GROWING

After a few days of rain all is lush and green. I have to savor this , since I know the days of juicy grass leafs are counted. By early summer they will eather have turned into milk or gone dormant until the heat makes way to some late summer rainfalls.
In the garden the radishes and lettuce try to outgrow each other, just to be passed by some laughing peas in a few days. Tomatoes have found an outside home as well and the peppers will join them today. The strawberries are flowering, the currants (red, white and black) are showing little risps of berries and the raspberry hedge I planted last year, is ~much to my delight ~ taking off. Then there is the other side, the pear tree which surprised me earlier this month with first blossoms, lost all of them. The plum tree is riddled with aphids and the dog trampled some tender plants, all the time wagging his tail, happy to have found me.




If you peak in the hen house you will find seven little puffballs starting to feather out and already scratching happily for whatever treasures they can find. The old girls are laying much better and I actually have eggs to barter with. A neighbour down the road has a great blackberry patch, maybe she will trade some blackberry starts for fresh eggs.
The ewes I milk are back into their routine and now it actually is enjoyable to go out at 6 o'clock to greet the day and milk the girls. Ebony worried me a bit this morning since she is one of my greediest eaters and she did not want to have anything to do with her grain. So I checked her udder for signs of mastitis , which were not evident and then decided to let her out and have her lamb relish the milk. I worried ~ until Ebony went out the gate and right to the flake of alfalfa which I treat the sheep to in the morning. Her message was clear: I do not care for he whole oats you tried to serve me this morning (usually I feed rolled oats and corn)!
So out the gate went a quart of milk and an opinionated, but healthy sheep!
The variety of cheeses are growing as well, besides feta and garlic/chive soft cheese we have yogurt in the fridge and today I will try my hands on some mozzarella, which is a first for me.
It is nice to start reaping the fruits of your labor again. Winter and especially spring always seem like a lot of work, with no eminent rewards ~ except of course all the frolicking babies !

What's happening?

No new lambs to report. What is going on??? Well, my theory is blaming the ram, I am a shepherdess, so naturally I will blame the male! He is a young guy and not only is he young and inexperienced, but a bit on the short side, at least he was at breeding time. So this past fall he had a few obstacles to overcome. Amazingly he managed to get all the the girls pregnant, which we could confirm last weekend when we trimmed feet and noticed swelling udders on each and every ewe... all that is left to do now is wait and drink tea.

We did not only take care of feet, but gave the pregnant group their yearly booster shot of "covexin 8" which gives the unborn lambs protection as well, mostly against overeating.

This is the only vaccination the sheep get. While on a roll, I mixed up a garlic molasses concoction to drench everybody as part of my "organic" worming program. The girls truly appreciated all the special attention and one on one time they got.... :o) ....while my husband was greatful for the opportunity to jet again prove his strength to the shepherdess!

I spent some time on Sunday in the veggie garden as well, ridding it from pine needles, which we have in sheer abundance... They are great for the berry patches, everything else will wrinkle their leaves in disapproval. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow was hauled out of the garden and onto the burn pile.

Inside the tomatoes are showing their first true leaves and are ready to move into their own big pots. Instead of repotting I have been spinning Mimis (my only babydoll ) fleece. I spun it in the raw, which means it did not get washed before spinning. In the pic you see an unwashed skein of yarn next to a washed skein. This is the same fleece! Just imagine the wash water...

Then I dyed one batch with moss that the kids gathered at a camping trip a couple of years back.

You know what they say:

a good thing takes time, or something along that line!

Another batch got to soak in a cooked down solution of green walnut shells which my dad had brought me...... a couple of years back. This sounds like a pattern doesn't it?

The moss dye resulted in a nice,

well mossy green, all the walnuts did is turn bright white into a light beige (instead of a deep brown)

I conclude moss keeps better than walnut shells...

Now I am trying to decide what to make of mossy and not so walnutty Mimi......

Looking ahead

After it rained last night and part of today, we are succesfully growing mud, mud and - some more mud!

Now the big question is: how can we turn this into a succesful business?

Any ideas? Please share them with me!

After making sure I put on rather snug fitting rubber boots, it was time to dig some more trenches to give the sheep and goats a break from their mud treatments. Pretty much all I could do for today.

Time to think ahead, think spring. Plan and lay out the gardens. Catalogs are arriving almost daily at a rate that can almost compete with the "growth" of the mud. This year I would like to bigger the spot for my dying plants. I got a fabulous book from Germany.It is the most comprehensive guide on how to use a wide variety of plants for dying wool and silk. It is by Dorothea Fischer and she covers well known dye stuff, but also introduces exotic ideas like red cabbage and mango. I promise to report on my experiments, which I hope to conduct often this year......

It might be a good idea to stop talking now and spin some wool instead!