We have finally finished our fencing project and have pasture for our sheep!

We have had pasture-envy for these past nearly 4 years, since we moved from NY to NH. Every time we pass an open and unused green field we try not to drool, and we wonder why no one is using it for anything (like sheep!). When we came here, we knew it was going to be work. There were no properties in this area that were of suitable size and ready for grazing animals. All properties of 10 acres or more (our minimum requirement) were wooded, OR were so far out of our price range as to be ridiculous. Yes, if we'd won the lottery we could have purchased a turn-key situation with barn and outbuildings and pastures and a nice house, but that will run you half a million around here, at least. So, we settled on a property of just under 12 acres, mostly wooded, with a house that needed lots of work, and no barn. That was in late 2007, with our final move in the spring of 2008. There was enough open room to put in a large paddock and have a little grazing area for occasional "salad bar" grazing, but hay has been the staple, and we use hoophouses for shelter - no barn available. We were blessed to have someone who let us borrow their pasture for the summers, and we did use that when we could, gratefully.

We finally got it logged in 2009, which cleared out the big timber, but left a huge mess. We were starting to clean it up in spring of 2010 when Ken threw out his back and that effectively stalled the project for several months. Eventually he recovered and by fall we started clearing fenceline and putting in posts, until the ground froze.

A long cold spring delayed the snow melt and the ground thaw, but finally we got back to work on it this spring, and yesterday we opened the paddock where it joined the new runway/alleyway/"on-ramp" to the pasture, and led the sheep through. I think we had about 8 bales of hay left, so it was just in time. A lot of native grasses and forbs have come up without any help from us, now that the sun can get through to the ground, and there is also ton of browse for them. We did seed some as well, but will need to do more liming and seeding in the future.

It's maybe about 4 acres - hard to estimate given the irregular shape. I know that would seem really small to some people. Many folks have single pastures that are bigger than our entire property, but it's a really big deal for us, and it's plenty big enough for the number of sheep we have or will ever have. It still needs a LOT of work. The sheep will help with some of that - keeping the shrubby bits and tree sprouts under control - but there's still a lot of slash to pick up and tops of trees left behind that need to be cut up for firewood. But this whole place is a continuous project/work-in-progress. Maybe by the time we get too old to deal with it anymore it will be one of those places worth half a million. One can hope. ;-)

Anyway, on March 30 in the evening I noted that Penny was closer to lambing, but when I went out for a last check at 12:30am, nothing seemed to be going on, so I went to bed. At 6:30am I woke up and trekked out to the paddock to see what was happening. There was Penny, with a tiny lamb at her side, and she was giving Aileen some good knocks as Aileen appeared to be trying to get around Penny to the lamb. Penny wasn't having any of that and kept herself between Aileen and her baby.

I got through the gates and walked up toward Penny, wondering if she had singled again like last year. Except for her first breeding as an ewe lamb, she's always twinned, up until last spring, but I thought that was probably because she was not in great shape the fall before, due to nursing a lamb on poor pasture. I thought maybe she had just had another single this year. I started to look for the afterbirth, and as I turned my head to the right, there was the small still form of a white lamb laying on the ground. This lamb was slightly bigger, and nothing apparently wrong with it, but it was dead. It looked like it had been cleaned off, but there was a lot of hay and manure on it, and the head was twisted back under the body as if it had been tossed around.

Penny saw me looking at the lamb and came over, nickering. She knows she had two, but one is gone, and she is now mostly concerned with the living one. I started wondering if Aileen had had anything to do with the dead lamb. It's not nice to contemplate but it seemed possible that she, a two year old who'd never lambed before and herself the daughter of an ewe who was a bully, had attacked this lamb and killed it while Penny was in labor delivering the twin.

I took the dead lamb, and removed the pelt, and there seemed to be an inordinate amount of blood under the skin in the neck and chest region. I then did a very quick necropsy to see if the lamb had nursed at all. Penny is very good at getting her lambs up and nursing quickly. If this lamb had been born healthy, it would likely have nursed before she started giving birth to the second lamb (and actually, I don't know which was born first). If it had been very weak or stillborn however, it would not have been able to nurse. As it turned out, I could see no evidence of colostrum in its digestive system. So although I still don't totally trust Aileen, and we are keeping her separated for the time being, it seems less likely that she had anything to do with the death of the lamb. Lambs that are slow getting up are often pawed at by their mothers to try to encourage them. That might explain the blood under the skin, and the fact that there was dirt, hay and manure on top of the lamb even though it looked like she had licked it clean.

Two years ago, Penny also had twins with one born dead. I hope that it is not something wrong with her, but I suppose if she twins again next year and it happens again, then we'll have to consider the possibility that while she can carry two to term, for some reason one is dying just before birth. I'm not sure why that would happen.

So that is probably enough of the sad part. Let's get on to the happy part. The surviving lamb is a black grey ram, who weighed almost 7lbs at birth (a normal size), and he was born the day before the nasty April Fool's Day snowstorm we just had. So he's spent his first 36 hours pretty much confined by his mother to the hoophouse. She's a smart girl, that one, and didn't bring him out at all once the snow started falling late last night.

And here are the photos!

You can't see his horn buds, but they are there, and the white flashing shows he will be a grey. This means that his sire carries grey under his white pattern, which is good to know.

No one lambed during the snow storm which was a relief. Now they have a clear weekend and hopefully either Niamh or Liadan or both will lamb soon, then it will probably be at least another week before any of the other three have their turn.

Today we cleared about another 100 feet, across the north end, east of the logging road.  It's not just taking out trees but also clearing slash left by the logging last year.  In several cases, small trees were just pushed over with their roots still in the ground.  There were a few stumps to get through as well.

Here are a few photos of our progress.  The first two are of the west side fenceline, taken back on November 20th.  The first one shows some of the fenceposts (looking south), the second photo was taken from the same spot, but looking north up the line to the northwest corner.

This photo was taken from the northwest corner, looking south. The stick with the orange tape is approximately where the corner of the fence will be.

This photo was taken from the logging road looking back west to the northwest corner.

This was what we worked on today, from the logging road east.

And finally, this is the view from the northeast corner of the planned fenceline looking south. You can just see our hay shelter in the center of the photo. The fence will actually angle down the hill about to where those long trees are lying before continuing south along the east side of the property.

On November 11th we took four lambs and two ewes to the Windham Butcher Shop in ME.  We were able to sell all the lambs we had available and there was more interest that we had to turn away, which is hopeful for the future.  The potential is there for raising about 12 lambs next year, as we have 6 ewes being bred, and since this area seems to be saturated as far as selling breeding stock goes, we're trying to focus on meat lambs and take any future breeding stock sales as icing on the cake.  It's hard though when hay and feed in general is so expensive to see how we could even hope to break even just selling meat lambs.  But getting our new pastures up and growing will help as the less hay we need to purchase, the better.

The customers were very happy with their lambs and we were even able to sell to one local small cafe that does dinners focusing on local foods, so that may help us gain some future customers.  The two cull ewes, who were 3 and 4 years old, ended up in our own freezer, and we have taste-tested some ground meat already and it's great! Along with our own duck and chicken, the meat from the ewes, and locally purchased grassfed beef, we are well stocked for the winter.

Our main project now, as long as the weather permits, is expanding our fencing.  We have several hundred feet of fenceline cleared, and much of that has the posts installed. Ken cleared another 100 or so feet by himself on the west side one day while I was off playing at a NH Spinners & Dyers Guild meeting, and that was no small feat, considering it was an area with some large fallen logs, as well as a lot of smaller trees that had been pushed over in all directions by the skidder.  So, now we can finished putting the posts in on the west side and then start working our way across the north end.  At some point we are going to have to borrow or rent an augur to bore large post holes for the gate posts.  Each gate will be comprised of two eight foot tube gates that meet in the middle so that the logging road will still be easily accessible to any large equipment that needs to get through.  Also, since the logging road is a right-of-way for a neighbor, they need to be sturdy and stand up to repeated opening and closing when he needs to get through.

Everyone looked good under their wool, which was nice to see. The wool is so interesting in how it varies between individuals. Some had much denser fleece with more lanolin, some had super lofty wool with less lanolin. Some have straight fleece and others corkscrew. One ewe has this incredible fleece like someone gave her a spiral perm. One of the white lambs has fleece so fine that the tips all along her back have unfortunately felted together in clumps and will have to be skirted out before it's sent off to the mill.

As I was shearing one of the freezer lambs, I realized I was looking down at an incredible set of shoulders. You could have put a dinner plate down on them and it wouldn't have wobbled a bit. And she has a nice wide back end too. Oh well. Selling breed stock wasn't in the cards this year, so she's going to go to Camp Kenmore next month. She'll make lovely roasts I guess. Actually, I was pleased with all the lambs we sheared, as far as their conformation goes. One of them is the ram lamb we're keeping, who is feeling his oats and was following each ewe around in the hopes of seeing a little action. Poor guy will just have to wait until next Fall.

I took some photos pre-shearing. Here are a few:

The good thing about drier weather is that the late blight seems to have missed us, and the tomatoes are doing very well. I had enough space for six Early Girl and two cherry tomato plants, one Sweet Million, and one called a "raisin tomato" because it's supposed to be good for drying. It is a very sweet small cherry tomato. All the tomatoes are doing tremendously, especially the cherries. I think I'll be overrun with them, but I'm not complaining.

I also put in 6 cabbage plants and have already harvested them and made 15 lbs of sauerkraut (still in progress in a crock in the cellar). That's not a lot of sauerkraut but I'm the only one who eats it around here, so it's enough. I left the cabbage plants in the ground and just removed the heads, and the cabbages are now producing lots of small cabbages around where the main head used to be. I'll harvest those and use them fresh. They should make good single serving portions (I'm also the only one who eats cabbage).

The basil has flowered and the bees are loving it. You walk out to the garden and all you hear is "bzzzzzzzz... bzzz.... bzzzzzzzzzzzzz". I've already made some pesto and will make some more.

We had two "volunteer" sunflowers come up amongst the aforementioned cabbages. Actually a whole bunch came up in a small area no bigger than 2 inches in diameter, planted there by some critter. I pulled out all but two. They have flowered and have big happy sunny yellow faces. I've always wanted to grow sunflowers but never made space for them, so this was a nice surprise.

The garlic was harvested in July and has been hanging in the woodshed drying since then. It's probably about time to cut them down and store them until planting time in October. The chickens got into the garden this spring and were digging around in the nice soft fluffy raised beds looking for bugs and worms, and managed to decimate some of the garlic crop, so hopefully I'll have enough large cloves to plant the same amount again this year.

The only thing that hasn't done well are the peppers. They were supposed to be Early Bell, but although they are big and green and healthy, there is a serious lack of fruit on the plants. This morning I saw one small green pepper and a few more very tiny ones starting, but nothing else. Not sure what the problem was there.

In non-garden news, Ken has been doing a phenomenal job of clearing the slash from the logging last summer/fall. He couldn't start on it until mid-summer really because of a spring back injury, but he's made a huge amount of progress. I admit to looking at the mess and feeling pretty hopeless, but he picked a spot and waded in and started pulling out all the good firewood and piling the rest into piles for burning later. He said he felt sort of hopeless too, but his motivation came from knowing there was good firewood in there. As a result we have a woodshed more than half full. It would hold about 8 cords if it was completely full, and we only use about 2 cords per winter.

The other way to clear it would be to hire someone with a dozer to come in and push it all up into a long pile, but that would mean losing the firewood, having a big ugly pile, and probably losing a good amount of topsoil. This way, we save the soil, and have smaller piles that we can burn easily. It's much slower this way, but sometimes doing things faster isn't always the best.

I just realized that I haven't given a lamb report for this spring! We had 6 ewes bred, but only 4 caught. One that didn't was a ewe that rejected one of her lambs last year, and then spent the winter bullying the other ewes, so she is being culled this fall. The other ewe that didn't lamb I think was just in too poor a condition last fall, and there was something else going on with her as well. I wormed her and gave her a tonic drench and extra Selenium-Vitamin E and she came through the winter OK. She was never really "sick", but I think her poor condition after lactation last year, probably combined with worms contributed to her lack of lambing this year. She looks great now of course and I expect will have no trouble getting pregnant this fall!

She spent half the summer stealing supplement rations from the lactating ewes and was then moved over to pasture where she has continued to thrive. I think that last year when I had all the lactating ewes and their lambs on pasture (thinking that would be the best thing for them) that they all got too thin due to the quality of the pasture available and for some reason it affected her the most. It's not the best pasture but is fine for maintaining non-lactating animals, and last year's too much rain/too little warmth didn't help the pasture grow well either. So this year I kept all the ewes with lambs here and they have been on hay and a ration of mixed soybean meal/alfalfa pellets/beet pulp pellets/Shepherd 16 and what little grass we have available, and they've all done much better.

Anyway, of the four ewes that did lamb, three had singles, and one had twins for a total of 5 lambs. Two are white, one is black, and we have one black mouflon and one black grey for a nice variety of color. All are horned. No moorit though, which is my favorite. I think we may be keeping the black ram lamb as a replacement ram, and the rest of the lambs are ewes and will probably all end up as freezer lambs if they aren't sold for breeding stock.

We are trying to cut our ewe flock back a bit so I have put some up for sale. We "should" have our newly cleared area fenced by next spring and we've been working hard to get grass growing in the new field. We even spread manure by hand, scooping it into the tractor's loader, driving it up to the field, and forking it out of the loader bucket and spreading it around. The soil isn't bad for NH, but every little bit of extra organic matter helps. We would like to be able to keep all of our sheep here, instead of having to put some of them on the borrowed pasture a few miles away, so having a slightly smaller ewe flock will help with being able to do that.

So I tottered downstairs, to be met by Jake who quickly ran back towards the door. I opened the door a crack, and listened and heard "something" very odd. I then let Jake out and he roared out the door giving his "I'm 150lbs of badness and you don't want to mess with me" bark. In actuality he only weighs about 50lbs, but he barks bigger, and don't tell the critters out there, but he's really quite a softie, although he's given our rams what-for a couple times and they respect him.

Anyway, I stepped out behind him with my trusty LED flashlight, and from somewhere down the slope behind our house I heard:

ARGHSNARFSCHNARGLEBLORG

Now, that gave me pause. I normally don't fear things in the woods, even at night, but my brain simply could not come up with any realistic possibilities for THAT sound. A rabid pig? The Tazmanian Devil? At about that time Jake went blasting down the slope barking and I followed him to the edge and aimed the flashlight down the hill. Nothing. The noise had stopped, and Jake was casting back and forth for scent. I started sweeping the light back and forth and then tried up and down. AHA! About 30ft up a tree at the bottom of the slope I caught a couple pairs of eyeballs staring back. It was too far away to see what owned the eyeballs, but they were definitely there and were moving about. They kept turning away and then back towards my light.

After a few minutes I called Jake back and we went back into the house.

The consensus seems to be raccoons, most likely, fighting over some morsel, or perhaps territory. Or perhaps raccoons normally go about their business sounding like that?

Whatever it was, they got the message and did not come back for the remainder of the night. Or maybe they did but kept their vocalizations to whispers.