28 Nov 2004
It's Been a Busy Weekend

Well, I missed another day blogging yesterday, but given all that's been going on here, I've got a pretty good excuse.

Tup, the first Blackface sheep we acquired, killed himself Friday morning... yes, sheep do sometime commit suicide, although I'm reasonably sure it's never intentional. I'm pretty sure that he bludgeoned himself to death whacking on the stall wall (or the gate) - at any rate, his neck was broken, and that's what did him in.

There's no way I'm going to try and butcher a "downer" animal, especially when I not 100% sure what killed it - so we had to drag the caracass off to a spot over at Kevyn's dad's house (the Hill) which is sort of a dumping ground for dead animals. Out there, the coyotes and vultures will feast, and hopefully be satiated enough that they'll leave the living livestock alone. Works pretty well, actually. The problem is trying to hoist a 200+ pound (about 100kg) into the back of a truck, and then drive the truck through the mud in the pastures to the spot - and back.

Tup had eaten well on Thursday - and his stomaches were all quite full. Not only did this add to the weight, but the contents of his rumen would spill out if we allowed his head to fall lower than the rest of his body. Ever smelled the aroma given off by a paper mill? That's got nothing on the contents of a sheep rumen! Both of us were huffing, puffing, gagging and straining (and Kris almost barfed ...) but we finally managed to get him into the little truck and over to the Hill.

Once this was done, we tried to clip off his horns: they're a very nice set - double curled - and we ran into an immediate problem. Because of the curl, we couldn't get the horn nippers around them! I'm afraid we probably ruined one (and thry're worth about $50 each) trying. Bummer. I've gotta get over there and cut them off with a saw, which I would've done yesterday, but it was pouring rain all day, and besides, we had other tasks to keep us busy and exhausted.

We went to the Lebanon sale barn yesterday morning and stood in a cold downpour to buy some hay. We'd not had the cash heretofore to purchase any, and we'll need 3 or 4 hundred bales over the winter. We got 100 very nice bales yesterday, and at a very good price. The seller was happy to deliver, which was a good thing, as Kevyn had the trailer up at the tree farm setting up his petting zoo. But unloading 100 bales in cold rainstorm is no fun, and it's even less fun to then carry each bale to the loft. We couldn't toss in the upper hatch because we couldn't get the trailer around thru the mud to the correct position, so everything was heft and carry.

I went to bed about 9:30 last night, and didn't wake up until 8 am.

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Small Town Fights Back

I wonder if this will actually work, once the novelty wears off. If it does, it could provide a nifty model for the rest of us in rural America.

Los Angeles Times - ELY, Nev. — Brian Campbell picked through the underwear display while his wife, Kristina, unloaded an armful of clothes on the checkout counter. Over in the footwear department, fifth-graders Shawnee Day and Maria Dominguez were ogling the socks stitched with monkeys and puppies.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link