Busy busy busy

Time seems to be flying by right now with no spare moment to update the blog! It also doesn't help that my most favourite lens spontaneously combusted. I bought a little screwdriver set to try and fix it but I haven't had a chance to try yet.  

I've been working at a dog training place in town as well as walking some dogs here and there. On the days that we both work, Nathan gets up really early to get ready and to deal with the fish pumps. He's got the compost pile really going now and it's up to over 140 degrees! The water circulates through there to heat up the fish tank. Like a water heater, he worked out that the pump pushing water through the compost has to be off for awhile to let the water that's in the pile heat up. If the pump is on all the time then the water starts cooling the pile down instead of the other way around.

There were some beautiful cauliflower heads forming in the grow bed...until the rats found them yesterday...

This is what's left :(

Where's that terrier-ish dog when you need her? She acts like she's doing serious rat hunting in the greenhouse but she has yet to actually kill one...

Some little broccoli heads.

The barren winter greenhouse.

Baby greens are doing great! So are those weeds...

Once Nathan leaves for work I get up and let the chickens and goats out and feed everyone their hay/grain. We are also feeding the horses and cows in exchange for hay for the sheep. When I'm done that, I get ready and leave for work (or quickly write a blog entry!) and only get home at 7:30 or 8:30 after Nathan has already done the evening chores, fed the dogs and made us dinner. Lucky me to get to come home to a delicious meal :)

Loic and Erika came to visit the farm this weekend! Loic loved the chickens the most, and especially SoZH aka "the one that likes to be picked up!!!". 

SoZH (DoZH?) still likes to hop up on my arm in the morning for a special bit of food away from the bossy adults. 

Big difference from a month ago!

We would still like to get Zeb to be tamer but we haven't had a chance to work with him away from bossy Thomas! 

Here's a photo from 2 weeks ago when we were bathing Oprah's foot in a bag. I really wish we had a photo of us doing Thomas' feet... It's been 2 weeks as of today that they've been out of the 'dirty' paddock so it's now considered clean. On Saturday we'll give them all a long foot bath (including Zeb, if we can) and put them straight in the clean paddock.

It's almost time to decide which of these young roosters get to stay and which will have to go. They're gorgeous roosters - Walt and Saul especially.

Thomas is still keeping a very close watch over his ladies.

And Abby is still not a big fan of Thomas. Any perceived (or real!) threat to us and Abby is on it. 

Live and Learn

If we could start again in this sheep adventure, we would have done things differently. Mainly, we should never have bought Oprah and Ewean from the farmer that we did. It's too late to change that, though, and there's no time for regret when we're too busy treating feet. Yup, that's right. Even after culling Ewean, we are still dealing with f-ing foot rot.

We found Oprah limping a few days ago. The first check looked like foot scald so we sprayed her foot and let her go. When we rechecked the next day and the hoof wall had separated at the heel. We decided that we had to go into full out attack mode this time. Ewean had bad feet from the beginning - we think she would have remained a susceptible carrier forever. Oprah has never had foot issues before. The wet weather probably brought it on but we really don't want to be dealing with this all winter. We bought some zinc sulphate powder and after consulting with a vet, trimmed her foot right back and bathed her feet for a half hour. Then we let her go into the 'clean' yard by the house (foot rot bacteria dies after 2 weeks if there are no sheep/goat feet to infect). We walked back to check on Thomas, Amelia and Zeb....and noticed Amelia limping. Her foot didn't look as bad as Oprah's but we still bathed her feet and then let her go into the 'clean' orchard while we figured out what to do with her. We walked over to the fence to look at our pasture options....and noticed Thomas limping. There comes a point where you don't feel any emotion about the situation and you just get on with what you have to do....so we made a plan for dealing with Thomas. We somehow managed to flip him onto his side by surprising him while he was eating grain. We both lay on top of him and I bagged all of his feet (literally with bags - we've been pouring the zinc sulphate into small plastic bags and rubber banding the bag over each foot). We bathed his feet for almost an hour. Our only option for a Thomas-friendly paddock was one that's been empty for a week. We put him, Amelia and Zeb in there and left Oprah in the yard by the house. The plan is to make a foot bath that they'll walk through whenever they get a drink of water or some hay (using a foam mat so they can't drink the solution). Then, in 2 weeks when we have a fully clean pasture for them to go into, we'll do another hour long foat soak and an injection of antibiotics (we gave them each an injection yesterday along with the foot bath) and then we'll let them into the clean pasture. After that, we'll re-evaluate. It will probably be pretty rainy so we might have to treat again and move them into the dry barn.

Back Off

Don't mess with Thomas' girls.

I put a lot of faith in that electric line separating us...

Family Arrangements

 Nathan's family left last night and the house and farm sure feel empty without them! We had a great visit and I think they probably got the best October weather possible with only a few days of rain.

Between both of our families visiting we got the greenhouse all cleaned up (but we'll miss them all for more than just their working abilities!):

Our house might be feeling empty...but Thomas and Zeb's isn't. The girls have moved in!

I guess Thomas is making them feel welcomed? He sure was excited to see them...

Poor Zeb is left out. We want to put him with the goats but he wasn't happy about being away from Thomas on our first attempt. We'll have to make the change gradually. 

The goats were happy to munch on some plants that we pulled from the greenhouse. We may have made a mistake giving them the brussels sprouts plants - it seems that they can be bad for goats and May wasn't feeling very well yesterday or this morning. I don't think they're *too* bad though (unlike the rhododendrons).

Squishy has officially abandoned SoZH at night. I guess 'abandoned' is a bit harsh since he is old enough to fend for himself now. She goes up to her roost and he stays on the ground. Last night I brought him inside to sleep in a box since it was so cold....

Ryan hopes you had a happy Halloween! 

Looking Up

These are some happy farm dogs. It looks like I photoshopped Ryan's smile but no...that's just his face.

We went to take some photos in the orchard and found Amelia (the ewe) tangled in the electronetting. That wasn't so happy. She is fine but we'll have to be more careful about consistently testing the fence. I think the battery died and Oprah made a clean escape, then Amelia tried to follow and her escape ended in near disaster. An animal getting tangled in live electric fence could end pretty badly.

After leaving the orchard, we found all of the chickens huddled together under a clump of trees, which we've never seen before. We were wandering around trying to figure out what had spooked them when a hawk suddenly flew out of one of the trees. Ack! We've been so lucky about no predators so far with the free ranging chickens - I would hate for that to change. I met a woman the other day who has lost 30 chickens this summer to ravens. I never even thought about ravens going after the chickens - the dogs do a good job of chasing them away whenever they spot them. 

Then the owner of the horses and cows showed up to give them some treats. As the horses, dogs, cows and chickens were all going nuts for any crumbs, 2 large ravens landed amongst them all and started eating the crumbs, too. I encouraged the dogs to chase them but Abby and Ryan were too busy looking for scraps...when suddenly Speckles raced up to the ravens and chased them away! They tried to land again and she did the same thing. That's Speckles in the bottom left corner. She's one tough chicken!

Abby looks tiny next to Fred.

Mac and Molly (the other two Belgians) went to a retirement home a few weeks ago so it's just the 3 big guys left. Barney and Sam don't always seem to get along too well - today we saw them backing up towards each other and kicking each other with those huge, powerful legs. I'm constantly making sure that Abby and Ryan stay away from those feet! I hate to think about what could happen with even one small kick...

Barney (I rode him around the farm the other day- he was so good!):

Sam - the biggest horse I've ever seen:

Thomas the Ramming Ram

 Nathan got published! http://www.powerhousegrowers.com/aquaponics-a-diy-approach-to-organic-gardening/
Look at how fast SoZH is growing! I guess it's to be expected based on the size of his dad...here he is snoozing on my knee in the sun:

He still isn't quite fully feathered and he likes to stay warm however he can.

I think Squishy is getting tired of having him cramp her style...I took over chick warming duties for a bit.

The dogs have been very helpful with chores lately.

Rearranging the wood chip pile:

Speckles helped, too. Her foot is finally looking much better! Took long enough...

Abby helping to clean the chick coop.

The goats have been helpful, too. 

Cleaning some fall brush.

Looking hopeful as I walked by with a handful of kale for dinner (our dinner...but they love it).

I noticed that they need their hooves trimmed so we'd better do that soon. I would hate to start having hoof problems with them! Oprah and Amelia (previously "no name")'s feet are looking good. They're in the electronetting paddock that we've been moving around the orchard so they can eat the nice grass there. Once they've spent another week or so back there, it's date time with Thomas! 

Thomas has been getting antsy. First he escaped from his paddock through a gate that he's always pushed on (we've since fixed it). Nathan came out of the greenhouse and found Thomas just standing loose out there, looking a bit confused. Thomas converts any emotion into the same action: ramming. Hungry? Ram. Thirsty? Ram. Curious? Ram. Annoyed? Definitely ram. I ran to get some grain while Nathan distracted Thomas to keep him away from Nathan's mum and grandma who were sitting nearby. You have one guess as to what Thomas did when he saw me coming with a bucket of grain. Yep....I dropped the bucket and hopped over the fence into the horse paddock. Luckily Nathan is braver (we'll call it brave) than I am and he managed to call Thomas back into his paddock.

Then, yesterday evening, while Nathan was at work, we noticed that the horses and cows were all in with Thomas and Zeb. Our landlord noticed first and commented that it was nice that we were letting the animals all intermingle. Nope, not on purpose...the fence at the back had come down. I started running around the outside of the paddock so that I could get to the opening to try and call the horses and cows through. Our landlord headed right into Thomas' paddock. I warned him that Thomas has been pretty 'ram-my' lately but he said that he'd gone in recently without any problems. He got to the broken fence first and Nathan's dad and I started pushing the horses and cows that way (we were along the edges of the paddock - easy escape from Thomas plus he doesn't seem to notice that you're in there if you stay on the edge), so that after they went through, the fence could be patched up behind them. At first, Thomas and Zeb just stayed off to the side away from the action....but suddenly Thomas must have felt some emotion and you can guess what happened next. For a big ram on stick legs he sure can move...he took off right towards our landlord, who was holding the fence open in the middle of the field. I have never seen someone climb an 8 foot deer fence so quickly. I wouldn't even call it climbing...it was more like his legs became springs. One second he was on the ground and the next he was up the fence, straddling the brace. I'm pretty sure I heard a shriek first, but in case he reads this blog we'll say that he jumped in manly silence. Even though I realize that Thomas could really hurt someone...I was laughing too hard to do much and wondering whether filming with my phone would be appropriate. Eventually we got it all sorted out but wow...it is worth having a ram just for the life-endangering entertainment value.

Island Hopping and our Feast

We've been so busy relaxing with Nathan's parents and grandmother that I haven't had a chance to update the blog! They got here last Wednesday and my parents and sister arrived on Friday for a big belated thanksgiving feast. 

Bright green home grown beans and brussels sprouts - boiling before getting put into this recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/brussels-sprouts-gratin-recipe/index.html

Yum.

My thanksgiving plate. I have a lot of practice at piling my thanksgiving plate for a maximum 1st helping...but I think this one took the cake. Turkey was from Nathan's work, yams, potatoes and buns were from the supermarket and pretty much everything else was grown on the farm.

After a day of recovery from stuffing ourselves, we left for a trip to the San Juan islands. On the ferry, I kept saying how I really wanted to see a fox for the first time....and look who appeared within the first half hour!

Then I said that I wanted to see a grey fox...and look who was posing in the leaves by the road:

The million dollars and orca sightings that I hoped for next didn't appear...but this unimpressed baby alpaca did.

Possibly unimpressed because his wool went towards this:

Some more fall in the San Juans:

360 degree ipad photos:

Now we're back on the farm for some more fall sun. 

Relaxing with the chickens:

Saul is growing into a gorgeous rooster.

SoZH is huge! He takes after his dad.

Zebra Head got stepped on accidentally by one of the goats when I was scaring them away from the chicken food. He wasn't putting any weight on his leg at first and we were carrying him in and out of the coop. Now he's getting around well but still limping. It seems to be his foot that's injured but it's hard to tell. Hopefully it will keep healing.

Garlic is all planted:

Magpie hanging out on my car. I decided to move it off the farm before the goats hopped up on the roof.

We made the tough decision a few weeks ago to bring Ewean in to be slaughtered. After treating her feet diligently (and since we've had her!), she started limping again on a different foot than the two that had already had issues. We checked her again and another hoof was infected...she seems to be an animal that is chronically susceptible to foot problems and we were worried that she'd continually infect the other sheep. It was hard to do since I'd let myself get a bit attached to her, but we brought her to the butcher this morning. Hard lesson learned to be very careful where you purchase livestock from!