Happy Christmas!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Merry Christmas.

I once heard that on Christmas eve, the animals are given their one chance to talk, so if you are very quiet in the barnyard, you may hear exactly what they are thinking. Just in case, they got an extra ration of food for the evening to celebrate!

Naughty rams!

Since being off-line for nearly a month due to our wireless internet service provider going AWOL, breeding season for my sheep has begun with lambs expected early April, 2011. On Nov. 16th, my new ram Two Bars was put in with the new and younger girls in the sheep barn (9 girls) while Choy is in his pen with Tommy (the wether) and my 3 original girls: Meg, Thelma & Annie because I really like the lambs I got from this match-up in the past...especially Annie giving me wildly spotted lambs. There is an empty field in between the 2 rams with visual barriers on both fences. 7 ewes are being kept in a non-breeding pen (5 ewes from this year and 2 yearlings) and so far I'm happy to report that the lessons learned from last year's breeding season are being implemented successfully. All was well until yesterday morning...

Clio & Emerson (my Bernese Mountain Dogs) have been having a blast with training and walks in the now abandoned front sheep pasture every morning when I do chores. They have been really good and I've been increasing their freedoms and trusting them. I gave them a bit too much freedom and they took off. After chasing them down 5-6 properties over, I was tired and my previously sore foot was worse for the experience. I finished off the morning chores and headed in.

About an hour later I glance out into the sheep fields and see Choy in Two Bar's field. I race out to see that they are fighting and bleeding badly from their heads from bashing each other over and over. They are in a face-off and they aren't paying any attention to me, so I grab Choy's horn and start to drag him back only to see that Two Bars is backing up to ram him again except now I'm in the middle. I let go to grab my shepherd's crook for help. This isn't going to be easy. I return to the 2 rams and grab Choy again and with the hook I grab Two Bars' horn. I'm backing up with one ram who's trying to move forward and the other being dragged forwards with the hook (he's trying to get away now). When I finally reach the first locked gate, I shove Choy to the other side and quickly try to lock the gate, but Two Bars rams it hard before I get to lock it leaving a big bloody spot on the barrier on the gate "Now get out and stay out" he says to Choy! I managed to separate them. I drag Choy back to his pen and see that I had forgotten replace the makeshift barriers to his gate. Just before breeding season, when all rams were together they busted the gate and the large fence post at ground level. Now, I use a bungee cord to keep the post and gate together, I have a little chicken house on the inside supporting that broken post, I have a large kiddie pool and an old tire placed in front of the gate so Choy can't ram it and get out and I have a cinder block on the other side to keep the gate closed...but that morning, I'd forgotten to put it all back after I'd fed them.

So, Choy had pushed his way through the bungee cord closed gate, raced across the empty pasture in the middle and busted a hole in the page wire fence and through the barrier to land himself in the fight of his life with Two Bars for capture of the fair maiden ewes in his pen. Luckily I saw them or I could have had a tragedy, because they would keep fighting until 1 gave up or died.

The hay is UP!

This is the happy look of accomplishment as we head home with our last trailer load of hay from my neighbour's farm. I got a hay ride home too, pulled by Hugh's tractor...I was very happy! We managed to put up 60 small square bales of hay in the sheep barn hay loft. That's my "cold winter's day" emergency stash. There's room for maybe 20 more, but I'll put some straw up there soon too, so that I have a stash of bedding as well. In general, I use large round hay bales throughout the majority of the year to feed my sheep because they are more economical, but they are more labour intensive and require peeling off flakes and transporting what I need to fill the hay racks. Small square bales are a more expensive option as compared to the large round bales, but they are easier to handle. Because I don't grow my own hay and my pastures are limited, it has been a major source of stress to me, as the farmer, to locate and source the right kind of hay. If I don't have hay come fall and winter, my animals don't have FOOD. So when I have a lot of hay around me, I'm happy. I have several wonderful sources of hay now and I feel RICH! Bring on Winter!...well almost...just a few more things to do yet...

My sheep's wool

Earlier this year, I sent in my raw wool from last year's shearing to a processing mill in Ontario (Wellington Fibres). I had it processed into Roving, which is wool that has been washed and carded, and is now ready for spinning into yarn. I recently received my shipment back and was absolutely thrilled with my fibre. There were 5 bags of different coloured rovings: white, light musket, dark musket, grey and black. Although it took a long time to get it back and with shipping it cost a fair bit, I'm very pleased with the quality. I have decided to sell it all to recover the cost of processing. About half is already sold, and the other half will be sold at the Ottawa Valley Weavers' & Spinners' Guild 30th Annual Exhibition & Sale coming the weekend of Nov. 5, 6, 7 at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Ave. Ottawa.

Looking at all the fleeces from this year's shearing, I'll need to rethink my strategy. I have and plan to sell whichever raw fleeces I can and in the meantime will start to process my fibre myself. For my birthday and Christmas last year I received a very generous gift from my father and father-in-law...my long desired Patrick Green Deb's Delicate Deluxe Drum Carder with fur drum. I've been on a big kick lately to process the fibres I had already washed. The carder is working beautifully with my Shetland fibre. On top of that, its been getting colder here and there is no doubt that winter is on its way...and with all the woolly creatures I have grazing my little pastures, I have nothing I've made from their fibre. So its time to get busy making socks, mittens and my dream Shetland lamb sweater made from Annie, one of the original girls from my flock. She was the only lamb in the group and I sheared her wool myself with scissors and handshears. She represents my first fleece from my own sheep and incidently, she had my first lamb ever too, so she and her lamb Anakin are my farm tag logo.

Farm Stand Revisited

It has been a little over a month that I opened my little roadside farmstand selling eggs and I'm very pleased with the outcome. In my inaugural month, I sold 16 dozen eggs as surplus to our uses, producing about 1 dozen every 2 days. Nearly half were sold out of the little red egg cooler by the side of the road, but more were sold to friends and neighbours and people driving by that saw our sign and came up to the house. Not only has it paid for my feed costs, it has allowed me an opportunity to meet people in the neighbourhood that I hadn't met before in the 5 years since we've been here. They have gotten to know me a bit and I've had a few conversations about my chickens and sheep and what I'm doing here on my little piece of land. Unfortunately, I've frequently been SOLD OUT and have had to turn people away or offer to deliver when the next dozen is ready. Because of this, I've decided to expand! On Saturday, I picked up another dozen young ready-to-lay hens. Since they are young, they will be laying little eggs until they get a little bigger. I already had 3 hens that lay little eggs (because they are a bantam/smaller size), so I've begun to sell Small sized eggs as well as my regular size of XL eggs. When the new hens are up to full production, their eggs will be full size giving me 24 hens that produce XL eggs.

New Girls

This past weekend, 2 new ewes were sprung from their 2 week quarantine in the barn, to join my ewe flock. On the right is Ewenique Diana showing off her newly shorn body. She is a small 2 year old musket ewe with a beautiful light coloured fleece. She's sweet and spunky and I like her a lot. I obtained her in a trade for last year's ram Twist from my friend Danielle. Her companion on the left is a mule cross ewe lamb (cross between a Shetland ewe and a Blue-Faced Leicester ram). I couldn't resist her fleece and as I told Hugh, she was to keep Diana company while in quarantine, so I had to get her. She's very interesting looking, because she has the big BFL ears and the longer tail. The 2 girls are good friends now and hang out together constantly as they face the many head butts they are getting from my other girls as the order gets re-established in the flock. They are making it challenging for the night-time shepherd, Aidan to get them in at night, because they are essentially afraid to go in the barn and not yet bonded with the flock. Soon, I'll be shaking things up again as I wean my remaining 4 ewe lambs from their moms to set up my breeding groups for November.

Monica's new friend

Brianna and I attended the Bird and Small Animal Buy/Sell/Trade event held in Renfrew. I'd heard about it in the spring, but we had never been to it. We headed out early, armed with cages and cardboard boxes in search of new hens for my now thriving egg business and maybe a duck or 2 to keep our Silver Appleyard duck, Monica company and Brianna was hoping to get either a mouse or dwarf hamster as a pet to go into the cage we already had at home. We saw a lot of interesting birds, ducks and chickens, and rabbits, many I'd heard or read about, but never actually seen in person. I didn't find my ready to lay hens, but I got a lead on maybe 4 or 5 that I may be able to pick-up later this week. I did find many potential friends for Monica, but settled on a Welsh Harlequin drake that we've named Harley. This little duck is about 3 months old having been born in June of this year. We brought him home and he got to meet Clio unexpectedly through his cage which really un-nerved him and started him hissing. I was going to put his cage next to Monica's pen so that they would get comfortable with each other before putting them in at night together, but he was so stressed out that I put his cage right in her pen and opened the door. Monica was on the other side of the pool looking at him, when he rushed out of the cage and ran right into the duck house. He never left. We checked later and Monica was still outside, possibly concerned about going inside her house, and Harley was still inside and not leaving. By the end of the day, we found both Monica and Harley together, inside the house. I gave them a treat of shredded lettuce in their dishpan full of water, which Monica just loves. She went for it immediately and encouraged him to help himself too. I took pictures of them while they wandered outside the house together, bobbing their necks and making their gentle happy duck noises. Monica seems very happy with her new friend. She's been alone for a long time.

I'm hoping he'll grow a little bigger since he's still quite young and his head feathers are still just now coming in. I had been interested in this breed before when I first looked into getting ducks. Welsh Harlequins are a light breed, while Silver Appleyards are a large breed. Both are listed as Critical on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, while only the Silver Appleyard is listed in Rare Breeds Canada as Endangered. They are dual purpose (eggs and meat), will usually hatch their own eggs and are calm and good foragers, making them ideal for our farm. They are both stunningly beautiful birds with distinct personalities. I hope to get a Welsh Harlequin female in the spring to make it a trio and hopefully get little ducklings born here, but for now and for the winter, Monica will have a friend since she is very social. That way, she won't have to try and befriend wild ducks in the spring.