Friday, March 28, 2014

Stinky no more

We have 2 house dogs. Quinn is a 6 year old miniature American eskimo.  We have had him since he was 5 months old. The story about him is that he was born during a snow storm in Michigan in March.  His mom had to potty, owners let her out.  She started giving birth.  He was born in the snow, then his mom put him in her mouth to keep him alive and managed to get back to the house. One puppy was left outside and died :( a few more were born inside the house.

In 2010 we lost our best family dog ever, Dottie.  We didn't want Quinn to be alone so we got 2 year old Zippy. He is a miniature schnauzer.   He came from what appeared to be a puppy mill.  He was kept outside in a pen with many other dogs.  We brought him home and changed his name to Shadow.  

This past week I took Shadow for surgery on his teeth. We did not realize it but he had several bad teeth.  On the positive, my kids no longer call him "stinky" and they now let him sit by them:


Prior to surgery Shadow would have been shoed to the floor and called @stinky@.  

Surgery was rough and the poor guy had a rough few days recovering, but now he is perking up and they said he likely will be better than ever. Likely those teeth were bothering him for a long time.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

What I won't miss

I call this the "poop sled" or "cruise ship" (see that story here).


It's exactly what it sounds like, the place to scoop the poop in to haul it to the compost pile. It works great as long as there is snow or ice on the ground. I actually prefer it to the summer time use of the wheel barrow.

In that picture, I would throw the scoop of poop over the fence, so it was the easiest to haul it to the compost pile.  This is actually why I advocate for shorter fence lines, you can't throw poop over tall fences :) 

We have quite a few pens to clean up, so this sled has been getting a lot of use.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Hoarders

I admit there are times I have gotten caught up watching that tv show "hoarders."  I watch it with horror, sort of like watching a train wreck.  One time my son came in the room and saw what I was watching. He exclaimed, "so this is why you make me clean my room.". Yep. 

I am by nature a bit of a clean freak, but I have fears of hoarder behaviors.  While packing up to move, we have found collections of things:


We had 22 of these bowls.


To be fair, at one point we have close to 30 alpacas on our farm, so we really did need all of these.  Now, not to much.

The bigger question is what do you do with bowls like this?  I don't need them.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Goodbye Farmer

This past week our sheep left our farm.

This means we now have no farm animals.  We have no crop.  We technically have no farm at this point.

We hadn't intended to sell the sheep.  We planned to take them with us on our move to Kentucky.  But when there were unexpected delays with fixing the farm house, and then trying to figure out how to transport the sheep that far, it was too much.

We are at a cross roads.  And to be honest, there are so many options at this point, we aren't sure exactly what the future holds.

For now, we are regular people, not farmers.

I have many mixed feelings about that.  There are so many things I will miss - like having new babies each year.  But there are stressors that I won't miss - like trying to figure out how much hay we will need and how much it will cost.  Mostly I will miss the healthy lifestyle.   So much of our lives have been focused around our farm.

I don't know what that will mean for this blog.  I haven't figured it all out.  I will still be working with fiber arts, so there are still things to talk about.  We will take it one step at a time, like I have through this whole journey.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The ice dam

We had great news that the sheep are sold! But this meant someone coming to our farm to pick them up. And, well, we haven't opened the gate to the ram's pen all winter. 100+ inches of snow never moved. I've gone in there but I climb the gate :) Zac usually fed them by throwing hay over the fence. Now that snow had turned to a solid stack of ice frozen over the gate. We took boiling water, and may different tools (ie: pitch forks, sledge hammers, and the like), to chop away at the ice.

There was hay mixed in the ice, which actually gave us some leverage in dismantling this mess.

And finally, the gate can open!




Zac left the gate ajar while he ran inside to get something. I was cleaning up the dog's area and next then I know, ram is there!  Now if you know about rams, they like to ram things.  Rammy is sweet, but he does ram.  The good news is he could fit through the gate opening, the bad news, he did not want to go back in his pen and rammed me good before we got him back there.  I am sure that will leave a bruise.




Monday, March 17, 2014

Maybe she heard

I'm not sure if the sheep heard their days on our farm are numbered, but I sure was getting the cold shoulder out there today:

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Moving

We have been busy!!!

The kids & I have been busy packing up our house.  We know our next place will be smaller, so we need to downsize too. Everything we pack we decide if we need this, or can we sell or donate it?  We have donated a lot!! Sold some too. 

My living room is stuffed with boxes:


Our house dog Quinn is very tuckered out from supervising my packing:


Saturday, March 8, 2014

Sheep for Sale

7 Katahdin sheep for sale ~ all 7 for a total of $950.

These are meat/dairy sheep, hair sheep (NOT wool sheep).  The Katahdin sheds its winter coat, and so does not have to be sheared.  These specific ones come from southern Illinois.

5 three year old commercial breeding ewes (females)
1 three year old Registered Ram
1 yearlong Ram (50% Registered)

The sheep come with halter/ropes, feed bowls and water buckets.

Buyer will be responsible for transport of the sheep off our farm, we do not have a trailer/SUV/van to haul them in.


The ewes (5 ewes, all 3 years old):



The 3 year old Ram (100% registered):


The yearlong ram (50% registered):

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

7 Sheep for Sale

We have had to make a lot of changes to our plans.

I keep reminding myself that this is what happens in an adventure, new and different things.

Well, this new and different thing is to sell our sheep.  I am starting a new job in Kentucky on March 24th and we won't have a farm ready for them by that date.  They need a farm now.

So, if you or anyone you know might be interested in these sheep....

Here is my write up:

7 Katahdin sheep for sale ~ all 7 for a total of $1200.

These are meat/dairy sheep, hair sheep (NOT wool sheep).  The Katahdin sheds its winter coat, and so does not have to be sheared.  These specific ones come from southern Illinois.

5 three year old commercial breeding ewes (females)
1 three year old Registered Ram
1 yearlong Ram (50% Registered)

The sheep come with halter/ropes, feed bowls and water buckets.

Buyer will be responsible for transport of the sheep off our farm, we do not have a trailer/SUV/van to haul them in.


The ewes:



The 3 year old Ram (100% registered):


The yearlong ram (50% registered):

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Selling Fiber

Our farm shop has a LOT of alpaca fiber for sale - a lot!!  At this point our move date is March 22, and I can't take this fiber with me.

The shop is here: oakhavenalpacas

The 50% off coupon is:  movingtime

This is what I do.  I find the specific fiber the person has purchased.  I pull it out onto the skirting table:


There I shake out dirt and skirt out big debris.  I also take out any yucky fiber (the technical term for chest hair or other coarse fiber).  Notice the dirt under the skirting table and the skirted out fiber:


I put the fiber into bags for shipping:


I weigh it, making sure to put a little extra in there:


Here are bags ready to be put into a shipping package and sent:





Saturday, March 1, 2014

House Progress - structure

There were some serious structural issues that J had to address, along with making the house airtight.  These were issues that were not discovered until he took down the drywall, ie unexpected additional issues.

 January 2014/December 2013 ~

Even I can see that these studs are totally wrong!  They don't go from floor to ceiling in a straight shot.  Someone cut notches out of them and/or cut the tops off and added different boards in a not structurally sound way:


A closer look at that door framing - who uses all sorts of different boards in this mismatched way?







Here the former constructor used some plywood in the wood framing! Crazy, careless and dangerous :( 



A temporary wall so that the load baring wall can be re-made:



J made a new doorway from the master bedroom to master bath:



The kitchen where Emma and I tore out the old linoleum (what a pain!):




The living room - less clean now that construction is in full force:



New electrical box, and walls framed for a mudroom (to the right of the front door):



Redone window in the dinning room:



New window for the kitchen:



Emma's room with new walls and the ceiling fixed (there were eaves pointing into this room):



 No eaves inside the house anymore! 



After the tub was taken out of that "bathroom":

 

This will be 2 bathrooms, one on the lower level, one on the higher level (master is the higher one):



Outside walls and roof are done, but still need house wrap:



Outside walls redone, where the windows were put back in:  (Emma is in the kitchen window, J is working on the window in Emma's bedroom)



From the back of the house, now that the outside walls are done with house wrap:






Zack's spot, at a fishing hole:



A big backyard:

 

January 2014

That structural nightmare of a wall has been completely fixed:



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