Farm Fresh Blog

     Mesa has just turned a year old and I'm beginning to use her for simple chores around the farm. We haven't really done a lot of schooling because the schooling sheep have been heavily pregnant or lambing, that just leaves the Navajo Churro and the Jacobs, and they are not, N-O-T, good schooling sheep. The churro are large, flighty, and apt to richochet into things, and the Jacobs will bring the fight to the dog. None of that is great for giving a baby dog confidence.

Mesa has done enough pen work on the Dorpers that she has a rudimentary knowledge of pushing sheep, giving them some distance, and bringing them to me. We haven't put any commands on it yet. Her experience with the Churro and Jacobs has been to slowly push them into the night pens. This isn't so much herding, as guiding them into good choices.

Mesa is supposed to begin formal herding lessons in March but Spring grazing pasture opportunities require Mesa to start getting a handle on these sheep as soon as possible. So this evening we moved the sheep into the pen and let Mesa get a feel for them.

The sheep are light and have never really been schooled by dogs, and so flocking toward the human is not even in their databanks. Today we just worked with picking the sheep up and moving them around the pen, predictably the Jacobs were quick to complicate things by bringing the fight to the dog.

It was irritating but at the same time, if Mesa can't work a bossy sheep, she can't work a cow, so there is no time like the present to start building her confidence.

Since we have no aspirations toward trial work, gripping the sheep is not discouraged as long as it's justified and fair. The problem with gripping sheep with horns is that if you don't do it right, it hurts. Mesa and the bossiest ewe had a few go-rounds before Mesa got her confidence and found a way to address the problem that she was comfortable with. I didn't put too much pressure on her, and we quit as soon as she'd had enough success that I felt her confidence was growing.

Not only did Mesa learn she could control the sheep, more importantly, the sheep learned that Mesa could control them, and that's just one baby step closer to being a cow dog.

Even though I sold most of the Dorper sheep, I still have a skeleton crew of sentimental favorites that I kept and these girls are dropping lambs now.

The most unexpected delight of this lambing season has been the arrival of a lamb I didn't think I'd ever see.

Who remembers Roanie?

Longtime readers may remember the ewe who was attacked by Other Half's police dog when Briar was a puppy. The injured ewe and Briar became best friends. Her plucky determination to live made her one of my favorites too.

Sadly Roanie passed away this summer.  Although Roanie had several lambs, she only had one daughter - Chuck.

Chuck was named because as a baby she several times found herself caught in situations where she needed help because she was "Stuck like Chuck."  When I moved the first time and I sold most of my quality breeding stock, I kept Chuck because she was slow to mature and just wasn't that impressive.  She later bloomed into a nice ewe but failed to get pregnant last year, so I thought she may be barren. I seriously considered selling her when I sold this last bunch, but for sentimental reasons (as if retired people without a paycheck can afford to be sentimental!) I kept Chuck. I kept her because I'd finally lost Roanie.

Shortly after I sold the last batch of sheep, Chuck started to bag up. Wonder of wonders, Chuck was pregnant. Thursday Chuck had twins at 6 am, one boy and one girl.  She had a normal delivery and just like her mother, Chuck is an excellent mother.

Meet Roanie's granddaughter - Pepperoni

and her older brother, born 30 minutes earlier, the Caped Crusader - Batman.

Sometimes I ride the Guilt Trip Train when I make sentimental decisions and keep animals that should be passed down the road with others. Like Roanie, keeping Chuck was a sentimental decision. I sold better ewes but kept her, and just couldn't figure out why. But at 0630 hours on 02/17/16 when I saw that my favorite ewe had a granddaughter, I remembered why I kept Chuck. And like her mother, Chuck has lots of personality and is a plucky, hardy girl. I hope they pass those hardy genes on to little Pepperoni.

Like her mother, young Pepperoni has a mind of her own and wanders off with the older lambs in search of adventure. As Chuck calls Pepperoni in a panic over her lost lamb, I am reminded of all the fits Chuck gave Roanie. Clearly Briar and I have our work cut out for us as we try to keep this little lamb out of trouble.

When people visit it gives you the chance to look at your home through fresh eyes. In my case, there's always panic.

"How did the ceiling fan get so much dust in a week?"
"The dust bunny that just blew out from under the couch is bigger than a poodle!"
"How much time do we have to clean before they get here?!"

The house is never clean enough for me. The dogs and goats are never quiet enough. There are always unfinished projects still sitting out in the yard or in the barn that simply cannot be picked up. It is a fact of life that no matter how clean the house is, the cat will crap in the litter box moments before company enters the door.

But the joy of having company over is that after the initial "oh my gosh, my house is still a wreck," in addition to enjoying the visit, you get the chance to dust off your glasses and see other things for the first time in a long time. And with children, you get to look at your life in technicolor.

The grandchildren came through last weekend like a summer rain, breathing new life into everything around them. Although I never get tired of living here, it's still amazing how looking at the ranch through a child's eyes can bring so much more color. You don't have to plan things to do because the land provides plenty that will keep feral children occupied. Fresh eyes can change your perspective, making old things new and exciting.

 A simple ride around the ranch is no longer a journey for us to check fence or look at cattle, it's a Lewis & Clark expedition. The creek itself is a living thing and never fails to be the greatest of classrooms. It provides history lessons, geology lessons and murder mysteries. A hunt for fossils in the creek moves from the field of paleontology to expand and become a murder investigation as they search for bones of a dead calf. The bone theme continues as they poke through the woods in search of bones from a dead bull. The afternoon became an Easter egg hunt for bones.

The world is their classroom and it shows.

We went from learning to shoot from the top of the cliff

to climbing the underside of the cliff from the creek.

And they discovered roping is a lot harder than it looks.

These kids have their own goats, but feeding the goats and sheep was still a blast for them. I enjoyed this too, since doing chores is a lot more fun and a lot easier when you have minions. Grandchildren make great minions.

The Livestock Guardian Dogs were a big hit. No surprise there. The puppies were great with the kids. There is nothing quite like seeing your grandchildren playing with dogs bigger than they are to make you appreciate a good breeder who properly socializes her puppies with children. (Thank you, Ramie Carter in Oklahoma!)

Even properly socialized, a pack of Border Collies is not a good mix with a pack of grandchildren, so to protect the dogs and the grandchildren from themselves, we opted to lock the Border Collies behind bars this weekend. This left Dillon, the Labrador Retriever, to enjoy and be enjoyed. He was in heaven. Like Other Half pointed out,

"They are the same grade level."

 
As always, the horses are a big draw, and they made the most of liberal treats poked at them by little hands.

Once again, Joe proved himself to be a horse of great value. He isn't a fancy showhorse, or a skilled cowhorse, but he's the best kind of horse - your go-to horse, the horse you can trust to introduce another grandbaby to the world of horses.

You just can't put a price on a smile.

So the kids went back home, and the house is still a mess, there are still unfinished projects in the yard, the ceiling fan is already gathering dust, and the cat just hit the litter box again, but the kids left me with a renewed look at life here through their 3D glasses. They reminded me that there are more important things than a clean house. After all, we live in a barn with the animals, how clean is it ever gonna be? And ongoing, unfinished projects are part of ranch life. Kids are able to take you outside to view the vivid beauty of life and death on a ranch that pales a bit when you let yourself get caught up in the day to day humdrum of chores.  A child reminds you to live in the now, to enjoy the moment, to appreciate the cold sand between your toes as you walk in the creek.

Some days the wolf is literally 'at the door.'

Or in our case, it's the coyote. Fortunately we have dogs bred to hunt wolves and they are finally getting big enough to enjoy a coyote hunt.  Yesterday while on our morning walk to read our pee-mail and tag the rival gang's wall with our own graffiti, the call of a coyote sounded just beyond the trees.

The games a'foot!

The Livestock Guardian Dogs raced off, confident that they would finally catch the voices that taunted them in the dark. The Herding Dogs stayed right there. Clearly hunting wolves was not part of their contract.  The look on Mesa's face was priceless. She just stood in the road and looked first in one direction and then the other. Nope. Hunting coyotes as big as she is is not in her contract.

The bells of the Livestock Guardian Dogs faded in the distance until we heard nothing but birds as we continued our walk. Normally I call the dogs back when they try to run off into the dark after coyotes but on this crisp, cold morning, I just let that pony run. The neighbor has had a problem with a really large coyote coming up on his porch during the day. It's been sighted many times in the daylight, and if he doesn't start getting a healthy respect for humans someone is gonna shoot him.  I'd just as soon he not be shot because something else will just take his niche. Now if he's climbing into my sheep pen that's another story, but for now, it's easier to just educate the coyote. The bells of those dogs just might do that.

I didn't seriously believe the dogs would catch the coyote. In fact, if it had been spring, I would have thought the coyote was trying to lure the dogs away from a den. Regardless, the dogs finally got a chance to relieve the stress of just listening to the coyotes taunt them at night without getting to do anything about it, and the coyote began to associate those bells with a serious run for his life.

It's not by chance that my dairy goats wear the exact same bells.

When I called them back the puppies bounded up before Briar who had slipped under the fence and onto the neighbor's ranch. It didn't surprise me that this coyote went back there. I think he's been helping himself to free-feed dog food for a while now and he's pretty comfortable there. Briar reluctantly came back when I shouted a few cuss words at her.

This is the face of a dog who has just been outrun by a coyote.

"Sector 12 is clear!"

The pups gave her a hero's welcome,

and then they all came to me to present their workcards. Sector 12 was clear.

So we continued our walk. The pups played with Mesa, and Briar walked with a spring in her step, and cast a wistful eye back. I think she finally figured out a use for her minions.

They're pretty good backup if you're hunting wolves. Or coyotes.

The Anatolians are eight months old today and are officially taller than Briar.

Get her some smelling salts...

The other news is that since I'm officially retired now, I have started work on the books you've been asking about. Since retirement means a fixed income and a much smaller paycheck, the first book I'm working on is the book I think will sell the fastest to an agent and a publisher. That's the CSI book.  There are lots of ranchers out there writing, but there are not as many CSI writers. With a smaller field I think I have a better chance of being noticed by an agent. Unless an agent called me up out of the blue and just begged for a farm book which is not likely to happen, I'll be knocking on doors pushing the CSI book first.

The CSI book will include some old blog posts with a hefty addition of new stuff. Which CSI blog posts are ones that you feel must be included in this first book? Also, do you think the photos are important, or can we drop those?

After the CSI book is complete, then I'll start work on the farm book/books. My question to you is this. What kind of farm book would be of the most interest? There's a heck of a lot more material to work with and so I need to start figuring out which direction to narrow things. That depends upon you because you guys have seen the greatest sample of work. There are a lot of different directions I can take.

What are your thoughts?

The Not Ready For Prime Time Players are still doing a fine job of keeping predators on their side of the fence at night and all I need to do is step out into the barn aisle to find out why. They sound enormous. I mean, really, freaking, enormous. Yes, I know they're big, but deep-throated barks come out of them like sonic booms.

 Yes, that's a full size picnic table. Yes, he's that big now. Yes, he will be only 8 months old next week.

And they sound particularly loud right now. Perhaps it's just an environmental anomaly. The temperature, humidity, and terrain is just right so that sound is amplified and bounces off our very small mountain. We get an echo around here, particularly in the fog, and Judge spends a lot of time barking at the dog on the mountain who mocks him. He lets out a thunder bark, and the Dog In The Dark barks back at him, so naturally, he has to answer the mocking dog. This goes on for hours while Briar and Jury sleep. (Reason #57 for not living in a subdivision.)

The holidays are over, the Livestock Show has passed, houseguests have safely returned home, and the carousel of Life has slowed to a manageable pace. I'm still on the Merry-Go-Round but now at least the spin is a little slower and I have more time to focus on the animals going up and down around me. And yes, catch up on soap orders!

The sheep that made The Big Cut and are still in the barn are bagging up now so it's time to watch them a little closer. This will involve a lot more dog-juggling since the Anatolians are still big puppies and certainly Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players during lambing season.

  The cattle are dropping calves now too. Although I would prefer giving them the run of the ranch, because of the predator load here, we want the calves up and moving fast before we turn this group back out. Until all calves are born and at least a month old, they'll have to stay near the house. This gives us the chance to monitor birthing and to have daily interaction with new calves. It certainly makes them easier to handle later. Not only does this pay off with the calves we keep, but calves that are used to being handled by humans don't freak out as much when they are sold and move on. Our calves are used to seeing humans, dogs, horses, and livestock chutes before they leave here. This means less stress on them. They then eat better and have better immune systems after they are sold. This gives them an edge over the calves who never saw humans before they were weaned in a cattle trailer on the way to the sale barn.

It's winter now and time to think about spring gardening and chickens. Yes, it's time to start hauling sheep and cow manure to the garden site for composting. The beauty of starting from scratch is that I get to plan my garden and my chicken coop a hundred times before I finally get to work. I'm sure that despite all this time and planning, I will still end up throwing up something at the last minute. That's life. That's me. BUT - here's the plan:

Imagine a chicken coop in the center of a yard, like the hub of a wheel. Small runs radiate out from the coop, separated by fences like the spokes of a wheel. The chickens don't have access to all the runs at once. Some of the runs are actually parts of the garden which the chickens will have partial access to. The full time chicken runs will later become highly fertile garden sites for the following years! The plan is just to rotate the runs, but leave the coop in place in the center. And ALL of this will be surrounded by the dogs at night, so the chickens will have the benefit of the Livestock Guardian Dogs without actually living with the dog in the pen. (Just in case Briar remembers that the next door neighbor's chickens tasted good.)

Not only must the chicken pen be behind bars, but the entire garden must be behind bars. In one afternoon sheep and goats can eat an entire garden. I have also seen what a Labrador can do to corn plants. It ain't pretty, people. It ain't pretty. Who would think a Labrador likes corn on the cob on the stalk?

At the moment, none of this has been built yet. It's all just a dream floating in my head, awaiting concrete plans, and a Home Depot gift card. So here's a shout out to all my gardeners and chicken folks, whatdaya think? Any ideas?