Shari’s Gone Country

Last Thursday evening we went over to Clyde’s to get the ram we’re using this year. As you may recall, we took Algernon to auction after he got too agressive and dangerous. Too bad, too, as he was a real good-looking guy. His fleece wasn’t quite what I wanted, but he sure sired some nice lambs.

Oh well, we’re saving at least a half a stack of hay by only “borrowing” a ram for breeding. There’s really no use for them beyond one month out of the year.

So begins the saga…

Clyde herded his flock into his little shelter and roped the ram, letting “his girls” go back to pasture. This was when we go our first look at him. Now, he’s supposed to be a Polypay from the neighboring farm where they run a flock of over 2000 ewes.

As the story goes, they just bought this boy.

Once roped, I held the rope (we knew that roll bar would be good for something) while Cindy and Clyde lifted the ram into the pickup. Estimated weight is about 250 lbs, nearly 100 lbs less than “Algernon”. Don’t worry, Clyde and his grandson, Kixx, rode in the back with him as we took off for our farm.

From the looks of him, he’s at least four years old and is more likely a cross of Delaine Merino and Dorset (which are two of the foundation breeds of Polypay). His feet really need trimming, but that’s not on our adjenda. As for his “cojones”, they’re adequate, but nothing to write home about.

A short ride to our place, and we turned him loose.

Now, you normally see a “whole lot of grinning” from the ram when he meets a new flock of ewes. Ours took one look at him and ran away! And, would you believe?… He merely ambled after them? We were out there for nearly 30 minutes watching the girls run, and him follow slowly after them.

Clyde was laughing at us because we insist on using a “breeding harness”. That’s that strap system on the ram with a “marking crayon”. It works like this… When the ram mounts the ewe, the crayon rubs off on her fleece. That way we can get an idea if he’s at least shown enough interest to attempt a breeding. The more (and darker) marks, the more likely a successful breeding.

So far, after a full week, he’s bred two and messed with another one. Bev has given him ’til the end of the month to get his job done. After all, this is a “working farm” and the animals are expected to keep up their end of the bargain.

Last week, one of our dear neighbors needed a week off to go north to be with her hubby who is a school principal in Altamonte. That’s about a 6 hour drive or so. They spend their summers here, and then the whole family goes north for the winter. With our awesome weather, their garden isn’t quite ready to leave for the winter, so Jill stayed behind to get things finished.

She asked if we would feed the goats, sheep, chickens, cats and dogs. Of course, we’d be happy to… and that meant learning how to milk the last two nanny goats. So, a week ago last Friday night we went to learn how to milk goats.

I’d milked a few cows as a kid, but I was much skinnier then, and the “old bones” weren’t as stiff either. Cindy got the hang of it right away, even she was only milking “one handed”. She preferred to hold onto the bucket with the other hand. As for Bev, well the flies were a problem so she declined on the milking task.

Here’s the really good news. All the milk went back to the animals. The cats and dog got several saucer-fulls. There were three orphan kids to feed, and they weren’t real shy about letting you know they were ready. Then the chickens got whatever was left.

In my opinion, the sanitation could have been better, but that would have added to the job. Because the animals got the milk, there was no washing or even rinsing of the buckets (plastic pails), bottles, or pans. This system works for this neighbor, as she has rarely ever had a sick animal as a result of lack of sanitation.

Feeding the goats was a challenge as the kids could get through the cattle panels with no problems. So here we are, pawing around a haystack, determining which flakes have no mold (a common problem with hay that’s a year old), and trying to throw it to the right place, while we have three or four kid goats “helping”. They were in our faces, on our backs and in general just really pesky.

The first night, I tackled the milking. Both goats know the routine by heart… Sure wish I did!. I got the first gal out and she climbed onto the primitive stanchion kinda’ sorta’ looking at me as if to say…”Hey stupid! Where’s my grain?”

I was getting it… just not fast enough. I barely got her collar hooked to keep her in place!

On to the task of milking. You probably imagine me (all 250 lbs of me) sitting on a little stool, just doing my thing. Well, instead of stool, it was a cinder block, not quite as high as a stool. Folding my legs under caused them to “go to sleep”… not good when you have to stand up. Finally, I stretched one leg to behind the goat, risking she’d back off the stanchion and and step on me. The other leg really had no where to go, but into kind of a “half crossed leg” position.

The wind was blowing about 20 mph, and the flies were still atrocious. Oh, and it was about 80 degrees!

I got enough milk to hand the bucket off to Cindy to get the first bottle filled. Oops, the wind blew the bottle over just as she was pouring… Someone’s gonna have a short dinner. We repeated this process a couple of times, getting just enough milk to feed two of the kids and the dog.

Second goat… named “Schizophrenic”… get the picture? Flies kinda freak her out, so I had still more spilled milk. Oh yes, and I wore plenty of it, too. Even the kids Cindy was feeding were wearing their milk as they pulled the nipple right off the bottle!

And this was just the first night… It was gonna be a long week.

Cindy’s experience wasn’t much better at first. But we all agreed, it was more sensible for her to milk, and for me to feed. Bev joined us after the first night and we split the chores. I’d head for the chickens to feed, water and collect the eggs, returning the eggs to the truck so we could take those to the house. Bev would head for the hay stack to feed the various goats and sheep. Cindy would immediately begin milking.

We’d trade off the watering depending upon who had how much to do when it came to getting hay distributed, etc. I pretty much handled feeding the three kid goats. Two of them always came to the fence for their bottles and a third one had to be “coaxed” from the hay. I hardly ever had to really try to catch her… she learned right away that I was “good news”.

By the end of the week, three of us could do what the neighbor does… ‘cept it took us three times as long.

I love this time of year!

It’s that time when we take a minute (or an hour) to just sit and watch the sheep, the cow, the chickens we’re now letting truly free-range, and all the other wildlife.

Our little garden patches yielded goodies this year for the first time in three years. We’ve been enjoying ripe tomatoes, fresh potatoes, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, onions and garlic. Our corn may not make it in time, and the eggplant is questionable.

Once again, we planted winter squash (spaghetti, acorn and butternut) in hopes we’ll get not only enough for ourselves, but also enough to take to market.

Ever the optimist, Cindy planted watermelon, the small seedless variety in hopes of getting at least one ripe melon. We’ve been covering them, as well as the squash, every night since our first frost Sept 1.

Over Labor Day weekend, we rented a tractor (they call them skip loaders in this area) with a bucket and a grading box so we could rearrange some of our sand and clean out part of the sheep pen. We had to go to St George to pick it up on Friday afternoon, but were able to keep it until the following Tuesday morning. For the weekend, we could use it 8 hours. Additional hours cost extra… no problem!

What follows is a snapshot of what was and now, what is.

We smoothed off a lot of “dunes and tumbleweeds” around the horse corral as well as made “homes” for each stack of hay (72 bale stacks… that’s a little over 4 tons per stack).

Before…

After…

Like I said, our little boys had been sent to the holding pens awaiting their turn in the auction ring. Considering how they’d acted since being taken from their cushy surroundings, God only knew what they’d do in the ring.

Sheep and goats auctioned earlier would run around the ring. Some posed, as if to say… “I’m worth more money!” Others acted frightened, wanting only to escape through the rails, or out the wrong door. Most, however, seem to know “you go in this door, and out that door”, only pausing for about 30 seconds in the ring.

Our sheep refused to come into the ring voluntarily. They had to be pushed and prodded. Once there, the three of them huddled together for security as if to say… “If I hide my head, maybe all this stuff will quit happening.”

Picture this…

All the other sheep have been the classic Polypay or Suffolk breed raised around here. They’re all pastured and self-confident. Sure, there were a few “old gals” who looked pretty scruffy. There was also a small flock of lambs that looked as though they were closer to yearlings than lambs.

On the other hand, our “little” guys had been raised in a pen, with lots of personal attention. They weren’t bottle babies, but we spend a lot of time taming our animals to make them somewhat easier to catch and handle.

They were all black, and still had their gonads, two things that are considered major mark-downs at auction. Considering the prices for the other sheep were going in the neighborhood of 78 to 83 dollars per hundred weight, and knowing the mark-down (as much as $25/cwt), we figured if we got $50-60 per animal, we’d be doing well.

The first comments I heard from the old men behind us were… “4-H sheep!”…”I didn’t know anyone raised black on purpose!”. From a woman who manages a 1500 head sheep ranch… “You’re gonna lose $25 a head to price on them.”

And the bidding continued… 88, bid-a-bid-a-bid 89, 90, 91… 92, sold!

The buyer? The largest wholesaler at the auction, who had also purchased our ram (their daddy) a couple months earlier.

At $92/cwt, that was the highest price paid for any lambs since the day we took our ram to market. On that day, our neighbor got $99/cwt for his lamb crop.

With that, the ringmen shoved, pushed and otherwise pleaded with our boys to go through the “out” door. As for the old men… they were speechless.

Besides struggling to get this update working, we took our lambs to market last Thursday.

One little guy was sold to a private party, so we delivered him to the “custom butcher”. Our goal is to eventually sell all our lambs that way.

Now, on to the REAL shocker!

Our little guys still had their gonads, as that was the way our Mexican neighbors had asked for them. When time came to buy them, our neighbors plans changed, as “Grandma” had returned to Mexico and the boys weren’t “lamb eaters”.

That’s when we began offering them at the Farmers’ Market in Cedar City. We used a flyer with their pictures in the pen and provided all the details. We sold one little guy that way.

The other three would have to go to the local auction.

Since it’s such a long trip (90 miles round trip), we also offered to take the neighbor’s steers to auction. After all, we are able to borrow a 4-horse bumper pull trailer. So, the night before, we loaded the steers, giving them the run of the trailer until morning.

At daybreak, we went to load the lambs. Wouldn’t you know it, they had other ideas, including a couple escaping under the door for a walkabout. Some 40 minutes later, Cindy and I physically picked the boys up and loaded them one-by-one into the trailer.

At the custom butcher site, the guy there wanted us to put the truck and trailer into a spot that was about a foot too narrow, so “plan b” for off-loading the first lamb. “There’s a big one, and a little one… pick from the other two, please.” With that, the butcher guy grabbed the first available hind leg and jumped down from the trailer. He then wrestled, pushed, pulled and otherwise worked his way to the holding pen. We left.

Off to the auction…

The last time at the auction was “horse day”. Cindy and I were trying to explain to Bev about the congestion in the parking lot/loading area. That day you couldn’t move for horses, trailers, kids, farmers, etc.

We pulled in this time and wondered if there was even going to be an auction… no one around, ‘cept the tenders down by the cattle drop-off.

Bev found a guy (one of the workers) who kindly agreed to help us with the lambs. You have to back into the off-load chute and then herd your own animals into a holding pen. She’s not real comfortable backing a borrowed trailer into a chute, so he did that chore for us.

Time to off-load, and wouldn’t ya’ know it… our boys wanted no part of process. They did their best to stay ON the trailer. We wrestled, pulled, pushed and nearly carried them to the holding pen. I stayed to sign for them while Bev and Cindy drove off to unload Amber’s steers.

Now, the last time we were there, we were nearly attacked by the “sign in girl” as there were folks trying to “make deals” to buy the sheep right off the trailer (before the auction). This morning, she was no where around.

I waited and waited, until she finally showed up.

When she got there, she found sheep that had been “checked in”… that meant the guy ahead of us had filled out the auction papers, loaded his sheep into a pen, and left. I didn’t know we were supposed to fill in our own paperwork. She picked up his stuff, looked at his animals and left me standing there, dazed and confused. Finally I did the paperwork, and went to find Cindy and Bev.

Off-loading cattle is a whole different story. They’ve got this neat “drive-through” and plenty of help off-loading the cattle. One guy opens the “drive-in” gate and closes it behind you. The next guy opens your trailer gate (that blocks the drive out side) and the cattle are happy to get out of the trailer. They quickly herd them through a series of gates as your paperwork catches up. Once into the holding pens, they are then driven by horseback to the proper order for the auction.

By now, it was nearly 9 AM. But wait… the auction didn’t start until 11 AM. What an excuse for a leisurely farm breakfast at the local restaurant attached to the auction yard.