Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

I just got back in from feeding Maisy and Mel and have to laugh at myself every time. I feed them in the shop when they are in that paddock. Mel will eat then lay down by the door watching the lambs but he is done fairly fast. Maisy on the other hand, has figured out that I won't leave her until she is finished so her meal takes a half hour or better. She lays down to eat with the bowl between her paws. If it isn't close enough to me she will push it over till it is. I make use of the time to brush her out so it makes use of the time. If I quit brushing or petting she will stop eating and just look at me till I get back to doing my job. If I get up to do anything else done like sweeping the stall or cleaning a trough, she will get up and lay beside her bowl until I get back by her and then she will come back and lay down with her bowl and finish eating. I figure I really have her trained very well.

If I am feeding them out in the field she goes back to not being in control and feeding time takes just a few minutes.

 

[farmerjan]

Yes, you have been trained very well... Whoops, you have trained them very well....

 

[Ridgetop]

How is your grass doing? Are you having drought too?

 

[Mike CHS]

How is your grass doing? Are you having drought too?

We went a little over a month with zero rain but this last week has been good to us. Most of our grass is native and pretty hardy in all weather conditions due to some pretty fertile soil. We are down to 29 head right now and we have been able to rotate to keep things in shape.

 

[Ridgetop]

Yantis is in severe drought right now. I told DH that we might have to relocate if TX dries out since out reason for moving is to get grass and water! LOL Luckily, dry grass and forage is even more nutritious than green. The Dorpers will gain on anything. Only problem is if the rains never come back no new foliage will grow! That is how California has been for the past 10 years. We used to have 7 year cycles - 7 years of heavy rains and 7 years drought. Those heavy winter rains have stopped coming. Weather changes naturally. When we were all hunters and gatherers we would just follow the herds. The herds followed the rains and the new foliage.

 

[Mike CHS]

Since we bought our home almost seven years ago, our cycles have been fairly predictable. We have wet winters and dry springs going into summer but this is the first time we went a month with no rain.

 

[Mike CHS]

No additional lambs so hopefully it is just the three ewes that got bred in February. We did ear tags for all of the lambs except the dark one that we didn't think we could catch anyway. We don't like to do ear tags until they are a few days old so I make it a point to go out among them and the lambs don't really have a chance to develop fear since their dames don't have any (most of them anyway). We will bring all the adults in to the chute in a couple of days so we can separate Cooper. His job is done and they all look bred and based on their weight gain I'm pretty sure they all are.

We checked weights on the ewe lambs (all 7 and 8 months old now) and they are all gaining very nice on grass and literally a tiny bit of feed. I do give them about a handful of feed each in the morning but that's to keep them used to coming to me when I go out.

 

[Mike CHS]

I appreciate the recent rains but the grass outside of the pastures went from not needing mowed to seven hours of cutting yesterday. When I was mowing I noticed a tall locust tree that didn't look right and when I got closer I could see that it was partially out of the ground and leaning toward the fence. I went back and got the tractor so I could push it in the opposite direction but didn't have room to maneuver. I wound up pushing it away from the fence partially so that I was able to trim off a good portion of limbs hanging over the fence and I'll finish cutting the trunk up today.

Along with the main crop vegetables, we are getting peaches and the okra is starting to put on. We got a recipe from a friend for canning the okra that doesn't follow USDA procedures but she has been doing it for a lot of years.

 

[Ridgetop]

Yummy!

 

[Mike CHS]

The top of the tree we cut down was full of Poison Oak so we shall see how good the soap works in a day or so.

I didn't realize there was that much of it until I got in the middle of it and of course (as usual) I wasn't dressed for that kind of work.