Watching the Garden Grow

We planted a bunch of "stuff" the end of May. In June it rained - not just a bit, a whole lot'ta rain. Ark building type rain. We just hoped our vegetables would survive being continuously wet and cold. And then the sun came out a couple of weeks ago, not all the time mind you, but just enough to inspire the plants to open their flowers. So, here's where things stand today - in the sunshine !

This is a very small bell pepper

Swiss Chard

Zucchini

Zucchini again -

Rows of staked tomatoes - Brandywine and Roma

Eggplant flowering

Green Cabbage

Basil and Italian Flat-leaf Parsley

This year we decided to put down a ground cover and then mulch on top. A really good decision. The result is virtually no weeds. Years past our garden was always overcome with weeds ( we do not spray anything and there is never enough time to spend weeding ). We debated regarding the ground cover - did not want to use plastic - and decided on using a cloth or fabric variety. Our hope is to be able to re-use the cloth next year. Having the hay mulch on top keeps weeds from sprouting beneath and also may preserve some of the integrity of the cloth as well. We'll see what happens. By the way, we needed to put the split firewood down on top to keep everything from blowing away - we're in a windy spot !

Is That The Sun We See ?

After almost 5 weeks of rain without much more than a day of non-rain in-between ( can't call it sunshine 'cause there wasn't any ), we're finally back into the swing of making some hay. If you look closely you can see a "square" bale being "kicked" into the wagon, from the baler. An "Action-Shot". Now we have an awful lot of catch-up work to do. Because of the late first cutting of our hay this year, we're going to have a lot of clover in our round bales which makes for a really nice feed. It just takes an extra day or so to dry and this week we've got the time to make it - 4 days ( predicted ) of good drying weather !
These square bales are also full of clover. We'll be using them next February to feed our nursing nannies so they make a lot of rich milk for the 2010 kids.

Sheep and Wool Workshops

If you have not taken a gander at the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival's workshop offerings this year - take a look: http://www.sheepandwool.com/workshops/index.asp
Please spread the word to anyone who you think may be interested.

This is an AMAZING work of art - not part of the workshop program - but just something at which to marvel. About a gazillion tiny glass beads and counting - all placed by a steady hand.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranchero

This Spring has been extremely hectic for us. We've been to a bunch of Fiber Shows -- Maryland, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Seen a bunch of folks and talked a lot about goats. This is a photo taken about a month ago of our very own "Three Amigos". The only bottle kids this year, who, thankfully are now weaned, grazing and happy.





This is also a picture from a while ago of a group of kids. All different sizes and colors and all much bigger now than that photo shows them to be.



And finally, a kid, well...... just being a kid.

The garden is almost planted - we have a few more rows to go. And soon we will start cutting hay - weather cooperating.

30 or so lambs have been born and are out grazing with the ewes.

We'll take some more up to date photos and hopefully be more faithful to getting some posted here.

Spring Has Come

Farm life has been busy these past few days. The goats are just about done kidding. The sheep should start lambing any day now. We've spent the last 10 days shearing sheep and goats - 21 Ewes remain to be sheared and about the same number of Bucks. 120 ton of lime has been spread on the pastures and hay fields. A lot of time has been being spent on cleaning up our fence lines which were littered with debris from winter storms - tree limbs down, fence posts heaved and broken, wire needing tensioning. We're also trying to get fiber prepared for our Spring Fiber Show Schedule. We've taken a bunch of new pictures but have not been able to get them posted yet. Maybe this weekend ?

Heard (Herd) Around the Water Cooler......Almost

We've had this solar water tank for about 3 years. It is really great. Uses passive solar to keep the water from freezing. How it works is the tank within a tank method. There is an inner tank that holds the water and an outer shell with a plexi-glass "window" on one side. In the winter, the tank's window gets oriented toward the sun, in our case south. The sun passively heats the inner tank via the plexi-glass window. In the summer, the tank is turned 180 degrees so that the window stays in the shade keeping the water cool.
The tank comes with a heavy black oblong floating lid to keep debris out and the heat in. The goats were not able to press hard enough on the lid supplied with the tank to get to the water....so we cut this goat sized lid from a piece of foam we had around. During the last 3 years we've had to replace the foam lid as the Maremmas tend to think that it is great fun to "steal" the lid and rip it to shreds. This year the dogs are a bit older and wiser and would be embarrassed to be caught in the middle of such foolishness - NOT ! (If you look closely you can see distinctive teeth marks in the upper left hand curve of the blue foam lid. Dogs: you've been discovered and exposed! Ha! That'll teach 'ya!)

BTW - What do you suppose goats talk about around the water cooler ? We'll never know and maybe that's a good thing.

5, Count'em, 5 Days 'Til Spring

Sheep To Be Sheared

Yesterday we sorted through a bunch of our ewes. Now that kidding is winding down, its time to get ready for lambs. We have 22 bred Cormo and Cormo Cross ewes - we think. The Cormo Crosses are our Natural Colored Fine Wool sheep. So, starting next week, we'll be shearing some sheep as we prepare for lambing. We like to get the fleece sheared before the ewes lamb -- for one thing it allows the lambs to find a teat with ease and for another it keeps the fleece from getting contaminated from the birthing process. We also have the remainder of our goats to shear as well - yearling does and bucks, adult does and bucks. So in the next few weeks we need to harvest the fleece off of about 100 animals.
As we shear, we do a "rough skirt". That means we remove as much of the undesirable parts of the fleece as possible before putting the fleece into a bag. Undesirable parts include; any fleece with manure stuck to it ( these are called "tags" ), any fleece discolored by urine ( called "stain" ) , any parts with a lot of vegetable matter ( VM , the handspinners nightmare in fine wool ). We also separate the wool from the underside of the sheep's body - the "belly wool" - and bag that separately. This wool can be very different from the rest of the fleece. Sometimes it is shorter in length, sometimes the crimp is different and sometimes it is of a different "fineness". Most of our sheep are covered which keeps a large percentage of the fleece very clean and free from debris. This fleece is then carefully re-skirted, bagged and offered for sale. Some of our fleeces - the really special ones - are kept and entered into competition at some of the local fairs. There is nothing more beautiful than a pristinely clean, freshly sheared fleece.
This year, the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Growers Association, a local sheep breeder's association to which we belong, is having a Spring Fleece sale. It will be held on Saturday May 16 at the Elmendorf Inn in Red Hook, NY at 10:00AM. We'll be participating with some of these beautiful fleeces. See you there?

7 Days 'Til Spring