WhirldWorks Farm

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. -John 10:27

Sheep really do know thier shepherds voice. And when I call to them, they come to me. When I call to them they know I have something good for them. Sometimes they get confused on which way to go, to get to me, and sometimes, when the grass is fresh and green, they are less inclined to follow me, when I call. But they do come when I call, they know my voice.

Like sheep, I think we must know God’s voice, to hear Him calling us. We must become familiar with Him, His character, His grace, all of His ways, or we simply won’t hear him calling. Or if we do hear him, we won’t listen, because we don’t know how good, the things he has for us, are.

Right before I took this video I will be posting a link to, I had called to the sheep as I hoisted a bale of hay over the fence for them.

I called to them baa, baa and they all came running… and then the dogs interfered. What interferes with our following God? He is always calling, to all who would listen.

Sheep are wonderful creatures, they are so trusting and peaceful, until they get spooked. They teach me so much about myself. Enjoy this little video.

https://youtu.be/8dn53hN4DjE

Well we weren’t exactly expecting any lambs until the end of February but two of our ewes, who shall remain nameless (nott) lol, apparently took matters into thier own hands, before we let them breed. As a result we have two that were born a month early, in January, and we don’t know who thier daddy’s are. But they are healthy and strong and that’s what’s most important. We named them Duke and Darla. And… since we don’t know who his sire was (we had 3 rams at the time), we decided to wether the boy. We like our wethers, they produce some of our very best fleeces and don’t cause us any trouble.

So this past week the rest of the lambs have begun making thier appearances. On Saturday our Ewe named Bonnie had her first lamb, then on Tuesday Wynonna delivered and Wednesday we got a beautiful little ram lamb from Butterfly. All are doing great.

We are still expecting two more deliveries. So far we haven’t had any twins this year, in stark contrast to three sets if twins that were delivered last year.

This morning I went in to band tails, tie ribbons and take pictures. Bonnie was really agitated and kept getting confused about who’s baby was hers and boring away from us when we got close, so I’ll let her stay in the lambing pen a few more days. Some of the lambs were positively posing for the camera. Enjoy!

Duke 1mo.

Back in the fall I decided to start feeding the chickens and the rabbits only once a day, in the morning, to make the early evening chores (since the sun sets earlier this time of year) easier. One thing that makes this possible is using large enough water and feed dispensers so they have enough to last.

At some point I also made it so that the rams and ewes could re-enter their respective barns whenever they want so that if we are late getting home, they can go into their barns, if they want to, when it gets dark. This has worked out pretty well. The littlest changes can make the routines and responsibilities so much easier!

I also try to divvy out the hay in the evenings when I have time, because it’s warmer in the evening and the mornings are often very, very cold. I have to be sure to wear something over my mouth and nose while I’m outside in the cold. It helps my sinuses and lungs and maybe keeps out some of the cedar pollen. I bundle myself up but I always get too warm before I’m done with my rounds and take everything off.

Just last Sunday we re-attached the wall panels in the barn. We had taken them down last spring to increase air circulation for the summer. It worked really well, although the panels were a bit harder to re-install, than they were to remove. But we put them back up just in time for the lambs to be born and have a nice warm space to be. And we had two lambs born this week,, unexpectedly early,, which means I’m not quite sure who their sires are.. But they are healthy and adorable just the same.

How does the change of seasons change your routines? What things do you do to keep in manageable?

I am thinking of starting a new series of posts about mornings on the farm. I am thinking this may be enjoyable for our readers. I also think that I will enjoy reading my own thoughts about farm life, at a later date, another season of life, when routines and schedules are different than they are now.

This morning I awoke early, a little after 5 and couldn’t fall back asleep. I was a little anxious about a few suggestions I had made last night but for the most part I was at peace and felt rested. I concluded that I must have slept soundly last night. I read a chapter of James in The Message translation (a different translation just for a change) and got dressed and then read a little in the latest novel that I’m reading.

My husband asked if I could scramble some eggs for him, so I did (he likes my egg scrambling technique lol) and then I folded the boys laundry. The next thing, which is part of my current routine, is to get Titus our Aussie, into the laundry room and close the door, and feed him his breakfast. He doesn’t really like when I close him in the laundry room, it used to be easier to get him in there. I started using his training collar with the vibrating and beep signals, along with treats to re-train him to go in there without so much trouble. I like to close the door in the morning so that the sound of putting his food in the bowl, and the sound of him eating, don’t wake the toddler lol.

Once Titus was done eating we went into the garage and refilled the 3 week old chicks food. There are 12 of them and they are getting big. I was excited to sell 5 of our Lavender Orpington chicks on Sunday. I love watching each of thier unique colors emerge as thier fuzzy soft down is replaced with thier first feathers. I held my current two favorites and cooed and petted Tham and them put them back and closed thier cage.

Titus wanted to stay with me as I trekked to each part of the farm this morning, sometimes he is off doing his own thing. I liked him staying close to me.

Next we went into the garden to feed the rabbits. In order to open the garden gate, I currently have to lift the fence I arched over the gate in the spring, to open the door because the loofah has done very well this year. I need to use some Hackberry branches to create more support to keep the archway up, Hackberry branches are pretty flexible so I think they’ll work well for this. I went in to feed the bunnies, they had plenty of water. And then I decides not to worry about water or food for the two bigger chicken coops, since I know I filled them up last evening.

At this point I started walking from the garden to the barn. I looked at our fruit and nut trees and was thankful that they didn’t need to be watered because it actually rained most of the day yesterday. I was also thankful that I was able to determine that two of my 3 young pecan trees are alive and have new growth, after they had been looking dried out and dead for the last month. On my way I also noticed trash blown over the grass in the back of the house, so I picked it up and put it all back in the trash cans and put the one that blew away back, and closed the lid securely.

As I got to the barn gate I enjoyed the greetings of the 3 dogs at the barn, Daisy, Looloo and Rusty. They are such sweet dogs. I remembered next that I needes to let Wade’s breeding group nibble on the mineral block for a little while so I took that into thier area first. Then I turned on the water from the rain barrel to fill the water troughs through hoses and pipes we installed recently. I was thankful to have that convenience.

Next I fed the dogs. I have learned that if I feed them too close to each other, they end up growling at each other and sometimes fighting, so I put thier full food bowls in separate corners of the barn and then leave them to eat.

While they were eating I asked Titus to sit beside me, away from the gate to the pen in the ewe barn and I opened the pen to let that group of sheep out. I asked him to stay beside me as we treck down the sheep run. I noticed that the far gate, to the pasture the sheep need to get into, is closed. I usually leave it open at night so that I don’t have to open it in the morning. So I asked Titus to sit, some ways from the gate, as I got up in front of the sheep, to open the gate. Titus knew I had the remote to his training collar and he statyed put, I didn’t even have to use it. This helped the sheep not to start running in the opposite direction, and they soon are in their pasture and I can close the gate behind them.

When Titus listens, he really is a big help.

After that, I walked back to the sheep that were in the ram shack and asked Titus to sit behind the door. I opened the door and let the sheep out and continued to ask Titus to sit and stay with me so he wouldn’t chase the sheep. They know where to go and when he chases them, they get scared and go the wrong way. Titus listened. I closed the gate to the pasture those sheep went into, pasture 4 and I closed the gate to the sheep run. Then I turned off the water tank and opened up the gate to the sheep in Wade’s group and put the mineral block away.

I was done.

The breezes were nice this morning the air cool and humid and everything was wet and smelled sweet. During this season I enjoy doing the farm chores in the morning before the boys wake up. It is quiet and cool in the mornings. This has been my routine all summer and now into the fall. It is working well right now.

Whenever our shearers come I usually just focus on getting shearing done. But this year, there were people coming. People who wanted to watch and people who wanted help so..I updated the wool sorting table and made a second one.

I wanted them to fold up for easy storage and be big enough for for the whole fleece. So I took apart the existing wool sorting table that we had made several years ago and cut each piece of wood in half, length wise to make two tables and put hinges on them so they can fold together.

And then I made another one.

They worked beautifully and with the help of our Fiber To Spin Exchange contact Kelsey we got all of the fleeces weighed skirted and bagged. What a blessing to have that all done in one day! And the sheep are white and clean and cool and lean for the summer.

No it’s not an oxymoron. There are gentle roosters. Roosters that don’t attack you every time you enter thier space. We have two True Greens that are great. But unfortunately the free Lavender Orpington rooster we adopted got really aggressive once we put him with his hens. Someone suggested that it was because he was the only rooster in that coop but I’m not convinced. He is so aggressive that every single time we go in to fill the water or the food he tries to attack us. We have to use a stick to keep him back.

Since we got the Lavender Orpingtons to raise and sell as multi purpose birds, we do need a rooster.

So we started looking for another rooster.

Through Craigslist we found a place called Forked Farms in Rogers that has English Orpingtons and they had a Lavender Orpington rooster we could buy.

We met the owner at her gate a handled the rooster a bit and he seemed fine.

-What we should have done though was inspect the roots of the feathers. But we didn’t.-

We noticed that evening that he had mites crawling on him and put some diatomaceous earth in a big bowl for him to bathe in. (Chickens like to take a dust bath in ashes which helps keep mites away)

Unfortunately a few days later we found him falling over and almost dead. Good thing we had him isolated. It’s always a good idea to keep new animals isolated at least 2 weeks before introducing them to your other animals.

We inspected him carefully and and found mites, fleas and some other bug crawling all over him. The mite eggs on his feather stems were so encrusted that some of them were two inches across!

So we mixed up some permetherin and sprayed him down really well.

We hand fed him meal worms and molasses water with a dropper as well as b12, every few hours.

After two days he was looking a little better but he had this gross mucus in his beak. So we started him on penicillin g injections to treat the infection.

He is still a bit light on his feet but he is standing and pecking and eating and drinking on his own. I’m not thrilled with the price I paid for such a sick rooster. But if he makes it, hopefully it will all be worth it! Would I recommend Forked Farms…I would say yes (she did communicate with me some) but inspect your birds very carefully *first*, all the way down to the roots of the feathers. I would NOT recommend using diatomaceous earth to treat an infestation. It didn’t work for us, that’s for sure.