The kittens are getting old enough to climb out of Ofcharka's dog house. Their curiosity led them outside today, though they were not at all comfortable once they got there. Mamma cat was calling to them. She has turned out to be a good mother so far. Now the hard part comes. The dogs, especially the puppies, may try to play with the kittens and hurt them inadvertently. Ofcharka has been known to carry kittens simply out of curiosity, but once they make too much noise, he lets them go. So far, I have kept them protected, but once they start going out on their own, it is difficult to keep them out of harm's way. There are 3 boys and 2 girls, once being a mostly white calico cat...very pretty. We may keep the girls if they fit in with the rest of the critters and can hold their own, but the males will have to be rehomed for sure to prevent inbred cats. In two more weeks they will be able to find new homes. Today they were offered solid food, but there were no takers, so the food was put in the dog house, which is very large. Over the next few days, the kittens will likely learn to eat and drink water, an important step to independence. Welcome to the Fat Ewe Farm little ones!
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My good friend Blanche is going to help me with the chores today. I have outfitted her in a pair of my pink coveralls, the ones I wear as my signature around the farm, with a hat and gloves and we are going to move the electric fence for the sheep. I admire her for this, especially since she is not an animal person and does not even like to pet or hold animals. She tolerates them, but would appreciate a quiet life with out them more. She is standing in my kitchen, barefoot, socks in hand and we are going out to work. After moving the fence we will go to town to try to find two hinges for the cupboard she built and we put up yesterday. Unfortunately, the hinges did not function properly. Farmer Blanche is going to St. Paul tomorrow and will return again next Tuesday with me after the Farmers' Market at the Liquidation World Mall, then stay for a few more days before returning home to White Rock. That is where I am from and had lived for almost 50 years prior to coming out to Elk Point and opening the bed and breakfast and rare breeds permaculture farm. Thank you Farmer Blanche. I am grateful for both your assistance and your friendship. There is one mother left to kid. Quite a few of the kids were sold as bottle babies and a few went with their mothers to new homes. The last doe will be sold too, with her babies or without. Lots of people seem to be interested in the kids this year, however; many do not want to come to the farm to pick them up. This little fellow is the last of the quads. His little sister, who was so tiny, did not make it and the two big brothers were sold as pets, leaving just this little boy with his mamma. She is a great mother and is half Nigerian Dwarf, so has tons of milk. If he is sold, I may try to milk her and see if she will cooperate. The other doe for sale is the French Alpine, Sarah, and her female baby who is half Pygmy/Nygerian and half French Alpine. That will be it for the kids this year. We will be keeping one female only, Daria, Daphne's little girl. The kids are so much fun to watch. They love to run and jump on their moms and on each other or any obstacle in their paths. Early evening is play time for them. The kidding season is always the one most looked forward to, even though the lambs are almost as cute. They are not quite as silly as the kids though. Aren't they adorable?
Blanche, my very good friend of 30 years.
My good friend from White Rock, is here to visit. She has been here before many times and always, I look forward to seeing her. There is something about long term friends that is most wonderful. I met my friend in a nursery of a church. My marriage was crumbling, and I had three babies under three. I went to the nursery to feed my child and this woman was also there feeding her son. I told her how my life was in shambles and I wished to have a friend. She said she would be my friend and we have never looked back. Her life and mine were very different and she is very different than I am, but through thick and thin, we have loved each other, supported one another and always, always been there when we were needed, no matter what or when. When my brother was killed in a house fire and I was incoherent and unable to break the news to my mother, my friend and her husband came with me to share the terrible news. We have laughed and cried and spent time in silence, just knowing we were together, though neither had to speak. This is true friendship and this has endured for many years, almost 30 now. Our lives have not been easy and our children have presented trials, but we have stuck together. Now I have chosen to move to Alberta, while she remains in White Rock, yet she has been here 4 times to visit in two years. I am eternally grateful for her and for our wonderful and blessed friendship. Life is wonderful and gives much promise, like the young baby ducks hatched two days ago. Today they are out and about to see the world and my friend is here to explore my world once again. I am blessed to have a friend, really I am.
Mouse droppings from the ceiling in the porch...gross! Fortunately, the mice were controlled 2 years ago, but previously, due to the construction of the porch, they had free reign inside and out. Now it will all be cleaned and rebuilt.
A dream starts with an idea, maybe just a passing thought, then as the mind shapes and forms the idea, the dream grows. Making dreams reality is sometimes not very easy, as in the case of the bed and breakfast. Unfortunately the previous owners left a very big mess for the new owner to clean up. Most of the hard work is done. Last week, both the farm house and the bed and breakfast were roofed. The patio, built poorly with incorrect materials for the applications, is also torn up and the porch of the farm house is torn off. The lawn is torn up and the garden reshaped. Progress is being made slowly. Maintenance is required on new and old properties and home owners without knowledge of construction, should either learn first before they create havoc for the future or do not touch. None the less, the Fat Ewe Farm Bed and Breakfast will soon be repaired, re roofed, re patiod, and almost all things that could go wrong have been repaired. Now it time to create beauty outside, to plant roses and flowers and quick growing vegetables and herbs. The porch was built with poor wood over sand, but the door to the basement was sort of closed in, though not fully. This left an open door way for the mice to travel inside the house and out. The holes, nooks and crannies were all patched until the mice were no longer present inside. It is hard to believe the porch constructors never completely filled in the stairwell, which is why the floor bounced when it was walked on. Things are not turn key here, but slowly since 2011, they are being made right. It might be possible to once more utilize the basement stairs to outside, or inside the porch, once it is rebuilt. That would be very convenient since the only way down currently is through the trap door. In the next few days, if the rain stops, the plan will be formulated and executed. In the meantime, the lovely bed and breakfast house is being frequented by wonderful guests. Their stay often creates instant friendships and camaraderie with hugs on their departure. How wonderful to be able to meet folks from all walks of life and various places with a plethora of world experiences, right here at the farm! This part is immensely enjoyable and very rewarding. Tomorrow's breakfast will be vegetarian and gluten free, something that is easily created in the kitchen. Watch for photos of the improvements as they happen. In the meantime, come set a while and put up your feet, relax. Raven is a twin Pygmy goat born to a mother who was not well for almost a year. The mother, Weezie, had a skin condition which resembled psoriasis in humans with scaling scabby skin which resulted in hair loss over the entire lower part of her body, including her abdomen and legs. Poor Weezie. I treated her with many remedies and nothing seemed to work. The vet finally suggested that I put her down. That is when I dug my heels in and concocted a garlic oil and copper spray that has cured her. Along with injections of New Cell, a vitamin and iron complex to help build her blood again, she is finally really on the road to recovery. However, that did not come in time for her little ones. She gave birth to twins when she was still very anemic and struggling. The girl was the bigger and healthier one and Raven, the little buckling, was weak and feeble. He responded a little to the injections, but more so to the love and compassion shown to him by my 29 year old son, who named him and claimed him. When Travis picks Raven up, he settles quietly into his arms and relaxes completely. The love Travis has for the little goat is very evident and he says it is his love that is helping him. I believe it! Raven is very slowly improving, but is still the tiniest little fellow. He sure is adorable though.
Mike and Joe are Maremma livestock guardian dogs with a tiny bit of Pyrenees. They will be large dogs, judging by their weight and paw size. Only 8 weeks old now, they have lived at The Fat Ewe Farm for three weeks because their mother was tragically killed by a car. The puppies were able to eat and drink on their own, so they came home with me a little earlier than anticipated. For their first two weeks, they lived in a special pen behind the house, then they were moved in with the lambs. As they grow, the lambs will move in with the ewes once they are weaned and self sustaining and the ewes have dried up their milk. Hopefully, the puppies will be strong enough and smart enough to avoid the aggressive ewes protecting their lambs, since ewes and lambs can recognize each other for two years or longer. The pups will have a sanctuary pen in the event they need to escape from a rough ewe. In the meantime, they certainly have a lease on cuteness!
Sarah is a French Alpine goat and considers herself a person, not a goat. She wants to be out with the people, but she will bust through almost anything to get to grain. She has little regard for humans being different than her because she was raised by children who allowed her to climb and jump all over them. That was cute when she was tiny, but a full sized goat jumping on a child or even an adult is not comfortable. But, Sarah is a mother now. She had one daughter. Compared to the Pygmy goats, she hardly looked pregnant. The Pygmies already have a short stocky body with enormous stomachs full all the time if they are healthy, which gives an illusion of being pregnant, so when they actually are pregnant, they are huge. Sarah was hardly what one would call huge, only a little big. She cried out when she birthed her little girl and has been a good mother, though she will leave her baby behind if she thinks there is food available. Sarah is yet to be milked, but her purpose on the farm was to provide goat's milk. I plan to take her kid away at night and milk her in the morning for a while. I will try my hand at making some goat's milk cheese and goat's milk soap, but I won't milk Sarah into the winter. There is no heated barn and it will be cold out. I am not really too excited about milking in the frozen north. In the meantime, Sarah is being Sarah. Some think she is perfect just as she is. Hmmm. The old farmhouse was built in the 1920's. Houses were good in those days, built with real lumber and a hammer and nails. The wood was fit tightly, often grooved. When the roof was replaced 2 days ago, the old cedar tongue and groove boards below the shakes, was in prime condition. Although there is no insulation in the walls, they too are that same tongue and groove board construction and the walls are still quite solid. It was later, when the owners did not really know how to do things and did them anyhow, that they screwed up big time. The porch was added later, maybe thirty years ago. There was no proper connection between the roof on the house and the porch, which was a lean to in construction style. The roof absorbed water and leaked down the wall and into the windows, which for some unknown reason, were siliconed shut. The porch was built over the old stair well. At one time there was a direct outdoor stair case leading to the yard. The first home owner told me as a boy he used to carry the wood into the basement through that entrance. The next owner, in his wisdom, thought he would dig a root cellar where the old stairwell was, under the porch, which was built, and was amazingly surprised when it caved in. OMG! Anyhow, the porch has no foundation. It was simply constructed on the dirt and guess what? It rotted. Surprise! Some people should not ever be allowed to touch things they do not know how to do. So, when I removed the soil that had been pushed up against the porch walls, most likely to stop the cold, the wood sort of fell away with the dirt. Robbie availed himself of the situation and dug a little hole to get into the shade and coolness and out of the rain. But, the porch has to go. The roofers stopped at the improper joint and tomorrow we begin to tear it apart. Then on Saturday, there is supposed to be a construction crew coming to build it properly, along with a little deck. This will be so much better and cleaner. The old house deserves to have a properly constructed porch that compliments its style and so it will have. Stay tuned.
I tore up the patio interlocking brick with the skid steer and leveled it as well as I could in the small space.
The patio on the ground floor was a mess. The ants had invaded the space bringing up the sand continuously. The first few blocks I removed had ant eggs under them. Because of the high sand content on the entire farm, we are always over run with ants. Fortunately the chickens are excellent foragers and keep the general population somewhat under control in the farmyard, but they could not manage to get under the bricks. I dumped the bricks and sand in small piles off to the side of the yard and will later go through the piles and remove the bricks to use elsewhere. A wee accident...ooops. The tooth of the bucket caught on the tin and lifted it rather crumbling it in the lift. I suppose this is the opportunity to install diatomaceous earth in the space that is exposed, a space where the ants bring the sand into the house in small cracks around the door. I caught the bucket tooth on the tin and made quite a mess. I will have to replace that piece for sure. The exposure will also afford an opportunity to do something more to keep the ants at bay.They were eating the rotting timbers surrounding the patio and by getting rid of those too, their food source will be diminished. Perhaps they will move on. My son, Travis, who is staying here until he gets a job in Alberta, has concrete work experience and is planning to do the patio. This will certainly clean up that area and the problem of the ants bringing up sand through the cracks should be eliminated completely. The fence along the driveway should be going in this weekend, finally , after 2 years, and the animals will no longer have any access to this area, so the roses and flowers can be planted in their new homes. The cat, Jane, was checking out the work to be sure it met with her approval. I suppose it does not quite yet. The sheep left a calling card though, as she noted with a turned up nose. She said it was baa a d. |
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AuthorFluffy writes daily about the experiences on the farm and with the bed and breakfast patrons. Archives
October 2020
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