Our farm stand is run as an honor stand.  And in five years of selling hundreds of dozens of eggs I haven’t been short changed once.  Really!  A true testimony to the goodness of people and our wonderful community.

I do occasionally get notes like this in the payment lunch box, ” I only had a $20 and bought 2 dozen eggs and took $5 change.  Lunch box box owes me $5.  I will just take 1 dozen extra eggs next time”.

I read these notes and smile!

Very pregnant Snowball - Ouch!!

All the sheep have been switched over to alfalpha hay and a sheep grain ration.  This type of feeding is for their last month of gestation and for their first month of lactation.  The alfalpha is like sheep cocaine and they LOVE it!  It seems to be giving them some extra energy because I keep on catching Caroline “pronking” after the cats like a little lamb.

One of my big chores this weekend were the weekly scraping out of the winter chicken run.  It’s about 500 pounds a week of, ummmm, disgusting mess.  Winter can be a drag in the manure management department.  All three of our compost bins were full so Mark took the most ready to use and hauled it up the driveway a tractor load at a time to the garden to mellow out some more before we put it down.

I also hung up a bit more fencing for the last remaining pasture that is being “sheep proofed”.  I have one 200′ foot fence line and one gate to go before it is done.

Mark is getting ready to make new farrowing pens for his Girls.  Turns out the old spot is just too wet so he’ll use the part of the hay barn that is three sided.  I helped hime move stuff and re-arrange so that he can start working on it.

Lastly, I started a big batch (212 ounces of lard worth) of soap.  I’m really mad at myself because I don’t think it will turn out and if it doesn’t I’ve wasted a huge amount of effort and precious lard.  I was super careful with my measurements and tempertature control so I have no idea why it doesn’t look right.  I’ve poured it off to settle for the next 48 hours so hopefully I’ll be proven wrong and it will turn out great!

And, I bought a Lotto ticket since I think I have enough stuff to to around here.  Someone else should do my office job!

Which would have turned out perfectly, but I forgot that you have to follow the recipe EXACTLY.  I’m never that exact when cooking so now I have some not quiet set apricot jelly/syrup.  It is good on toast, waffles and as a sauce for fruit salad.

After Mark got all of  the pork back from the butcher he cut up about 40 pounds of lard for me to render for my soap making.  In two bouts of lard rendering in my gigantic pot outside I now have about 25 pounds of lard.  Hand milled soap is on the horizon.  In preparation for more soap I ordered more fragrances from my fav online source: Bramble Berry.

Lastly, you just have to love Google images and the stuff you can find.  I wanted to see how big my ewe’s udder should be close to lambing.  Yes, I admit to my continued obsessing over my ewe’s and our first lambing.  So after looking at numerous images I can rest assured that even though Snowball is huge she is not truly bagged up.

It was easy to get the pigs in the trailer  since they were used to be fed in there so Mark just threw in some bread, they hopped in and he closed the door.  We then all piled into the truck for the hour drive to Joe’s farm.  We were going to Joe’s since he has about 6 boars and half of them are purebred Berkshires – our preference for a piggy boyfriend.

Before unloading our sows we had to help move the goat family who was hanging out in the enclosure.

Horns make for easy leading!

Then after we unloaded the girls we went up to choose the right date for our breeding.  So, my question to you is,  how do you move a 350 pound boar from one enclosure down the road to the next one?  Why, this way of course!

The Ole Head-in-a-Bucket Trick

I couldn’t believe how well this worked.  Joe put a bucket on the boar’s head which of course made him start to back up to get away from it.  Then Mark grabbed his tail and used it to steer him and down the lane they all ran.  I managed the gate and he was in there in about 2 minutes!

With the boar and the gilts together not much was really happening.  Except this picture. 

Not Quiet Right

Which at first glance one would deem as a success.  Until you realize that it’s Black Betty on top of the boar!  So we repeated our bucket and tail process to run another boar down in with the trio.  We’ll leave them with Joe until he sees some successful breeding.

Then we got some real hands on lessons for how to handle basic hog farming medical procedures.  You may remember a post from last year were Mark and I had tried unsuccessfully to fix a prolapsed rectum in one of our pigs.  One of Joe’s pigs had the same problem and we got to assist him with the whole procedure and see the techniques and tools needed.  I looked across at Mark and he had a huge grimace on his face the whole time.  I’m sure I looked the same way.

Next we watched a piglet castration.  This is something we’ll definitely have to learn to do on our 2-3 week old piglets.  It’s going to take some real getting used to since it seems so invasive.  It surely just must be me since after the fact the piglet wasn’t really even bleeding or seemed to bothered by it.

Chickens

My pet peeve in this situation!  The set up is a very large shelter (12′ by 12′) and an even larger outside run.  Only a small portion (about 13′ by 13′) of the outside portion is covered.  Here’s my findings with this set up.  The entire facility is on a downward slope so I’m constantly fighting off wetness.  Wet + chicken poop = stinky muck which I despise!   The shelter I’ve been able to keep manageable by banking straw around the backside of the coop which was leaking.  I also turn the deep bedding more often than normal to keep it fluffy.  The outside portion is a different matter all together.  I’ve resorted to this final solution to give them an outdoor run that is not a stinky quagmire; portioned off a section that is covered and banked it with straw bales to keep water flow out and then scrape out wet poop twice a week.  Much better!

Sheep

The little flock (and Zorro) are doing great.  Their run in stalls are working well and they are content.   I had thought that I would bed them down with straw, but I find they pull and waste so much hay that I just leave that down for bedding.  Since the hay and straw prices are so similar I not allowing myself to fret about it too much.  I had guesstimated that I would need 2 tons for the flock through March and I’m about right.  Unfortunately, when the hay was delivered I couldn’t get it all stacked in the main hay storage for the sheep and put some in an empty stall.  I knew this stall had a roof leak, but was hoping to avoid getting the stored hay wet.  Well, we went to unstack that hay and 7 bales had got wet with some mold. DRAT!  I can’t feed this to the sheep so Mark will use it as hog bedding instead of straw.  A good repurpose – but I’ll likely have to buy a few bales of hay.

Pigs

This is Mark’s department.  I think their run is, well, a pig pen!  They are happy as clams.  And they have a new addition.  Mark decided that he will be taking them to a boar to be serviced and was fussing over how to get two large sows trained to hop into a trailer for hauling.   So, he backed the trailer up to their gate, bedded it down with straw and started feeding them their bread in there.  Now he has some nicely trained pigs!

They have been looking for just the right fleece for their blending and looks like they may have found it with our Finnsheep.  I can hardly wait to hear the final report.  And I’m looking forward to going to their place to watch them shear rabbits.  After they’re done they dress them in jackets so they don’t chill.  That I have to see!!!

Below are two pictures of some of the breeds of angoras they have.  Who knew there were different type of angora rabbits?  The first one is a French Angora and the second one is a German Angora.

I took Luann’s fleece weighting 3 pounds 11 ounces in a garbage bag over to Superior Fibers in Edmonds.  I chose this particular mill because they will take your fleece all the way through to yarn.  Many small mills only wash, card and rove.  My fleece should end up yielding about 2 ½ pound s of yarn.

Superior Fibers is set up in a residential garage and run by the NICEST and most helpful couple possible.  They were more than willing to talk “shop” with me.  Here’s some of the nuggets I learned.

First is that my Finnsheep fleece was AWESOME!  They loved the crimp and how soft it was.  They said I would never have a hard time selling it and the quality was exceptional.

Second fact was that I didn’t skirt it well enough and I should really do a better job of removing vegetable matter or just keep the sheep cleaner.

Third was that my fleece fibers were too long to turn into yarn!  Most machines can only take lengths of up to 6” and a lot of mine was longer.  So they will wash, card and make it into loose rovings.  Then I’ll have to find a hand spinner to make it into yarn for me.

I think I can accommodate points two and three above by shearing twice a year and both of those times while the sheep are on pasture (meaning not eating hay and spending time in their barn which makes for dirty fleece).

Last thing I learned is that fiber mills are in huge demand.  It will take me 3 months to get my roving back.  If I was getting yarn it would be 6-9 months!  If you’re looking for a viable business I’d suggest opening up a fiber mill.  Seriously.

Gunther Shorn and Getting Pats from Adam

New Piggies

Mark got three weaner pigs from Ms. Hamm.  He really wants to be able to offer pork by the pound in the farm stand this summer.  If he didn’t get these weaners he wouldn’t have

New Weaner Piglet

anything until Rosie and Black Betty had piglets raised to market weight in the late fall.  Now all that has to happen is raise these three, finish out the farm stand and buy some freezers for our community to be able to buy some awesome pork by the pound.

The Big Girls

We are growing!

Sheep Shearing!

This was AWESOME!  We are very lucky to have a young shearer on the island and I feel fortunate to have had her come and shear and share some of her sheep knowledge.  Since we were shearing we also wormed, trimmed hooves and checked to see which of the ewes were pregnant.

There was a small crowd watching Elizabeth doing her work and it was a lot of fun.  I was just assistant sheep wrangler and asking her a bunch of questions and learning a lot.  One family of five came from being to end.  They raise Angora rabbits on the island for their fleece.  They have been experimenting and searching for the right fiber to blend with their Angora for a great, soft yarn.  They were very excited to find we were raising Finnsheepand we really happy with the quality of our fiber.  I’m interested in their report back on how the fiber works out.  They left with two fleeces to blend.  I also gave them some fleece from Zorro’s partial shearing to experiment with.  

Belly Shearing

Zorro (our llama) was a real champ when it came to his turn.  I think that Elizabeth has had plenty of challenges in the past with shearing llamas.  She asked that Mark and I go into the stall to assist.  The concept was to have me hold his head and Mark to pin him against a wall while she sheared and did hooves.  Zorro fussed for the first hoof and then basically started to doze off while I scratched his neck.  Mark left to go help his customers who  were coming onto the farm to get their pork.  I had asked Elizabeth to only shave off about half of Zorro’s fleece to get the matted, dirty part gone.  No reason to leave him cold!  I was really surprised at how soft the remaining 3-4 inches of fiber were.  Next shearing he’s going to be denuded.

Legs!

Here’s the tally of how the shearing went for the sheep:

1. Mary – excellent fleece with great crimp, length and luster.  Skirted it weighted about 3 1/2 pounds and she appears to be pregnant.
2. Snowball – excellent fleece with good crimp and length.  Skirted the fleece weighted about 2 1/2 pounds.  She is most definitely pregnant!  She is huge and I would guess has at least twins.
3. Caroline – the least exciting fleece, but it is still very nice.  Light crimp and shorter length with good luster.  She does not appear to be pregnant.  This has me a bit concerned since Gunether has been in with the ewes since October…
4. Luanne – great black fleece with excellent length, crimp and luster. Yea!!! I’m keeping this one to have made into yarn.  Weighted about 3 1/2 pounds and she appears to be pregnant
   

   Now I'm Naked!

Gunther was shorn, but I had little expectations for his fleece.  He was shorn in June and he is always rubbing on stuff so his fleece is patchy and short.  I’m keeping it to learn some felting on.

With all of their fleece off I could easier asess everyone’s weight and health.  I was happy to see that all are doing well on their winter diet of orchard grass.  And, boy, does Snowball look BIG!!!