Shari’s Gone Country

Here I was, working away on the computer when Cindy breezed by… “Let’s see how Dakota likes a saddle.”

Sure, we’ll just saunter out into the 100 degree heat, halter her, and put a saddle on her. Shouldn’t take more than few minutes, and I’ll escape from the heat again.

Would you believe that after haltering her, locking Dusty in his stall so we’d have less interference, we were out there for a good 45 minutes.

Here’s a photo journal of what transpired. Keep in mind, she’s just a little over 2 years old.

This past week has been a very busy one, for sure.

First, we teamed up with “neighbor Clyde” again to dig 23 post holes. His old tractor and 12 inch auger got a real workout. The first two posts were done up front where we’re replacing a fence with a gate. More about that later.

The next major project was 21 post holes for our “desert-style” round pen.

We’re making this one with cedar posts and some kind of fencing. It is a 50′ pen, just like the “real cowboy type” steel pen. The major differences… it’s a lot cheaper, you can’t climb on it, and it’s not portable. A mere 2 hours 45 minutes later, with lot’s of sweat equity (literally) the holes were all dug.

Oh, we also bought our new steel round pen, having returned the borrowed one several months ago. At nearly $1300, that was a major expense for this year. Now we have plenty of room to work the horses.

The garden is coming along nicely. In fact just today, we harvested our first broccoli.

Shortly we’ll have onions and shallots. The rhubarb was cut a couple weeks ago, and has been a nice addition to our table.

This year, maybe… just maybe, we’ll have fresh tomatoes. By putting them in the greenhouse, we’ve been able to keep them alive, and even have gotten them to polinate.

We all make the habit of giving the little blossoms a shake-shake each time we water. Yes, there are many green tomatoes right now… time for them to start ripening!

Ever since we sheared the sheep, and I put up the “Our Fleeces” page, we’ve been struggling with negative feedback regarding the staple length. What’s a girl to do, ‘cept more research!

I called folks all over Utah, and finally found some nice “sheep people” in both Oregon and California who were able to provide detailed information on what kind of sheep we have, and what we’ll need to do to improve our little flock.

Now, I’m the one who is most adamant about our “hobbies” providing some kind of return whenever possible.

The chickens provide us eggs, which we sometimes sell. Of course, since that’s Mom’s hobby, she gets to keep any egg money for her own use.

The horses are strictly for our own enjoyment. Besides, I’ve met few horses that ever paid for their own keep, let alone their own feed.

The sheep, though… they’re a “cash crop” in my eyes. We breed them. They produce lambs to both increase our flock size and to sell for meat. I also expect them to provide some wool to sell… and that’s where we’re having an issue.

These sheep were represented as black “Merino” sheep by the person who sold them to us. I believe her as she was led to believe they were “Merino”. Only one small problem… their fleece isn’t as “fine feeling” as the Polypay, and that’s not right.

Shortly after I got here (Dec 2006) we bought a ram, who was represented as 3/4 Merino x 1/4 Suffolk. He’s a big boy and over the past winter, developed a rather nasty attitude.

After much searching around, I believe what we really have are a type (not sure of the breed) of sheep called “marker sheep”. They are the one’s large sheep stations use to help them count their sheep. By maintaining about 1 black sheep per 100 white ones, they can easily count the black one’s and know if they have the whole flock in sight.

What’s all this mean?

Well, it means the fleeces we have for sale, are no longer for sale to spinners, as there’s no way they can meet the quality standards. It also means the ram we have is not the right ram for us. He can’t improve the fleece, and with his attitude, he’s really too dangerous for we women.

Now, this has caused a bit of consternation around here, as I pretty much did the research, presented the “bad news”, and set forth to make corrections without much input from anyone else… not the best decision I’ve ever made.

I am making the fleece available for alternative uses.

For example, we use it to line our chicken nests. The girls love it! They snuggle down in it and when they lay eggs, they are so nice and clean. With the cost of straw, our fleece is very cost effective.

You can also use fleece (wool) as insulation, or even as a permanent mulch as it will “felt” in time.

Guess Bev and Cindy thought I either felt left out, or looked out of place, as I was the only one of us NOT to own a set of Dickie Bibs.

Now, you gotta know that around here, unless you’re wearing either jeans or bibs, you’re probably going to church or a funeral (generally at church). Well, I’ve got the jeans… and the boots, too. But, I didn’t have a set of bibs for that really serious farm work.

Finding bibs for me wasn’t exactly easy. You see, I’m portend (that’s fat)… and my waist is way bigger than my inseam, unlike most of the farmers around here. When it was all said and done, I ended up with bibs that were 4″ too long. Oh, Mommmm!

Well, just in time Mom got my new bibs hemmed up. Just in time, I say as we had ordered a stack of hay from one of the local farmers. So, on New Year’s Eve morning, the three of us donned our bibs so we’d at least look like we were farmers.

Now, last year, I learned all about this hay business. About two weeks after I got here, we had to go get hay. That was a 30 minute trip to Enterprise, back up to a barn, and wrestle, carry, turn, and otherwise cuss 12 bales up, and onto the Avalanche. At 120# a piece, these weren’t the bales I remembered as a kid.

Cindy would climb up on the stack, and kick the bales off so Bev and I could wrestle them to the back of the truck. Generally, we would stage the bales and wait for Cindy to get done knocking all twelve off the stack. She’s the only one among us that is the least bit comfortable climbing hay stacks.

Well, we’d cuss a lot, and somehow wrestle these bales to the back of the Avalanche and then have the usual argument about how to stack them. I’ve got no idea why we never took notes about how best to stack them. Within an hour, we’d have all 12 bales wrestled, stacked, and tied only to make the trip back to the farm, where we had to unload the hay.

With sheep here and horses there, we would somewhat divide the stack. We have a little utility trailer that provides hay storage, so we’d put four or five bales there, and then go to the little stable with the rest… knocking them off the truck, wrestling them through the door and finally into their final resting place.

Well, we’ve grown up a lot… Now, our hay gets delivered to us, 80 bales at a time. Our neighbor, Clyde has hooked us up with a couple of the local farmers who are happy to deliver as long as we’re willing to pay… You betcha!

So, here we are in our bibs (it’s cold outside) when Clyde and Steve arrive with the hay picker. We’ve already wrestled the remaining bales from our first stack out of the way. We’ve got about 12 bales left for the horses and 10 or so for the sheep (most already moved up to them).

Our job is now to stay out of the way… that’s it. We just stand and watch as they back the picker down the area between the corral and the round pen, and then stop and tip the stack carefully, back a little more and finally set the stack down. No muss, no fuss, no wrestling… just write the check!

Being women, we just felt that it wasn’t enough to pay for the hay… these guys had gone out of their way to help us… so, we got Mom to agree… Clyde, here’s some eggs for you. Steve, here’s some eggs for you. And, John, here’s some eggs for you. After all, our girls will give us more tomorrow.

Thursday, with the big storm coming in, Cindy and I hustled out to put the tarp over the top. Good thing she’s a “monkey” as she had to climb up on the roof (the back fence was in the right place). We tied baling twine to each grommet and then used all the possible leverage. Thankfully there was no wind, and the temps were slightly above freezing. It took us about 30 minutes, but we were in no hurry. Better to get it done right.

The stack isn’t as straight as we’d like and the tarp is a little crooked, but in a couple weeks, we’ll be ready to divide the stack… moving the top half to the empty space behind the new stack, so we can more easily feed the horses.

That day, I’ll be in my bibs again, as we’ll take the entire bottom layer, wrestle it onto the Avalanche (or maybe our “new” farm truck) and move it to the sheep. They don’t mind a bit of mud and mold. Then Cindy will go up the stack, and start rolling the bales off for Bev and me to put into position.

It’s been a while since I posted pictures of life here in our little corner of the world.

One of our most prized possessions is our digital camera. It’s not real fancy, and we’ve had it for more than a couple of years… but we use it to record the good times and the bad. Even as relaxed as life is here… we use the camera a lot. It’s a huge memory helper!

The last photo journal was of all the “get ready for winter” projects; the wood is cut and stacked, the ewe’s are bred, the horses have new and expanded shelter, the hay is in and covered… and the chickens… well, they’re happy in their home, giving us nearly a dozen and a half eggs every day.

So, here goes… when it’s winter in Beryl, life slows down a lot…

The first week in December, just after getting the decorations up, we had snow in the late
evening. I was the only one still in my boots… so, here are two very quick pictures taken during the snow and wind. Later in the month, we had “thunder snow”, and twice we had to bundle up and hustle out to shore up the nativity scene and get the trees upright.

What an amazing site, to have the wind blowing better than 40 mph, snow coming down sideways, hearing thunder and seeing lightening within just a second as the storm passed directly over our house.

Sunrises are beautiful every morning… but some mornings they’re better than others. And yes… it’s really as cold as it looks.

We have time for more leisurely breakfasts, and with plenty of farm-fresh eggs, French Toast is a family favorite. Throughout the year, we most always have one meal together each day. On the weekends, it’s breakfast, generally on Saturday.

“Mom” always makes sure there’s enough for all five dogs, once we’ve had our fill. Now, the dogs… well, anytime we’re (make that “Mom”) are (is) at the table, once the serious cutting of food begins, it’s time to line up for “bites from the fork”.

This is December in Beryl. The first snow has come, and the very bright sunlight returned… time for some awesome picture-taking. About the only trees that grow well are the Chinese Elms. We have a row to the north of our driveway, and next year will plant a row on the south and then to the north west of the house to provide wind protection for the horses, and sheep.

The other day, Cindy heard a little noise outside her open bedroom window. Lo and behold here’s a little Screetch Owl, who’s obviously looking for a warm spot. He let me get as close as I wanted to get his picture. We’re not sure, but we think he’s probably the same little owl we found a week later in our driveway, cold and dead after yet another snow storm. Close inspection revealed a broken wing… was it a critter, or did he fly into the truck? We’ll probably never know.

Christmas in Beryl is fun… Bev plays Santa Claus (ok, so she’s not exactly “santa”) for the Senior Center. I thought this was a cute picture of “Mom” with Santa. Funny how their tops nearly match.

This year we got really lucky and “Santa” came to visit the dogs… boy, were they impressed. As long as Santa had treats, they thought that was pretty awesome, but pictures? Come on… as Coco put it… “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Kiki, Koda and Sarah figured Santa smelled familiar enough to hang around, especially since there were treats involved… the lunch mouths!

That’s right, I got here a year ago yesterday. The weather is eerily similar. There’s snow on the ground and we’ll be lucky to get above freezing today.

So, what have I helped get done in the past year?

The first project was to help get the sheep bred. That was the “cross-country hike” in boot-high snow with our two ewes to the neighbor’s farm. Of course we also had “the great sheep roundup”.

Next up, we built the chicken coop and got the little birds… how grateful we are for the fresh eggs. Can’t say we’re totally thrilled with the meat as we let the boys get a few weeks too old. It’s tasty… but chewy.

All winter long, and into the summer I helped with hauling hay, a chore that definitely put my body to the test. We now have enough animals that we can purchase our hay by the ton and get it delivered.

We built raised beds for a vegetable garden. After two years here, the family finally had a few veggies from the garden. Nothing to store away… but at least I’ve shown that it is possible to grow stuff here.

We’ve got the worm bin started. In fact, we’ve got two now. That amounts to about 10k or so worms happily munching their way through shredded paper and fighting for leftovers that don’t go to the chickens.

I raised my first “bummer lamb”. Freezer is still with us. Guess we’ll keep him for company of our ram, “Algernon”.

My suspicions about Chiquita a Polypay sheep that was supposed to be a ewe. “She” had horns, and like to butt whatever was in her sight. About May, her baaa began sounding like she had laryngitis, and got really deep. Our shearer (named “Flip”) confirmed she really was “Bruce”… and away he went… couldn’t produce a lamb, so of no value to us.

In May, we went to see Clinton Anderson “Down Under Horsemanship” and I got the bug… my prayers were answered late in summer when our mentor asked us to keep her yearling, Dakota.

Until the weather turned sour, I’d been training her in the round pen. It will be a couple years before she’s ready to ride, but want her to have solid ground training first.

In November, our ram returned from a visit to a neighboring farm to do his studly stuff. In about a week, he bred each of our girls… oh yes, our mentor had sold us the rest of her black Merino sheep. I am the shepherdess!

So, what about Sarah, the “Spinach Fits”… aka Finnish Spitz?

She’s loving every minute here. I don’t let her get up in the computer chair so she’ not been able to update her blog for a few months. She’s growing quite a crop of fur… even beginning to look like a Finnish Spitz.

She’s learned beds (the one’s belonging to us humans) are for sleeping on… and she wants her half out of the middle. She gets along well with the other dogs, unless they step on her feet… then she creates a real ruckus.

She’s discovered the chickens, sheep, and horses as well as lots of rabbit holes. About once a month, we go out on the acreage and “hunt”. Other than that, she has the run of the big back lot, where she and the other dogs dig, run and wrestle to their hearts’ content.

Most recently, I’ve chosen to get back into network marketing with a company called BookWise. It’s something that makes total sense for folks who live in “the boonies”. You buy books, we donate a portion of the profits to help children learn to read, and get away from abuse.

I would say, I’ve had a most fulfilling and successful year!

And just in time, too!

The forecast for next week, about Thanksgiving Day is for rain/snow. We’re going from 10 degrees above average daily temperatures with little or no wind, to 10 degrees below average and a small gale.

So much for going from summer to fall and then to winter. This fall has been like a cooler (Oregon) summer, aside from the leaves turning on the trees.

So, about those winter projects…

Starting with our newly expanded horse stable, we now have an indoor walk-through where we can feed the horses without having to go into each stall with the animals. The walk-through also has room for halters, bridles, and grooming equipment.

What was the combination tack and feed area now stores saddles.

We also have arranged for hay delivery, thanks to Clyde (another of our mentors). We were able to get 72 bales (3-string 125# bales) at $8.00 delivered. We can’t get anymore from the same supplier as he has the rest of contracted to IFA, but will pick up and deliver from a neighboring farm for us… Pretty cool!

Our sheep have their winter home. Now the question is… are they smart enough to go inside?

As of yesterday, Al has bred all five of our girls, so looks like we’ll have a good time lambing starting in early April 2008. This breed is known for multiple births, so we can expect anywhere from 10 to 30 or more lambs… Somehow I can’t imagine it yet.

A few months ago, we had a “greenhouse disaster”. The company sent us a new cover and we’re choosing not to reinstall it until early spring. That way we should avoid a lot of wind damage from winter storms.

In the mean time, Cindy and Bev have wrapped each of the connectors taking all the slack out of the ribs. That may have been a contributing factor, even though there were no instructions to stabilize these joints.

Just yesterday, Cindy finished splitting the two cords of Aspen. That’s sure a nice looking stack of wood. Considering we’ve yet to light the first fire, we should have plenty of wood. We’ve got better than a cord of cedar/pine combination to go with the Aspen and we generally only build a morning fire and then an evening fire, choosing not to keep either stoked.

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.”

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting an autobiography.

Why? Well, because I believe you’ll find my story inspiring… and hopefully, you’ll discover no matter what you’ve done in life, there’s always more to be done.

I’ve got it pretty much written (had it posted on the domain in past years) but need to polish it a bit… that translates to take out some of the “sales talk” from a past life. I’m sure you won’t mind a bit if that stuff has gone missing.

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.