Saturday 28 November 2009

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

Before:




After:




My dad built the countertop from solid walnut. I also installed a utility sink in the mudroom for washing the milker.

Thursday 19 November 2009

November 19, 2009

Sheep breeding season is turning out to be something of a fiasco. Usually we have the two breeding groups separated enough that they are mostly out of sight of one another. It didn't work out that way this year since Sugar is taking up our big stall and the two calves are in the other stall in the red barn. At 4:50 this morning when I went outside to leave for work the rams were standing there side by side watching me. They were supposed to be separated by two layers of temporary electric fence which they had trampled. Right now all the sheep are together and have access to the white barn and all of the pasture. The two ewe lambs are in a separate stall since we don't want them bred. I'm going to try to work out something better this weekend.

We really need to get rid of Taffy, the heifer calf. She is going back to Jennifer's uncle's place. The stall where we have her and Porter is just too small for both of them. They are 5 months old now and my best guess is that Porter weighs nearly 300 pounds. Taffy is just a little smaller.

Garage is almost done and I didn't take any photos of the process. We do have a "before" pic, though, so I can post a before & after.

Saturday 7 November 2009

November 7, 2009

Not much going on around here to write about. Oh, don't get me wrong, we're as busy as ever but it's just not blog-worthy stuff. Weekends are almost exclusively devoted to working on the garage. The opening for the door is framed in and the installers are coming next week to install the door and opener. Yesterday we worked on sheeting. More of the same today, then door, windows, trim and finally siding.

I got the gates to put up in the white barn for stalls. I'm a little nervous about moving the calves over there because they're not halter trained yet. Based on what I've read, I'm not sure they're old enough to train at this point but they are definitely too big to control. We'll probably end up driving in some posts and making a lane from cattle panels to move them in.

In the next couple weeks the sheep need to be separated into two breeding groups.

Next Saturday I'm going to the hearthside cooking workshop at Malabar Farm State Park. That should be cool but I probably shouldn't take the time to do it.