Spring 2020

Spring came early this year. That means we have already completed a lot of our annual farm-related chores by now. Usually, we're still waiting for winter to leave and can't really get anything done until the end of April or the beginning of May. There are a couple of things that we have to do every spring such as clean out all the manure from the barn, vaccinate the sheep before they start pasturing, rake up all the dead leaves from the yard, and make the vegetable beds ready. This spring also saw a whole bunch of spring lambs being born (a ewe just lambed yesterday and there are a couple more still pregnant), and we collected some fallen trees for next winter.

The first weekend of March Break was spent cleaning out the barns. We got the skid steer on Saturday afternoon, worked until after 10 p.m. that night and continued the next morning until 1 p.m. in the afternoon. While the skid steer is used to clean out the bigger pens, there are a couple of small pens that need to be mucked out with shovels and pitchforks. This means that everyone has to pitch in so there isn't much time to get pictures.

     

The sheep had started going out to the pasture the moment all the snow melted away, so our next job was to vaccinate and deworm them before they began grazing full time. It is hard to pinpoint whether this job is easy or difficult. A good handling system definitely makes things easier, but the ewes can sometimes act up, making it harder for us to get the needles in. Nonetheless, our herd is not too large, so it took us only a couple of hours to finish this chore. Again, in this case, we're really into the work, so it's nearly impossible to get pictures. I did, however, take pictures of where we worked.

This handling system is meant for the cows, but we managed to make it work for the sheep as well.

Gathered the herd here

Let each sheep out one at a time for their shots

I also got some pictures of the herd out in the fields.

Having lambs this spring was not something we really expected. We were aware of the possibility of the young ewes lambing, but we were definitely not ready for the mature ewes since they had already lambed in September and were supposed to be breeding around this time. It seems like October's rams did some damage when they got out to the main herd in autumn. This has resulted in the unfortunate deaths of a couple of ewes, who just couldn't withstand the stress of getting pregnant again while nursing, as well as of many baby lambs, whose mothers were not able to produce enough milk for them. We tried to rescue a couple, like Beauty (pictured below), but we weren't successful. 'Tis sad but true.

In other news, we spent last weekend collecting trees that were felled last year and the year before that. We had to delimb them and cut them into moveable-size logs before bringing them closer to the house where we will be bucking them into burnable lengths. I learned the correct terminology from "Starlight," a novel by Richard Wagamese.

There is one more thing we have to do in order to complete our list of spring chores. We have to make the pasture for the cows ready by re-wiring the electric fence and ensuring that there are no spots from where the cows can escape. We do this every year and it is awful because we have either mayflies buzzing around our faces if it's noon or mosquitoes sucking our blood dry if it's early morning or late evening. This year's early spring will hopefully allow us to work in peace since the mayflies will not show up until May. As for the mosquitoes, well, they're out already, but we could work in the middle of the day when the sun is strong.

I will try to get pictures of crossing-the-cows-over-the-road when the time comes, and then maybe I can share a little about our beautiful, awesome, joy-inspiring cattle. They do make my heart so glad!

Ellen Hamilton 💖