Bridgemoof--Sheep & Wool festival

[Bridgemoof]

Hi Southern! lol on the Tim thing...you can always PM me. I don't want any of my followers to get banned,

The ducks we slaughtered and ate were the Pekin ducks. They free range. I'd love to hear more about the aging process. We had the thing in the fridge for about 3 days before I cooked it. Is that not enough maybe? Anything I can do to make the rest of the ducks better would be helpful! They are still in the fridge and I am ready to put them in the freezer before they go bad. Oh, and our plucker is imported from Guatamala, his name is Lencho and he charges $10/hour and plucks them by hand.

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Oh man! I'm reaLLY SORRY ABOUT YOUR SITUATION WITH tIM. I was in a similar situation & it took me 6 years to finally beable to leave. My prayers are with you hun. Hope you are able to escape soon!

 

[Bridgemoof]

Well, another day of farm management. I was so inspired about ordering my scrapies ear tags, I e-mailed the county extension agent to set up a meeting to see if they could help me with pasture management, grazing and weed control, manure disposal, soil and water conservation, farm tax management and wool marketing. I guess my request was too great, because he didn't e-mail me back. If ther eis help available, I would like to take advantage of it. They claim they can help with all of this stuff. We'll see if I get a call today.

A friend of Tim's stopped by yesterday to see what we had in the way of goats for his kids. We didn't have anything to sell him, (he even wanted Genius-the Unihorn, but Tim wouldn't part with him), but he did leave with several roosters. I guess they have hens that they wanted to get a few roosters for. So Tim sold him some and Peep-Peep, too. Peep-Peep was born inside, and as my first chick I raised and was friendly. Peep-Peep was a hoot. He would play with Pick, our schnauzer all the time, it was a stitch to watch them rolling around together in the grass. But, as with most roosters, once those hormones kick in they want nothing to do with you anymore. Peep-Peep eventually found his way to the barn where he had his eye on many a hen. The trouble is Peep-Peep took his job of protecting the hens too seriously and started getting too aggressive to the other roosters, picking fights on a constant basis. Maybe because he was so spoiled growing up. So recently, Peep Peep found his way into a cage where he waited on stewpot skid row. But luckily somebody came along and saved him, hopefully from the stewpot! I now have 2 new "porch chickens." Puff and Baby. But this morning I'm a little sad and reflective about losing Peep-Peep.

Peep-Peep, all grown up and very handsome.

The Indian Runner ducks were causing such havoc with the remaining 2 Pekin ducks, one of them was limping around and they would all pile on her. So I relocated them back to the pregnant goat area, and they can live a peaceful existence. But that means I will have to dump the water trough out ten times a day and refill it. Oy.

Pheasants are all accounted for! Yay! Sheep are doing okay out in there pastures. I delivered hay to the guys at the creek, and argued with Tim again about how I didn't want them down there all winter. I think it fell on deaf ears.

Yesterday, I painted half of my new produce cart/buggy. I need to turn it around and do the other side now and maybe by this weekend it will be ready to roll! I think I have enough flowers yet to do some arrangements to sell. I think the passer-bys will be happy to see the new cart out there.

That's all for today....have a good one!

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

Can't wait to see the cart when you are finished. Have a good day.

 

[autumnprairie]

Can't wait to see the cart when you are finished. Have a good day.

X2

 

[Bridgemoof]

I'm so excited, the county extension agent wrote me back and is coming out here on Tuesday to answer all of my questions! That will be fun.

All the animals are doing good. I just love walking out in the morning and opening all the chicken doors, etc. and letting everybody out...FREE!!!!!. Even the Unihorn, Genius, is really growing on me. He greets me every morning looking for food. He is looking so much better than when we got him. The turkeys are getting sooo big, and I think they are safely past the point of dyeing from that blackhead disease. I'm glad it turned out that we have one male and one female. The white turkey was strutting his stuff yesterday and fluffing up. Yesterday Tim discovered a big fat rat that was dead on the electric wire surrounding the pheasant run. Well that confirms my suspicions that it was rats getting them. They are still all accounted for.

Last evening I went down to the creek to feed the sheep and Koala was missing. Koala is the 6 month old Harlequin ewe lamb. She's a little chunkster. I called for her and heard her baaing from far off. I went down closer to the creek to see where she was. She was on the other side of the creek! D'oh! She was in the paddock with the two horses down there. I tried to coax her back under the fence, but she was a bit panicked and wasn't sure how to get back. All the other sheep were on the other side of the creek baaing for her, but she wouldn't go. So I went back up to the house and got Tim. We walked back down there and he had his lasso. She took one look at him with that rope and went right under the fence and ran back across the creek! whew.

This morning we finally trapped the little devil sheep, the roaming shetlands, in the pond area. Now we've got them! ha! They have been wandering around and off the farm for weeks. But now we finally have them trapped and we can move them over to be with the little flock of Jacobs.

On the liver biopsy front, apparently I got the right liver and it's at the lab and we will have test results in about 10 days. It will be very interesting to see what the results are.

I finished painting my buggy, and today I'll put the hardware back on and roll it on out to the road. I've got some pretty nice flowers going right now, so I'll be sure to make a showy presentation on the cart when I put it back out front. I need to figure out some kind of signage. On my old cart, I used to staple price lists and signs all over it. But I don't want to put staples onto the buggy. All of this roadside farm cart requires lots of planning and ingenuity. Everything has to be clearly marked. People are stupid, for the most part, and if it isn't clearly marked they don't have a clue what to do. I'll be sure to post pictures when I get it all set up. I'm still sad about my old cart being destroyed by a car, but am looking forward to building up my new one.

It was dark when I got up this morning, and a bit chilly. I actually am looking forward to fall, and I feel a creative inspiration coming on. Last year I painted a bunch of pumpkins, they were beautiful. I want to do it again this year.

Here are a couple I did from last year.

 

[BrownSheep]

I wanna pumpkin! You're very skilled and my stick men feel quite incompetent when in comparison to your pumpkins.

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

I wanna pumpkin! You're very skilled and my stick men feel quite incompetent when in comparison to your pumpkins.

 

[GoatCrazyLady]

I really don't know how you do it all. From now on when i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, i will STOP, think of you and get a grip!

 

[Bridgemoof]

Haha thanks you guys!

My life is rich and loaded with excitement, Goat Lady! lol But I am a good time manager, because I always make time for my NAP every day!

So this morning after I blogged, I thought I have 2 things I need to do this morning: 1. Take a shower (which has been an ever decreasing requirement in my daily activities) and 2. Go to the bank to get money to pay Anita, my cleaning lady.

Anita has saved my sanity in the past year. When I first got to the house here, it looked like a barn, noworse than a barn. Like a neglected storage unit WITHIN a barn. pffft. It did not resemble a home at all, and it has taken me and Anita over a year for me to be comfortable enough to invite anybody over. I mean, the living room didn't even have a couch to sit on, not that you could even walk in here. It had a bunch of broken chairs piled up on each other. The whole house was filthy dirty and mice turds everywhere, in every drawer, all over. Tim and his daughter are both the biggest slobs. I'm not a neat freak, but I'd like at least to be able to come in and sit down on a piece of decent furniture. So, Anita and I have been working away to make it a home and we have made great improvements around here. I've even invited friends to the farm without being completely embarrassed.

So, after I blog and am getting ready to go take a shower, Tim comes barreling in and says "YOUR ducks are loose and the Indian Runner ducks are trying to kill them. And the neighbor called and YOUR sheep are across the stream again."

ugh.

So I go out and round up the ducks, and sure enough the Indian Runner ducks were attacking the Pekin ducks. I got them separated and back in their new area. Then I had to hike on down to the creek again where I ran into 3 of the sheep coming up the lane. They saw me and turned around and headed back to the creek. Whoever said that sheep won't cross a creek were WRONG. They went right through it and up the other side. I calmly followed them and they went right under the horse fence, through the paddock, back under the fence and back across the creek in the area where they belong.

So, next thing you know, Tim says he wants to try and herd the devil sheep into the area with the jacob sheep, which involved carrying fence boards down the hill and nailing them up on the bottom of the horse fences. We got them over without them escaping. Whew.

So I finally got to take my shower around noon. I was able to scrounge up enough money from my eggs for sale box out front to pay Anita, so I don't have to go to the bank. And in a few minutes, I'm going to take my NAP!