Denise Domning's Blog, page 12

Wheat!

Back in October I tried for a second time to plant grain as part of a grain assessment for the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance. My first attempt in May of 2017 was a complete bust because the pigs broke into the garden and wreaked havoc while harvesting the Johnson grass rhizomes. I tried again last October. I put my rows on a diagonal to remind myself that these weren’t my plants, that this was SERIOUS WORK. The varieties I was sent were Sonoran White Wheat, Cache Valley Rye, Uli Hache barley, Milan hulless barley, and Ethiopian hulless barley. I took a picture of what I’d done and marked what was in each row, then stored the picture…who the heck knows where, but wherever it is you know I thought it was the logical place at that moment.

Right away, the grains began to grow.  I was so excited! This time, I’d get a chance to harvest wheat, something I’ve never before done. They were about ankle high when idiocy struck. Someone–that would be me–left the garden gate open and the sheep went crazy. By the time I found them, they’d moved everything down to the ground, especially the grains.

With that, I threw my hands in the air and gave up. Figuring the grains were done for, I let the sheep back into that patch over the course of last winter to clear out the weeds and the volunteer lettuce. They kept the whole area nicely mowed.

Spring came and the urge to plant hit. Even if the farm was on the market, I had to have a garden. So I started turning soil at the eastern end of the enclosed area. That’s a nice rectangular piece of ground caught between the fence and a line of old concrete fence footing. My grin got bigger and bigger as I hoed. The soil was beautiful with lots of mycorrhizae visible with every clod of dirt I turned.

Because that end looked so good, I decided to go to the west end, where a huge old Cottonwood log has been rotting for almost 8 years now. Like the eastern end, it’s a flat piece of land, while the middle of the garden is sloped. Because it was flat, and because I can’t bear to waste the brown paper Modesto Milling feed bags (hey, it’s carbon!), I piled it high with layers of bags and layers of chicken coop straw. Good choice! The soil there is now a rich brown loam.

Then, also because I was thinking of moving, I forbade myself from buying any new seeds except for San Marzano tomatoes. Believe me, that didn’t limit my choices of what to grow. I’m a fanatical seed saver. Why pay for what I can harvest? More importantly, each year I grow out the seeds I save, the more acclimated those plants are to my particular growing conditions and the stronger they get. It’s a nice combination–less money, stronger plants.

However, the need to save seeds often outstrips my common sense. I had three, four, even five years worth of neatly marked packages when, I’m told, each year a seed isn’t in the ground it loses 10% of its vitality. So a three-year-old seed has only a 70% chance of germinating. It was definitely time to clean house.

Although it was late April before I got to planting, I opened 2013’s pea package and 2014’s fava beans. Then I used up the Cannellini beans, which were so old I don’t remember what they tasted like. Next, I cut back on my stash of scarlet runner beans by half, and emptied the last packages of hubbard squash and Galli melons. In went the radish seeds, then the old corn seeds. I held off planting the Blue Lake pole beans until I was certain I wouldn’t lose any to some weather fluke. They are my absolutely favorite dried beans. This winter I ate the last of the beans I had in store for food and discovered this is the first year these beans haven’t self-seeded on the raspberry hillside. I’m sure having no winter rains had something to do with that.  Fortunately for me, I thought to put some seeds aside three years ago.

Given the ages of all these seeds, I didn’t know what to expect. It certainly wasn’t the joyous explosion of greenery I’m getting. I’ve got the four sisters–beans, squash, corn, and sunflowers–going strong. The favas and peas have set on despite the heat. But the one thing that absolutely floored me was the wheat.

Right through the unplanted center of my garden are two diagonal lines of Sonoran White Wheat. Their heads are waist-high, and they’re flowering! I never really thought about how wheat sets on, but now I get a big kick out of touching the narrow heads to see the little clouds of pollen explode out of equally tiny flowers. Despite being sheep-mowed to the ground more than once, both rows are thick and lush and healthy.

How about that? Thank you, Mother Nature!

Pond Life

When I moved up here from Scottsdale (where else does a farmer come from?) I left behind a gorgeous backyard that included a recirculating pond with a bio-filter. Every morning, I’d get up, make tea, then go sit on my porch swing and listen to the trickle of water through an artificial stream. Here, I take my tea out onto my porch and listen to the tumble of much more water through the Mason Ditch. Not so much Oak Creek. The water in the creek is really low this year.

Riparian orchid

Although the Mason Ditch was once an equally artificial channel, after almost a hundred and fifty years of flowing water it qualifies as a bona fide stream. Mussels, crayfish, minnows, and trout and make homes in the water, while on my property alders, ash, cottonwoods, mulberries, hackberries and blackberries line the banks. I’ve even found a riparian orchid living with its feet almost in the water.

Even with all that water chuckling its way past me, I missed having a pond, especially during the ten day period when Page Springs goes down for maintenance. That’s my “dry season”. Because I haven’t gotten around to drilling a well, when the spring is dry, the only water I can use for my livestock is what’s stored in my irrigation pipes. Thinking a stock pond was the answer, a hole in the earth was created. Because I wanted a natural pond and not a swimming pool, it was lined with bentonite clay, which is supposed to create a waterproof coating. Not so much. Without a frequent recharge from the hose, the pond dries up pretty quickly, which is kind of strange in a place where the water level is likely at about ten feet.

Of course I couldn’t leave it a simple hole in the earth surrounded by dusty red gravel. I had to give nature a boost. Because the sides were so steep, I dragged in some old logs to give it more of an edge. It turns out this was vital. The bentonite may not stop the leaking, but it’s eats shoes like nobody’s business. On those occasions when I’ve allowed the water level to get too low, I’ve had everything from turkey babies to lambs get stuck in the goo, and I’ve lost footwear going in to save them.

Once my makeshift bank was in place, I made a foray down to Oak Creek where I borrowed some cattails, horsetails, Oak Creek peppermint (someone along the creek planted peppermint too close to the water and it’s done what peppermint always does–gone crazy), some frondy thing, pennywort and watercress. I also added a couple of tiny cottonwood volunteers. I put them right into that dry gravel edge without so much as a drink. They’re now taller than me. From the much more civilized pond at Quiet Valley Ranch down the road, I harvested some sort of water grass and water lilies. The lilies bloomed once, then I got pigs and discovered that pigs love ponds and they think water lilies are delicious. Dang.

For a long while all I saw in the pond was dragonflies and their bigger cousin, the darners. There weren’t even any crayfish. This might be because the Great Blue Herons were eating them, but I don’t think so. Even herons get stuck in the gooey bottom.

It may have been the pig action that changed things. Perhaps they churned up the bottom, sending seeds and starts moving here and there. This year I have plantain, strawberry clover, white clover and nutsedge crowding along the water’s edge. The water grass has gone crazy and now nearly covers the bottom of the pond. Last year, the cattails bloomed for the first time and this year I had red-winged blackbirds with their flinty, metallic call appear to eat them.

What surprised me most was the appearance of bullfrogs. The moment it warmed up this year, there were tadpoles galore. Now, a bullfrog might be considered a nuisance elsewhere. Not here. Here, they’re a delicacy. I’ll catch that deep bass croak for a night or two, then its gone. I’m not sure if it’s a heron or Moosie, but something’s eating them.

But again today, there were more tadpoles. Here on the farm, when froggie goes a-courtin’, he’s the only one making noise. Mama frog has figured out she needs to keep her mouth shut.

Sheep Tales

That title should read More Sheep Tales, but it’s been a week of sheep giggles for me. First up is Mari, who has made an amazing turnaround. I had her sheared ten days ago. Like her father Cinco, that wool of hers is a throwback to the Hampshire side of the family. Unlike most Dorpers, who shed their hair (Dorpers have hair, not wool), Mari has wool and it just kept getting thicker. So as I did with Cinco, I hired a shearer.

Then I worried. How fragile was Mari after that hip injury of hers, the one her father caused? I wasted my time. Jason and his son know their sheep. Jason gently tipped her up on her rump and held her pinned between his legs as he swiftly cut away her excess wool in one big chunk.  After that, he trimmed her left hoof. Because of her injury, she walks on the side of that hoof and the position of her foot prevents her from breaking off the excess nail on rocks.

New Mari

Mari walked out of the barn a new ewe! I’m sure she was grateful to be cool at last. A few days later I caught her gamboling across the field, skipping and hopping. Then she bucked, kicking up her back heels out of sheer joy.

She stayed in that joyous frame of mind until, like the rest of us who think we’re normal when we’re not, she had a reality check.  Oops.

It’s mulberry season here on the farm and my trees are covered with berries. For the record I prefer the Pakistani Mulberries over the others–Chinese, I think. The Pakistani berries are long and narrow, and very very sweet. The other variety that has seeded itself around the farm produce much smaller berries that alternate year-to-year from insipid to tasty. While the sheep agree with me as far as taste goes, this hasn’t stopped them from gobbling up the less sweet berries that litter my driveway down to the barn.

Grazing for mulberries

Poor Mari! The other day she watched the Gang of Four as the lambs bounded over the short wall that separates the driveway from the embankment, looking for fresher berries. Emboldened by her new sense of freedom, she pushed off from the driveway. Her front hooves came to rest in the pile of dirt on the other side–I’ve been filling in the area, hoping to use it for a garden in the future. Only then, with her belly resting on the wall, did she realize her hips didn’t have what it takes to carry her to the other side. So there she sat, trapped, unable to push forward or pull back.

That’s when little Rosie noticed her or rather, she noticed Mari’s udder. Mari’s position on the wall left her udder pushed to one side, caught between her back leg and the wall. The result was one teat conveniently exposed just when Rosie was really jonesing for milk. That’s because Tiny was refusing to let her two girls suckle.

This is the second time I’ve witnessed Tiny refuse to nurse her babies, both times at about six weeks after lambing. And both times, she kept her babies off for four days before starting to nurse them again. Tiny, it seems, has her own pregnancy schedule, one with which I do not agree. Ha! This time there’s no ram to take advantage of her offer. Just as well. She needs a break.

Pakistani Mulberries

So there was Rosie, longing for milk, and a trapped Mari offering everything a little lamb desires. She latched on and started to suck. Beyond insulted, Mari twisted and turned to no avail. Fortunately for Mari, I happened to be on the hillside, having my daily dose of mulberries. A fruit, fresh off the tree, and a great anti-oxidant, plus the occasional tiny ant for added protein. What more can you want?

For a ewe who doesn’t much like to be touched, Mari didn’t offer the least bit of resistance as I maneuvered her off the wall. The minute all four hooves were on the driveway, she gave Rosie a good headbutt for her impertinence.

And Rosie turned to me for comforting.

We’re developing a relationship, Rosie and I. She’s definitely Tiny’s little girl, bold as brass and smart, at least smart enough to know what she wants and how to exploit any situation to get it.  She’s been studying my interaction with her flock, especially the bucket. The bucket is what I use to get my sheep from place to place. The bucket is usually filled with barley and black oil sunflower seeds for the chickens, but I always stop to share a couple of handfuls with Tiny and Mari. Because they’re sheep, they crowd me, each demanding their treats this instant.

Rosie has accepted this as routine, the bucket appears and the ewes crowd, so she’s joined the tussle. But each time I’ve offered her seeds, she turns up her nose. That had me looking for something else, something that will keep her in the routine. She does tolerate me scratching her head and neck but not so much that she’ll beg to be petted. Then one day I saw her trying to itch her right ear with a hoof. Then I noticed her doing it again.

The next day when she joined the morning seed scrum, I reached out and rubbed her ear the same way you might do to a dog. Her eyes closed, her head tilted. Then her little hoof began to move, trying to scratch along with me.

Gotcha Rosie! Ear scratches for you.

BA!

I’ve never owned a dumb farm animal. That’s not dumb as in unintelligent. From the cows to the pigs to the turkeys, every one of my critters has proved capable of figuring out how to get what they want. That includes opening gates, breaking down fences and crossing hot electrical wires.

This is dumb as in the original meaning of the word: unable to speak. All of my farm animals speak. Each species talk to each other, using in different tones and different vocalizations. Take my turkeys. Among the many noises the turkeys make are two specific calls for predators, one for earth-bound threats and one for the sky hunters. I’m always astounded when I hear the muttering chirp that indicates they seen a threat in the sky above them. I’ll stare upward, scanning the vast blue expanse of Arizona’s bright sky until I catch the tiny moving black dot. Eagle-eye, my foot. The saying should be turkey-eyed.

Not only do they speak to each other, they sometimes speak to me. This happened recently with Tiny, my older ewe, who is proving to be a good bellwether, even though she’s not a castrated male. I had my little flock up by the water tanks because the grass had grown in really well.  Bringing the sheep up to house level is always a coin toss. If I’m not careful–and sometimes even if I am–they’ll break out and head directly for the gardens I purposely keep out of their reach, which include the things they really love, like lettuce and roses.

This time I was sure I had them trapped. Using a small sledge hammer, I put up my poultry netting fence, driving the posts deep into the incredibly hard ground near the pump house. Because this area is sort of a driveway, so plumbers and such can drive down to the pump house, I haven’t bothered trying to amend the soil. Instead, I planted arugula and chicory, and allowed the cardoon to take over for awhile, hoping their deep roots would break up the hardpan.

Poultry netting is meant to be electrified and I have a solar charger for it. The only problem is that the net’s bottom line always ends up in contact with the ground. That’s partly because the earth is so hard I have to drive the stakes deeper than recommended so they stay upright and resist attempts to push them down, and partly because my ground is uneven. At any rate, even if the charger works, at some point the fence grounds out and dies. Instead, I use it as a hopeful barrier. You know what they say about hope, how it springs eternal.

Until the other day only Tiny had ever managed to tangle herself in the netting. She’s been really creative about how she’s done it–weaving her head through whole different sections of fence and knotting herself into it. Getting her out has been an unpleasant experience for both of us. This may explain what happened.

I was writing in my little office area in the kitchen. The door and windows were open. Haven’t our recent wonderfully cool days been amazing? I’d checked on the sheep an hour or so earlier and saw them happily grazing around my new plum and cherry trees, doing a little selective pruning.

BA!

The call startles me out of the 12th Century. It’s not trilling “baa-aa-aa” that I’m accustomed to hearing, but a definitive, harsh one-syllable sound.

BA!

I’m frowning at this point, wondering what Tiny is doing.

BA!

Ah! She’s calling for me. I slipped on my shoes and left the house as she threw out her fourth and fifth call. Down the porch stairs I went and around the corner, heading for the passageway that crosses under the porch, leading to the pump house. She was at the opposite end of the passageway. With her head tilted to the side, she looked as though she’d been impatiently waiting for me.

Only then did I realize she’s on the wrong side of the fence. My lettuce!

Rosie and kin eating roses

As she saw me, she once again uttered, “BA!” then turned and led me back to where my fence still stood. And there was Mari, her head caught in the netting. Unlike Tiny, she hadn’t panicked at getting tangled. Instead, she was grazing calmly on my salad bed.

Tiny stopped beside her daughter and looked at me as if to say, “What took you so long?”

That had me laughing. I disentangled shy Mari, who allowed me to do it with minimal resistance, then chased the sheep back down to the middle pastures. Later, I went out to dead-head my roses and brought the dying flowers to them as a treat. They earned it. After all, it seems they’ve named me the way I’ve named them.

BA!  Who knew?

 

Finished Coop

I’m getting to this post late today because I wanted to finish the last bits on the coop so I could take a proper picture. And I did, both finish the coop and take a picture. The wooden structure is now wrapped in hardware cloth and chicken wire. There are a pair of wheels at the back of the coop although I haven’t yet strung the rope handle at the front that allows me to move it. A technicality. It’s well and truly done.

The new power stapler turned out to be a joy. Of course I couldn’t get it to work at first. Luckily for me, my neighbor’s brother Joe was setting up his trailer near my barn (they were having a weekend party), so I recruited his help. He did what I hadn’t, and jiggled all the bits and buttons. Lo and behold, it went from doing nothing to working! I’ll remember that next time…fiddle purposefully with the buttons and the tool takes notice.

While I used all the tools the book suggested at least once, I didn’t come close to getting comfortable with any of them. Although, you could say I now feel I have a good working relationship with them. The pipe bender had me scratching my head. I swear I lined all the marks up correctly, but the peak of the roof is still off. Ah well, the chickens aren’t likely to notice. What’s important is that all the corners are square and the stuff that needs to be in one piece, still is. The wood for the door was a little warped so I’ll be installing another lock to make sure it stays shut. All in all, this turned out to be a great first project and I’m very glad I gave it a try. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll be making more of these coops in the future.

For the moment, I’m celebrating just like Suscovich’s book suggests you do after finishing the coop. Part of my celebration is trying to decide if I buy thirty Cornish Cross or Freedom Ranger chicks or instead install roosts so I can use this as a nightly coop for my laying hens. I can’t tell you how dearly I’d love to never again clean their coop. Then again, this means I won’t have manure-laden straw to pack under my fruit trees come Autumn. A conundrum for sure.

Before I close out this week’s post I’m going to celebrate the arrival of spring with a picture of my roses–both the flowers and Tiny’s little girl Rosie. Rosie has been taking careful note of how I scratch her mother’s ears and neck. Starting about a week ago, she began to greet me along with her mother and her aunt. Each day she’s gotten a little closer until about four days ago when she offered me her ears to pet. Since then, she’s been joining Tiny and Mari at the fence. While the mothers get their daily handful of seeds and grain, Rosie waits patiently for her head scratch. In this picture she’s squeezing between her mother and her aunt while Milly, behind her, is wondering why she’s risking life and limb by getting close to the big scary human.

As for the flowers, my roses along the road are putting on a glorious show. I pick a fresh bouquet every day and have more than once lingered on the bench under the willow tree. That’s quite a heady experience, what with the air heavy with their perfume. Yep, this week life has been good on the Farm on Oak Creek.

 

 

Tool Time (again)

As you, my patient readers, may recall I recently stretched my “I can build it” muscles and added flooring to my stairway. In that process I conquered my fear of a table saw. For more than forty years I’d been haunted by the two missing fingers on my first father-in-law’s hand. He had removed them while using a table saw. I need all ten of my fingers to do my job and I know very well that I am a certifiable Klutz. That, and nothing else, is what has kept me from venturing too deeply into the massive workshop that fills my front barn.

That’s not to say I haven’t built things. Three years ago my sister Peggy and I built an electric chicken plucker. It’s been a godsend because it can clean two chickens or one turkey in about a minute.  But in all honesty, what I did on that project was cut wood and screw together the plucker’s wooden frame. That’s pretty simple. Since then, I’ve tried my hand at assembling fences (you might recall the baling twine and handy panel story from last year) and erecting makeshift coops.  This era brought me into a powerful and deeply satisfying relationship with my Milwaukee sawsall.  Man, I love that thing!

Although I dispensed with most of the ex’s carpentry equipment, I kept the tools I needed or thought I might someday be bold enough to use. As the ex had a serious tool addiction, there was a lot to choose from. In the end it came down to the miter saw (because I know how to use it), a circular saw (because guys seem to use it all the time), the Dewalt sawsall (even though that thing nearly tears off my arm when I’m using it), and all the cordless drills and screwdrivers.

John Suscovich & Tractors

I was glad I thought that far ahead, because last week I decided I needed to build a Suscovich 30-bird chicken tractor. For those not in the know, a chicken tractor is a bottomless chicken coop that is moved across a field one chicken-tractor-length every day.  This allows the confined meat birds to eat lots of healthy grass and enjoy sunshine while leaving behind their manure.

Now I do already have supposedly “mobile” chicken coops, but both of them weigh in well over my ability to pull them–one of them is almost a tiny house, and neither are bottomless. That means I have to swamp out that tiny house every Sunday. Let me say, if this version of woman-friendly chicken tractor works, I think I’ll be building a second coop for the girls and dispensing with the non-mobile mobile coops.

Back to the tools and this new project. I borrowed the Suscovich book from my friends Keven and Marshall of Sunnyside Farm in Camp Verde and read it carefully. It’s perfect for me! This man builds with zip ties and tarps! Not only does he include a shopping list, but he lists all the tools needed. It turned out that I had everything but a power stapler, something I’ve wanted for a long time, and a set of chisels.

Thinking this project might be a great one for a “girls” weekend, I recruited my friends Gail and Laurie, promising to pay them with wine on the porch and—surprise!—lamb chops for dinner. Suckers.

By the time they arrived on Saturday, I’d gone shopping, which caused me to confront and destroy my fear of ratcheting straps. The whole premise of those things confuses me. Which strap goes which way through that thingee? I arrived home without incident, then used the book’s guide to measure out and cut all the pieces of wood…that I’d bought home. Although I was certain I’d gotten everything on the list, I’d either forgotten or left behind one 1 x 8.

My nemisis, the circular saw

I also suffered a moment of panic when I couldn’t find the circular saw. I was sure I’d saved it for myself. There was great relief when I discovered I hidden it behind a workbench. I took it out and read the directions, twice. Then I stared at it for a long while. Really. I type for a living. I must keep all my fingers and that thing looked dangerous.

Then my helpers showed up and I learned that Gail is not afflicted with the same fears as I am. And I’ve known her since 1993! Even though she’d never before used one, she snatched up the circular saw, aligned it with the marks I’d made on a board for a lap joint, and pulled the trigger.

Two seconds later, she let the trigger relax and the saw whirred to a halt. What followed was about an hour of conferring on how to hold both the safety button and the trigger at the same time. We all took a turn, and we all immediately decried the set up. No matter how we shifted hands, shifted position, pressed it this way or that, none of us really had the hand strength to operate the saw either comfortably or for long. So we traded off. After that there was another conference on how to set the fence so the blade goes exactly 3/4 of an inch into the wood.

It took a while, but each of us finally came up with our own workaround. By 4 PM all the lap joints–including one in board “F” that make no sense to me, had been cut and either chiseled or sawsall-ed out.

The frame

Seriously. Why chisel if you have a sawsall? I converted Gail, who announced she wanted a sawsall for herself.

At that point we called it a day, and went to celebrate. Yes, we’d made a few mistakes, and yes, nothing was perfect. But no board had to be replaced, nothing broke, and all of us still had ten fingers.  That was well worth celebrating.

Laurie stayed late on Sunday morning to help me put the frame together. That leaves me to bend the pipe for the roof and power staple the hardware cloth and chicken wire in place. And I’ll be doing it knowing I could manage the whole project by myself. But why, when we had so much fun? I’ll bet I can tempt them back again with pork and wine this time.

 

 

Into the Drink

First, a Bear update.  His toe has healed up very nicely. It never even got infected and he’s feeling great–eyes bright, nose cold. Most importantly, he’s running much more easily.  Well, he runs easily when he wants to, but if I call him to come, he slows to that “You can’t make me move faster” saunter that he saves just for me. He sends his thanks to everyone who wrote with suggestions and good wishes!

Now, onto the event I’ve been expecting since the birth of the first lambs. That’s right. Milly, Mari’s little girl, went for a swim in the ditch. By chance, I just happened to be outside when it happened…strike that. I’ve been on hand for so many of this odd, potentially deadly occurrences that I’ve stopped believing in chance. I’m outside because I needed to be outside at that moment.

So, I was outside by design when it happened.  My little flock of six was up by the front barn. There’s not much grass by the barn, but they use the cement walkway on the bridge to cross to the elderberry/mulberry hillside. There’s good stuff on that hillside. The Johnson grass is sprouting and the mulberries are leafing out. I’m happy to have the sheep graze there as they’ve been doing a good job pruning both the mulberries and the apple trees. They don’t generally bother the elderberries, which look fantastic this year. For a while they thought the artichokes were pretty tasty but have recently begun to ignore them. I figure that the artichoke sap has risen, making the leaves sour, artichokes being a thistle and all.

As for me, I was by the house, doing some weed removal from the parking area. Yes, my house has a parking area instead of a garage or a carport. It’s a big gravel expanse that yearly produces the world’s supply of silverleaf nightshade, goathead burrs, and malva (that weed with round leaves and a root that goes straight through the earth to China). Standing between me and the hillside is a short cement wall, which I believe Sam–the previous owner of the house–installed to keep himself from accidentally driving over the edge and into the ditch. This wall curves down along the twisting driveway for the same reason–because of the curves it would be easy to misjudge and there’s a ten foot drop into the water.  Then, because he was Sam, he framed the entrance to the driveway (making it even harder to back down) with a pair of pillars topped with cement gargoyles. “Tremble, all ye who enter here!”

At any rate, from the parking area I watched Tiny and Mari trot over the walkway and onto the hillside. The lambs, who have become very much a mob of four, weren’t paying attention. This has become the norm rather than an aberration. And, as always happens, a few moments later they looked up from their play and panicked. Tiny legs flew as they skittered around the corner of the driveway wall. In their panic they missed the walkway and ended up on the waterwheel platform.

As you can see from the picture, there are no waterwheels as of yet–just a hole where they’ll be installed. And now they can go there! Thank you, Mason Ditch owners for allowing them!  The current is so strong under that bridge that two small undershot wheels, which is what that hole was created for, should produce 40 kilowatts of power daily. I use less than 30 per day (my pump house gobbles up electricity), so I could theoretically be off grid for all but one week out of the year.

Rose and Petunia, younger but bigger lambs, led the way. They easily leapt over the spring cleanout pipe and onto the hillside. Milly  and her brother followed. Where her brother managed the leap, she slid off the pipe and back onto the wooden platform.

Where she fell in

From where I stood I could see she intended to try again, and I was just as certain that this wasn’t going to end the way she expected. I dropped my hoe and started down. Sure enough, this time she hit the top of the pipe and slid down directly into the opening beneath it. Bleating in panic, she managed to keep her front legs on the platform, trying to hoist herself back up. She held herself there for a terrified instant or two, which was long enough for me to get beyond the huge patch of water irises, throw off my shoes and slide down the ditch bank toward the water.

Meanwhile, up on the hillside, Mari is grazing calmly while Tiny, Milly’s grandmother, turns and begins to call for Milly to try harder. Huh? I guess Mari is willing to defer to her mother in all things.

Milly and I hit the water at almost the same time. I hear, “Blabublbb-BAA!” as she goes under, then manages to rise above the surface. I realize that she’s holding herself under the platform by treading like crazy. In her panic, she’s fixated on getting back up through that hole.

As I call, “Baby, baby, baby!” to let Milly know I’m coming for her, Mari finally notices that her daughter’s in trouble. She and Tiny start for the walkway, while the hooligans that got Milly into this situation come bounding and bouncing after them.

I hear that watery bleat as Milly again goes under the surface. She’s still holding herself under the platform despite that current. This seriously worries me. The last thing I want is to duck under that thing to get her. I have seen wolf spiders as big as my hand on that platform and I’m not really keen on finding myself eye to eye with one of those big girls. Just then, Milly catches a glimpse of her kin on their way, and makes a 180. Still sheep-paddling, she lets the current carry her out from under the platform.

Now, Milly is the shyest of my four lambikins, and she doesn’t much like me getting close to her. But as I call “Baby, baby, baby,” again, her eyes lock on mine and she’s swimming as fast for me as I’m shoving through the water to get to her. She had no trouble letting me scoop her up to bring her back up the ditch bank.

No worse for wear

An hour later she was dry and very clean, the whole event seemingly long forgotten. And with that, peace again descended onto the farm. Whew.

 

Bear Necessities

For the record it turned out that six sheep is better than simply sufficient. Having just the new moms and their babies has been both peaceful and easy.  Tiny only calls now when one of her babies is lost (this usually means on the wrong side of a fence) or she wants me to open a gate. She’s even stopped bawling for breakfast, although this may be because my grass has finally come in.

It’s beautiful here on the farm just now!  Although last year’s pig attack on my Dutch irises have set back their bloom for this year, the water irises are literally bursting out. The air is perfumed with the scent of violets–that’s how many are blooming at the moment. My Cottonwoods have leafed out in a glorious green-gold color and the apple trees are beginning to bloom. The peaches, plums, and apricots have all set on, and so are my new cherry trees! Whoot!

Oh, wait. I’m moving. What if some of the blossoms actually get pollinated and the trees bear fruit, and I’m not here to harvest them? That would be sad. I love cherries.

Such is life and starting over is just what I do.

Now, onto Bear. For about half my life I’ve been a cat owner, believing I preferred felines over canines. This is because I write, which requires many hours of unbroken quiet. Cats on the whole don’t want or need much interaction. Dogs, on the other hand–at least judged by my experience with dogs prior to Moosie and Bear–were a lot more needy than cats. Then these two dogs came along.

Maybe it’s because of their personalities, or that they work all night and have to sleep all day. Or maybe it’s because they have lots of room to run and a job to do. Whatever it is, they simply don’t ask for much input on my part, which it turns out is good and bad. I haven’t been paying quite enough attention to Bear.

Most of the dogs I’ve owned have been adult rescues. While this spares me having to housebreak, older dogs come with a past. (Don’t we all?) In Bear’s case his past includes having either been dumped or gotten lost from his original home, then nearly starving to death before someone took pity on him. While being lost he was shot in the hind quarter. Although the wound didn’t cause serious damage and he healed without issue, it left an emotional scar. He hates having his back legs touched. Hates, as in puts his teeth on your hand to warn you away. Despite his sweet-nature, he regularly gets fired from groomers because of this. Combine that with the fact that he has dewclaws and you’ll begin to see where I’m going.

Sigh. Maybe if I were a more experienced dog person, I would have noticed that the nails on those vestigial toes needed to be trimmed. I only realized there was a problem because he started chewing on his back paw. Because he does see a groomer, I assumed (and you know what that means) she was clipping them. Silly me. See above about what he does when someone touches his back legs.

I tried clipping them myself. Impossible. No amount of reassurance could convince him to allow me near his paw.I recruited a friend who’s really good with trimming animals’ hooves and such. Suffice it to say that our best efforts didn’t last more than five seconds. So today I took him to the vet.

Minutes later he was muzzled and, snip-snip, his nails were clipped. While they made it look easy, the vet’s suggestion for me, should I want to do it myself, was to either build a dog stanchion with a head lock or a small squeeze chute, the sort they use for cattle. The third option was to bring him back every few months and have them do it. That’s the most likely option.

But that means Bear, who weighed 130 pounds last year and tipped the scales at 145 pounds today, will have to get on the scales again in just two months. Bear is four going on five now. For a dog his size that puts him around 45 to 50 in human years. He already suffers from arthritis, no doubt because he’s a purebred. Although CBD oil and fish oil have made his life better, losing weight can only help.

That’s right. My dog needs to go on a *gasp* diet. Those necessities are indeed getting bare for him…

 

 

Eight is Enough

Tiny, as usual, was late but efficient.  Her lambs finally made their appearance on March 28th.  At birth both of them were larger than Mari’s little guys. That didn’t stop Tiny from pushing them out one right after another with less than 5 minutes in between.

Moosie, of course, did his best to assist. Unfortunately, unlike Mari, Tiny wasn’t licked clean by a dog at birth. She really wasn’t on board with canine participation.  I finally had to put him outside the gate.  While Tiny busied herself doing a mother’s job, I was able to check each baby to see what she’d given me.  Drum roll, please…. I got two little GIRLS!

Wa-HOO! My flock went three males and two females last year to five females and three males now.

I had a few minutes of worry, though.  Both babies came out covered in a layer of yellowish-brown mucus.  All I could think was Tiny’s liver was struggling. That’s not impossible, not with the arsenic in the water here in the Verde Valley. But there was no odor to the mucus and both the lambs and their mother had no yellow in the whites of their eyes, which would have suggested jaundice or a high bilirubin level.  When both girls got up and started nursing right away and Tiny dropped her placenta with ease, I gave up worrying for the internet.  I could find nothing that mentioned this color except when describing dead lambs, so I fell back on the encyclopedic knowledge of my friend Lu, who grew up on a farm with sheep. She recalled that this would sometimes happen when the ewe was late delivering her lambs. Ah, Tiny. That’s what you get for liking them better inside than out.

Mari and her twins were quick to welcome the newcomers, but Mari’s little ram lamb was especially taken with the new girls. He continues to believe that Tiny gave them to him just so he had more targets on which to practice his headbutts. He swiftly left off sleeping with his sister Milly in favor of the new girls, who were named Rose and Petunia by visiting six-year-old.  Always handy to have a little girl to do the naming. Staying as close as he does to his playmates, he has, from time to time, gotten confused about which mother is his. Tiny ever so gently reminds him with a little push, after which Mari calls to him and all is right with the world.

four babies!

Although Rose and Petunia are younger, they’re big enough that all four lambs are now well into their bounces. To me, this phase of ovine life appears to be the sheep version of involuntary spasms. The lamb is standing perfectly still, then the urge to bounce hits like a hammer, causing the springs built into his legs to “sproing.” This sends the lamb bounding wildly for a few yards until the springs relax and he stops still as swiftly as he started.  As fast and frenetic as this bouncing is, I haven’t been able to catch it on camera. Give it a few more weeks and I might just get all four of them at play.

Until then, I’m just going to sit on my retaining wall and giggle as I watch them. While I do, I’ll be considering whether six is sufficient.

Tiny has rightfully abandoned her nearly full grown sons to concentrate on her new babies. This has seriously irked her larger, more handsome son, her erstwhile favorite. Although he calls and calls for her, and she calls back, she isn’t interested in him any longer.  Apparently part of his grieving process includes headbutting the hand that feeds him. He’s gotten me twice in the back of the leg.

Rams! I see the future and it’s just like the past. Can we say Lamb Chop?

Spring Lambs

I was surprised by lambs again this past week. That’s not to say I didn’t expect to have lambs toward the end of this month. It’s that I didn’t expect those lambs to come from Mari.  It’s Tiny who looks like she’s carrying around a couple of heavily inflated beach balls.

I knew Mari was pregnant. There’s no mistaking that sort of pudginess. That said, she looked pudgy as in not delivering for another month. To the best of my knowledge five months ago Mari had still been avoiding both Cinco and Peanut, using her innovate avoidance technique of sitting down whenever they came near her.

Then Tuesday afternoon, I saw her separate herself from my little flock.  That’s when I discovered why you shouldn’t dock your sheep’s tails. In the middle of a contraction she’d lift her tail to the side and give it a strange little twist. I totally recognized the meaning behind that posture. It was clearly “omg, I have to push.”

Wanting to give her some space away from her brothers, I herded everyone up to the orchard, guiding her in then closing the gate on the boys before they could enter. She instantly went into the far corner of the garden area. I followed her in and sat to watch, using the massive decaying length of cottonwood that I’d had dragged into the garden years ago. Judging from her lack of beach ball roundness, I guessed that Mari’s little guys were going to be small, but so is Mari. I was concerned that she might need help.

Instead, Mari proved a complete pro at this lambing thing. The first baby slid right out. It was a little ewe (YAY!!!).  Although little Milly was tall, she was all bones and skin and couldn’t have weighed in at more than a pound. Much to my relief, Mari began talking to her newborn immediately, making that quiet little grumbly “baa” that passes for baby talk among sheep.

Midwife Moosie

At this point Moosie had shown up.  No four-leggeds are allowed to be born on this property without Midwife Moosie in attendance. All of a sudden, he had his nose in there with Mari’s, both of them working away at licking that baby clean. I waited to see if this upset Mari. Of course it didn’t. After all, Moosie was there to lick Mari clean more than a year ago when she was born.

Once little Milly was on her feet we all settled down again as Mari pushed out her second lamb. This one was a little ram lamb, who proved to be slightly smaller than Milly. Again, mother and midwife worked together to clean him up.

Within forty-five minutes, both babies were up on their feet and wanting to nurse. That’s when Mari discovered it wasn’t enough to just push those babies out, that there was more to this whole mothering thing.  For all the world she looked utterly appalled by the idea of those two babies putting their mouths onto something she obviously considered private.  She danced and turned and backed away from them, walking in circles as they stumbled gamely after her.

Concerned, I left her alone for a bit, reminding myself that the babies could go twenty-four hours without nursing. It didn’t take long to realize that Mari favored Milly over her little boy. In fact, Mari became quite forceful about driving him off. That’s when I told her loudly that she wasn’t sticking me with bottle-feeding her baby, not when she was equipped with both milk and a teat to feed him. Then, just in case, I picked him up, cornered her, and put him on her teat.

As he got his mouth on what he wanted and began to suck hurriedly, she froze, her eyes wide. Then she turned around and tried again to head butt him. Despite my determination to never again bottle-feed lambs, I backed off.  Within half an hour she’d expelled everything that she needed to be rid of and had settled down so that her udder was hidden beneath her.

Worried, I retreated, figuring she needed space, and insisted that Moosie come with me. I swear, that dog would sleep with those babies if I let him. An hour later and she was still avoiding her babies. Three hours later and she was letting little Milly take a swallow or two while still driving off her boy.

That’s when the little guy figured out that he needed to time his swallows with his sister. Smart kid–or lamb, as the case may be. Sure enough, by the next morning she was feeding both of them, even though she was still head butting the little guy whenever he tried to approach first.

I remained worried about this until Friday when his mother walked around a corner while he was dozing. I happened to be on the porch watching as this happened. All of a sudden, he woke up. His tiny head jerked frantically from side to side as he looked for her.  An instant later he leapt to his feet and bleated out a tiny little cry that was clearly “Mom! Where are you?”

Mari’s Twins

Instantly, Mari, who really was just around the corner of the orchard, turned and called back.  But so did Tiny, who was across the field. As Tiny came running toward the orchard with her half-grown boys in tow, Moosie was off like a shot, racing down from the porch to check on his baby.  I and my visitor followed the dog. We all converged on the little guy at almost the same time.  Mari held everyone off as she nuzzled him, gave him a quick lick, then turned to let him nurse.

Whew. He definitely belongs to her even if he’s not her favorite.

That’s not to say I won’t be bottle feeding.  I know exactly when Tiny got pregnant. I was there when it happened. There’s no question that she’s a bit overdue. I’m thinking she intends to wait on the full moon to deliver. What worries me is that she looks just like she did when she gave me three and I ended up with Peanut in the house.

Two, Tiny.  Two is enough.  Don’t be an overachiever, you hear me?