here are the two lambs that will be delivered to us next weekend. (the two that are “kissing.”)
they are 3- and 4-months old and are known right now as #69 and #75. they wear their names on their ear tags. we will be naming these lambs because they won’t be slaughtered for meat – they’re going to be the beginning of our wool-producing flock.
over the first few weeks, we’ll be learning how to handle them, and will be hopefully halter-training them with the boys so that they’ll be just as comfortable with little humans as they will be with their big humans.
the farmers we got them from sent us home with spun wool for my mom, a pound of ground lamb from a romney (we’ll be grilling it tonight as burgers), and a huge garbage bag full of sheared wool from one of their romney sheep. i hope to begin washing it this week (when the sun comes back out!) and will document the process so that i won’t forget. it’s been fun doing the research, figuring out when to buy the right tools for the entire process, and now i’m ready to get my hands into it.
kenny and i are throwing around names…rowan and sawyer want to name them after themselves and i overheard sawyer telling his friend last night, “we’re only getting girl sheep because my mom wants the sheep. i don’t even know why.”
kenny and dad spent the fourth of july weekend digging post holes with a gas-powered digger. it took about a day (with breaks) to dig 95% of the 75 post holes. one side of the fence will be metal posts while the other three sides are treated lumber – 75 wooden posts and about 25 metal ones.
this past weekend, it took two days to get two sides of fencing up. you don’t just unroll and tack into place – unless you want a broken fence a few months down the line. the beginning has to be wrapped around the first post, and then the fencing has to be stretched as tight as possible. our choice for “progressive” woven wire fencing (meaning the holes are small at the bottom, and a bit bigger at the top) makes this nearly impossible to stretch by hand. so you have to stretch it by attaching it (with a special tool – i swear, there is a special tool for everything and it generally costs $39.99 to make your job easier…those $39.99 certainly add up!) to the tractor and then inching your way down the hill, then finally hammering several nail-like staples into place on each post.
the majority of our time spent on saturday was figuring out the system, and dodging raindrops.
this work is not for ones seeking instant gratification. like me. i wanted this fence up the same day we started, even though i knew that was impossible. but good fencing takes time and effort. we’ve done our reading up on fencing, and now we’re implementing what we know to be the best. we’re hoping all this work will be to our long-term interests as we don’t feel like doing fence repair anytime soon.
we have another few days before it’s complete: the metal fencing and one side of wooden fencing; three gates (doors) to build and install, and finally, trimming all the wooden posts…unless we decide to keep them long for installing a top line of electric fencing if we’re finding it doesn’t keep predators out.
building fences is slow, dull, and boring. it’s not cute or fun or interesting. but it’s necessary, and as soon as it’s up, we’re almost a farm.
the latest bouquet from my boys: a poppy flower, a wild daisy, and a clover flower. in the city, we had plenty of clovers, but never wild daisies or poppies. i know they exist there, but to me, they didn’t. here, they’re my normal.
if i had to pick favorite among our chickens, the buff orpingtons would be it. they’re so big and puffy that they barely fit in the nest boxes, and when i open the boxes to collect eggs and one happens to be in it, they move a little to make much room for their billowy back feathers to spill out. i think they’re secretly thankful for the extra room.
this is the field next to the farm where we buy our raw milk. this view means more to me now than ever before as i’m learning about hay – the three different cuttings each summer (i think these are the second cuts), what’s best to feed sheep and dairy cows (second cuts!)… and just how much you need to stock up on for winter.
this same dairy farm is run by the nicest family and has given us so many great contacts for jersey cow breeders and suffolk sheep breeders to vet names and farms all around the surrounding counties. farmers are good people to know.
i’m beginning to feel comfortable in my “country skin.” it’s taken me this long to be comfortable with the large space between our house and our neighbors’ house, to be fine with the long drives to…anywhere. i’m becoming “fine” with the big sky filled with stars above me and the lack of any outdoor man-made lighting after the sun goes down. it’s going to take a while for me to fine with the wildlife out there under the eyelid of night. it’s a different world when the sun goes down, and i’m perfectly comfortable inside these four walls we call home.
our boys are 3, 5, and 6 – or will be by the time summer is over. none of them have ever had swimming lessons before and we keep meaning to sign them up for them. swimming lessons are in abundance here, but i can’t quite figure out the system, or the ages, of when to introduce them to water-without-floaty-devices.
the logistics are enough to make me batty: if all swimming lessons are in the morning, i’d have to take all three boys with me to take one boys to his age group or water-experience lesson. what do the other boys do while while the one is having a lesson? what if i have to get in the water with the youngest? then what do the older two boys do while we’re in the water?
we take the boys swimming as a family, and it’s one of our favorite things to do all year round (the Y in the winter for evening swims, the outdoor pool for hot summer day swims). i couldn’t take all three boys swimming by myself. they all have different swimming personalities: rowan is not a head-under-the-water kind of swimmer. sawyer can’t wait to be underneath the water and adam loves the water, but can’t quite figure out the holding his breath or blowing bubbles under water thing. they all want to be in different depths of water at the same time. this is why having two parents in the pool with all three boys is necessary. they wear floatie devices when we go into a pool, usually. and i rely on them as much as they do. and that makes me a bit nervous – i never had a floatie device when i was younger, and i want them to be able to learn how to keep their head above water without the floatie, but we’re not experienced swimmers ourselves (we can swim without drowning) so have no idea how to teach them that ability.
so what about you? have your kids have lessons? if not, are you planning on giving them lessons? at what age? if you’re not planning on ever giving them lessons, why? and how will you teach them to swim, or at least to not drown?
i dream of the day when we can go to the pool all day long, all summer long, and i can relax and not freak out about…the unthinkable.
we’ve been telling each boy the “story of their birthday-day” on the days leading up to their birthday. rowan’s first birthday was super nostalgic for me. i was already 7 1/2 months pregnant with sawyer when rowan turned 1 and i was weepy and nostalgic and proud of our one-year-old.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
today, 6 years after your birth, rowan, you are more a boy than i could have dreamed. you are inquisitive, energetic, sensitive, giving, and a very good big brother to both of your baby brothers.
we couldn’t be more proud of you and each year as you grow, our love for you and your brothers multiplies…exponentially.
it’s my least favorite area
of our yard…the side “lean-to” of our garage.
fortunately, it’s going DOWN! and it has potential. i’ve emptied its contents, burned all the cardboard stashed inside, will make a few trips to goodwill to drop off an old office chair and garden hose caddy and call the scrap metal guy to pick up the old gas grill and various other metal things. also, the roof is aluminum, so he’ll take that as well. so we’re left with that fabulous fiberglass wall material. i’ve gotten about 1/4th of the way through taking the bolts out..eventually they’ll fall down and then kenny will dismantle the wooden frame.
then we have a garage to paint (white) and a side door to paint (dark red, to match the newly painted front door of the house). we have an old wooden workbench in the barn that we’ll move over to the side wall and i’ll gather all my terracotta pots during the fall and store them there along with all my other gardening equipment.
we will then have an outdoor gardening/potting station. that will eventually look like this:
this is my inspiration right now. the look will change, and i’ll hopefully be able to add a path with perennials in years to come…fortunately, we already own a few of these old tools as they were left in our barn and garage when we bought this house.
i promise to update with pictures once we’re in the outdoor potting-area business…
it’s full of sentimental value…the china closet kenny and i brought home from our honeymoon…the silverwear chest that came from my grandparents when kenny and i got married…and the spinning wheel that kenny bought me for christmas this year….all antiques, and all meaningful in more ways than what they actually cost.
a friend recently gave me some blue bandanas after she saw the pants i made for the boys last summer. i used two of them to make adam a pair, since he was the only boy to outgrow his from last year, and used the remaining ones, along with some red bandana fabric to make a beach throw…bandanas are somewhat irregular in shape and size, so i had to fudge it a bit…but it works! and i love the colors!
i had one extra square (that wouldn’t make it symmetircal), so i used it now as a bandana for myself…
my favorite sewing project from last week was a new apron for kenny… he had been using my apron for grilling recently, and while my apron isn’t all that “girly” (it’s a white with the word “kitchanaid” on the front), i felt he needed one that said, “grilling machine.” i thought this camo was perfect…especially when he decides to grill in the middle of any hunting he might do this fall. notice the handy “griller’s tool belt” sewn into the side…
