Wanch Update, lots of pics

K10's birthday party at local pottery painting shop was creatively fun...

...followed by cup cakes and ice cream.

We never miss the Annual Baker Creek Seed Festival...

...which added a new high tech sanitation gizmo this year. Took K11 a few minutes to figure out how to operate it (big Sister gave him hint - foot pedal).

K9 with his favorite k9 - Bill, the Great Pyrenees

K10 with new jewelry...

...expensive day, since K12 also got some shiny stuff.

Jonsey the cat proving that Bill the alpha dog can be patient. But pity the stranger who comes over our fence at night.

K10 digging thorny thistles out of a hay field.

K11 digging thistles out of a grazing pasture - this weed is not welcome anywhere on the Wanch.

K2 waiting his turn at the family barber shop.

First over night camp out for K10 and K9 at our annual church Father and Son's outing. Fortunately we had cabins with canvas curtains to cover the screen windows, because we had a thunder storm. Boys eating bananas for late night snack.

Loading half empty feed barrels of grain left over from winter time. Not sure what the story is with K12's fashion statement (on far left).

Took team work.

Putting up fence line also requires team work, the more the merrier. 

Splicing two sections of field fence.

Danny caught this large mouth bass from our pond last Sunday, and threw it on the grill. Good eating.

Converted a few of our pastures into new hay fields this Spring to help reduce the high cost of feeding the herd and flock this coming winter.

With a second cutting later this Fall, we should have just enough hay to make it through winter at a new cost of $15 per bale instead of last year's drought driven high of $55 (and some places were charging as much as $80 per bale!). 

Hi ho, it's off to work we go! Our Wanch is full of Princesses, little people, music, and fun.

Visited Portland, Oregon, for grand daughter Lydia's 8th Birthday and...

...her Baptism!

K10 getting her first pair of ballet point shoes.

New sheep handling equipment made it much easier to band and tag lambs this year.

We are seeing a lot of water snakes in the stream this year.

These two snakes wrapped themselves on the water gap fence - they looked like sticks.

We had a lot of strong storms this Spring. No serious damage, but lots of limbs down.

Some limbs on top of fences.

Kept us busy cutting and building burn piles.

Lots of burn piles.

Starting to open up the west side of hill above stream in order to add more grazing pastures. We will keep a lot of the big shade trees, but will be cutting firewood for months this summer and fall.

After having a rare tornado pass just a little over a mile to our east last month, I decided to take down the giant oak tree next to my bed room. Our son-in-law, Ryan, fortunately has a hobby of tree climbing and trimming. This is him starting up the tree, with rain clouds moving across the sky above.

He is about 50 feet up, and only got a little sprinkling of rain.

Lots of cutting, with hand saw and chain saw.

"Timber!"

Crash!

It was grueling and exhausting work - I should know, because I sat on an ammo can and watched Ryan for 3 hours! Sending up the occasional cold water bottle to keep him hydrated.

We then spent a few days cleaning up - cutting branches, building burn piles and loading firewood.

See the green barrel? The one with dent on top? It saved our fence line from getting crushed.

Little kids needed team work to load this long feed trough.

Then I told them to load a 2nd one. They said it was impossible. They learned to stop telling me things are impossible.

All American boys defending our part of the world from scary, mindless, destructive creatures that begin with the letter "D". Team work. They were hooting, hollering, laughing, and screaming. They had a blast...literally. "Move, shoot, communicate".

RIP

"Jimmy", our awesome barn cat, died today. He was not yet 10 years old, and don't know cause of death, but he died peacefully in our garden while taking a nap. K6 discovered Jimmy after we got home from Church. He will be missed. 

My beloved English Shepherd, Dandy, who was 13 years old, got cancer of the mouth. You can see how swollen the left side of her snout is.

Took her to our Vet's on 6 Feb and they cut out the tumor, but told us that it was a particularly aggressive type of cancer that probably would come back...soon.

Doc was right. By March 8th, Dandy had stopped eating and walking. 

She crawled out of barn to enjoy one last day of fresh air and grass. It was Friday and I could not see her suffer through the weekend, so K8 gently loaded her into truck and together we took her to Vet, who came out to the truck and gave her the shots that put her to sleep. K8 buried Dandy in our yard next to her father, Tex. She was beautiful and very loyal. She fiercely protected our family and farm to the point where most visitors feared her. That was a good thing in my view. She did bite several people, but her worst flaw was her mindless desire to kill any chicken or guinea that occasionally escaped into our yard from their side of the fence - a small price for me to pay for such a great dog. She will be sorely missed.

A new season begins

Spring is green. Sheep and cows are happy with new growing grass. They are done with hay until Christmas.

The pretty red bud and dogwood trees are blooming for 2-3 weeks.

All the other trees - oak, ash, walnut, sycamore, hickory, locust, osage orange, cherry, etc.  - will be totally finished budding out in green leaves within a few weeks. 

Took the little kids to Nauvoo, Illinois, for a weekend. Can you imagine being a 19th century pioneer family headed west across the plains and mountains? We would not be riding in the wagon, but rather all of us would be walking because the wagon could only carry 2,000 pounds: our clothes, sewing box, food & water, any precious valuables; books & musical instruments, sacks of seed to plant, fruit tree saplings; tools to build, a few pieces of furniture; a tooth brush?

Maggie had her calf on 18 April, in paddock #6.

Fish Day! Load the big trough in truck, fill with buckets of pond water and go to local feed store to buy some...

...Fish. We got a giant bucket of minnows, and 25 of these beautiful black crappie! One of the best eating fresh water fish. 

We also put two dozen minnows in the small pond up on hill to see how they do. 

We check on the growing flock frequently.

Busy Spring on the Wanch

We spend a lot of time dragging logs out of woods to be cut up for firewood.

Lots of logs, frequently.

Then burn the small stuff.

Fun surprise - I found cactus on our property.

I stopped in the stream to pull some big branches out of the water gap fence. The rock stream bed was super slippery with algae, and I let my mind wander just a split second, and the "ice capades" was on...despite fighting hard to stay upright, I ended up falling for the first time ever - went down hard on my left side. K6 took the pics while K9 watched me slide around like a crazy man.

Popped up quickly to get my phone out of pocket. Not such a fun surprise. I was thoroughly soaked and my left side hurt from my ear, neck, shoulder, elbow, down to my knee. Went to bed early this night after a hot shower, ice packs, and ibuprofen.

I spend a lot of time on a BEMER pad for healing.

Here's another high tech gizmo to come into the farm house: K8 wearing a Virtual Reality mask playing a zombie video game. Everyone was entertained watching him jump around screaming. The VR was a birthday gift to our son-in-law Danny. He had most of the adults and kids try it out after our weekly Sunday evening supper gathering (usually 25 adults & kids).

Our son-in-law Ryan's turn. It is a pretty cool devise and everyone had a fun experience, both wearing it and watching others react while wearing it.

Took K10, K11, and K12 to orthodontist to get evaluated for their need to wear braces, some time in the future, or so we thought. Bad news for the budget - both girls need braces immediately! K11 lucked out for now.

Lots of calves being born the past month. Up to six thus far. This is Flora with her little one.

Holly with her calf from last year. They are standing next to a little natural spring we have across the stream.

Juniper gave us a surprise - our first black calf born on farm in quite a few years. Both were delivered to their new owner this weekend, which brought the herd down to 26 head. 

K10, K11, and K12 will be training three calves this year to take to fairs at end of summer and early fall.

K10, K11, and grand daughter Laura performed in the musical, "Sound of Music", last month, and are rehearsing for the ballet version of,"The Little Mermaid", in June.

Ariel had a little red one.

As did Wendy. Several more calves are due through the summer and early fall.

It is always great to have K2 come home for a weekend visit. He hangs up his lawyer suit and puts on his handy man clothes...

...and fixes stuff.

Mom opens the barbershop once a month.

Kids and grand kids enjoy some early warm spring days. In another month, they will have to watch carefully around these rocks for the poisonous water moccasin and copperhead snakes. Did not see many last year, but usually shoot several a year.

K10 holding her tiny niece Irene.

K8 and K4

Son-in-law Ryan.

K10, grand daughter Evelyn, and K12.

K11 

There is never a shortage of playmates.

Our new flock large guard dog, Dinah, has been on the job a month. Half Great Pyrenees and Anatolian Shepherd, she is still a pup of 7 months, but stays with the flock. She will prove her worth when flock moves to the south 40 and she takes on coyotes. 

In addition to calves being born, we have 42 new lambs, with more to come. 

This is "C-section", our first bottle lamb of the season. Her momma was one of oldest ewes in the flock, and unfortunately was too weak to give birth. She laid down in paddock and didn't move for two days, so K8 had to put the momma down and perform an emergency C-section with his hunting knife. Saved both lambs, but the little boy died first night. The tiny girl made it thru the first weekend with K2's personal care, and she is now thriving. 

We have a total of 10 bottle fed lambs on the front porch - mostly triplets and a few twins rejected by mommas. Only one ewe is successfully taking care of her triplets out in the pasture. The not so good mommas will be going to the sale barn later this year.

In spite of the freak snow fall we had this morning, 14 April, winter is over. We are done feeding hay. The next photos I post will show green grass and trees budding out with leaves.