The May long weekend is upon us.  Our unusually hot weather has disappeared.  We are now into normal temperatures during the day, which is fine with me.  

Things have been hopping on the farm.  The sheep are now on their summer pasture and Ben is also grazing in his new pasture.  Getting the sheep into the barn proved to be a futile fiasco.  Of course, I knew that slow and steady wins the race, but we just had to try to force them to use the barn.  Without working dogs to hold them steady there was just no possible way to get them into the barn and get the door shut. At one point, we were trying to catch Little Guy.  I put the grain bucket down but the handle stayed up. Freckles, a large ewe, 

put her head in the bucket checking for grain.  She panicked and took off with the bucket around
her neck! It is a metal bucket so it clanked as she ran, which scared the rest of the flock.  It also scared Freckles. When sheep get scared they run to the flock for protection. Of course, Freckles ran to the flock, but the bucket around her neck scared the rest of the flock so they ran away.  This made Freckles more scared and determined to stay with the flock. What a performance! There were sheep everywhere! Finally Dennis made a flying tackle at Freckles as she passed between him and the barn wall. He managed to scare her enough that she tripped (she couldn't see her feet because of the bucket). When she went down, her head went down and the bucket slipped off her neck. There was no way the sheep were ever coming hear us after that!  Freckles was fine other than very confused as to what had just happened!

So, like I said before, we had to at least try to be smarter than the sheep.  Firstly, we removed the big set of shelves I thought would make a good grain bin.  It was just too scary for them.  We replaced it with their usual trough from the winter pen.  We filled it with grain and just let them do their thing.  They went in, ate the grain and went out.  Now we feed the bottle lambs in the barn while the sheep come in for their grain.  They are getting used to us being there.  Little Guy now comes into the barn with the two other lambs to get his bottle.  It is all very stress free and pleasant.  The sheep are not completely safe from cougars as we leave them to go in and out of the barn as they please, but they are at least becoming accustomed to the routine.  Eventually we will close them in for a few minutes and extend that each day until they will accept being in the barn.  

Here's a picture of them in the barn area:

They are starting to shed their hair now.  Ben has been rubbing against trees and fence posts.  It must be itchy because he spends a lot of time rubbing.

They do look ratty while they are shedding their winter hair.  Sometimes it comes off in big mats.  The birds like it for nesting material.  There is a robin nest in the barn that has sheep hair incorporated into its design.

Dennis has been busy with the raised garden beds.  They are 4' x 20'.  He has used an organic preservative called Lifetime.  We also used that on the boat ramp.  We strive to keep everything as organic and earth friendly as possible.  You will see, in the pictures below, the piles of topsoil.  That soil will go to augment the soil in the raised beds.  We will shovel the soil from around the beds into the frames and top that off with the topsoil delivered to us by neighbour Grant.  

 That's Rhaq in the above picture.  The dogs love the dirt piles, full of smells from another place.

That is Nikko in the above photo.  

Today was Christmas cake making day.  I marinated the fruit in rum for about a week.  The fruit consists of cherries, dates, raisins, and currants.  Oh yes, and this year, citron peel.

The dates had to be pitted.  I doubled the recipe so in total there is about 16 - 17 cups of fruit.  This year I added citron peel.  I actually thought it was angelica, which I like.  I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it, but oh well.  It soaked in rum for a week so it's bound to be fine.  Today I added the 10 eggs, flour and other dry ingredients, plus the nuts and chocolate.  I buy all my fruit, nuts and chocolate, (other than the cherries and peel) from Rancho Vignola.  It is organic and superior quality.  Here are the cakes ready for the oven:

One cake is 4270 grams and one is 4260 grams.  That's a lot of fruit cake!  Not many of my family like fruit cake, but I have a select group of friends who love it.  Dennis never used to like fruit cake but loves this.  Of course, I do soak it in rum or brandy while it ages for Christmas.  

Time to check them to see if they're done.  Have a great long weekend, everyone!

bye for now.

We are now in May.  We have gone from winter to deep summer overnight.  One day we are in parkas and toques, next day we are in shorts and slapping on sunscreen.  Life has now ramped up into high gear on Dogstar farm.

The chicks arrived on May 3rd.  150 fuzzy little yellow life forms are now running around in the chicken barn.  In the past, we have had difficulties keeping the chicken barn warm enough.  Chicks need a constant temperature of between 85 - 95 degrees F.  This spring Dennis pulled all the sheathing off the outside walls and found that half the insulation was gone.  Mice had managed to get inside the walls destroying the insulation.  They had chicken feed and sunflower seeds stored inside the walls, along with several of their dead!  Maybe it was the mouse version of the pyramids - complete with food to send their dead on their way!  With the insulation and sheathing repaired, the barn was ready for the new chicks.  Now the temperature is nicely where it should be and the chicks are thriving.  Temperatures dip below freezing at night still, even though daytime temperatures soar into the high 20's.  We have 3 heat lamps and 2 oil heaters running at night until the chicks get their feathers.

We are also busy with our sheep and lambs, particularly the bottle babies.  At first we had the two brown ewe lambs which were rejected by their mother in favour of their triplet sister who was all white.   Then one of my favourite sheep, Blackie, came down with mastitis.  One side of her udder quit working so her triplet lambs were starving.  Unfortunately, by the time we recognized what was wrong, we were unable to save the one black ewe lamb.  We brought her and her brother in, fed them electrolytes and a bit of milk.  It was too late for the black lamb but her brother is thriving.  Here are a few pictures of my little family:

The above two photos are Little Guy, the second day after his "rescue."  He was being fed 150 ml every 2 hours, at least 6 times a day.  He had a bowl of electrolytes and a bowl of creep feed, plus hay in his crate. He was very weak.  Now he drinks 500 ml or more at a feeding and has re-joined his flock.

 The above lamb is Little Guy.  He is pretty feisty!  We have to trick him to catch him for his bottle, but once caught, he devours his bottle with gusto!

In order to accustom the ewes to green grass, we have had them grazing on the lawns around the house.  The grass is short so they have to work at getting the fresh greens.  They have been grazing the lawn for about a week now.  Today they have moved up to the summer pasture across the road.  Since the barn is now complete, we will gather them each evening and house them in the barn over night.  This is done to prevent predators, particularly cougars, from attacking the flock.  Our fencing is pretty well coyote, wolf and bear proof, but nothing we have, other than the barn, is cougar proof.  This is the first year for our new barn to be put to use, so we'll see how it goes this evening.  Sheep are creatures of habit and do not like anything new.  We'll see if we're smarter than sheep!

Here are the sheep grazing around the house:

The above three photos show the sheep grazing in the garden.  We let them in there first so they could eat up any grass and other greenery that may be growing.  The lumber on the trailer is some spruce 2 x 12's that Dennis and neighbour Grant milled at a friends mill.  They are going to be used to make raised beds in the garden.

 You can see the roll of old carpet in the above picture.  We replaced the carpet in the upstairs bedroom.  The old one got tossed off the upper deck.  It has since been removed!

Oh yes, a little incident the first time we let the ewes out to graze on the lawn.  Ben, our ram, is penned across the driveway from the ewes.  He seems ok with that arrangement as long as nothing changes.  Once we let the ewes out, Ben became rather agitated.  The next thing I know, Ben is running down the driveway after the ewes.  The ewes freaked out and ran for their lives!  They ran back into their winter pen with Ben in hot pursuit.  Dennis thought I had left his gate open.  I did not.  Here's what happened:

You can see all the hair wound around the fence wires.  That is where Ben has been rubbing himself to help shed his hair.  He weakened the wire to the point where, when he rammed his head between the wires, they broke and bent.  Once his head was through, his 275 pounds of solid ram body did the rest of the damage.  We had strung an old piece of barbed wire along the top (tied with blue bailer twine!) to discourage him from pushing the wire down with his head.  We did not ever imagine he would go through the wire!

At any rate, we did manage to catch him before he did any "permanent damage" to the ewes.  The last thing we need are September lambs!  Mind you, the ewes were having none of it so it made our task of catching him somewhat easier.  It was definitely a rodeo for a while there though, with Ben hot to trot after the ewes, the ewes running for their lives, and lambs bouncing all around in a panic to stay with their mums.  Of course, our tame bottle babies were under foot.  In this kind of chaos it is very easy for lambs to be crushed by panic stricken ewes.  We collected the bottle babies and put them outside the pen, ensuring that they, at least, would survive the mayhem.

One last thing.  Bottle feeding lambs is a lot of work.  Every shepherd I know hopes and prays that they will have a year where everything goes right and all lambs are fed by ewes.  That is often not the case.  We have been lucky.  We have had 3 years with no bottle babies.  Some people say it is not worth it as the lambs are never worth all the work and milk you put into them.  The milk powder is $105 for 20 kg.  The label says that each lamb will consume about 8 kg of milk powder.  I don't know what world they live in, because that just isn't true.  Our lambs are now drinking 1.5 liters a day each (other than Little Guy who only gets a liter because he is so hard to catch).  250 g of powder makes a liter.  So there you go.  If you feed them for 3 months, tapering off for the last 6 weeks, even then they are consuming more than 8 kg of powder.

At any rate, it is a lot of work.  Here is what my kitchen looks like on milk making day.  I make 12 quarts at a time.  It lasts for about 3 days.

 This is the milk powder.  I weigh it out at 250 g for a liter.  I whip it up in the Vita Mix.  It mixes quickly as the Vita Mix has a powerful motor.  I once mixed it too fast for too long and the cream turned into butter.

Below are a few more pictures taken since the lambs were born.  Grandson Matthew came for a visit and helped do a feeding:

Time to get busy with the greenhouse.  Bye for now.