Feelin' a bit sheepish...

[Beekissed]

I like our quad. We use it to plow the driveway in the winter. It's small enough to drive through the trees, and we also have two small trailers to pull behind it. You'll get a lot of use out of it.

That small enough to weave through the trees is the important part, as well as having the right clearance of stumps, fallen logs and brush and having the power to pull logs or wagons through that kind of terrain. My mower just can't do it.

 

[Beekissed]

Took the 4wheeler, which I will now refer to as Sally...as in Mustang Sally, out for a spin yesterday, "racing" my 5 yr old grandgirl on HER Barbie toy quad bike named Pinky, which we got for $25 at a yard sale a few years back....man, that thing is FAST! She loves to go fast, that one.

Well, Miss Sally is also fast, with way more power than I'm used to, so I have to really learn how to keep it a steady and slow pace around here.....but there for a minute I felt kind of young on that bike. Remembered how much I used to have a need for speed.

Will have to resist that urge. The sheep didn't seem to mind the quad, so they must be familiar with such a thing, which is a bonus, and the dogs didn't mind it either. That's all good.

Going after hay today, if the Lord wills it. Due to conflicts with Mom's line dancing schedule, can't take both trucks, so can't get all the hay we want tomorrow, but may revisit his place if we like the quality and get more later.

Aliza loves the sheep and enjoys "grooming" them, so we cornered them in the pen and snagged Shine, her favorite and the most wild, of course. Clipped her to a lead and brushed her all over, which she stood very still for and even seemed to enjoy a bit, against her better judgement. Aliza is a natural with livestock and the sheep don't treat her like a stranger, though she doesn't get to work with them as much as she likes. The peanut butter biscuits were the key to getting Shine, and all the rest, to not mind us touching them, brushing them and otherwise woman handling them.

Got to brush down Rose, which didn't need clipped to a lead, while she ate alfalfa pellets and such...she enjoys being brushed. Shine doesn't normally enjoy any kind of handling, but even she seemed to really like getting a rough brush down all over....she has entirely different hair/wool than all the others and I hope to breed that into my flock greatly....it's a short, wiry/woolly, but still distinctly hair, coat. It never looks rough or even bushy but stays close to her form and glistens in the sun, hence her name.

Rose has hair more like a horse, coarse hair with an undercoat of fine cream colored wool along the top of the back.

May and Juniper are typical Dorper cross sheep, with raggedy and dirty looking wool that is shedding in little streamers right now...NOT a coat I enjoy having in the flock. Can't really brush them at all, but I did get to pull a few tags of shedding wool off them as they passed by.

It was fun for Aliza and she said it's one of her favorite things to do here, groom the sheep. I love that about her. She also enjoys catching up "her" chicken, just to see if she can. So glad I have this opportunity to fuel her farming personality, even in this small way. She was born to be a farm girl, that one. So was I, so we have a lot in common and have been BFFs from the beginning.

A good day on the homestead and I thank God for it!!!

 

[Baymule]

I love it that your sweet granddaughter loves the farm life. The lessons you teach her may take years to bloom, you may even be gone from this earth, but someday she will say, “My grandma taught me......” My husband asks me how I know things and I tell him I just know. My Daddy, my grandparents taught me. Those lessons of long ago are embedded in my very being, as natural to me as breathing. You are doing the same with your grandchildren. You never know when that seed you plant now will take root and grow.

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

She’s your granddaughter? I thought the little girl in your avatar is your daughter? I was under the impression that you are about 35 yrs old? Boy, you a young grandmother!

 

[Beekissed]

She’s your granddaughter? I thought the little girl in your avatar is your daughter? I was under the impression that you are about 35 yrs old? Boy, you a young grandmother!

I'll be 54 in April and that little girl in the avatar is now 5 and will be 6 in March. I feel both young and old, as my body is growing older than it should at this age, but my heart and mind are still quite young in a lot of ways.

But, like Bay says, my grandmother planted seeds in my young heart and mind from my tender years and I collected all that old people wisdom down through the years, so I was always older than other kids my age and still seem to be. Also, moving off grid at the age of 10, living in log cabins with no electricity or running water, homesteading and living off the land....all that stuff made me more able to converse with and get along with the older generation who also grew up that way....kind of changed my life and perspective, so I've kind of lived outside my generation's era all these years.

Aliza is much the same way....her grammar, her thought processes, her memory is razor sharp, and her humor is waaaaayyyyyyyy beyond her age, which is why she and I get along so well...peas in a pod, we two. When your two best friends in the world are 85 yrs old and 5 yrs old, you know you are between worlds.

 

[Beekissed]

Got some gorgeous hay yesterday! This stuff was put up right, is horse quality orchard and alfalfa, and such a good price I had to retain this old guy's number for future use. He has two farms, one of which is far away from this one...he transports 1200 bales a year up to this farm from the other one to sell in these parts and for use in his rescue horses.

Hay this good is usually $7-8 per bale, so getting it for $3 was simply a blessing, pure and simple. Can't wait to let the girls get a sniff of this...they will go cra-cra. Will be using this when I finally get them out on the land and for lambing season.

Thirty bales stacked under the carport....chickens will soon discover it and start to make nests there, which makes egg collection much easier until it warms up and black snakes and possum discover said nests, which will then have to be wrecked and discouraged.

 

[thistlebloom]

Wow, that's an excellentprice! I pay between 7 and 8 for orchard alfalfa (80/20).

 

[Baymule]

Congrats on the hay! That is a great deal, don't blame you for keeping the phone number.

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

So you lived without electrinity or running water growing up? Wow! My old farmer friend...who I often refer to...he’s not old...he’s just an old friend who happens to have farmed his whole life. Anyways, he doesn’t have running water even now. He only heats with a wood stove. So, the whole house doesn’t get warm. We keep our very very big house pretty cool due to cost...we use a wood stove and gas heat. We keep it between 57*-60*. We layer up. But, he likes his life on a more, old style way of living. If he could..I know he’d go off the grid. He just doesn’t have the money for land. Everyone has been asking us if we’re going to start only living off our farm...no more stores, etc. I don’t think either of have it in us. Our garden is huge, and I’m even looking into going ‘farm to table’ so I can sell to restaurants this year. But, I will always need my Jif! . It sounds like you and Aliza are just made for each other. That’s the best! My son has that with my Dad...what a Blessing since my ex husband wasn’t in the picture. Are her parents farmers too?

 

[Beekissed]

So you lived without electrinity or running water growing up? Wow! My old farmer friend...who I often refer to...he’s not old...he’s just an old friend who happens to have farmed his whole life. Anyways, he doesn’t have running water even now. He only heats with a wood stove.

We still only heat with a wood stove. Back when we lived fully off grid, we had a wood cook stove in the kitchen and a barrel stove in the living area....which were the only two rooms we had. We were toasty warm all winter long but come summer, cooking and canning on that wood cookstove could get a bit too warm. We had the top half of that room screened and just covered it with plastic for winter.