Harvesting Tomatoes

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Robin

I’m a bit behind on this blog post but I took a lot of photos and still wanted to share it. Do you remember when they planted tomatoes Across the Road in early May? Five months later those tomatoes were ready to harvest.

These are not big juicy table tomatoes on five-foot high plants. They are smaller canning tomatoes that can be mechanically harvested. This is the first time I’ve seen the harvester that doesn’t have people riding on it while sorting tomatoes. It’s all done mechanically.Two tractors run side-by-side. One pulls the bins that hold the tomatoes.The other pulls the harvester.The tomato plants are cut off and pulled up a conveyer where the tomatoes are sorted from the plant and sent through that yellow chute into the bins. Unwanted plant material, including smaller tomatoes come out over the roller towards the base of the harvester.

Here they are waiting for the next tractor and bins to catch up to the harvester. Is it any wonder that everything in my house is covered with a layer of fine dust.?

Haresting of this field took a lot longer than I expected. They worked out there 24 hours/day for 2 1/2 days.

A few tomatoes spill out when the truck makes the turn onto the roas. This is a photo taken at the end of the harvest.

Views on the Farm

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Robin

Taken over the last week or so.Sheep coming in from the pasture.Amaryllis following.Dallisgrass.

Ram lamb that I’m keeping. He’ll be at the Lambtown sheep show. This is Meridian Nash (Meridian Crosby x Mud Ranch Ginseng).

Love this guy’s horn spread (Meridian Crosby x Meridian Sophia). I wish I had room to keep all the promising ram lambs for several months, but most have to go before breeding season. In fact there has already been at least one major ram break-out involving the ram lambs and I’m sure that I’ll have at least a couple of early lambs (mid January instead of late February when the planned lambs will come).Here are the yearling and two-year old rams. Puddleduck Ringo, Meridian Crosby, Foley, and Alex. Foley is sold and will be picked up soon I hope. Before we went to Texas these rams switched places with…

…Faulkner, the BFL ram, to give them more room and so that they couldn’t keep getting tangled in the electric fence. It worked for awhile, but the ongoing saga is a subject for another blog post.

Egrets looking over the pasture.Hot LIps.

Another ram issue. Notice how this horn (which has already been trimmed) is starting to irritate the skin on Alex’s shoulders.

Another trim was required.Fresh water after cleaning the water trough. I so hope it rains this fall. I’m so tired of being dusty, hot, and dry. I don’t know when I’ve looked forward to winter, but I sure am this year. I just hope it’s not a disappointment. Ginny in yard Ginny in her watching the road spot. She likes to chase trucks from her side of the fence.

Farm Day – May 2015

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Robin

Where is Dona when you need her? As much as I like taking photos I don’t take very many on a Farm Day because I’m distracted. Seven Farm Club members were here this morning to help with some specific tasks.

We accomplished those easily all the while enjoying each other’s company. This is such a great group of friends First we caught all 76 lambs. We weighed all of them and vaccinated the older ones. We chose four ewe lambs and 4 ram lambs as the most likely options (narrowing it to 2 each later) for taking to Black Sheep Gathering next month. Because my flock lambs in March the lambs are still young and it’s hard to think who I might want to take to the show in June. We also caught the 4 yearlings who did not lamb this year to choose which of them I’d take and also to replace their lamb ear tags with larger easier-to-read tags. After we finished with the lambs I showed Gynna how to go about halter breaking lambs that she is going to take home with her in a few weeks.The birds were happy when we finished in the barn because then they had free access to their babies without worrying about all the people and dogs.

Timm Ranch wool ready for the mill

After lunch Kathleen, Gynna, and Peggy went to the barn and helped me change this pile into……this one. By sucking the air out of the bags with the shop vac we condensed that pile of wool into about half the space. That’s a much easier job with more than one person.

Ginny found an out-of-the-way place to sleep.Later this afternoon Dan put the mower on the tractor and I mowed the pasture behind the barn.

I’ve been trying to clean out the freezer and I found a turkey the other day. It’s in the oven now and I’m getting ready for turkey dinner (without all the trappings because that would take too much work).

Reviving a Lamb

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Robin

I went to the barn a little after 6 a.m. this morning and found what looked like a dead lamb along with two lambs who were up and nursing. The lamb that was flat out on the ground had membranes over his face and was cold and still. I pulled the membranes off of the nose and surprise! That lamb wasn’t quite dead yet. It made a little sound and started to breath raspilly. (Spellcheck says that’s not a word, but it works for me.)

First, get lamb warm. The heat lamp wasn’t fast enough… …so I brought it to the house. After it started to revive I substituted a heating pad for the hot water. Tube feeding with colostrum was next. Fortunately I had a couple of ounces in the freezer. I switched the heating pad from under the lamb to over the lamb while Rusty made sure he didn’t go anywhere. I carried the whole bundle back to the barn so I could get on with chores. That’s when I set up the heat lamp. I also milked some colostrum out of the mom and tube fed the lamb another few ounces.It got up before long and now sports the most glamorous in lamb-wear. If a ewe lambs with a single lamb in the next few days I will try to graft this one on. That will be another post. These are the other two sets of triplets and their moms.

Shearing 2015

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Robin

Although we had a cold start the weather for Shearing Day turned out great and a lot of people came out to watch and to buy fleeces. Ewes before shearing. Farm Club members handled all the jobs. I don’t have photos of all of them but FC photographer, Dona, will probably have some for me to add to another post. That’s Stephany and Gynna who wrangled sheep all morning. Alison and others helped skirt fleeces that people purchased. Here is a view from above. Carol and Amy are in place to sweep between sheep and to let the shorn sheep out the gate.

John Sanchez has been our shearer for several years. The fleeces are always beautiful and the sheep look great too. He’s prompt and he’s fast too. He finished everything in 3 hours.Looking at this photo I wish that I’d done a series of photos of footwear. There are a lot of stylish boots in our Farm Club.

Jackie kept track of names and cards… Mary scooping fleeces

…while Mary scooped the fleeces into bags. All Farm Club members rotated tasks and helped all day–answering dozens of questions from visitors and also helping in the shop. Thanks to everyone: Alene, Alison, Amy, Betty, Carol, Dona, Gynna, Jackie, Janis, Joy, Kathleen, Lisa, Mary, Peggy, Polly, and Stephany (and to Judy for joining us).Jimmy is one of two wethers (castrated male) who was well marked so that the shearer would be told to watch for different parts while shearing off the belly wool.

Amaryllis was probably glad that she wasn’t on the shearing list.

This is what Dan made out of the pressure tank we had to replace a couple of months ago. It provided a welcome place to warm hands. Maggie behaved admirably all day.Rusty kept watch.Ginny was in the barn with us but had her own pen to keep her out of trouble.

Bags of fleeces for me to sort through. 937 Donna (1)

This is how I felt at the end of the day.

Farm Day

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Robin

Shearing Day is coming up so next weekend and Farm Club members came Saturday to help get things ready. Dona took a lot of great photos and all of these are hers. There is always barn cleaning. A break for puppy-time.After finishing with the barn……it was time to preview fleeces. Mary made cards to be put into bags as the sheep are shorn and she recorded which fleeces were reserved by Farm Club members.

.Maggie watched from above.

Everyone was anxious to get hands-on the fleeces.

This is Isadora and her July lamb, Isabelle. Shearing Day is an Open House so if you’re in the area you are welcome to come. See this link.

Farm Day

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Robin

This was the fall Farm Day. Usually we would be getting ready for shearing but since I have postponed shearing until January we did other things. Unfortunately Dona wasn’t here because she seems to take most of the photos on Farm Day. We started by gathering up the different groups of sheep. They have been separated into breeding groups and it was time to put all the ewes back together with just one ram. That means that I’ll have just two groups now–the large group with the ram, Ringo, and the non-breeding group (March ewe lambs, State Fair lambs and their moms). There are photos of one group in Rusty’s blog. After putting the ewes together the rams also go back together. This is a ram lamb that I kept but didn’t use this year but we took photos so I can register him. Right now the yearling ram, Alex, and the two ram lambs are in a small pen so they can become buddies again–it’s really a matter of working on the hierarchy so when they go out in the larger area they don’t kill each other. There should be no question that the yearling ram will be on top, but the two lambs were duking it out. This guy knows how to use his horns to get his way. We’ll see when they go out who won the second place spot. This is the group of ewes waiting to go into a different paddock.

As they turned the corner you could clearly see all the marks from breeding (from the marker the ram wears on his chest). Unfortunately the blue mark on that ewe in the back means that she still is not bred after having been bred twice by Alex. I think were a few other ewes with blue marks tonight. I’m wondering about Alex’s fertility. Normally I’d expect all the ewes to be bred the first time around. I’ll know in the morning. View Across the Road from my pasture. They are prepping the ground to plant alfalfa.

Five Months to Lambs

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Robin

Monday was Sorting Day (but not like at Hogwarts, although I know that some of you could probably come up with some Harry Potter analogies). It was also the first day of the Spinzilla competition. Spinners from Team Meridian Jacobs were going to gather here in the afternoon but some of the team members are also Farm Club members. Several of them came early to help with sorting ewes and rams into breeding groups.Faulkner, the BFL ram, was first to get his girls and they happy to meet him. I knew that Athena was ready because she had been hanging out next to the fence. But so were Delight, Delilah, and Shelby. Four of the seven ewes with Faulkner were bred yesterday. (The red on the ewes’ rumps is the mark from the crayon in the ram harness.)

Next up was Crosby, a lilac ram lamb. I wasn’t going to use him this year because it’s hard to split the flock into too many groups. But transport for the ram that I am buying is now delayed so I thought I’d give Crosby a shot.He just got back from Lambtown where he won Champion ram of the Primitive Breeds division. It was a small show, but a win is a win, right? The judge loved his fleece and so do I.The girls, however, were not as impressed. It seems that ribbons aren’t everything.To Crosby’s credit he tried hard… …he didn’t give up… 14052 Crosby (1) …but to no avail. None of the four ewes wanted much to do with him. I don’t have a photo but I did see him finally lying down by the fence looking exhausted and dejected.Alex was ready for his ewes. He is a yearling ram whose fleece is beautiful. I didn’t try to use him as a lamb last year because he had bluetongue in the fall. Even if he could have bred, he likely would have been sterile from the high fever. Out of his group of 14 ewes, Alex found only one ewe who was interested. Poor Celeste. With no one else interested in him, Celeste got all Alex’s attention. Good thing that I moved Shearing Day to January. Hopefully rain will wash out some of this color.

The rest of the flock is waiting for a ram to show up in a few weeks. Lambing season will be a bit longer this year.

Pocket Photos in the Pasture

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Robin

I like this idea of Pocket Photos. Not pictures of pockets, but just whip the phone out and take photos. These were taken in the pasture yesterday and today. Can you tell what that one is? Look below to see it from the other direction. That web stands out with the sun behind it. Sometimes these are face-height and you really don’t want to walk into that. Yesterday afternoon I mowed three paddocks that the sheep had grazed. I will irrigate tomorrow and I hope that by mowing the tall dallisgrass stalks that are left after I move the sheep it will give more opportunity for the annual grasses to start growing. The recent rain started some germination but I think that this last irrigation should bring up more. At one point the mower stopped working. Fortunately Dan had just got home. He doesn’t usually work on the tractor in teacher clothes–it’s pretty hard to stay clean around tractors and barns. Speaking of barns, see that cement? That used to be a wall that created a doorway in the ram pen. This small area with cement walls is the “whiskey barn” because we were told that whiskey was stored here during Prohibition. The only reinforcement in these cement walls seems to be a few strands of barbed wire running through them. No rebar. I don’t know if the rams pushed this by rubbing or if one of them hit it when he was fighting. The rams are feisty. This ewe is obviously in heat because she hung around the outside of the ram pen all day. This is the second day in a row that the rams have broken the electric wire that runs around the inside of their pen. That coincides with the second day that the ewes have been directly across the fence here. Tonight I moved the rams to a more secure location. We have to get through a couple more days without mishap. On Friday one of them will go to Lambtown for the sheep show and the other is sold and will be picked up this weekend. After Lambtown the remaining ram and a new one (as soon as I can get him) will be put with the ewes.

This afternoons’s job was to weed-eat the ditches in preparation for irrigating tomorrow. Not only will the water flow better for more effective irrigation but we are working hard with the Mosquito Abatement District to minimize mosquito propagation. That means getting the water off the fields and out of the ditches as quickly as possible once irrigation is finished. We recently bought a trash pump to help with that as well. This is the ditch at the north end of the pasture after weed-eating the north side of it (looking east). This is after I cleaned up the south side of that ditch (looking west). This ditch is at the south end of the property before (looking east)……and after (looking west). I used 3 tanks of gas and had to add more string to the weed-eater to get through this. The sheep don’t mind me working while they graze.

New Perspective Across the Road

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Robin

Thanks to all of you who told me that you like seeing photos from Across the Road. We have only 10 acres here so we appreciate being able to share the farmland that is across the road.

I took my macro lens to the repair shop this week and saw that they had used equipment for sale at good prices. So I bought a 70-300 mm lens. My other lens is 18-135 so this gives me a whole new perspective. What fun! That is the base of the corn that was harvested a few days ago. There are photos of the harvest in Rusty’s blog. Yesterday’s plowing makes beautiful patterns. With this new lens I should now be able to get all those fantastic wildlife photos I’ve been missing. So I had my eyes open for wildlife. I was able to get a photo of a critter den just after they (muskrats?) plopped into the water.The only birds I saw were crows and doves. Oh Oh. I forgot to touch up this photo to remove the spots. I found that I have the same spots on my blue sky with this lens as with my other one. That means that there is dust somewhere inside the camera. That can’t be good. I caught interesting spider webs… …close up. Here is few of our property looking across the harvested corn field. This is with the old lens at 135 mm……and with the new lens at 300 mm. Maybe no wildlife but I found other things in the trees. There are some great photos of Rusty and Maggie, but I let him use those for his blog.