Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Growing seasons vary so much across our great country. You need at least a year to acclimatize to them and even then crazy things can happen.

We got a lot accomplished today. Grandsons came over to do some of the light work that I hard on our knees like going up and down the hill picking up rubbish - bit of branches, wood, hay ropes (how did they end up halfway downhill from the shed?) etc. Paid with a couple of dollars and an ice cream cone. 10 year old grandson said he didn;t expect money, just wanted the ice cream cone! LOL And he is the best worker of them! We have to stay on top of the 12 year old all the tine, but at least I did not have to climb the hill. Not only is my knee getting worse (replacement eventually) but my balance is off and I am getting dizzy spells. I think it is the same problem I had once before. bits of ear wax that get loose and float around My doctor did a quick twist of my head and fixed it 5 years ago. Might have to go back for another fix. LOL Any using grandsons kept me from falling down the hill. LOL If I do fall I can't tell anyone or they will get on my case. I don't know why they think I am decrepit! Both DH and DS1 yelled at me for doing little dirt shoveling today! For some reason standing on my feet all day washing laundry, cooking, and ironing are ok. Working in the garden is health threatening!

This afternoon a buyer came for one of the smaller lambs. Sold one of the twins so that should help the ewe dry up a bit. According to him, the 50+ lb. size is what they have been buying. I think they are getting rangy skinny animals, instead of my prime meaty Dorper lambs. They took him away in the trunk so DS2 hog tied him. When they closed the trunk the lamb was pounding on the trunk lid. DS1 said he hoped they didn't get stopped by the police since it sounded like a mafia kidnapping! LOL

The lambs and their mamas go out on the field the end of May. The lambs will go to the auction a week later. They will be 3 months old on June 3. I am pulling Lewis off the ewes the end of the week. That gives them 2 weeks before I send in Moy to cover anyone who is still open, as well as those 3 ewes and the 2 October ewe lambs. In another 3 months 7041, 7088, and 8040 will go out with Axtell to be bred. The 4 spring ewe lambs will be held back until they are 7 months old - December. Little Snowflake is still 10 lbs. smaller than the lambs that are a month younger than her. She had a rough start with her mama not milking as much as she should have. Hopefully she will catch up. If necessary I will hold her back to be bred until she is about 1 year old.

 

[Baymule]

I can sympathize with you on the knee. I am headed for knee replacement someday in the next year. I just have to plan around the garden, canning, pig raising, chicken raising and slaughtering and the ewes lambing. After listing all that, I really don't know when the heck I will have time for surgery, much less recovery and therapy. LOL LOL LOL Don't want to be in a danged hospital right now anyway...…..

 

[Ridgetop]

WE ARE TOO BUSY TO SPARE THE TIME TO GET OURSELVES FIXED!

 

[Bruce]

You are right Bay, you are so busy you'll exempt every day of the year let alone a couple of months. BUT, your DH had some replacements and somehow y'all carried on. Make the time

 

[Baymule]

You are right Bay, you are so busy you'll exempt every day of the year let alone a couple of months. BUT, your DH had some replacements and somehow y'all carried on. Make the time

Sure, DH had multiple surgeries, then the following therapy. BUT he is not the "animal person" I am. He helps me sometimes, but mainly, the animals are my thing. So I have to clear the schedule, make sure that I have everything "done" so that he can take over my chores. Then of course, I won't stay down for long, so I need to make everything more easily accessible and easier to feed the critters. Other things can be put off while I recouperate, but caring for animals is an ongoing thing.

WE ARE TOO BUSY TO SPARE THE TIME TO GET OURSELVES FIXED!

 

[farmerjan]

You have to sit and make a timeline and who is doing what, what you are raising when, who gets butchered when, just like I did and then you figure what can be slid around to give you a window. Believe me, you can figure it out. Raise an extra batch of chickens ahead of time, get the pigs sooner then get them processed sooner, ; my problem was the putting mine off for a month due to my son's unfortunate accident, but I am going to be on the tractor soon. I have not been able to help with the calving so much this spring like I planned. But things will work out. The alternative is worse.... if you do some damage and CANNOT use it, and it happens at an inopportune time, you will hate it, and all the animals will suffer due to the abrupt change. So seriously look at the "scheduling" of what you are doing and see if you can "TWEAK" it a little. Knees are usually a max of 3 months "off work" like my girlfriend at the P.O...... you will be faster because you are active anyway. A friend who boards horses had one of her boarders have to have her knee done and she was back riding in 6 WEEKS. Total replacement. Make sure you have a quad sparing type so they don't cut the muscles or ligaments; they stretch them and move them aside and put the joint in from the side direction from what I have been told. I am going to look into that when the ankle deal is done.
I probably would have been out of the boot a couple weeks ago if the virus "shutdown" hadn't happened and I had had my normal appt in April with the anticipated x-rays and PT. So I am going to push it with the PT as much as they think safe. It has been 3 months & 1 week since the replacement surgery.... (Feb 6th). And do all the walking that I can now to strengthen everything.

 

[Ridgetop]

ve been having trouble with the BYH website freezing on me while I am writing so I have resorted to typing everything in word and then cutting and pasting. Even then it freezes when I try to do the imogees. Maybe it‘s trying to tell me not to be so wordy. At any rate, I have started dating my writings, since I don’t always have time to go on BYH. Once on I like to try to find everyone’s journals and catch up. If I am really busy, I take a break and write on my Word document while my joints stop aching, or alternatively, freeze up! I hate old age, but since I can’t grow younger, the alternative is sooo unpleasant!!!

BYH May 11, 2020

Such a lovely cool day today. Got to work cleaning out branches, trash, and recyclables for the Blue Bin. Starting on the front patio overlooking the city view and the rose garden, will be moving around the side of the house to the driveway and barn side. LOTS of trash there – scrap metal for the metal yard, large stuff for the dump etc. Some of this was piled there waiting to be loaded into the dump trailer for a dump run when DS3 showed up to get his trailer back! DH has the tree trimmers trimming all the dead wood and pulling it up from the gully and off the field. They will load it in the trailer and DH will dump it saving a couple hundred dollars over what the trimming service will charge to dump. Then we can fill the trailer with another load of garbage. Until Wednesday’s load goes to the dump, we are forbidden by DH to put anything in the trailer. He is afraid that it will be too full and the trimmers will not be able to load it completely with the branches and tree trunks. We would have to put them in ourselves, as well as load the garbage. Good thinking on DH’s part. I am making a great pile of junk that needs to be tossed in the trailer on Thursday.

We are thinking of getting our own dump trailer. DS3’s is 16-18’ but we could get by with a 12-14’ dump trailer. DS3 suggested that if we needed the bigger trailer we could switch o he would use our small one while we used his big one. I am not sure if we would bother to drive the 6 hour round trip to pick up and drop off the trailers though. Of course, that is almost the only time we see the grandkids so maybe . . . .

Anyway, I ordered the new Shaul’s panels and gate to convert my barn jugs from 4 to 5. Also ordered a hanging feeder for the rams. This one will have the wider 4” between bars. The poor boys’ giant heads don’t fit in the 3” spacing we have now. This means they always look like they have a case of facial mange. They also squeeze between the 2-sided feeder and the fence to get choice bits and knock the feeder over. DS1 likes it by the fence because we can just feed over the fence that way. Of course, now that we have a gate into the Field of Celibacy, that might not be such a problem. However, the 4’ hanging feeder with wider spacing will work better, and free up the 5’ 2-sided feeder for another pen of ewes. Since I was going to have to order another feeder for the ewes anyway, this makes more sense. I like the big metal field feeders with the grain pan underneath. They have drain holes in them, and hay mangers above. For outside use the metal stands up longer, and can be repainted if needed.

We weighed the lambs yesterday. The lambs are 10 weeks old. They may already be too large for the specialty buyer, but I need him to send his slaughterman out to judge their sizes. It is possible that the lamb breed they are buying are lighter whereas my lambs weigh heavier earlier. He needs to send his man out to look at the size rather than the weight. The 2 single lambs are 67 and 60 lbs., while the twin lambs – no surprise there – are 57 and 51.

The Axtel sired fall ewe lambs are just reaching 100 lbs. at 7 months old and need to go out to be bred. The Moy sired fall ewe lambs were over 100 lbs. at 6 months. Lewis’ lambs gain fast too. The Axtell lambs seem to put on weight at a slower rate so maybe the Axtell ram should sire the lambs that the buyer wants at 40 lbs. They will be about 2 weeks to a month older when they reach that weight, and the ewes can wean more easily at that age. Pulling my faster growing lambs at 6 weeks will put my ewes in danger of developing mastitis. Instead I can sell the Axtell sired lambs to the Halal buyer and the faster growing lambs elsewhere – either privately or at auction. Still figuring everything out, but the auction barns said that lamb prices have been rising for the past 2 years. Ethnic buyers more prevalent here now? Used to be that the Hispanic buyers would buy one for a BBQ, so my best sale dates were bringing the kids in for auction just before Palm Sunday when the Hispanics would buy them, take them home and the kids would play with them until they were slaughtered on Good Friday. Also used to take late kids in just before May 5 for Cinco. Now auction buyers seem to be buying several at a time. Possibly for the ethnic market butchers? I plan to take these lamb to the auction barn in another couple of weeks to see what they will bring at around 70 lbs. According to the barn office they should bring anywhere between $125 and 175. I will be happy with anything approaching $2.00 per lb. It will cut the feed bill allowing my ewes to go out again with a ram to breed. The new lambs and their mothers will then move into that barn pen with access to the creep. I am trying to work out a schedule for breeding, lambing, and selling the lambs. I did that with the rabbitry and it worked well. The sheep are larger and therefore take more effort than 100 rabbit does in cages, but it is the same idea.

I weighed the tiny lambs the day before yesterday, and they are growing well. The single ram lamb weighed 9.4, probably because he was a single and she is a larger ewe. She had twins last October. The week-old lambs have put on an average of 6 lbs. each. Doing very well, and the ewes are holding condition with just hay and 1 cup barleycorn daily to help with milk production. They probably don’t need the barleycorn and I will not feed it if the lambs are destined for early sale at 40 lbs. Less milk to dry up and less chance for mastitis. I will have to get a prescription for Tomorrow from my vet so I can order the tubes. No longer available in California like anything else that you need for livestock! I will have to treat the does whose lambs have been pulled early each time. I am not looking forward to using these tubes on my ewes though! The dairy does hated it and they were accustomed to having their udders and teats handled. Trying to insert a tube inside one of these ewe’s little teats and squirting medication into her udder will not be an experience either of us will enjoy!!!

Last night I finished making more masks. These are pleated. I‘ll give them to DD1 and her children. Gave the cute western style print ones I made to DDIL and grandsons. She recognized the print from the curtains I made for her kitchen at her old house. She was thrilled since she really loved that fabric with little saddles, horseshoes, and cacti.

Another item crossed off my list!

May 13, 2020

Sold the 57 lb. lamb last night. Have to call the Halal market today and if he doesn’t send his man out to judge the size, we will castrate and turn out onto the field for another couple weeks of growth on forage before taking them to auction.

THE ROSES ARRIVED LAST EVENING!!!

Put them on the patio in the shade until this am when I filled a couple of containers with water to cover the roots and am now soaking them. The instructions say to soak the roots in water for 24 to 48 hours before planting. The roses all have little growth buds on them already! I will have to get out my chart and decide which ones to plant next to each other for the prettiest display. DH reminded me to be sure and plant them close to the fence so Josie the Mule won’t have to reach as far. HA HA

The tree trimmers are here today. The dog are all locked up but DH ran out and turned out the sheep before I could stop him. Since the sheep won’t savage the tree trimmers, and since all that activity on the hillsides will keep the coyotes away, I suppose it will be fine. I probably rely on my dogs too much, having sheep out without canine protection seems risky.

Angel comes in season again the end of this month. Back to the kennel for her again. She can’t be fixed now for another year since Erick feels that the Anatolian Association will allow her sire (the son of a Turkish import) so be registered, thus allowing Angel to be registered. There was political hanky-panky going on for about 2 years, but now they have allowed other dogs out of that sire to be registered so Erick feels that Babar will be registered too. In the event that we can register Angel, we will breed her to Bubba in fall or winter of 2021. She will be 3 years old then. Both Erick and Debra (Angel’s breeder are excited about that mating.) I told Erick that I enjoy raising puppies, but when they turn 12-14 weeks I am loading them up and taking them to him. He is happy about that prospect. DH wants to keep a pup since Rika will be 9, Bubba will be 6, and Angel 3. Erick will sell the puppies for me since that is the part of puppy raising I hate. Trying to decide who is worthy of one of OUR wonderful puppies is very difficult since naturally few people come up to my standards! LOL There are a few of you BYHers of course, but strangers? That is in the future, we have to get through a few more seasons first and registration. I can't wait till I can spay her!

Yesterday we got a lot done with the help of the grandsons. The next job is to continue picking up bits and pieces of scrap wood, branches, and trash that seem to breed in our yard and pasture. The same gremlins that used to live I our house and breed garbage under my children’s beds must have migrated outdoors. There are a couple of them still inside, but I have been working on eradicating them. The return of “NOBODY” has also occurred This NOBODY who used to get my children in trouble is now finding sneaky ways to torture DH and DS1. I wonder if the gopher traps would work on "NOBODY"? They never worked on our gophers!

While we were in Nipomo DS3 took his rifle after the ground squirrels that seem to be invading his property. He has a lot of fun from his back patio! A couple years go he used to have a resident badger that hunted them and ate them but it has disappeared. Now he runs in and gets his light rifle and blasts them. I suggested that he skin and clean them and DDIL could cook him up a mess of squirrels. However, he said by the time he drilled them there wasn’t enough left. Just as well since DDIL was making faces at me. LOL The old timers used a head shot, leaving the bodies intact for eating. I forgot to suggest that to him. My bad.

DS1 brought all the horse troughs over yesterday to see if they would work for raised beds. No sense in paying good money for 2 x 12s and building planters when we have giant horse troughs. I did not realize how many we had!!! DH reminded me that we used to keep 5 horses and a boarder or 2. We had 3 of the old style metal tanks 2’w x4’l x 2’h, and 7 of the Rubbermaid type tanks, 3’w x 4 ½’l x 2’h. Two of the large Rubbermaid tanks are in use on the field, which leaves me with 8 tanks. Two others of the Rubbermaid tanks have a small split at the top edge – I thought they were supposed to be indestructible which proves that anything can break. (Consider the Titanic!)

Anyway, the metal troughs are starting to rust so they, and the 2 Rubbermaid troughs that are splitting, can be drilled for the special growing beds with the water wicking technology - Leach pipes wrapped in weed cloth and placed at the bottom with dirt over them and a water fill stand pipe – did I describe this before? I need to find the U tube video of this method. If that method doesn’t work, the drilled holes will work as drainage holes in them. I am so glad I remembered them before buying the materials for another raised bed. I am not sure I want to drill holes in those other 3 Rubbermaid water troughs though. I might just use them as raised beds without drainage holes and try not to over water.

DS1 picked up a large desk blotter style calendar for me yesterday. I plan to use it with different color dots (which I forgot to have him get for me) to alert me to crayon change dates, ram removal dates, new ram coming in dates, weaning & auction removal dates, etc. Between my regular calendar, special sheep calendar, weight chart, and this calendar I may be getting too much duplicate record keeping. As time goes by I will refine it. I also have to figure out my feed bill from last year and my projected bill for this year per ewe to wee if I can produce enough lambs for enough money to break even or make a profit, however, small. Obviously no one is getting a wage out of this!

Good news! The buyer who bought the lamb last night is coming back for another one on Friday. Apparently, it passed the taste test of the discriminating lamb BBQers. They all agreed it was the best they ever tasted. Hovik is coming back tomorrow for its brother. LOL I have told DS1 we will cut the ewes feed off now to dry them off pronto since I don’t want any problems. The lambs will be fed in the creep. The ewes are going out on the field this weekend after Lewis returns to his buddies. On the field all they have is forage which seems to keep them in good body score condition. In 2 weeks, we will put Moy out with the ewes. This weekend when we move those ewes and the 2 ram lambs out on the field, the new mamas will move over to the larger lamb pen with the creep. The babies need more room now.

I will plant my roses tomorrow or Friday. They have to soak for 24-48 hours. I have made some progress in cleaning off the driveway patio. There is stuff there from our last trip and from when we sold our Lance camper! OMG! That was last year! How humiliating!

 

[Baymule]

That sounds great on the lamb sales to the Halal buyer. I have often wondered how that works. Obviously Halal slaughter is not USDA, so I wonder how they work around that. For small sales and buyers, custom slaughter works, but in bigger lots, it is hard to slip it under the rug. Do the customers buy the live lamb, then it is Halal slaughtered?

 

[Ridgetop]

The butcher shop buys the lambs live. I think that is how they get around it. The slaughterman (Halal) picks up the live lambs from the seller and apparently does his thing. I really don't know otherwise. If the butcher has clients that order lambs ahead of time, he can sell them and have the slaughterman kill them as a "favor" to the buyer. That is how we used to work our private rabbit sales. It is also how a lot of the small specialty shops work too. The animals are kept on premises live and then sold to the customer. They are then slaughtered for the "new" owner. That avoids the need for a USDA license. It is also possible that the Halal guy has a special license because of religious reasons. I just like having a market. Tomorrow my Armenian buyer returns for another lamb. Maybe he will decide to take them all! At this rate there are only 2 left to castrate for auction. I do have the 2 ram lambs that are a few days old and 1 week old. The ewes on the field are all bred except the one that lost her lamb. She will get bred in the next go round or 2.

 

[Ridgetop]

DISASTER! TRAGEDY! WOE! DEVASTATION!

I HAVE LOST MY CLIPBOARD! IT HAS ALL THE WEIGHTS FOR THE PAST YEAR’S LAMBS!

After fruitlessly searching everywhere, I relisted all the weights off the calendars and notes where I LUCKILY had just transferred them. This proves what I have always said – keep good records. And now I add - keep them in 2 places!

The last time I had my clipboard was on Tuesday when Hovik and his brother-in-law came over to buy the first lamb. I had it in the barn, placing it in a hang over bucket on the outside of an empty pen while going over the lambs. I remember taking it from the barn when we went up to load the lamb. I had to go back down to the barn for some hay rope to tie its legs together before putting it in his car. His brother-in-law feared it would escape when they stopped and tried to unload it! Probably would have. I remember placing the clipboard on top of the scale while I pulled the hay ropes out of the barrel. Then I remember holding it while DS2 tied up #54. The brother in law handed me my cash and I went inside. I collapsed on the sofa for a few minutes. I remember putting the clipboard on the ironing board (I was still in the middle of sewing masks) and then it is a blank. FDIL remembers it sitting on the ironing board that evening. I used the ironing board the next day while finishing the masks. I transferred it to the table which just goes to show that you should immediately put everything back in its proper place! I have searched the house, I have searched the barn, I have searched the yard and field in case Angel found it and chewed on it. NOTHING! Thus, my deep depression, feelings of tragedy and rejection (by my clipboard). DH attempted to assist me in my search, but when questioned admitted he would not recognize it if he found it. DH was a broken reed for me to lean on, but sympathetic.

Luckily, I have several other clipboards, and plenty of blank weight sheets. I had to reconstruct the weight charts for the fall lambs, and the spring lambs. I had the birth weights of the new lambs on the calendar. I found the scrap of paper where I had jotted down the second week weights of those newborns. I remembered the weights of the 5 March lambs since we had been discussing them on Tuesday. BUT WHERE COULD MY CLIPBOARD HAVE GONE? I HAVE BEEN USING THE SAME CLIPBOARD WEIGHING LAMBS FOR 5 YEARS! Eventually it might turn up. But all my weight records were on it. At a glance I could tell when lamb was born its parents its weight on any given week. I am bereft. But life goes on . . . .

I planted all the roses yesterday, using the chart of their sizes and colors to arrange them to the best advantage in the beds. They will look beautiful once they start to bloom, with the view of the mountains behind them.

Tomorrow DS1 and I will make our first “sub irrigated” planter. We have to make 8 of them, and this morning I wandered out with my coffee to decide where to place the water troughs that will be the planters. They will fit end to end in rows, 3, 3,and 2. Then we will have to figure out how to put in DH’s corn plot. He keeps going on about it and I have decided that he should be the one to take charge of it. Taking charge means that he will have to get the plot ready, plant it and water it. He was shocked when I told him that would be his chore. He insisted that he does a lot of “gardening”. My idea of gardening is to spade up the soil, add amendments, plant the seeds or seedlings, water them, pick the produce and at the end of growing season remove the dead plants ready for the next year. His idea of gardening, which he assures me he helps with, is to suggest vegetables for me to plant. He will then travel to the store to purchase the soil amendments on my list, hopefully getting the amount I tell him, but often only getting the few bags he thinks are necessary. For some reason, this man, a math and accounting major in college, cannot seem to look at a large bed or planter and figure out the necessary cubic feet of soil and amendments needed to fill it! Darling DH. I still love him.

Friday evening Hovik and his brother-in- law came back for #55. That is the one they originally wanted. They said they wanted a 40 b. lamb but 55 weighed 51 lb. #54 was 6 lbs. heavier but they decided they would take him instead. Same price. Friday, they decided they would take the larger #53 who weighed 67 lbs. last week. By now he is around 70 lbs., ready for auction, and will bring around $180. I told them he would be $175 since he was so much larger. They decided to take 55 who has gained another pound or 2. Apparently their friend had given them $150 for the lamb and they weren’t sure he would go the extra $25. We tied up 55, and again placed him in the trunk. This time the brother-in-law had brought an even smaller Mercedes. Once #55 was loaded and the trunk was closed, the car started bobbing up and down as #55 tried to escape. Hopefully, he won’t get pulled over by the law with #55 banging away in the trunk. I can just imagine him stopped at a red light with a police car behind him and #55 starts his escape attempts! They would have the BIL up against the car while they opened the trunk to free the supposed kidnap victim! LOL

This lamb, named Cocoa, will be as tasty as the last lamb, named Charlie. The 8 year old daughter was with them both times, and her father told her that Charlie was living on a nice farm with friends. Cocoa was to be company for him. (BBQ camp!) I told Hovik and the BIL that my children used to ask WHO we were eating not what! Farm kids.

After they left, DS1 and I vaccinated the 5 new lambs, docked the 3 ewe lambs, and then proceeded to drain a couple of abscesses. Actinobacillus again. The first was the giant cue ball sized lump on 8040. Dr. Rene drained the first smaller abscess that had ripened above this one and had it cultured. It came back Actinobacillus so we knew that this was another of the same. After Dr. Rene drained that first one, the sausage shaped swelling on 8040’s muzzle above her jaw had disappeared. However, the smaller round one on the bottom of her jaw had increased in size. It had been hard as a rock, but finally it ripened and was ready to lance. I used one of my disposable scalpels to make a quick incision and drained it. Yuck! Then I used a 12cc syringe (minus the needle) to flush out the cavity with iodine solution several times. This helps any remaining pus to rinse out. Finally, I sprayed it with Alushield. Disgusting but necessary.

We decided to move 8040 and her lamb into another pen. DS1 moved the lamb first, then chased a thoroughly unsettled 8040 in after him. She was not happy with the change. We still needed to give the lamb his CDT so DS1 picked him up for the vaccination. As I was pulling up a fold of skin in his groin for the subQ shot, 8040 decided to leave. She barrelled through the gate into my bad knee! There was a hideous crunching sound, incredible pain, and I was unable to stand on the leg. This was not helped by the fact that I was holding a syringe full of CDT vaccine with an uncovered needle in the air and trying to avoid sticking either DS1 or myself with it. I couldn’t grab hold of DS1 for support, the gate handle had slammed into my arm leaving an already purpling bruise, and strange language was issuing from my mouth! I was either talking in tongues or, unknown to me, I had picked up some rather nasty words from my sons and DH. After clinging to the rail for a few minutes, I was surprised to find that I could stand on my bad knee again. We finished the vaccination and decided if 8040 felt so strongly about her old pen she could stay in it. DS1 moved her water and feed buckets back and we put the lamb with her. My knee was feeling better now, no pain – DS1 said 8040 probably caused intensive nerve damage so I couldn’t feel anything. Thank you, son.

Next job was castrating 53 and 57. They weigh 70 and 65 lbs. respectively. I disposed of the paper towels from 8040’s job while DS1 got his elastrator loaded. He flipped the first one and I held him by the forelegs while DS1 attempted to band him. 53 had large ones which were a struggle to fit through the band. DS1 got it done quickly though. However, 57 apparently did not want to be a wether. Although his testicles were much smaller, he had mastered the art of retracting them at will. As DS1 wrestled with the little buggers, I could feel my knee wanting to give way. Finally, the deed was done and I was able to grab the railings for support.

The next abscess was on Axtell out in the smaller field pen. This abscess was the same size, same location, same type of exudate as 8040. (Exudate sounds better than put, doesn’t it?) This time it did not go so well!

The rams were in the small pen where DS1 had put them after the tree trimmers left the gate open on Wednesday, and they escaped from their field. Luckily, the ewes are already bred. DS1 tried to put Axtell into the sorting chute to load him in the squeeze. Axtell did not want to go in the chute. Finally, DS1 got him in but he was backwards. He needed to face the other way to enter the squeeze. As DS1 tried to turn him around, he accidently touched the abscess which burst onto his fingers! BLECH! Some bad language followed from DS1 who was now wearing nasty pus on his fingers. I gave DS1 several paper towels to clean it off, then doused his fingers with iodine. I was wearing gloves but DS1 was not since he figured we would have the ram in the squeeze. Since the abscess was now open, we didn’t dare move Axtell out of the sorting box. I grabbed my meds, paper towels, etc., and went into the large pen to work on him in the sorting box. I finished emptying the abscess, then flushed it with iodine and sprayed the Alushield on it. As I went back through the field gate onto the driveway my knee tried to fold the wrong way. OUCH!

Strangely for the rest of the evening although it was painful it seemed as though the knee cap was in the correct spot and I could bend it better. I wonder if the crunching noise was arthritis deposits breaking away. The doctor had told me that my knee cap had moved to the right of the joint and that was why I had trouble bending the knee or going up and down stairs. This morning my knee is less swollen than before 8040 performed her chiropractic move on it. Most surprising of all is the fact that the knee cap seems to be in the correct location and I don’t have any more pain! I wonder how long it will last.

FRIDAY AND YESTERDAY THE ON-LINE DORPER SALE WAS GOING ON! I thought it went through Sunday, but luckily realized that it only went through 5 pm Saturday. There are lots of bids on some of the bred ewes that Paul Lewis is selling. He is cutting back his 700 head herd because his son who was a full-time partner has now started working for the irrigation district. Paul encouraged him to do that since there are good benefits and medical. Now Paul has been cutting back. He sold 200 head of the commercial flock already and another 50 of the ewes he planned to keep. I bid on a couple but so did lots of other people who want his genetics. His flock is the only one on the west coast that is on Lambplan with EBV’s. His sheep are in great demand. I was lucky to get one and had to pay a little more than I wanted. Several of the sheep he is selling have already lambed, so you get the lamb at side as well. I set my alarm set for 4pm on Saturday to check the bids. The prices went wild towards the end of the sale. I was very annoyed since I had owned one ewe for almost 2 days up until 4:30 Saturday – half an hour before bidding closed when she doubled in price! GRRRRR! I also noted a young yearling Lewis ram with fantastic EBVs and bloodlines that had not received any bids. ??? My hand reached for my cursor and as I argued with myself, I bid on him. I could afford him, it was the only bid, and if I got him, he would be a terrific addition to my flock. Of course, I would have to hide him from DH . . . . All of a sudden the board went crazy with on-line bidding bells ringing all over the place. My lovely young ram jumped to over $1000 in about 10 minutes! The sale was ending and people that hadn’t gotten what they wanted at a cheap price were now burning up the board trying to finalize their purchases. Bing! Bing! Bing! In the last few minutes of the sale, everything about doubled in price as purchasers realized these ere the last of the White Dorpers. There is another on-line Patton-Lewis auction in October. I might get something then that will be in budget. Buying early in the sale is when the prices are best since there are still more to come and bidders stick to their max bids.

There were also several Patton ewes in the sale that I bid on. Again, checking the bids during the day to see whether my bid held or if I needed to count my cash and go higher. OUCH! LOL Most of my flock is Patton x Lewis with a few other good lines as well. They are all good bloodlines, fast growing and meat makers. I love my sheep.

I finished the sale spending a bit more than I wanted to, but buying the 2 exposed Patton ewes I particularly wanted, and the Lewis ewe with a ewe lamb at side. Hopefully, the Patton exposed ewes are bred. I will wait a couple weeks after I get the home, then put them out with my other ewes with the Moy ram. If they did not take, they will be covered by him. I will be sad because really wanted lambs out of the Patton ram, but at least they will be settled, and I will have lambs out of them.

With the ewes and older lambs turned out onto the field, we will let the lamb/creep pasture dry out a bit. clean it completely out and lime it to disinfect it. Then the ewes with new lambs (under a month old) will be turned in there so the lambs can access the creep for hay. The new Lewis ewe (Louisa?) wand her ewe lamb will go in with those 3 ewes to assimilate with the flock. The 2 Patton ewes (hopefully pregnant) will go on the field with the other bred ewes and Moy as a clean-up ram.

Now it’s time to go make the sub-irrigated planters with DS1. He is planning them out for me. DS1 went out on Friday to find the flex irrigation lines. These are flexible accordian 4” pipes with drain holes in them that are used as leach lines in reverse. They supposedly collect the water from the soil and direct it away from a location to drain it. As opposed to standard leach lines that take the liquid out and disperse it into the soil. He was finally able to find them at Home Depot in Burbank, but only in short lengths. No one else had them. Lowes carries them on-line, but only deliverable to stores on the east coast! We can order them from Home Depot in 50’ and 100’ lengths or buy them in 25’ lengths. The 50’ lengths are only a couple dollars more than the 25’ lengths. And buying 2 50’ lengths is considerably cheaper than buying 1 100’ length! Go figure. DS1 wants to do 1 planter first and see how much flex drain it takes, how much weed cloth it takes, and how it works. Then he will order the rest of the flex drain to be delivered to Home Depot, get the weed cloth we need (e already have a small roll here), and the 1” or 2” PVC pipes to cut for the filler stand pipes. Hopefully this will work very well, and be a good use for the 8 extra horse troughs we already have and no longer need. We only have 1 mule now, and she has a large trough on the field. We can’t use them for the sheep because when the water level drops by about 8-10” the sheep can’t reach the water to drink anyway.

FDIL has been amusing herself by starting seeds in egg cartons. They are already sprouting and need to be transplanted in another week or 2. It will take 2 weeks to get the flex pipe for the trough planters so we need to hurry!