Chicken Stories

I've blogged about sheep. I've blogged about dogs. I've blogged about cats. And flowers. Even trucks. So today I thought I might write about some of the other residents of the little farm. Chickens are today's hot topic.

I have lots of chicken stories..... and have had lots of chickens. How I became a 'chicken farmer' is a fun story in itself, so I think I'll start there. Many, many years ago about the second summer after I had moved into the place, I had a friend from out of state visiting. She loved collies (and ended up taking another home with her--in addition to the one she brought-- after visiting breeders in the area---but wait thats another story!) and caves. She also brought her mother and a guinea pig. We toured every cave in the this part of the state---and there are lots of caves in Missouri...lots. Again I digress. One morning when I was still in the house fixing breakfast or something, she had went on out to let the dogs run. She was soon back in the house, cupping a tiny little ball of yellow fuzz. It was a teeny little chick that couldn't have been over a day old. Technically it was her chick, but since she lived in the city and had a looong way to travel home, I took over its care. Where in the heck did it come from? To this day, I don't know. It was under the lilac bush in front of the house. There were some chickens on a farm way across the road. Did she escape from the mail carrier? How did she survive all the cats? Installed in a bird cage with a little oatmeal, and some water, the chick was quite perky and content. So Henrietta joined the 'family'. I had one collie and several cats at the time, and she would tootle around with them. She also spent quite a bit of her early chick hood in the house. Yep. She wasn't cute very long, and she soon became this enormous white teenager chicken. Something had to be done, she needed a pen to keep her safe and let her do chicken things. So I built a pen. (Which served well and long as first a chicken pen and then later as a rabbit haven). So Henrietta moved in. She looked lonely. More chickens were gotten from a friend of my Dad's. Three feisty little half banties (Red, Specks & Florence). Henrietta towered over them, so they never tried to fight her. She was still a 'people chicken' though and liked hanging out with me and the dog. Gentle giant. She got sick once---and I called a vet nearly in tears and bought her horse supplement at his suggestion. She got well. However eventually she passed on to the Great Coop in the Sky. I think she was a White Rock. Being a chicken farmer, I've continued to have chickens---many assorted breeds over the years. None have equaled Henrietta's friendliness or her special chicken personality. But that's how it goes with 'only-ies'...

Right now I have 17 chickens total...geriatric chickens at that. The youngest of the bunch are 4 and I think the oldest are going on 6 this year. Most of the flock are Americaunas or Easter Egg layers or whatever people want to call them at the moment. They lay green eggs, the chickens come in assorted colors and have 'ear muffs' and beards. I have one large gorgeous rooster with the main flock--he is a light silvery grey with red, white and black mixed tail/wing feathers. Amongst the colorful white, grey, and brown Americaunas are a few Dominique's, a Rhode Island Red, a Buff Orpington and some black mixed Americaunas x black sex-linked hens. Most of the girls still lay, and they keep busy cleaning up around the sheep lot. In the summertime, I'm able to let the chickens out to free range over several acres (Depending upon how the gates are with the sheep on pasture). If its a fairly mild winter w/out allot of snow, they usually get to continue to range until February or just before lambing. Once lambing begins they are confined to their large pen and will remain so until usually sometime in May, when the lambs are older and the grass has gotten a good start. This is always a black day in chicken land. Some of the chickens fly out but as long as the majority stay in I'm happy. When this bunch of chickens were younger they were about the wildest, air-headedest bunch I've ever had. Many evenings I spent roaming around, finding those chickens that had decided to roost wherever they stopped--or chickens that simply wanted to stay out late. One time we had a major snowstorm while I was at work. There was around 6-8 inches when I got home. When I went to put the chickens up, most of them were huddled in the horse barn (now called the sheep shed). As I walked in they all flew out--into the snow and the night. I spent the next hour retrieving chickens from under the chicken house, out of trees, in the middle of snow banks. I was a wet sloppy mess, but I got every last one of them. They did not get out of their house for the next two days! Thankfully as they have grown older they have gotten a modicum of chicken sense and now sedately go to roost by 7:00 p.m. every evening.

Now this is the main flock, however there is still Eddie and Sue to explain. They are the ones pictured above. Sue is the skeptical looking grey hen in the top photo. Her mate is Eddie, the red rooster in the bottom photo. They are both Americaunas. Eddie is over six years old. I helped him hatched along with several of his nest mates. The hen wasn't very good at the job, so the eggs/chicks were getting squished as they hatched. I pulled them all out and rigged up an impromptu chicken hatching emergency room. In one box was a heat lamp overhead and hot water bottle underneath for the still hatching eggs. In the next box was the chick ICU---another heat lamp and soft fluffy blankets. Surprisingly it worked and all that hatched survived--even the few that I had to help out of their eggs. (I know, not recommended, but they were going to die anyway.) If I remember there were about seven of them. These became house chicks for awhile, and then graduated to a large long cage, set up very inconveniently in the breezeway. They thought I was mom and would watch for me all the time. In the meantime the old hen was still waiting, waiting for her baby chicks. She was a good old hen, just a bit too heavy for the defenseless hatching eggs. I took pity on her and went by the local hatchery and bought some day old chicks to scooch under her one night. She was so proud the next morning and turned out to be a wonderful mom to her adopted babies...all while I was raising her hatch.

When they were old enough I mixed the groups together, then there was one day when about 4 or 5 simply disappeared. I imagine it was a fox, or coyote but never found a trace. I ended up keeping them tightly penned for a long time so the rest survived. Of the survivors there were two gorgeous red roosters--one was light golden red (Erin) and Eddie was dark red. They fought all the time. Somewhere along the line, something happened to Eddie. Maybe it was caused by an infection from one of the many fights he and his brother had... I don't know. But one day Eddie was sick, so I moved him into a cage so I could care for him. Eddie, need I mention was big pet. Through his terrible illness, Eddie continued to eat and he continued to be alert. I don't know how he did this, but my rule is if they seem to be alert and willing to fight to live AND they are eating, I will help them as much as I can. So to not go into graphic details, in a very short few days, Eddie lost his legs and then started to improve. He was now a legless rooster. A very alert and bright eyed legless rooster. I kept him separate from the others in a long rabbit cage padded with hay. I would lift him out to let him eat grass from time to time. Of course I worried about him being lonely. Then one day probably a year later, one of the hens was limping badly and being picked on. I set up another Chicken ICU unit and lanced her foot and treated it for several weeks. From research I did at the time it was probably 'bumblefoot'. After the foot healed, and the infection was gone, I got really tired of running two different chicken hospitals, so I had the bright idea to put Eddie and the hen (who didn't have a name at that time) together. There was a battle... lots of head pecking and feather yanking... Eddie can be pretty tall when he stands up straight on his stubs, but the hen was angry and stubborn. She'd been picked on a long time by the others and it was almost like she 'wasn't gonna take it any more'! The scuffle didn't last long, and they soon settled in together. They have been a content couple ever since. They've been together close to three years now. They live in a long cattle panel (with smaller gauge wire attached to the outside) pen, that was originally made to haul sheep in the truck. They are let out in the fenced yard during the day. Eddie comes out of the cage and putters around in the dirt, but doesn't go far. Sue roams about the yard and garden and occasionally into the breezeway (--I don't take this well, and run her out with much yelling). Sue doesn't think much of me, and likes to torment me by freezing and blending into the surroundings, while I stomp around the yard looking for her, so I can put them up for the evening. Eddie has to go in first or she refuses to go in and can run pretty fast for a chicken with a limp. They are quite the couple....

I think someday, after these chickens all pass on to the Big Chicken Coop, I may try and get a smaller flock of some kind of rare breed. The sheep take up much of my time now, so I don't hatch any chicks out anymore, but it wouldn't seem right around here without a few chickens scratching in the dirt and contentedly singing and clucking.

Hot Summer Saturday

Would ya knock it off with the camera already??

Another weekend almost over. They go by so fast. This weekend was a quiet, but busy one. After I got home on Friday from work, I didn't plan on going anywhere else over the weekend, except for church today.

Because its so hot, it was prudent to get out early and do any outside projects before it got unbearable. Yesterday I was up and about fairly early and managed to get quite a bit done outside before it just got to hot. There was a terrific breeze, but it was still so humid sweat rolled off of me.

I worked for awhile cleaning out stalls, I got two done and a part of a third. These are the Shetland stalls so are only about 4 x 4 foot but there was allot of accumulated hay and 'stuff' in there. I had a two fold plan for doing this. One of course to clean out the stalls which have to be done before winter, and two, I needed mulch--and allot of it---to help transform my backyard into a mystical pumpkin patch..... When I started (and yes there are 'before' pictures as I think this might merit a whole post in and of itself....)it was nothing but a very tall weed patch. Now it is close to half done. I got it mowed and weeds pulled, newspaper down and mulch over that on one side. I also have another load of mulch from the barn already loaded and dragged down here. (With my handy-dandy tarp-sled system. ;-) So maybe tomorrow night I can work on the other side. My plan is straw mulch on each side, with a pathway of real wood chips mulch. The beans and ornamental gourds I planted in there have really gone to town. All those weeds were hiding their progress.

So, after I cleaned out the stalls and brought a load of mulch down, I went up and finished dragging and stacking limbs in Blue's paddock. I think I have most of them done now, except there were a few that will have to be chainsawed up since they are too large to drag. That is one mighty big brush pile and I think it'll have to be burnt in the winter or late fall, so it won't mess up the trees too much.

Then it was back to the back yard to work on the future pumpkin patch and muck out more stalls. By then the sweat was rolling and the sun had come around the house so I decided to head in and take a shower.

Before I did that though, I got one of my bags of 'second skirting's' wool (These are not the worst first skirting bags, which have the nasty tags and such in them--these are pulled for mostly too much VM). I have an idea to make some cat beds, and use up some of this 'to nice to throw away, but not nice enough to sell wool'. This was my first experience with washing a fleece in the washer. IT went very well. I washed it twice and it came out very white and fluffy. It still has some VM in it, but actually it looks pretty nice, considering it I thought it 'junk' wool. It's a Dorset fleece, so its a very springy fluffy wool. I will try and post a picture of how it looks.

As you can imagine all the critters (two and four legged) are a bit cranky and subdued in this hot weather. I was trying to get a good picture of Rain to show her pretty "blue" color but she wasn't cooperating well. This picture says it all, I think. She was clearly ticked off about my stalking her with the camera!

Ringo & Shane

Handsome wether's looking for a good home! These two boys are the only two wether's I have left this year.

First we have Ringo--lovely, friendly Ringo. This boy is very striking. He was born with quite a bit of head markings and flecket markings. He is grey so will gradually fade to a medium grey as he gets older. I believe he will keep some of his facial markings though. This guy really catches your eye out in the pasture. His fleece is gorgeous, with remarkable crimp and is very soft. He is quite friendly and will come up for a good scratch. He would very much enjoy being a fiber pet for someone. I know the second picture isn't very good, but it shows some of the lovely variegated pattern this first lamb's fleece will have.

Next is Shane. Shane is a handsome little boy who is solid black. His fleece is intermediate soft, and will likely develop iset fibers as he ages. He is not wild, but not real friendly either. That will likely change once he is weaned from his mother and is placed in a new home.

It would be nice if these boys can stay together, however they can be sold separately. Wether's make wonderful fiber pets, if you have an interest in the fiber aspect and not in breeding sheep. They are friendly, tail wagging and can become very fun pets. These boys must either go together or to a home that already has sheep, as sheep are very social animals and need to be with others of their own kind. Wether's also make good companion's for rams when they need to be removed from the ewe flock.

If you are interested in these lovely fellows or any of the ewes let me know and I will provide more details. Prices and other details are listed on my website sale page. http://www.fairlightfarm.com/?page_id=6

Deborah the Glamorous

(Minwawe Redford x Fairlight Blackberry Winter)

I love this first picture of "Little Deb" who is somehow not fitting that name anymore. With her lovely presence and dramatic color changes, it just seems she needs a new name...hmmmm.

Last night I tried to take updated pictures of some of the for-sale sheep. Let me tell you there was no cooperation at all, from anybody. By the time I got the chickens up and the sheep in, it was getting a bit too dark for good pictures, but I snapped a few so-so ones anyway. I had to use a flash on the darker sheep, so there are some funky eyes in some of them.

Deb is for-sale as I don't need another grey ewe. She has a lovely soft long fleece, with dramatic color changes---and more to come! Her lamb's fleece will be very variegated and striking. She is a long bodied ewe, with good leg placement, a nice tail and just an over all beauty. She is shy, but not wild, and I think in the right home she would become a big loving pet. Her mother is very tame. Her mother is scurred and also carries the gene for horned ewes, although so far Deb doesn't exhibit horn growth. (Her full sister from last year does have horns though). If you are interested in this beautiful grey ewe lamb, let me know and I can give you further details. I have a lovely Moorit yearling ewe who is also for-sale that paired with Deb would make a nice start to a flock. Both of these girls are by Minwawe Redford and are spot carriers.

Just as an interesting 'aside' to those that are interested in genetics, here is a little more about this family. Deb's mother is Blackberry Winter, a light grey ewe, who was born black with lacy white splashes on her head. Her mother Locksfield Willow is also a light grey ewe who was born a very wild flecket. Willow has produced some really extreme fleckets (that are Ag), and also head spotting on her non-Ag offspring. So a couple of years ago I bred both Willow and Blackberry to Redford, a moorit (possibly fawn or modified) smirslet sokket ram. Willow produced a very loud musket/white ewe lamb (Luna) and a moorit boy with head splashes. I figured that Blackberry would give me a grey lamb with some light white splashing. Instead she produced Selena, a moorit ewe lamb with a large krunet! Very surprising. This year with the same breeding she produced Deb---the original color I imagined she would give me--a grey with light splashing. Just goes to show that even with the same breeding pairs, you can never be quite sure what will pop up. Regarding the horn genetics, Blackberry's grand dam on her sire's sire was horned. I bred Marius, her sire to three ewes when I leased him--Locksfield Rain, Locksfield Willow and Shandrew Rouen. They each produced twins---each had an ewe and a ram. The three rams were wethered and went off to fiber homes. Of the ewes two were black, and one grey (Blackberry). Rain's ewe, Ivy, developed weak horns---one straight horn and one curly horn (very much like Selena's). Rouen's ewe, DuClair has the largest horns--nice and straight and firmly attached. Blackberry has tiny scurs which she occasionally knocks off when one of her and the other girls 'have issues'. So what makes this interesting is that when both Ivy and DuClair's ewe lambs were sold as weanling's neither had horns, scurs or even nubs. However, Blackberry, who has the least amount of horn growth, produced a horned ewe. Go figure......

Sage in a Bucket

Sounds like a garden post of some kind, doesn't it? But alas, it is just about one nosey, energetic cat, named Sage.... or Sage Grass when he is being really bad. This was taken at Christmas time after I had brought my presents home, one of which was this bucket. He immediately took possession of it and it became his favorite 'toy'. Forget the toys I actually got for him and Meshach. He wouldn't have a thing to do with those, it was all about the bucket for him.

Ice Storm---Five Months Later

The Heart of the Matter

Here it is five months later, although it seems that it's been much longer. Debris clean up is still ongoing. Sometimes it feels like progress is being made but other times its just depressing to see how much more needs to be done. The effects of the Ice Storm of 2007 promise to linger on for years and years. While the green leaves have helped cover up scars, the trees are a ragged looking outfit this year. Many trees have the tops broken out or rearranged into twisted tortured shapes. There are still 'hangers' (limbs that are still attached, but broken) in many trees, some are dead and some are still tenuously hanging on to life. The dead limbs are stark against the greenery. Some trees that had extensive damage to the tops and lost many limbs are compensating by sending out hundreds of tiny shoots all along the trunks and remaining limbs. They look like so many groups of old men, huddled together with fuzzy hats topping their heads. Its rather like living in a jungle, with all the bizarre and abundant growth.

Each time we have a wind or heavy rain, limbs will crash to the ground--some of the dead ones, others green and seemingly healthy--one can only assume that they have fractures and weakened areas from the ice. One large limb came close to crashing into my folks house and a few weeks ago, when we had a strong wind, a family friend was nearly badly hurt by one. She and her husband were driving into town, when she saw a large limb start to come down towards their truck. While her husband reflexively tried to avoid it, the limb came straight towards the passenger side and only at the very last second twisted away so that it hit the truck more in the front. The vehicle has extensive damage, but the passenger was spared, thank God.

Its been difficult to see old, beautiful trees that have been around for all my life, to suddenly be gone---either through the initial ice storm, or in the removal efforts afterwards. Many of the trees will recover in the years to come, but for others there are big empty places on the skyline where they once were growing.

The debris clean up crews are still working to clean up the sides of the roads, although us civilians have not figured out FEMA's removal plan. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to how they remove standing trees or existing debris. They will work a section of road, but still leave large piles of limbs when they leave. The worker's are evidently not well trained in highway safety as I've had several heart stopping moments when I rounded a curve to see the trucks and workers all over the road, with the traffic director somewhere off in the ditch, waving his sign around as he talks with co-workers.

I still have a large pile of debris down in my road ditch, that I'm hoping the county will eventually clean up. Its most of the top portion of the tree, and the county supposedly bought a wood chipper to do the clean up--so I'm hoping for free mulch out of it...but we will see.....it could be a looong time before that happens and in the meantime I'm heartily sick of looking at it. :-)

On the home place there are still two major areas of clean up needed with a third that will need some work in the fall. I finally started on Blue's home paddock, and have made a good dent up there. There is still an hours work or so of finishing up stacking brush and then some chainsaw work on a couple of trees that were uprooted, but did not topple completely over. One of those is on a fence line and has caused considerable havoc, by heaving up the round and fence and causing gaps under it. I had to do allot of cobbling together wire and boards to keep the lambs from slipping under it. I don't know how/if this can ever been fixed, at least not until the root ball rots away. In one section inhabited by a maple tree, it was like playing pick up sticks, only with large limbs. They were crisscrossed and stacked, and some were still stuck in the air, and even entwined with others. You pull the next one you need but you must definitely be alert and aware so you don't pull down a mess on your head!

The tree limbs seem to hang much lower this year, so who knows how extensive most of them are damaged. I have one elm in my yard, that I have trimmed the branches multiple times so I can walk under them. Then I go out the next day or two and they are drooping even lower. Its not new growth, just the limb slipping lower as the burden of the leaves stress existing fractures.

People have slowly returned to normal (or as normal as we all get!;-), but conversation will often return to the Ice Storm and how we 'survived' or the on-going clean up. I expect it will be a topic of conversation for years to come.

Its really quite odd too, that sometimes when its rainy or cloudy, the memory will come back and my innards tense up. I especially noticed this one quiet, rainy evening a while back. I decided to read and didn't turn the t.v. on. Suddenly the quietness and the sound of rain closed in on me, and it was like I was back in the middle of the storm!

The electricity going out is now accepted with a grim resignation. No one now assumes that we always will have un-interrupted power. We prepare and when the lights flicker or go out in the random fashion that they often do these days, a feeling of sickness oozes through a person. At church the other morning the lights flickered, so several of the ladies matter of factly fetched candles wedged in coffee cups and matches and sat them on the piano, just in case. Even though the lights flashed on and off dramatically several times, we didn't have to use the candles. But we were ready.

I decided to price a handy pump invention that lets you have a hand operated pump attached, along with the existing electric pump. Water was my key concern during the the power outage, as I had so many 'mouths to water'. Otherwise I was fine, since I heat with wood and have kerosene lamps etc. So back to the pump----lets say it was good thing I was sitting down when I read the price quotes! Just the pump (w/out all the extra tubing etc.) was around $800.00! Whoa... for that price I can buy a nice generator, thank you very much. Quite silly if you think about it. So probably at some point in my life I will purchase a smallish generator. Not likely this year though.

The pictures I've included in this blog entry are of my wood pile right after my wood guy delivered a load sometime in February. I chose these pictures, because this wood was from a hundred plus year old oak tree that stood tall and proud in the midst of a field for all its life. For many years it was a favored resting place for folks traveling to and from town (this was before the era of automobiles). Its shade refreshed many a hot weary traveler. In later years, it served as shade for livestock and a landmark for locals. Finally though, along with many other trees, it shattered and sighed to the ground on an icy January day this year. The wood pile is just a small section of this huge tree. The final task of this old oak will be to warm my home and several others in the winter to come.

Saturday

It's going to be another hot one today and the humidity is high. It says its 'only' 78.5 percent at 10:27 but it already feels higher. (By the way when I got my computer updated they installed a nifty little weather thing that sits around at the bottom of my screen!--so you'll probably get lots of weather updates! :-)

I'll tell ya all more about the continued DSL saga in a later post (for the moment it seems to be cured and working, but for awhile there it was looking grim).

I'm off to town in a bit to pick up some Advantage flea stuff from the vet as well as feed, a few groceries and other supplies. Not my favorite thing to do, but I've been trying to stay out of the local "Mart" stores and only go when I need the certain items that I can't find other places--then I buy in quantity to last a couple of months. It helps keep me from impulse spending.

This morning, I slept in a little but the natives (sheep, dogs, cats) were all getting restless so I finally rolled out and got busy. I corralled the Shetlands when I fed them their morning grain, as there were a couple I wanted to trim fleeces on. Last year I 'lost' three Shetland fleeces because of matting or cotting or whatever you want to call it--all caused from the timing of the 'rise' in relationship to the shearing time. For the most part after a few years I see who the sheep are that are in the habit of doing this, and this year made it a point not to 'put it off' and have more ruined fleeces. On the plus side, while I know alot of people would trash them, I usually just give them away or put a tiny price on them. These are great for those that want to experiment with a little Shetland as there is still alot of good fleece in there where the mats didn't form. This year a fellow bought one of my fleeces after debating and stewing over it for what seemed the entire Fiber Fair. When he bought it, and I offered him one of the matted fleeces in another color (for free),his eyes lit up and it made his day. I very carefully explain to people what the problem is and what they can do with the fleece. Anyhoo, this year I vowed to do better.

Over my vacation I got Rain haltered and trimmed her up. She was the worst one, and yet has a gorgeous fleece. I do believe she is what you would consider an 'emsket'. She is now around 4 (I think) and is a lovely dark blue grey. Very pretty. Today, I got Tabitha because hers was one that was trashed last year and it looked 'weird' in places this year. There weren't any visible mats, but some of the fleece was longer in places so I just trimmed it even. Not sure why that happened, but again it probably had something to do with the shearing. Tab loved the experience. She is one of my friendliest sweetest ewes--but don't try and touch her beyond a quick skritch on the brisket. However today it was like she suddenly realized how nice it was to be scratched and rubbed on her back and sides. Silly little girl. Then Rouen was next--her fleece was good last year, but there were some suspect little places on her top line, there really wasn't much matting, but I trimmed anyway, just in cash. Rouen is never easy to catch even though she is a big baby at times and loves scratches and attention. Most of the sheep will not keep running if you grab them and kinda step in and towards them. Not Rouen though---I've learned my lesson the hard hard way with her, and just let go unless I can back her into a corner, with head firmly gripped! It seems like her daughter Duckie has decided to follow in her mother's hooves. Again, a very attention loving 'sweet' ewe, but not if I'm 'up to something'. It took awhile to get her in one of the stalls where I could even attempt to catch her. Then while trying to get the halter buckled, she somehow slipped out of my grasp and tried to get away. I should have let go. I didn't. So, after being knocked down and dragged out of the stall into the pen, I picked myself up and started all over. This time I got her and held on with a death grip. Another girl that needs some halter manners, which we worked on! She only had one tiny place along her backbone and I'm not even sure it was matted, but it got snipped out anyway. So now all the girls have their fleeces in order! :-)

Later I went out and raked and seeded the Shetland boys pen that has their shed in it. They won't be in this pen until fall. It sill has allot of debris in it, but I wanted to get some grass going on some areas that had too much old hay cover on it. I'm planning on turning the girls out on it tonite, as there is quite a bit of weeds and bits of grass growing in there. They can mow it down, and work in the grass seed for me, and hopefully we will get a rain this weekend.

Then I gave Ariel a bath and when I get home I will bathe Boone, and the two house cats before I apply the flea stuff. That way they can 'start fresh'. I probably won't do too much outside for the rest of the day, except bathing Boone, since it will likely get unbearably hot this afternoon.

Have a good weekend!

Summer Sheep

Just a quick post this time, but I really like this picture and wanted to share it. I'm thinking of having it enlarged to frame. Not sure why I like it so much, but I just like the composition of the trees and the way the sheep are arranged. Of course it could be just because the girls have grass and are content for two minutes....:-0

Well, at the moment DSL is working, but I'm not sure if we are out of the woods yet. I sure can't say enough how impressed I am with the friendly 'solve your problem' attitude that all the Centruy Tel workers have exhibited to me thus far. Last night it wouldn't connect, so the tech I talked to this morning put in a work order. Later that afternoon I get a call from the "telephone man" that he was on his way to my house. I had earlier talked to Mom to see if she could unlock gates and let him in the yard. So when he got here she did, but THEN he had to come in the house! Argh... my feelthy house. I usually start de-cluttering and cleaning Thursday night and Friday, so it was at its worst. I also have stuff sitting around in piles that came out from under the computer desk where I store some stuff. I was appalled to say the least. But evidently the guy heard me when I squawked out about my house on the phone to my Mom (after she called me to tell me what was going on..). He laughed and said my house was fine, that he sees some really unbelievable places.

Soooo the poor guy and my poor Mom spent several hours with him checking every connection in the neighborhood (literally) and Mom babysitting the house (they can't be in somebody's house unless someone is there). The guy was still working on it when I got home, and continued on working after I got home for another hour or so. Everytime he would go outside, I would whip out the broom, dustpan or dustrag and clean another area! :-)

Finally he left, and it was working when he left, but he doesn't know why or if it will continue. He plans to probably come back and either put in all new phone lines to the house or replace the inside line...or maybe both. Very diligent people. I just wish it was easier for it all to fall into place, and I'm enjoying it while it works!

What can it be???

Another week

Morning Dew on Tomato Plant

The humidity here is high right now, seems to sap the energy right out of a person. We had heavy rains earlier in the week, with severe flooding a few counties over. We were fortunate not to experience that, and the rain that we have been getting continues to fill the ponds, rivers and low water tables. Does make for some heavy muck, and of course the harsh penalty of high humidity, but it is summer, after all. I really can't even believe that it is now mid June. Where the heck did Spring go?

I've been working on the place in evenings, continuing to move and pile brush. Right now I'm working on both the ram pens, where nothing had been done since the Ice Storm. All the boys are now over in their other pens, so I am taking the opportunity to get some of the debris stacked. Once I get all the draggable limbs piled, then it'll be time to get the chainsaw in there and start on the bigger limbs and fallen trees. There is a huge 'tree-size' limb that fell in the Shetland ram pen--its on a slant, with the former top of the limb now dug into the ground. This makes a great 'tent' area that the boys love getting into, so its pretty urgent that we can get something done with this-so it won't fall on the boys. What, I'm not sure. My Dad has been studying on it for awhile and I look at it often, but there doesn't seem to be any easy answers. Part of the problem is there is a huge limb that off shoots from this limb, and it hangs over part of the fence...and a little shed.

In the meantime, I'm just working on getting the smaller stuff cleaned up and out of the way. The grass is growing nicely in all the 'resting' fields, but I wish it would grow faster! ;-) The girls have pretty much decimated their current field, but I hope to make them tough it out until the first of July and give the upper pasture more grow time. I've already started feeding Blue (the Merino Ram) and Lanny some hay. I fixed up one of those nifty cattle panel feeders that I saw on somebodies blog a while back. You just attach it inside to the existing fence, with bungee cords and wire, then shove the hay down between the fence and panel. The hay that I'm feeding them is the less than wonderful stuff I bought from the feed store during the winter. They have about three bales of that to go through before I have to start on the good stuff I have left. I may have to start giving the girls some hay to. Once July comes, I'll switch everybody back on to fresh pasture and that should keep them off hay for (if I'm lucky) another month.

I definitely need to work on more cross fencing.

The Shetland rams are happy now though. They have virtually picked clean their current pasture, so now they get out on the front lawn area at night. For three rams this should keep them in 'good pickings' for a month. I mowed their 'day' pasture as it had a few weeds and thistles growing. They happily graze off and on all night and rest in the shade during most of the day. I have an elaborate set up to keep from having to traipse through their pasture every morning/evening to let them in and out. I have cattle panels set up to keep the boys away from the girls area and the garage. The way I have it set up, I can go through the boys 'home pen' that they are shut out of, through one of the closed off paddocks and then straight into the area where the lilacs are fenced. Then its just a quick walk to the end of the pasture, where I have a cattle panel set up as a gate, with the big metal clips. I wired a plastic fence post thingie at the top of the cattle panel, and use this to push the gate open and pull it closed. By wiring it to the fence it also keeps the boys from accidentally closing themselves out of where their water is. The process of getting from 'here to there' sounds more complicated than it is, since I only have one gate to go through and all the other areas have open gates to walk through. I give the boys just a smidgen of grain (which they would happily either kill or die for) to lure them in and then snap the gate closed. The boys run along the fence as I progress to their pen, screeching for that tiny taste of grain. Forget all the lovely grass in the world if you'll only given me a taste of that grain!!

Since my system at home is now all upgraded, I spent some time last night trying to figure out how to load pictures from my camera. It took me quite a while to figure it out and of course it was easy once I hit the right buttons. They also loaded 'The Gimp' which is an open source photo shop program that Allena told me was really cool. I'm excited about that, and hope to be able to have some fun on it.

Fleas have overrun the dogs and cats of the farm---both inside and out---despite the diligent use of Frontline and spray for their bedding etc. I use the Frontline spray for Meshach as the spot application causes him to become bald in that area. After spraying a few fleas will act sick for a day or two, but after that they are just as thick again. So, next try will be with Advantage, which is what the vet recommended, then after a month switch over to Frontline etc. etc. Nasty things, those fleas.

Just random thoughts today, still some bugs being worked out of DSL so I haven't gotten to use it much yet.

Have a good one!

Moving Uptown.....

yes....that's right, here smack dab in the middle of no-where, I am now 'uptown'. I have DSL! Yep! I can hardly believe it myself. Okay, I can't believe it at all, but sit here in awe as with a stroke of a key and in the blink of an eye, pages are being pulled up. Amazing. No more sitting here reading a book, or cleaning house while each page loads at an excruciating sloooow pace.

Seriously I do live out in the middle of no-where, but I have the good fortune to also live within five miles "as the crow flies" from one of the telephone substations. This made me a candidate for DSL, although I did not believe it would be so. I first attempted to hook up about a week ago, and ran into all kinds of problems and issues. So the computer went to the shop for an update, and I've been on the phone about three nights with the Century tel folks trying to get things resolved. Tonite I was prepared for the worst and within about two minutes of contacting them the guy had me online. WOOOOHOOO. And let me just say right here--a big hearty THANK YOU to the kind and patient technical folk at Century tel. I did not have one snotty or impatient person during the time I was on the phone with them. In fact they went above and beyond in their help. One tech went searching the building to try and find a 'guy who is compatible with Linux'. :-)

Anyhoo, I wanted to share my good fortune and excitement. I still can't believe I'm ON THE COMPUTER AND CAN MAKE A PHONE CALL AT THE SAME TIME! :-0 Is that just freaky or what?

And for my co-worker, who also lives out in the boonies in a different direction--and can't get DSL. I'M SORRY! Don't hate me because I'm connected.....ha.......(Okay you can hate me a little.......)

Oh and for the record---the DSL is the same price as the dial-up for the first year, and then will go up $10. Still a bargain in my mind.

Have a good one!

And while on the subject....

....since I was talking about fleeces and such, I wanted to share these pix I took over the weekend. These are two Shetland fleeces that I have since boxed up and will ship out to be processed. I am sending them to http://www.stonehedgefibermill.com/ whom I've been very pleased with in past fiber processing. I'm hoping these fleeces will turn out a nice dark oatmealy roving.

I had thought they were closer in color than they actually are. They are both musket lamb fleeces. The one on the right is from Drake's fleece from last year, which I saved hoping to combine it with another fleece this year. The one on the left is Luna's lamb fleece from this year. They are both very, very soft, and I hope that is retained during the processing.

Have a great weekend!

Fiber Fair

Several weeks ago I had a booth at a local fiber fair. This is my third year to attend, and the booth fees are very low, and it is less than an hour from where I live. The first year I went I was ready to pack everything back up in the truck the minute I started unloading. That year I had mostly raw fleeces and some grey Shetland roving. The fleeces looked horribly dirty in that unfamiliar setting! Finally I calmed down and we (my Mom went with me) got unloaded and the table set up and fleeces arranged. I was still sick, but as people started passing by, checking the fleeces and roving, I began to relax. I had many compliments on how 'clean' the fleeces looked and sold several as well as all the roving. Even after my third year, I still get that sick feeling when I unload those unwashed, smelly fleeces! They look fine at home...but out in public?

Last year I had a great year. I had more fleeces than the previous year and five different varieties of roving---I sold several fleeces and lots of roving. This year wasn't so great, although I sold close to 30 oz of roving, and I think 4 fleeces. The crowds were good, just not as many folks buying.

However this getting out and putting the fleeces under 'public' eye so to speak is very informative to me. I am a shepherd who doesn't spin (Gasp! I know!!) so I am somewhat hindered by that fact when spinners--especially newbies---ask me questions I haven't a clue to what the answer is. At times there will be other spinners feeling fleeces and roving and they can educate both of us. Other times, I just tell them that I don't know the answer. Or I can pass on information that other spinners have told me. I've learned allot and the booth area is nice and roomy. All booths are under roof, in open air livestock barns, so its a very good set up. One only has to bring tables and any other display items and of course your goods. (and lots of snacks and sodas! ;-)

This year my friend, Allena, from http://www.allena.thethreeringranch.com/ forced, er, urged me to enter one of the Merino girls fleeces in the fleece competition. She is a spinner and looked through the fleeces I had brought and picked Suzy's. The year before I had a fleece picked out to enter, but couldn't quite work up the nerve to take it down there. Now it will be easier to pick a nice fleece and enter it next year! Allena even took the fleece down there for me. Later I walked down and it had a cute red ribbon and had gotten second place and had a critique card on it. I can't remember all it said, but it was 90 out of 100 points. Again the information is very useful and continues my education. Allena got a nice blue on her fleece from "Lucy" a lovely little 1/2 Shetland 1/2 Merino she bought from me last year--and that was with only half a years growth on her fleece. (She shears twice per year).

All in all in was a good day. My Mom came for part of the day and 'booth watched' when I had to step away. She is good help and seems to enjoy 'crowd watching'. The above pictures are just several different angles of the booth/display. I need a better way to display the fleeces (as in a shelf or something) but this works okay for now. I have no idea who that lady is in the third photo! Even though she looks like she belongs, I think she was just a passers-by.

So anyway, once you do this sort of thing you get a bit revved up and want to go to another one. Well, I missed any sort of deadline on the next event that was about two weeks later. I dabbled with the idea of going up there and checking things out. However its an almost two hour drive and with gas being so incredibly expensive, I decided not to. Instead I had a heart to heart talk with myself, about using ones website and getting ones-self into gear and getting said website updated with the goods on hand. Instead of spending the day away, I stayed home, took pictures of roving, updated the website and did some other projects that needed doing. If I had been really excited about going to the event, I would have went anyway, but I was indecisive so took a better recourse I think.

I have lots of roving available and have updated quite a bit on my website http://fairlightfarm.com. I still have a few that I need to put on there but I've been having computer problems and much frustration on that front for the past week. Check it out though if you are interested in roving. I have grey, moorit and black Shetland, as well as white Dorset, and Merino/Dorset cross . If you see duplicates posted those are places that I'm still working on, and while I've updated the tables, I haven't updated the info.

I'll try and dig out my little card I got with the ribbon on the fleece, and let you know what it said. Have a good one.