Month: January 2011

Snow Day

Sheeps & Peeps4 Comments

  Some days you just have to endure enjoy the challenge that mother nature throws into your everyday life. Yesterday was one of those days. What better way to face a day of blowing knee-deep snow with sub-zero windchills  than to pack along the camera and take some pics while doing chores? The adventure began with the half-mile trek through the snowdrifts to the barn. 102_9792 Along the way being very thankful for the knee-high subzero boots and insulated coveralls, and wondering if the Polaris Ranger is up to the challenge of all this blowing snow. Get to the barn and feed the easiest and biggest (thanks to the weather break that allowed us to get the breeding groups back together at the barn) group first. 102_9793   Recruit the help of Bella to spread some straw in the barn: 102_9798 102_9800 Then it is time to feed the couple outlying groups. The Ranger makes it from the garage to the barn and gets loaded for the trip to the graveyard field and the ewe lamb group.  102_9801 (Hoping the shovel is just riding along for moral support) Success!! Made it across the flat drive to the field and actually found the feed pans! 102_9802 102_9803 Next, the greatest challenge, up the hill to the rams and Betty Lou Moo-Moo and Beefcakes. Once at the top the snow usually isn’t too deep ‘cause it all blows away, but on the way there are usually some deep drifts to navigate bust through. 102_9797 Will the tarp-sled need to be reinvented? Or the big gun reinforcements snow angels called in? Not today! Once again the Ranger pulls through the drifts and up the hill. 102_9805 102_9806 Betty Lou and Beef and the Rams were very thankful and an extra bale of hay was left just in case it is necessary to hoof it to the top the next day. It’s back to the garage for the Ranger to await the next day’s challenge, and back to the barn for a Bella mini-photo shoot.  Inside shot: 102_9808 Outside shot: 102_9810 Our little girl is growing up so fast. Then, fill a feed bag with hay to take to the goat boys back at the house and on the way again through the drifts through which someone had recently made a path. 102_9811  A good morning set-up for a warm afternoon/evening of knitting and spinning!

The Garden in Winter

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The winter gardens lie in a blanket of white
Sleeping… waiting…
The Juncos enjoy the tiny seeds left behind by the last of summer’s weeds.
Seed catalogs… the stuff that dreams are made of… arrive.
We struggle to balance lofty ambitions and the certainty of time constraints.

Of Note:
Our dear blog-friend, Ann, is contributing to the new Dobies of Devon Gardening Companion – “words, images and ideas to inspire keen gardeners – young, old and ‘in-between”.  You might join us there.  With Ann’s contributions, it promises to be informative and entertaining.

Sunday Muse

Sheeps & Peeps2 Comments

Snowflakes

Out of the bosom of the Air.
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Winter Patterns

Sheeps & Peeps8 Comments

Much like the patterns created by the frost and snow, our winter days develop patterns of their own.  Chores take longer and although lengthening, daylight hours are still very short.  Even so, we find it important to pause… to enjoy…
‘the frolic architecture of the snow’.
Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windware stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

excerpted from The Snow Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson

What a Weekend!

Sheeps & Peeps5 Comments

In a stroke of luck, the stockyard was open on New Year’s Day, and the roads were open enough that our neighbors could finally get their trailer into the barnyard. We took the cull ewes and seven more of the ewe lambs to Grantsville.  This will surely help our hay bale count.

The stars just seemed to align this weekend, and the combination of snow melt, fairly warm and mostly decent weather blessed these shepherdess/s with hours of pretty comfortable outside farm work.  This and the fact that not one single ewe was marked the second time around meant that the breeding was complete and the groups could be moved.

Breeding harnesses came off.  (That Davita… she will snuggle with anything that is not another cat.)

Liam, Aragorn and Poseidon, the three older rams, were crammed and twenty-four hours later moved back to their original pasture.

A brand spanking new, fancy shelter was put together (by Terry) for the goat boys and they were moved to the pine grove paddock via halter and truck.  You have no idea how exciting this is to have them in a virtually, inescapable paddock for the remainder of the winter.   No longer will we be greeted by surprises in the barn when going to feed in the mornings… no tearing down of fencing… no leading the ewe lambs into trouble.  (They only do these things in the winter… maybe they find winter boring.)  Right now there is a lot of noisy complaining but they will adjust, and there are plenty of rocks and fallen trees to amuse them.

The 33 breeding ewes and the ram lamb, Braveheart, are all now in the barn pasture.  Moving lanes were built with temporary fencing and this all went pretty smoothly.  This group of ewes appears to be kind of flighty.  Hopefully they will settle down before lambing.  Speaking of lambing season… there was much excitement around here that everyone appears to have been caught  during the first 17 day cycle… until it sunk in that all 33 ewes will probably lamb within an intense 3 week period.  We will have to start planning for that.


And last, but certainly not least, Betty Lou Moo Moo and Beefcakes were brought over the pasture and through the woods from Madison.  They followed Jonathan and Megan up the hill to about 50 feet away from the fence line.  Surprisingly they came closer and closer by calling “C’mon Betty” “C’mon Beef” (all of our animals seem to equate the word “C’mon” with the word “Food”)  and it went pretty smoothly once they were enticed through the open gate with a little grain.  More temporary fence lanes were put up to connect the two gate openings and we had a bale of hay waiting on the other side. Ahhh, success.

There is still a little bit of organizing and housekeeping to do, but all in all, considering last year’s winter feeding challenges, we are pretty (pardon our language) damn excited!