Baymule’s Journal

[HomeOnTheRange]

The way power goes off around here, maybe a wood burning fire pit and a cauldron too! I need a witch hat…..

You already have the magic broom that keeps the Cow Monsters away!

 

[Baymule]

You already have the magic broom that keeps the Cow Monsters away!

I’m armed and dangerous!

 

[SageHill]

Hope you ditch the crud quickly. My DDIL swears by slippery elm tea for the sore throat. I haven't needed to try it yet - but she did give me some for Christmas.

 

[Ridgetop]

My step counter on my cell phone has started telling me how many calories I burn daily.

“Active energy includes walking slowly, pushing my wheelchair, and household chores , as well as dancing and biking.

PUSHING MY WHEELCHAIR??

WALKING SLOWLY??

DANCING? BIKING?

I guess I get out of my wheelchair to go dancing and biking.

When we were square dancing some year ago (pre hearing, knee, and ankle problems) there a was a older man who came ion oxygen and with a whee chair. He would unplug to join a set, then barely make it back to his oxygen and collapse into his wheelchair! He could only get in about 2-3 dances a night, but he was not going to give up dancing! Some of our other friends, DH, and I compared notes one night and found out that we all cavorted around the dance floor all evening, got in our cars (most parked in the handicapped slots LOL, drove home and had to use canes to get into our houses! Apparently even people in their primes stiffened up on the drive home from the dances!

 

[Ridgetop]

I'm sure ya'll have tried it - but I remember somewhere about floating things in water troughs to prevent them from icing over - like a basket ball, or there was something about milk jugs filled with salt water that still float.

I read about that trick for use in swimming pools on the east coast and northern states. You use several large beach balls. The idea is that the water freezes around the air filled balls and they flex as the ice expands. It keeps the ice from freezing and expanding to crack the gunnite/concrete pool walls. Not sure if that would keep the buckets from freezing. You could try it in large water troughs. I would replace the individual 5 gallon water buckets with a large 80-gallon trough and break out the ice. Use a deep trough and build a platform around one side so the sheep can reach inside to drink. A shallow trough will freeze. Trough heaters will probably be better although I am always afraid they will electrocute the animals as they drink. Probably because my goats used to play with and dismantle the auto waterer floats. I tried building cages around them but the goats figured out how to destroy those too. After finding water running merrily down the hill several ties, we finally stopped using them. Here in California we don't have the freezing problem. It will be a large learning curve in NE Texas.

 

[farmerjan]

We use salt water in gallon jugs... mix it about 1 cup salt to 3 cups water... so about 3 cups to a little over a 1/2 gallon.... fill it 1/2 full or so... and use several in a trough so they have to push at them and the jugs bob around some... It will not stop all freezing, but the water in the jugs will not freeze until it is about 0*F,,, and them pushing them down and bobbing them helps. Also makes it easier to work around breaking up the ice.
Another thing... If the jugs are dark colored they will also absorb heat faster if the sun gets on them.

Something people need to think about also... animals DO NOT have to have drinking water in front of them 24/7 in the cold weather... A chance for 1/2 to 1 hour, for them, to drink in the morning and again in the afternoon will suffice in very cold weather... unless they have small nursing young on them. In nature they do not have water available 24/7 when it is 20 out... and they will make a trip or 2 to water sources in the very cold, then will eat and ruminate... They WILL learn to come and drink when it is available to them... and then go off and be done. My cattle at 2 places will make the rounds of the pasture, summer and winter, and go to drink all at once and then go back several hours later... They will survive it just fine.
Sometimes in the effort to "take care of them" we do to extremes that are just not necessary.

 

[Ridgetop]

We have my aunt's woodburning cook stove. We brought it home from Yelm. The wonderful old potbelly woodstove from the bunkhouse that warmed everything up on one log was kicked to pieces by the trashy people to whom the tenant illegally rented the outbuildings. He broke off the padlocks, stole the stuff stored there, and then rented the space in the bunkhouse and barns to get money for himself while claiming covid to avoid paying rent to us or being evicted! GRRRR

Enough of those bad memories - Just a note that I will be bringing that woodstove to NE Texas.

After several winters like the last 3 in Texas I believe that the climate may be on one of its several hundred-year cyclical changes - witness the mini-ice age during the Revolutionary War in the US and across Europe. This is not due to "planet warming", people burning fossil fuels, or AOC not understanding that you can't get to Hawaii by train. It is due to normal cycles in this planet's weather which have happened for hundreds of thousands of years through the past.

However, it underlines the need for a propane generator and my aunt's woodstove when we move to NE Texas! LOL

 

[Baymule]

Happy New Year y’all!

 

[Baymule]

Still have crud my 15 year old granddaughter gave me at Christmas. Coughing and blowing nose, the OTC stuff just ain’t getting it gone. I think it’s doctor time.

90% rain today, supposed to start in 30 minutes, about when it gets light enough to go feed and do chores. Of course.

Goal this week is to get working equipment set up so I can start taking fecal samples, trimming feet and all that fun stuff. Got to buy some hog panels and a cow panel to build the chutes and put up the gates. Going to put up the sorting gate and use hog panels to make a temporary holding pen. Got to get young ewes worked and put with Cooper. Knee replacement surgery kinda interfered with getting that done, but I had to stop long enough to get that done.

Going to rain today and tomorrow, sunshine for 3 days, then 3 more days of rain. The sheep lot will be soup, manure soup. Sloppy mud mess. At least it won’t be freezing.

Got 2 heavy bred ewes, Ewenique, a 9 year old, the last of my original 4 that we bought. She is BIG! And Frimplepants, Ewenique’s granddaughter, she also is about to pop. They are at the point of becoming Jamaica Sheep. As in Ja’ Make-uh-me-CRAZY!

 

[SageHill]

Still have crud my 15 year old granddaughter gave me at Christmas. Coughing and blowing nose, the OTC stuff just ain’t getting it gone. I think it’s doctor time.

90% rain today, supposed to start in 30 minutes, about when it gets light enough to go feed and do chores. Of course.

Goal this week is to get working equipment set up so I can start taking fecal samples, trimming feet and all that fun stuff. Got to buy some hog panels and a cow panel to build the chutes and put up the gates. Going to put up the sorting gate and use hog panels to make a temporary holding pen. Got to get young ewes worked and put with Cooper. Knee replacement surgery kinda interfered with getting that done, but I had to stop long enough to get that done.

Going to rain today and tomorrow, sunshine for 3 days, then 3 more days of rain. The sheep lot will be soup, manure soup. Sloppy mud mess. At least it won’t be freezing.

Got 2 heavy bred ewes, Ewenique, a 9 year old, the last of my original 4 that we bought. She is BIG! And Frimplepants, Ewenique’s granddaughter, she also is about to pop. They are at the point of becoming Jamaica Sheep. As in Ja’ Make-uh-me-CRAZY!

Frimplepamts - what a name!