Sheep Shearing

Phil and I talked at length this morning about what sawmill to buy. We've been looking at portable sawmills for several years. We figure that since we'll need wood to build a platform and interior construction for our yurt, we can either spend the money on lumber, or on a sawmill and use our own trees. I think it's better in the long run to have an asset, so I'm willing to be patient for the yurt.

We're pretty sure which model we'll get—it won't be fancy (nothing hydraulic, nothing mechanized), but it should get the job done. The salesman said that there are people who use this model as their full-time occupation. Personally, I don't think cutting 125 board feet an hour would be terribly exciting as a whole job, but it is encouraging that the machine can support such an endeavor.

My bees continue acting as if starving. They're on track to have devoured about $75 worth of sugar this week. I never anticipated such an expense when we began. I guess some things you can't budget for. I finally decided I was tired of the constant thrill while adding to their feeders, so I tried just leaving the pot open with some sticks inside, and hoped the bees wouldn't drown. So far so good.

Phil and I decided to try to shear our sheep. We've had a few days without rain, and, with nothing else pressing, it's past time to get that done. Note Ashley's unshorn state, below.

We had watched a helpful DVD with Fiona Nettleton last night, that walked through the positions and the sequence of sheep shearing. As an experienced young lady, she handily demonstrated a full sheep shorn in about a minute. Poetry in motion.

I knew we wouldn't match such a practiced feat, but I hoped to be at least moderately close—maybe within fifteen minutes or something.

Well, Fiona used electric clippers. We had purchased them but returned them when I realized that, after the $400 initial cost, beginning shearers have to send the blades in for sharpening after just about every sheep; they get dull quite quickly. And there's tensioning and combs and all these other details to figure out, as well as how not to nick the sheep.

Oh, and we'd need some kind of barn with electricity in order to run the clippers, and we'd need a barn-like structure to hold the sheep before shearing.

Since we don't even have a real habitation, building a shed with electricity in order to shear sheep was pretty low on my priority list.

I read a book on blade shearing, with, well, giant scissors, basically, and that sounded just fine.

So Phil and I set out.

He caught that rotten Isabella. About a third of her wool was already off, due to her weird late-pregnancy issue. And since she is destined for slaughter, she would be a good practice sheep.

Her belly wool was disgusting. Totally matted, crunchy with things we prefer to ignore. And we both tried and both nicked her. Phil was so upset, he almost threw in the towel right then: just get the clippers!

But he tried again. And again. Gradually, not in the proper sequence, certainly, but gradually a sheep emerged from under the nappy dreadlocks.

The pitiful amount of wool collected made me wonder why I ever expected to make any money from this "cashmere quality" wool. Blech! Little sheep give little wool, and it's all matted and unpleasant.

After two hours, Isabella was done. Two hours.

Next he did Acorn, and she, with her probably five-inch wool, looked truly shorn at the end of the ordeal. And Phil cut his time in half, finishing her in about an hour. (She was not dreadlocked, but rather fluffy and soft. So much nicer!)

Acorn, the white, sheepish sheep, looks shorn. Rotten Isabella looks greyish, in the photo below; it's harder to tell that she's been shorn.

You can see the difference in quantity between Acorn's wool, in the foreground, and Isabella's wool, in the background. Expert shearers would get it all in one piece. Maybe we will, too, someday.

At this point, Phil had been pouring sweat for three hours in the hot sun, amidst the prickly raspberry canes and dung, lifting unwilling sheep, suffering kicks and an already-sore back. Almost fainting, he stumbled off to sit in our water trough tub.

Two down; about eight to go.

One Less Booster Seat (Happy Birthday, Jadon!)

Eight years ago today, I gave birth for the first time. That smallest of my babies still has no fat on him, but has grown into a young man who is such a helper.

As we ate cake today, Phil and I talked about love languages. You've probably heard the theory: everyone has one of five primary ways that they give or receive love: acts of service (I made Phil coffee every day when we first got married); gifts (my Mom looks all year for gifts for her loved ones, to show us that she's thinking of us); physical touch (Abraham will give me a hug every half hour); quality time (let me talk to a friend for three hours a year, and I know we're good); words of affirmation (I'm not sure I know anyone with this one, but please say nice things).

With Abraham, his love language is blatantly obvious. He wants to hug his parents many times a day. Endearing and sweet.

While we laughed about how obvious Abraham's is, I realized that he's showing me love because he loves me. I think I'd always assumed that he was trying to fill his own needs, not that he was actually giving me love. What a joyful thought!

With that realization, the older boys' love languages suddenly clicked into focus. I will come into the trailer sometimes and find Jadon putting away the final three Little People figurines, after picking up the dozens we have, all by himself. Or the other night, Joe was pretending that he was tired, and Jadon pulled the sheet up for Joe, so he could lie in bed and act like he was sleeping. Out of water? Jadon will fetch it, often without even being asked.

So Jadon is an acts of service guy. And he loves me.

Isaiah is not an acts of service guy. (I'm not this type, either, so I can relate.) But if Phil wants company in moving the cows, or running to the hardware store, Isiaah's ready and willing. Or maybe I'm doing a bit of work in the afternoon: Isaiah will come and say, "Is there anything we can do together?"

He's clearly a quality time guy. And he loves me.

Phil wasn't feeling so good today, but he managed to run some errands, including all the laundry for the last two or three weeks. He had done it on Sunday evenings, but I think it's worth it to get a little less done around the farm and have a little more rest time on Sunday.

I fed the bees five times today, which means I picked up nine empty containers, buzzing with bees, dumped them out and let them swirl around me, crawl up my arms, land on my legs. For the desperately hungry bees that flew into the sugar water as I poured, I fished them out with a weed, and rescued them with a twig.

Sadly, a large bumble bee got caught in my shorts and stung my leg. I'm hoping I will be able to bend my knee tomorrow. And I should probably try to get an EpiPen, just in case I have a stronger allergic reaction one of these days.

The sheep are more friendly, as we move them daily. Most come right up to me now, and kiss me or let me touch them. I appreciate that. And where they've traveled, the orchard floor is fairly well cleared. And growing back again quickly.

The cows' area doesn't appear to be growing back quite so quickly, but Phil did see dung beetles the other day. Awesome!

Secondhand Gator?

We drove four hours round trip today to look at a used Gator. I had hoped for clarity, but came away confused: it's not precisely what we want, and nine years old with over 1100 hours on the machine. But it's half the price of a new one, and would probably be sufficient for our current needs. But future needs? Who knows. Is it worth spending more of our quickly-shrinking savings? Who knows? ("God knows," the boys would say.)

And mechanical things confound us. We've brought the chipper in for repairs twice already, and it's ready to go in a third time. Phil says its a design issue with the motor itself.

I suppose that beating myself up for a purchase that hasn't worked as smoothly as I would hope, I should remind myself that we purchased it (like the babydoll sheep) for a specific reason, and, based on our research, it was the best choice we could find.

Which leads back to the Gator—is this the Gator for us?

The bees slowed their incredible consumption, though they still finished off almost another ten pounds. I'm thankful that, as many times as I've had to replenish their feeders with hundreds of circling bees, I haven't been stung, or even threatened. They crawl on my arms and tickle me! (And give me the heebie-jeebies!)

Today is my last day as the mother of four under eight. I realized today that, though after Joe's birthday on 8/8, we'll have boys aged 2-4-6-8, it is mathematically impossible (assuming a full-term birth), even if I were to get pregnant this month, for me to ever have boys ages 2-4-6-8-10. And the Lykoshes will finally have an even-numbered year without a family member added.

We made three types of pork sausage today. The boys and Phil helped cut the scraps and run them through the meat grinder.

All three types were good.

Ravenous Bees

Phil grazed the sheep around the beehives. They did a good job clearing the underbrush. (Look in the background down the row: the brown section immediately behind them was grazed about a week ago and hasn’t started growing back. Right beyond that, though, is the section grazed three weeks ago, and it is growing back quite well.)

I wonder if the electric netting affected the bees adversely. They seemed to be constantly starving. As in, the two hives ate over ten pounds of sugar (mixed with 20 cups of water) from 11am to 8pm today. Maybe they couldn’t leave the netting, and needed to rely on me alone for their food?

At first I expected it was just because we got about 3.5” of rain last week. Maybe all that rain washed away the pollen, and the bees were hungry. And I’ve heard that, in areas with bears (like our area), it’s a good idea to have electric netting up to keep the bears away.

I would turn the fence off, too, to access the bees, to feed them more sugar water. And they didn’t change their frenetic feeding at all.

But, as much as this thought tickled the back of my mind, it appeared to be confirmed this evening. I went to make up the next five pounds of sugar water solution, and in the five minutes I was away, Phil moved the energizer. When I let, hundreds of buzzing bees circled the feeders. When I came back, the more normal dozen or so remained, drinking their fill.

Coincidence? Perhaps. It was dusk; maybe the bees were simply all getting their evening snack before settling in for the night.

Somehow I doubt it, though. We’ll have to watch that energizer placement more carefully in the future.

Phil continues to move the cows to a new paddock every day. They don’t entirely strip the ground, but they do a good job clearing most of the organic matter, disturbing the earth with their hooves, adding their fertilizer. (Yes: in the photo below, the brown looked like the green only the day before. They really do a good job cleaning up.)

He moves the sheep, too, once or twice a day. He spends a lot of his time setting up and taking down fence.

I made my first loaf of sourdough bread in over a year today. Sourdough requires about a week of initial fermentation, where rye flour and water sit, loosely covered, so yeast spores from the air land and start to ferment. My version was dense, though flavorful. And how wonderful, to make bread with an ingredient list of spelt, rye, water, and salt.

Allergic to the Shovel

Saturday: It was a biodynamic fruit day, and I woke up with the intent to plant my large box of seeds with fruit/seed plants (tomatoes, peppers, corn, melons, pumpkins, squash). I did get a little bed of sweet corn planted, with Isaiah’s help, in the lasagna garden.

Phil had graciously scythed down a section of pasture where neither sheep nor cows will graze. But as I looked at it, I thought about all the digging required to get the seeds in the ground.

And then I thought about all the water-hauling, all the maintenance and weeding, all the hours spent on small crops that won’t be spent with the boys or Phil or the trees.

Though I didn’t (quite) start to cry, it was suddenly too much.

Add to that the "lovely" lecture I had begun while doing the dishes, in which the speaker said, “I’ve never come across a woman who didn’t have some stage of adrenal failure.” Which leads to many health and psychiatric issues.

Ah, the stress that comes from a little warning to avoid stress so as to keep your health. Gak.

I didn't plant anything else. I've grown allergic to the shovel.

I remember when my parents started Sonlight (twenty years ago tomorrow!). As a child, I remember only two disagreements between them, but after they started Sonlight, as they had to figure out so many new tasks, from marketing to customer relations, they had, in my memory, almost daily disagreements. Different ways of looking at the different facets of business; different strengths to bring to the table.

I suppose that’s encouraging for me. For a month or two now, Phil and I have felt like we’re cogs that aren’t quite meshing correctly. Since we’ve lived in, basically, perfect agreement for the first nine and a half years of marriage, we feel bewildered and sad by all the miscommunications.

On Saturday afternoon, I fumed, “I have no little pleasures in my life! I eat no chocolate! I read no books for fun! I do nothing just for me!”

So I made brownies for Sunday breakfast and felt a lot better. And then had the almost hysterically convicting passage during Sunday’s sermon: “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

What was I saying about “no pleasures”? When I am saved by the blood of the Lamb?

Touché.

How to Recognize Heat (Breeding, Not Temperature)

When I went outside this morning, I watched in amazement as one of the cows mounted one of the calves over and over again. Obviously that baby was in standing heat (which means the cow will stand still for a bull to mount her).

Two-year-old Fern, though, is the one we need to watch. Phil said that, when I was out of town, one of the cows mounted Fern over and over again. And she was giving a little sign of heat. Usually she’s the cows least favorite, but today they sniffed her backend, and one put her head over Fern’s rump. These are both interesting, and good to note, but not definitive, it seems to me.

I spoke with the friendly local vet, and she said that they can store straws for me. That is a great relief. She also said that we’re heading in to a bad time of year to try AI, since the hot weather makes the animals listless. And her husband, the AI technician, will be out of the country in three weeks. Oh, well—it can’t be helped. Until earlier this week, we were planning to get a bull. Phil even went and looked at bulls while I was out of town.

Then we decided to try AI. I take encouragement from our sermon a few weeks back: Be careful for nothing (as in, full of care, or anxious). Do what you can, and give it to God. That’s how I feel about this: I’ll order what I can, to arrive when it needs to, and line up storage and technicians (maybe the man who sold us our first sheep could do AI when the vet’s husband is out of town), but in the end, it’s up to God.

I guess it always is.

To reassure me that Fern is, truly in heat, she went into standing heat this afternoon! Three weeks from today, then, we’ll try to be ready. And if not in three, then in six. The Lord knows.

Phil went to look at John Deere Gators, the one larger vehicle we think we will need. It’s a bit like an ATV, but has a bed on the back like a mini-truck. He came away unsure of what we should get. It’s tricky because if you over-buy in power or design, you’re out some money, but if you under-buy, you’re out the total purchase price. (But no pressure.)

We picked up some old hay bales for cold frames, though it’s getting a bit late in the season for that. Maybe I can still use them, though.

After the two inches of rain last night, we were amazed to see another thunderstorm roll in. This one brought an incredible inch of rain in less than an hour. Phil said the water ran across our land in sheets. (One of the things we will hope to change over time: better water absorption!)

It knocked out our power, too, for a few hours.

And we think it may have panicked the sheep. Phil noticed that they kept bleating, so he went to check on them. He had left the fence off at one point today, and all three babies had gotten out, and one of the larger lambs had also entangled himself in the fencing. I’m thankful he went to check.

Our life is exciting, all the time!

We Become Graziers

Our book on calving recommended watching the cows for a half hour at dawn, to have the best chance to observe heat.

At 5:45 this morning, I woke to a cockroach crawling on my arm and was so completely disgusted, I decided I would watch the cows.

The cows weren’t even up yet. And when they did start to rouse themselves, Fern showed no signs of heat. (We know she did show signs while I was out of town, so about 21 days after the first ten days of May, she should come into heat. Meaning, any day, if we didn’t already miss it.)

A hummingbird whizzed by, so I didn’t entirely rue the early rising. And it was certainly cooler that early in the morning.

The heat soared to about 90, and with the humidity, it felt like 95, with a bright sun overhead. I have heard that “horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow,” but I’m pretty sure I was sweating today. Phil filled our stock tank/outdoor bathtub and plopped right in. A little later, I did the same thing.

Phil finished penning the meadow, and at 3pm, he opened the gate to let the cows in to their first taste of growing grass on our farm. (You can see the bare paddock, the swatch he scythed to put up the fence, and the tall forbs in the photo.)

Although the goats came right over, the cows refused. Finally Isaiah had to bribe one of the babies, and slowly, hesitantly, three others followed.

Bethany, though, resisted the appeal of fresh forage for FOUR HOURS. For four hours she paced on the wrong side of the fence, sour grapes style.

Phil finally pushed her into the new paddock, and she grazed with good will.

What a delicious sight, to see all those shiny red coats among the tall green forbs. (In the photo below, you can see the classic outline of a cow from behind, with one side a pear shape and the other side an apple.)

Tyson brought hay, and we rolled it out along the ground in their new paddock. Now they will have both the growing forage, and the extra hay, for them to eat, and trample the seeds into the ground, to fertilize with their manure, and enjoy.

Since the last big bales they’ve devoured in two days each (with probably a third of it sinking into the mire that has been their paddock), I’m interested to see how long the bales take them now.

I hope a lot longer.

I called the vet, and the AI tech will call me back tomorrow.

I pulled up the chicken netting around the cow paddock, which will now allow the chickens more free access to roam. Since many can and do escape each day, Phil and I were surprised to see that on the paddock side of the net, the chickens had scratched the ground bare. On the other side, lush growth covered the ground.

That netting was more effective than we realized!

I put the netting around my garden. Now the chickens will not scratch up all my seeds. (I lost all my turnips and radishes to chicken scratching.) I still need to surround the chickens with netting, though, I think; they will need protection from raccoons and weasels. I think.

I planted some herb seeds. I have a lot more planting to do in the next few days; June 1 is a big cutoff date here in the mid-Atlantic for things like corn, squash, melons, and direct-seeded tomatoes.

The spectacular sunset made Jadon comment, “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.” Phil had just spent a good bit of time covering equipment and bringing tools inside, because a thunderstorm was in the forecast. He was feeling a bit bemused, when a thunderstorm hit. And what a thunderstorm! Lightning directly overhead, pouring rain, incredible force. I’m glad I mulched my little herb seeds, but how can they withstand the onslaught of driving rain?

We shall see.

There is much to do, and it is mostly fun. Though I must say, there were moments today when I dreamed about taking a long drive in the air conditioned car. Phew!