Today’s Random Farm Photos

Yesterday I spent time with sheep and weaving and ecoprinting and computer. I did more of the same today but didn’t take any weaving photos.

I changed the fence today to move the sheep into a separate paddock. You can’t tell from this photo but there are 8 paddocks that run north-south on this half of the property. There are 3-wire electric fences that keep the sheep in and I change the net fences at the two ends to open or close paddocks. Notice the hot-air balloons. It’s that time of year. There are four in this photo.

This looks like a lot of grass. It is a lot of grass, but it’s not the desirable grass and forbs I’d like. There is a lot of bermuda grass and dallisgrass. Those two take over this time of year. The sheep don’t like them when they get too coarse and head out. Then they go dormant in the winter and choke out the winter/spring annuals that I’d like to see. At least it’s green right now. That’s because we irrigate–there is no summer rain here.

Close up of one of the balloons. Who remembers Rusty? Blog post from 2011. Rusty even had his own blog for several years. I just got distracted and read back through some of it. Rusty was a pretty good writer and I enjoyed reading through his posts just now. I wonder if I could get Ginny to write a blog.

Anyway, about Rusty. He was afraid of these balloons. During “balloon season” he wouldn’t leave the house first thing in the morning. He knew that they’d be gone by mid-morning and then he would go out. Ginny doesn’t mind the balloons, but she is sure gun-shy and that’s a problem with all the recreational shooting around here.

Speaking of things in the sky, this is the third time there has been a helicopter spraying the tomato field across the road.

Before I went to the house after this morning’s chores I wanted to unroll the ecoprints from yesterday (see yesterday’s blog post). I have taken over this work table in the garage. The ecoprints are still rolled up on the right of the table. This is a look at the other projects I have going on–getting these skulls in some shape that I can sell them.

While I was working on the ecoprint scarves this morning I had a pot cooking with a couple of skulls to see if I could get them cleaned up better.

Here is a pair of square scarves. The photos in yesterday’s post show scarves with leaves or flowers in place. I put a second scarf on top of each of those and then roll them around a PVC pipe to steam. These photos show the pairs of scarves after unrolling. This pair has cosmos leaves and flowers. I am always fascinated by the different looks on the two scarves.

This one is all cannabis leaves (supplied by a friend). These don’t have that classic look of the ones below because by the time I got to this, the remaining leaves had started to fold up and at that point it is very tedious to spread them out again, especially with all these small ones.

Cannabis leaves in the more classic look.

Another set of cannabis leaves with a close-up below.

Some plants print on one scarf and create a resist on the other. These are printing on both scarves.

No, I am not selling cannabis. These are purple hollyhocks and cosmos flowers that I have added to my website and will have at Lambtown.

Tomorrow is a Farm Day and we’re setting up breeding groups! I need to look at my list one ore time.