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Broccoli still flowering among the weeds, 9/28/2012

A few little items from the last couple of weeks --

• The pumpkin vine that planted itself in the old hay pile, giving the pile quite a decorative look, has now got 2 decent-sized pumpkins.   If the frost holds off a little longer, maybe we'll have a couple more pumpkins for the cellar.
• Arthur (sheep) tried to jump out of a pen and caught his back leg between the fence bars, flipping himself upside down and getting stuck.   He didn't break the leg, but it was pretty sore for awhile.   He seems better today - at least I had a harder time catching him.
• We grew some yellow tomatoes for the first time this year.  Verdict on the yellow tomatoes - worth growing again.  They are great on toast, with melted cheese.
• Vet from Foxcroft Veterinary Services came by and vaccinated the two remaining ancient sheep here.  He said that the practice was coming down to Orono routinely now.  Hooray!
• Monarch butterflies  seem to like to ride the hot thermals rising from the tractor's diesel engine, when it is being driven home across the hay field.

Bit of this and that before it pours

Got in that second cut hay a few days ago.   It is always so much softer than the first cut.  I brought in a few loose bales - I hadn't run the baler for awhile, and forgot to tighten down the screws a second time.  Oh well, the sheep are getting the loose ones.

Other than my husband George helping me attach the cutter to the tractor, and helping stack the last few bales, I did this run all by myself!  Cutting, two teddings, raking and baling.   The whole process is much more pleasant in cooler weather.

The garden is still hiding under all the weeds, since I lost control of it earlier this summer during a period when a leg and a back were very uncooperative.   It is about to pour here, so I've been scavenging around and weed diving for things to put in the cellar, freezer, or a stomach.

The beds full of tall weeds seem to be attracting a lot of small birds.  I flushed several, along with the neighbors' tabby cat.

The achorn squash are a bit small, probably because the plants didn't get enough sun.  They'll go into the cellar anyway.  The tomato plants don't seem to mind the weeds.   Amazingly, the carrots survived, so I processed some for the freezer.   I need to get to Park's Hardware and pick up some sand, so I can put some fresh ones in the root cellar.  That will be after this coming rain.

I picked a few New England pie pumpkins and put them on pallets in the garage to harden.   Again, far fewer pumpkins this year, and those are a bit small.  But they are enough, if I get thinking about pie in the winter.

Second cut weather

We are having a lovely run of weather with low humidity, breezes, and sun.   I cut a bit of hay yesterday, tedded it (spread it with a tedder), and tedded again this morning just after the dew was off.

It looks pretty good, but never know for sure until it is in the barn.

We do an "unusual" second cut.   Most people will harvest a first cut in early spring, then come back for a second in late summer or early fall.  Our field is not fertilized, so it won't support that.   But, we are finding our way to getting a bit of sustainable second cut.

Sheep and small ruminants like second cut.   It is softer, less stemmy, and easier on small mouths.  So, we always try to get a bit.  We do this by mowing part of the field in early spring, but not haying it.  The hay is tedded, and left on the field, leaving the organic matter to go back into the field.  By this time of year, that first cut hay is complete gone.   We can come back through and get the softer, "second" cut.

We also rotate some parts of the field.   In some years, certain areas only get mowed, sometimes more than once, and not hayed at all. 

Most of the area where I just did the "second" cut has been fallow, except for mowing, for a couple of years.   The hay looks pretty nice....now just to get it in the barn!

Alice

We lost Alice to coyotes.

That is Alice in the foreground at left.  The picture was taken a few years ago, in the fall at my old place in Augusta.  The sheep in the back with the white nose is Alice's older sister, Ophelia (the ewes in that family line all had names from Shakespeare).


Many years ago now, I got a disease in my flock that sheep people know as "CL".   This was before there was a vaccine in the US for CL.  I unknowingly bought a ram that had it.  The disease can be slow to develop and slow to transmit, but it is contagious among sheep.  It is an easy disease to buy.   When I found it was in the flock, I stopped breeding and selling lambs.

I decided to keep a dozen or so sheep, just to have them around.   This was an un-economic thing to do, but I felt like I owed them something.   That flock gave me some very good lambs.  Some lambs had been sold to spinners in prior years, and some went to slaughter.

I've had only three sheep for quite a long time now.   Been putting old ones down from time to time over the years, as they got sick, injured, or tied up with arthritis.   The three remaining were descendants of the first two ewes I owned many years ago, Cordelia and Chloe.

The sheep in the flock were mostly Shetland/Finn, which are highly intelligent.  I know that isn't the common view of sheep, but it is true sometimes with relatively primitive breeds.  Each has his or her own personality.   Alice was special to me because she'd always been friendly and relatively calm.  She got spooky the last few years because I didn't spend enough time with her, but she always calmed down quickly when I did.   She was the first one to check out any offering from my hand, like a bit of apple.

Alice was descended from Cordelia, and was born the year that a Finn ewe I had named Lily gave birth to a bottle lamb named Chester.  Alice and Chester used to follow me around.   Chester followed me because I was his adopted mother.  Alice followed me because she wanted to.  I will miss Alice.

A word about coyotes -- this is the first trouble I've had with coyotes, over about a 15 year period.  Most coyotes don't bother sheep, and the American Sheep Institute recommends leaving coyotes alone that don't bother sheep.   Coyotes are territorial, and will keep other coyotes out of the area. I'm still going to leave the coyotes alone, but I'll bring the last two sheep in the barn at night.    This time of year, they like to graze at night when it is cool, but now that needs to stop.

The two remaining sheep are Arthur (Alice's twin) and Sparrow, and they've both been shy since they were born.     Arthur has never been aggressive, but he likes to keep to himself.  Sparrow wants to flit away, although she is descended from Chloe, who was rock-solid, calm and friendly. 

Alice always gave me the benefit of the doubt.  Being brown and a ewe, she looked like a delicate little white-tailed deer right after shearing in the spring.  So pretty.

Alice was a very good sheep.

Alice in Orono (at left).  Ophelia and Sparrow at right.