:: In Progress ::

Well.  My dance card has been FULL lately, let me tell you!

So, in short, here's what's in progress around here ...

:: First batch of Buff Orphingtons are now old enough (and Big Enough!) to be in with the main flock
:: Second round of orphingtons - 3 buffs and 6 isobels - are in the transition yard beside the main flock
:: My birthday presents, the marans and wheaton ameraucanas, are now by themselves in the chick yard, covered by netting to protect them from winged predators
:: First hatch of turkeys happened Today!  Mama Violet hatched 10/10 eggs and is now in the Turkey Nursery yard, which is also covered with netting for the same reason as above
:: Tasha the Turkey hen is sitting on a clutch of eggs, due sometime next week
:: The garlic is going Mental
:: I have volunteer potatoes and New Zealand spinach in the garden - boy is it nice when plants come up all by themselves!
:: It's looking like a good crop of strawberries and raspberries this year!
:: We gave away 1 drake (kept 1), and are hatching ducklings in the incubator next week
:: The lambs are now 10 weeks old, and the boys have all been castrated (!)
:: My "shalom" sweater is near completion!

We've plateau'ed for a bit now -- garden is mostly planted, the lambs don't need to be doted upon, the chicks are all outside and doing well, the turkey mamas and babes have protection.  It's all just basic management at this point.  The ducklings will stir things up a bit next week and will require a little extra attention, and I have turkey eggs in the incubator too and my fingers are crossed that all goes well there.  I've only ever had mama-hatched poults before and they do SO well with mama.  Why the incubator then?  I had turkeys laying eggs all over and no one sitting on them, and really, at $15 per poult, it's a bit of gold when they hatch.  All the money we get from selling baby turkeys goes to feeding the rest of the birds, and it would be so nice not to dip into our personal savings to feed everyone this winter.

Next update: ducklings!

See you soon....

Weekend Reading :: Older Kids or Adults!

"Peter and the Starcatchers" by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, recommended by my friend Signe at Patch of Blue, was a very welcomed read.  It is essentially the prequel to the original Peter Pan book by J. M. Barrie.  We find out how Peter and the lost boys came to be on the island and why a certain pirate has a hook for a hand, among other things that I won't spoil for you.  It is a very fast-paced, exciting read with not a lull to be found anywhere.  I started reading it as a bedtime read for both kids, but my insatiable reader of a 10 year old couldn't wait to find out what happened, so read ahead and finished the book in record time.  My 6 year old son was a little un-nerved by a couple of the scarier parts (we are talking about vengeful pirates and a giant crocodile here), so I read those parts to myself and then gave him the condensed version before we continued on the slightly tamer parts.  Most of the chapters are very short, which makes a mom happy for bedtime reading, but as the book progresses, it jumps about between 3 converging story lines which can be disconcerting to younger children who need some kind of closure before bedtime.  Nonetheless, a highly enjoyable read, for slightly older children (it's recommended for 10+ years), or adults that like an exciting quick-read.

Happy Reading!  Happy Weekending!

PS - To those who have been wondering where my regular weekend reading has been, I've taken a little hiatus from my usual book learning, (unless you count books on incubating and raising various types of poultry) mostly because my trusty little light I use for my bedtime reading has expired.  I must get a new one.

I Speak for the Trees!!

The Lorax has been my favourite story for as long as I can remember. Maybe it's because it was published the same year I was born and it probably was read to me a lot as a child.  Who knows.  It just has always resonated with me.  And any time I see a tree chopped down, that is not sick or dead, or does not pose a danger to anyone or anything, I feel sick.

We once had a friend come to our place and hack down a couple of trees that were cutting out the light for some of the healthier trees... and he accidentally cut the wrong one.  I was so mad I couldn't speak to him for ages!  Then sold that house and we moved next door.  A few years went by and my then-three year old daughter had a hankering for apricots and I remembered there was a beautiful tree next door, where we used to live.  We went over to ask the neighbors if we could pick a few, and were told they cut it down because they never ate the fruit.  That tree must have been at least 20 years old.  It still makes me sad.

We like trees.  We planted so many trees at our old place that we attained "farm status" as a tree farm.  (We saved a heap on taxes).    We stuck cuttings of willows and cedars in pots and watered and tended them until they grew into baby trees and then we planted them too.  We lined the driveway with willows and evergreens.  We planted a living wall of cedars and pussywillows so we would have a little privacy from the neighbors (and they, us).

So when I came home today and saw the neighbors laughing as they took the chainsaw to 2 of the willows we planted over 10 years ago, I felt sick.  I couldn't even ask them why they would do that because I doubted I could keep the emotion out of my voice.  And so I sit here, sad, thinking of the trees that they seem to be hacking as fast as they please, and hoping they leave the rest of them alone.

I Won't Do THAT Again

What, you ask?  Loan out my incubator in the spring.  Stupid me!    A friend of my daughter's asked if, for her birthday, she could hatch a few chicks.  It was the beginning of March, and I think, sure why not.  Great experience for another home-schooled kid.  (Why should my kids get all the fun, eh?) So after I hatched out 16 of my Birthday presents, 

Blue & Birchen Marans chicks, 3 days old

I handed it over, no charge.  Am I crazy?  Yes!!  There's a guy locally who rents out his incubators to families, schools, libraries, etc for $100.  They hatch out 7 of his eggs, and return the chicks and all the equipment.  Basically charges $100 for the experience, and I'm giving it out for free.  Not to mention, the turkeys, ducks AND geese all decided to start laying and not setting about a week after the incubator settled in it's new (temporary) home.  Grrrr.  So I sold several dozen turkey and duck eggs as "fertile" eggs to try to save some of these eggs that could be turned into creatures.  I'm still waiting for the turkeys to start setting, and I'm collecting the goose eggs to incubate.  I get the incubator back next Friday, and I'm counting the days.  I sure hope these turkeys go broody soon!

Spa Day for Sheep

Even though I'm sure sheep don't think of it like we do -- relaxing, meditative, pampering -- I am sure they feel better afterwards, when they are not so hot and their feet are flat on the ground again.

We have hair sheep, yes, but there's Stella (it's always Stella) who decided to be a hair sheep with wool, and a a BLACK sheep at that.  I could skip a year and have her sheared every second year, but given our Okanagan summers, that would be just mean.  We can get over 35C for days, sometimes weeks, on end in July or August.  And their feet?  Well, they grow... and grow... and if they're not trimmed at least once/year then the sheep can develop a whole host of problems from a compromised posture, to lameness, or even foot rot if some of the stuff they step in becomes lodged in the pockets of their hooves for too long.  And then that can develop into bacteria that then invades your whole pasture.  So, because I love my sheep and have this unspoken vow to care properly for the animals that we share our lives with, I fork out the money every spring for their spa treatment.

Stella BEFORE

Besides.  The shearers are quick and do it properly and they don't live here.  My sheep will still see me as the nice one if I'm not the one flinging them to the ground.  It kinda looks like that.  But once you get them in a sitting position -- 

Stella DURING

-- they can't really move around much.

Poor, dear Stella.  I am thankful that their lambs know them by smell and not by looks!  Sweet thing looks like her head is too big for her body!

Stella AFTER

Her lambs were happy to have their mama back!

All the lambs crowding at the gate to get away from the crazy people doing crazy things to their mamas!

Dulcie getting her nails done

I've been dealing with these shearers for several years now, on and off.  They used to come to our place to shear our llamas and alpaca several years ago before we sold them, and now they come for the sheep.  They are very efficient and thorough, not to mention complimentary.  Two years in a row now, they have said what a nice bunch of ewes we have (last year they thought we should breed them, obviously we listened), and this year were very impressed with the crop of lambs.  They also were saying how abundant the ewes' bags (udders) were.  Apparently, the hair sheep breeds are not always known for having substantial milk.  Ours apparently do.  I take these compliments to heart, as I do think I treat my "girls" very well, and they seem to be happy, as far as sheep go.

Duck, Duck, Goose...

... Chicken, Beep.

Duck Egg, Duck Egg, Goose Egg, Chicken Egg, Beep Egg :)

Hee Hee!  We're up to our eyeballs in eggs over here - must be Spring!  The ducks have started laying and since we have 3 ducks and 2 drakes, we are getting a lot of duck eggs - fertile ones at that.  So while my incubator is on loan to a friend, I'm selling fertile duck eggs.  Not a bad interum gig.  The geese, Jordie and Lucy, are also wanting to start a family!  So I think we are going to let them do that; Lucy is just collecting her eggs at the moment.   Apparently, in her "other" life at the farm-before-ours, she often tried to set on a nest, but the ducks would bother her right off of it.  Not this time!  We'll make sure she has the privacy she needs.

And Mr. Raven paid us a call the other day, and because of him, we discovered the turkeys have started a clutch of eggs as well.  We moved the nest and showed the turkey hens where it was, and they seemed quite happy with the new location.  Not only was the old location in full view of passing crows and ravens, it was right beside the pond.  I could totally see unaware turkey babes plunging into the water and us finding the unlucky hatchlings floating... not to mention distraught mothers!  Ugh.  So move them we did and since they seem to be adding to the nest, me thinks they are pleased with our suggestion.

Stella, Slow and Steady

Well, she did it.  A full week behind the other ewes, but that's typical of Stella.  This is one sheep who does things when she wants.  We call her our "goat-sheep".

She had been showing signs of being "close up" for several days, and then when she started leaking fluids, we knew it was anytime, so we just kept watch over her.

She birthed 2 little beauties last Wednesday evening, just before the kids' bedtime, which means they got to snuggle brand-new lambs before tucking in themselves.    Stella, of course, needed no help and both lambs are beautiful and healthy.  The little ewe -

- looks just like Dad, and her brother --

-- just like Stella.

Because they are a full week behind the other lambs (10 days behind Sunshine's), Stella is preferring to keep to herself.  She is out with the other sheep during the day, but at night I'm still putting her in a stall with just her little ones for company.

I'm sure these two will be bouncing around the pasture with the rest of the gang (they do look like a gang of lambs when they're all hanging out together) soon enough.