Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Bruce]

nothing like traditional Mexican food! LOL

Yep, Taco Bell is NOTHING like traditional Mexican food

Sorry about your BIL, unexpected and not unexpected at the same time. for your sister and family.

 

[Ridgetop]

BJ and beeets! Yummy! Your garden sounds like it is doing super this year!

We love beets and plan to plant them in the shallow PVC barrel horse feeders. Not the giant water troughs, these are 30 gallon drums that I cut into horse feeder. Again, they are sitting out in the "equipment corral" with the other not being currently used equipment. I have 3 PVC ones and 3 of the large metal barrel feeders. I may not get to them and m ay offer them to my daughter in law. Or they will be ok to use for individual rams when they are in solitary confinement, aka not currently being bred.

It turned very hot today, 90 by 9:00 am. Big chnge from yesterday at high 70's! Over 100 still at 6:45 pm as I write this. I had hoped to get the other barrels done tonight since the shade is on that side in the late afternoon but maybe not. DS1 is exhausted after spending 3 hours in the heat going from store to store to find Root Beer. He found the Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, and Cherry Coke, all at different stores, but no Dr. Pepper. Apparently the looters took it all! LOL

I will be weighing my May lambs today. Tomorrow I will call the auction yard to see what prices my 3 lambs brought today. I hope the high temps did not stop bidders from coming out. The auction yard said that the Covid hasn't stopped any business so I am hoping. With no cars on the road the trip took us 2 hours round trip. With traffic it usually takes an extra hour.

On the way home from picking DH up from Galpin Ford where he was having the truck serviced, we stopped to see if we could get some planter mix at Lowes. There were no prices posted anywhere and there was only Miracle Gro (high priced one) available. We flagged down an employee and asked about the prices and the other brands and he said that as soon as they come they are sold out so they d=took all the prices down. I asked if that was so they could raise them each time and he laughed and said probably. We bought the Miracle Gro since I was finished trying to get the Kellogg's every few days. I will probably save the difference in price on gas!

We will leave early Friday to drive up to northern /California to pick up or sheep equipment and ewes. We will stay overnight at the Best Western in Willows since it is closest to Orland where we pick up the ewes. DH wants to go to Lodi to look at trailers and price dump trailers. It is on the way to Shaul's. The trip is over 500 miles one way so I am glad that the motels are open again. No hot breakfast though, only "grab and go".

Gotta brave the heat and start the weighing!

 

[Baymule]

3 hours searching for root beer! That's wanting root beer awfully bad! I think I would have just got a box of tea bags! Add sugar and ice for some sweet tea! hahaha!!!

Isn't it too hot to plant beets there? Potting soil, can't you make your own with all the sheep manure you have?

Have fun going to get your sheep equipment and your ewes!

 

[Ridgetop]

DS1 did this for himself, DS2, and FDIL. I drink coffee, ice tea, and water! I would not have spent my time doing that. I have been known to visit several stores looking for certain flavors of hard soda! Priorities! LOL If I can't find it I try to order it at BevMo.

Beets will grow here just fine. I have to add sand to my soil though since the clay is too hard, and adding extra compost makes them hairy! Carrots are the same. They do grow better in the winter, but I will plant them in a slightly shady spot and they should do well. I am looking now for more Citronella plants. They grow well in the shade and are supposed to keep flies and mosquitoes at bay. I have one that I bought a month or so ago. There were lots of them then but now all gone.

Weighed the lambs and they are gaining very well. Even little Snowflake, daughter of Prolapse, who was very small due to her mother probably not producing enough milk is putting on weight at .75 lb. ADG! Have I mentioned I love y scale. We even weighed the dogs! Bubba 157 lb. His diet is working! Rika at 104.5 lbs., and Angel at 18 months a long legged rangy 100 lbs. She will eventually fill out but is taller than Rika already.

 

[Ridgetop]

Left Friday morning at 7:00 am on a drizzly day that continued with fog and haze until halfway up the big valley – San Joaquin. DS1 checked in with us later said it had rained lightly during the morning after we left, probably not enough to help the pasture. San Joaquin Valley is the farm central of California and feeds a lot of the country. The lower half grows field crops, vineyards, alfalfa, gradually changing over to nut trees, more vineyards, field crops, cotton, then finally mostly nut orchards (almond, pistachio and walnut) and RICE! Paddies everywhere and emerald green this time of the year. Beautiful drive up and back – just under 1,000 miles round trip. Once we hit the middle of the SJV, the weather turned into lovely blue skies, soft white clouds, and a strong wind! However, no masks to be seen except when going into stores and restaurants some masks there but more than half of the people were not wearing any. Through the middle of the SJV the I-5 parallels the California aqueduct. On the west side the hills were golden with no crops, but occasionally a dead orchard of young trees. On the east side, no hills, and the canals are available for irrigation, plenty of crops in the fields. DH wondered why the young orchards were dead and I reminded him that these looked to be young trees, not bearing yet. The farmer that planted them probably lost a lot of his water allotment a couple of years ago and had to sacrifice a new orchard planting to divert water to one that was producing. Seeing the dead trees and a couple dead vineyards broke my heart. So sad.

Anyway, we stopped at a trailer place in Lodi for DH to look at and price dump trailers. Not worth the effort since they were sold out of almost everything. DH wanted a slightly smaller trailer than the 14’ box DS3 has. The 12’ dump trailer did not come in a gooseneck which is what DH wants since our dump has a really limited turn around area. DS3’s 14’ is a gooseneck and barely makes it around the turn. DH said he could probably take the 12’ BP with 3’ sides but I vetoed it. If he wants a gooseneck he needs to look for a gooseneck. The owner said that she would be getting in a different manufacturer in a few months that she thought had slightly shorter dump trailers in gooseneck and they were slightly better made than the ones we were looking at. I told DH we should wait until they have a better selection (and we have cash since I only want to pay cash not do payments). We are just fine with borrowing DS3’s trailer when necessary for now. On the way back we discussed it and DH said that he did not need the 4’ high side walls since DS3 told him that when he hauls dirt or rock he can’t fill the trailer above 2’ anyway. DH decided he could get one with 2’ sides and it would be cheaper. Then he could made side walls for it out of 2x4”s and plywood when we needed to dump brush like we did on our old pick up. Problem solved. Just need t save up the money for it.

Next, we headed up to pick up the sheep equipment we had ordered. We had to drop the trailer to load it all in the truck bed. Then since we were planning to spend the night in a motel, I had brought the chains I use to chain the trailer gates shut when making a 2 day run with livestock. We chained the panels and feeders together, and then chained the whole shebang to the inside truck rail. On to Willows where we planned to spend the night before picking up the ewes in the morning. Right on schedule.

Checked into the motel around 7:30 pm and decided to order a delivery pizza for dinner. We were not terribly hungry. Round Table Pizza charged $30.00 for a 14” delivery pizza! Next time I will pack some microwave meals in our cooler since almost all motels have microwaves now. DH fell asleep watching TV after we showered. After 12 hours driving it felt so good to stretch out flat! Next morning no nice hot Best Western breakfast due to the quarantine. Just “Go Bags” with a cup of yogurt and a tiny muffin. However, at least we were able to get a good nights sleep instead of trying to travel back at 9:00 pm.

Next morning we headed up to Orland to pick up the ewes only half an hour away. The ewe lamb is huge at around 3 and a half weeks! I will weigh her tomorrow. Her mother is also very large, but needs some groceries. She has had a rough week transporting from Oregon to northern California then transporting again to southern California. She is putting everything into feeding her huge lamb and is showing the strain a bit. I will also worm her. The 2 bred ewes that I bought with her are definitely looking bred. They were with that ram from April 1 through May 25, so are due any time after the beginning of September. I will turn them in with the ewes being exposed to the other 2 rams as a backup in case they are not settled.

Easy loading, and on the road again by 8:30 am. It took us 8 hours to drive back today, and we did not stop to do more than gas the truck once and get burgers to eat in the truck while driving. OK, Ok, DH did stop so I could have 2 potty breaks, but it was not my fault. I was trying to stay hydrated with water since I wasn’t drinking coffee. If I had been drinking my normal coffee allotment it would have been 4 potty breaks! LOL

Once arrived home, we unloaded the ewes and put them in the barn.

. . . . . . .

Oh, you want to know about that episode?

Arriving home DH pulled the truck and trailer into the yard and stopped outside the barn door. This is the only place to stop since the barn is right next to the driveway. I took my purse, the coffee thermos, travel mugs, and overnight bag into the house. DH having driven for 18 hours in 2 days, brought the cooler out of the back, unloaded the paperwork on the sheep, and a couple other travel items, then disappeared into the house to put stuff away. I went down into the barn and removed the dividers in one set of jugs so we now had a pen 10’ x 10’. Put in hay and water. Set up one of the 5’ x 10’ jugs for the ewe with her lamb, put in water. DS1 set up the 2 panels I had removed on the driveway to block the sheep off. Supposedly this was to make sure they would run down the stairs into the barn like good little sheep. Wrong. I tried to suggest that he not swing the entire rear gate open since it would block the stairway entrance to the barn where he wanted to send the sheep, and instead open the slide gate for them. Too late. DS1 saying he had everything under control climbed into the trailer to chivvy them out. And another Ridgetop adventure began. . . .

Leaping like Nureyev en jete, several ewes exploded from the trailer. The little lamb followed and got run over by a larger ewe. Gamely, she recovered and raced after her mother who was leading the gang in a frantic circle around the driveway. Assuming that DS1 had confined the dogs prior to this, I was surprised to see Bubba and Angel suddenly appear and pursue the mini flock. As they all disappeared with DS1 around the corner of the barn, I heard much bad language issue from the mouth of my eldest son. He was apparently blaming the dogs for scattering the sheep. Much bleating ensued. I called vainly to DS1 that 2 were pregnant and to be careful with them. More cursing ensued. I went into the house to get the leashes to confine Bubba and Angel, who had now been joined by Rika. I also asked DH to join us to help with this. Perhaps a mistake, since now there was another voice calling loud instructions to the dogs. The dogs continued to ignore the men, the sheep continued to circle the yard, and I was able to put the leashes on Bubba and Angel. Once leashed they stopped their investigation of the newcomers. DS1 loaded them into the stock trailer, and DH nimbly opened the back door for Rika and commanded her in. Obligingly, she walked inside then turned around shocked as he slammed the door on her.

By now the sheep were huddled at the front of the truck between the bumper and the drive-through gate to the field. This was not all bad since it is also the head of the horse ramp down into the barn. I slowly started to ease toward the sheep hoping to get them onto the ramp. I tried to check the gates to see if they were properly chained shut since DH1 had been going in and out with the wheelbarrow earlier working on the garden troughs. The walk-through gate was chained shut, but the drive-through gate has to be chained at the very bottom as well as the top, or the sheep can push it slightly open and wriggle through the gap. It wasn't. The first ewe succeeded in squeezing through, then a second, and finally all of them were streaming across the field. The lamb, I was interested to note, was keeping up quite handily with the flock.

More cursing ensued from several mouths. 3 of these ewes were field sheep fresh from mountain pastures, not tame, docile, trained sheep. While I kept screaming “Don’t upset them, 2 of them are pregnant!” the 5 ewes and lamb disappeared past the ram pen, and ran down to the other ewes in the front pasture. We could no longer see them so were not sure exactly where they were. DS1 opened the field drive-through gate and had DH pull the truck through onto the field out of the way. He left the gate open to drive the sheep back into the yard.

They were newcomers. They had not discovered yet the interesting ways they could outwit and outflank us. That would come, but for now we might have a chance.

Josie the Mule now discovered that there were some NEW AND DIFFERENT sheep invading her private space. While she no longer wanted to kill the new sheep (we think) she took off after them and the chase was on. Suddenly appearing from the lower front pasture 5 ewes and 1 lamb streamed up in front of a very excited mule. Commanding Josie the Mule to “QUIT!” interspersed with animadversions on her parentage, DH and DS1 ran in pursuit. Their 2 legs were unable to catch up with the galloping sheep and mule. I went to the hay barn and put a flake in Josie the Mule’s feeder in the vain hope that she would break off the chase and decide to eat her supper. No luck. I stumbled back inside to get her halter. Sweet JoJo was easy to catch, and I could tie her up while we dealt with the devious sheep. God laughs!

As the sheep circled back around followed by Josie, I made the mistake of calling her name and holding up the halter. OOPS! Rolling her eyes at me like a petulant teenager, she veered behind the truck. Quickly I cut across the front of the truck and cut her off. My disobedient mule was refusing to be caught! As she tried to gallop past me in pursuit of the sheep I yelled and swung the lead rope threateningly. I was tired and not in the mood for any tantrums by anyone. Pouting, Josie the Mule backed off and I heard DS1 telling his dad to open the lower gate and he would try to run the sheep up from below the barn. Keeping one eye on Josie T. M. I ran quickly to shut the open field gates. OK, OK, I limped as fast as I could while watching JTM with the magical eyes in the back of my head (left over from having 5 children). As I struggled to fasten the gate, I noticed the lower chain lying in the field where it had fallen off the gate. AAAAARGH!!! Retrieving the chain, I got it around the bottom of the gate just as the sheep burst up from the lower field and came up into the barn area. DH was strategically positioned at the top of the stairs. I was able to step into the ramp just as the ewes turned up it with an eye to leaping over the short wall back onto the field. (Some layers of bricks have fallen off over the years – I think I better fix that tomorrow with a piece of stock panel.)

Thwarted, the ewes turned back down the ramp and trotted into the barn. DS1 shut the gate, locking them into the main barn. Now we had to get them into the pen. Not so hard. HOWEVER, I wanted the ewe with the lamb in a separate pen. Why do I always have to make this difficult? By now the 2 dogs were howling in the stock trailer and being answered by Rika in the house. They knew they were missing the fun.

DS1 easily cut her out of the group but the lamb did not follow. All the other ewes did however. Now we had a roadblock. 4 ewes trying to go through a narrow gate at the same time with 1 large ewe trying to turn around in another narrow gateway, DS1 was trapped in the middle. Finally, with a super-human effort he pushed the 4 ewes back into their pen. As he did so he lost his grip on mama. She twisted away and dashed back into the pen too.

Second try, DS1 snatched up the little lamb and tossed her into the waiting jug. As he turned back into the large pen to shoo mama into the pen after her lamb, the lamb ran back out through the gate that was open waiting the advent of mama.

Third try, DS1 informed mama that he was through playing nice, grabbed mama around the head and walked her into the other jug. I slammed the gate. Mama objected to being separated from her lamb and started banging against the panels. Before she got too upset DS1 had caught the lamb and put it inside with her.

Finally, we all stood around gasping for breath. DH walked out to release Bubba and Angel. DS1 walked out with him to feed the rams. I fed the sheep in the barn. One of the pregnant ewes and a fall lamb started nibbling the alfalfa in their pen. Mama and her lamb stared at me inimically. I hoped she would tame down. Hmmmm.

 

[Bruce]

Quite the rodeo!

I'm really surprised those fields are being shifted into nut trees given the amount of water they need and the ever increasing droughts in CA.

since our dump has a really limited turn around area.

Since you plan to move to TX relatively soon, why would you buy a trailer that is specific for that dump?? I could see maybe getting a used one if it happened to become available but who knows what you will need in TX.

Round Table Pizza charged $30.00 for a 14” delivery pizza!

OK that is beyond ridiculous. And I suppose the driver gets a tip as well?

 

[Baymule]

Y'all never do things the easy way do you?

Now take yourself out to the barn and terrify those new sheep by taking pictures!

 

[Ridgetop]

Since you plan to move to TX relatively soon, why would you buy a trailer that is specific for that dump?? I could see maybe getting a used one if it happened to become available but who knows what you will need in TX.

Actually I do not want an expensive dump trailer when we can drive 3 hours to visit our grandchildren, borrow our son's dump trailer and use it for the occasional (annual) clean up we need! For some reason DH has decided he needs a smaller dump trailer in order to tow it to DS3's house and leave it there for DS3 to use when we borrow DS3's larger dump trailer for a week or two.
I think something is wrong with that idea - feel free to comment!

Y'all never do things the easy way do you?

It is the Ridgetop way, Grasshopper.

 

[thistlebloom]

Sometimes men's minds are mysteriously inscrutable.
If you could choreograph that whole "incident" I think you may be able to market it as a fitness regimin.

 

[Ridgetop]