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.

 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.