This is a continuation of What’s in the Pasture. I have a lot more plants to go.
I changed the fence to move the sheep from the south half of the Horse Pasture (no horses for a long time) to the north half. They came running.
They were ready for fresh feed…
…because this is what they left behind. I have moved the net fence a few inches off the fresh pasture. You can see what it looked like on the other side of the fence.
I think this is orchardgrass, but I’m not 100% sure.
When you identify grasses it helps to look at more than just the seed head. This photo shows the ligule which this publication from the Wisconsin Cooperative Extension (which also has a good diagram of grass parts) describes for orchardgrass as “prominent; cuts or splits on whitish margin”. Yeah, I can see that. This one from UCD is also a good resource.
Lately I have left my 40 mm lens on the camera and get a kick of of looking closely at things that I see better on my computer than through my glasses.This one is Curly Dock.
Here is the not-so-interesting photo of it.
I have made good progress at getting rid of Spiny Cocklebur, but it will never all be gone. I continue to chop any of these that I see. Obviously I haven’t dealt with these along the corral fence but need to take a shovel instead of a camera when I walk out here. 
You can see why it is undesirable and the reason it thrives even where everything else has been eaten. Besides the thorns the flowers develop into nasty burs that stick in fleece and hurt fingers.
Speaking of thorns and eating, I’ll deal with the thorns when the eating is this good. And I won’t complain that the bushes are completely covering the electric fence. I had my first ripe blackberry this morning.
I irrigated this weekend. The sheep were just moved off the paddock to the right and when it dries up enough they will go on the one to the left. Can you see the difference? It took only two days for them to eat that feed.
One of their favorite plants is Birdsfoot Trefoil. It is a legume which means it is one of the plants that converts nitrogen in the air to a form that can be used by the plant. It is actually not the plant that does that but the bacteria that live in nodules on the roots of legumes.
Clovers are also legumes. This is a variety of white clover.
This morning I noticed just a few of these flowers. I can’t decide if this is a variant of the white clover or is a different species. The leaves are similar. I’ll have to do some more checking.
Do you see how most of the other plants have been eaten and this one has not been touched? The sheep avoid plants that are toxic to them. This is Narrow-leaved Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). Not only is it a favored species for the monarch butterfly but according to a 
These are Narrow-leaved Milkweed flowers in various stages…
…and a close-up.
Field bindweed (Convolvulaceae arvensis), also known as morning glory. It is, according to a 
Soft Chess or Soft Brome, a non-native annual grass.
Medusahead as it is drying out. Medusahead covers thousands of acres of California foothills. It is not normally found in irrigated pasture, but it is in the easternmost paddock here which sometimes does not irrigate well. I have reclaimed part of that paddock, but I continually fight this plant. I find patches of it in other areas of the pasture and, although this is not an effective control technique, I pull it up by the handfuls as I walk by, coming back to the barn with it stuffed in the pockets of my overalls. It is a nasty plant that is “…among the worst weeds: not only does medusahead compete for resources with more desirable species, but it changes ecosystem function to favor its own survival at the expense of the entire ecosystem…Because grazing animals selectively avoid this plant, and because medusahead thatch tends to suppress desirable forage species, infestations often develop into near-monotypic stands.” From the 
I have ID’d this one as Blunt Spikerush (Eleocharis obtusa), not a grass, but a sedge that is found on poorly drained soil and marshy areas. That’s my pasture…poorly drained soil. There is a lot of this sedge in the middle and south end of three or four of the paddocks. It looks like foot-tall grass, but that is why it is important to actually look at what is out there. This does not make good forage.
A rather artsy shot of Buckhorn Plantain, found throughout California…
…and a photo in which you will probably more easily recognize it.
Dottie brought a car-load of supplies. She put indigo in a tea strainer and we watched the water turn color. We also noticed a metallic sheen on the water and weren’t sure what to do about that. We forged ahead…
…sampling with cotton fabric that Dottie had brought with her. The metallic stuff showed up on the fabric but it seemed that we could wipe it off easily.
So we went ahead with the dress. When dyeing with indigo you don’t want to stir up the dye bath because indigo dyeing relies on a chemical reaction as the fabric comes out of the dye and reacts with oxygen. If you introduce oxygen into the dye bath you lose some of the effectiveness of the indigo.
When you bring something out of an indigo bath it is green at first.
As it reacts it turns blue. Usually you rely on several dips to darken the color, but this one came out fairly dark the first time. However, we saw unevenly dyed areas where I had been too careful about lowering the dress into the bath and the dye didn’t get into the folds. There was also that metallic stuff in spots. I decided to hose the dress off (no pictures at this point) and see what it looked like. Not good. Very splotchy and not in a good way. So I tried again, this time stirring the dress in the pot with my hands. It was more important to get an even dye job than to save the dye bath for later.
Here is the final product. But we weren’t done. There was another step and that was a surprise to me. First though the dress had to be completely dry, so that step was going to have to wait until later.
No, one of us didn’t grow an extra hand. Dottie came with a friend who took some of these photos while we were working.
Chris built one 8-foot and two 10-foot tables for the use of the wedding party. He also made assorted game pieces and a very cool guest sign-in board.
Chris getting advice from his sister.
More advice. Stout tables.
Some of the bridal party who helped the day before. They were all there–what a great group of friends Chris and Meryl share.
Table inspection by the resident cat…
…who, having done his (her?) job, needed a nap.
Wedding rehearsal. I didn’t get all the guys in the photo because I was seated in my mother-of-the-groom chair.
The girls minus the bride.
Meryl’s parents hosted a dinner the night before the wedding and here are my three beautiful daughters!
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