Good morning, Everyone!

I noticed that it was April 11 since my last post.  Life has certainly taken a shift into high gear around here.  A lot has happened.  Dennis and I were supposed to take a long-awaited trip together.  Unfortunately the farm sitters and lamb sitters did not come through so I went alone, as usual, and Dennis stayed to feed sheep, dogs and lambs.  I shortened the trip to two nights away.  It is funny the way things work.  I had to go to Prince George to the specialist there.  Of course, when one lives in the back of beyond, one tries to take advantage of any distance one must travel, and turn necessity into pleasure.  Since I had driven the 3 hours to Prince George, I thought why not go another couple of hours to Williams Lake to see daughter Rebecca and family?  So off to Williams Lake I went.  It was a good trip and caught me up with all the news that CBC Radio One can offer.  The next morning I drove to Ashcroft to see a heritage house that we are interested in buying.  Yes, we are thinking of selling the farm and moving to Ashcroft.  Here are a few pictures of this beautiful house:

I would LOVE to live there.  Unfortunately the route to get there includes selling the farm, the livestock and all the equipment.  It would be a complete lifestyle change.  The other option would be to subdivide the waterfront and house and approximately 4 acres off the farm, sell the waterfront and house and keep the main part of the farm to the north of the road.  That, of course, will take eons of time, by which time this lovely house will be sold.  I fear my dreams of living in a community are not yet to be fulfilled.

So, back to reality.  We have been renovating our tv room in the basement.  When we first moved to this house 10 years ago, we hired a "builder" to build a room in the basement for tv watching.  He slapped together a weird room, dark and ugly and charged us an exorbitant amount of money.  I hated the room from the start and grew to hate it even more when outside excavation during the building of the deck caused water to seep in and destroyed the carpet - twice!  We finally hired our go-to man, John Plesko, to get the job done right.  He moved ducting, lifted pipes, moved walls and doors.  He even found a drain that was sloping the wrong way (done by the other guy) which caused my kitchen sink to drain slowly.  Here are a few pictures of the work in progress:

 The start of the ripping down the old room.  Some of the spots you see are on the camera lens.

 The door you see above will be moved to the left of the large post.  There was also access to a closet under the stairs in the original tv room.  That door was moved to outside the tv room.

 The little window you see in this picture was installed the first day.  The original room had no window.  John installed the window first so he could put his fan in the window to blow out any dust and debris, preventing it from coming back into the house.

 You can see the drain pipe that he has elbowed to run under the window here.  That was the pipe that originally sloped away from the central drain.

 He has teed in a drain for a future toilet and a future sink drain is teed in above.  Good thinking so we don't have to tear out walls to access the pipes.There will be pipe access but it will be tight so we thought it a good idea to do it now.

 He cut all those drain pipes you see here and shortened them by 2 inches then put them all up again.  That was certainly a feat of coordination to fit them all together all at once, by himself!

Here are a few pictures of the finished product.  You can see I still have the plastic on the foot rests of the couch!  We don't have the tv moved back in yet but I wanted to show you an idea of how nice the room looks now.  We have not finished sorting the seepage problem outside yet, but we know what to do and will have that complete this summer.

I have yet to get dimmer switches for the sconces.  The dark marks you see are on the camera lens.  I really do need a new one!  The tv will go under the window and the sound system components will likely go to the left, in front of the small bump out there.  That is where the septic pipes are so we had to have a small notch in the room.  The window will provide fresh air circulation and you will notice to the left of the left wall sconce there is a heat register.  The previous room had no heat.  The room is insulated all around it to prevent sound from travelling through the house.  I am very, very happy with my new tv room!

Another part of this renovation involved setting up a water coil in the wood furnace and a holding tank for that water.  We looked at doing it ourselves but it is a rather complicated affair.  We tasked John with the project and, true to form, he did an incredibly terrific job! Here is what it looks like now:

 Here's how it works:  the cold water goes into the top of the pre-heat tank.  It comes out the bottom and goes into the furnace, through the water coil then comes out the top pipe back into the top of the pre-heat tank (top copper pipe).  When the hot water tap is opened, the water then comes out the very top of the pre-heat tank and into the hot water tank that has the electric elements within.  The back tank you see here is the actual hot water tank.  The electricity comes on to keep the tank at the correct temperature.  It should come on a lot less now. Even without the furnace on, the water will go through the first tank prior to going into the hot water tank.  It will allow the icy cold lake water to come to room temperature prior to being heated.  Again, it should save on electricity use.

The white pipe going into the floor drain is to accommodate any over-heating which may occur when the furnace is raging in the colder months of winter.  It likely won't happen but John did that to quell my fears of having scalding water shooting through the house!  At any rate, our electric bill should be reduced significantly, especially in the winter, when hot baths are a necessity at the end of the day!

bye for now.

I can't remember when I last wrote on my blog.  So much has happened, which is not unusual at this time of year.  Our beautiful Crystal passed one day, lambs were born the next.  Our first set of triplets arrived on April 1st, with two more sets of triplets and two sets of twins arriving on April 3.  April 3rd was a stressful day.  One ewe's water broke but an hour later there were still no lambs.  I called the veterinarian who said I needed to go "in" and see what was wrong.  I re-read my "what can go wrong during lambing" pages that I had printed off the internet.  Dennis got a rope on her and held her as I gloved up and attempted to see what was going on.  Sure enough, there was one foot, upside down, just at the opening.  I had to search for the second foot, which I found turned back.  I gently pulled the foot around to the front giving me two feet, but they were upside down so I knew they were back feet.  The lamb was backwards, with back feet now forward.  The ewe did not seem to want to push, even with my prodding around.  I finally pulled on the lambs legs, trying to be gentle as I did not know how hard one could pull before the joints dislocated.  The ewe tried but just didn't seem to have the urge to push.  I knew that once the lamb's umbilical cord was severed the lamb would take a breath.  With the lamb being backwards it was urgent that I get it out into the air quickly.  So with a steady, firm pull, and encouraging the ewe to push (I don't think she understood, but it made me feel better to tell her to push), out came a beautiful, big lamb.  Dennis was trying not to pass out, turning his head away while he held on to the ewe.  I held the lamb upside down and cleaned the nose and mouth so the lamb could breathe.  The ewe quickly turned around, talking to her lamb.  The lamb lay in the hay, then shook its head and let out a bleat.  All was well.  Within minutes the lamb was up looking for the udder.  The ewe kept busy cleaning the lamb, licking it dry.  About 45 minutes later she delivered another lamb, again presented backwards.   I had gone into the house to get clean gloves when it happened.  Our veterinarian had stopped by to see how things were going.  She noticed quickly that the second lamb was in distress, so she cleaned the face and airways and got the lamb breathing.  We have a great, terrific and wonderful vet!!  Here is the result of our efforts:

Unfortunately, a ewe who was a first time mother had triplets.  She seemed to accept them all the first day, thank goodness, so they all got life-saving colostrum.  By the second day she had rejected her two brown lambs and accepted the white one.  They are all ewe lambs, so I do not know what made her decide to choose the white one over the brown ones.  I am naming this ewe Sophie!  We are now bottle feeding her rejected lambs.  The first four days it was every 2 hours, 6 times a day.  The first night we left them in with the flock, hoping they would bond with their lamb siblings and even, perhaps, their mother.  That night we had a fierce wind storm and very cold temperatures.  The next morning I found the two little rejected lambs, shivering alone, with ice on their backs.  We took them indoors, fed them warm calf colostrum and after drying them off, made a bed in a dog crate for them.  They warmed up quickly and soon were fast asleep.  After a day of lambs in the house, we put up a heat lamp in the chicken barn (no chickens left), made a fresh bed of hay, and nestled them in.  The weather improved after a few days so now they spend their days in with the flock and nights under the heat lamp in the chicken barn.  They are down to 4 feedings a day, every 4 hours.

Bottle lambs come with their own set of issues.  Too much formula and they get scours.  Too little and they don't grow.  The smallest one came down with scours so she had a feeding of gatorade diluted with water.  We set up a multiple nipple bucket with water and gatorade so they could free feed from that to bring up their electrolytes.  The small lamb got a dose of sucralate also.  It seems to have done the trick as both lambs are thriving.  Here they are:

Here is a picture of their "chosen" sister, who we have named Princess:

It has been a tiring but very successful lambing year.  Out of 7 ewes we have 17 lambs.  All but one ewe have accepted their lambs.  The other two sets of triplets are doing well with their mothers and their mothers have lots of milk for all three.  Here are our other two triplet mums:

Here are a few more pictures of our lambs:

The above photo shows one of the lambs that was born back feet first.  A beautiful, very large lamb!

Of course, the still photos just do not do justice to seeing them in person.  Lamb dynamics is just too much fun!  I am spending more and more time in the sheep pen just watching the lambs play and the mothers trying to keep track of their lambs.  Sometimes the mothers call and the lamb completely ignores her.  These lambs are a week old and already causing their mothers grief!

Bye for now.

And then there were three...

What a surprise!

And all is well on Dogstar Farm today!

Circle of life

On a farm, life and death are equal partners.  While life is anticipated with pleasure and excitement, death is accepted with reverence and often sorrow, no matter how many times we experience it.  With Crystal's passing still causing deep painful aches, it is put aside for a few minutes to help new life take its first breath.  Today we welcome two new lambs into our flock.  The ewe was struggling with lamb number two, so with a bit of help from me, she gave birth to a second beautiful lamb.  Joy and sorrow, sorrow and joy.  Life on the farm.

Here are the ladies-in-waiting:

Bye for now.

RIP Crystal 1998 - March 31, 2013

 She had a fondness for squirrel.

 Good friends having a conversation.

 Crystal with her pal, Jenny.  Both girls are together again.  Run free, my loyal friends.

 There was a pack rat under the hood.  The dogs worked as a pack to get the rats.

Rest in peace, Crystal.  You are now free of pain, gates and fences.  We will meet again.  I miss you so much it hurts deep inside.  Thank you for being a part of our lives.  We are so blessed.