June and July catchup - the final installment

OK, let's wrap this up!

We begin with Superdog moving the sheep.  In this case we were moving them out of the way so we could do some work in the barnyard, and they were happy to go, but Ari takes moving sheep very seriously regardless of their level of cooperation.

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barn drama!

In addition to our domestic livestock, our "wild livestock" includes a HUGE flock of barn swallows. They fill an important role in our integrative pest management plan. For as dirty and disused as the barn has been, it is surprisingly not very buggy and therefore not very spidery. At the old farm, our "wild livestock" included a whole tribe of giant spiders crouched in every dark corner. Make no mistake, we have terrifying spiders here, but they prefer the house and pool areas, no threat from barn swallows there!

As the sheep graze, they kick up insects, and the swallows take full advantage of that opportunity swooping around the sheep at top speeds filling up on the unwitting bugs. Another favorite hunting opportunity for the swallows is turning the compost! I caught this video (sorry if it's a little hard to see) of them in action as I was working.

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This brings me back to the real point here: One of our swallow nests fell with three nestlings in it! EMERGENCY! I don't think either the babies or the parents appreciated our heroic rescue efforts based on the number of times I was dive-bombed and the way the nestlings skittered away in all directions, but the babies were installed back into their nest which is now supported by one of our plentiful Thai food takeout containers.

Left: EMERGENCY; Right: safe and sound

paddock fences

We are finally getting semi-permanent paddock fences built in the big pasture!  Paddocks are smaller partitions of a larger field used for rotational grazing. For a cattle operation this could be 50 or 100 acres, but for us, we are aiming for 4 acres. The big pasture will be divided into 3 - 4 acre paddocks that we will graze in addition to the 4 acre field behind the house. At the beginning of the season I made a proper grazing plan which takes into consideration an estimate of how much feed is on the field, how long the field could feed the number of animals, and how long it will take the field to recover enough to be grazed again. True to a recurrent theme of my life, the plan got thrown out the window almost immediately and we have been moving sheep semi-willy nilly, but I have been keeping good records at least!

The center lane will allow sheep and people and equipment access to the 3 paddocks and the hayfield beyond.

Snowblower!

I hate when Negative Nancy types bring up winter during the summer, but we picked up this baby for a great price! The wet disgusting snow of our climate change winters doesn't stand a chance! Hopefully A. We can figure out how to work and B. It works the way it’s supposed to.

farewell to July

The ewes grazing among the marshmallows behind the brand new paddock fence.

And that’s pretty much it!  We do have a few days left in July, this summer and year have flown by.  It’s almost our 1 year anniversary at The New Farm which is unbelievable.  If I was good at taking before photos I would probably be shocked at the transformation.