Shari’s Gone Country

Finally, we got the trench completely backfilled, with the additional frost-free hydrant at the sheep pen. No more dragging hoses around (I’m talking about the really long ones), and then having to manually drain them in the sub-freezing weather.

The horses are a little undone. We’ve moved most of their water containers to a central location, adjacent to the frost-free at their corral. Dakota will continue to have her water barrel, as she still gets confined from time to time. You see, Dusty still thinks he’s “alpha”… Neche, the mare has yet to show him who’s boss.

We got two cords of aspen a couple weeks ago, and Cindy has been taking out any frustrations on the pile. She splits, and sometimes, I go out and stack. We’re stacking between the trees this year instead of hauling it around to the backyard. That will keep our dogs from using the wood pile as a personal toy box, hauling chunks everywhere.

Algernon, our ram has gone visiting.

Neighbor Clyde (the guy who helped us with leveling the stable area) has sheep, and his ram is a little young. Also, some of his ewes are cousins to Algernon, having been bred from his father.

At any rate, Bill ( a neighbor with a pickup) and Clyde came over Thursday night and got him. It was really funny, ’cause I knew they would be over, but thought they’d at least come to the door and let us get pictures of the great caper.

I went out after dinner, about an hour before sundown and noticed Algernon wasn’t in his pen. Well, that required a trip over to Clyde’s, where we found him in the height of glory. He was “grinnin’ and pickin’ “, having bred about half the ewe’s within the last hour.

I mentioned to Clyde that I thought he’d at least come to the door. His response…

“We thought we’d just go into the pen, put a rope on him, and put him in the truck, then come get you. Things didn’t turn out quite that way. Once I got a hold of him, he was more than a handful. It was all Bill and I could do to get him into the truck… so we just kept going.

After we got here, the dogs wanted to help, and he wasn’t ready for that… what a rodeo it was, just getting him from the truck into the pen”.

Later, I heard from one of his fellow church members that his arm is pretty skinned up… the result of Al dragging him around the pen. Even Bill asked Bev how much Algernon weighed. Bev’s answer: over 300 pounds.

Saturday brought more lousy weather, so once again, we laid low, doing only what we had to do. That meant getting chores done, and cleaning the horse pen. I needed the manure for the expanded compost pile.

Sunday… time to work the horses.

I got Dakota into the round pen and had a very good session. She remembered “back” with the rope wiggle, and even did a pretty good job of yielding her hindquarters, remembering to step over with her lead foot.

I lunged her for a while, without a lead line, asking her to change directions and turn inward to me. I can sure tell she’s a “right-brained” horse. Asking her to turn left and getting the proper result is challenging, so we’ll be doing extra repetitions on that side.

Neche was next. She was saddled, and Bev took her to the round pen. After some short lunging, Bev thought it would be time to ride her. After all, she’s well-broken. Things were going well enough that Cindy took Mom with her to Clyde’s place.

The idea was that Clyde was going to help Cindy with more of Dusty’s breaking. Well, Clyde wasn’t home, but his new calves had arrived. That kept Cindy and Mom there a little longer than expected.

Just before they left, Cindy had suggested that Bev ride Neche out of the round pen and onto our acreage. So far, so good.

Now, I’m not real sure if Bev has ridden much in the last 20 years, or how much she had ridden while growing up. I do know that no matter what she wanted to do (neck reigning), Neche wasn’t real responsive. Maybe is was the hackamore bridle that Bev wasn’t used to using.

At any rate… Neche wanted to go back to the round pen… so that’s where they went. Bev was tiring of walking in circles, and besides, her butt was starting to hurt. Maybe she should get off…

I wasn’t thinking, or I’d have offered to hold the reigns while she dismounted. Like me, Bev’s got short legs, and neither of us have enough “stretch” to get either from the ground to the stirrup, or visa versa.

Next thought… maybe Bev could ease Neche over to the rail, and just dismount onto the rail… yeah right.

At any rate, Bev had somehow taken her foot out of the right stirrup, and couldn’t get it back into the stirrup. Wearing tennis shoes wasn’t helping. Besides that, the stirrups on her saddle are real narrow.

All this time, they’re still walking around the edge of the round pen. That is, until Bev’s foot banged the round pen rail…

Neche is a bit spooky about the darndest things… The banging rail was all she needed. Let’s go to the left. Let’s go straight really fast for a couple of steps… gotta get away from that noise. Wait… what’s that on my back? Oh, it’s sliding off… going, gone.

And Bev was in a pile face-first, in the soft round pen sand. At least there was no manure.

I quickly checked to make sure she was conscious and then went to get Neche. I didn’t think she’d want Neche to walk on her at that point.

Fortunately, Bev’s only bruised… deeply, but no broken bones, and she’ll live to ride another day.

As for Neche… Well, when Cindy returned, she hopped on her and rode for quite a while. I’d love to have ridden, too, but Neche wanted no part of me, or the hay bale I was standing on to mount her. Talk about hurt feelings… it’s as if she looked at me and said, “No way, heavyweight! Bev was enough for one day.”

Oh boy, the little chicks are rapidly becoming young birds. Monday they turned 2 weeks old and got the run of virtually the entire coop.

The coop is 8 x 8 and built on a concrete pad that was already here. Their outside run hasn’t been fenced yet, but will extend about 32′ west of the SW corner and 25′ north of the NE corner and then complete the rectangle. We’ll then divide the pen diagonally back to the NW corner, establishing two separate runs.

I’m finding an inward opening screen door made from 1/2 inch hardware cloth would be a perfect addition. That way I can leave the door open and also when I want to go inside the coop, it will sweep the curious birds inward.

Tomorrow we’re building a “junior roost” to help the youngsters get up the the bigger roosts. I found one dropping, so someone has been working on their flying skills.

As soon as I see birds flying 4 feet or higher, it’s time to clip wings. These are all heavy breeds, so don’t really expect to repeat the process more than twice as they’re growing. After a while, they’ll learn flying isn’t something they have to do.

The final home for both water and feed will most likely be below the nest boxes (which aren’t completed yet).

Our plan is to hold off on a lot of the final construction until we can let the birds outside in about three weeks.

One thing we did learn, and will be correcting is that our big black lab could dig her way into the coop with not much effort. She’s dug into the engineered “plywood” enough to get our attention. Now a roll of flashing is on our list. We’ll be installing it around the coop base and up the corners.

Last week was one of “those” weeks.

Just after I wrote the last post, we had a quick family meeting…

Bev was asking us to approve her reasons for leaving the job she got in St. George. You see, she’s a cancer survivor, and the chemotherapy really slowed her down. She’s a retired cop and thought sure she could handle a dispatcher’s position.

Unfortunately, learning the new computer system and having to type while carrying on two different conversations, was more than her stress level could handle.

On top of that, fuel and food was costing about 40% of her take-home pay. And gas just keeps going up.

We all agreed that it was best. It would get her back on a regular schedule instead of shift work, and with Cindy going back to work at the farm, the income difference would be minimal.

After that, we settled in for a week of nasty weather… wind storms, rain, maybe snow and sleet. About all we did from Tuesday to Friday was go out to feed while struggling to stand up.

Bev returned to her “old job” driving the Senior Center bus. Thursday included a trip to St. George. Since I’m 61 and eligible to ride the bus… I am able to do the “animal feed” shopping and bring it back on the bus. At least that’s the feed that is bagged and any other equipment we can fit into the bus. Sure beats spending our gas money!

This weekend, Cindy, Bev, neighbor Dixie and I attended the “Downunder Horsemanship” seminar by Clinton Anderson. What an awesome time. Cindy and Dixie are the horse owners. In fact, Dixie is a breeder/trainer. Bev and I both love to ride, but have never owned our horses.

Starting later this week, I’ll be working a horse under Dixie’s tutelage.

While I grew up riding horses, took a couple years of English riding lessons, and earned my “horsewoman’s badge” in Girl Scouts, as an adult, I’ve had very limited time on a horse. I don’t really remember doing any “ground and foot work” with any of the horses. So this is all new territory for me.

About those fence post holes… we managed to fit everyone into our current configuration. We’ll dig a little later.

Ok, now we be sheep herders for sure!

Last weekend our neighbor, who has been so helpful to us came for help from us. She and hubby are giving serious thought to leaving the desert for Colorado. Her kids are settling there and she’d love to be closer to them. Also, employment for hubby (a welder) would be much better.

Anyways, she offered us her four Merino ewe’s at a really good price. The original plan was that we’d get them when they move and could make payments on them.

Wouldn’t you know it? She lost her “trade hay for horse training” deal, so no more feed means she has to disperse her flock immediately. She got a really sweet deal on her PolyPay flock and we are now moving the Merinos and lambs to our pen.

Yesterday was the first “roundup” day… No pics as it’s wasn’t the least bit pretty. Cindy got a good trampling and will have some ’splaining to do at her next mammogram (this week).

Here are pics of yesterday’s success.

This is Annie. She’s a yearling Merino. Until we get Dixie over here to clearly identify each one, I’m at a loss to say if she’s bred, had a lamb and lost it, or has not yet been bred.
This is Beulah. She’s a real prize as she dropped quads this year. She’s “Freezer’s” mama and those are his surviving brother (black w/white face) and sister.
We’ll be keeping the sister for our flock, while raising the little boy for Dixie’s freezer. In return, she’ll give us some of her lambing equipment. Ain’t it nice to have good neihbors?

Monday we enlarged the brooder as the peeps are now a week old. They’ve nearly doubled in size. Next week, they’ll get pretty much full run of the chicken coop… This is gonna be fun.

We’ve added some boards for roosts and the concrete block for a combination roost/toy. They now have almost 27 square feet of space.

In time, we’ll name the hens, but the cockerels (save one or two) will be nameless and headed for our dinner table and freezer by fall.

Don’t hold me to this… but we may be adding another horse, too. Eventually we want to have 3 horses so we can all ride together. I’ll need to find a Welsh Pony for myself as my legs are too short to hoist my lead-filled butt into the saddle on a full-sized horse.

Last time I rode (in 2000) I had to stand on the wagon tongue to mount a beautiful Appaloosa. At that time a friend and I were traveling The Oregon Trail and were doing a short Wyoming segment by covered wagon and horseback.

Ok, time to get out of here and start digging holes for fence posts. We have to enlarge our pen and get some lambing jugs built as our own ewe’s are both preggie. Don’t ya just love it?

Wednesday morning we got the call from the PO… we have a box of peeping chicks for you.

Bev, Cindy, and I quickly got all the chores done. That meant feed the horse, the sheep, prepare the bottles for the lambs and get them fed, and make sure everything was right for the peeps, including turn on the brooder light to preheat their new home.

The gals at the PO had already “inspected” the chicks. Apparently they peek at each shipment… they’re just so darned cute. They also told us this was the healthiest batch of chicks they had seen come through the Post Office this year.

Our hatchery of choice is Welp. They’re located in Bancroft, IN, but have “satellite” facilities elsewhere. Our chicks originated in Albuquerque, NM. That’s one reason they are so bright and healthy.
We taught each how to drink before moving them to their new home. What a hoot! Mom was inspecting each one before handing them off to either Cindy or myself. Bev was taking the pictures.

Their brooder is in the chicken coop so we never have to fully relocate them, just remove the carboard from around them and spread more shavings. We can even expand the brooder in a week or so when they really become active.
Ok, so what did we get?

We got 5 Astrolorp females and 5 Astrolorp males, 5 Plymouth Barred Rock females, 5 Buff Orpington females, 5 White Rock straight run, 5 Golden Laced Wyandotte straight run, and 5 Silver Laced Wyandotte straight run.

That will give us a good assortment of brown egg layers, as well as some very tasty meat. Mom wanted lots of “color” so we have black, black and white, brown and white, red, golden, and white birds.

The first day we monitored them every 30 minutes and then finally every hour. By bed time, we were pretty confident, but I did get up at 1 AM to check/adjust the temp and then again at 6 AM.

Believe me, our dogs think we’re nuts. We finally had to leash two at a time and take them on a farm tour after the big black Lab (the only one that gets out without a leash) reported back to the rest. She’s still patrolling the coop exterior looking for a way in… I figure she’ll be a great help if we ever have a problem.