Winterizing

 We left for our trip in summer and somehow came back to winter! Actually, I think it became winter while we were away...specifically while we were in our tent without jackets, hats or sleeping bags. I'm not sure how we thought that camping with only hoodies and a duvet was a good idea when going 5 hours north at the end of September...but we all survived. 

 Abby and Ryan seemed pretty content riding in their crates. Not having to share the cab with muddy dogs was fantastic.

We saw lots of bears.

Fishing for her cubs.

This guy got tired of us pretending to be wildlife photographers. He sauntered right over to the truck and posed for us (I think people must feed him). We decided we'd better drive away when he looked like he was about to jump up and stick his head through the window. Sometimes it's hard to remember that good photos aren't always good ideas...

There were tons of eagles - everyone loves salmon.

We went whale watching.

Giant humpback mouth.

We also got to see Steller sea lions swimming around! 

Ryan wasn't interested (or invited to join) in wildlife viewing.

As soon as we got home, I rushed to check on Squishy and the 2 eggs. We got home on day 24 of brooding and the eggs should have hatched on day 21. It was dark out so I reached underneath her and felt...an egg. I was so disappointed thinking neither egg had hatched, when suddenly I heard a little "peep! peep! peep!" and out popped one little chick from underneath Squishy.

Little Son of Zebra Head (I'll just assume he's a boy for now) is adorable. Squishy is being a good teen mom and showing the chick where to eat and drink while keeping a watchful eye on the dogs and other chickens. 

I moved the pair of them into the new barn today so they'd have more protection from the wind and rain, and Squishy had a chance to dust bathe for the first time in a month. She got so overzealous that she kept stepping on her little chick. I don't think he knew what was going on when he kept getting dirt kicked all over him. 

New Barn pretty much finished. It isn't the most beautiful thing...but it's functional. The only problem is that since it's only 3-walled and fairly high, it's still drafty inside. We're thinking of building a half wall at the back out of bales of hay and covering them with a tarp for extra wind protection.

Squishy and SoZH's new digs.

Their neighbours:

I built a pen in the barn yesterday and Maggie and May are sleeping there now, until Thomas and the ewes move in at the end of the month. We've been letting the goats out to free range during the day and it's been working well. They go back in their stall on their own throughout the day for a rest and a drink. There is so much for them to eat on the farm that I can't see them trying to get out of the perimeter fence (famous last words). Once the ewes and Thomas and Zeb are in the barn, the goats can have the sheep shelter that we'll set up in the side yard for them as a warm overnight spot.

Oprah's scratching post - unfortunately I had to dismantle it to build the new pen. 

Ewean's foot is looking better after antibiotics but it still isn't healed. We gave her another injection yesterday and we'll check it tomorrow. This constant rain isn't helping it dry out and heal. 

Zip Zap

We got our electronetting! It's definitely not the cheapest fencing available but it's so easy to set up and portable that I think it will be really handy to have. We used our farm stand money to buy it - along with the goats, 2 tickets to the agricultural exhibition we went to a few weeks ago and soon, a larger freezer.

Now we can just move the sheep or goats to wherever we want them to mow/weed. 

The energizer box that we got can either take D cell batteries or a 12 V battery. We're using the D cells now and even with some vegetation around the fence we're getting a charge of 4000 to 8000 volts...enough to make poor Abby yelp and run across the orchard when she touched the new fence.

Our cheapy fence tester 

 The sheep enjoying the first row of the orchard. The first time Oprah got zapped, she unfortunately ran forward right over the fence (it bent under her weight) and the others followed (of course). I think my mistake was not leaving the fence open to their regular paddock. If she'd had a safe escape route, she would have just gone back through there instead of through the fence. I changed the fence set up and so far so good - I've seen each of them get zapped on the nose and then jump back and continue grazing away from the fence. The goats will definitely take a lot of training/observing before I'll trust them in there...

We're still having troubles with Ewean's foot. She came to us limping (dumb new sheep buyers! we've learned our lesson - she was likely a cull animal and we bought her with foot rot already present) and throughout the summer we've trimmed her feet regularly and treated them with a copper naphthenate spray. Her left front never quite heals, though, and now I've seen her grazing on her knees occasionally. We really need to get it under control before the wet season when it could spread to the other ewes and to Thomas. We're going to give her some injections of penicillin and then if it's still bad after a week, we'll try foot baths in zinc sulfate with pasture rotation (the foot rot bacteria dies in the soil after 2 weeks if there are no sheep in the pasture). If it hasn't cleared up by the end of October after that regime, we're going to have to think about butchering her. That sounds harsh for a foot issue but we got our sheep for meat production, not pets, and foot rot is a pretty serious condition to deal with. You don't want it in your entire flock and you don't especially want susceptibility to foot rot being passed on in your breeding animals (there is likely a genetic component to how susceptible an animal is). It's also a painful condition for poor Ewean. 

On a happier note, I took the (totally back to normal) goats for a little walk this morning! At first they just wanted to follow me (the lady with farm crack in a bowl).

Naughty jumping Maggie (but so very cute).

Suddenly they realized they were walking right by all of these tasty blackberry bushes.

It was easy to lead them back to their yard with some grain after awhile - I guess grain still beats tasty leaves. 

So thirsty after their adventure.

Chewing their cud in the firepit.

Squishy's still diligently sitting in her nest. This morning I went to candle the eggs again for the last time so that I could double check that two of them are unfertilized and then take those out of the nest. Since we're going away for a week I don't want to leave them in there to rot and possibly explode after the others hatch. Unfortunately, there were only 4 eggs left - Squishy seems to have eaten one of the fertilized eggs. Maybe it cracked and broke, or something was wrong with it...or she just decided to eat it. Let's hope it's one of the first two options. She's only 6 months old but I think she'll be a good teen mom.

I 'chick-proofed' her brooding area with chicken wire over the too-large x-pen gaps, hardware cloth underneath to prevent predators digging in, and chicken wire across the top of the xpen so nothing can climb or fly in. I really hope at least one of the two remaining eggs hatches normally!

The Ameraucana chicks are getting big. I think they might actually be called Easter-Eggers since they're crosses of the different Ameraucana colours instead of being the 'right' colour types. I'm not that much of a chicken nerd (yet) that I care. I also think that three of them are boys. That I do care about...Gus and Skyler are definitely girls but Hank, Saul and Walt are looking iffy.

Taking a communal dust bath.

I was building a new compost bin (very fancy, I call it 'le palet' style)

and I noticed this little meeting taking place. I think Abby's explaining the ways of the farm to the chicks...mainly "I'm in charge, here, and don't you forget it". 

Stunted

 We have beautiful cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, basil, dill, kale, beans and sweet peas on the stand today...and then we have some of the more 'unique' produce in the house for us to eat. 

The smallest ripe cantaloupe I've ever seen:

 Cucumber - still tasted good!

Teen egg next to a normal egg. This is from one of our landlords' hens - they're almost 5 months old.

Giant aquaponics tomato.

We had some repeat visitors this weekend so we must be doing something right! On Saturday we went tubing down a very lazy and relaxing river where they had recycling containers floating right in the river for any drink bottles. So environmentally aware! We also made pickles and pesto, picked pounds of raspberries and prepared a giant feast. 

Homemade rosemary french bread

Delicious beef roast for dinner - Nathan bought grass-fed beef through his work. 

We finally have enough mint to make mojitos - raspberry mint mojitos are dangerously good.

We found some eye spray and hoof spray for the lambs so we started treating them last night. The eye spray is purple and the hoof spray is blue...it's a good thing they're behind the property where people driving by can't see them. I'll take some photos...

Lesson Learned

Ewean and I discovered yesterday why you don't shear sheep with scissors.

 I went in there intending to just cut off some bits of longer wool that hadn't come off with the rest of her belly wool (I'm pretty sure we got sheep-newby tricked into thinking she was a hair sheep...). She was so good while I trimmed her, just standing next to me grazing or lying down, that I kept going...and going...and...yup. 

Poor Ewean.

At least I used kids' scissors (and I have the blisters to show for it). Safety first.

This guy was really interested in what was going on. Maybe he thought I'd uncover some bugs under the wool.

Not quite as bad by the end...

I moved the lambs into the yard near the house again so that we can keep an eye on them - their eyes look a bit infected and Ewean needed her hoofs trimmed. It seems as though her left front keeps getting long faster than the others (and Oprah hasn't even needed her hooves trimmed yet), and the hoof is slightly detached from the foot pad. She was so easy to catch - I walked over to her and picked her up, then passed her to Nathan so that he could restrain her. We trimmed her hoof and scraped some mud and grass out and we'll give her a foot bath in some zinc sulfate if we can find it. 

Bad side on the left, good side on the right (pre trimming). 

With her goopy eyes, her gimpy foot and her new haircut, it's no wonder the landlord asked today why "the white one looks so decrepit". 

At least she will be slightly cooler - it's still so hot! The veggies love it.

I got over eager and picked some of those yellow ones before they were fully ripe.

This must be some kind of mutant tomato plant. How does it have that many flowers...and will it actually be able to produce that many tomatoes??

The edamame had been hiding - they're almost ready! 

Along with asking why Ewean looked so decrepit, the landlord also asked me why my edamame were so hairy. Ahem. Excuse me? My poor lil' beans...they were born that way!

Lots of raspberries from the little plants next to the house, ready to be frozen and then put in smoothies!

Ryan is back to his normal, goofy self. The heat (and being a farm dog) makes him tired...