Gimme Shelter

Take a few 4x4 posts, some 2x4s, a few sheets of plywood and five sheets of metal roofing, screw it all together and boom you've got yourself a sheep shelter. They have pretty simple needs, they really only want a place to get in out of the wind and rain.
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The Engineer even made a fancy Dutch door for it so we can corral them when we need to . Now all it needs is a coat of barn paint. My plan is to lead them in here each evening with treats. Hoping if they're tucked away at night they will be less tempting to coyotes. We're adding a solar powered electric wire to the no-climb horse fence around the perimeter but that doesn't always stop them. And we sure as heck know they're out there. We can hear them. It creeps me out and I live in the house.

This little sheep shack will serve us well this year while we fix up the barn. We found out it was attacked by carpenter bees, then a woodpecker came along and attacked the bee larva. Just like that old woman who swallowed the fly. Fortunately, the woodpecker may have exterminated all the bees for us. Unfortunately, he did some serious damage during the process and lots of wood is going to need replaced.

When the quote for a new roof came back to be more expensive than putting a roof on the house it sealed the fate of my Turkey Town/Banty Shanty plans. Instead we'll be patching up the old roof and closing in the south end with some rough cut lumber. We'll just use the center part of the building as feed/hay storage and a couple of hospital/lambing pens. Then we'll fix up a spot on the left side for a winter sheep shelter and fence off a winter paddock surrounding the barn.

Meanwhile I stopped by a fiber festival on Saturday, just to check things out a little bit. Figured I might learn something about the sheep raising business. Now, I'll have you know, I completely and totally intended to only use the sheep's wool for quilt batting. I need another hobby like I need a hole in my head. But after dipping my hands into all those wonderful bags of fiber and watching the ladies spin it into the most amazing yarns, I couldn't help myself. I came home with a book, a drop spindle and a pound of Shetland roving.


I was this close to bringing home a super soft and fuzzy Angora rabbit. And then there was the alpaca. He was awfully cute. Luckily I came to my senses when I realized he wouldn't fit in the back of the Blazer. But now that I'm home I have to admit I'm eying the long-haired cat and the big, shaggy dog with new interest. They might be catching on though. They're starting to act a little suspicious of me.

Reclaiming the Land

Before we can bring home our new lawnmowers we have to make it safe for them. We have thorn trees like this all over the property. We've been told they planted these in the old days to help ward off predators. I'm thinking they would have been highly effective. No one wants to be impaled with a four inch spike.

Friday we removed the thorn trees and some of the other small scrub inside the half acre or so we're fencing off for the sheep. It's the same area the original owners had fenced 100 years ago. Most likely they used it for a bull pen. If this whole sheep thing works out, we'll eventually use it for a ram. But that's another story.

The woods have made every attempt to take over this spot. The idea was to leave the browse and the large trees but remove enough of the medium stuff to let more sunlight into this area. The second family to live here were not farmers and unfortunately piled up all the waste from the burn pile along the fence line creating a berm which now prohibits this area to drain naturally. Combine that with the dense shade and it gets pretty damp back there. Now that it's cleared out we can dig a small trench and I think solve that issue.

The Engineer really got in touch with his lumberjack roots and got a little carried away though and we ended up with three huge piles of limbs, each bigger than a large SUV, scattered around the property.


Which, by the way, we had stake surveyed over the weekend. We had a copy of the original survey from when we purchased the property, but we never really knew where the east side of our property line was.

Behind the barn there is a ridge that falls down into a meadow with a winding shallow creek running through it. Then, finally, another ridge up and then a plowed field. It's obvious that the first family raised cattle here. I suspect this view was gorgeous when it was grazed and before the trees reclaimed it. We knew our property ended in the meadow somewhere, we just didn't know where.


There is an old welded wire fence, but we know that when the second family bought the property they didn't follow that line. They asked for seven acres, someone came out, did a survey and they all lived happily ever after. ( By the way, if anyone has a clue why there is a metal hanging post next to the big old tree in the middle of the woods could you please let me know, because frankly, it freaks me out.)


The survey lead us all the way back across the creek to the South East corner stopping at this little retention pond I fondly refer to as "Frog Hollow". We watched a HUGE turtle skinny dipping a bit then decided he probably wanted his privacy.


Turning North we traipsed along a deer path through the meadow. On the left (West) of us we could see the old barn. The only thing on our right was the East ridge. Come to find out we own almost all of the meadow.


It kept going and going until we finally found the North East corner. If you click on the picture below and squint you can almost see the chicken coop in the dead center of the photograph. The barn is hiding to it's left and the house is to it's right. What? You can't see it? Well, squint harder. Keep squinting...there, now do you see it?


If we ever win the lottery I'm going to fence off this this meadow and get enough goats and sheep to restore it to it's former glory. It would remind me of the pasture behind my Aunt Martha's house where I used to play in the creek when I was a kid. I'll never forget the day a cow sneaked up behind me and let out a loud MOOOOO. Scared the bejillywhickers out of me. You've never seen a short kid move so quickly through tall grass! Of course, restoring the farmstead here would mean we would actually have to play the lottery. (I hear your chances are better at winning it that way.)

Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

They're like potato chips. You can't have just one. A lonely chick will peep incessantly. And that my friends will drive you nutso in a hurry. Luckily the farm stores nearby were selling chicks this weekend. Our sole survivor now has six little bantam friends to play king of the sock with.

You don't know what you're getting when you go there. It's just a big stock tank labeled "assorted bantams". Figuring out what you ended up with is part of the fun. I used Suzanne's method of sexing the chicks. When you pick one up, turn it over. If it's legs draw in it's a girl. If the legs splay out is a boy. And if only one leg draws in it's no good, put it back and try another. I have no idea if it works or not but figured what the heck it's worth a shot.

When I got home I logged on to Cackle Hatchery's website. I'm pretty sure that's where the farm store gets their birds. Anyway I crossed referenced the pictures of the chicks on their site and what I had in my box. I think I ended up with

one Mille Fleur D'Uccle
one Black Breasted Red Old English Game
one White Cochin
two Golden Sebrightsand a Silver Duckwing Old English GameI know for some of you that doesn't mean diddly squat. But the chicken people lurking around out there reading this site know exactly what I'm talking about. Because they have the hatchery catalogs memorized just like I do. I'm sure of it.

Of course bantams aren't the only thing for sale at the farm store. Nope. They sell full size egg laying machines, too. Polly was surprised to realize she was suddenly the mother of a New Hampshire Red and a Golden Comet pullet!

I declare there is nothing in this world cuter than a couple of chicks climbing up and around and under their momma hen. If you need me, you'll find me on the back porch watching them.

Hoppin' Down The Bunny Trail

A while back, Milah over at From My Back Porch had a crazy idea about a quilt challenge. She had five printed panels depicting Beatrix Potter's beloved children's classic, Peter Rabbit. Her rules for the challenge were simple. She and four other quilters would each make a baby quilt using as many blocks from each panel as possible. And the quilts would all have to be finished by Easter Sunday and posted online for all to see.

I really enjoyed working on this project. It seemed challenging at first to come up with a design and find colors to work with the pre-printed blocks. Once I finished the modified log cabin blocks, I decided it still needed a little something. So I took advantage of the opportunity and taught myself invisible machine applique. Come to find out, I like machine applique! I chose simple in the ditch machine quilting for the blocks with hand quilting around the appliques. Then I just finished it off with a scrappy binding.


The photos really don't do it justice. It turned out far cuter than even I expected. It's been a long wait for those of us involved to see what everyone else has come up with. So while you're chowing down on malted milk eggs and chocolate bunnies this morning, please take a moment to check out the other quilts by Milah, Bren, Lori, and Winona. It's amazing how different each quilt turned out to be.

Oh, and have a Happy Easter!

The Miracle of Life

I'm in love. Boy? Girl? Doesn't matter. We're keeping it.

Old Jack and Pearl's only child.

It Ain't Over...

...but it's over. I'm declaring them duds. Not a single chick has hatched. I can hear one peeping, but it should have pipped out by now. I don't think it will make it. It takes everything in me to override that motherly instinct to crack the egg open and haul it's fuzzy little bum out of there. But there's a reason they're not coming out of their shells. It's best not to mess with Mother Nature in that department. In theory the others might just be running a little late, but I suspect they're not coming at all. I'll leave the incubator plugged in for a couple more days, but I don't expect anything from it.

Lots of things can happen along the way to cause a hatch to go bad. First we had Blackbeard's little infertility issue. Combine that with The Wench's advanced age and we'd be lucky to get anything from them anyway. The incubator temperature may have been a little off. Or the auto egg turner may have been an issue. Then there's Old Jack. While he's doing everything he can to repopulate the earth, his girls are so young their eggs are still small. I suspect the small egg shells are what caused this hatch to go bad. I don't think there was enough room in there for the little buggers to grow.

So unless Pecking Polly has some success this weekend, we're going to be chickless. I finally caught her off the nest the other day and quickly candled the eggs. I think she has one good one and possibly two others. They were iffy. At this point I'm hoping the poor girl doesn't hatch just one chick. It would be one lonely little chick. So it would be better at this point if she didn't hatch any at all. Or I may stop at the farm store tomorrow and pick up a few chicks to sneak under her. After she's been sitting there so long I think she deserves some babies.


But there's still hope we might get a few of our own chicks this month. My girl, Pearl, has decided to go broody. I've tried for days to get her to stop but now she's claimed four little green eggs and has no intention of letting anyone take them. So I'm going to leave her to do her job and see if Mother Nature can do it better without us.


EDITED TO ADD***** It made a liar out of me. Minutes after posting this it hatched! Looks like I'll be making that run to the farm supply store in the morning.

I Hear Peeping!

I had a post all written and ready to go about how I was giving up on this hatch. I was sure they were duds. That is until the kid came out and told me he heard them peeping. Skeptical, I sat around waiting and listening and sure enough, there's peeping! YAY! We might get babies after all!