The Simple Life

The weather has been teasing lately. A couple of beautiful sunny days, then more snow, but I feel blessed for the nice days when they are here, as there is never any expectation of them in March.

Mr Potamus and Bruno are adjusting to life in smaller spaces and I am yet determined to find a way to fence something safely so the sheep can still graze this year without the dogs going out to patrol on the ranch. Meanwhile, I had Rosemary confined to the lambing shed as she is huge, her udder (notice the ‘d’s...utter is something else entirely, people! )  is also huge and I was expecting her to be the next ewe to lamb as the only other one left is Thyme and she is not very big, with very little bag at all so I assumed she had another month or so to go. I walked out one afternoon between storms and saw Bruno sitting in the near corner of the pasture, but not Mr Potamus. Curious, I headed thru the back yard, past the chicken pen and the cow corral to enter the little field the sheep are in, when I saw Potamus come around a corner back by the orchard, looking at me with his big plume tail waving and when I spoke to him, he returned in the direction he came from. I headed that way and he was happily parked on his belly admiring Thyme’s new twin lambs. It was her first lambing and I had only expected a singlet, but she went ahead and had twins anyway and turned out to be a very attentive mother. 

Salty's "Sage" (Captain Marbles twin sister) is twice the size of Thyme's twin lambs in just one week. It's amazing how fast they grow! Thyme did an outstanding job, having her babies with no help at all and being very motherly to them.
I couldn’t be more tickled with her. 

Meantime...Rosemary remained pregnant. I kicked her out with the others as the weather has improved a bit and she is obviously in no big hurry...nor is EmmaLouMoo who I thought was due this month but isn’t even bagging up yet. I'm very concerned about her staphA infection she came down with but I am praying hard that she will culture negative and I will not lose her.

Salty’s little lamb she rejected, who we alternately call “Creep” or “Captain Marbles” is doing very well and has finally moved out to the pasture with the others. I feed him 3x a day by bottle and he follows the Maremmas everywhere. He is slowly bonding with Madge’s twin boys, since Salty won’t let him near her or his sister. It’s been fun watching him follow the dogs as he seems to be learning THEIR job instead of his own, which is eating grass.

Annie the goat was being mean, mean, mean to the Captain, so she and her cohorts were removed to a different pen. The next day, I found her in the chicken pen, stealing their food. I hobbled out as quickly as I was able and grabbed her up. She had effectively climbed up her cattle panel shelter and used it as a springboard to launch herself into the next corral, where she was free to go where she pleased. Randyman and I moved the fence to prevent any further escape. Two days later, I found her and her friends this time, BACK in the chicken pen once again. I grabbed her up and noticed the gate to their pen was wide open. I shoved them in and made sure it was latched properly. The following morning..they were out once again. Annie had figured out how to open the latch by herself. The gate is now CHAINED securely. If that doesn’t work, my only other option is an armed security guard.

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Annie completely redecorated their corral, re-engineering their shelter. After quite a bit of work she seemed satisfied with the results and went to dinner. Good thing she doesn't have am HOA They'd be all over her!

Rosemary finally went and did it. She had TRIPLETS! Two girls and a boy. I’m so pleased because even with the loses we incurred earlier this year, I had the 9 lambs I’d been counting on. It's been fun to watch all the little lambs get together and boing-boing around the pasture. The Maremmas are pleased as punch to have all these babies to watch over and have been seen snuggling with as many as 3 at a time…and of course the Captain always has to sleep with one of them.

We had another freezer failure so I am desperately canning again trying to get as much out of the freezers as possible as the boss is giving us a ½ beef and I need to get everything that was crammed in to 3 freezers, to fit into just 2 and still have room for the meat that is coming. I'm sure we could have worse problems. I made broccoli cheese soup with the frozen broccoli, have 3 big meatie chickens thawing out to can (except for the wings and breasts, which will be repackaged) and most of what would have been roasts that is coming I asked to have cut into stew meat so I will be able to rapidly can that as well. We use a lot of canned beef in sandwiches, and things like burritos. Stock will have to be made as well, and more tallow rendered. Hopefully I can pare things down to 2 shelves in the freezer and not have to buy another one, allowing us the time to have one repaired instead.

Foremost on my mind still, is containing the dogs. I need to have a system in place whereby the sheep can still graze but the Maremmas cannot leave to go patrol anymore. It's a puzzling problem, which I hope to overcome. That and a rototiller are my two biggest obstacles at the moment. Here's hoping. It's going to be a frantic spring but I am hoping it all pays off. Meantime, we will have a visit soon from my niece and her son and I'm excited about that. It'll definitely take my mind off things and a little fun is definitely in order!!

In addition to all the regular stuff, I've been stocking my little  webstore, with candles, and wax tarts in new fragrances, as well as soaps and body butter. Stop by the store at ranchrustics.com

Bread making is next on this weeks list.
Living the simple life can sure be complicated.