Smokin' Turkey

Day 1:  Thawing the turkey

We butchered our turkeys in July because they grew so darn fast we could let them get bigger or they wouldn't fit in the oven (or smoker in this case).  Which meant we had to freeze them post butchering.  (Note to self - if we want fresh turkey for Thanksgiving next year, don't get the baby turkeys until mid-summer.)  And that means thawing the turkey.

As anyone who has ever made Thanksgiving dinner can attest, you have to be prepared and start early.  Turkeys have to be thawed in the refrigerator.  Thawing anything a in a cold environment takes days.  I put the turkey in the fridge on Tuesday.

Day 5:  Brining

It's now Saturday morning and the bird still not completely thawed.  But never to fear!  I'm brining it :-)  Water thaws like 80 times faster than air.  (I made that up, but still.)  Even cold water in the fridge is faster than no water.  So, the turkey will be thawed before smoking.

My brine consists of 1 cup salt and 1 cup sugar per gallon of water.  Keep in mind as you pour the salt, sugar and water into the very large pot (or 5 gallon bucket) that the turkey will displace a lot of the liquid.  I only used about two gallons of water.  Once the ingredients are in the pot, stir, stir, stir.  Make sure all the salt and sugar are dissolved so that you get even taste in the bird.  Then I added four sprigs of fresh rosemary and a bunch of fresh sage.  My thyme didn't make it so I had to use a tablespoon for dried thyme.  Really, you can add any spices that sound good.

Unwrap the turkey.  Remove the bag of giblets and give her a little wash with cold water.  Then set her into the pot.  The pot has to be big enough that you can tip the bird to get air out of its cavity and brine in.  You will also need to flip the turkey once or twice to get even flavor.  I'm using one of my huge canning pots.

Technically, the whole pot and bird are suppose to go in the refrigerator.  Keeping the bird cold is important to prevent disease.  I don't know about you but my fridge is full of other food.  I can't exactly put the milk, yogurt, butter, etc. on the counter for 24 hours.  Thankfully, it's October and the weather is nice a cool outside.  Plus my back deck is north-facing and gets no sun.  So the pot (covered) is on the deck for the next 24 hours.

Day 6:  Smoking

The directions say 30 - 40 minutes per pound in the smoker.  But also, when the internal temperature is 165 F.  Well, our turkey is 14 pounds, so that'd be like 7 hours.  But we knew from smoking a store bought turkey last spring that the internal temp will be reach in more like 3 hours.  So, we put the bird in at 11am.  At 2:30pm it hit 165 F and we took her out.

Look at that bird!!

We let her sit for another 30 minutes so the juices can set.  Then Jeremy sliced her just like on Thanksgiving. I couldn't wait for it to hit the table - I snuck in and grabbed a piece of white meat.  Oh my delicious!  But then I tried the dark meat.  Holy crap!  The oils in the dark meet took all the flavor and smoky goodness in.  I only ate dark meat the rest of the night :-)

Day 7: Picking the Bird

This afternoon I sat and picked every last bit of meat off the carcass.  It was messy and took forever, but it will make really yummy soup later this winter.  I froze the meat for now.

Frost

What do you do to prepare for the first frost of the season?  It always happens where there is still fruit on the vine, literally.  And it usually sneaks up on me.  Like today, I was driving home from work listening to the radio.  They did their 30 second weather and traffic update and said "low-lying areas can expect frost early tomorrow morning."  What?!  Already?!  I'm so not ready!

So, I came home and asked Farmer Jeb and Jordan to help me out in the garden.  Jordan picked all the tomatoes with any pink or orange tint.  Then we put large black garbage bags over the remaining plants.  Finally, we picked all the ripe green peppers.

Now the counter is covered in bowls of tomatoes and green peppers.  I'll leave the tomatoes to ripen and then put them in the freezer as they do.  Waiting until the day we have enough to make sauce.  The green peppers I'll chop and freeze.

Nachos

We were sitting watching some college ball when Farmer Jeb said, "You know what I'm craving?"  "Humph?" I replied.  "Nachos." He stated.  (I think the Taco Bell commercial trigger a need.)

"We can make those.  If you go pick some tomatoes from the garden and snips some chives from the front raised bed, I'll get started."

We had a can of black beans and my homemade taco seasoning, which I mixed together.  And even though I pickled all day and used 4 bell peppers there was still one red bell pepper remaining in the fridge, so I chopped that up.  The only tomatoes we have that are ripe in the garden are sunglobe cherry matters (yum!).  Farmer Jeb brought those up along with chives.  I quartered the tomatoes and set the oven to 350 F.  Let the assembly start ...

1.  A nice thick later of tortilla chips on a pizza stone.

2.  Shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

3.  Half of the beans, bell peppers, tomatoes and chives.

4.  Second layer of chips.

5.  Second layer of cheese, beans, bell peppers, tomatoes and chives.

6.  One more layer of cheese - because you just can't have enough cheese.

If we had had it, I would have included shredded cooked chicken or cooked ground beef.  But no luck, so this had to be a vegetarian dish but you'd never know.

The end result looks like a volcano of goodness!   Into the oven for 20 minutes.  I know that sounds like a long time, but you want the cheese in the middle to melt and the tomatoes and bell peppers get a little soft.

Lordy the end results look amazing!  And the scents - killer!  We served with sour cream and Tapatillo.  If we had avacado, I would have put some out.  

Dive in!  Enjoy!  Devour!

Since our daughter is spending the week with her grandparents, it was just Farmer Jeb and me for dinner tonight.  The nachos clearly would feed 4 people.  But the two of us down them all!  All!  Farmer Jeb said "Craving has been dealt with.  Thank you!"

Lasagna

Not the kind you have for dinner. This is the kind that develops in the sheep stall as we put down a layer of straw then the sheep go to the bathroom on it and sleep on it and mat it down. So we put another layer of straw down, which they promptly soil up. And another layer of straw goes down. And so on and so on. Until we have a good straw-poo-pee lasagna built up. Next comes the difficult task of mucking the lasagna from the stall to the garden to feed all the worms and bacteria and get ready for plants in the spring. Today we did that lovely task.

Jeremy pitch-forking and shoveling. Me hauling and dumping in the garden and coming back for more. We had two wheelbarrows going so he was filling while I was running. It took roughly 2 1/2 hours to go from a foot thick of damp, stinky lasagna to find the dirt ground below. 61 wheelbarrow loads in total. Then another 1/2 hour to spread the goods out. It covered about 2/3's of the garden. The final 1/3 will get the compost put on it, but that will have to wait for another day when I am able to move my arms again.

I am proud that through this process, done every winter, we have grown the soil in the garden up by about 4 inches in the past 6 years. The results are easy to see when the soil is tilled up - dark, crumbly and full of worms. And we reap the benefits, literally, in the summer and fall as we harvest fruits and veggies.

For now though, I'm exhausted and dirty. I think I'll take a shower and nap. Here are before [Jeremy with his foot where the feed trough was partially buried] and after pictures of the stall, plus a picture of the lower 1/3 of the garden with mounds of lasagna waiting to be raked in.

So Exhausted

Again I ask myself, why don't I just buy canned foods at the store? It's cheap and easy. Of course I know the answers by heart. But when I'm 8 hours into processing, I start to rethink my good intentions.

Now I sit on the couch with sore feet, a stitch between my shoulders, sweating and ready for bed at 6:35pm. On the plus side, we have 25 pints of apple butter (that's roughly 40 lbs of apples), 31 pints of pickled green tomatoes and 4 pints of spicy pickled green cherry tomatoes. We didn't get to the beets, which will be another 5 pints, because I'm beat and need to put my feet up and enjoy a glass of wine. Jeremy is trying to talk me into the beets - we'll see. He has more stamina than I do. But I just heard him crack open a beer, so I think we are couch bound.

Canning tip of the day - use masking tape to label the top of your jars. I initial, for example AB is apple butter, and include the year. Masking tape easily comes off so you can reuse the lids.

Arbor

This year's garden improvements have been focussed on preventing competition. We chose the some of the larger competitors - moles/voles, birds and deer. That is about 0.5% of the total competition for the garden harvests. But we figure slow and steady will win the race for food. Right?

I already posted about our creative use of leftover PVC to create the strawberry cover. Within about 2 hours a robin was caught inside the net. I had to open one end and then spook it to the opening. Thankfully no other birds have been able to penetrate the net. As a result we have harvested about 2/3 of the crop. Slugs, ants and mold have taken the remaining 1/3. I'm open to suggestions on those three - non-chemical suggestions. (Note - our slugs seem to be too smart for the beer trick.)

We have an interim measure in place for the moles/voles. I found these nifty little ground inserts that emit a noise that repels, in theory the rodents. Every 15 seconds or so a loud buzzing sound is produced. The box claims the sound travels up to 90 feet. I put one at every corner of the garden in an attempt to create a solid barrier. So far only a few moles holes have turned up in the garden. Maybe we have some really speedy moles that pass the barrier during the 14 seconds of silence and then get trapped inside? It's hard to tell about the voles since they don't great mounds. Once the potatoes, carrots and beets start forming, it will be obvious. Last year voles ate all the golden beets.

The second step on the moles/voles will be to create a 2-foot-deep trench around the garden and add chicken wire underground. Let's see 'em get through that! But it will have to wait until next summer after we add the last garden extension (which will be occupied by another row of strawberries).

The last defensive maneuver of this season was to build and arbor of sorts over the blueberries and raspberries. Jeremy and my dad built 6, 10-foot wooden T's. They dug down 3 feet, placed the T's in and pounded dirt down around. Then my mom and I moved the netting off the strawberries (they only have a few berries left to ripen) and onto the T's. Two things I learned during this process. One, netting really messes with your depth of field. Two, even humans can get stuck in netting. Twice I got good and caught up. My mom had to help extract me. Now I know how that robin felt.

Lilly Foot

On Tuesday we came home to an open gate. Anyone who has livestock will agree, that an open gate is a bad thing. Fortunately, this particular gate only fences in the chickens. And chickens do always come home to roost. All eight of them were out and about. Three were down the driveway pecking around the roses. Two were in the shrubs behind the house. And the others were MIA (but I figured they couldn't be far).

Jordan said "Mom, we did shut that gate this morning, right?!" I said "Yeah, I remember locking as we left." Jordan, "So how did it get opened?" Me, "I have no idea."

The two of us investigated the gate, but there were no clues. Then we noticed that Lilly was limping, badly. Jeremy was just getting home, so we waited for him before tending to Lilly. As we were walking down, Eric (our neighbor) came by and said "One of your sheep is limping." We told him we knew and were going to see what was wrong. He said, "I was worried that she had a broken leg or something. So I jumped in to take a look and didn't see anything wrong." Gate mystery solved. Eric had opened the gate to get to the pole barn and Lilly. The chickens were probably all down in the orchard so he didn't think to close the gate again. We thanked Eric for looking in on Lilly.

Even with a bum foot, Lilly as hard to catch. Normally she is a calm animal. I suppose that having a injury was making her skittish. Finally Jeremy grabbed her and I started in on her foot. After clearing the dirt and trimming some hoof, there didn't seem to be anything wrong. No hoof-rot, no cuts, no broken bones - nothing. I went a head and trimmed up the rest of that hoof and we let her go. Strange.

Jordan and I went up to make dinner while Jeremy finished up the rest of the chores. When he came inside he announced "I am the chicken whisperer." "How's that?" I asked. "All the chickens are back in their run." That is actually amazing since it was still early, a couple hours from sunset and the chickens were scattered all over the property. Jeremy wouldn't give an details, preferring to keep his skills a secret.

Update on Lilly - She continued to limp for a couple of days but by the weekend was walking normally. Maybe she sprained an ankle.

Chaos

Saturday afternoon started out lovely. Desiree, our farm sitter, came over to run through the motions before we go on our annual vacation to the lake. She brought her two kids Riley and Julian. I'm not sure what it is about the basic act of gathering eggs, but kids just love it. Riley grabbed two that had been laid that morning and proceeded to carry both around as we visited the other animals. They also go to see how you place a rubber band on the lambs tails to make the tail fall off. (Riley still holding the eggs.) Then I asked Desiree if would be willing to help us move the sheep around in the pastures. She was up for the task, probably because she had no idea what a chaotic event it would be. The kids hung out on the swing set.

Pasture moving is always a bit crazy. The first step was for Jeremy to distract Junior and lead him down the fence while I ran and shut him in the front pasture. Then I opened the pole barn, where we would move the ladies. Next, we had to get Francis and two "stupid" sheep to come out of a small gate and across the driveway. We positioned Desiree at the downward side of the driveway to keep them from making a jail-break for the road. I took some oats and enticed Francis to follow me, hoping the two "stupid" sheep would follow her. I was half successful. Francis and Stupid Sheep #1 went to the pole barn. Stupid Sheep #2 freaked being left alone and panicked, running back and forth bahhing frantically, but not going through the gate to join her friends. Jeremy and I were trying to coax #2 towards the gate. Meanwhile, Francis and #1 were bored waiting for me to let them onto the back pasture and decided the grass along the yard looked tasty. Desiree hollered - "Mindy, the sheep are headed towards the house." I took off running just as the sheep reached the garage. (They nibbled on the roses and lilies along the way.) I swung around the cars and shooed Francis and #1 back down to the pole barn. They got a full bowl of oats to keep them in place for a few minutes.

Jeremy decided the best we could do was to corner and grab Stupid Sheep #2 and carrier her down to the pole barn. #2 weighs about 100 lbs.

We closed in around her, while she continued to panic. She made for the gap between us, jumping 5 feet off the ground. Jeremy also jumped and grabbed her, mid-air. The both came down and rolled, but Jeremy kept a hold of her. He popped up, lifted and bear hugged her, all four legs sticking straight out, and walked her over to the pole barn. Guess Jeremy's high school football skills still have a functional application, other than being able to explain all plays during a game on TV.

The rest of the moving was uneventful. Junior was "walked" to his pasture without incident, although I did give Desiree a pole as a weapon in case he got free and charged her. Notag/Bo and Lilly/Spot were so excited to leave the barn, they hopped and sprang to the pasture. Done!

Just before they left, Riley did drop one of the eggs in the driveway. I'm surprised it lasted that long. She was sad. Julian asked if we left it on the rocks would it fry (not at 80 F). I told them the truth - that night a rat would come out and eat it. The other egg got to go home with Riley. They will get lots more while they farm sit.

Pigs and Branches

Our pigs like to play. When we add new straw to their bed, they grab it and throw it around. They run through their wallow and splash water everywhere. They bark and chase each other around the pen. Usually when these moments of pig-joy happen I don't have my camera on me. But tonight, when Jeremy was clearing some brush and put a few branches in the pen, I had my camera ready.

Lamb #2

Jeremy and I love our back deck - we can't get enough just standing out there an looking. Sun, rain, snow, day time or night time, we are out there. Last night before we went to bed, midnight-ish, we went out on the deck to look at the stars. There was a lot of bahhing coming from the barn, which unusual for the middle of the night. I went down to investigate.

As I opened the barn door I saw Notag down on her side, panting hard. All I could see of the lamb was one front arm and the head. I had instant flashback from last year, when one of the lambs got her leg caught back in the birth canal. And although we intervened to get her out, she died. So I jumped right in with Notag and felt around for the second leg. It was out too. Whew! Then there was nothing left to do but wait and encourage Notag to push. Not that she understood my words.

Jeremy was moving Jordan from our bed to her's. She had elected to fall asleep in our room. He heard me cheering Notag on and headed down. Just as he arrived to the barn Notag gave her last push and the lamb was out. We stayed down for about an hour watching Notag clean him, yes it's a boy, and to make sure he nursed, which he did vigorously. Then we went to bed it was 1:45am.

This morning Jordan and I went down to check on everyone and take some pictures. Both lambs - Spot, Lilly's girl, and Bo, Notag's boy - are doing great.

Morning Surprise

I blame it on the rain. Ever since we started raising sheep and had our first birth in the rain, which resulted in two deaths, we have pushed back breeding later and later in the season with the hopes of lambs being born on the green pasture in the warm sun. And every year, no matter how late we push breeding, the lambs are born in the rain. This year is no exception.

Usually by late June / early July the rain has tapered off and the temperatures are consistently above 70 F. We timed putting Junior with the ladies with the hopes of having 4th of July babies. But this spring has been really wet and cold. Sure, there have been a days with sun and warm temperatures, but those are few and far between. A couple of days ago the rain returned along with temperatures down into the 60's. So naturally, as Jordan and I went about our normal morning feeding, sitting under the big fir tree was Lilly and her lamb.

I'm so proud of Lilly to choose going under the fir tree, where it is always dry even in downpours, to give birth! The birth must have happened in the wee-hours of the morning, but both were looking really good. I hollered to Jordan to go get Daddy (Jeremy had been out of town and arrived home at 1:30am, so he was sleeping in). They came back down together and started to the prep the barn so we could move mom and baby under cover. I was already in the pasture, checking things out (in my work heels of course).

I picked up the lamb and, hunched over so that Lilly could keep her eyes on her baby, walked backwards through the pasture, out of the gate, down the driveway and into the barn. It is a miracle that I didn't trip and send the lamb flying. Once inside Lilly got oats and alfalfa and water. The lamb got a thorough once-over and a trimmed and dipped in iodine umbilical cord. Jordan helped with the lamb and was amazed that iodine actually stains your fingers. Then we decided that we should move Notag into the barn since the rain isn't going to let up and Notag is just days from giving birth too.

By this time Jordan was late for camp and I was late to work. We hopped in the car and took off. When I got to work I realized my shoes were covered in dirt, grass and poop. I got great looks from coworkers in the bathroom as I scrubbed. That's when I noticed two of my fingers were stained orange too.

Stair Beautification

We have cinder block and gravel stairs that lead from the lower, back door down to the garden. Since we typically have to stop by the barn on the way to the garden, we very rarely use the stairs. So over the past five years they have grown in with weeds, to the point that you couldn't tell there were stairs at all.

The grand plan for the back of the house is to pave under the deck and build a rock retaining wall around the cherry tree and seed with grass. We'd love to pave the stairs, but I don't think our budget could handle that. So we decided to re-gravel instead

The first weekend we spent hours removing weeds, digging out the old gravel, which we used to fill in where the retaining wall will be, and scrape down an inch. Keep in mind that each step is roughly 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep. For the first couple steps we could shovel directly into the wheelbarrow, but then we couldn't keep moving the wheelbarrow down the slope without killing the Lillies. The only solution was to fill 5 and 10 gallon buckets and carry them back up the stairs. It was grueling. We took turns, one digging, the other hauling. After two hours, my arms were so tire, I kept dumping the shovel and knocking over the buckets. Three hours in, we finished and call it a day.

This morning, Jeremy got up early and went to the gravel store. He returned with a half yard. Unfortunately, I had to work at the Recycle Arts Festival all day and couldn't help haul bucket by bucket of gravel to fill in the steps. Darn. Jeremy worked his ass off and got it all filled in. I came home to beautiful stairs.

Death of a Bull Frog

We have an artificial pond in the front of our house. Honestly, it wasn't a selling point when we were looking at the place. It was over grown with weeds. The previous owners had decorated the edges with all manner of garden-gnome-like statues and benches and scattering of kids' toys that were left out from the day before. It was an omen to how the rest of the house would look - I have never seen so many knick knacks and just plain crap in one place! And yet, that didn't deter us from purchasing. And the pond cleaned up really nice.

The first spring, which was about 10 months after we moved in, we were watching TV and a couple frogs started to croak in the pond. I paused the TV and thought "how cute, that a couple frogs had taken up residence in our now-de-cluttered pond." Each night a few more frogs joined in and by the fifth day we had to turn the TV up to hear it over the chorus. Funny that these little tiny frogs are actually called "Pacific Chorus Frogs." The sound was enough to keep me from falling asleep. I loved it! Our little man-made, lined, dinky pond was giving home to courting frogs.

The next year and year after, when we heard the telltale two frogs we knew mating season was back on. (If you know it, hum with me now "Froggy went a-courtin' and he did go, a-huh ...") Our favorite trick was to open the front door in the evening, which was like turning a switch off - the sound stopped immediately. Then one brave frog would start again and the rest would follow. We'd grin and shut the door, which got the same affect. I imagined that the brave frog got the most girls.

Last year, into June, Jeremy turned to me and said "I don't remember hearing the frogs." I thought about it and he was right. What the heck happened?! Was our pond poisoned?! Worse! Turned out that a bull frog had taken up residence.

Bull frogs are non-native, invasive amphibians that eat Pacific Chorus Frogs - not just the tadpoles, but the actual adult frogs - and other small pond-dwellers like innocent goldfish. The chorus frogs must have sent word out to avoid the Brooks' Pond now that a bull frog has moved into the neighborhood. Not one chorus frog came back. We only caught a glimpse of the bull frog that spring - a fleeting hop as he jumped from edge into the water.

This spring, one night I heard a chorus frog. Maybe the bull frog had moved on, decided to take over a new pond. But the chorus frog only stuck around for a couple of nights. He was either eaten or chased off. It was time to take action.

I enlisted Jeremy by giving him permission to hunt the nasty bull frog. Jeremy set the BB gun by the front door and started "tracking" the beasts movements. Jeremy discovered that the bull frog liked to hide in the tall grass on the edge of the pond where he could easily jump into the water when detected. Twice Jeremy stealthily shot at and thought he hit the bull frog, but it disappeared into the murk before we could confirm.

Last night I came home late from work. Jeremy and Jordan had gone to bed. Jeremy had left a pile of mail and newspapers on the counter and placed his camera on top. I figured I had better look at the pictures. The most recent were of the bull frog sitting on a shovel. I had to know the story, so I went into the bedroom to make Jeremy recap what transpired.

Jeremy and Jordan had come home from the local pizza joint and the bull frog was in his normal place, lording over the pond. Jeremy quietly opened the front door and retrieved the BB gun. He lowered the barrel on the beast and squeezed off a shot. The bull frog made to jump then slumped over. Jeremy took a second shot to seal the deal and end it's suffering. Then Jeremy and Jordan buried the frog in the back-40. Jordan picked a bouquet of dandelions to place at the grave.

It's too late for the chorus frogs to return this year. I can only hope that the neighborhood wasn't so spoiled by the bull frog that they continue to avoid buying up real easte. I look forward saying "Jeremy, turn up the TV, I can't hear over the frogs."

Pearl The Interactive Play-Thing

Went down to feed the animals this evening and noticed that Pearl, the friendly hen, was in the pasture with Junior, the ram. Very strange.

First of all, the chickens are relegated to the "orchard" and although George, the mean hen, frequently gets out onto the driveway, mostly the hens stay in the orchard. Both the sheep and the chickens and the pigs have access to the pole barn. So I think what must have happened is that Pearl squeezed her way through the fencing that separates the sheep's section of the pole barn from the chickens' section.

This would have been no problem if the ewes had still been on the pasture attached to the pole barn. But last weekend we moved the ladies over to Eric and Lola's pasture and put Junior where the ladies' were. Junior assumes anything in his general vicinity, that isn't grass or secured down, is a playing-thing to head-butt around. He has made short work of a non-nailed down hay trough and broke Lola's arm. So Pearl must have looked like the best interactive play-thing of all time. He'd get to chase her before smacking her across the pasture.

When we came down, she look frantic to get out. She was trying to squeeze through the fence and hopping up and down. Problem is that I can't go in to get her because then I become another interactive play-thing for Junior and I value my intact bones. The solution was that Jeremy would distract Junior with oats and attention. Then I would reach through the fence and (now imagine what this looks like) lift Pearl with one hand as I high as I can. Then reach through the fence with the other hand. Transfer to the high hand, then lift her up as high as I can and transfer again. It took 4 transfers to get her to the top. Thankfully, she seemed to understand that I was helping and didn't flap. Just as I was gingerly trying to lift Pearl over the top, Jeremy yelled "Junior's on his way Mama!" But I got her out before feeling the brunt of his blow. Pearl cuddled into my chest and cooed. Whew!

Friendly Sheep

When we move to the farm, I had the desire to raise heritage breeds. Our animals would be unique, not the standard run-of-the-mill breeds you see at the fair. And I'd feel good that we were helping to preserve a breed that might go away with industrialized agriculture. So the first sheep we got were American Blackbellies.

American Blackbellies are a hair sheep, which means they shed - no sheering. According to information online, they are suppose to be very disease resistant. They twin and sometimes have triplets. And the icing was that you don't have to trim their hooves. The one downside reported was that American Blackbellies are "a little skittish".

We purchased two American Blackbellies from a farm in Oregon. When we got them home, they wouldn't come near us, not even when enticed by oats. For days we tried to help them get acclimated, but they kept a minimum 15 foot distance at all times. Then the older ewe gave birth to triplets, in the pouring rain. That is a whole different story, which is posted as well, but the bottom line is that it took Jeremy, Jordan and our neighbor Lola (I wasn't home) nearly half the day to get the two ewes and two lambs (one lamb was still born) to the barn. And as a result of spending so much time in the cold rain, one of the lambs died. It was awful.

New moms and lambs have to stay in the barn for a week or more before being put on the pasture. And there are things to do with the lamb to make sure it is healthy and getting enough food. Every time I went into the stall to do anything with the lamb, the mother would panic and bolt. Twice she knocked her baby over. Once she nearly jumped the gate. To get them onto the pasture, Jeremy had to catch the mom mid-jump while I tackled the lamb and carry them out of the barn. "A little skittish" huh?!

When we decided to purchase a ram we knew that American Blackbelly would not be the breed. We opted for a mutt with mixed breeds including Suffolk, Tunis and Katahdin. We ended up buying twin brothers - one for breeding and one for eating. The very first afternoon, both came right up and let us pet their noses. They came running for oats. They let us administer medicine without a huge fight. Wow, so much better! We did have to sheer them, but it was no problem because they loved the attention. (In the end, we kept Junior and ate Buddy.)

American Blackbellies, as we experienced, are not disease resistant. We lost two to some unknown disease. After ruling out the usual parasites and other sheep ailments, it would have cost more than $100 to figure out what was wrong. We decided to save our money and buy a different breed.

Next we got Notag and Lilly. Both are mixed breeds with some Suffolk. Notag is amazingly sweet. The only animals on the farm nicer are the cats. And while Lilly doesn't like quite as much pets and loves as Notag, Lilly isn't skittish and pretty easy to work with. Notag shocked us last fall when she got hit by a porccipine and let me remove 30 quills without making a fuss at all. It was a huge relief to work with such friendly animals. And I happy to report that the last two half-breed American Blackbellies, which are almost as skittish as their great grandmas, will be butchered this spring and we'll be done with that breed.

This past weekend, the sun came out and the temperatures went up above 80 F, so Jeremy decided to sheer Notag. We do this by hand, not with a big electric contraption. Notag stood for more than an hour, slowly rotating around, while Jeremy trimmed. Twice I went by the barn and distracted her - she thought I might give her some oats. But as soon as I went to the garden, Notag walked right back over to Jeremy to continue the hair cut. Junior also got a hair cut, but it took a few sessions. We probably should have done Lilly yesterday as well, but we ran out of time and steam. Lilly will have to wait until next weekend. The temperatures are suppose to go back down to the lower 70's, so she won't be too hot. We do need to get to her soon though. Both Notag and Lilly are pregnant. Having less wool will make birthing easier and allow the lambs to find the teats.

So my unsolicited advise to anyone just getting into raising farm animals. Purchase the best temperament goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, you can find. You won't ever regret having animals that are easy to work with.

Missing Chicken

This morning we drove down to the barn to conduct our normal morning chores. I fed the sheep oats while Jordan tossed scratch to the chickens and pigs (yes, the pigs like chicken scratch). Then Jordan opened up the chicken run to let them out and I counted, as I always do to make sure that we are starting out the day with the correct number of animals. But this morning I only counted seven chickens - one was missing. And worse, upon closer examination, it was Pearl!

Pearl is the nicest chicken of all time. She follows us around and likes to be pet and held. She is the perfect animal to introduce "city kids" to farm animals.

A coyote or opossum better not have eaten my Pearl!

Sometimes a chicken will get broody and decide not to leave the nest boxes, so that was my first check and no one was in there. Next I checked to see if Pearl was being lazy and sleeping in. Nope, the coop was completely empty. Jordan and I looked around for signs of a struggle. Nothing. Last I decided to try the barn. The chickens like to go in there and scratch around the hay bails. As I opened the barn door Pearl can walking out.

She looked like she didn't get any sleep. Sort of ragged and blurry-eyed. Kind of pale, if that's possible. She chirped a quiet "thanks" as she made her way back to the run, right up the ramp and into the coop. I can only imagine that she flopped down on the roost the way I do on my bed when coming home after a late night of wine and friends.

What probably happened was that when Jeremy opened the barn the night before to get alfalfa for the sheep, the chickens went in. He always shoos them back out, but it would be easy enough for one to be behind the tractor or stack of pallets and not be seen. He must have closed the door with Pearl still inside pecking away.

This evening Pearl is back with the group and looking much more rested. Since we have a farm-sitter coming for the long weekend, we'll have to double-triple check that no one gets locked in the barn before we leave.

Oh What a Relief It Is

George, our hen, has been escaping every day. When we open the gate to the run, all the hens head out. George runs down to the orchard, which is where the gap in the fence is (or I should say, where the gaps in the fence are). Problem is that once she is out, she can’t figure how to get back in and therefore can’t get back to the coop where the nest boxes are.

Tonight Jordan and Jeremy went down to do the night time chores. Naturally, George was out, presumably for most of the day. They let her back in, via the driveway gate, and she made a bee-line for the run. She went right into the coop. Jordan was gathering eggs and George was sitting on them. As Jordan reached in to get the eggs, George pecked her so hard she left a blood blister. Then George ran out of the coop. Next she did this strange chicken-dance - prancing about with wings raised a bit and feathers on the back of her neck standing up. She headed back up the ramp to the coop and an egg popped right out of her - bloop. She couldn’t even hold it to the nest box. Must have been a huge relief to get that out. The egg broke as it rolled down the ramp.

Rouge Chicken

Over the past week or so there have been less eggs in the nest boxes. I thought that the unseasonably cold, cloudy and rainy weather may have caused the chickens to slow down production. I'm not sure if that actually happens, laying picks up and then slows down again, or if it's just hours of day light that trigger laying. But then we figured out what has been going on. Over the weekend Jeremy went into the barn to get some hay for the sheep and noticed an egg laying dead center on a piece of plywood. Upon further investigation, he found a small pile of three eggs in the tractor bucket, which is a temporary storage place for odd towels, boxes, etc.

I had left the barn door open for a few hours that day and the light was off. The chickens love exploring the barn and spent time in there. So maybe the chickens just decided they were too lazy to walk back to the coop. But then yesterday I found another egg on the plywood and the barn door had been closed all day. And tonight another egg on top of an opened hay bale.

There are many gaps around the bottom of the barn. It's enough space for our cats to come and go, usually while chasing a mouse. So it makes sense that a chicken could fit under too. I'm not sure why the barn is preferrable to the coop. At least five of the eight are laying in the coop. I'm not even sure who the rouge chicken is.

What to do? I don't want to have to hunt in the barn every evening for possible eggs. If we miss a few, it will just attract rats and I HATE rats. We have decided to keep the chickens in their run for the next three days. The run is plenty big enough for all eight, but it is void of vegetation, just dirt, and the chickens will be unhappy about not having access to the orchard and its luscious grasses. Hopefully three days will be enough to break the habit and get all laying back in the coop. If not, I'll be looking for suggestions about how to train a chicken.

In Like a Lion

Rainy Sunday. After doing some laundry, I grabbed my knitting and sat down to enjoy a movie. Since Jordan and Ryan, her friend from next door, were playing in the other room I chose Lord of the Rings - kids-safe but adult worthy. No sooner had I turned on the TV when the power went out. Nice!

Jordan and Ryan came running in, "The power's out! The power's out!" (Just in case I hadn't noticed.) Jeremy said "Why don't you two run over to Ryan's house and see if the power is out there too." They started getting their shoes and coats on. Then we heard the wind howl. Eerie how wind gusting through Doug fir trees makes a low howling sound. Since we are surrounded by trees, the sound comes before the strength of the gust. Seconds after the howl, branches were thumping the roof and the shrubs outside the window were shifting and swaying. "On second thought, why don't you kids just stay here for a bit."

The clouds opened up and released on us. Another gust pushed the trees around. They were making large stationary circles, one direction then the next. Rain was coming off the roof in steady streams; it flew sideways and back under the eves. I grabbed my camera and took some video.

The intense part of the storm only last about 10 minutes. And compared to storms in the Midwest or near the gulf, this lion was more like a kitten. I'll take it though - I miss good storms. After a bit the wind quieted and stopped. The rain went back to normal Pacific Northwest gray drizzle. But the power stayed out.

It was only about 4pm and plenty light outside, but Jordan and Ryan wanted to get out all the flashlights just-in-case. Jordan chose a blue one and Ryan a red, both with straps to wear around their wrist. Next Jordan said "Oh, we should play a game." She ran off and came back with Memory and Monopoly - we played both with the completely unnecessary flashlights. Funny how board games seem much more fun without power. Under normal, illuminated circumstances, if I suggested Monopoly I'd get a roll of the eyes and a suggestion of Wii instead.

By 5:30 the power was still out and it was getting too late to cook the pork chops and asparagus I was planning on. (Also, I had managed to turn the kitchen light on and off at least a dozen times, each time chuckling at what a creature of habit I am.) So we loaded into the car and headed to town for some delicious Mexican food. On the drive in we saw three different PGE trucks and workers busily removing branches. In one instance two trees had fallen across power lines on both sides of the street. I started to wonder if we'd have power before bed. Thankfully, as we came back home porch lights were back on. When we got home we went around resetting the clocks, which I had just set this morning for day light savings time.

The New Girl

When we first moved to the farm we knew we wanted to raise animals. At first we thought goats would be perfect. They are small, easy to manage, we could do milk or meat breeds and they eat anything. Anything is correct, including the bark right off a tree. I learned, through talking to a rancher at the Clark County Fair, that goats prefer Doug fir bark to grass and will girdle our trees. Since we have many beautiful Doug firs that we would like to keep, we decided goats weren't the right animal. The next in line were sheep.

Our current sheep are a mix of Sufolk, Tunis and Katahdin. The mix is great because, like dogs and cats, mixed breeds are less susceptible to diseases. But I have wanted to start raising full-bred sheep primarily because they full-breeds get top dollar but also if Jordan decides to do 4-H she can show our animals. So today we purchased our first full-bred Sufolk to add to the farm. She is beautiful - black face and legs, thick white wool, except that with all the rain she is gray with dirt. She is 3 years old and proven, which means that she has lamb successfully.

The place we got her from was a tiny hobby farm in Cascade Locks, which is about 1 hour from our place. We don't have a trailer to transport animals. We have a huge cage, like you'd use to move a big, big dog. The sheep just barely fit inside and refused to sit down, so she kept loosing her balance as we drove around corners. Jeremy was afraid the whole cage would give under she shifting weight (approx. 150 lbs). Consequently, we had to drive about 10 miles under the speed limit. Long lines of cars kept getting stuck behind us because Highway 14 is a single-lane, extremely curvy stretch of road. At one point, an impatient idiot decided he couldn't take it anymore and spread around us causing momentary panic but avoided any collisions.

The last leg of the trip was up 164th, which is a main thoroughfare in eat Vancouver. We got many confused stares and finger pointing from passangers in other cars and people walking on the sidewalk.

The topic of conversation on the drive was what we should name our new addition. Jordan's first thought was "Oreo" due to her black-and-white look. But after mulling it over, Jordan announced "I don't like that name." I said "Well, what would fit with Notag, Lilly and Junior?" "It needs to start with an F," was her response. Jeremy said "How about Francis?" "Yeah!" So, Francis it is.

We moved Junior over to Eric's pasture and let Francis loose on Junior's. We figured that would give her some time to get use to the surroundings before Junior starts harassing her. About a week should do it. That will also give Francis time to come into heat. Sheep go into heat when they are with a ram, maybe it's the lovely ram-musky that sets them off. Junior and Francis can sniff each other through the fence. The week will also give us time to appraise Francis. I gave her a shot of dewormer, but you never know what an animal might have brought in from another farm.

Next weekend Junior will be a happy boy again with a new friend.