It’s Sunday evening, around 10 PM and I’m wanting to write on the blog, but I do have to finish up things for tomorrow’s Opry performance… but I just have so many cool photos to share and things going on here at the farm, I think I’m going to just do one BIG report, lots of pictures and fill everyone in for the last couple days or so. Instead of doing a bunch of little posts, and then getting behind and all… yeah, I think that is what I will do. Buckle up your seatbelts and hold on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!!!

Got that shot this afternoon, playing around with the manual settings on my camera. When I shoot in automatic, I just have been getting sort of well, lackluster shots lately. Jessy, Miss photography pro – I went to college for photography – princess of photography… haha… tells me that auto is for folks that really don’t care much about how their photos turn out. Oh. Auto is for people that don’t have 17 hours to get the right artsy shot… haha… but she is right, I do have a very nice Nikon D40 and it can take some STUNNING shots if I would just take a FEW moments and use it on manual and all that. So I did and she’s right. I love that picture of the sunset coming through the west pines. Very pretty. And then I started to shoot my sheepies… and oh my… love these pretty shots of the ewes…

That’s Jack, in my lap, as I sit and watch the little nuggets in their coop. And yes, my grass is THAT green! It’s so beautiful right now. I couldn’t get a good shot of Jack because he jumps up in my lap and gets sooo close and cuddles when I am out in the middle yard. He absolutely ADORES the farm and is such a happy boy. I worried, that somehow taking him from his little moby park kitty empire that he would be unhappy, or somehow disadvantaged or something. He is missing his front claws, not by us, but by whomever abandoned the poor little boy on our doorstep almost 2 years ago. But you know, he’s fine. I see him up in the windchime tree, laying on a low branch like some little jaguar. He hunts, he’s just not that good at it. He brought me a mousie this morning, and sat at the mudroom door all pleased as punch. He ate the top half but brought the bottom to me as a gift. Thank goodness I didn’t step on his lovely offering. Ewww…. But, I digress… he’s one happy boy and he doesn’t even mind when the sheep lick him. Although he does not like being chased by Mocha. She won’t leave him alone if she sees him walking around his estate. She just wants to sniff him. He does not take kindly to being sniffed by ewes.

Finally got a little time to clean up our mower and take it over to Junior’s house, down the road, so that he could give it a little tender loving male attention. We try, but we are women, and we are hard on machinery. It was running pretty rough and just was not cutting well. After a season on 3 acres of WIndhaven tallgrass, our red gal was running rough. Maggie took a hose and a scrub brush and scraper to it and cleaned her all up nicely. Scraped all the layers of grass and such underneath off. And then Junior gave it a good go over. It was low on oil and needed a little screw tightening on the muffler, and he said it was running a little rich and did something to adjust that. Cleaned the sparkplug and recommended a new one (added to our town list) and then sharpened the blade… (which I’m sorry to say, we have never done!!!) and gave her a little greasing up here and there… tightened up the handle too!

Well, let me tell you, that little red beast runs SOOOOO good! All I want to do is mow now! I have run out two whole tanks of gas in the last 3 days and if it weren’t for the rain, I would have run another couple through. Tuesday I plan to tackle some of the higher grass in the back! Yahooo! Can’t tell you how thankful I am that there are a few great guys keeping us gals in the straight and narrow of farm life!

One of these days I’m going to write up a post about the pros and cons of sheep as lawn maintenance technicians. Let me tell you, they are pretty useful and efficient at it. We haven’t mowed since we got them! But they are a little selective and well, random. I think if we were a little more consistent with say penning them in sections, with an electric net or something, they would really do a much better job. But I think if they can save us from having to mow like every week, and save us say 2 or 3 mowing a month? That’s awesome. But I will say, that in basically 6 weeks, they have done a fantastic job on the middle section. Now I have been letting them into the back pasture to start cleaning that up.

At first, I was really nervous about letting them out into the back third of the property. First of all, there are no real fences up back there. There is a nice hedgerow around the property and it’s really thickest back there, but it’s still not a fence. I have fears of them getting through the thickets and out into our neighbors fields. But right now, his fields around 2 sides of the estate are just cut wheat straw stubble. Pretty uninviting to a trio of sheep. And our pastures in the back are high and lush and just like sheep crack. They just run back there and put their heads down and don’t hardly surface for an hour.

I went out there the first day with them, and walked around. They were grazing so fast they were belching a bit when they stopped for a moment or two. They were ripping up clover and lovely grasses so fast, I could only think of cartoon sheep mowing through tall grass. I let them graze and just laid down in the grass to stare up at the clouds and the beautiful blue sky. After a while, Lilly and Lilac came over to stare at me with their big weird sheep eyes and snuffle my hair. I’m pretty sure they were concerned that something was wrong with me, but I just reached up and gave them sheepy massages and they just stood there, eyes half closed and chewing their lovely clover cud like they were the luckiest sheep in the whole universe. It was delightful.

The second day, I let them back and worked on chores in the barn. Just a little raking and moving some yucky hay to the compost and spreading a little new fresh hay all over. The sheep were fine. They moved into the middle of the pasture and just grazed contentedly as we worked. Maggie came out to help me. She was a little concerned as well, but then saw that the sheep were doing fine, and keeping us in earshot. When I took a load around the barn to dump it, they followed me, still grazing, but keeping me close. I am their shepherd! It was so cool. When I moved back, they readjusted and grazed a little further out. After an hour or so, we called them and they trotted right back to the middle yard and we shut the gate. Easy as pie.

Sure, I want to continue fencing the area, because I would like to have my ponies back there some day. And I’m not totally sure they will be so respectful of my boundaries as the sheep are. But it’s great to be able to practice some rotational grazing on our pastures and not have to just cut it all down and waste such good fodder. Right now, the sheep eat nothing but Windhaven grasses and vegetation. I haven’t paid a dime for fodder for them. And I have tested their condition in my sheep book as a 4 or 5 even, with 5 as top condition. They are looking fantastic! Sure they get a little treats of bread and such, but that is just fun stuff. So I guess I have paid SOME for them, but I really wouldn’t need to. They would maintain good condition without it for certain, just on the sweet grasses of our pastures. That really pleases me. Again, something that we really want to happen… easy livestock care. We don’t want work here on the our homestead to be drudgery at all!

Our little chicken nuggets are doing so well! We haven’t lost a single one. They are now into their 5th week here on the farm. I am so happy to report that they are FINALLY going out into the coop yard! They are out there often, eating grass and bugs, scratching in the dirt, and taking sun and dirt baths. That makes me happy. They are acting like real chickens, finally. I call them and they come wandering over to the fence and take little bits of bread from me. And they run around with a nibble, trying to keep it away from the others! We call it Chicken Football, and they are finally learning how to play!

I wonder if it is the addition of our five homegrown chicks to the mix. They act much differently and were quick to keep their own advancements in place. I wonder if the nuggets are patterning off the laying hen chicks, learning new behaviors and such. I know that some of these birds will be ready for finishing as early as 2 weeks! However, part of me hopes that they will not flesh up as fast with all this extra chicken activity and they can have a little longer life and enjoy this wonderful summer weather. 10 weeks would be just fine with me. I like seeing them relax a bit and enjoy life a little more. Since we graduated them to the big chicken feeder and waterer, they don’t run out much at all, so they are not flocking as tightly and all. We replace or fill the feeders and some are interested, but mostly they are to busy doing this or that to bother. That lets me know that they are doing fine, and are full. We are on bag two of chick starter. So our total investment so far is $41 for the birds and $26 for feed. I’m not counting the startup cost of two baby feeders and then two adult feeders/waterers because we will keep using them over and over. I would estimate that our birds are about 2 pounds each at least. I’m going to try and weigh them in the next couple days to confirm that. So 26 birds, 2 pounds each… 52 pounds of chicken for $67 dollars, so far. Of course, that doesn’t include the finishing cost yet, and I think we will probably end up with at LEAST one more bag of feed. Still, in the end, we will have 26 birds for our freezer and the contentment of knowing we treated them wonderfully.

Well, Maggie and I with our friends Julia and Jackie, went to my first farm auction on Saturday. We got there early so we could scope out the things we wanted to bid on. I had very limited funds, but I thought, I can always see what happens and well, maybe I’ll get lucky with a good deal or two.

I was very thankful to find that it was not a death or a foreclosure. It was merely a generational hand down of the farm. The elders were moving to a nice ranch in the city and their son and daughter in law with their children were moving out to the farm! Wonderful! It was a nice little place and had five lovely old, well maintained barns and a nice old house. Perfect for a family!

Well, the first thing I bid on and won was a sheep stuffed animal! Haha… the girls all laughed, but hey, I liked it and I won it for $3. It’s very cute. Every shepherdess needs a stuffed sheep for their room, don’t they?

But after that, bidding got a little tougher and a few things that I would have liked to have, I didn’t get. There was a beautiful old butter churn that I really had my eye on, but everyone knows those glass churns are highly collectable and in the end it was way to rich for my blood. But Jackie won it and I got to play with it all afternoon! haha… that was fun. She won a lovely old cedar chest as well, and that was pretty! Maggie wanted a couple of these pretty single teacups but they got too rich for our blood. Jackie tried too, but it was not to be. I did win a flat of odds and ends for Maggie, mostly due to a cute little Brownie Kodak camera in the box! I won it for $1. There was a little china head doll that Julia got from the box as we passed it around! I just am not into dolls, I just can’t seem to get my noodle around them and they kind of scare me…

But what was funny… we were sitting on the steps of the house in the shade, waiting for a few items that were way down the line and just watching and marveling at the prices of some of the auctions. Well, they got to this whole office deck thing, a bit three desk outfit with a hutch and a rolling metal file cabinet (which I know are kind of expensive as we paid $50 for two of them.. used!) and no one was bidding on the thing. No one. So all the way over on the porch, I finally hollared… $2.00 and no one countered me! haha… it was kinda funny and we all laughed and SOLD… $2.00! Oh my gosh! haha… it was the deal of the day, if you ask me. Maggie got a new office suite outta that deal!

We set it up in the parlor, because, well, there’s nothing much in there and lots of space. Eventually, she would like to move it to the workshop/garage, but the floor is super uneven in there and will have to be repoured, so that might not happen until next year. And since we really don’t anticipate getting the parlor ready for at least a few months, probably into the new year, it’s a perfect place for Maggie to set up shop. She wants to learn about video game console repair and other small appliances and such, so, it’s a lot of nice space for her to work, spread out and store her tools and such.

Did I mention that the two dollars also bought an industrial tough floor mat for a chair to roll on? Shoot, those alone are worth $25 bucks at LEAST! Shesh…. it was a deal for sure.

Well, I was only up to $14 and that also included a nice 4 drawer old dresser for Maggie, she really needed something for her room, and since we had just gotten Jessy a really nice new armoire at the Sauder Furniture Outlet, I thought $6 was a steal. And it was the same green distressed color of her drapes! Ironic! Yep, everything so far, only $14. Did I mention a set of brown tin splash ware camping plates and a nice little crock? Yeah, all for $14.

There were really only a few things left that we were interested in… Julia won a bunch of chicken wire for $2… and we watched some other things go, but I had my eye on a pile of livestock gates! Oh my gosh… how did the universe know that I SO needed some gates and that at $50 to $100 EACH, I knew that gates were going to be spaced out in our need list… for sure. One little 4 foot tube gate set me back $65… And here was a stack of 5 gates and 2 pieces of cattle panel… again, a $25 dollar item at the tractor supply store. Thank goodness, it was nearly at the end of the auction and there were not as many people there as in the beginning. And I got in place and was ready. Well, they started out bidding at $2 each! And it was me and this old dude farmer. Well, the auctioneer was giving us our choice of the pile. And got up to $15 and I backed out. Well that old dude only wanted ONE of the gates!!! And so then the auctioneer says, you’re the backup bidder at $12.50, you can take your choice if you want. So I pick the red one. And he starts again and NO ONE BIDS… so he says, you can have more at $12.50 if you want. So, me being me, I say, can I get the panels as one and he laughs and says yeah, it you take all five… So, I did! I got 4 decent tube gates, 6 or 8 feet long, not sure AND 2 cattle panels for… wait… wait… $62.50.

All that for the price of just ONE 4 ft tube gate! Yes indeed… I was a happy, but broke lass. Still, for all we got, it was amazing. I have got so many ideas for those gates… the red one is going on my sheep paddock and the three gray steel ones, I think they might end up in the barn or perhaps near the garden. Not totally sure yet. One is little rusted on the bottom, so that might go over by the backside of the garden where it won’t get used a lot, but will certainly fill a need. Those two cattle panels will be very useful as well. I believe the shorter one will make a PERFECT feed room screen door to keep sheep and chickens out of there… and the longer one… well. that might become my temporary gate up by the garage or something. Might end up in the garden as a trellis for viney things. Not totally sure. It was such a score, I’m still reeling from it!

These weird lillies have popped up in the yard, devoid of leaves, just stalks with pale purple flowers on them. Does anyone know what they are? They are pretty, just sort of stark and weird looking. I saw them on the auction farm as well! Are they a regional favorite or something? Not sure…

Jessy caught this funny picture of what she calls my “minions”… my chickens love me and when I come out into the yard, they come running. It’s pretty funny, I will admit, to see 20+ chickens flying across the yard, running as fast as their little drumsticks will carry them to greet their mistress. I do have to get a video of it in action, it’s pretty funny. And as soon as the sheep see the chickens running, they get into the game. I usually have at least 15 to 20 animals following me all over the yard as I work. Even as I mow, they keep a respectable distance from the mower, but still, they trot along with me, just in case I happened to stop and hand out bread or something yummy. My little minions!! Mmwwaaaahahahahahahaaaaaaa….

I was pursuing Craig’s List, as I am often to do when I have a little free time and lo and behold… I saw an ad for a fellow looking for black walnut trees. Well, we just so happen to have a nice big huge black walnut in the middle of our middle yard. It’s a decent enough tree, but to be honest, it’s a bit of a liability. Black walnuts are dreadful for equines, and not too great for other livestock. In moderation, their leaves act as a mild wormer agent in sheep, but too much can make them sick or even kill them. The big green nut balls are dangerous as they drop outta the canopy and hard to process into editable resources. And they are a real son of a gun if you hit one with the mower. They are dangerous for dogs if they play with them, or chew the balls. And the leaves are very nasty for your compost pile and the tree is toxic underneath for many types of grasses and vegetation!

However, black walnut lumber is highly desirable. Because black walnut is a very hard good strong wood, and it takes a long time to grow. You do not plant black walnut for yourself, you plant it for your grandchildren to harvest.

Our single tree is probably at least 75 to 100 years old.

I called the fellow and we talked a bit. He said, I was kind of far out, and that he didn’t usually come out for just a single tree unless it was really a good tree. And easy to get to. Well, I thought, what if I measure it and get you a couple pictures. He said, sure, he’d like to see it. So Jessy and I went out and measured that bad boy. 65 inches around. Nice and straight. 90 inches until the first limb. All good things. In a nice open area, would be an easy drop.

Well, he called me back and said he was very interested in the tree and would be out this week to take a look! Yeah!!!! He said that his best single tree was worth $40,000. Yes, 40 grand. Now, is ours a 40 grand tree? Probably not. But I find it VERY interesting that he wants to come out to see it, and that he’s interested in it as a single tree, which he told me in the beginning, he rarely did. I’m tickled! Even a nice modest amount to rid us of a tree that, well, is less than desirable to our plans? That would be wonderful! It would allow us to have our ponies out in the middle yard without worry of them getting sick or dying. And let’s be honest, even a low end range of $500 or $1000 dollars would be so helpful for us to get our winter heating plans in the works and done. Another friend had told me that he had some friends that sold just a few trees out of their property and got a nice big check for $8,000 after the cutting fees! 8 grand! Well…. I’m not counting my lumber before it’s felled, but I am thinking good strong positive thoughts on this one… the fact he wants to come out and get it as a single tree, out of his normal range, that is very promising. And if he’s not interested, there is another fellow looking for them and he’s out this way more! I’ll keep you updated on the whole tree thing…
Our black walnut is the tree on the right, in the foreground, with the wooden wire spool table just to the right of it.

Now, I know some folks think that harvesting a tree is not a good thing. But I need to let you know that we have over 50 huge mature trees on the property. And three times that in young trees along the hedgerow on the property line. One tree harvested will not even make a dent in our greenspace. In fact, it will open up the middle a little bit for a nice warm sunny pasture area. It won’t affect our shade canopy by very much. It’s a nice tree, for sure, but if we can harvest one tree and give us a nice cash advance to help with heating? Yeah, we’re going to do it. Remember… we don’t have a fixed heating source in our home and winter is not far away…

We have a friend that has offered to sell us their corn biomass stove for a fraction of it’s normal cost to help us out… but still, it’s $350 for the stove and then we have to get the piping and all done. We have three baseboard electric heaters that we got at a garage sale and Steve is going to install in the kitchen and in the bathroom… one in the bath, two in the kitchen, but that is not going to heat the whole house. Our house is a bit of a generational add on… so the kitchen and bath are a bit isolated from the main. The little baseboard heaters will be perfect to keep the area nice and comfortable. And the corn stove is rated for 1500 square feet, it’s really nice. So, yes, if we can harvest one easy tree and make things happen before it’s too cold? Yes, that will be a blessing.

And if it’s choice enough a tree… it might even pay for fuel for the winter! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

And we won’t have to worry about any livestock getting sick, or getting conked on the head by green balls of death. I’m hoping that it works out and is a win win situation for everyone!!!

I was just out to do a little banking and I had to stop at a garage sale. Because we need so many rural things for the farm, garage sales and Craigslist has been just amazingly helpful for us! Well, just because, this lady had two big boxes of half gallon canning jars for $4.50. For it all. Like 26 jars. Okay, that is a no brainer, so I get them. Gave a bunch to Julia and still had too many for us! I think I’m going to use some to store stuff like chocolate chips or bread crumbs or whatever else I can think of. But the rest, I’m going to try and fill up and can this summer with all manners of good things. And since I had gotten two mixes of this newer (at least around here) Mrs. Wages pickle mixes on sale in town, I figured it was a good time to get started. I had gotten about 5 pounds of little cukes and so I thought I would try out the bread and butter pickles first. I got a kosher dill mix as well, but didn’t have enough cukes! Will try that next.

Contrary to the popular opinion, canning is not rocket science and it’s not hard and it doesn’t have to be an all day dreadful experience. You can just can a little bit and enjoy the process. It’s no harder than making a cake or something. You just need to have the right supplies ready and it’s really quite easy. You first clean and boil up your jars in a hot water bath. Nice clean jars are a good thing. I trimmed off the ends of my cukes, because I don’t like eating them as pickles. I sliced some into thick chunks, and some I cut once lengthwise to see how I liked that. The mix was easy, just add the spice packet into 7 cups of white vinegar and 7 cups of sugar. Pack your jars with the cukes and warm the mix on the stove until just boiling and stop. Ladle the hot liquid over your cukes, pop a lid on and rim. If you want to process them, then into a hot water bath for a bit, I think it was like 10 minutes. If you don’t want to mess around, you can just let them cool and pop into a frig to be consumed within 2 weeks or so. I like to just do that and share them. We will eat a bunch of them, for sure.

Are they good? They are pretty tasty. Are they as good as my homemade recipe? Mmmmm…. not really. But they are better than store bought any old day. I’m glad I tried the packs, I’ve heard good things about them. Of course, it’s only been about 24 hours, so I’m reserving my final opinion for another four or five days… pickles, even frig pickles do age nicely. We got a gallon and a half of pickles and I think they will last us a little while. We’ve already been snitching some for our lunch. I think I’ll send a bunch up the road for our friends. Can’t wait to try out the kosher ones a little later on. But I think I will be making some homemade ones for the winter and processing them. We just used up our last jar from last year and it was just as good as the first. And we’re almost out of sweet relish as well. I just so miss canning and it’s time to get back into it!!!

We got the most delightful surprise last week! Abby and Erin, friends of ours, had come out and brought all their children and a few extras to meet the farm animals and to visit. Well, a day later, Abby write me on Facebook and says she has an extra frig in her basement! It’s just a small efficiency apartment frig but she thought it would go nice out at the farm! And we could have it for FREE! Bless her heart! Well, we were doing okay with our little dorm frig deals, but I will admit, it would be nice to have a little more room and a freezer in the house, instead of out in the mudroom. Well, it all worked out and we got it home in old Blue and it fits PERFECTLY in the space! To be honest, a big old frig would not fit. It’s just so lovely and perfect. What wonderful friends! And then, Tim tells me, he and Erin, they have a stove in their garage and they want us to have! A real grownup big girl stove! Haha… how wonderful. I believe we are going to try and get it tomorrow, when we go to town for the Opry. We’ll see how that works, gotta make sure it will fit in the old wagon! It will complete our kitchen, how wonderful!!!!

Went to a church garage sale that our friends Shelly, Sarah and JB help with every year… it’s their church and it’s always a good annual event for us. I got this sweet craft binder that is full of traditional crafts and I’m anxious to sit down and read through it. Some good stuff for sure…

What I really liked was that it was not just dated crafts, but old stuff, like butter molds and candle making and quilts and such. Pretty extensive book for sure.

We got a few other things, a neat barn picture, and some chicken/rooster doo dads and such. Maggie got a see through TV for $5 and she was thrilled. Jessy found a few things for her room. But the best part was going to hang out a while with our friends. That’s the best part!

See that vine outside my window of my office?

See what happens when I opened the window for a minute?  Haha… the thing just fell inside and was like some sort of B grade monster movie!  The vines of our village are some serious little critters for sure!  We have SO got to get out and hack down some of these things!  August is yard work month around Windhaven… the place is getting just a little out of hand for sure.

Speaking of bad vegetation…  my ewes have been out in the yard collecting every manner of burr they can find!  I plan on Tuesday morning, getting out my bottle of Roundup (which I really do not like to use, but this is war…) and my big knife and my big contractor trash bag and going on a burdock hunt.  These things are so nasty.  I can handle oh, like bull thistles, even the 8 foot tall ones we have on the eastern back hedge.  But I do not like the giant evil rhubarb burdock plants.  And now, after spending like 27 hours picking burrs outta my sheepies… I hate them even more.  They are going to die.  I am going to be ruthless.  Everyone is getting cut down and disposed of.  And the root is getting a good zap of poison to boot.  Yes, I will be very careful with it, but something got to be done!  They are nasty!!!  I thought I got most of them, but the sheep tell me a different story!  I think I picked out about 200 at least from Lilly alone!

Super proud of Jessy… she’s not normally my fix it helper, but I asked her to help when our kitchen sink went kaputz and needed to have the piping replaced underneath.  At first she was not keen on it, since Maggie is our go to gal, but I asked her if she would and so she said yes.  My old knees make this sort of repair tough, but she got down there and we took it step by step.  It was not too hard, and within an hour, we had both sinks working wonderfully!  And it was only about $18 to replace both drains and pipes as well as the trap pipe too!  Not too shabby.  I think stuff like this is very good for them both to learn and experience in small amounts.  Gives you a sense of accomplishment when you can say, I did it!

Evee was not totally convinced it would all work and fretted around us as we worked, but I knew it would be okay.  And sure enough, they work just fine!  Yeah, Jessy!!!

We left our little buckets under there, just in case.  Good place to store them and great just in case there is a bit of trouble.  We have so many cupboards in this big old farm kitchen that we don’t have any of them filled to the max.

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to post for right now.   Tomorrow night is our Glass City Opry and it will be great to have another one to add to our collection.  It will be number 46…  can’t believe it!  Should be fun!  No practice on Tuesday, so after tomorrow, all next week will be farm time and that will be good.  Got a lot of things planned… want to take advantage of this beautiful weather and work outside as much as possible.  Want to get some of the back area mowed, got some gates to get up, some posts to set, and just a dozen to do cards!   Hope your week ahead is a good and productive one!!!

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