Blog #44
April through May 2024
I had nothing to write. Then spring happened. We’re bouncing along (get it? Spring?) and now I can’t keep up. Luckily, a rainy day happened and I can write. But now we’re into summer and I HAVE TO FINISH. I’ll try. Uploading photos is the main time-consuming thing here, but bear with me and you’ll have a HUGE update.
And FYI, this blog is NOT written by AI. Maybe it should be? This blog post is LONG. If you want, you can use the table of contents below to jump around.
- Good News/Bad News Herd
- Farm Improvements
- Bees are Buzzing
- Visits to Camp Weinstein Ranch
- Fish Wagon
- Dog Expansion Pack
- Madison Graduates
- Swinging Gates
- Future
Good News/Bad News Herd
Baaaad News: Phillip had to be put down.
I got a call from my daughter-in-law Madison. Walking by the pasture, she saw one of the sheep stuck in the chicken pen. I have been keeping it open since everyone tries to break in anyway. The really strange thing is that Phillip — aka the goat “Yente” of CW — was not around. Madison saw him under the pony trailer we shut the sheep into at night. Was he stuck?
I ran down from the house. He was not trapped or wedged but he wasn’t coming out. We dragged him out only to see a gash on his rear leg. He stood up – and his leg was dangling. We could see the broken bone. We considered splinting it, and other options. I called my mobile vet who was two hours away, another mobile vet also an hour away, other neighbors with goats, my friend’s daughter-in-law/vet tech, our breeder, etc. We heard suggestions from casting, to amputation to bringing him to Univ of Tennessee for surgery. But none of these people actually saw the wound.
Finally, we got Phillip an appointment with a vet in Flat Rock. We lifted him into the back of the Outback. (Did you know a Subaru was a farm vehicle?) After checking in, we drove him to their back door. The vet came out and as soon as she saw Phillip’s leg, she started breaking it to me that he would not be long for this world. The wound was very dirty (hell, he had been lying in the chickens’ dust bath area!) and it was probably highly infected. Antibiotics might not work. Surgery for an amputation would mean anesthesia and even healthy goats die for no reason under anesthesia. And his quality of life would be much reduced as goats (unlike dogs or horses) get up from lying down using their back legs. The most humane option was to put him down. I made what I thought was a crazy request; would they shear him first? Maybe I could get enough fiber from him to make a hat? He definitely was the animal with the most personality of our entire flock. Sigh. RIP Phillip.
Good news: Sheep Shearing!!!
A few days later we got the news that the sheep shearers were coming to town! Yay! Not sure if our sheep’s fleeces were long enough at this point, but they definitely need to have a trim before warm weather commences. I invited neighbors and friends and made it a happening for those who could make it.
We had kept them in the shelter and followed the directions to stop food and water for 12 hours. David jury rigged a pen for the shearers to use. You may be able to lead a horse to water, but it was super hard to lead sheep a few hundred feet for a trim.
Turns out that sheep basically become immobilized when you turn them on their backs and sit them on their hind ends. In a few minutes, they looked like Basic Training at Fort Bragg was imminent. The sheep were just as hard to lead back to the pasture, but were happy to be free of their halters.
Bad News for the Feathered Flockl
While taking the sheep from the pasture, David noticed lots of white feathers near the bottom of the chicken run. Why? Then he saw one of the chickens with her wing hanging. Ugh. What is it with our animals and their extremities? Some kind of predator scaled the fenced pasture and reached in to hurt our chickens. Not sure how or what. Now we have a motion sensor light and a camera installed. Soon we will put a short bit of electric fence around it.
Good News In General
Aside from the above adventures, our animals are pretty healthy. We’ve been trimming hooves, feeding, mucking out and generally basking in the glow of bucolic farm life.
Farm Improvements
It’s Electric
Good thing David insisted that we install an electric line to the goat shed to overcome a few problems. One was that there was no way to keep the water from freezing this winter. Also, the solar powered electric fence around the bees failed. Lightening took it out, which we now know is not that uncommon. The pasture is a bit of a muddy mess since we had to dig up part to lay the wire, but it will be worth it in the end. The grass seed we laid down is starting to take, which is a miracle since the chickens think it’s food.
Do(n’t) Fence Me In
Last year, you may remember that our sheep almost didn’t make it. Diarrhea is indicative of baaaaah-d things for sheep. The lab said, “I’ve never seen such a high parasitic load in a sheep – that was still alive.” It scared us. The vet told us the best way to prevent this was to rotate the pasture. Parasites come out in the feces and live for about eight weeks in the soil. If you can keep them off part of the pasture for a while, you’ll do the sheep a favor. We can divide what we have with electric fence, but then it will be four itty bitty fields. So we are adding. Posts went in first. It gave David the reason to buy the post hole digger attachment for the tractor that he has been eyeing. He had such a big smile when it got hooked up. It took a few weekends to put in the posts, run the wire and put in the top rail, but it’s done. David has designs on letting it be a REALLY big dog run, but we did it to cut down on mowing, so the sheep and goats are going in. They may have to take turns with the dogs…
Update: now there is too much grass. We still have to mow, just not as often. Who votes for us getting more sheep?
Bush Hog
Your accessories might be new shoes, or a bag. Ours? A Bush/brush hog attachment for the tractor. The grass got too tall for a mower. This is the only thing that will knock it down. It will also clear out bushes, and plants — up to small trees!
Bees are Buzzing
The current hives are fine, but I was hoping to expand a little. And I did I ever — as you’ll see. To meet my expanding apiary hopes and dreams, we purchased some new wooden parts for hives at the Bee Expo. You can buy them pre-assembled, which I’ve done in the past. This time, I thought I’d just buy the pieces and glue/screw them together myself. Not being a carpenter, I messed up a little. I didn’t realize you that the boxes don’t square themselves; you actually need to use a square or a string on the diagonals to make sure everything’s even. Don’t roll your eyes; you didn’t know that either. A majority are useable but the rest? Ummm… I will repurpose three into swarm boxes or something.
Roughing Up the Bees
It may sound like I got some of the Sopranos together and met the bees in a NJ marshland. Actually, David gave me a sheetrock cutting tool and I made the smooth, planed wood on the inside of the hive boxes rougher to encourage the bees to create a propolis envelope.
It’s something I learned about at the Bee Expo (see the last blog) from the famous and personable Dr. Marla Spivak. Propolis is a sticky substance bees use. They can plaster it to patch holes to keep out wind or envelop anything that shouldn’t be in the hive. For example, if a mouse enters the hive, many bees kill it by stinging/protecting the hive/losing their lives. Said mouse then gets covered with propolis so it doesn’t infect the hive and make it smell while decomposing. Pretty clever! Anyway, propolis turns out to be antibacterial, anti-fungal and overall supportive of bee health. If you can encourage bees to produce more (e.g. by roughing up the inside of the hive box) you may have heathier bees.
On the outside, each new box needs two coats of primer and two coats of outdoor latex paint to protect the woodenware from the elements. Some people dip the hive boxes in wax which sounds pretty cool to me – but super messy and I don’t have enough wax of my own yet. Bigger operations can do this no problem.
S’warming or Warm = Swarm
When the weather gets warmer, bees often need more space. They start building up brood in the colony and for many reasons, they may leave the hive en masse leaving some bees behind to care for a new queen. This can be good and bad for beekeepers. If my colony swarms, I may lose it or at least have fewer for a while. If I catch a swarm, then I can add those bees to may apiary in a new hive set up.
So that happened. First I think part of one of my hives swarmed. I managed to catch them. They were hanging on a low branch so I dropped the whole ball into a box, put them in a new hive with frames and crossed my fingers. Then I got a call from a friend. Her son’s school had a swarm hanging around and would I take them away. YES!! Again, it was on a low branch. I brought all my equipment to the school and barely needed any. When I got home, I had another new colony of bees. Between those two and a split I made, I was up to 7 hives! I had to combine a weak one with another and now I have 6. It’s been a great year so far. Now if only it would stop raining. I might get honey, but the weather is the ultimate determining factor in that equation.
Visits to Camp Weinstein Ranch
Matt & Bree
My cousin’s son came to visit with his girlfriend Bree. We had a great time hanging out and hiking and such. It’s been a few months and now THEY’RE ENGAGED! I’ve offered up our place as a venue…. Not sure they’ll take us up on it.
Berken/Finucane
Kirsten and her man Sam came to visit the east coast, but this time to our neck of the woods. Her parents, Mitchell and Nancy came down from Long Island to join in the fun and we had a blast. Family visits are the best, especially when we get to see baby Eloise grow up in front of our eyes.
Small/Bichoupan Reunion
Do you have friends that you’ve basically grown up with? Since our oldests met in kindergarten, these two families and ours have gone on vacations together, had weekly dinner together when we lived in Roslyn, and otherwise care and support each other. We never realized that the kids miss each other as much as us older generation. They planned a reunion and we somehow made 17 people fit comfortably in our house (with the aid of 2 RVs). Everyone is like family and all helped so it was really easy and fun.
We had RC Boat races on the pond, went hiking, strolled through town, helped tending the animals, had tractor driving lessons, viewed a drive in movie in the hangar, visited the Biltmore, hung out at the pool, and generally had a lot of fun. It was a blast. My only regret is not having taken more pictures. Hopefully this will become an annual event.
One outcome is that we made a new logo as well for the official CW Ranch. Of course it had to come with swag. Shirts for everyone!
Fish Wagon
Like everything else here, it may seem that things take care of themselves, but no. Even the ponds need help. To keep down algae, we a completely organic dye to the edges of the pond called Pond Shade, but it’s not enough. We also have fish that clean up the bottom. Some was stocked before we bought the farm, but now it needed replenishing.
I’m telling you this because my city friends probably don’t know what’s involved in this. There is a truck that comes from Arkansas (!) to our local hardware store every 6 weeks. They bring a giant stock tank truck with various types of fish. We ordered fish in advance, catfish, grass carp and small feeder fish, went and picked it up and brought it home. If we needed to stock the whole pond, they’d deliver directly to the ranch. This is a whole industry I’m sure you never thought of. And that’s why I write this blog.
Dog Expansion Pack
We got another rescue dog. Yep. Another. That makes 3 canines for David and me and 2 for our daughter and her wife. Dogs outnumber humans in this house. Which is fine by my dog loving husband. He’d rather have about 7-12 and that may happen in the future when he’s retired. He goes to bed every night looking at dogs that need to be rescued on Instagram. There are worse things….
Bella came to us severely overweight. She should have been about 70 pounds but was 115 when the rescue organization took her. Is it because her former owner, a farmer, fed her too much? Or when she was found (her owner died and it took people a while to figure out that this loner had passed), the shelter couldn’t take her and just dropped off big bags of food. People pleaser that she is, she ate and ate. She came to us for medical reasons and we kept her for a couple of months. She dropped 2 lbs a week – something many of us aspire to! The rescue group found an amazing family to adopt her. She’s a lucky girl.
And then, just like that we got Winston adopted. He took a dislike to my daughter Brianna who works with David now. It was hard for all of us to see this sweet, goof ball go, but his new family LOVES him the way we would. Silver lining: we can rescue other dogs in need. There are a LOT down here since there are much more limited resources and most government run shelters are “kill” shelters. David is always looking for new possible rescues on the internet and hearing from the rescue groups – and may be bringing one home today!
Madison Graduates
We are so proud of our daughter-in-law Madison. She worked so hard to get this degree, and not only academically. Higher education can be a cruel task master. In her early 20s, Madison almost finished her degree from one school. She only had one more class. Unfortunately they only offer it every 2 years and don’t have enough spots for everyone. The administration wouldn’t budge and she didn’t graduate. After much transfering of credits, taking courses for Federal Law enforcement and finding a school that could take the remaining classes online, she’s done. She’s the first person in her family to graduate college. We are beyond the moon that she accomplished this major feat. I’m sure it taught her valuable lessons in persistence and fighting for what you need. Excuse the redundance but can I say we’re so proud of her again?
Swinging Gates
Sounds like part of our pasture expansion plan, but I went back to Colgate University to participate in the 50thReunion of my college a cappella singing group, the Swinging ‘Gates. The group started in 1974 (I went a dozen years after that so stop asking) and was the first organized women’s group on campus since they went co-ed. It really filled my bucket (and maybe another 13) to see women I knew back in the day, and make more friendships with the younger crowd. We got to sing in concert, hang out, vote on an alumni corporation, etc. Again, I didn’t take enough photos.
Future
I hope to report on a honey extraction soon. The sheep, goats and chickens all seem to be fairly healthy, but if that changes, as everything does, I’ll let you know.
And maybe I’ll try letting AI write my blog. The frequency could improve?
The Long And Weinstein Road 