Happy Easter

Jasper with our asparagus, daffodils and tulips

The meanest chicken in the bunch

Another week, another 18-pack of Keystone (or six).  And what an exciting one it has been!  My new chore for the month of April is to take care of the chickens and sheep.  The latter get about a quarter of a bail of hay twice a day – then they lay by the bay – and enough water to keep them baaing ‘till the cows come home.  They may be dumb animals, but at least they’re cute; the chikens on the other hand are ugly as fungus.  Their feed box of grain gets refilled about once a week, new water each morning, and those pollo locos also get our delicious compost from the house.  Three times a day I enter our free-range coop (not as oxymoronic as it sounds) to nab the delicious future babies of 150 angry hens.  They may peck a bit, but they are more annoying and smelly than anything.  In fact, the most annoying factor is when they escape and you have to run around the coop acting like an idiot.  The secret to wrangling chickens is a solid team of four humans intimidating the poultry into corners and grabbing them or chasing ‘em back into the coop.  Anyone who knows me is aware of my animosity towards fowl, but those fresh tasty eggys are worth it and we are raking in 125 a day on average.  Speaking of animals, we finally got our caterpillar tunnel built!

The chicks flocking as I walk up to the coop.

Also known as a hoop house, this simple construction of arched metal, plastic cover and knotted string is a quasi-mini greenhouse.  It covers three beds and is located in the field proper.  While it took weeks of work, as soon as the tunnel was up, we had sunflowers, poppies and sweet peas planted within an hour.    These flowers require more heat and protection from the elements than the average transplant.  This will allow us to harvest flowers sooner than would otherwise be possible and should bode well for future roadside flower stands...

$8 for a bunch of Renonkulous. Just in time for Easter!

Pre-farmer's market roadside stand proudly offering eggs,
asparagus, dried chillies and three different types of flowers

Multi-Purpose Sheep

The farm allows for a certain amount of escape from the current social climate (my life is vastly improved with the absence of Santorum and Romney infiltrating my psyche), but we cannot run from this global climate change!  This lazy Sunday marks day two of my Spring Training sunburn recovery; so imagine my surprise when we awoke to a fresh snow cover.  And it's still snowing, but not really sticking. Skip spring showers and go straight to frozen ground – fingers crossed our hearty transplants survive.

Babies!

Speaking of springtime, we have so many baby sheep.  Jude, our dashing resident ram, is doing some serious work.  He has a good dozen little ones baa-ing up a storm.  Nature is not always kind, however.  There have been at least two complicated births.  In both instances, the baby was twisted the wrong way inside the mother and its shoulder was caught.  Whoever was around and had the smallest hands – with the right experience – did their best to pull out the lamb, sometimes using a hay tie for leverage.  The first time, we thought the lamb was a stillborn, but the little guy – who was actually huge for a baby - pulled through and the momma took to it right away.  That bond that occurred after the birth made all the difference.

Momma still has a hard time standing, but two days later they are doing well.

Baaaaa

The second momma sheep was much smaller than the first making the birthing process more traumatic.  Because of this and whatever other processes of nature, she didn’t care for the lamb after it was born and, if not for her domesticators, wouldn’t have let it nurse.  In any case, the momma didn’t make it.  There was a slight chance the other new momma sheep would adopt the babe, but she had her hooves full with a growing boy.  Unable to nurse and unprotected from the harsh elements, the baby soon followed its momma.

Olive isn't pleased but Jasper enjoys kisses.

“And so it goes” - Kurt Vonnegut (and personal mantra of the Whipstone interns).  The new baby will start to vie for territory in six to eight months, just in time for the end of the year party where there will be numerous hungry mouths craving rack o’ knobbly-knees.

Knobble Knees - cute and delicious