Now that the lambs are here, I am posting like crazy. I banded the ram lamb today and turned mom and the twins in with the rest of the sheep. The little ewe stays closer to her mother than the ram. He is easily separated and always seems to not be paying attention to where she is. Other than that, I spent the rest of the day moving hay, feeding the animals and doing other things that needed to be done.

New Lambs and the Visiting Ram

The new lambs have arrived! They are a set of twins--a ram and an ewe lamb. The new ewe is slightly bigger and has light brown spots. The ram had a little trouble at first and almost became fixated on my dog Gauge. He followed him around for a while so I decided to pen the new family together for a couple of days.

The Murray Grey girls have arrived! They are my first foray into the cattle business. So far, I really like them. Real gentle and peaceful.

Here is the latest...

The lamb died...I checked on him the next day and saw his mother back with the other sheep. Maybe the rest will have better luck.

I moved the sheep to a new area on Thursday. While moving them, they decided to run past me toward the highway. The next thing I knew, they were all still standing in the middle of the road. Talk about scary, because I couldn't see around the curve at the top of the hill. Fortunately the cars slowed down enough to let me get their attention and lead them back to the new paddock. Whew!

The sheep and Gauge are doing well together. I think they think he is strange new member of the flock. Gauge seems to be adjusting and taking everything in. He has already learned that the donkey does not like him AT ALL. He also learned that the electric fence is HOT. I was pleased to see him still with the sheep last night since I couldn't check on them for a couple of days. Hopefully, I won't have any problems with him getting out.

My three Rhode Island Red hens are laying like gang-busters--almost three eggs every day. Wow--I thought we could eat enough eggs but now I am thinking of selling the extras. Raising chickens is pretty easy--I may add a few more down the road.

I am considering buying 2-3 Murray Grey cow-calf pairs in the next few weeks. Uncle Charles children offered me the chance to buy his cows now that he passed. Hopefully that will work well--we'll see.

It feels like it has been a long week already and it is only Tuesday. I picked up Gauge on Saturday morning. So far he has been a great dog. Just a really big puppy! I brought Kara and the kids out to meet him Sunday evening. They loved him as you can see from the pictures. He seems to know that he needs to be gentle and calm around Christopher and Cayden. That's great and why I bought him. His previous family did a great job socializing him.

One of my ewes gave birth to a little ram lamb yesterday. I knew she was getting close but I was still surprised to see him out there with the flock. I don't know if it was just being a newborn or not, but he seemed a little weak. I tried to move him and her (the flock) to a more protected part of the pasture but I may have done more harm than good. I tried to lead the flock while carrying him in my arms. Unfortunately, Chris was with me and was distracting/scaring the sheep with his running and jumping. As a result, the ewe got disoriented and kept going back to the spot where I found them. It took me 3 hours to finally get both of them back to the shelter next to the house. I left Gauge nearby for protection but I am not sure if the mother stayed with the lamb or not. The only reason I persisted in moving them was because I saw coyote tracks and scat in the back pasture where I found them. I hope he made it but I am not confident he made it through the night. This whole adventure (as Chris called it) made me think about what God must think about us and we are at risk of being attacked by the devil.

On another note--it has been a somber few days. Uncle Charles passed away Saturday morning (while I was picking up Gauge) of bone cancer and my partner Nick's 3 yr old son passed away yesterday after battling a rare aggressive form on cancer. Micah was such a sweet child--loved the farm and spending time with his dad. Life doesn't seem fair sometimes. My prayers are with both families...

The sheep got out today. There was a washed out area under the fence behind the pond. I didn't realize it was so easy for them to travel under. I got them back in with a bucket of feed. I like the fact that sheep like to flock together. It makes them easy to move from one place to another.

The chickens are doing fine...I also went to see Gauge (the Pyr I bought). He is a really good dog--very friendly. I hope he works out well for me.

The chickens are here!

The new chicken coop...

Part of being a farmer is being resourceful...sooo I decided to make a chicken coop out of the goat panels and some tarp for the chickens I bought today. It actually was pretty easy--it is a little smaller than I would like but incredibly easy to put together. I built a nest out of milk crate and used bungee cords to hold done the tarp. The good thing about this coop is that I can move it anytime I want to. We'll see how it works...

Update on my progress and dealing with the great aunts...

Not much has happened since I was last here. It has been really dry and I am having to move the sheep more often in order to make sure they have enough grazing. Ms. J still doesn't like them much so I have decided to get a least one dog. I found one on craigslist named Gauge who has been raised with chickens and the like. That is very important because next week I am picking up a few chickens (from craigslist again). I set up a water meter in my name so that I don't have to depend on the meter dedicated to the house. Hopefully, I can get the water line constructed next week sometime. My co-worker will come out to the farm with his well camera to see with the deal is with our well. So far--we have not been able to get it to work.

On another note--it is very interesting trying to work with older folks sometimes. My time is very limited so I sometimes need to work well into the night on the farm to get stuff done. The problem with that is that if my great aunts (who live on the farm) know I am out there--they will sit and worry about me the whole time. Yesterday, at dusk, I heard a faint voice screaming every so often. I was kinda far away trying to move my temporary fence but decided to head to the house to investigate just in case there was an emergency. Turns out--Aunt Annie thought something happened to me so she got frightened. *sigh* Sometimes--I think it's better to just sneek onto the farm to do what I have to do. I worry far more about them being worried about me and getting worked up at their ages(in their nineties) than I am worried about something happening to me in the field. This is going to be a ongoing challenge...hopefully they will trust me more.

This is officially my first day of chronicling my experiences as a beginning farmer. I have actually been "farming" or preparing to farm for the past two years (purchasing equipment and attending workshops/field days, etc). Now that I am officially finished with grad school, I have begun the process of adding animals to my place.

Phase one was getting protection. My main goal initially was to raise strictly cattle. However, over time, I discovered that other farm animals would make life even more interesting. Plus, I have two young boys and I feel more comfortable having them around animals that are less threatening size-wise. So I decided to raise goats, sheep, and chickens.

Unfortunately, small animals are more prone to become prey. So I decided that I needed a donkey. I purchased a 8 yr old female jenny named Ms. J. A day later, I brought in 16 Dorper sheep--10 ewes and 6 ewe lambs. I hope to get them bonded to each other within a few weeks.