Variety is the spice of life!

We have had rain, snow, and ice three times in the past week.

We have separated the maternity ward girls and their lambs from the rest of the animals.

The nursery a few days ago was up to six lambs.

Melting snow and ice sliding off from our roof came crashing down on my truck - snapping off the radio antenna!

"Snow White", one of our older ewes (she is half St Croix and half Royal Palm) surprised us with our first triplets two days ago - two ewes and a ram.

Unfortunately, she did not move out of the pasture and into the corral and the hayshed. She stood for several hours in the same spot, even when a freezing rain came that night. Unfortunately, the little ram died. "S" brought one of the ewes into the basement and used her hair dryer to dry and warm it. I was sent to the feed store to buy powdered milk. The ewe was returned to her Momma later that day.

We currently have this little girl in the basement for extra care because she was attacked - we think it was by the little donkey. Lost her tail and had its face and head crunched by a large mouth, damaging her left eye. We plan to put her out with her Momma during the day and bring her in the next several freezing nights until she gets a little bigger.

K7 chased this groundhog into the hay shed chicken coop and shot it with his .22 rifle. I don't like groundhogs because they dig big holes in the pasture and the cattle or farmer can come along and break a leg. My attitude is, if I didn't invite it to live on my farm, it shouldn't be here. Same goes for poisonous snakes.

The two big round bales of hay you see on the left are all we have left. I bought them when the price was $45 a bale. The price has now gone up to $75 - $100 per bale. These two will be eaten by the end of next week. It is going to be an expensive March, because the grass doesn't grow until April.

Something is wrong with this picture. K7 shot it, but he left it laying in the coop, and ran off to trumpet practice.

K8 burned our last brush pile in paddock 6, just before a freezing rain arrived.

K8 and I had to deliver hay to the cattle out in paddocks 5 and 6 before nasty weather hit. I kicked all the cows out of the corral with its covered hay shed because I want the Momma sheep and their babies to be comfortable. The cows usually chase the sheep out of the shed. Not this time.

It is lambing season!

I knew they were getting close to lambing, so I have been watching them every day for weeks. "Jane", daughter of K8's ewe "Booboo", was the first to deliver this year.

She is a first-time Momma, but gave us twins, both rams. Unfortunately, the little guy in front caused me to worry.

One twin seemed stronger and had more robust lungs.

This is the weak one. As you can see from the gathering clouds, we had bad weather coming.

I asked the boys to move all of the ewes into the corral so they would have shelter from the coming storm. Unfortunately, this weak ram would not survive the cold, snowy night. Sad, but sometimes a fact of life on a farm. Breeding for hardy stock means survival of the fittest - if "Jane" gives us any more weak lambs, she will go in the freezer or to market...

The ewe on the right looks ready to pop, and she did the next day!

We have had a total of four sets of twins this week, mostly ewes, with two more Mommas still to lamb, so we will double the size of our flock. I feed the Mommas a little grain every other day to give them extra calories because it is below freezing most nights. It also helped them get used to me again after spending the past few months outside their regular paddocks and along the "wild" stream. 

They followed me into the "wild" flock's chicken coop, because they know that's where I keep a barrel of grain. Notice the flat tire on the tractor's front? You get extra points if you noticed the ball cap full of eggs sitting on top of the back tire.

The maternity ward this morning (Saturday). Seven little lambs - two rams and five ewes. The rest of the flock is on far side of shed. I am leaving the hay shed open because there are only a few poor bales of hay left in it, and the nursing Mommas could use the shelter if we get any more snow or ice storms within next month. Plus I want them near the house for protection from coyotes, and in order for me to handle the lambs every day so they get used to humans. The boys will band all the young rams within three weeks.

It is difficult arranging a family group picture, but you can see the proud pappa, "Mutt", on the other side of the fence. This is his last batch of lambs. I am currently shopping for a registered St Croix ram to become our new flock sire along with three registered ewes. We already have one registered ewe, "QT", so we'll have two flocks next year - one registered and one commercial, but both very parasite resistant. Once I buy new ram, Mutt will go into the freezer as 90 pounds of burger meat. I plan on keeping most of our new baby lambs, so we'll have a huge flock next Spring from the new "Pappa".

I was amazed to see this little bantam chase off two full size roosters from the "wild" flock this afternoon. He arrived with them during the summer, but he and another bantam rooster soon joined the "tame" flock in the dairy shed. He has kept a low profile and avoids problems with Randy the Rooster, but he went after these two big guys - and they fled! 

Silly boys!

After K6's recent efforts at stunt jumping into the pond, K8 thought he would give it a try. He strapped on a GoPro camera to his head, while Danny taped another camera to the end of a pole and K6 had a 3rd camera, and then petaled up and away into the cold water. Apparently, he did not petal hard enough to get adequate lift upon take-off...

Early February happenings

The boys butchered a year-old ram for the freezer. We now have only one ram left before our ewes start dropping this season's baby lambs any day now.

K6 and K7 re-stacked our firewood storage racks. I needed the backyard cleaned up, so we can get a load of topsoil delivered. Mom wants to turn this area into a giant vegetable garden. The dogs chewed on wood scraps while K7 tossed and...

...K6 caught the wood.

We either burned or sold half our firewood this winter. We have more cut and stacked elsewhere around the farm. 

Home school happens most days, unless the weather is good and Dad requires help with a big project  outdoors. 

Music school on Tuesday and Thursday nights

We have been discussing when to wean her calf and start milking Darling twice a day. The answer came this week when some boy left her in the wrong paddock over night separated from her calf. Congratulations boy for answering our big question! We leave three heat lamps on at night to help take the chill off - this one in the dairy shed, one over the milk machine inside the barn, and one over the dog bed in the barn. In spite of the mild winter, it usually gets down below freezing on many nights.

Now that we are getting extra milk, Mom needs to start making cheese!

Movie Reviews

I had no intention of watching "The Hobbit" after I heard Peter Jackson was going to turn it into 3 separate movies. One movie, yes, two movies, maybe, but three movies from one book just to soak us poor addicted Tolkien fans of three times the money? No way! But K7 and K8 really wanted to see it, and they have been such good sons, so I broke down and watched it - twice, once with each son. The first go round, I was slightly distracted by some new characters and story line that Jackson added to one of my top 25 most favorite books, but otherwise, I was very impressed with this movie. On the second visit to the theater, I was able to suppress any irritation I had with Jackson's literary license, and just totally enjoy the action. Very entertaining, and that's the main reason we go to movies. K7 and K8 loved it. Highly recommended. Catch it on the big screen before it goes to DVD.

I am not much for musicals in general except a few like "The Sound of Music" and "White Christmas" (maybe because both are about World War II?), or an occasional Bollywood flick. I never saw the Broadway production of Les Miserables, but I have loved the music for many years. I did see the dramatic movie version with Liam Nielson a few years ago, and, in spite of thinking it rather gloomy and sad, thought it was well done. Just like the Hobbit, I had no intention of seeing this musical drama, mainly because I thought I already knew the story line and did not need any more depressing things in my life after last November's elections and the recent news coming out of the Boy Scouts of America. However, K1 sent two tickets for S's birthday present, so I had to go. The things we do for love. Well, all I can say is, this movie blew me away with the magnificent cast, music, sets, acting, singing, you name it. Who would have thought I would love a story about France and Frenchmen? Unheard of! Usually my idea of a good movie about France is when there are either German or American army tanks rolling across it's countryside, or Horatio Hornblower is sinking French ships in the Napoleonic War. My recommendation? It is fabulous, not to be missed. Warning to parents: there are a few very brief, but inappropriate and irritating scenes in the first half of the movie which flit by rapidly. (Fontaine selling her teeth and a few minutes later with her first "customer", and a little later just before her daughter is rescued from the low-life Inn). Other than these 2 wasted minutes, the rest of the 2 hours and 38 minutes are incredible, gripping, and memorable. The author, Victor Hugo, must have been a religious man, because there are powerful moments of spiritual truth throughout the movie, especially the ending, which made the movie very up lifting instead of sad. Go see it on the big screen while you still can.

Wet and Cold

We had an absolute down pour this week, and it just kept raining for 12 hours. The pond over flowed. The stream over flowed. The pastures were flooded. Parts of the driveway washed out.

So we stayed indoors and got caught up on various things...

Thursday morning, the temperature dropped. We got our cracked septic line replaced, and it started to snow.

Thursday afternoon, we held our Home School PE class indoors at the YMCA.

After PE, I told the boys to delay their hot showers, and to put on their insulated overalls, gloves and wellie boots, because we were going into the stream to repair our fence line that got whacked by the flood (and some big debris). First we had to dig tons of wet leaves out of the tangled mess and lighten the weight before we could lift the fence.  

There should have been a nice straight fence across this part of the stream, but it's not here. It started snowing harder. 

K6 showed up to lend a hand, which was greatly appreciated.

With his muscles, the hard part - pulling the fence back across the stream - got much easier. Check out his stylist hat - he looks like an English farmer.

Teamwork.

K7 and K6 made a temporary repair and we headed  home for hot showers and hot chocolate.

Our homework this week is to come up with a better design for fencing over the stream. This incident was just a test before the Spring rains come in earnest.

Early garden preps

We had a warm day earlier this week, so S decided to get a head start on her spring garden.  She's headed out to the pasture to collect cow manure.

She's a hands on gardener. Not sure why she doesn't use a shovel & rake - I guess she doesn't want to miss any little pieces.

"Gee Mom, that looks like fun. Can I help?"

Like mother, like son. 

They got a lot accomplished.

I prefer using the tractor. This load of hay will eventually produce a lot more manure for her garden.