What's Up at WRLG
FARM BLOG
FROM THE FARMERS POINT OF VIEW
It is amazing watching the changes inside and outside of the addition. I think that Brandon would approve....but he also would have wanted to help .
So construction has begun on the addition. Actually it is a finishing project. Brandon got much of the inside done, but as the crew has discovered today the floor needs to be pulled up and reset. Since it is raining this morning working on the siding and shingles is not a possibility, so they had to move inside.
To give you an overview: 1. The addition needed to be prepped and sided 2. inside the staircase, some of the walls and windows needed to be finished 3. The floor needed to be reset 4. bookcases made to enclose the staircase 5.Breaking through from the addition to the old house Plus some work on the first barn , replacing windows and shingling it. So on we go! April was a wild month....weather wise and personally. Nothing terrible happened on the farm...only good things....like 2 new ewe lambs! One lamb is named Frieda and her mother is Peanuts and the 2nd ewe lamb who was born the day before Frieda is name Lily Pad and her mother is Boggy. The personal part was trying to get ready to travel to NC and then drive with my sister to The northern neck of Virginia for my mother's internment and celebration of life. So my friend Karn came all the way from Ireland and stayed on the farm while I was gone. Karn helped me when I got home to ear tag, give shots and worm all the sheep. She also cleaned my barn(by hand, no tractor, as I had misplaced the pin for the landscape rake) , cleaned my house and cleaned up and organized my yard. Karn is in country to run the riding program at the camp I went to as a camper and counselor. She is an amazing friend and having her at the farm while I was gone made my travel to the funeral so much easier. I am so thankful for her friendship! I had come home from the Farmers Market and had unpacked my vehicle, I collected eggs and everything was quiet (except the bottle lambs). I got lunch and Zorra had a chew when there was a kerfuffle in the driveway, chickens panicking , flying everywhere and alarm squawks. Zorra immediately went into alarm mode and out the door we went. A hawk had pinned one of the chickens in the small pen behind their trailer. Zorra and I got out there before any true damage was done to the chicken. The chicken lost feathers but not her life, she was shook but when I put her back in the trailer she shook herself off and started eating. I did check her and she didn't have any injuries. But what this brings to mind is a book I read as a 12 yr old. It was "The Black Cauldron" written by Lloyd Alexander, it involved magic, a wizard, a boy named Taran who cared for the white oracular pig(who the wizard got prophecies from). Now the story being set in the past there was a farm with the white pig and chickens who Taran was in charge of. Needless to say evil threatens, the pig and chickens flee, Taran follows and the adventure begins. Later in the adventure the chickens who flew away to a safe place were found by Taran. The being named Medwyn protects any animal who comes to his valley and sure enough that is where the chickens went. Medwyn told Taran that he couldn't make head or tales of what the frightened chickens were talking about except it was evil. But once the chickens landed, they felt safe, and forgot what they were scared of and began eating. The point of the above book review was that my chickens did not feel safe after the hawk attack and it took 2 hrs to get them to come out of hiding using scratch/corn to temp them out. I caught them one at a time and put them back in the trailer. By the time I finished collecting the 14 who were hiding under the old farmers market trailer it was time to do evening chores. Zorra and I went inside to make the lamb milk and came back out to feed the sheep, lambs and the sexy girls. After the chores I rounded up the rest of the chickens in the barn but was still short one chicken. So I thought one chicken had been killed DRAT! I had just closed the trailer door and turned around to see one more chicken come quick to get into the trailer. I have no idea where she was hiding....but now all the chickens are accounted for...yeah!!!! Oh the excitement of farm life! Yes, spring has arrived! But we may have snow ,sleet and rain in the middle of the week. Ah well....we do live in New England and shouldn't be surprised by the weather. A weather man the other day said" yes it is mud season, but you know what follows mud season????black fly season" Oh joy...
The view out my window has changed,besides the lack of snow....what I see is large and orange and it isn't a pumpkin. Not sure what it could be? It is a Kubota L series tractor with a bucket and a landscape rake. I am still playing with it and can't get it into the farm yard as my gates are frozen....I am slowly chopping away ....literally with a pic ax freeing the gates from the ice. Once I get the gates free, more practice will be needed and I will try to clean out the manure pack in the barn where the sheep have been eating all winter. Wish me luck! Last Wednesday I came down to the barn to feed lambs and do chores. I found wounded adults, dead lambs and blood everywhere. We had a coyote attack. I lost 5 adult sheep (3 of which had to be put down) and 7 lambs(3 of them were dead near the barn and out in the field). It was terrible day...but I am lucky to have good friends & a wonderfully kind vet . The breach in the fence has been blocked and new fencing is due this week. My friend Joe came with his backhoe to dig a hole to bury the 6 animals and my friend Heidi came with her practical suggestions and logical mind, they made this terrible day bearable. Carnage like this makes you feel powerless, the donkey had blood on her, but wasn't injured. I suspect most of the sheep hid behind her, but so many of the sheep and lambs scattered, she wouldn't have been able to protect them. Although my neighbor said he saw a badly limping coyote cross his property, so maybe Sparkle gave one of the coyotes something to remember.
I haven't had an attack like this in 16 years when the coyotes crawled under the electric fence when we had a very wet summer and the water was eroding areas under the fencing. That is when we still had meat goats along with the sheep. The fencing I had put up in 2019 was a professional job, but one piece of fence was not replaced and that is where the breach was last week. This piece of fencing runs along the stream bed and needs to be moved back as the bank is slowly eroding and I hadn't included this part of the fence in the 2019 fencing job.....I probably thought I could replace it myself.... I am thankful there haven't been any more attacks and I have 8 lambs (4 boys and 4 girls) who were not injured and are doing just fine. The adults are still a bit wary and react to Zorra more than before. Otherwise we are back to the day in and day out farm stuff. I have 15 lambs out of 19 that have survived and are thriving! I think I may have 4 more ewe's still to deliver, but I am not sure. 3 of the 4 are younger ewes and may have gotten pregnant,it is hard to tell with them.
I have to say that the new barn has been a god send....I have been able to manage lambing easier with less stress for the animals and for me! I still have things that I want to change for next season and will work on those once the mud is gone. I enjoy looking out my office window and see the lambs running like a school of fish as they jump over and on top of any adults who are in their path! Also to let everyone know that I have a large pile of well composted manure that will be available in the spring to pick up here at the farm.....it is free! Call the land line and leave a message if you are interested! There have been 10 lambs born , 6 boys and 4 girls. But with the births there have been deaths. My oldest ewe Snoopy(10+) died soon after a miscarriage and I had a preemie ewe lamb who made it for almost 10 days before she died. One lamb died and was possibly sat on. All of the losses are sad but the live births whether the ewe's do it themselves or the farmer (me)/local Vet have to help are joyous events. I helped deliver a very large tan and white lamb, who I thought was a girl.....surprise....she is a he! The mother's name is Fens and the boy lamb is named Glade. The vet had to come to help deliver a 2nd twin boy lamb. I thought the ewe had a more serious problem, but no it was just a very large and long boy lamb. If you see pictures of him he is the one with a blue fleece coat.
There have been challenges with mom's with no milk, short lambs and tall mothers, young mothers and reluctant mothers. Things are leveling out but I think I still have 8 ewes to give birth.....wish me luck! tIt finally got too cold to have the stock tanks outside and unheated. So I had to figure out how to get electricity down to the new part of the barn, as the power was cut to the tractor bay when the roof was first worked on. Unfortunately the stock tank heater I wanted to use required a gfci outlet....but to my amazement I found a portable gfci I can plug into my existing outlets in the barn!
I set up the 100 gallon and 50 gallon stock tanks , filled them and realized the 50 gal was too high for the shorter sheep to get a drink, but if I put it lower, everyone will foul it with their manure. So I set up the 20 gal rubber tank on the floor near by. The other difficulty is that when the heated tanks were in the other barn I set them up on pallets and the sheep could put their front hooves up on the pallets to get a drink. They got use to that, so next year I will change it, can't do it now as all the pallets are frozen outside under the outside stock tanks. I may need to put 3 big buckets out instead of the 20 gal tank so more sheep can drink at a time. Plus once there are more lambs they need to have access to water. With that last cold snap after the snow/rain storm I didn't have a chance to get my driveway plowed, so it is impassable! It will be a pain to bring things up the hill in a sled for the market, but at least I can load the heaviest stuff on Friday and bring it over to the school and drop it off. Plus with it being so cold I can put the meat in the cooler and leave it in the car overnight and not have to deal with it in the morning. If it ever gets warm enough again, I need to get the driveway plowed....ah winter in New England! January has arrived and the cold weather and wind are back. Along with the wind the farm has a new years lamb. The ewe lamb was not born on New Years but in the new year. Her mother is named Tussle and last year she had a still born lamb and was very distressed and kept running back to the place where the lamb had been. But this year she had a healthy ewe lamb and her name is Tangled! Tussle is a very good mother and I will be releasing mother and lamb on Wednesday as it isn't supposed to be as bitter cold. Tuesday we are due to have temperatures well below zero with the wind chill. The new mothers tend to keep their lambs well away from the rest of the flock especially if the area where they eat is too congested. So waiting an extra day to release the ewe and her lamb is a good idea.
The farmers market at the Maple Street school in Contoocook is going every Saturday from 9-12 noon (Masks are required). I have more eggs to sell now that the sexy girls are laying . So come on down to the market and see what your local farmers and artisans have to offer! |
Mary Will Sussman Archives
March 2024
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