Winter is coming.

All the sprinklers and hoses are put away.  I have one more hole to fill in the front yard.  I will do it this next week.  We have started to feed the horses out in the orchard.  They are doing well.  I had Jason come out and help me tear up Grandma Ruby's garden, we took the vines and green things and placed them out in the barn lot but it took the sheep a few days to catch on that they were there.  Obviously, they are not hungry.  The sheep won't even really come into the barn yet.  A couple of times since we opened it up but there is not consistency to it.  We are going to slaughter ten sheep.  I definitely misbanded several when I was neutering them.  We have at least three rams out in the pasture.  This just means that we won't be keeping any of the babies this winter.  I think the sheep will start lambing around February.  I am just going to throw it out there and see if I am right!  The cows will be around the same time, maybe March.  

I brought home two plum trees and five black walnut trees from Ruby's garden but the cows ate two black walnuts off the trailer before I got them in the ground.  I planted two plums, three black walnut trees and then placed wire and posts around all four holes to keep the critters away.  

The new pickup is great, lots of power and sucks gas like it was water!  I still haven't figured out the mileage in it.  I lost my wallet and have no credit card or ATM card.  So I have been one of those annoying people who only puts $5-20 of fuel in the pickup at a time.  The local gas station let me write a check and I put in $60.  It was about 2/3 of a tank.  Sarah has driven the new pickup a couple of times.  We had to do a check ride on the back gravel roads first.  She doesn't particularly like driving it but it saves on gas when she only has to go to Pilot Rock.   Tomorrow, she has informed me she will clean out the wrecked pickup.   I need to take the drivers side rear tire off as the rim is broken and the tire flat.  I will just take it to the junkyard and see if I can scrap it and pickup an old rim.  

Here is a picture of Grandma Ruby's garden after we created the elevated beds for her.  We used pea gravel, ground cloth, horse troughs and she wants to add some wine barrels in the spring.  It turned out well.  

Fields back in service.

 My mother-in-law, Donna, has decided to place the fields back in service.  They were due to come out of the CRP program this year so she was approached by a local farmer to put them back in rotation.  They want to burn the fields to cut down on the weed seed, let it sprout, spray with herbicides and then disc back under a couple of times so they can plant in the spring.  The funny part about this is if you plowed you would cut back on the weeds dramaticaly but you lose soil and moisture.  There is always a trade off and I don't know of anyone around here that plows any more.  Of course there is a huge 5 bottom plow out in the equipment area.   They had to move the big John Deere tractor, but after installing a new battery it would not move or do anything.  The mice have chewed through the wiring. Luckily, they had a large CAT with rubber tracks and were able to chain onto it and drag it out to the equipment area.  There was a seeder out in the field also, that had to be moved before burning commenced.  After the weather cooperated they just burned last night.  I thought it would all torch right up, but there were sections where it doesn't even look like a fire passed through.  I was pretty amazed.  They pulled the disc around well into the night after the fire burnt through and were back at it first thing this morning.  

The cows are back out front near the cars and are doing well.  If you go out with an apple they all will come over and take it from your hands.  You can even touch noses and the occasional head.  They are not as tame as the horses but after this winter they should be a lot more easy to handle.  The three heifers are pregnant again!  They are starting to put on baby weight and size.  I am looking forward to fresh beef next year.  

I had a date for slaughter lined up for the sheep but it was when I was away.  Annmarie and Zeke tried to sort the sheep into the old baby area and the sheep rammed the external door off its track and got away.  Annmarie says Zeke was not helping, more like causing problems.  He has been a pill so the last two weeks we have been practicing tight control on all dog behavior.  He is much better and waits and listens better.  I had to have some help to reinstall the door it was a two person and a lever manuever.  I rescheduled the slaughter day for later this month.  I will help sort the sheep even if it means I need to feed and water the for a couple of days in the pen.  They are scheduled for two weeks from today.  

Catching up where to start.

I am way behind on the blog.  I know it and have been so busy I have let it slide.  On a plus note I have been taking pictures of the changes.  Lets start with the chickens.  I got more of the little buggers.  There was a sale at the feed store and I picked up some naked neck turkens, only 8 pullets.  We kept them in the house for almost two weeks in the brooder I made a couple of years ago.  When they get so noisy that you cannot watch TV in the living room then it is time to move them outside.  It is never simple so I had to go outside and clean out the baby area, apply more wood pellets, clean out the feeders and waterers and install them in the baby area.  I opted to go with the nipple waterer.  It is not freezing cold yet so the nipples will not freeze up yet.  We managed to get everyone moved over without incident and the chickens are doing well. 

Everyone walked away

Saturday morning started with a call from one of Sarah's friends looking for a ride in to town.  Now, this friend lives out of town on the other side of Pilot Rock, but her parents were gone and she had no way to get to town to meet her commitments for the day, so Sarah took the pickup and headed out to pick up the friend and her brother.  All good.  I fed the horses, and got into the shower.  Sometime in that process, Sprout decided to go adventuring.  He didn't return when I called, so I decided to go ahead and shower.  He comes home eventually.  So, when I was getting dressed and heard his bark, I didn't think too much of dashing out in a very immodest state to let him in.  Until I saw Mom on the front porch.  I dashed back in to get something on other than undies, and she informed me that it was going to take more than my robe.  Sarah had called her.  She had crashed the pickup.

I dashed upstairs to get clothes, asking the pertintent questions - was she hurt?  how bad?  was anyone else hurt?  how bad?  The information I got was the Sarah had a bleeding lip and a small cut on her lip, and Ina had a hurt and bleeding finger.  That doesn't sound too bad, now does it?  I got the location from Mom and headed out.  I was pretty sure they were beyond cell phone service, so I didn't try to call (Sarah had called from a nearby house).  What I found when I got there were two very hysterical girls and one rather worried brother.  I hugged the girls and got everyone calmed down.  Noone was hurt badly enough to require an ambulance, but Ina (the friend) was clearly in pain, and has an underlying medical condition that required her to be checked out, so I loaded all of them into the car, and drove up to see the pickup.  This is what I found.  Needless to say, they all got to get checked out at the hospital.

Sarah had been driving down the gravel road at a decent clip, when a deer wandered into the road.  She had not completely internalized the advice to, "hit the deer" and swerved.  The deep gravel at the side of the road grabbed her and she over-corrected, ran up the bank, and rolled / cartwheeled the pickup back down the bank.  If you look closely, you can see where the side-beam of the room is sitting on her headrest.  I've had more than one person tell me that they've seen vehicles with less damage in which people had died.  I am eternally grateful that all three people in this vehicle were able to walk away from this crash.  Needless to say, we will be purchasing a new pickup.

Sarah has a mild concussion as well as various muscle-aches and a wide variety of bruises, but again, there is nothing that won't heal.  The policeman was wise enough to see that she was taking the whole thing quite seriously and did not write the citations he rightfully could have issued.  Two of the occupants were seat-belted.  The third was not.  Again, I say that I am eternally grateful that no one was seriously injured or killed.  I can almost guarantee that none of the them will ever again ride in a vehicle without a seat belt.

Day 21

I'm a couple of days late with this update, but Mahogany is doing very well.  She's even using the foot a little bit.  The tissue wound is healing fantastically, and is completely closed up.  The final layer is even beginning to form across the center of the wound.  She's out in the pasture at will now, and is enjoying activity as she can tolerate it.  Of course, as these things go, there is a new concern.  Now that the tissue wound is healing and is no longer distracting me, I can see that there is damage to the top of the hoof.  I'll give things a bit of time to heal and then call my farrier.  I think she'll be able to grow it out in much the same way that we can grow out damage to a fingernail.  The difference, of course, is that we don't put several hundred pounds of pressure on our fingernails with every step.  So, the farrier may have to help.  We'll see what he says.  In the meantime, things are still looking good.  Let's keep our fingers crossed that the positive progress continues.

Day 14

With the pear tree down, and Mahogany's love of pears, I thought I could turn her out into the pasture yesterday and she would be a little happier, but the pears would keep her from moving around too much.  I was sort of right.  She was happier, and did just fine, but she did not just hang around the pear tree like I had hoped.  When I got home, she was up on the back hillside, near the back gate.  Now getting around up there takes a bit of coordination, so I was slightly terrified that she would fall trying to make her way back down, but she did fine.  The injured leg was not swollen at all, so she tolerated the activity just fine.  I brought her in for a dressing change and some feed (she's getting rather thin.  I think healing this up is taking a lot of energy) , and kept her in overnight, but she got to go out again today.  I think that will be our routine for a while.  The wound itself is looking great.  The drainage is decreasing almost daily, and the depth of the gash is visually decreasing to where it's nearly closed on the outside (deep end) and the inside end is completely closed.  The center still has a little depth to it but not nearly as much as even last week.  There is still no sign of infection and I'm slowly moving from hopeful to downright optimistic.  If she keeps healing at this pace, we could be down to a surface wound in just another week or too.  It may be a while longer before she walks easily, but she already takes short little steps on it when she doesn't know I'm watching.  Just like a kid, I swear.

It's one way to thin the orchard.

Yesterday we had a wild storm pass through.  The winds topped 70mph!  No buildings were damaged but one of the two pears trees in the orchard broke.  The tree snapped its trunk in half about five feet off the ground.  So we put the sheep in the orchard this morning to clean up the mess.  There were hundreds of pears all over the ground.  The sheep will eat all the leaves and hopefully strip the bark off also.  Once the tree is bare I can go out and cut it up and throw it on the burn pile.  We have already talked about replacing the tree and planting 6-10 more fruit trees out in the orchard.  There are only a few trees left from the original orchard that was in place when the Annmarie's relatives purchased the place.  The three black walnut trees I planted this summer are hanging in there and we will be planting a few more next month.