae, we shall be selling actively in the area.  The long, long wait is nearing its end.