Big Bloggin' Break

True to form, I skipped an entire season here! When last we left our intrepid blogger . . .well, never mind.

Anyway, the nature of this thing seems to be, as I think I mentioned before, that when there's enough time to keep this up to date, it's yawningly boring. When I actually have news, I don't have time to update this site.

Here's the biggest reason for my being "too busy."
Meet Fieldstone Sam, born the first week of March this year (2009). He's a son of Christine Henry's Tweed and Bess. Sam has already seen sheep and has made it clear that he's going to like working a lot!

We had Creek Ridge Corp clear two fields and a path through the woods to a third field, effectively making about nine acres available for future pasture. They have the coolest toys. They used a "forestry mulcher" which looks like a giant lawnmower set on a bobcat. It can take anything down to the ground and even below ground level, if you want that (and want to pay for the time it would take). We could only afford a couple of days, so we "only" had them "mulch" the four or five acres. :)

This is what it looks like when they are done, doing about one acre per hour of super-heavy five to ten year old trees and brush (notice the ground underneath and behind Ted):



They also fenced everything down near the house for us. Right now there's almost no grass because we are now in the dryest part of the summer, but the sheep are keeping it brush free until we can overseed this fall.

The kids are out of school for a few weeks. They did great on their year end CATs. They'll both be doing third to fourth grade work this summer, then I hope they'll both be in fourth grade by fall. PJ is a smidge behind in math, while Joey is a little ahead, but a bit behind in grammar and spelling. Summer work will be light and fun though - being able to cater to the kids' moods is part of the fun of home schooling! They've got so much around here that they "have" to do that learning is often a welcome break. :)

I'll be spending more time the rest of the summer really buckling down on learning to handle Ted in trials, my goal being to run him in Open in late fall. And I'm sure there will be more adventures with "Sam I Am" as he's known around here, AKA The Smidge.

All Together Now: "Awwwww . . ."

Don't you wish you had a bed this cozy? I wonder whether this lamb will keep doing this when she's twice as big, and mom is sheared at the end of the month?

Ted Working Videos - Ewes and Lambs

Video of Ted working our ewe and lamb flock. It was super hard to see with the sun so low! I was trying to practice getting Ted to tuck in the sides, hold this entire group together. Umm, we kinda did.

What I didn't realize was that the lambs were starting to react to Ted for the first time, instead of just following their mamas. And Ted did realize this.

He kept looking around at me to see whether I wanted the lambs tucked in, too. He decided to do it anyway, if you look carefully - I thought he kept flanking slightly off contact but I didn't, fortunately, touch that, because I felt he was stressing and couldn't figure out why.

The dog barking frantically is our neighbor's dog, who runs the fence and presents a bit of a challenge working in our tiny space. The sheep are used to her now somewhat, but she still keeps them jumpy if we are close to that fenceline to the left. On the other side of the yard, there are dogs on the other side of that fence, too. The sheep hate standing in that corner because of that, and desperately want to bolt diagonally down to the right to their Zen Place in the back of the house.

I Love This Dog

Shh. Don't tell the Border Collies. But Lulu is my favorite.

Is it any wonder?
I had a WW non-scale victory last night. I threw away pizza. Vinnie's pizza. It's a milestone in my life.

Just Figured It Out

In a previous post I puzzled over the meaning of the zillions of ewe lambs we've been blessed with this year. Over Valentine's Day dinner it hit me. We are ready for the next step in our three tier program - we now have a nice flock of mules - my dream, "Southeastern mules" - version 1.0. Probably then I will only breed our Blue Face Leicester ram to a few of these older ewes this upcoming fall, and instead find a terminal sire sometime over the summer. If I don't find anything really outstanding (I'd like to find a production Columbia or British-style Suffolk from a Southeastern flock), I'll simply use my first tier ram on his half-sisters and aunts.

That solves the population problem and it's very exciting. My three tier program's been ten years in the making. It will be nice to start judging the merits of these young mules and planning what steps to take to improve on them. I've already got some ideas . . .

I'm very excited.

Today we started work on our first official pasture at this new farm. Patrick cut down the small trees that were in the way, and pruned the Giant Cedar Tree. I learned to use a chain saw, too! It wasn't too bad, really - I definitely need to start lifting my weights again, though - I've gotten to be such a wimp since the whole surgery thing last fall.

You might think a one-acre paddock is nothing to write home about (write in the blog about?). But, when the new paddock is in use, we'll be back in business as a real farm - with the land growing the sheep and the sheep improving the land. Until then, we're basically a petting zoo. A petting zoo with really cute lambs.

We had one set of triplets born last week. The smallest lamb was a bit weak at the start and took a couple of tube feedings to get going. They all are from a North Country/Border Cheviot cross and are just the cutest things. The smallest especially looks like a toy lamb. I'm used to our ten to fourteen pound baby "ponies" now, so this little guy at about two pounds, is hilarious in comparison. He is very alert and has a look like he finds everything absolutely amazing, so I named him "Shaun the Sheep." His brother is Sam and his sister is Shortly. Their mother is Snorty. The name of the sister, Shortly, is a sort of complicated inside joke. Since I have an order for three wethers and other than Shaun, that's all I have right now, it looks like Shaun the Sheep will have a good long chance to catch up growing. Realistically, I don't see him at 90 pounds in August. So he may end up someone's pet once he's weaned.

Ted's driving continues to improve. It's probably the Worst Idea Ever to practice on a bunch of ewes with newborn lambs, but that's all we can manage right now. It's a real testament to how good this youngster is, that not only his driving is improving, but my handling is improving too. Plus, the sheep are settling much better for us in what may be the most awful training situation possible.

We've found quite a few lines now where we can set up a straight drive away, and cross drive, working various draws. Ted reallyreallyreallyreally enjoys driving now - it's hard to remember now that we had such a time getting him started. It's hard to get him to stop now!

Plus, now the trees are down in the new paddock and I can let out a few lambs from the feed lot, and drive them up and down the back lot. That's about 100 yards, we figured out today. And, the people next door said they didn't mind my coming over with a few lambs and practicing on the small area right next to their house (as long as the lambs go back when we are done!).

Another fun thing we are practicing is shedding. This is kind of a no-brainer on these ewes and lambs. All we have to do is let them settle for a minute and they'll let Ted come right through with hardly a blink - and it's super easy to pick off basically any group and just go with them - the ewes only care about their lambs, not each other, so Ted's main job once we've got control of a cut, is keeping them together.

So I'm taking advantage of this time to let Ted feel out this job with a view to more challenging training to come. It's already paid off - a couple days ago I let out all the sheep together, then had to split them up again.

Gate sorting in our current setup is nearly impossible and dangerous for the last couple of pregnant ewes, plus all the newborn lambs. So I left the gate wide open and we stood int he middle of the feed lot. I used Ted to "be a gate" and we sorted off the mamas between us and allowed them to go out the gate, while keeping the rest in the feed lot.

Ted was fantastic. After a while he figured out the job and could anticipate from my body language whether a ewe/lamb was a "keeper" (requiring him to make a move in and turn her off) or a "leaver" (requiring him to do nothing). That was pretty cool.

The only thing is, he's getting a bit big for his britches with all the control I'm encouraging him to take, so I'm going to need to set up a better controlled situation soon where we can have a little chat about who's ultimately in charge! :)

I sold off all but nine of my adult ewes this year. The idea was, that we weren't going to have much pasture so I wanted to keep flock growth to a minimum.

A little sheepy math here:

Normally, my lambing rate is about 110%.

I usually have about 50% ewe lambs (females, the "keepers").

I usually lose, to old age or the occasional accident or disease, or culling (selling off ewes that don't meet my breeding standards), about 25% of my grown up ewes, each year.

I normally grow out my ewe lambs and keep from 10 to 25% of them, depending on how many I need.

This year, for some reason, my ewes are lambing at 214% now. That means seven ewes (so far, two more to go) had 15 babies.

Of those, ELEVEN are girls (ewes).

I could have a bomb blow up every adult ewe I own (God forbid) and I'd still have nearly twice as many ewes as I had a month ago.

Do these girls know something I don't? I'm hoping they know that someone nice is planning to purchase the 30 acres next door and let us lease it. Otherwise I'll either be culling a lot of really super lambs , or else looking for a remote lease somewhere.

I'm not COMPLAINING. I'm just amazed and wondering what's in store here.