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New Doo’s

Monday, February 28th, 2011

The rest of the girls and I have just been hanging out for quite a long time now. I figured that I better let the rest of the world know that we are just fine. Actually, I was planning on posting something about us sooner, but things got in the way.

First, the old shepherd guy got in the way. He had to let everyone know what a great pooper scooper he thought that he and his little machine were. What he did not tell you was the real reason that he added the extra patio behind the barn. It was so that we would have more room to spread out our deck chairs once it gets sunny.

Second, once I tried to get started writing something on the computer that Queso and I have set up, I realized that I was having problems seeing the key board: the wool on my forehead kept getting in the way. When you couple that problem with the logistics of typing with two feet that each have only two operational toes you can understand why I have not gotten much writing done recently. Some of us are less challenged with woolly faces. Queso was at least able to see well enough to take some photos to give you an idea of our predicament. This first shot is of Warp. She could barely see where she was going!

warp

A bunch of us (the more senior members of the flock) got together to discuss our predicament. This next photo is of Kassia and one of her daughters, Octavia participating in the conference.

k-o

It turned out that before we could really get organized, the old bearded guy and the nice lady pulled a fast one on us. The shearer showed up! We should have known that it was going to happen, since it always happens in February, before the pregnant girls start delivering their lambs. It is just that none of us with calendars could read them to know what month it was. Be that as it may, the shearer has come and gone and now we all can see well again. (We did get to meet a nice bunch of people who came to help with shearing. I believe that the real reason they come is to help keep the old shepherd from getting too grumpy with us over the two days of shearing.) Almost all of our wool is gone. Actually, it is in bags up in the hay mow. Each bag has one of our names in it. It is just sitting there waiting for the nice lady to prepare it for sale.

woolbags

There they are, all 127 of our fleeces.

So now we can communicate with the outside world without all of our visual limitations. The old shepherd is busy getting the barn ready for lambs and the nice lady spends much of her day in the basement of the house working on our fleeces. (At least that is what Pussa, the cat tells us. We have no other way of knowing, but it figures, since we have not seen much of the nice lady recently.)

At least we can hang out and socialize with each other. Here is Tessa discussing with Tempest the pending arrival of her lambs. A couple of sexy ladies if you ask me.

tessa-temp

We figure that lambing is not very far away. By my calculations the first lambs should begin arriving around March 9th. It behooves all of us to get some good night’s sleep before then, because things will be much more active at our level of the barn once that time arrives.

It is time for me to sign off. Queso was gracious enough to include my picture in her collection. Here is me in my new ‘doo. Bye for now…

nn-2

your friend, Nanoo Nanoo.

Posted in Fleeces & Wool, Sheep, What's New | 1 Comment »

Super Pooper Scooper

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

Apologies are due for the rather infrequent number of entries in the Ewe Turn of late. We seem to have entered a form of semi-hibernation recently. It has been rather pleasant! Soon the pace will be quickening in and around the farm. So it is time that the blog is brought back up to date. What follows, while not an epic tale, should have been told in a number of installments. But, to get caught up, the tale may run at bit longer than normal.

Due to a number of unrelated reasons (primarily weather and shepherd health related), manure storage and distribution had fallen woefully behind at Whitefish Bay Farm. Our normal routine is to clean out the barn 3 to 4 times a year. The clean out could not be achieved without the help of a skid-loader, one of the niftiest of mechanized tools. Once removed from the barn, the manure is stored in a concrete enclosure, where, over time it will heat up and decompose. The decomposition is accelerated by periodically turning over the pile (again with the help of the skid-loader). By fall the pile has “miraculously” shrunk. The resulting compost is then ready to be spread upon our hay fields and pastures where it serves as our primary source of fertilizer.

In the fall of 2009 I had nearly completed the November clean-up of the barn when Ulmer, the ram, placed my ankle, and thus me, out of commission. The immediate result was a year’s worth of decomposed manure that went un-spread. By the time my ankle was healed, and lambs were delivered and cared for in spring, it was too late to spread the pile. (Wet, soggy pastures and hayfields do not take kindly to heavy lug-tired tractors pulling equally heavy manure spreaders.) All of us (sheep and shepherds) managed to work around the backlog, knowing that fall would again return and with it the opportunity to finally catch up on the now monstrous pile. Indeed, by October, Eunice (the skid-loader) and I had managed to make room enough in the pit so that we could get the barn scrapped out before the sheep returned from their breeding groups. About a quarter of the way into the barn Eunice decided to have numerous hissy fits. It was only then that I remembered that she was over 20 years old. We needed to face the reality that she needed to move to a retirement home.

Eunice was rather unique in that she was short and narrow enough that she could fit through barn doors built when horses provided the power on the farm. Twenty years after purchasing her new, we discovered that skid-loaders, like so many other pieces of farm equipment, now came only in larger sizes. Eventually we located a different brand of skid-loader, which while a bit wider and longer than Eunice would appear to fit through the barn doors. The major concern was length. The narrow passageway beside the barn required a sharp left turn (with no room to swing out) to get into the barn. Without other options we traded Eunice in (before she died) and replaced her with a new skid-loader, now named “Gayle”. We had to await her arrival before we could know if the left turn was possible. If it could not be done, our only solution was to widen the concrete ramp as it approached the barn door. I am sure most of you can see what is coming!

Gayle had to be built before she arrived. While we waited, so did the partially cleaned barn and the nearly overflowing manure storage. November arrived and progressed. The sheep returned to the barn from breeding. Finally Gayle arrived, a beautiful and quiet machine. And yes, she was a bit too long and lanky! I quickly called all of the concrete contractors I could find, only one of whom returned my call. Luckily he did farm work, was finishing a job near by and could come over the same day to look at the job. Even more fortuitously, he could do the job the next day. We scurried around to get things set up for him. On November 11th Mike and one helper arrived right after morning chores. By mid-afternoon the pour was done!

manure-1

After a number of days the concrete had cured enough to once again try maneuvering Gayle into the barn. It worked! The weather was cooperating, so the entire flock got another two days all together in the entire first pasture, where they thoroughly enjoyed the large spaces and room to romp. I, on the other hand, had to learn a new set of skid-loader operating controls (since they are by no means standardized). But we were back in business!

By early December Gayle and I had made a big dent in the manure storage pile. The picture below is after 42 loads had been spread on our large hay field. As can be seen there was still lots of work ahead.

manure-2

The following photo is of Gayle and a not so grumpy shepherd admiring our work for the day.

manure-3

Those of you from the upper Midwest may remember that we had a blizzard in early December (crushed a number of barns in northern Wisconsin and the Metrodome in Minneapolis). The snow put our manure moving operation into a long hold. Amazingly we had a major thaw by the new year. The snow nearly disappeared but we had to wait for the upper few inches of ground to refreeze. But, we persevered. By January 11th the last load awaited its turn in the spreader. This would be the 72nd load. The only compost that did not get spread were the chunks frozen to the outside walls of the storage.

Just a few scoops left to go!

This brings us up to the present. The storage area is again filling, but this time it is all snow. We are on what appears to the the outer edges of a major snow storm headed across the Midwest. For me it is a beautiful sight.

Manure storage unit filling with snow - Feb 2nd

Manure storage unit filling with snow - Feb 1st

For those of you who have waited patiently for this arduous story to end, here is your reward: a view across the 1st pasture, to the south. The fences are about to be engulfed in a snow drift. This is why the sheep are happy to be inside in a dry, clean barn!

feb-snow

Posted in Farm, Sheep | 1 Comment »

A Peaceful Transition

Friday, November 19th, 2010

It is now the week prior to Thanksgiving. Compared to this time last year everything has been going well. There has been at least one snafu during the last few weeks, but it was manageable and now has been resolved. (More about the snafu in a little while.)

A year ago Ulmer (the ram) managed to severely sprain my right ankle. The rehabilitation set up a backlog of many tasks for us, some of which we still have yet to completely resolve. Nevertheless, the ankle is almost healed. Whatever remains of the damage could, potentially, be repaired surgically. The extended downtime resulting from such surgery would be as long and as disruptive as the initial rehabilitation. With it would come no guarantee of success. So this old shepherd has opted to live with the slight residual discomfort. At least this year, Ulmer was a proper gentleman during breeding. The two of us got along just fine!

Mid October to mid November is the month in which our ewes are (hopefully) bred. This year we had 58 ewes with five separate rams. This number of ewes is slightly smaller than last year’s. We now have quite a contingent of ewes who have retired from breeding and who can concentrate solely upon producing wool and providing friendship.

We got through breeding with few problems. A new brand of marking crayon insisted upon falling out of the harnesses worn by a couple of the rams. This left us with a short period for each ram when we could not verify his performance.

One morning found Ukiah’s group split up between three pastures. Most of the ewes were where we had left them the previous night in Pasture #1. Ukiah, and three of his girls were in the next door Orchard Pasture, luckily across the temporary fence from Ulmer and his group. And one ewe, Whosits, had somehow ended up in Pasture #2, in with Stud Muffin, and his harem. No one seemed the worse for wear. We got Ukiah and all of his girls, minus Whosits, back together in #1. Whosits spent the remainder of breeding in with Stud Muffin. We can only speculate on the overnight cause of panic. Ukiah’s group was in the area of #1 which includes the apple trees. While there were few apples left, the deer still insist on visiting, in the hope of one more apple. One or more deer jumping multiple fences into Ukiah’s pasture in the dark of night was the probable cause of the chaos.

All of us managed to survive a three day period of intensely strong winds. The storm was likened to the storm which sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald. Luckily for us no trees blew down in the pastures and no sheep blew away in a strong gust. (The storm was a few days prior to the scattering of Ukiah’s group, so we cannot blame it for the re-shuffling of sheep.) Our few hours without power were manageable and were not nearly as long as some outages in northeast Wisconsin.

All in all, breeding went well. Toward the end, the weather calmed a bit. For many days, when the skies permitted, we have been treated to spectacular sunsets. This image is of Ulmer’s group on one of their last nights out. (By the way, the green eye reflection indicates the lack of Moorit genetics. That is Ulmer, with the white nose spot, looking straight on.)

sunset-2

Each day from November 6th onward, we brought a breeding group back into the barn. Once there, the marking harness was taken off the ram. He had his hooves trimmed and was perhaps fitted with a larger jacket. The ram was then reunited with his buddies. (A week or so of semi-violent re-acquainting followed.) The incoming ewes also had their hooves trimmed and jackets replaced where necessary. By noon on November 10th everyone was back in the barn.

Part of the time when the rams were out with the ewes, Gretchen was off attending SOAR (the Spin-Off Autumn Retreat). She came home re-energized with all sorts of spinning ideas. She was especially inspired by her class on natural dyeing with Demetrio Bautista Lazo. One of the things the class inspired her to do was to assemble and standardize all of her samples from her natural dyeing projects from the last few years. Below is a photo of the collection. The image does not do justice to the colors, yet it is exciting to see the assembled colors (most of which were derived from plants, either wild or cultivated from Whitefish Bay Farm). Job well done, Gretchen!

dye-sample

Posted in Farm, Fiber Projects, Fleeces & Wool, Sheep | 4 Comments »

Breeding News

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

Once again the old shepherd guy has left the computer unattended. Consequently, we (i.e. Queso and I, Nanoo Nanoo) figured that we better get everyone up to date on the real goings on at the farm before the old guy finds out what we are up to.

In many ways fall has come early to the farm. Most of the deciduous trees turned to their fall colors ahead of schedule and have, by now, already dropped their leaves. From what we can see from the barn, there are still a few nice looking sugar maples and a couple of aspen. Nearly everything else is bare.

last-maple As yet it has not gotten too cold and therefore we have had no frozen water buckets and water lines to have the grumpy shepherd to worry over. Yet, despite all of the confusing weather we sheep still know it is fall. The rams get very testy with each other and when they do, they also get such a masculine odor. The shepherd and the nice lady think the rams stink, but what do they know? At least the two of them recognize that it is breeding season. As a result they have let the younger ewes join the rams in breeding groups scattered around the farm. It will be a couple more weeks before everyone is back together in the barn in the evenings.

Each year the shepherds decided who should be retired. This is now my second fall without being in a breeding group. I kind of miss not having a lamb to care for in the spring, but then it is also a lot of work. There are now quite a few of us on retirement in the barn during breeding. So we are having a grand old time being cared for in comfort. We also have this year’s 13 lambs with us. That keeps us young in outlook, even if we do not do some of the goofy things which lambs tend to do.

There are five breeding groups out on pasture. We have a pretty good idea of what is going on out there even without the shepherds telling us. Each group is close enough to the next that nearly all of them can pass along any news, which eventually makes it back to the barn. Rhett and his girls are closest to us. They get the best of everything: 1) the most handsome and sophisticated of the rams, 2) grazing on the lush pasture next to the road during the day, and 3) they get to come back into the newer wing of the barn overnight. The shepherd guy worries if they were out overnight so close to the road. Every evening Rhett and the girls bring us the latest news.

Next to Rhett’s group is Vermicelli and his goofy bunch of moorit girls. They are in pasture #4 (the place we know as the Rock Garden). We can converse with them in loud voices as they are still rather close. Unfortunately for them, they are in the pasture which always has the smallest amount of grass. The bearded guy has already taken them some baled hay as compensation.

Ukiah's group, with Stud Muffin's in the distance

Next in line is Ukiah. He is in the first and oldest pasture. Currently they are near the south end, but are slowly working their way north. It is always a nice pasture: lots to eat and it contains the apple trees! Usually during breeding there are lots of wind-fall apples out there. But, the word is that most of them fell so early that the deer, raccoons and porcupines have already cleaned them up. There is always one tree that ripens very late. Ukiah’s group is hoping that they get there soon. It is difficult to get any fire lit under the old shepherd; he keeps telling them that they need to finish grazing where they are before he will move them.

Beyond Ukiah’s group you will find Stud Muffin and his gals. They are in the second pasture; we call it Queen Anne’s Pasture because it always has so many Queen Anne’s Lace plants. Stud Muffin’s is about as far away as any of the groups. There are no sheep in that lush third pasture to the south. The shepherd guy fusses about it being too close to the cedar swamp where all the coyotes hang out.

Ulmer and his gals

The final group of ewes is with Ulmer. They are up on the high ground where the cherry orchard used to be. It is really good pasture up there, but it can get a bit unpleasant if the wind picks up and it is cold, since it is completely out in the open. We hear rumors that the grumpy old shepherd decided to put Ulmer in that pasture this year because the ground is smooth up there and it is more difficult to get your legs tangled up on a big rock. You have to realize that it was Ulmer who wacked the old shepherd last year during breeding. He still remembers that, I can guarantee!

Ulmer and the girls in "The Orchard"

So there they are, all the breeding groups. After nine days more than 60% of the girls have been marked by the crayons the rams wear. That should be a good sign as it hopefully means they are now bred. Now we just hope that the rest of them get the job done before the weather turns cold! We figured out that the Gallery is already closed for the year and that the Bed and Breakfast must also be closing soon. We had our last visit from all the nice visitors a couple of days ago and now there apparently are not going to be any more for a while. The nice lady was telling Queso that she was about to leave for SOAR, which stands for Spin Off Autumn Retreat. She hopes to learn a bunch of new things that she can do with our wool. She should have fun. She also hopes to meet up with a bunch of people who buy our fleeces each year. Queso asked her to say “hello” from all of us. I just hope that we can put up with the old grumpy guy for over a week. We will try to humor him, but who knows….

Posted in Farm, Fleeces & Wool, Sheep, What's New | 1 Comment »

Turning the Corner into Autumn

Saturday, October 9th, 2010

It hardly seems that over a month has passed since we witnessed the great Monarch butterfly spectacle. Within a week of the peak of their assembly, they had virtually disappeared, aided, I am sure, by more northerly winds and spurred on by falling temperatures. Since their departure we have experienced a continuation of the unusually heavy and steady flow of rain across Wisconsin. The first week of October brought especially heavy amounts of moisture. Luckily we were spared the serious flooding that much of the central and western portions of the state experienced. Interestingly, I am still seeing a few Monarchs every day, nearly always heading south. I suspect they are the late hatched brood, many of whom were mere caterpillars when the big exodus occurred five weeks ago.

Early morning grazing

The rain has kept the pastures green. It has been a phenomenal year to be a grazier. We finally gave up trying to cut and bale hay. This was in part due to the fact that the barn was nearly full, and partly due to the fact that with shortening hours of day light and continued downpours of rain, it was evermore difficult to get the hay to dry sufficiently to be able to bale it. However, the sheep took over for us. Since the second full week of September they have been grazing what is normally our hay field. They have made a dent in the excess amount of hay, but they will never finish the entire field. As it is, they (and they shepherd) now have an extremely long hike to make it out to pasture every morning. In two more days they will be on the northern edge of the field, just across the road from our neighbor, Pat. That distance will just about exhaust our supply of portable electric fence and posts. In addition it will be at the very edge of our permanent water supply which, even with extra hoses, is a long way to pump drinking water for them.

The rams are ready!

Aside from all the physical limitations, the calendar is also catching up with the flock. Next week the younger ewes will get divided into smaller groups and will get to meet and spend the early fall with the ram of their dreams. Breeding season is nearly upon us. The rams are definitely ready as is evident both from their behavior and their smell. Exciting times are soon to be upon all of us!

Despite the advance of the fall season, we have yet to experience a truly hard frost. We had one night in early October in which the vegetable garden was effectively “put to bed” for the season. We did have a hint that frost was to come, so that the last of the tomatoes, peppers, melons and squash were harvested the afternoon before. The annual flowers that are out in the open have also been frosted out, but nearly everything growing near the buildings has, to date, been spared. marigolds-1 Besides harvesting the vegetables, we also picked nearly all the marigold blossoms and sorted them into three different shades. The dye pot and dyer have since been busy. The result has been a growing collection of lovely shades of dark to light yellow skeins of yarn. It is also artichoke season; every meal of artichokes also produces enough dye stuff for a skein of light green yarn.

Gnome canopies

Thanks to the nearly constant high levels of moisture it has also been a season of tremendous numbers of wild mushrooms. A few days ago we took time off to walk through the Logan Creek Sanctuary (which is just a mile or so away). The volume of mushrooms was only made insignificant by their diversity. It was literally impossible to take a few steps before coming across another variety more beautiful or bizarre than the next. After an hour in the woods we began to expect a group of gnomes to appear amongst the fungi.

Gnome territory

Sadly, they remained too allusive for us to see. We need to consult with the sheep since we know they have regular contact with the gnomes. Perhaps next trip into the woods….

Gnomes in hiding

Posted in Farm, Fiber Projects, Sheep, What's New | 2 Comments »

Nanoo Nanoo’s News

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

Hello everyone! It is Nanoo Nanoo, the voice of reason, sanity and sheep. It has been a long, long time since I logged into the online world. To be honest, it has been just too hot and too humid for me to spend time trying to hack into the old bearded guy’s computer, just so that I could write something for you of the non-ovine world. The flock knows what is going on, so there is no reason to keep them informed with stuff they already know. At least the weather is now finally more comfortable. So I am back with all the news that is of importance! I am sure that you may be wondering what we sheep have been up to recently. So let me see if I can give it a shot.

Besides the weather being hot and humid, it has also rained an extraordinary amount here this summer. It has meant that there has been plenty of fresh green pasture for all of us to graze. For that we are forever thankful, because we remember all too well what a hot dry summer can do to our pastures. When that happens, not only does that mean that the old shepherd guy has to feed us baled hay in big feeders out on the pastures, but it means that the bearded guy can get exceedingly grumpy (not to mention depressed). With all the green grass he, at least, has been a lot easier to deal with. Every so often we do hear him grousing about how hard it has been to bale hay, but that seems to be as far as his complaints have been traveling.

heading-for-pasture

Here is a picture of us heading out to pasture in the early morning. You may notice a few black specks on the picture. Queso assures me that it is not dirt on the lens, but rather some of the multitude of barn swallows that share home with us each summer. They are always very excited when we go out in the morning since we always stir-up lots of bugs for them for their breakfast. The last of their second broods of young are just about all fledged. This nest, crammed full with six babies, took flight the morning after this picture was taken.

6-barnswallows

We were also quite excited because we had a flock of their Purple Martin cousins visit us for a few days a week or so ago. It would appear that they had finished raising their broods and were getting ready to move south. It is always nice to add their song to the morning chorus. We just wish they could have stayed around a bit longer!

From what we can gather the flock is pretty much at its over-wintering numbers (which amounts to about 130). We were sad to see a lot of our lambs depart, but at least most of them were headed to good new homes. Thirteen of the young ewes recently left for a place in southern Wisconsin and another eleven went all the way to western Montana. (In think that is a long ways off, but Queso and I have yet to figure it out. We do know it is not in the same direction as Denmark.) A couple of the older gals and a ram lamb, Zeus, also headed south to new homes.

Wendolyn waiting for company

The rest of us have kept busy entertaining and enlightening the humans who stay at the Bed and Breakfast. That can be exhausting. Just because they have finished their breakfasts, they think that we too should be finished with ours. They do not understand that sheep meals are a much more cultured experience, which needs to be drawn out and savored. But we try to put on a good show. It lets the nice lady show off our wool and heap us with praise. It also keeps the old bearded guy in good spirits. Lots of these folks end up taking pictures of all of us. We keep wishing that they might send us copies that we could share with the rest of you. We also try to avoid stepping on their toes, since we know that would not be good for public relations!

One of the other reasons I have not been online of late is that I have had to work at my job as editor of Baabaadoo Press. It seems that people who have been reading the old shepherd guy’s book have been letting him know that he had a bunch of typographical errors. So before he started blaming me for all of them, I figured that I had better give the book a “run through” again and make any necessary corrections. Hopefully I caught and corrected most of them. 320_8419887 I must admit that I was guilty of one boo-boo. I wrote about the “breaded” shepherd. But maybe that was intentional, on one of those days when we were thinking he might be better off breaded and fried. In any case, we got the corrections made. Hopefully Ruminations of a Grumpy Shepherd is now better reading for those sensitive to spelling and grammar. It is now safe to buy the book either soft-bound or hard-backed. So much for my “non-ovinish” plug!

Well there is green grass, clover and trefoil waiting for me so I must be off to pasture. It is, after all, lunch time!

Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Sheep, What's New | 4 Comments »

Sloggin’ through the Summer

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

It seems that some folks are wondering if we are still here. Rest assured, we are still alive and kicking, albeit with a little more sweat on our brows than normal! It has been an “interesting” summer to say the least. A spring that threatened to be extra dry has transformed into a wet and warm summer. Rain has been a regular occurrence throughout June and July. With it has been a steady stream of warmer than usual temperatures. At least the sunflowers seem happy!

sunflower-1 From a farming standpoint, the warmth and moisture has presented us with the ultimate challenge of trying to cut and bale quality hay for the sheep for this winter. We have only miss-guessed once and had newly cut hay heavily rained on. Luckily it was not too much hay. Nonetheless it baled into about 65 bales of nutritionless bedding instead of lush, green hay. We usually need three straight days of dry weather to get the hay cut, cured and baled (although we have managed a few successful two day “windows”). Our greatest problem has been getting Mother Nature to allow us those three straight days with any frequency. We have been cautious and have not had the cut hay rained on too much, but our caution has slowed the entire process down excessively. Some of our caution has also been based upon the fields often being too wet to support our tractors and equipment without leaving significant ruts across the field.

The sheep have had their own challenges with the hay. Their problem has been having too much to eat. The pastures that they grazed just a few days previously begin to regenerate rapidly. As a result, by the time they return to the same pasture it is once again deep, green and lush. This picture perhaps summarizes our “plight”. grazing-aug The sheep are belly-deep in lush green pasture while just beyond the fence are some of our hay wagons partially full of hay in the main hay field with yet more hay to be cut.

The wet conditions have at least allowed us some time to wander at bit. The water in this picture is not one of the larger puddles in one of the hay fields. It is, however, quite close to us, just down the road a mile or two. It is Lake Michigan, along one of the rockier portions of the shoreline in Whitefish Dunes State Park, our next door neighbor. whitefish-dunes Inland in the woods, just a few feet from the shoreline is further testimony to how damp it has been. Everywhere seems to be mushroom heaven. mushrooms-aug If we cannot be outside working at least there things to be done with wool. Gretchen’s naturally hand-dyed yarn does eventually find its way into finished products. The warp of the nearly complete shawl is a mix of natural white and gray yarn dyed with mullein leaves, buckthorn berries, and eucalyptus leaves. The weft is undyed white. Of course, it is a given that all the yarn is made from the wool of our sheep.

weaving-shawl We continue to slog onward. Perhaps when I get around to returning to the Ewe Turn we may even be done with haying!

Posted in Farm, Fiber Projects, General, Sheep | 6 Comments »

It’s Raining!

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

So much has changed here in the last three weeks. The bulk of the changes are attributable to the rain that we have been receiving. If one looks closely at the image in the previous posting, which showed one of the crab apples in bloom at the end of May, it is possible to see that the grass was starting to turn brown. By the first week of June we were starting to fear the possibility of a drought. Any such concerns have been washed away by repeated rains, some quite heavy. We have recorded ten days of the first 26 in June in which we have received measurable rain. The pastures are lush, green and growing faster than the sheep can graze them. In her picture, Trudi has volunteered to show just how deep the grass and clover is in the “Orchard” pasture.

Trudi

Sometimes it seems that the sheep are as amazed as we are with the way things are growing. The look on Trudi’s face seems to at least express that notion. In reality, the nutritionally quality of the pastures has suffered. The grasses have bolted and are going to seed and the clovers are now advancing toward full bloom. In addition, a fair amount of the forage is being wasted, as the sheep are trampling much that would have been eaten were it not so tall. Nonetheless, Hope is seemingly quite content with her breakfast. At 14 year’s of age Hope is still going strong. She out distances any other member of the flock in terms of age.

Hope, enjoying breakfast

At least the sheep have been able to graze throughout most of the rainy weather. They stayed in the barn (quite grudgingly) on two days, one with nearly two inches of rain and a second with nearly 3 inches. Luckily they had already been on the sections of pasture which tend to puddle up if the ground becomes saturated. We have had much less success attempting to cut and bale our hay. The time between the rains has generally been too short to allow it to dry sufficiently to be baled. To date we have only cut the six outer rounds of our largest hay field. Of those six rounds, four were successfully baled and the remaining two were saturated before we could bale them. (They now have been baled, but only for bedding, as the rain washed any nutritional value from the hay before we could bale it.) The remaining 60 rounds still await to be cut, at a time when we should be finished.

Shoulder deep in clover

Our vegetable garden has been another near fatality of all the wet weather. We managed to get enough of the ground cultivated to transplant our usual tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Another break in the weather permitted cultivation of enough area to plant seeds for squash and some of the melons. The remaining two thirds of the space is rank with weeds and currently too damp to cultivate. When and if it ever gets worked over and planted is anyone’s guess at this point. At least the pastures are so thick with food that many of the usual threats to the garden have not attempted any attacks. Our local woodchuck family seems quite content with their territory in the Fourth Pasture (also know as the “Rock Garden”). The largest pile of boulders makes for a cool spot upon which to rest and watch the sun set. As long as Chucky stays there, everyone is happy!

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Green Grass and a Shepherds’ Market

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Yesterday the old bearded shepherd guy said to me, “Nanoo Nanoo, what do you and the rest of the girls think about getting out onto pasture today?” Needless to say, I hardly had to take any poll; it was a unanimous and resounding “YES“. As a result, the old guy and the nice lady arranged for us to take all the lambs with us and head out to pasture for the first time this year. Were we ever glad about that, although, I must admit that many of us were not too lady-like in our rush to get out the door. It was also the first time that all of us girls were together this year, as the old guy kindly let last year’s ewe lambs join us for the festivities. The only ones who could not join us were the rams, but that was just as well, knowing how rams are!

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Today is now our second day on pasture. I am proud to say that nearly all of this year’s lambs were pretty quick to figure out that going outside was not as spooky as they sometimes think it is. Maybe in a day or so the old grump will not even have to chase after the stragglers to make sure they stay up with us. It is quite a sight all of us together. There are 207 of us adults and lambs all in the group. Fresh grass, clover and trefoil never tastes better than it does on these first few days outside. We are in the first pasture, working our way south. Tomorrow we will be under most of the apple trees. Everything is so early this year, even the apples are starting to bloom. Today were were happy to greet the first Bobolinks back to the farm. Three males serenaded us all morning, either flying high above us or perched at the very top of the couple of ash trees that border the western edge of the first pasture. It is always nice to have music while we graze. We look forward to the days we graze in the pasture next to the big hay field when the Bobolinks can sit on the fence posts next to us and regale us with tales of their winter in South American.

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Besides getting us out onto pasture the shepherds have been busy the last few days. The Bed and Breakfast has been open for the season since the beginning of May. This morning was the first day that we had visitors from the B&B on pasture. It is always fun seeing old and new faces (and getting a few extra chin rubs to boot!).

The big push this week is getting the farm ready for the annual Shepherds’ Market. It is taking place next Saturday and Sunday. It is an excellent chance to see what can be done with our wool and the fibers from our cousins the angora goats, llamas and alpacas. In addition you can purchase lots of fiber, yarn and finish items; the proceeds from which goes to support all of us. I would be remiss if I did not also remind you that the old shepherd guy’s book, Ruminations a Grumpy Shepherd, will be for sale at the Market. (I need to talk to the old guy, he forgets to plug our work and instead just writes about morels and asparagus!)

Yo Yo Baa and friends waiting for the Shepherds' Market

Queso and I, along with all the girls and their lambs will probably be in the forth pasture those days. It is just down the hill from the gallery building, so we should be able to send you a greeting across the pasture if you happen to stop by the Market this weekend. I hope we see lots of you!

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Crazy, Mixed-up Spring

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

After what has been a bizarre couple of weeks we are able to return to the blog. The delayed return is ultimately weather related. In early April we were experiencing unusually mild spring weather, when suddenly we were hit by a heavy, wet snow. One of the results of the wet snow was a series of rapid and repeated power outages due to numerous over-laden tree branches shorting out local power lines. For whatever reason, those outages caused damages to our computer. The timing was exceedingly poor as we were fast approaching the on-line sale of our fleeces. Notices had been sent, customers were waiting and the computer began to die a slow, fitful death.

For those unfamiliar with the annual sale, it is a very intense and rapid event. (It has been described to us as, among other things a “fleece feeding frenzy” and a “bun fight”.) In good times, close to 130 fleeces sell within less than 36 hours (most of them within the first 4 hours). We decided to plug on with the sale on the 14th. We were already relying upon a back-up email system on an overworked, geriatric second computer. We managed to struggle through the first hour of the sale and then had to update the web-site to reflect the fleeces that had been sold. One change went through and then the computer took its last breath and died. From that point onward the sale involved larger numbers of emails and phone calls describing what was still really available. We eventually got a hold of the folks who run our ISP. They were at a conference out West, but were at least able to get the website updated again for us by the end of the day.

The next day Gretchen drove to Green Bay, purchased a lap-top PC, which, by the next day, we had running well enough to take back control of the web site. All the fleeces were sold and our thanks and great apologies go to all of our fleece buyers for their patience during the affair. During the next two weeks we have managed to purchase a new main computer and get a crash course in Windows 7 and learned how so much of our software and equipment is now out of date. Thanks Microsoft, for the extra frustration and need to purchase new equipment and software to replace that which was, otherwise, perfectly good. Thankfully we managed to salvage nearly all the data from the old computer.

Mother Nature has had further tricks up her sleeve. The early warm weather had spring events at least three weeks ahead of schedule. The cherry trees began blooming in late April. Spring wildflowers were also thrown out of sync. The Marsh Marigolds in our cedar-ash wetland have already been in full bloom. Our daffodils and tulips are nearly finished. In a cruel sort of twist we once again returned to cold weather. There is now a good chance that the cherry crop may have been damaged by two straight nights of hard frost this week. The asparagus crop was just high enough for the first picking. What ever was not picked is now frost damaged.

At least the pastures are a bit more tolerant of the temperature swings. The grass is now deep enough that we can start getting the flock out on pasture. That cannot happen too soon as far as the sheep and shepherds are concerned. There has been an awful lot of wishful gazing out the barn doors. Struedel is just one of many ewes who have their sights set on the new grass! struedl-5-911

The last couple of days have been spent getting the pastures ready. The above ground water system needed to be checked for winter freeze damage. It is now pressurized and ready to go. The perimeter fences had to be checked for winter damage. One section suffered from the heavy weight of large snow drifts during our December blizzard. One major post was broken off by the weight. It has been dug up and replaced with a beefier post. Checking all the perimeters of the fence can be a pleasant time if the weather cooperates. Much of the fence runs next to woodlands and it is a chance to look out for the first spring flowers. And if you know where to look there is a patch of wild asparagus which is also near a good spot for finding spring morels.

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With the threat of a hard frost we did not want to waste either asparagus or mushrooms. After a good days work here was at least a small reward for the next days breakfast fritata.

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Ewe Turn