lambing in the winter

Meet the twin boys. Born January 31st, 2019

These little guys were expected. Their momma, Cherry, is mother to our Cici born last winter. She was clearly carrying more than one lamb, and we anxiously awaited their birth. Cherry, an experienced mother, didn't need any help her babies to feed and walk. They were bouncing around within minutes. One little guy needed a little extra cleaning, but other than that, no human intervention was necessary or offered.

They were out and about within twenty-four hours.

This little girl is another story.

February 11th, while Harmony was getting into bed after midnight, she heard our one-year-old Cici crying out from the barn. Checking on her, she found a hungry wee lamb in the corner of the barn, and a confused Momma Cici wandering loudly about. I received a text from the barn requesting back up. After sizing up the situation, which included one young inexperienced sheep mother and a little smaller than average baby girl who couldn't find milk, I went to the kitchen and made a bottle of colostrum. Yes, we actually had lamb colostrum in our pantry. The next couple of hours included a few ounces of bottle milk, as well as a forced nursing session with the mama. It also included me catching a confused, tired, and very strong sheep and holding her still while my daughter cut away excess wool from around the udders so our new lamb could reach her tiny mouth around the milk supply. What you see here are photos of happy healthy lambs and their content mothers. What you don't see are photos of me in my flannel pajamas grabbing hold of a frightened 130 pound ewe and holding her while someone comes at her underside with scissors. Nor will you see photos of that same 130 pound ewe butting me in the ribs, just enough to let me know she was not happy being held. (I am forever thankful that this particular ewe knows and likes me and was merely letting me know she was not comfortable; therefore I have no broken ribs)

After making the milk more accessible, Harmony was able to hold Cici still enough my little man to hold the lamb and direct her to her mama's milk. The shepherds made this a daily practice throughout the following week or so,  until our little Dido learned to nurse on her own.
For a few feedings a day, while Harmony the shepherdess was at school, the younger children would take a bottle of milk to the pasture to feed Dido the lamb. She knew them by sight, and the bottle by smell and would run to meet them. Their job was to try to feed her close to her mother's side so that each sheep would get the idea that feeding is related to the mama. In the morning before school, and in the evening after, Harmony would hold Cici still for Dido to nurse. After a few weeks of this, mamm and lamb finally found their own routine and neither bottle nor ewe catching was necessary.

A well established nursing routine after a week.

proud papa, scratching his itch

Meet Banana. (we didn't name her; she came with the name) This is her leggy son born without any aid needed. This is a blessing because Banana lets no human get near her, unless the human has alfalfa or clover in his hand. Any attempted nursing help with this ewe would definitely resulted in a broken rib for this human.

Uncle and niece, half brother/sister... animal husbandry; probably better not to ask

Now it's simply a matter of time, watching the lambs grow.
A word to the wise: don't get attached to the young rams.

getting cultured

In our attempts to be healthier, we're using culture. Okay, technically, it's "cultures". 
A friend gave us a SCOBY, which stands for "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast". Don't be too impressed; I had to look that up for this post. 
My daughter started our Kombucha months ago. I took photos. Then I got busy with life. 

Recently because she is now a full time student, and remains a shepherdess as well as the other adult in the house, I took over the kombucha making. This means nothing is done on schedule anymore. While she took a notebook of dates, measurements, comments, etc... I look at the tea in the fermenting jars and ask, "When did I start this jar? Is it time for second fermentation with fruit? I need to buy tea....."  Then I forget about it another day. 
Regardless, the kombucha is still turning out with good flavor and a probiotic taste and feeling. It doesn't have the 'fizz' I like, but it's still kombucha, and my children enjoy it. 

Without a stove, however, brewing tea has been put off too long though. Today I am brewing a quart at a time in a glass container in the microwave. Since our microwave is the smallest available- used around here for heating cups of water/coffee/milkforhotcocoa and plates of nachos-- it's taking about ten minutes to get the water hot enough for each quart. But it's getting done. 

I've been much more diligent in keeping up with the sourdough starter given to me by another friend. I don't know how old this mother is, (that is the term for a culture; I'm not being snarky) but it is hardy. I never measure how much flour I feed it, or the water. I just add 'some' flour- either organic white or whole wheat- and a 'bit' of water every day. I have a back-up in the fridge in a form of status in case something contaminates this main starter or if I forget to feed it and it loses it's bubbles. Like I said though, it's a hardy batch and if I do see that it's losing its ability to ferment, I add a little apple cider vinegar before I give up on it. 

Harmony was in the practice of baking two loaves a few times a week. Her recipe required kneading, and she was good at it. But with the start of the semester, she was allowing more and more time to go between batches, and I could tell the timing was stressing her, so I adopted the baking. 

However, I am not one to spend time working on my upper body strength in the kitchen. So when I found a recipe for the French country crusty no-knead boule, it became my secret weapon to keeping bread in the house. It is a different texture and does not lend itself as well to different flavors as does Harmony's softer bread, but it takes little time and everyone likes it. 

Because I have this active sourdough bubbling on my counter next to my scoby, I searched for different ways to use these beautiful probiotics. Eating healthy doesn't mean my children (and I) don't have sweet tooths (sweet teeth?) This recipe for cinnamon rolls makes a super easy treat. Easy doesn't mean that it's not time consuming though, so it's not often that I can arrange the clock to have them made. 
This just might be the weekend for it! Epiphany is as good a reason as any, don't you think? 

moving to the kitchen

It's quite late after a long day of playing with/reading to/chasing a three-year-old, but I have put off this post long enough. As I stuff my face with kettle corn, I'll do my best to sum up our progress on the kitchen.
The above photo is the 'before' photo. In it you can see the ripped 1970's formica counter tops. What you can't really see is how shallow the sink is (or how stained). Maybe I just want too much, but living on a farm and cooking for six people often calls for a larger sink. My temperament wants for one that is not stained. You can also see the electric stove. Not only do I find it difficult to cook with electricity, we lose our power too often for it. This particular stove is particularly difficult because there is no rhyme or reason to the levels of heat on the dials.
The worst part of the kitchen is the 'bar' you see to the left. It serves no purpose other than to the narrow the work place on the counters. My goal was to flatten that and have one even work space for both counter appliances and people to gather. 

After assisting a friend during her labor and incredible home birth of her sixth child, I asked her husband if he would be willing to apply the same skills he used on their furniture to build counter-tops for us. He accepted the challenge and set to work following the directions I found here.

Taking out the old counter with (cast iron) sink attached was a heavy and awkward task. Whoever installed the old sink must have lacked confidence, because instead of the typical three or four screws under the sink, there were fifteen or so, and they were rusted.

It looks as though there are two types of wood going on here, but I assure you it's all the same. The way the light is absorbed and reflected from the cabinets makes it look much darker on one side. I'm okay with that. We're artists here, after all. 
My next job was to sand the wood, fill in any gaps, and seal it with a tung oil. After 72 hours, it is now ready for use! 

My favorite part of this countertop is the new open flat area for working. Besides being more visually appealing, it is a much more practical work and gathering space. 

We're especially excited about the 'new' sink I found on Craigslist. It was listed for sixty or so dollars, I can't remember exactly, but also listed with 'obo' so I made an offer. It was accepted via email, but when I arrived to pick it up, the seller and I recognised each other from a home school group and she sold it to me for $35. Thankful to her and to G-d, I nearly cried. I now have a sink valued at the big box store at over $200. The stove is the same model stove I had in my old custom built house; I missed that stove! I found this at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $150 a few months ago, and have been saving it. I've ordered the orifices to convert the stove to liquid propane and will hopefully get that up and cooking by next week.  

While Scott had the old counters out, I took advantage of that time to strip the paint from my cabinets. I have this problem with waiting. When I get an idea, I sometimes just move full steam ahead without considering how long it will take me to finish the job. It seemed prudent to use the stripping medium before my new counters were in place, even though I had no real plan on actually painting the cabinets yet....

Fortunately, a friend from church heard of my plight, has come to my rescue and is going to help me paint the cabinets this weekend! 
We have been very blessed by friends with the re-model. My son's godfather installed the faucet for us, and my son-in-law connected the drain, so the afternoon of Christmas we actually had running water after almost a week without. With a  little phone help from a friend who happens to be my auto-mechanic all 'round talented fix-it person I was able to install a dishwasher which I also found at the ReStore earlier last year! 
You might be able to see the floor- or lack of floor- in the above photo. We've been on the tile back cement board for several months. 
but that's another story.... 

shearing time!!

This post is quite late. The sheep were sheared last Spring, but I've been lazy busy remiss about writing.

The first step was to move them close to the back patio where the shearers set up shop. We no longer keep them in the electric pens during the day, but allow them free range in the large pastures, moving them from one to the other every month.

Little Red Riding Hood kept Cici occupied while Mamma Cherry was being sheared. 

I was coveting Cicic's wooly coat, but my Shepherdess made the executive decision to not shear her. She has since regretted the decision, after Cici's growth spurt this summer, enduring her heavy coat. But she'll warm through the winter, and we'll get an extra heavy bag of wool in the Spring.

Harmony hired two young women, who, after recently graduating from Texas A&M, started their own traveling sheering business. I was amazed at their strength and ability to get the job done.

dirty and matted under belly wool is not worth keeping

anyone who can handle ornery Banana has my respect 

The newly humiliated Banana

Mamma Cherry is next! 

The women made quick work of sheering three adult sheep, and Harmony was left with bags full of (apparently warm and cozy) wool to clean and card.

The sheeps' wool contains Lanolin, which allows rain to run off their wool and keep their skin dry. This lanolin, or "wool wax" has a wonderful smell to me, but I had no idea how distinct each animal's lanolin scent is until Mamma Cherry was sheared and our poor baby Cici could not longer distinguish her from the other two beasts! It was only when the sheep were sheared naked that we found out it wasn't the milk that a baby sheep could smell leading her to her mother, but her distinct lanolin smell. We were a bit torn between laughing and crying watching the toddler bump into our ram's side attempting to  get him to turn to allow her to nurse.

With lambing, and now shearing, we have successfully jumped two major- though routine- hurdles of owning sheep. I had a few doubts along the way, but now I think maybe our family is cut out for this farming thing after all. At least for now.

duckies in a row. sometimes.

It's not unusual for the post office out here in the country to receive boxes of live poultry. It's so common, in fact, that we left the post office with the wrong box of babies.

We received the phone call early in the morning, before the office opened, with the instructions to come  to the side door to pick up our ducklings. When took the box to the truck, however, the tiny peeps didn't sound right to me. I looked inside, and sure enough we had a box of chicks meant for someone else and our baby ducks were still at the post office. After ringing the doorbell, I made the exchange, and laughed it off. From inside the office I could hear many other chicks and ducklings peeping from various boxes. 

 
  We took our new babies home and Little Man placed each duckling in the small plastic pool that was prepared for them as their new home for next several weeks.

As they grew, we gave them outside time to find bugs to eat, and fresh air to breathe.

 and eventually gave them water in which they could swim.
We couldn't allow them to swim as early as they would do if they were being raised by their mothers. Mamma ducks take oil from their own glands and rub their babies with it, making their feathers water proof. Thus the saying, "let it roll off  you like water off a duck's back." It's not until they get older that they produce the oil and are able to do this themselves.

Eventually they got too big for the inside pool home.

We had to take a practice run to the pond to make sure they were ready for the big move to the great outdoors.

So we moved them outside to their new home. It's quite a walk from our house to the duck house; the children- with the help of a church friend and the children's godfather- built it in the back pasture near the pond.


The ducks need to be locked up as soon as the sun goes down, or the raccoons and other duck eating critters will feast. Each morning, one of the children opens the door to the house, and the ducks line up and make their way to the pond.

They do not need to be led; they know the way.

bottoms up!

Each evening, as the sun starts to set, they come off the pond (occasionally they need a little coaxing) and one of the children invites them back to the duck house with duck kibble and fresh water to be locked up safely for the night.

We've had the ducks since May, and are still waiting for the high protein alkaline eggs that we remember from the ducks we had on our old property.

Finally, this week---

Khaki Campbells (the brown ladies) and Harlequins (the one white one) are known to be good non-broody eggs layers. Once they get started, they should be laying everyday, which means with eleven ducks (one drake) we should soon be getting eleven eggs a day year 'round. Typically, they take turns laying in one nest and the eggs will be one place waiting for us in a corner of the house in the morning.
Little man tells me, however, that when he found the one egg, it was in the middle of the duck house floor and the ducks were far from it, quacking hysterically as if in fear. We might just have defective ducks.
Considering our luck with this house, it won't surprise me!