Desert Weyr Farm Notes

Stone Brew Visitors & Haying!

2009-06-30T22:00:00.003-06:00

Greg Koch from Stone Brewing, Susan Duniphin & Keiffer Koch arrived for a short visit today. We started with some picture taking opportunities at the edge of the mesa.

We had a lovely lunch at Flying Fork in Paonia and then got a great tour of both Revolution Brewing's new brewing facility and their tasting room. Of course I didn't get any pictures but Greg took video and it should be up on you tube soon.

Next stop was off to Monica's Small Potatoes Farm to see what to get for dinner tonight. She let us dig out a couple of potato plants, some fresh garlic and some lovely cooking greens. Then off to Terror Creek Winery for tastings. Greg tweeted from there.

Winery number 2 is Stone Cottage Cellars. Here is Greg, Karen Helleckson & Brent Helleckson in the cellar at Stone Cottage. Final winery stop was Azura Cellars. No pictures because we were running late by then.

Part of the rush to get back was to get home in time to do chores and let Judd in the field to cut our hay. Greg is enjoying a Revolution Beer while watching Judd do all the work.

This field has been years getting in shape to hay and this first ever cutting looks really good. It's about 2 acres so it will be interesting to see how much we actually get off it.

Sheep Butcher & Garden Update

2009-06-29T07:04:00.001-06:00

The second batch of rams went to slaughter today.

We try to sell and use as much of the sheep as we can. So one thing we save from the rams are the horns. They get made into Shepherds' Crooks and knife handles. Here Ken is using a sawsall to cut the horns off the skull. The veterinarian helping him is collecting brain tissue samples for scrapie slaughter surveillance testing.

This batch will be combined with last weeks batch and we'll soon have our own smoked kolbassi sausages to sell.

It's almost the 4th of July and the corn is knee high. It looks like I'm doing ok with corn this year.

The peas are also doing well. There are a lot of flowers now.

The watermelon and other melon are not growing as well as I'd hoped but they aren't dead yet.

Lamb Scoreboard

2009-06-26T07:02:00.000-06:00

2009 Lamb Scoreboard showing all the rams, and the lambs they sired.

Lambing Officially Over for 2009

2009-06-24T08:00:00.003-06:00

We have officially finished lambing for 2009. We are now at 152 days from when we took the rams out. While technically we could have lambs up until 155 days none of the remaining ewes look pregnant nor do they have any udders at al so I have declared us finished.

For the year we bred 56 ewes. 48 of them lambed producing 71 lambs total, 41 ram lambs and 30 ewe lambs.

I will be evaluating the ewes that did not lamb but with the AI experiment and the ram that didn't work it is possible that some ewes were never in heat with a ram that performed so they may get a pass for this year. We also had 4 stillborn lambs. Not too bad considering.

Now the real fun starts, deciding which lambs are keep, sell or butcher and planning matings for next year based on the results and quality of the lambs produced this year.

Solstice!

2009-06-21T07:57:00.000-06:00

It's the solstice. Summer now officially begins. I still haven't killed the garden so I'm thrilled.

Here is the corn, won't be knee high by the fourth of July but at least it's still growing.

The peas are doing well, I see a few flowers starting to show now but they haven't bloomed yet.

The Charantais melon is doing ok but the watermelon is not. Oh well.

Lambing nearly done, we hope!

2009-06-16T07:48:00.000-06:00

Well we're near the end of lambing now. We are at 144 days from rams out and have about 15 looking ready to go at any time.

Checking Cerridwyn for proper positioning of her first lamb.

Here I am checking and ready to receive the new lamb. She had a ewe lamb. Much later she had a breech stillborn. She never showed signs of a second lamb or I'd have checked.

Sheep Trick

2009-06-12T09:45:00.000-06:00

Some lambs start early learning how to jump on mom. A few continue this into adulthood and stand on top of others to get the top layer of hay.

Jump Starting a Lamb

2009-06-11T09:39:00.001-06:00

Lambing is in full swing and I thought I'd share a trick we use now on all lambs. I milk out a bit of colostrum into a syringe case. Ken then uses his little finger to entice the lamb to nurse and squirts the milk into the side of the lambs' mouth. This does several things. It allows us to give the lamb a jump start so they do not use up all their brown fat trying to get up and nurse. We get a quick evaluation of the strength of the suck reflex and whether the lamb has sharp teeth and we know that the lamb got a good dose of colostrum. It's quick, simple and makes a big difference in the overall health of the new lambs.

Garden Coming Up

2009-06-09T09:36:00.003-06:00

The garden is still coming up and doing well.

Chickens

2009-06-07T20:06:00.000-06:00

Here are the future laying hens.Front row from left to right Welsummer (pink feet), Ancona (black and yellow), Gold Campine (blue feet), Russian Orloff (yellow feet) and a Silver Grey Dorking (pink feet with an extra toe).

We'll see if I am right when they finally feather out.

I haven't decided whether I'll be showing at the county fair yet. I have to get the entry in soon so I'll have to make my decision before I even know if I've got birds that meet the standards. That's the down side to getting chicks later in the year.

Mowing the Orchard

2009-06-06T19:57:00.002-06:00

Moved the pregnant ewes and mowed their old pen to reset the grass growth. We needed to chop off the seed heads and get it back to growing more leaves. It should be ready to graze again in 2-3 weeks.

Dog House? Sheep House?

2009-06-01T17:07:00.002-06:00

New puppy, still unnamed and his buddy.

So is this a sheep in a dog house? or a dog in a sheep house?

New Puppy

2009-05-30T11:16:00.003-06:00

We picked up our new guard dog puppy this morning. He is an Akbash.

Here he is in his small pen inside the sheep pasture.

The sun was shining in the wrong place to get good pictures. All the sheep and Kimball came to investigate and the sheep were very concerned. They will settle down but it's been a while since they have seen a small dog.

He doesn't have a name yet. We're waiting to see if his behavior provides an obvious name.

Chicks Arrived

2009-05-29T10:36:00.001-06:00

All the chicks arrived this morning. This batch is the 100 red broilers. We raise one batch a year. We keep half for us and sell the rest.

We also got 25 pullets for egg laying. The egg breeds we are trying this year are Russian Orloff, Dorking, Ancona and Welsummer. We also got some Gold Campines since we've had them before and liked them. I hope the chicken sexers did a good job. I hate having to get rid of roosters.

All the chicks arrived alive and so far they are all doing well.

More Beer!

2009-05-28T10:33:00.000-06:00

Mike and one of the new fermenters for Revolution Brewing. Installed and working. Soon they won't run out of beer on the weekends! The second will have to wait until they get the brewing facility moved into the new building.

Visiting Friends

2009-05-27T10:31:00.000-06:00

Marvyn & his kids Jakey & Greta came to visit us. They are on a whirlwind tour of western states this vacation.

Interesting Clouds

2009-05-26T10:28:00.003-06:00

There was a very interesting cloud on top of Mt. Lamborn today. Snow is melting fast. Don't think the snow in the crevice will make it to July 4th. Probably going to be dry by the end of summer.

Garden is growing

2009-05-25T21:18:00.000-06:00

Well my black thumb hasn't hit yet. The corn is up and doing well. Now I've got to figure out if I need to thin the plants. Peas are doing well too. Not sure about the 2 kinds of melons. There are plants where I planted the seeds but I'm not sure whether they are weeds or the melon plants so I'm just going to leave them for now.

Water Everywhere!

2009-05-24T21:17:00.001-06:00

Morning Chores. Water everywhere from the rain. Ken's opening the valve to dump water out into the big pond.

Ducks on the Pond

2009-05-23T17:00:00.000-06:00

I was filling the horse water tanks when I noticed a huge amount of quacking, thrashing and splashing in the small pond by the house. This mother duck was racing back and forth tying to convince me she had a broken wing and I should come chase her.
Her ducklings were hiding in the reeds near where I was. They all got out and found mom.
I was able to sneak up on them and by moving slowly got a few pictures.

Cute Lambs

2009-05-21T17:00:00.000-06:00

This pair of twins discovered how much fun it is to sit on the high rocks above all the other sheep and survey the pasture.

Spock's Sweater Revealed

2009-05-20T06:40:00.004-06:00

Stardate -314370.83

I have been authorized by the Torchwood Institute to reveal the following history:

On star date -444413.69 Queen Victoria founded the Torchwood Institute. During the events leading up to the founding, some natural substances were discovered to be effective in deterring aliens. Torchwood 3 in Cardiff embarked upon a research project to identify and productize candidates for this use. One program looked at natural resources common to the area. Scientists, craftsmen and women were recruited to look at and research possible uses for natural products in the fight against alien technology.

During one experiment the researcher Dr. Guido Lizardo (father to the famed Emilio Lizardo), was experimenting with directed energy weapons. He was wearing a sweater knit from the wool of the local Black Welsh Mountain sheep. An accidental discharge left a significant hole in the sweater but left him only slightly singed. His cover story, told to his wife and others, was that moths had feasted on the sweater causing the holes.

Such resistance was not perfect, but further research determined that it seems to be related to color as the Torwen and Balwen varieties as well as the Blacks all have some resistance to energy weapons. It was surmised that the early exposure of Welsh mountain sheep to dragon fire in the 12th and 13th centuries selected for this resistance while decimating the population. Certain monasteries were already breeding these special Welsh sheep and some early sumptary laws restricted black to persons of noble birth and the clergy.

Eventually, a blend of Black Welsh Mountain Sheep wool combined with specially produced stainless steel and kevlar fibers was found to be an effective shield against most hand held directed energy weapons. The resistance so provided, is far in excess of that which would be expected based on either of the component materials.

A small cottage industry was formed to produce these items for high profile individuals. Unfortunately, due to the efforts of radical animal rights activists, the technology to spin and produce these garments was lost by the middle of the 21st century. At the time of TOS, no Federation officers were protected. The political and environmental implications of this loss are still keenly felt.

During the Eugenics wars very little of the Torchwood technology survived.

After first contact, the Torchwood Archive was rediscovered and some of the specialized programs were moved to off-Earth locations. Agents of Torchwood spread the resistant wool technology to certain alien cultures that incorporated it into the development of garments for high value individuals. Spock’s human mother, Amanda, was one such agent and she knit Spock’s sweater specifically to provide some protection for him when he attended the rowdy Federation Star Fleet Academy.

Lamb Races

2009-05-16T07:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finally managed to film some of the lamb races.

The early lambs are all growing very well. The morning and evening lamb races are a daily occurrence now. When they are done there is a lot of baaing as the ewes try to find their lambs and lambs try to remember where they left their mom. They all settle down after a while for the evening cud chewing.

Sheep Shipped & More Garden Stuff

2009-05-14T13:53:00.000-06:00

Shipped out four yearling ewes to start a new flock up in Wyoming. They escaped and headed straight for the open gate but Ken got in front of them and we got them all caught up again.

Ken also cut some more trex railing pieces for me to mark out 2 more garden beds. I got them put in today. I'll plant corn and 2 kinds of melon tomorrow but save some seeds in case we get a late frost and I have to replant everything. So far I have not killed the garden but you never know, there are no vegetables from it yet either.

Beauty Sleep

2009-05-09T19:19:00.000-06:00

Orange, the outside cat, taking a nap on an old apple stump.

Summer is coming and it's really nice out now, not too hot but nice and warm. Good for naps.