Little Red, an Icelandic/Shetland/Barbados cross miniature sheep, had a baby today. It is a boy and the cutest little tiny thing, maybe not quite 5 pounds. I am not sure she is done having babies, but I think so. She did not lose her placenta when I finally went in for the night, so anything could still happen. She is a new mother, over protective and not quite sure. The baby was trying to nurse and she kept stepping away from him. 

He is a Southdown Babydoll sired cross and the cutest little teddy bear since the Jacob Babydoll ewe lamb ram was born. They do look a little alike and one thing for sure, they will have beautiful fleece. Babydolls can and often do have fleece as soft as cashmere and Shetlands and Icelandics have lovely fleece too. The little ram has the same colouring as the baby ewe born to the Jacob, sired by Friar, a purebred Southdown Babydoll. The Fat Ewe Farm is privileged to have these hardy little beauties. They will be sold as pet sheep, but their fleece will be valuable to a hand spinner too. Welcome baby boy!

Mamma goose hatched her babies! Last year and this year she was a champion and sat on a nest full of her eggs, hatching 5 last year and 9 this year. There are still three eggs to go, so tomorrow will tell if they are viable or not. She has not thrown them out of the nest yet and has returned to it. The mother goose listens for signs of life, pecking and peeping inside the shell and knows if the egg is good or not. The gander and the other geese were very protective of the newly hatched brood and the whole flock, or gaggle, will watch the babies and guard them with their lives. The little ones were outside with mamma goose today, but they could not get back into the barrel nest so I put them in one by one and only suffered one bite from mamma goose doing so. It was well worth it though. 

Mamma turkey also hatched 5 poults and one chick about 5 days before her own babies. A chicken laid an egg in her nest and she did not abandon the nest, but stayed to hatch the rest. Two eggs did not hatch, and she too has returned to the nest to see if they will be good or not. Two baby turkeys died today though, one getting stuck and cold and the other simply expired due to failure to thrive. The rest are robust and healthy, but it is always difficult for the mothers to keep the babies alive with the dogs, cats and ravens about. There are not enough shelters for all the newly hatched birds and if forced to live together, one goose may kill the other babies. It is best to let nature take its course some times. 

Mamma turkeys, geese and chickens are awesome.Thank you mammas!

Usually not much gets to me. I can be pushed far beyond the limits of most people without much of a reaction, except to look where it is coming from. Since I have been in Alberta though, it seems that I am a target for the taking. Right from the purchase of the farm, where the owners downright lied about most things, to the rebuilding of the porch last fall, I have been pushed and taken advantage of to no end. 

But when some one you consider a friend extends that as well, well, it get me upset. I think if I was a different person, my time would be a little more valuable to others. I am debating what to do. Left without hay or fencing is a real dilemma. A person has been kind enough to sell me a bale of hay so the sheep don't starve, but the point is, that did not have to happen if other things had fallen into place. Yes, we all have issues and things come up in life that might prevent us from doing exactly what we say, but most try pretty darn hard to not disappoint people who are paying them. 

I am tired of feeding hay. It has been 8 months of forking the hay over, cleaning the feeders and doing it all again the next day. June will mark the 9th month. The sad thing, is there is a lot of good green grass in the pasture this year with the rains and warm last few weeks and the sheep and goats would sure like to be out there too. 

So, today, I am wallowing in self pity for being a little too easy. My own fault, it is, I know and I am the only one who can change that. I know that too. Still, it is one of those days.

The ducklings and goslings love water of course, so much so, that they constantly were getting the chicks wet, which is not good for the fairer feathered friends. So, it was time to take them outside where they could splash and play to their heart's content. They do not require heat as long as chicks, but they still have a heat lamp box set on low in case they feel chilled. Most of the time, they are huddled together outside in a group or two and only at night, when the temperature drops too low, do they go into their heat box. The box is just a few pieces of old plywood, one with a hole in it for the heat lamp cord to go through and the others propped up by rocks and also jammed into the earth and the wire to hold them more or less erect. The ducklings and goslings will not put any pressure on these boards and they are really quite safe. I picked some fresh green grass for them which they demolished, so they are ready to eat grass too, in addition to their starter food. They got mud in their brooder before moving outside, but now they make their own with the dirt on the ground. Tonight I gave them some fresh hay too, some of which they ate, but they loved to nestle into it and they did. Ducks and geese are much hardier than the hardiest of chicks and so cute to watch. I love them!

Miss Piggy isn't  a pig, she's a sheep, a yearling Cotswold and E'st a Laine Merino cross. She was a single lamb and weighed about 10 pounds when she was born, too large for the mamma sheep to birth on her own - so I pulled her. She has grown bigger than the other sheep, even the other two Cotswold/E'st a Laine Merino cross ewe lambs (but they were twins) because she is a greedy sheep. She has to be first to the food, climb on top to feed, even if it means on top of the other sheep or on top of the hay and she is always looking for the tastiest tidbits running from feeder to feeder in case there is something better in the next. 

Miss Piggy has lovely fleece and is robust and healthy on a grass based diet. But she is greedy. Greedy sheep are often those who die from bloat. This happens because they find tasty morsels and eat and eat and eat until they are stuffed, sometimes a food too rich for the rumen, which cannot digest rich food at that rate. Then the rumen produces gas that the sheep cannot expel in either direction and literally they blow up like a balloon. I sure hope that does not happen to Miss Piggy. It did happen to her mother though, who was also a greedy sheep. She succumbed when she found a pocket of alfalfa in the hay and ate the whole thing. I found her the next morning as big as a blow up doll, feet stuck out in all directions. It must be a horrible way to die, not that there is a good way, but the pain must be terrible. 

Anyhow, I cannot make my mind up to keep or sell Miss Piggy. The sheep will have to be divided for feeding from winter on with the small ones separate from the big ones. Miss Piggy hogs the feeder and pushes the little ones out, so they remain somewhat hungry. It will be better for them to be fed separately so they do not have to compete. 

Today Miss Piggy, true her name, smelled grain in the bucket and though it was empty, stuck her head in and got stuck inside. She was hilarious while I fumbled with the camera, bouncing off the fence and into the other sheep who were curious as to what on earth she was doing. Ha ha Miss Piggy. You funny girl!

Okay, I am done with hatching and selling baby birds. Why? I live on a farm and am a farmer. Here people do not value that lifestyle and many have stopped farming themselves. Although there is plenty of money in the area, and the costs for raising animals are sky high, folks still want to pay 1940's prices for farm raised animals. And they want them delivered. 

I sell eggs, or try to, to offset the cost of raising the birds. But, people only want to pay $2 per dozen eggs from the farm and they want them delivered too. As a matter of point, I recently advertised eggs FOR FREE and no one came, but two people asked if I could deliver them. Oy!

The chicks are mixed barnyard chicks from White Chantecler, Partridge Chantecler and Ameraucanas primarily with a few odd singles and bantams thrown in. I state that, yet people ask if they can get just Ameraucanas. I kindly explain they are barnyard mixed, running together and there is no guarantee which rooster was with which hen. Still they ask if I could try to choose just Ameraucanas. I can't.  They want to buy mature birds for $5 dollars, the price of a chick and they want to buy a chick for $2. The electricity to hatch the chicks and keep the heat lamps on ends up costing more than what $2 can cover. True Ameraucanas are $12 dollars a chick, not $5 and $25 or more for an adult bird. Also,  the people do not show up when they say they will and are upset when they finally decide to show up, that there are no chicks left, even though my ad clearly  says that a  deposit is required to hold the chicks. 

The same story goes for the ducklings. They only want this breed or that breed and the explanation goes forth that they are all running together and no particular breed can be selected. Oy! And those who wanted ducklings have still not shown up for them, even though they were hatched two weeks ago. The Fat Ewe Farm is not a boarding facility either. 

The eggs that the birds lay daily are wasted. Some are cooked and fed to the animals, but there are three dozen or slightly more every day. I refuse to sell them for $2 a dozen. I tried to give them away instead and still no luck. The eggs are 'clean' in that they are not fed wheat and the feed they get in addition to being able to feed themselves by foraging anywhere they wish to go, does not matter much to people around here either. The idea of 

So, the only answer to the problem is to have a few chickens, just enough to supply the needs of the farm and a few ducks and geese as well. At the end of the season, I will select about 15 chickens for keeping and sell the rest if they sell at all, and if they do not, they will be sent to the processors for chicken soup. The ducks and geese too will suffer that fate if not sold. I will keep only 5 geese, 3 hens and 2 ganders, 2 roosters and 15 hens and about a dozen ducks. As much as I do enjoy the birds now, it does not make sense to keep them under these circumstances. 

Bye bye birdies!

The other day I got on the skid steer and roughed up the garden area, brought some year old manure in and covered that with a little topsoil, which is precious around here because this is all sand, and today I raked that fairly level ready to plant. I would have planted too, but first I have to attach slats to the 4 foot posts to make it 7 feet high so I can zip tie the deer netting in place to keep the chickens out. They fly readily over the fence or go through the fence into the goat pen and through the garden fence. 

It rained really hard for the latter part of the day, right as I was finishing the chores, but I had not yet fed the dogs, so I still got soaked. I have to retrieve left overs and police the feedings so the ducks do not demolish the dog food. Yes, the ducks. 
They love dog food or rabbit food or anything with corn in it, like ruminants love grain. They stick their bills through the wire to get at the rabbit food in the pens so I have to be sure the food is far enough away that they cannot reach it. 

If it is raining tomorrow I will drive out to my friend's nursery to pick out some fruit trees too and then be busy planting for a few days, both flowers and vegetables and the few trees I can afford this year. Fruit trees here run up to a hundred dollars for what costs fifty in Vancouver (my home of 50 years), but bedding plants are triple or four times as much. Tomorrow, hopefully there will be some photos of the gardens in progress. Sleep well dear friends. 

The thing I absolutely love the most about owning a bed and breakfast is the amazing people that cross my path. Amber is a young lady from Rocky Mountain House area, where she works in security with her father's company. Amber's main man is working here however; and she has come to visit with him on three occasions so far and graced me with her company. I do not get to see as much of her beau, since he is up early and gone to work before Amber and I have breakfast. 
Amber is a thoughtful, sweet young lady of eighteen. Thoughtful, I mean, in the way that she brought a lovely, lively bouquet of flowers for me on this last visit. How very, very endearing! Having recently returned from a trip to Hamilton, Ontario, to meet her boyfriend's family, she had interesting tidbits to share with me about the excursion. 
I really do appreciate the chance to get to know Amber, for she is a wonderful young woman. That is the joy of the bed and breakfast, my path crossing with those travellers who come to pass through my doors and share my table. It is my pleasure to serve them and to be of service to them in all ways that are good. And I simply adore Amber! She is a sweetheart!

I worked on the skid steer today. It is a real help around the farm, small enough to get into areas and do a little digging, and powerful enough to move a large bale of hay, which weighs close to 2000 pounds. I wish it had a bigger bucket though, because there is a ton of wasted hay from the sheep and goats this year that needs to be cleaned out of the pens. I have almost finished the adult ewe sheep pen, and only moved a little around in the goat pen and ram pen. The goats were put into another section with the gate closed so there were safe. But the aim of using the skid steer today was to ready the garden for planting. There are three garden areas, one behind my little farmhouse for short term crops, like lettuce, peas, and spinach, and the other for root crops and longer season vegetables. I have started the potatoes under a towel on the kitchen floor and they are wildly sprouting, just begging to be planted. I had poor luck with potatoes before. It will take a few years to improve the soil here, as it appears no vegetative matter was used. I suspect the folks previous to me also used herbicides because there were no dandelions or weeds in the lawn. It does take years to bread down in the soil. 

The little plot behind the house is ready, now called the Farmhouse Garden and the large berm garden is almost ready. There is grass growing thickly in everything. I guess with the grass fields surrounding the houses, it does make sense that the seeds would come on the wind and root everywhere. Now, if only the planted seeds do as well. 

One dilemma is how to keep the dogs out. The Farmhouse garden is fenced, though the chickens go through the fence and the bantams just  fly over, so netting needs to be established. First I will get some bamboo poles and attach them to the fence posts then put the 7 foot high netting up and attach it with zip ties. For the Old Garden, I will stick the bamboo poles in the ground and attach the netting. No one around here sells bamboo poles. If I was more patient, I would go collect willow poles and I may still do that, but a quick drive to the Wal Mart at Cold Lake should help and I will also pick up some baskets there, since they are the least expensive. I did get two baskets with black petunias, my favourite this year, at Sobeys, which is an IGA store. 

Once the netting fence is in place, hopefully tomorrow, the planting can begin. The seeds were ordered from an Alaskan seed grower and are no more than 90 day crops, most being heirloom varieties. I got some Medalta crocks the other day and the plan for them is fermented pickles: carrots, cauliflower, cucumber and radish. The carrot crop was terrible in the hard soil last year. Some amends have been made, so it hopefully will improve the crop. I love gardening. It is just finding the time to do so along with all the other projects on the farm, like painting the out buildings and lawn furniture, to name just one. But that is what a busy life looks like, the life I so chose and enjoy very much. Won't you join me?

Moira and Winston were given to the farm, along with two male alpacas, by a neighbour. He and his wife had purchased two little goats from me two years before, but the animals were interfering with their lifestyle, so all had to go. I graciously accepted the group, but should not have taken the alpacas for sure. They fight all the time and cannot be kept with any other animals because they attempt to breed them constantly. 
The sheep, on the other hand, are lovely. They are Suffolk and were originally from another neighbour. She said they are around 5 years old and the ewe had never been bred. She did not think she was still fertile after all these years, but the former breeder was wrong. Moira was bred by Eric, the Icelandic ram and produced two beautiful babies this morning, a little boy and a tiny girl. The ram lamb has the colouring of an Icelandic and the ewe lamb is in between, but they both have short tails, like Icelandic sheep, though the male's is a little longer than the females. Moira is an exceptional mother so far, protective but not crazy like some of the moms, and she had her babies cleaned and up and nursing in no time at all. 
Moira and her lambs, and Winston, the wether that accompanied her, are for sale now. They would make excellent beginner sheep due to their friendly natures and easy going temperaments. Winston was a bottle baby originally name Wattles. Winston is much more dignified, so that is the name he goes by now. Suffolk sheep do live long productive lives. 
Thank you for your babies, Moira. You and they are beautiful!