Random January iPhone Photos

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Robin

I am getting caught up on my photos and found some to share about life on the farm, life in the shop, and life in general (but not very profound).Its a good sign when the chickens start laying again. That means there is more daylight. I have 5 chickens, 1 of whom is old and the other is ancient. I don’t expect eggs from the old chickens, but it’s nice to know the young ones have kicked into high gear.Rain. That’s a good thing, although I’m never really happy about dealing with the mud on the way to the compost (manure) pile. mushrooms However, it’s good when the manure pile is wet through and through. It will become a compost pile much more quickly. I was going to try these for dye but I went out today and they are all shriveled up. Not very long-lived.My friends came and did a Shop Intervention. I need to drastically change some things and get rid of the clutter. I still haven’t dealt with that big box but that is all the newest Timm Ranch yarn. I need to get that on the website and start working with it. After the friends left there was room… LTW class …for a Learn to Weave class. Chris-birthday Mid-January always means that I’m getting older as my youngest son celebrates his birthday. That isn’t the full amount of candles he should have had, but it is bright enough!

Across the Road in 2015

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Robin

I thought I did a post like this for 2014, but I didn’t. You have to go back to this post to see what it was like Across the Road in 2013. My plan is to make a photo record of the changes that I see from standing at our mailbox. To do that correctly I’d need to do it on the same day each week (or month), with the same camera, using the same lens, and at the same time of day. FAIL. Here is what I have (and it’s probably more interesting this way).January 22, 2015. February 5.February. Almonds are blooming.

April 11. An overview of Across the Road looking east. Our place is in the foreground. The dogs and I cross the road in near the houses in the middle of the photo and usually walk south until we can get on the dirt road that goes along the canal. If I take the usual route I walk along the big canal, turn left (going east) between the brown and the green, turn left again (north) between the brown and the trees, follow the tree line along the ditch until I get back to the main road, and turn south to home. That is 1.8 miles. If I don’t have much time I can take a short cut right where the main road curves and head north on a road that separates the two brown areas. If I want to vary it I can continue to follow the big canal south and there are more roads to follow that way.

In this photo our pasture has started to green up because I irrigated in mid-March. Normally the irrigation district doesn’t provide water until April or May but due to the drought we have been getting water earlier. In 2014 we irrigated in January. The green in the background of the aerial photo is hay or wheat or barley fields. April 26, 2015. The field has been bedded, ready for tomatoes.May 3, 2015June 9, 2015July 22, 2015August 9, 2015August 30, 2015 cattle egret This is a photo taken across the road, from Across the Road. (That is my pasture looking west.)The alfalfa field that is the green triangle in the upper right in the aerial photo.Beans that were planted after the wheat harvest in the are shown in the triangle that is the upper center of the aerial photo.September 5, 2015.September 9, 2015. It took 4 days, working 24 hours/day to finish harvesting this field.September 23, 2015. Back to the beans. The dry plants have been put into windrows waiting for harvest. waiting for lunar eclipse September 27, 2015.October 6, 2015. Field disked and bedded waiting for the next planting. I’m told that it will be planted to sunflowers this spring.November 29, 2015. If we have regular rain I can’t walk across here because it gets too muddy. There have been very few days that we haven’t been able to walk. December 1, 2015. View of our place, looking west across the field. We need to see more green on those hills.

Farm Day

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Robin

This year’s pre-lambing Farm Day overlapped with Stitches West so some of our members chose shopping over barn cleaning, thinking that their yarn stashes needed a little reinforcing. However we still had an effective crew and finished our scheduled chores in just a couple of hours. (Dona was shopping so thanks to Lisa for providing some of these photos.)Lisa, Cindy, Alison, and Stephany helped clean the barn and vaccinate all the sheep. Betty came later and we skirted fleeces.We gathered all the ewes in the barn.

Some are looking quite large.

We checked eyelids of the ewe lambs for anemia using the FAMACHA scorecard and dewormed those who scored 2 or 3.Amaryllis is always happy when Lisa comes.

Faulkner was all fired up after yesterday’s tryst with Donna, who spent the day with him in anticipation of July lambs, but alas, it was just us Farmers who came to call today.After skirting fleeces in the afternoon……Betty and I treated the ewes to snacks.Usually Farm Day lasts well into the afternoon but today everyone had places to be (including me who went to Berkeley to see out-of-state cousins who had all gathered for a birthday celebration), but it was a beautiful morning to spend with friends.We didn’t do much hard labor today but someone was tired out.

My Weekend in iPhone Photos

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Robin

What a beautiful weekend we had, although I’d rather be able to say that it’s been raining and cold like winter is supposed to be. I wonder if this is the future. That will take some major adaptation. Regardless, here are photos from warm, sunny Solano County.

I usually don’t put the ewes out on the main pasture until late March when it has dried out. However, this year the water has drained away and I will take advantage of the grass growing now. If it doesn’t rain more this will be it until (and if) we get irrigation water.Waiting for me to change the fence.Rear view of one of the ewes due to lamb in about 2-1/2 weeks.More rear views. These ewes won’t lamb for a month or more.

Thatch left over from the overgrown dallisgrass last fall. Nothing grows under it–at least not useful for sheep. mushrooms This was growing inside that pile.While walking around the pasture I saw something (rodent) scurry across this obviously well-used path from one clump of grass to the next.

Speaking of rodents this is a view I see every morning when I go in the chicken house. Well, not this exact view. There are always new holes and new piles of dirt. There are only 2 chickens and I think I am feeding a whole colony of rats. I posted this photo on FB and was surprised at the number of responses. The overwhelming suggestion was to get terriers. Three dogs is enough and I won’t get another. If Maggie gets a chance she will kill rodents but she will also kill chickens, which is why they are in the chicken house. Next suggestion was the old-fashioned snap type of trap. I have used those for mice, but for rats it sounds disgusting. I think I will get some though. I tried a sticky trap under that garbage can but they just covered it with dirt. Faulkner. I sent photos to someone who has been asked to supply rams to participate in a Year of the Sheep celebration in San Francisco this week. I suggested Faulkner because he is easy to handle (relatively). They want horned rams so I sent more photos….but probably not with spots. They are still discussing it and I haven’t heard the final word. Isadora and Foley Even if the rams don’t get to go to the city, some of them are having fun. It’s time to breed my ewes that will lamb at the State Fair. This is Foley and Isadora yesterday. Today it was Crosby and Clover. I hope that this will be one answer to another rodent problem. This is a trial straw bale garden. The gophers have made it impossible to grow anything successfully in this part of the garden. Last summer I put two bales out here and started watering them the way you’re are supposed to. Then I went to Texas to wait for my granddaughter to be born. I gave up the garden idea until now. I have planted lettuce and carrot seeds in this one and chard in another. We’ll see what happens.

I took a quick trip to Sacramento Weavers Open House to pick up the things I had on display there. These are a few of my blankets. This is the first year in many, many years that I did not spend the weekend there demonstrating weaving. It felt odd to show up at the end.A friend’s purse that uses my horn buttons for the closure and to secure the strap.I tried this AVL loom with the e-lift. One step on the button and the shed changes. No lifting 16 (or in this case 40) shafts with leg power.

Last Year’s View Across the Road

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Robin

We don’t have very much acreage, but across the road is a much larger parcel. We appreciate living here and being able to walk, run the dogs, and just a enjoy the view across the road. In 2013 I planned to take photos from the same location, of the same view, and at the same time each week to document the changes through the year. You probably don’t mind that it didn’t work because who would want to see 52 photos of the same thing? This field has been planted to alfalfa for several years but in 2013 there were sunflowers. Here is the year Across the Road:

January 10 January 25 January 31 March 7 March 26 April 4 April 11 May 5 May 21 May 28 June 13 July 4July 12 August 8 September 30October 10October 18 November 24December 31

There you have it. I stood at the mailbox for each photo. But the photos are obviously now always the same view or even using the same camera.

The most striking thing in my mind is how dry it was last year. The Central Valley of CA enjoys a Mediterranean climate which means hot dry summers and cool wet winters. We rely on winter rainfall to replenish aquifers and reservoirs to provide the water that keeps the valley from being a desert in the summer. This link shows graphs of the average precipitation and temperature for our area. According to accuweather.com the average annual rainfall for Sacramento is 18.5″. We have had only 30% of that (5″ in all of 2013). The hills (and the field across the road) should be green right now with the growth of the annual grasses that germinate from fall rains. Grass started to grow with each of the two (only 2) rainy days that we had but has mostly dried up.

On the bright side, I’m not slogging through calf-deep mud when doing chores and we don’t have to run the sump pump to keep the the water heater in the basement from flooding.

Hoping for a wet 2014!

Green Pasture

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Robin

You have all seen photos of my green pasture.

This does not happen naturally here in California’s Central Valley . We have what is known as a Mediterranean climate. I thought I’d give you a definition but what I found when I did a google search is more interesting:

There are not many places in the world that have our hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. So how do we grow all that clover and grass in a hot, dry summer? Irrigation, of course. But irrigation water has to come from somewhere if it’s not coming out of the sky this time of year.

Our irrigation water is provided (sold) by Solano Irrigation District and comes from Lake Berryessa which fills from winter rainfall. Here is how our irrigation water is delivered.

Do you see that low spot in the mountains on the right side of the photo? Lake Berryessa is behind there. The water is carried down Putah Creek. Eventually it works it’s way into a system of canals. When I call for water the SID person opens a gate at the end of this ditch that is normally dry. The water flows to another gate at the northwest corner of my property (that cement box on the other side of the fence). When that gate is open the water flows under the fence into the standpipe in the foreground.

That black circle is the pipe carrying the water into the standpipe. It flows out the hole on the south side of the standpipe (at the top of the photo).

This is a close-up of that rushing cool water. It’s not a rushing mountain stream but it sure looked appealing this afternoon when I was outside working.

Here is where the water flows out of the standpipe into the pasture.

There is a ditch at the north end of each pasture. The water is just starting to fill the ditch.

I have to dig cut-outs in the ditch to get the water to flow where I want it. It’s not a perfect system because our ditches are worn out and trampled by sheep and the pastures aren’t level, but I can usually make it work. I have the water on for 24 to 36 hours to irrigate everything.

This is the last pasture the sheep were on yesterday and I finished mowing it (a story for another day) just before irrigating.

This is what we’d have in the summer if we didn’t irrigate. (This is a small pen behind the barn.)

Here is what irrigation gives us.

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