We’ve been, understandably, sheep-centric this week on the updates. Here are brief summaries on the sheep and several other topics.
Orphan lamb: I’ve decided grafting the lamb to Constellation might be the best option. It’s been nearly a week since she lost her lambs, but I’m hoping some mothering instincts will kick in. I’ve got the lamb in the dog crate and Constellation in the stall with her and I’ve been milking the ewe and feeding it directly to the lamb from a bottle. Constellation went out in the nearby fenced yard during the day so she could get some grass.
Other lambs: There were no roaring crowds, mint juleps, or fancy hats, money exchanged, or a clear distance with a start and finish line but all the participants ran hard and felt like winners in impromptu lamb races on what should have been the day of the Kentucky Derby. Even at less than a week old, the lambs enjoyed the beautiful weather as a group.
New ram: I contacted the breeder where I got the ram that died from on Monday to see if she might have any ram’s available this fall and she told me she’d they’d recently been castrated. Too bad, because I was really intrigued by using more of those Heritage Suffolk genetics as a teminal sire in my mixed-breed flock because I think it’ll add some rapid growth capabilities for the lambs to be marketed. She then told me she her ram (The sire of the one who died) was scheduled to get picked up to go to the butcher with culls from another farm on Wednesday since she’d expanded her flock and no longer had a place to keep him; but I could pretty much have him if I picked him up soon and allowed her breeding rights in the fall. It turns out the butcher he was going to was 45 minutes away from here in Athol so I met the truck and picked him up; saving me the more than 6 hour round trip to northern Vermont. I think he is going to fit right in… he got out of his quarantine pen twice already.
Horses: Doing well; and since the upper level jumperbarn where Liz rides and takes lessons is also closed due to the government restrictions, she’s been able to exercise and train Tucker a couple times and may again. I think she likes him and she’s an excellent rider so he’ll benefit from her training.
Fencing project: We now have all the holes augered and need to finish opening them up with the bar and hand post hole digger. Matt’s been coming with Liz and helping with the fence while she rides. I’m glad the two of them are in our social distancing circle!
Peacocks: I thought the hen had started sitting on the eggs to incubate them but she then ignored the nest an entire week. Maybe the sheep in the adjacent lambing pen intimidated her too much. Then today there was a 9th egg. Whatever happens with all that doesn’t really matter as I don’t need any more peafowl. We’ll let nature take its course and she can figure out what she wants to do.
Barn swallows: There was only one lonely-looking swallow in the outbarn during those two rainy days we had early in the week. Then the morning it stopped, Wednesday perhaps, there were a bunch of them. I tried to get a head count but, like unruly first graders, they wouldn’t hold still. They’d be sitting on the electrical conduit and one would dart out the front door of the barn, swoop around, and enter in the open section in the back of the barn just as two others would be leaving. I think there were seven that morning. Now there are at least four pairs repairing nests in the outbarn and others in the barn attached to the house.
Garden: I’ve started hardening off some of the brassicas by putting them in a sheltered part of the wood shed where they can still get some sun in preparing them to be transplanted in the garden. The mother ewe and triplets snuck by there on there way to pasture and chomped off a nearly a dozen of them in about 8 seconds. I still have plenty but I need to fortify that area better. I aso have to transfer some of the other veggies into larger pots.
Outdoor wood boiler: As usual this time of year, I shut down the furnace for the summer. The wood stove heats water which is pumped to the house and heats the house for the winter. When it is in use I feed it 2 to 4 times a day or even more in the bitter cold weather. I still need to clean it out and prepare it to sit for the summer as well as stack the woodpile; but it’s nice to have next year’s wood cut and one less daily chore I don’t have to do for a while!
Hope you all feel like winners in social distancing. Have a blessed sabbath tomorrow.
First photo: Constellation and the orphan lamb; hopefully bonding.
Second photo: The lambs getting ready for another race.
Third photo: The new ram seems to be of the friendly sort.
