Kenny, this year;s March lamb
Cotswold sheep are an old English breed, primarily raised for meat as they have a thick build, but their wool is lustrous and long with loose curls. The wool is sometimes termed the poor man's mohair, because it is similar to mohair in its appearance and strength. The wool is spun as silk to give strength to short fibered fleece or to add durability to the elbows and heels of knitted garments and socks. The Cotswolds are relatively docile and friendly sheep and can be raised on grass only. Winter weather penetrates their fleece though and they do require a very adequate shelter to stay warm, and in rainy weather, the fleece does not protect them much at all since it parts down the back allowing the skin to get wet. Cotswolds are primarily white, but there is a gene for colour and if both the ram and ewe carry it, the lambs will be coloured. The Fat Ewe Farm has two Cotswold ewes, one positive DNA tested for colour and a ram lamb for sale. What a great start to a small hold farm to begin with a rare and old breed of sheep that are all purpose! Two ewe lambs, one ewe and the ram will remain on the farm. One of the ewe lambs is a little brown girl with two white specks that look like tears. She is very quiet and sweet. We are proud to have the Cotswolds as part of the the Fat Ewe Flock.
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Broody hen number 2 is not the best mother. She lost 5 of her 9 chicks shortly after hatching them. They would call her loudly, while she wandered off to eat in another area. So many times, I have shooed her back to them or shooed them over to her and she nonchalantly continues on her way doing what she was doing with no mind to the babies. Two of the little ones are quite good fliers already and two are not or are too shy to fly very high. The broody has taken to roosting in the tree, fairly high up and the little ones cannot get up there. They stand at the bottom and scream for her and she thinks she has her brood though she only has the two that can fly. The first few nights I got the broody hen out of the tree and she clucked all the way back to the place she had the nest and stayed there for the night. But last night she was not having it. She wanted to stay in the pine tree and that was that. So, I made a stairway to Heaven for the two remaining chicks, who happily scrambled up to the branch and then figured out a way to get to mother hen. The same thing happened again tonight because the little ones did not remember how to use the walkway. After some encouragement they made it up the tree to mamma and there they are snugged against her, despite the rainstorm on its way. I sure hope she manages to keep the 4 of them warm enough on that branch. Last year, I photographed at least 11 different mushrooms growing right here on the farm. I wish there was a mycologist who could come and identify them and tell me if any are edible. Today's mushrooms are in the front yard of the bed and breakfast, right under an elm tree. They smell just like white button mushrooms, but do not look anything like some I have seen that might be edible. Over by the driveway entrance, there is another type with an orange spotted cap, also delicious looking. These ones under the elm tree are very dark brown as they age, are motley looking, but when they emerge and as they grow, they are very interesting, wouldn't you say? I am grateful for the customers who have shared the bed and breakfast home with me. I do not actually live in that house, but have sat down with most of the guests at their request and told them my story. They are fascinating people from all over the place with the most distant being from France, just last week. Tonight's guests are a retired couple traveling with her mother who is a spry 82. She looks years younger and is sharp and attractive. I should be so fortunate when I am that age. Her secret is walking, lots of walking. Note to self...must walk when I am retired. Next week, there are 5 coming for 10 days all the way from the Yukon. They will be here on business and have asked for all meals including bagged lunches, plus baking to take with them for coffee time. This should be fun! I am hoping that winter will remain steady and the house will be well loved. This project is much to be thankful for and I am. Little Duck is the last of three. It is rare for a Khaki Campbell to sit and hatch eggs, butt his one did and had three beautiful babies. One drowned in an inch of water the day it was hatched. The second disappeared and this one seems to have suddenly dysfunctional legs. It cannot move, except in water. It does paddle itself around a little, but I do not leave it unattended for longer than a few minutes because young ducks fatigue easily and if they cannot get out of the water they drown and die. I suspect the Maremma puppies were bored one morning and ate the other baby and somehow injured this one. I do no know what his prognosis will be since he cannot move on the ground. I have been giving him food and water several times a day and repositioning him, but he does not make any effort to move on his own. His mom, ever faithful, has not left his side and squawks frantically when I approach him to keep me away. If he does not manage to become mobile his fate will not be good. Poor little ducky. There are two Alpacas at the Fat Ewe Farm, Dwayne and Ethel, named after my cousins. Although Dwayne is technically in tact, he is not a breeder due to some details that make him not interested, so he lives in harmony with his sister, Ethel. The alpacas are timid, shy and slow compared to the primitive sheep. They can run fast, but they have no idea where to go or why they are running most of the time. They do not follow the flock of sheep that they have lived with the past two years, but wonder where they went when they detour and take a wrong turn themselves. I guess you could say that these two alpacas are not the brightest tacks in the box, but there is room on the farm for the great and the small. Dwayne and Ethel were acquired for their fleece, which is pure white and quite lovely. The shearer did not do them when he did the sheep and although he did come back, I was not 100% ready. The misunderstanding was mine. The shearer had indicated to me that his son would be with them as he works with his wife and that his son was young and fast and could easily catch and round up animals. I took that to mean that he would help me catch the alpacas and llamas, since I am here by myself the majority of the time. Anyhow, they did not get sheared. I have noticed that their fiber is parting and appears to be coming away from the new growth, so looked up rooing alpacas. Rooing is a process where the old fleece can be combed with the fingers to release it from the new growth, thereby shearing without shears. I did that last year to Crystal, the beautiful Icelandic sheep and the wool was lovely. She was not left naked either, so rooing could happen later in the year without worry that the fleece would not grow in enough to provide winter warmth. The problem on the farm with the fiber animals is keeping the animal clean. Sheep are bad because they pull the hay down on themselves and the other sheep who are smaller while eating. The alpacas are worse though. They roll in dirt and debris quite frequently and are never clean. In the picture Dwayne is sitting in the mud. Gee! Ethel is covered with hay too, but the parting of their fiber is visible and they appear ready to be rooed. I will have to catch them, tie them up and try it. In the meantime, I wish they would try to stay a little cleaner at least. The bed and breakfast has been quite busy, leaving little time to do jobs other than the daily chores and tend to the B & B. The fence along the north side of the driveway was started several weeks ago, but nothing more was done. The drill quit working or a little would have been done every day. Today, two really fine drills were borrowed from the contractor, who just happened to come by to show his nephew the porch project. So, Travis and I worked on the fence and got it completed on the driveway side, with the exception of the gates. We also, earlier, took the car and truck to the car wash to power wash them with hot water and soap. Travis took off the canopy to better access cleaning the box and will put it on tomorrow before he leaves for camp again. The smart car got new seat covers and floor mats, pink and black, to match the car, and a super great vacuuming job. The dust was removed, but the car still needs to be washed inside and the bugs scrubbed of outside. Two wash jobs and still the front is covered with smacked bug juice - yuk! In addition to the driveway fence, which will keep the birds off the bed and breakfast lawn and deck, the fence around the farmhouse will be the next project to keep the animals off the new porch and deck there too. Then, one of my favourite parts of the day winds up the evening, the bath in the antique claw foot tub. Tonight a little hemp soap was added for bubbles and ambiance. That hemp soap is the most amazing, gentle, nourishing soap I have made so far and I use it for everything from washing dishes to bubbles in the tub. Zzzz, good night all. The farmhouse has a dirt floor in the basement. It is an ideal place for a root cellar, cold, but not freezing and dark with limited light. One corner against the north side would be perfect for a root cellar, but on occasion, a mouse tunnels its way under the concrete walls and into the basement. That is a 7 foot dig for the little varmint! So, the root cellar has to be a place where the mice do not have access to the food stored within. Mice can squeeze through or chew through almost anything though, so a wooden box, although ideal for storing root crops if it is filled with sand, is also accessible to the mice. Today, I was pondering the problem and came up with a perfect solution - hardware cloth. It is not really cloth, but wire that has a small spacing, from a half inch to quarter inch or so, depending on which is purchased. The quarter inch would be perfect! So, I plan to make a few very large boxes with hinged tops out of hardware cloth and therein store the pumpkins, turnips, potatoes, etc. from the garden and next year, when the garden produce is ready to be taken inside, it will have a safe haven. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. The only thing is, food touching the sides of the hardware cloth could be chewed, so perhaps the wire should still be lined with wood. I will think about this just a little more before constructing something for next year. The root cellar can house glass jars and stainless canisters, plus the hardware cloth enclosed boxes full of produce. Yay! I cannot wait. I wish there was a way I could have taken a video. It would have surely made funniest show out there. I had to pick Ofcharka up in the smart car, the pink smart car. He was loaded into the back, where he fit just fine, but he was frightened and came immediately to the front when I got in. As a matter of fact, he tried to sit on my lap. There is this 120 pound big black dog in the smart car and the people at the traffic light cannot stop laughing. It was not so funny from my side. Ofcharka stunk. He obviously had been rolling in something that reeked. He turned on the wipers, then knocked the car out of gear. Then he put his back foot on the gas pedal. OK, I stopped the car and tied him to the passenger side. Big deal. His head was over there and the rest of him was over here, sitting on my foot on the gas pedal, and he was not budging, no matter how hard I shoved. I opened the widow wide hoping he would be distracted, but he did not move. So, we rode home with Ofcharka, stinky, smelly Ofcharka who had just cost me 400 dollars because he got porcupine quills in his nose and would not let me take them out, sitting his big butt on my foot. I kept my hand on the gear shift in case he knocked it out of gear again and by the time we got home, my hand and foot were numb. Ofcharka seemed to smell his land when we turned in the driveway and perked up. I undid the leash and he let himself out, wagging that big tail, happy to be back home. I was just thankful he was out of the car and we were safe. Whew! |
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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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