Categories
Homesteading

Invasion of the Fleece Snatchers

Lily the Jakob sheep before her shearing
Lily with fleece.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated sheep shearing day here on at our farm, a day and an activity I particularly enjoy for the following reasons:

  • Unlike most other farm chores, shearing the sheep only has to be tackled once a year (yay!).
  • My husband and I get to do the fun part – catch up the ewes – and leave the back-breaking work to our talented shearer.
  • The sheep look so clean and comfortable free of their thick old fleeces. 
  • Within the span of a few hours, I suddenly have big bags of soft, pretty wool to use for … er … something.

Maia the sheep without her wool
Photo by Kelsey Langlois

Maia without fleece.

On the other hand, my Jacob sheep seem to find shearing day to be an unfortunate series of humiliating, terrifying, and disturbing events.  I can hardly blame them.  Just look at the day from our flock’s perspective: 

Their kindly human parents, who normally spoil the sheep “kids” daily with alfalfa, grain treats, chest scratches, and baby talk (at least on Mom’s part), suddenly transform into crazed predators.

Grabbing horns, they haul each sheepish victim from the stall, then turn her over into the fleece-hungry hands of the enemy. 

The enemy (actually a really nice teacher who shears as his second job) wrestles each ewe into a variety of outrageously embarrassing positions while running a scary, buzzing metal thing all over her body.

A scary, buzzing metal thing that in fact sounds like a saw wielded by some psycho sheep killer!  Disembowelment seems imminent.

But just when the ewe thinks her grazing days are over, the enemy releases his hold. 

Newly sheared Jakob sheep
Photo by Kelsey Langlois

Bare naked Jakob sheep.

She jumps up and wanders away – dazed, confused, and a bit chilled without her wool jacket.

Why has the psychotic fleece-stealing sheep killer set her free? What will happen to the others?

She shouts BAA to her friends, and when another ewe eventually trots around the corner of the barn, runs to greet her, relieved to find another survivor. 

They give each other a good sniffing over.

But what’s this?  Neither sheep recognizes the other, because without their familiar fleeces, they’re strangers.

Baaaaaah!  Invasion of the Fleece Snatchers!

Next week: the happy ending of this horror story, plus what to do when you having wool coming out of your ears.

~ Cherie

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Categories
News

Go Green with Rainwater Runoff

Rainwater runs off the concrete into the garden
Rainwater runs off the concrete into the
garden.

Are you looking for a creative, yet environmentally friendly way to use rainwater runoff? Consider planting a rain garden.

To help you start a rain garden, the Kansas State University Small Business Environmental Assistance program is hosting a free webinar on rain garden maintenance and wildflower infiltration basins May 26 from 10 – 11 a.m.

A rain garden is usually planted in a depressed area that “catches” water runoff from roofs, driveways and walkways.

In addition to aesthetically improving your lawn area, rain gardens help control local flooding, provide habitats for birds, butterflies and beneficial insects, and improve water quality by filtering run-off, say experts with Kansas State University.

The rain garden webinar is available to anyone with an Internet connection and computer speakers or a phone line.

Topics include rain garden installation, maintenance, preferred plants, typical challenges and results. The speakers will be Lee Skabelund, assistant professor in landscape architecture at K-State, and Sylvia Michaelis, infrastructure support manager with the City of Topeka Water Pollution Control Division.

To register for the webinar, visit www.sbeap.org. Click on the link in the yellow box and follow the log-in instructions.

For more information, contact Ryan Hamel at 913-715-7018 or 800-578-8898 or rhamel@ksu.edu.

Categories
Beekeeping

Beekeeping Equipment Checklist

Luc Viatour / www.Lucnix.be

To begin beekeeping with one Langstroth hive, you’ll need the following:

  • A veil, bee suit and gloves: Worn properly, protective clothing helps keep stings to a minimum.
  • Smoker: This implement produces a cool smoke that settles the bees by causing them to gorge on honey.
  • Hive tool: A steel tool used to open the hive, scrape wax/propolis and handle frames.
  • Hive stand: This improves air circulation by elevating the hive.
  • Bottom board: The bottom floor of the hive.
  • Two deep hive bodies: These boxes are used as brood and food chambers by the bees.
  • Ten frames with foundation per hive body: Each frame holds a sheet of beeswax or plastic foundation.
  • Secreting wax from specialized glands, the bees build hexagonal cells onto the frames. Many beekeepers use nine.
  • Shallow honey supers with frames: The bees store surplus honey in these boxes.
  • Queen excluder: A frame and grid that keeps the queen from entering the honey supers to lay eggs (not used by all beekeepers).
  • Outer cover: Protects hive from the elements.
  • Feeder: Provides bees with supplemental feed such as sugar syrup when stores are low.
Categories
Recipes

Chilled Blackberry Soup

Chilled Blackberry SoupIngredients

  • 2 cups blackberries
  • juice of 1 fresh lemon
  • 1 large container low-fat vanilla yogurt
  • 3/4 to 1 cup low-fat sour cream
  • sprinkling of cinnamon
  • mint sprigs

Tools

  • Large bowl
  • Strainer
  • Blender

Preparation
Sprinkle berries with lemon juice and let sit for 20 minutes, then process in a blender. Put through a sieve or cheesecloth to remove seeds. Combine berry pulp with remaining ingredients and chill for at least one hour. Serve garnished with mint sprig. Serves 4.

Categories
Crops & Gardening

10 Things You Should Know About Raspberries

10 Things You Should Know About Raspberries - Photo by Pen Waggener (HobbyFarms.com)

Known as aggregate fruits because each berry is made up of groups of smaller seed-containing fruits called drupelets placed around a hollow center, raspberries are among one of our favorite flavors in the garden. Here are some things about raspberries you might not have known.

  1. A member of the rose family, the raspberry’s scientific name Rubus idaeus means “with red fruit.”
  2. Raspberries can be cultivated from hardiness zones 3 to 9; they prefer full sun.
  3. Since around 4 A.D., the leaves of raspberries were made into teas and various parts of the plant were used for throat gargles, morning sickness remedies, digestive cures and the like. Today, new research suggests that eating red raspberries may prevent cancer, according to Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission.
  4. According to USDA nutrition data, 1 cup of raspberries boasts daily values of more than 50 percent vitamin C, 12 percent vitamin K and nearly 10 percent folate and magnesium, among many other vitamins and minerals. One cup also contains 32 percent of your DV dietary fiber. (Don’t forget to try our recipe for raspberry streusel squares.)
  5. Some raspberries are hardier than others. In general, red raspberries are the hardiest type, followed by purple raspberries, black raspberries and blackberries, says the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
  6. Planting caution: Don’t plant raspberries where tomatoes, potatoes, peppers or eggplant have been grown within the past four years because these crops carry a root rot called Verticillium that can also attack raspberries, says the University of Maine.
  7. Raspberries may also be classified as summer-bearing or ever-bearing, says the Ohio State University Extension Office. Summer-bearing cultivars produce one crop in the early summer, while ever-bearing cultivars can produce up to two crops a year, one crop being produced in the spring and the second crop in the fall.
  8. Consider trellising your raspberries. Even with a few raspberry plants, if you use a trellis, you may get higher yields because longer canes can be grown, reports Oregon State University, which offers some raspberry trellising tips. Find more trellising tips.
  9. Raspberries in raised beds? According to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, you can give it a try. Raised beds are recommended if soils are wet or heavy. Raspberries may be short-lived on sites with poor soil drainage. A typical raised bed should be 10 to 12 inches high and 4 to 6 feet wide at the base, though this may be adjusted for your own particular site and soil conditions. Soil temperatures in raised beds may exceed the optimal and should be monitored. Light irrigation of the soil can keep soil temperature down.
  10. DavesGarden.com advices the following for propagating raspberries:
  • By dividing the rootball
  • By dividing rhizomes, tubers, corms or bulbs (including offsets)
  • From herbaceous stem cuttings.
Categories
Equipment

Making a Sledge

Building a sledge can be a “make do” or a work of craftsmanship.

As I said in my last blog entry, my sledge, as you can see, was a “make do.”

Regardless of which approach you take, the basics are the same.

  • You need a set of runners, a platform or bed and a tow chain or rope.
  • The size of the components and the materials used depend on what you plan to transport, what you will be pulling it with and how solid you want it to be.

The runners, like a pair of skis should have a turned up tip so they will create less friction and not dig into the ground as the sledge is pulled.

What could you transport in the sledge you make?Yes, I know mine didn’t have this. I had extra power, not time.

The size of the runner depends on the load to be pulled. I have made simple sledges to be pulled by hand out of 2x4s laid on edge. This sledge used a pair of 4x4s recycled from a retaining wall.

The bed can be attached directly to the runners for a very simple approach or it can be raised on blocks if the sledge is going to be pulled over rough ground, rocks and stumps. Remember the bed is a key structural component. It will maintain the spread between the runners as well as carry the load.

If the bed is to be attached directly to the runners, use lag bolts or heavy spikes. If the bed is placed on blocks, toenail the blocks in place on the runner, tack the bed in place on the blocks and then drill a hole through all three components.

Insert a round-headed bolt from the bottom of the runner through the block and the bed and secure with a washer and a locknut or two regular nuts.

Although my bed lay direct on the runners, I added 2×4-inch rails to the sides and front of the platform.

They reinforced the sledge and created a base for the sides I was going to add. If you are shooting for true craftsmanship, drive a hardwood dowel slightly larger than your drill bit through the hole instead of using a bolt.

Either way, it is now time to take a break and think.

Next week, I will finish suggestions for making a sledge.

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Categories
News

Emerald Ash Borer Awareness Week Declared

The EAB can travel in firewood; don't transport firewood; buy and burn local

Photo courtesy www.emeraldashborer.info

This week kicks of a chance for homeowners and the public to help slow the spread of a devastating insect: the Emerald Ash Borer or EAB.

The governor of Indiana has declared May 17-23 Emerald Ash Borer Awareness Week.

The most important way the public can help is to avoid moving firewood from place to place, reports Purdue University’s agriculture extension office.

Since its discovery in North America near Detroit in 2004, emerald ash borer (EAB) has been found in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Canada, leaving millions of dead ash trees and financial devastation in its wake, according to Purdue University emerald ash borer expert Jodie Ellis.

Ellis says past efforts have made a difference–and that the public’s cooperation is paying off.

“Many of the infestations we’re finding now are several years old and started before quarantines for EAB were in place,” she said.

With Memorial Day and the summer camping season around the corner, campers in particular should try to “buy all firewood locally and burn it fully,” says Ellis.

Contact your state Department of Natural resources to find out if there are any ash quarantines–and be sure to follow the instructions fully.

In 20 Indiana counties it is illegal to move all kinds of hardwood firewood outside the county without a compliance agreement from the Department of Natural Resources. In addition, all of Indiana is under a federal quarantine that restricts the movement of all hardwood firewood (not just ash) into any other state.

Purdue University reports that homeowners also can help slow the spread of EAB by inspecting their ash trees for signs of infestation. It says signs of infestation include dieback of leaves in the upper one-third of the tree’s branches, heavy woodpecker activity, D-shaped exit holes in the bark, S-shaped tunnels under the bark or water shoots up the tree’s trunk.

Categories
Animals

Sometimes ‘Bad’ is Good!

Baasha is the original Miniature Cheviot sheep

Our granny sheep, Baasha, almost died on Mother’s Day. It was a scary thing. 

See, Baasha is a very old sheep. She’s 13 years old—that’s like 90 in human years! She has arthritis, so she hobbles but she’s happy, and Mom loves her more than all the other sheep combined.

Baasha was her first Miniature Cheviot sheep and she’s mom, grandma, great-grandma, or great-great grandma to all of the other little Cheviots on our farm.

For Baasha to die on Mother’s Day would have been awful.

Sheep get “cast down” because this time of year they have lots of wool.

They lie down and somehow tip backward, and then their wool keeps their feet from touching the ground. Since their feet can’t reach anything to roll them back upright, they’re stuck until someone comes along and helps them up.

If no one notices, gas builds up in their insides. Their legs go numb and their heavy rumens squash their lungs. Then they die.

Mom has been writing a book about miniature livestock and got way behind on her Hobby Farms assignments. She planned to go to a goat show on Mother’s Day morning but she decided to stay home and work instead.

She’d been looking forward to the show for months, so she was sad—until Dad glanced out the window and saw Baasha cast down.

Since Baasha is a Miniature Cheviot she has short legs, and she’s kind of fat (don’t tell her I told you that). And, she grows lots of long wool. She says she was napping and she stretched her legs to get nice and comfy. Then, she rolled backward unexpectedly and no matter how much she kicked, she couldn’t get up!

When Mom and Dad rushed out, she could hardly breathe. Dad helped her up while mom stood and cried. At first Baasha gasped and gasped and her legs wouldn’t work.

Mom rubbed her legs while Dad got the shears. After Baasha could breathe and walk a little, Dad zipped the top and sides of her fleece off so she wouldn’t get cast again before the shearer comes to shear our sheep.

Baasha’s big old Hampshire friend, Dodger, laughed (“Baaaaah!”) when he saw Baasha hobbling toward him with wool on her belly and none on her top and sides, but he was glad she was okay.

She’s a nice sheep, so Uzzi and I were happy too.

Now Mom’s happy she and Dad didn’t go to the goat show. If she had, Dad wouldn’t have seen Baasha cast and Baasha would have died.

Sometimes something that at first seems bad is really good. This was one of those times. Baasha and her family think so too.

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Categories
Crops & Gardening

Building New Garden Beds

Rick's new garden beds have two levelsThe photo at right shows the new beds I’ve made on the southern border of the garden. 

The top bed was made by pounding stakes in a semicircle, weaving branches between the stakes, and packing with cut weeds before backfilling with dirt.

The bottom bed was made by stacking layers of short branches, grassy weeds and sifted soil to form a wall that was then covered with mud stucco.

These garden beds will last for a couple of seasons, hopefully long enough for me to get around to building permanent rock and concrete walls in the same location.

A Gradual Process Will Lead to …
The really good news was that in digging these two beds I discovered a big patch of relatively un-rocky soil.  Having a new dirt source was swell, and I used a bunch of it to backfill the newly finished terrace and beds on the north side, shown in the photo below left.

A terrace and a gardenBuilding a garden on the sunny cliff next to our home was initially a daunting enterprise. 

The site is really steep, and there’s way more rocks than dirt. The neighbors watched bemused as I started scrambling on the heights and cutting away the brambles to make the first small planting areas.  I told everybody that I thought I could finish in two years.

… a Good Foundation for the Blooms
I built the first garden beds using the limbs and brush cut from the site to make a sort of woven bird’s nest that would hold some soil and serve as a planting area.

The first year I made a dozen little planting nests, and most of them were about three square feet, which was enough to grow a couple of squashes or tomatoes.

Ha! Okay, so now I’m in the fourth year of building the garden, and I’m still spending more time working to build infrastructure than I am on my horticultural duties.

I did start adding a few blooming plants here and there a few years ago, but I’ll admit that I spend way less time gardening than I wish I did.  The need to build new garden beds is still more urgent than the need to coddle my crops, and I think my crops suffer as a result.

Focusing on construction is the best plan, because the plants do grow better in well-constructed beds.

In all the areas where I’ve built walls to create terraces, the plantable surface area is enlarged considerably, and the soil in the bed is much deeper, meaning that I can grow more and bigger plants.

But still, I’m really looking forward to the day that I have all the beds and pathways built and can concentrate on just growing vegetables and flowers.  Knowing what I know now, I’ll predict that it will take another four years of fairly constant construction to finish the garden structures.  By that time the fruit trees will have grown nicely, and the garden will be ready to enjoy its golden period.  I can’t wait.

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Categories
Crops & Gardening

So Many Tomato Varieties…Which One is Perfect?

Deciding which types of tomotoes to plant can be a tough choice
Jessica says her ‘Snow White’ tomatoes are
the sweetest variety she has grown.

For more info on tomatoes, check out:
Growing and Selling Heirloom Tomatoes
Tips for Pest-free Tomatoes

It’s so much fun to decide which tomatoes to plant each year.

When we had our big farm, I didn’t have to be so persnickety about what I grew.  We planted about 20 varieties so there was room to experiment.

Now that we are ‘smaller’, I have to make some tough choices.  My husband thinks I’m nuts for spending so much time deciding, but I can’t help it.

I want to grow the ‘perfect’ tomatoes and I’m still trying to decide just which ones those are.

I always grow ‘Snow White’ – a white cherry tomato and truly the sweetest tomato I’ve ever grown.

‘Persimmon’ is another staple in my garden, and ‘Cosmonaut Volkov’ is as well.  The rest of the spots are up for grabs.

I’m lucky to have a small urban farm nearby (Garden Dreams Urban Farm and Nursery) that sells about 100 varieties of heirloom tomato seedlings, so I don’t have to start my own seeds if I don’t want to.

I’m probably going to grow ‘Pineapple’, ‘Rose de Berne’, ‘Carmello’, and ‘Jubilee’ to name just a few – the rest I’ll have to settle on soon I guess because it’s plantin’ time!

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