Some of you will recall our first lambing year.

Uffda. My heart hurts just remembering. It was a brutal "welcome" to farming brought on by our (read: my) blind optimism and enthusiasm for all things wooly. New to sheep, we said yes to a generous gift of an entire flock of bred ewes, scheduled to lamb in winter. It was the coldest winter that I can remember and the first lamb was born on a -15 F day in mid January.

Have I mentioned how inexperienced we were?

It was a rough season in so many ways. We set alarms for all hours of the night and tromped to the barn at midnight, three AM, and five. And still we lost lambs. Too many lambs. My heart just kept breaking.

And so the second year we did things differently (mostly just separating our ram to ensure a later lambing season). We went from losing more lambs that I care to discuss to losing zero the next year. 

Things were off to a better start to be sure.

Since then we've only lambed in spring, making the loss of a lamb extremely rare. That's better for the lambs, the ewes, and also for my heart.

And so after the snow had melted and the red-winged blackbirds returned, this year's lambing began with silly Mr. Rowland…

…then progressed to elegant Ms. Anise (daughter of our herd queen Nutmeg). This was the first time Nutmeg singled, so Anise is already big! 

And then we waited. And as we waited, winter quietly returned.  

With five ewes yet to go, we kept up our vigil checking them often. And because it's cold again, we're checking them later at night and earlier in the morning, just in case someone needs help. It's not as often as that first winter, but more often than we were last week. 

And so it happened that Pete came upon our ewe Buddy on Sunday, laboring alone in the barn in the afternoon. Sage ran to the house to collect Lupine and I (then head to the safety and birth-free zone of his bedroom), and Lu and I suited up and ran through the fresh snow to the barn.

One lamb was already born and mostly licked clean, but she was still in labor, so we hunkered down excitedly to wait.

Soon it was time.

A few contractions later and a second lamb had arrived! (Head's up to the squeamish: there is one birth photo below.)

Buddy set to work quickly, cleaning and rousing this one as well. Despite the cold she did it all herself, aside from Pete clearing the lambs nose to quicken her breathing.

And just like that our number of lambs for the year so far had doubled. These two newcomers aren't named just yet, though Lupine is leaning toward Bunny (for the girl), and Bumble (for the boy). That works for me. I'm just grateful that they're here. 

Even now, in our fourth lambing year, the magic of watching babies emerge into the world never gets old. 

This is Ruby.

She is an all-white Corriedale/Polypay ewe. Well, almost all white. She does have these subtle grey polka dots on her ears, nose, and lips. They're faint, but if you know what you're looking for you can see them.

Ruby was one of the first lambs born on our farm.

And this, my friends, is her boy Rowland. Our first (and surely funniest!) lamb of 2017.

Seriously you guys. Look at him. 

(Perhaps you remember the Pickle – shown here in his handsome tutu – born last spring on our farm? Yup. Same mama.) 

We're not sure what's up with Ruby's genetics, but her babies have some unexpected markings for Corriedale/Polypay/Merino lambs. Both of Rowland's eyes are completely encircled with black, and his lips, back, and body are a spunky salt-and-pepper mix. 

Oh, and he has a tiny black dot on each knee.

Rowland was a little weak after his surprise arrival last weekend (his twin, an all-white male, died shortly after birth), but he's getting stronger every day. Just this morning gave a few enthusiastic romps around his pen to celebrate the energy found in a good nursing and a good nap.

Ruby is a excellent mama.

She's attentive and much more calm than I was after either of my babies were born. For now they're just hanging together in the "jug" (the birthing pen), where they'll be until another mama-newborn set need the space more than they or until he's strong enough to venture out in to the pasture.

And then? Then Rowland gets his first romp in the spring sunshine.

He can hardly wait!

 

P.S. For those of you who are Sparkle Stories fans – yes – Sage did name Rowland after the raccoon family from Junkyard Tales. Because – those eyes!

 

Homesteading moves to a feast-or-famine rhythm.

And while I hardly consider myself a homesteader anymore (having bailed on both raising meat birds and keeping a garden last summer), we do still grow a bit of our own food. Today, in fact, is that difficult but important farm day when we'll give thanks to a few lambs and restock our empty freezers for the coming season.

It's never easy, but I'm always grateful. 

It's this rhythm where we swing back and forth between no lamb meat (or chickens, or ducks) and a freezer full of meat; no green beans and more than we can bear to eat. And I love that rhythm. It reminds me that everything has a time, and fresh strawberries belong to June; while fresh tomatoes are for August and September.

 

And every year in late February, just like magic the egg production switch is flipped down in the hen house and we go from not quite enough eggs to get us by to drowning in them.

The ducks are laying again, as are the quail (though half-heartedly on both counts), but the chickens are in high gear and each morning Lupine brings in another egg basket-full with a quizzical "what are we going to do with these?" expression on her face.

Obviously we have too many chickens. (At least in February.)

So this morning the steamer basket it full for the second time and we'll have a half-gallon jar of sesame-tamari eggs on hand for growing teenagers (and other hungry people) to snack on. And every perfect, fresh egg we find this week will be tucked away for the upcoming retreat and we'll bring a few dozen in to work to share with our team.

After that I think it's time for Lupine to restart her egg business. 

Because March surely means even more eggs than February. 

 

 

 

 

Keeping farm animals is a full-time job.

Even when it's only your hobby.

It's a day-and-night 24/7-365 gig. Like having a dog. Or more accurately (in our case) twenty-seven dogs. It's a tiny bit like parenting, except it's an opt-in/opt-out arrangement.

And we knew all of this going in. In theory anyway.

We knew that homesteading doesn't stop or lessen because you have the flu or because you want to go on vacation or because there's a flood or a blizzard a driving freezing rain. Often it just amps up under these conditions. There are no breaks, no vacations, no days off.

But four years ago this was the life that we wanted. We were all in.

And then ever so slowly, so subtly, life changed.

Sage was ten when we moved here; Lupine had just turned six. But today they're different people. And in a way, I suppose, so are we.

And what made sense four years ago started to make less and less sense today. 

 

I love these goats. I really do. 

And that made our decision that much more difficult. But we realize that we were trading family time for farm time. And childhood felt like something that was slipping through our fingers. How finite it is felt more and more clear.

And so last week we made the difficult decision to re-home our goats.

We still have too many sheep, a couple of cows, some rabbits, and an unreasonable number of chickens and quail. But the goats were more fragile and required a lot more attention than our other more hardy animals.

And honestly, they were the greatest source of worry for me. Births were harder, finding adequate pasture for them to stay healthy on was harder, keeping them alive and strong was harder. And my love for them was deeper so the stakes were that much higher.

Which meant deciding to let them go was that much harder, too.

If you've never made friends with a goat, know that they are hands-down the friendliest farm animal you'll ever meet. (There is a reason we could never bring ourselves to butcher a single one.) And because of this our goats became our pets, and a herd of pets on top of everything else – well, it proved to be just a little too much.

And so our decision was made. 

And then on Sunday, just like that, they were gone.

Before they were picked up I went to the barn to be with them one last time. To apologize. To have one last round of goat snuggles. To tell them I loved them and I was so glad for the years that we have shared.

Births, deaths, milking, mischief. So much love for these animals.

And then it was over. As quickly as it had begun.

 

Are we done with goats? No, I can't imagine we are. But we're putting family before farm at the moment, because that's what feels right right now. After Sage is grown I imagine that Lupine, Pete, and I may decide to raise goats again. Because this girl love her goats, and is the best goat midwife I've ever known. 

But even she was ready.

Ready to say goodbye to goats so that our family can have more time together. We're downsizing our flock of sheep as well, back to what we intended all along – a small fiber flock, with a few lambs to help feed our family each year.

It's voluntary simplicity, the homestead edition. Choosing family over farm.

I think it's the best decision we could have made. But it certainly wasn't the easiest.

Not by miles.

 

As it turns out this farming thing doesn't even get easy when you choose for it to end.  

  

Please be gentle and kind with your comments today, friends. This is very tender for me right now. Thank you for understanding.

Love,
Rachel

 

Pete and Sage spent the weekend away, helping my dad and sister put up wood for the winter at the cabin.

Lupine and I stayed home to care for the flock. 

Things didn't go quite according to plan.

I woke on Saturday before sunrise. As first light came across the valley I scanned the pastures and discovered that we had a security breach. Our sassy sheep Catkin had headed to greener pastures. 

Catkin is our problem child, a bottle lamb we adopted on a whim.

She would be a pet, we said. We would use her wool, we said. It would be fine, we said.

It turns out Catkin has a special gift for growing her wool pre-felted (yes, really!) so it's useless for fiber unless you're making a vegetarian sheepskin rug or stuffing a very solid dog bed.

It also means she's immune to the electric fences.

This is a newly discovered superpower, something she has been exploiting on and off all summer. If she's persistent enough and pushes hard enough against the wire, the whole valley is her domain. 

She will occasionally lean into the fence so hard that she breaks insulators (like this weekend) or pull fence posts right out of the ground, electric current be damned (also this weekend).  When she does she can bring a friend with her on these walkabouts who normally wouldn't brave an escape.

Lupine and I caught Catkin three times out of the pasture on Saturday and I awoke to find her out again on Sunday. 

Sigh.

We caught her again and fixed the fence. And again. And again.

We needed a better plan. 

 

Lupine suggested we divide the flock and move the sheep to a fresh pasture. That should do it! With her help we sent the goats one way and the sheep another.

(Be aware that when I say we 'sent' the goats one way and the sheep another, that this act looks more like a chaotic barnyard mosh pit than anything. Regardless, we were successful.)

I set out two empty pails to fill with water, turned around to find the hose, and turned back to find this. 

Oz the ram lamb had become a walking, bumbling mascot for my sheep care skills.

As I headed over to remove his bucked I discovered that Melissa the goat was out.

Oh, goodness. I'm not very good at this.

I caught the goat while Oz wandered the pasture wearing his new hat. I tiptoed over, pulled off his bucket, and filled their water pails before anyone else could get stuck. Finally we could have breakfast! And coffee. Please. Coffee.

 

As I went to the kitchen sink to wash my hands I looked outside to see…

That's right. Catkin. In the garden.

 

Lupine was pulling on her boots without even being asked. If it weren't so funny I might have cried. 

Finally Lupine came up with a solid plan. We would lock Catkin (and her co-conspirator Quinoa) in the pen in the barn reserved for birthing mamas. It would be their prison cell until we could figure out a better strategy.

And it held! As of this morning those naughty sheep are still in solitary and the others are happily grazing in their pasture.

Whew. 

So there you have it. Another utopic weekend on the farm.

 

Oh, July.

I never blog much in July.

Because life just feels like a runaway train most of the time. (Except warmer, and a little bit sweatier.)

Last weekend we hayed. Which means – in essence – I parented solo while Pete fixed the tractor (and re-fixed the tractor); cut and raked and baled some hay; fixed the baler and baled more hay. He dropped to sleep sore and exhausted at the end of the day.

And then it was time to load and stack bales.

Which is when the work really begins. (Or at least for me.)

Talking to one-time-farm-kids about stacking bales bring them an obvious wash of memories of many kinds. There is this proud/tormented far-away look that clouds their eyes, and then they share stories of the scent of fresh hay they recall from their childhood and the work they once did helping parents or grandparents or neighbors with hay.

I'm sure the four of us will get that same expression on our own faces years from now when conversations drift to putting up hay, or when we see a line of square bales across a ridge top field. 

And so on Saturday Pete and I (with some help from the kids and my mom) threw 325 or so bales of hay into the truck or onto the trailer, stacked them, drove them up to the barn, unloaded, stacked them again, and headed back for another round. And another. And another. After my mom and the kids headed up for bed, Pete and I worked long into the darkness as a storm was coming and any hay left in the field would be a loss. There was no wimping out. We had to push through. At one point I recall laying face down in the field between bales, then worrying that I might be run over because it was already growing dark. I crawled back to my feet and grabbed another bale.

It was seriously hard work. But doing the math as we stacked Pete realized this single day was nearly $1000 worth of organic hay, so I decided it was worth it. We got the last bale in the barn after 10:00, then dragged ourselves up to the house in darkness. 

It was brutal, but strangely satisfying.

Muscles hurt that I didn't even know I had. A beetle fell out of my hair when I stepped into the shower that night, and I heart Pete mutter as he undressed for his shower, "I look like a hay bale." We woke after 8:30 the next morning, a full two or three hours after we normally rise. 

Honestly we've never put up this much hay in one day. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. (Which I'm glad for, really.) It's been two days and my whole body still hurts. Even my fingers ache. I had to ask Sage to grate ginger for dinner last night because I couldn't do it. 

And yet, few farm projects are so satisfying as bringing in the hay. To see the barn stacked 12 feet high with homegrown sweet organic hay? Well that's something we (and our flock) will appreciate all winter long.

And yes, we'll do it again before the summer is out.

I think I can handle that… as long I don't have to do it today.

 

There are – of course – more important things to discuss than my garden these days. My heart has been so heavy that it's hard to talk about normal life without it feeling shallow and without substance. So yes, at the moment I am working on a post of a different sort. One to help us open our hearts and our minds a bit, to seek understanding and connection in this difficult times. But that's a post I can't hurry. 

So we'll talk about garlic today instead and let it be a warm sliver of normalcy. 

 

Last fall Pete took the initiative to prep a brand new garlic bed. Our old garden was so thick with weeds (mostly thistle, bindweed, smartweed, and pigweed) that it was hard futile to try to keep on top of it. Last summer we literally crawled through weeds to harvest the garlic. It was ridiculous. 

But this year, with a new bed, some attentive weeding and deep mulch, Pete rocked out the garlic. Yesterday was harvest day and so we all set to work.

For anyone who hates gardening I'd like to announce that harvesting a gorgeous crop from a well maintained bed is a pleasure.

Who knew? We didn't even have to crawl. The heads pulled easily from the ground, there were zero weeds, and the satisfaction of that impressive mountain of garlic was like none other.

So much garlic! Unlike last year almost every head survived. (All 350 heads to be exact.) Approximately 125 of those we will replant for next year, leaving 225 heads for canning, sriracha and pickle making, live ferments, and cooking with throughout the year. That's just over 4 heads per week, minus those we use for canning and food preservation.

Have I mentioned that I didn't plant a garden this year? Despite having starts; despite all the seeds I bought. I planted a few rows, yes, but they were so quickly overtaken by the aforementioned weeds that I threw in the towel. It's knee- to shoulder-high carpet of thistle with some kale and spinach peeking out. It's true, ya'll. I'm a homesteading failure. We decided instead to pour our energy into a new location for our garden (one that is not directly on top of a thistle patch, perhaps) and prepping raised and hugel beds for next year. 

And now? Well as it turns out after pulling the garlic we have one gorgeous, weed-free, deep-mulched garden bed, just waiting to be planted. I think I'll take that challenge. Who knows – if I pull this off I might even get my homesteader's card back (at least on probation).

Fall veggies here we come.

 

Lupine saw the photos in this post and said, "Mama, why are you writing an Easter post?" I scrolled through and sure enough, it looks a good deal like a spring celebration over here.

It's a good fit for me, since as I child I was obsessed with all things spring, including rabbits. And chicks in tea cups? Well who could resist that?

The point of this post is that we have a lot of new babies over here right now. Forget about goat kids and lambs! We have smaller babies to snuggle at the moment.

 

I suppose every season has a theme, be it plant or harvest; work or rest; life or death.

Clearly we've entered the season of "adorable" over here, with fluffy new life for miles.

 

(Those chicks in tea cups only because I don't have small enough tutus.)

First, the chicks.

A few weeks ago Pete put a clutch of chicken eggs in one incubator and quail in another. They began hatching a week ago, and at this point I've lost count of new babies on the farm. Six quail and seven? eight? Pete reports eleven new chicks to freshen up our laying flock. I was lucky enough to have a quail hatch out right in the palm of my hand.

As of yesterday they have all been moved from the living room to the barn (thank goodness) and I'm reveling this morning in a full night of sleep, uninterrupted by rambunctious peeping from downstairs.

And second, the rabbits. Oh, the rabbits!

We were gifted two gorgeous angora rabbits. (For your rabbit people, one a Satin Angora Chocolate Agouti and the other is French Angora Opal.)

It all came about quite unexpectedly after I chatted with a friend at our homeschooling potluck about fiber dying, handspinning, and fiber flocks. We had both spent the day dying wool a nearly identical shade of plum; my fiber from my sheep and hers from her angora rabbits. I was fascinated and chatted her up about her rabbits. A week later I ran into her at the coop and she offered me two bunnies – rabbits that she loved but needed a good home for to make room in her hutches for new genetic stock.

What a generous, amazing gift. How could I resist?

And so Violet (formerly Susie), shown above, and Baby (formerly, well, Baby), shown below, came home for keeps this weekend.

We're learning so much and enjoying the process of caring for the newest – and arguably most cuddly – members of our fiber flock.

Sage is truly taken by Violet, the more cautious rabbit of the pair, and is working daily to make her feel safe on our farm. Lupine is fond of the slightly more predictable and gregarious Baby, so everyone is happy.

Myself included.

 

I truly can't think of a better addition to our farm or our family than these. 

 

 

 

 

 

Though we're do-it-yourselfers in nearly every way, I have drawn the line firmly at sheep shearing. It's an art.

And an art that involves sharp blades close to soft skin sounds like the perfect time to call in the professionals, don't you think?

And so we did.

The shearer came and made short work the fourteen sheep we had that needed their annual haircuts – our ewes, last year's lambs, and our merino ram.

It's a big day on our farm and everyone helps out. Wrangling sheep or labeling bags; shoving oversized fleeces into undersized bags, or sweeping the floor before the next sheep, there is plenty of work to go around. But most of the hard labor falls to the shearer. My back hurt just watching him! It's a big job and we were one stop of many during a big week of farm visits.

From a fiber perspective, shearing day is akin to bringing in the tomatoes at the end of a long summer. "How did we do this year?" and "What should we make first?" are the sorts of questions in my mind as the pile of fleeces in the corner grew taller.

The goal each year, of course, is a batch of clean fleeces that are nicely sheared and ready to scour and spin.

For the record, we haven't worked out the "clean" part yet, especially since goats tend to eat over the tops of the sheep and are notoriously messy eaters. But my friend Kathryn has talked me into trying coats next winter, which should help immensely.

And now I am dreaming of what will come from this fresh batch of wool. I recently cast off my first homegrown knit (more on that later this week!) and it was unlike any other knitting project. A shawl, knit from the wool of sheep I know and love. What could be better?

This year I have roving in mind, so I can learn to spin properly once and for all. (I'm not the best as carding my own wool to spin, if you must know.) And while I've done a bit of spinning from our own fiber it's not been enough to find my groove.

Oh, yes. I believe I'll spend next winter spinning by the woodstove.

I can hardly wait!

And so shearing is done for another year, and just in the nick of time (we hit 80 here yesterday). What a difference a haircut can make!