It was a quiet day on the farm today. I got the other bale of hay in to the ewes, but they were still baaing as if they were half starved. If they cannot stick their faces in a bale they are not happy. When the ewes are spread out and laying down chewing their cuds, they are content, even if they think they are not. All is well in the sheep pen today. 

The dogs were all relaxing, but it started to snow. Harley and Charka stayed out and got snow covered, then got up and shook it off. Charka hardly ever goes in a dog house, but Harley headed for the shelter of one so he could continue his snooze. 

The chickens and ducks came out of their winter pen today to explore. I have already seen signs of the geese and ducks actively breeding, but the roosters are quiet thus far. 

It was a good quiet day on the Fat Ewe Farm. I had school work to prepare for the new semester beginning tomorrow, so it was a good time to stay and and get it done. It is still snowing lightly, and the temperature is only minus 9. Hopefully the roads will be good to drive to work by noon tomorrow. Have a great day, eh!

Unless you are vegan or vegetarian, you are definitely a meat eater. I am, but have not always been. For a while I practiced being a vegetarian, more to learn about how to feed myself properly without meat than from any conviction about eating meat. I do not like the way most animals are treated, though, and it always bothered me to think about their lives. Chicken, for example, is slaughtered at 6 to 8 weeks of age, when on the farm, a chick that age is still a tiny little thing snuggling under its mamma's wings. 

But on the farm, I do not need to eat the quantities of meat that most people do. I live alone and other than the occasional guest, most of the time I cook for myself. I do like a good chicken soup and a great stew or curry is heart warming on a cold winter's night. At first I raised big Berkshire hogs. One hog, slaughtered at 250 pounds is around 8 months of age. The sow had 11 and 13 piglets though, so unless some of them were sold, I was not raising one hog. It was hard to sell the pigs for a good price too. That is the thing about small farms that I do not understand. People will go to the store and buy pork for $5 a pound, but they won't pay $2 a pound for pig from a farmer. So, I quit raising the big pigs. 

Now I have little pigs, pot belly pigs. They are not so tiny and not large, have very easy going dispositions and are friendly, but the best part, is they do not eat much compared to the big pigs. A litter of piglets, usually 6-9, are raised by the mother for the first month to six weeks and then they begin to eat what the parents do, with no particular special consideration. At four months old, they have reached approximately 40 pounds. Six piglets will give a hanging weight of approximately 40 pounds each, so in total 240 pounds of pork, but it is piglet, not grown hog and it is much better tasting, more tender and delicious. The meat is red in colour as opposed to pink. The pigs eat grain, vegetable scraps and hay or grass depending on the season. They like a bit of salt and minerals too, but again, not the same amount is needed as for the big pigs. 

Pigs are delightful to raise, quite non intrusive if they have enough of what they want where they are, and if they are pastured, they fertilize as they turn the soil. They are an excellent choice for an acreage owner as well as a farmer with lots of land. I would recommend that folks stop looking at the pot belly pigs as pets and give them a chance as livestock. That is what they were bred for and that is where they shine. Although I do not like to raise animals for meat and it makes me cry every butcher day, I do enjoy knowing where my meat comes from and that the animals were loved and had good lives. And I do love barbecue pork or ribs or roast pork too. There are some ribs simmering away for tomorrow.Would you care to try some with me? 

When I set out on my journey to the far north to learn how to live a sustainable life and produce my own organic food, I wanted to chart the progress, trials and errors and my feelings, for my family and close friends. That is how the blog started. I really did not think that others would be finding it something they enjoyed reading, after all it was just the life of little ol' me and my shenanigans on The Fat Ewe Farm. But, lo and behold, I have followers! Whodathunkit? 

The blog gets a lot of traffic for something that has zero advertising or endorsements. Some days there are 1500 hits to it and there are many hits just to the website too, fishing around and looking at pictures mostly I think, plus my page about how much meat one gets from animals one would find on the farm is popular too. When I started out, I could not find an all in one page about that, so I created one and it seems others also were and are looking for that information. 

Some of the photos are very popular, especially sheep birthing and the problems and joys associated with it. I could do more short videos and think that I may for the new year we are in. 

I want to thank all of you who read this humble blog. I am still in awe that there is enough interest that you keep coming back, if not daily, then even on occasion. Some of you have been with me right from the start and to me that is very special and I appreciate each one of you. Many of you write to me privately rather than comment on the blog and the blog is also posted on Facebook for the followers there. There is a link to the Facebook page on the home page of The Fat Ewe Farm website. 

So, today, the blog is about you, my friends. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for your encouragement and support on this little sojourn of mine. I really and truly love my life and love my farm and the happiest I can remember being in many long years. Part of that is because you care. Thank you, thank you so very much!

What would happen if all of a sudden we were cut off from stores? Would you have any skills at all to get you through? Do you know how to knit, crochet, spin, sew or weave? How about wool felting? 

In the old days, just a hundred years ago, all people knew how to do these things. They had to, because they could not go to a store and simply buy what they wanted. My grandparents grew hemp and pressed the seeds for oil. I am not sure what they used that oil for, but it was before the diesel engine was designed, and when it was first unveiled to the world, it ran on peanut oil. Mr. Diesel wanted to give farmers anywhere the ability to have an engine that would run on the local oil they could produce in their fields, like peanut or mustard seed or cotton seed or hemp. He was murdered and a few years later a modified engine and new fuel for it, the world's first diesel was marketed, forgetting Mr. Diesel's gift to the world of self sustainability in favour of greed. But hemp was commonplace in the fields and the fibre was woven into sturdy rope  and twine for the farm. Many a farmer held his trouser up with hemp twine! 

So, I have been thinking a little more about what to create from hemp twine too. I started with this simple DOG collar, but with a few more stitches, it could be a belt, a strap for a bag, a harness for horses...well, your imagination would only be the limit. And, it is cheap and easy to do right at home while you are basically doing nothing. 

The dog collar was done with thin hemp twine and a number 3.5 crochet hook. I chained 71 stitches and then single crocheted back in them. When I got to the end, I went around the first so I was not turning around, and I added two extra stitches for turning. So row two had 73 stitches. I went to the end and then around the end again, this time adding 4 extra stitches on the end for turning. The total number of rows was only 4. For a larger dog, you could do a wider collar and a longer collar. It can be fastened with a buckle or velcro or tied. I have not found the fastener I want to use yet, but I am thinking of one of those buckles that the fabric goes in and around and under and out, thereby holding itself snugly in. I just stitched the word DOG with some pink wool yarn I had beside me, but it could be embroidered with the name of the animals and a contact number in case of loss. A cat collar would be half the size and likely only 3 rows, possibly 2 if the cat was small. A bell could be stitched in as well. 

I can see the possibilities of hemp crochet being endless, only limited by imagination. Go on and give it a try and send me the pictures of what you  have created. Happy crocheting!

People often misinterpret Jenna's facial expressions for aggression, when in fact, she is smiling. Even the boiler man who came to fix the boiler in the other house, thought Jenna was showing her teeth and warning him before her attack. That is very far from what she actually is doing. Jenna loves people and she smiles, really really smiles. She has a big toothy grin with curled up lips and with her pink spotted nose, I think she looks adorable. She kind of curls herself half backwards too and almost wags her tail,but she was abused as a pup and is still very shy. She has come a very long way and will come to greet people, even men.It was a man wearing a hat that was the abuser of the female Maremma sisters, Jenna and Jade, because for the first 2 years, any man wearing a hat meant they ran as fast and far away with their tails between their legs, as they could go. Then they would stand and turn and bark. They were still hurt and angry and afraid. Jade was injured with a kick and had a broken hip as a baby so she is the least forgiving and friendly of the two. She will still not go to strangers. Jade does not have that gorgeous smile that her sister, Jenna does, though. 

Jade and Jenna are purebred Maremmas. They are small for their breed, Maremma, which is a livestock guardian dog from the Tuscany area originally. The breed is an alert one, the dogs being highly intelligent, independent thinkers. They are stubborn and do not like confinement or to be tied. They make fine companion dogs if they have plenty of space to roam. Harley is also a Maremma and he is quite happy to curl up on Robbie's bed in the winter and relax. Jade and Jenna work the entire farm as the sentinels and watch dogs. They seldom fight, but Jenna will go out with the boys to lend barking back up. Jade always stays in the yard unless we go out for a pack walk. She will come part of the way with us then, but return to her charges in the yard before the rest do. 

Jenna is a happy girl. Today she was very pleased to see me after work and wagged her tail so hard her little body did its curled in half from side to side thing, and, she smiled! Big Jenna smiles. !

The Fat Ewe Farm actually does not raise animals for meat, but meat is a by product of raising animals. I got the pot belly pigs when I had a Jersey cow because there should have been excess milk with which to feed them. The cow died as the result of some one not paying attention to what they were told. So they pigs remained and they are fed grain that I have to buy.

​The piglets are gone. Today a friend came with a gun and shot them in the heads and killed them at the farm. Their throats were immediately slit with a sharp knife to allow the blood to come out. They were skinned and gutted and hung for a few hours to relax the tissue and then they were cut up and wrapped and put in the freezer.I would have far preferred that they were sold to other farms, but in the winter, it seems no one wants to purchase animals because they require work. They also do not see pot belly pigs as livestock, but that is what they were bred for. It was a low input way that families with little land could still have fresh home raised meat that they could keep just on table scraps. 

I knew, when the piglets were born, it was not a good time to think about rehoming them as pets. Spring piglets are much more apt to find new farms. The pigs are smart little creatures, trainable and friendly by nature, even the boar. Wilbur likes to have his ears and back scratched. Clara, his wife is a little standoffish, but she will allow some pats on her head from time to time. The agenda for this summer is to build an area for the boars to separate them from the female piglets, the father, Wilbur as well. Pot bellies breed precociously early, so by 4 months, they are able to become pregnant and to sire piglets. They are still too small then to butcher, though, so they would need separate pens for the remainder of the time. I am thinking though, since I cannot sell the meat and it is not easy to rehome piglets, that I will only keep the sow and one daughter as pets or possibly none at all. I do not want to raise animals for meat. This morning tears were running down my cheeks. I thanked the little piggies for their lives and told them I was grateful for them, I loved them and said goodbye. The gunshots jarred me and the dogs, and we wanted to hide out in the house. And I do not enjoy cutting and wrapping the flesh of animals either.
 Goodbye little piggies. Goodbye. 

Whew! What a day! 

I started chores at 11 am this morning, first with the skid steer clearing away some of last night's 8 inches of new, damp snow. It is only -5, so the snow is heavy and slippery. I did not have enough diesel to do the long driveway, but will do that tomorrow. The sheep and goats needed new bales of hay. The hay net was frozen to the ground in the sheep pen and ripped almost a quarter along the side. I will have to fix that real soon. The technique is similar to hemming pants, I think and the company does provide some extra string for that purpose. I am thinking hay nets are not very good in this climate, especially not for small ruminants. They are a lot of trouble, the sheep trample them and the hay in them as they eat, and even tied up, there is a pile of crapped on hay inside the net that is frozen to the ground. Then the net has to emptied once it is free and put over a new bale and then tied again securely. The sheep will find a little hole and make it bigger and bigger so they can stick their heads in, then if one sheep has her head in, the rest want theirs in too.  So, the net needs to be tied tightly. 

I am trying a new way to do the net. I put the hay on the ground and the net over the top of it just to the ground, not around the underside to surround it. It might be easier to release if it is not sitting directly on the ground. So, the nets for the sheep were taken out, two of them, and one put back, plus two free smaller bales. The goats have stopped eating from their hay net because they do not like to walk in the snow and there is no path to it. So, they got half a bale of good hay and some green feed loose. The cows got green feed and they have  a hay net with wider spaces which they are learning to eat from. The rams are fine for another week. This all has to be done on the weekends now, because with work, I only have time to feed and water the animals in the morning and it is dark when I get home.

The pigs were moved back to their pen. I was supposed to catch the piglets and put them in the truck to take to be butchered tomorrow, but will have to try to do that in the morning. This is one task I might need help for, but I will try it alone first. The pigs make a lot of poop alongside the chicken pen, which they have determined to be their potty area. GROSS!. So they are locked in their pen now. Wilbur would not let Clara in the house, so I put straw in the other house and also tipped a bale for her. She chose the tipped bale and the piglets wanted to go to their mamma, so I let them in too. 

The hoop coops were caving in from the new snow load. The duck and goose house was right caved in and I had to get all the snow off and go inside and push the wire up as hard as I could then prop it up with a board. There were 4 other pens that needed snow cleaned off the roofs. There is a good 2 feet of heavy snow on top of them and it was a hard lot of work to get it off, but I did and all is well til the next snowfall. 

That crazy rooster and the hen that roosted in the pine tree now, finally go in the coop on their own. The other rooster died in the minus 41 we had when he flew somewhere and I could not find him. The other two were captured and again locked inside. Now they stay there. Dumb chickens!! The chicken coop and duck and goose coop got new hay sprinkled on the floor. Once a week I do that. The birds eat quite a bit, but it also is nice and clean for a couple of days before the dropping begin to build up again. It will be hard to liberate the big coop in the spring after it thaws with all that manure inside. If I had a bigger machine I would simply lift the coops straight up. Instead I roll them over and that works just fine too. 

I gave Mattie a shot of vitamins and stuff. She is anemic and is not responding to anything. I do not want to lose her and I have no idea how old she is, only that she is the grandmother of the other Nubian, so she has to be getting up there. I checked Daphne, who was anemic and she is looking so much better, but I gave her a booster shot anyhow. She usually has quads, so she needs to be really healthy. Everyone else seems to be doing great, despite the lesser quality of hay this year at triple the price of good quality last year. There will likely not be many twins born, but a healthy single will be just fine, too. 

I came in just after 6, after feeding the dogs dry dog food, which they do not like and hardly touch. It is day 3 with no meat though. I could not get any last week, due to a slow down at the butcher shop. I am roasting some meat for the dogs and will put the juices over rice and give that to them tonight. Hopefully on Monday I can get them meat again. Sofi and Robbie had some left over curried goat and some turkey, which is also what I had over rice with spinach. Delicious. Now, I have the evening to relax, crochet and knit and maybe make one batch of hemp soap. Life is perfect. I am pleasantly tired and feel wonderful. Sigh. It was a good, no, a great day. I hope yours was too!

I am first to admit that paperwork and I do not seem to know each other. There are times in my life when I was absolutely forced to handle a lot of paperwork and I did just fine, but my stress levels were way up and my enjoyment of life meter was way down. I hate it. 

Thus, I am not adept at keep records of the sheep and their offspring and registrations. I have a book and some papers that indicate who was born to whom and when and which ram was there to create that. But every time I need that information I have to go find it again. Last year, the lambs were all tagged because there simply got to be too many to keep tabs on. Some looked similar to others too, so just telling from appearance was getting tougher. It is law that the sheep are tagged if they leave the farm. A butcher shop is not allowed to accept animals without ear tags that are able to be read with a digital reader. I am not for that system. I think it is a big part of controlling food and I have said it before, "control food, control people". I did not tag the animals to comply with the law and if I could simply identify them with another system, I would. The government really has no business keeping tabs on small farmers. If I so much as go buy a bag of oyster shell now, I have to give my name and address for biosecurity purposes and have had to register for the government premise identification program as well, which I strongly do not agree with. Again, I do not feel the government has any right to pay attention to small farmers. We are not allowed to sell meat from the farm anyhow, another wonderful Alberta law, so it seems all so redundant. Biosecurity, harumph! Not a chance. 

But to register any animals, they also have to be radio frequency tagged and this year they need two tags. Two tags, oh my goodness. You see, one tag could be lost and then, heaven forbid, they would not know where the animals originated. That is a flawed system. There is nothing to prevent someone from purchasing and animal, removing the existing tags and replacing them with new ones, thereby screwing the entire tracking system. One is not supposed to do that, tsk tsk. So, now, I have to double tag any animals to register them. I do not like paperwork to begin with and there are now two numbers that must be reported on registration papers, not one. I would not register any animals but then of course, I could not sell them as purebred and crossbred sheep are much cheaper than registered ones, so there is the catch 22. Forced to double tag and forced to register. That part of farming I hate and want to quit every time a new law is thrown my way. I want to take my critters and go up where no one cares and just keep to myself and be a hermit. That is how much I hate that imposing governement legislation system. I cannot register or sell or even transport animals if I do not comply. Shiza! Doesn't that get your back up? Just a little?

Why do things have to happen this way? 

I saw Pippin when I did the morning chores and she was her usual curious and cute self. 

This evening when I went to water the pigs and check the critters, Pippin was nowhere to be seen. I found her lying down in the goat barn, feet in the air, a terrible sign. I ran to her and called her name but it was too late. I lost my little girl tonight. She had a distended belly and had the runs sometime during the day. The goats have been getting barley to supplement this year's poor quality of hay and she was used to it, so it could not have been that. The only explanation is that she ate too much of the donkey's and bird's grain, which has wheat in it, a feed that is considered dangerous for goats. I feed the donkey away from the goats, but there is a spot where she might have been able to squeeze her head through or may have to get the grain. I am so so very sad. 

Pippin was my bottle fed baby. She was my baby, a cute little Nygerian Dwarf and Angora kid.  For a while she went to live at another home but she came back to me and I have loved her always. Sure, sometimes she was a bit of a pain, as bottle babies can be, but now that she was mature, a beautiful if not stunning two year old doeling, she was perfect. She was bred and although I do not know it for sure, I think she was carrying twins. 

My heart is broken. Goodbye my dearest little one. I will truly miss you. 

I have mentioned before how difficult it is to get people here to listen to the need for change. I am trying a more subtle approach at the moment. I put a single small bar of soap in the women's washroom at work and left it there. I use it and I had noticed that others must be using it as well. On occasion, I meet another in the restroom as we wash our hands. I was told in no uncertain terms that the bar soap was dirty and there was no way the other lady would ever consider touching it even. She is incorrect there. I offered to bring in some literature that would show her the opposite is true and she said she didn't care. She wouldn't touch it. So much for subtle education, I thought. But I left the soap. Some one else was using it. 

Today a coworker asked me if the soap was mine. I told her it was but she was welcome to use it too. She then proceeded to tell me of the problems her little girl has and asked if the soap might help. I was glad to be asked and told her I thought I could help her little girl. I put together some samples for the child and for the family and will meet with the mother to look at the diet of the family too. I told her I am not a medical doctor and cannot give her medical advice but I can offer some solutions that I think could help. She was pleased. 

So, the little bar of soap may open one door, then two. And if the little child is helped, then the third door will open. My farmacy will be open for business and I, once again, will help people with their health as I did in my Green Lifestyle Store. What a pleasure to be of service and have the heart of a servant , especially when it is wanted and appreciated. I ask for little in return, only to cover my costs so I can continue doing what I love to do. And whodathunkit? One little bar of soap. Hmmm.