As dusk falls…

May31

Happy Lambs

Bianca...

Growing Calf

Lambs are getting bigger...

Thora and her babies...

Sheepy Sunset with Moon

Closer up of the above photo- I love how Dugur is loving on Badger!

Grazing Right Along…

May30

Where the line was drawn...

We intensively graze our pastures. Using electronetting, we make a small paddock and turn the sheep loose for a couple of days and then move them onto the next patch of grass. We have found that just letting them loose on the entire pasture, they are a lot more picky about what they eat and overgraze in certain areas while hardly touching others. Using this method they still pick and choose, eating the best stuff first but in the end it looks like a lawn mower has sculpted the area leaving it neatly trimmed. The above photo was taken in their most recent grazing area. We turned them loose in half of the winter wheat pasture that was looking a bit weedy, we are a bit curious to see how well this area will come back and what it will look like in comparison with the rest of the wheat this fall. Also turning them out in the weedier half of the pasture helped to mow back those plants before they set seed and spread. While we would like to say we have perfect pastures we will openly admit it something that is always in the works around here and being constantly re-evaluated and the dynamics are always changing based on a number of things. Right now we are battling Wormwood, Knapweed and some Downy Brome or commonly known as Cheatgrass (which is a bad word around here!) and are trying different control measures on them. The sheep seem to love eating the Knapweed and will eat the Wormwood when young and will eat the Cheatgrass, which before it set seed is great but once it set seed is not so good…

Last night while moving the sheep onto their next rotation I was taking pictures of lambs and noticed something wrong with this guy…

What's wrong with this guy?

My initial thought was that something must have chewed on his face. When we finally caught him,(darn things are sooo fast!) he looked pretty gross… (Don’t look if easily bothered by ickiness!)

Continue reading →

Friday Farm Daze

May29

Catching up on the past week…

Stop and enjoy those things that make up your life.

Romeo-Tori's market lamb for the fair, more about him soon! Tori took this picture, and I thought it was too funny!

Romeo-Tori's market lamb for the fair, more about him soon! Tori took this picture- I thought it was too funny!

More busy honey bees...

One of my most favorite flowers...mmm...they smell so good!

Day-dreaming...

A nest in an interesting spot...

Mugo Pine candle...

Crab apple blossom...

Bleeding Heart...

A little fuzz ball peeper...

Garden’s Up…

May28

The garden is off to a fine start this Spring, it is always a leap of faith burying those little seeds and wondering if you just put them in their final resting place or if they will spring to life and bring forth fruit…

Potatoes poking through...

Onions up and growing...

Peas popping...

Spinach and Swiss Chard starting...

Strawberries blooming...

First fruits forming on a cherry tomato...

How a pumpkin starts...

These little beauties are need of transplanting this week as soon as Mark has a spare minute to till up the area where they will live this summer. Last year we had so many extra pumpkins and winter squashes that we fed them throughout the winter to the hens. It provided them with some fresh pick-ins and helped to keep those yolks bright and orange.

Maran Hen

6 a.m. phone calls…

May27

Who would be calling at 6 a.m.? The post office to let us know our “box a birds” was in and could be please come pick them up? We ordered 67 chicks and received 71, not too bad! We ordered 55 straight run Cornish x Rock with 2 extra free ones, 3 Black Star hens with one extra freebie, 3 Light Brahama hens, 3 Silver Laced Wyandotte hens, 3 Black Austrolorp hens and of course our free rare and exotic chick.

Here they all are...

Zayne was very excited to see all the little peepers...

Teigen wanted to help too!

Tori with a couple...

Cowboy Hayden with a chick...

Garrett in chick heaven...

Maddie with a cutie...

After unpacking them the kids carefully give them a drink...

As they are unpacked the kids carefully give them a drink...

and then put them in their pen with a heat lamp and plenty of food.

These Brahamas are one of my favorites... notice the fuzzy feet?

These Brahmas are one of my favorites... notice the fuzzy feet?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On another note….

Another beautiful sunset...

Apple Bees…

May26

The apple trees have been quite the buzz around here lately…

Preparing for landing....

One of the honey bees giving us a double harvest...

A big bumble bee...

Pretty apple blossoms...

Picnic…

May25

Sunday we meet with some of our family at Woodland Park and enjoyed a little potluck picnic and enjoyed conversing with some relatives that we had not seen for a while. While there I snapped some pictures of the kids on a bridge…