They're Back!!

Two years ago we found one of our much loved red-headed woodpeckers dead on the road out front. There was a burst of young ones and we were hopeful, but the numbers of European starlings have been steadily increasing and last year, we didn't see or hear a single woodpecker. It is one of my favourite sounds in summer and I loved to watch them catch their meals on our electricity poles in front of the house. They were sorely missed. Once a fairly common bird for this area, they are slowly being driven out of their natural habitat by the starlings. For several weeks now I have heard a woodpecker but hadn't yet seen them. A few days ago I recognised the sound of a woodpecker working away on the electricity pole, the regular sound is accompanied by a slight metallic echo as the pecking builds up a rhythm that vibrates  the transformer case. Excited, I walked around the base of the pole only to see a small black and white woodpecker...no red head! I didn't recognise the species so went online to look it up......... I am thrilled to say it was an immature red-headed woodpecker. Their return enriches our lives in a simple but meaningful way.

I am not a bird watching enthusiast but different species of birds illicit different emotions and they play a role in marking the phases of our daily lives. There is the first sighting of robins each spring that is the forerunner of all the signs that winter is over, followed by the long lines of geese migrating north again as the waterways thaw and open up opportunities for them. The raucous sounds of yellow headed blackbirds remind me of my Mother's first attempts with her new camera and her impressive photo:

 

Raptors that are a wonder to watch also threaten our chickens, but our sheepdog, Jake, is immediately alert at the sharp shrieking sound of the hawks and chases their shadows, never allowing them to focus on the chicken yard. Starlings chatter in the tree grove, geese couples strut across the road as they prepare for their babies, later to be followed by a line of goslings eager to keep up. When we mow the lawn, blackbirds follow us, when we work in the garden robins keep an eye on us waiting their turn to catch a juicy worm or steal a young onion. The birds that share our corner of Paradise are a source of pleasure, an indicator of weather, give us clues as to the health of our tree grove, add colour to a landscape that is full of hidden treasures. The woodpecker may be one of my favourites but we derive just as much pleasure when we are visited by Blue jays, more often we hear the jays as they protest the presence of hawks but since we have been planting bushes, the jaybirds will leave the safety of the tree grove and strut around the shrubs.

I can't talk about our birds without mentioning the swallows. There is even a swallow's nest in the chicken house. They line up on the wires that carry our electricity as the afternoon turns to evening, waiting for the mosquitoes. Sitting and relaxing watching them swoop and swipe at the bugs is doubly sweet as we count the bugs unable to bite us. As we watch the swallows it is easy to forget the killdeer also feeding on the bugs, yet there would be something missing if we removed the sound of the killdeer from our landscape. Their comical behaviour draws our eye out to the pasture as they attempt to draw attention away from their nests. As we look out to the pasture we may see the mourning doves out on the roof of the granary, or the flocks of wrens or sparrows leaving the barn where they have been feasting on the goat feed! One year we had a female wild turkey help herself to chicken feed then as winter gripped the chicken yard she moved to the barn and helped herself to the goat feed. We didn't begrudge her the feed, she was a welcome addition to our homestead and we wish she would return.

Many of the birds we see I am unable to identify, many I haven't even mentioned, such as the meadowlarks or the owls that watch us and whose sounds accompany us to the barn in the evenings. Many of our plantings have been to encourage the, as yet, unseen hummingbirds. 

Birds are an important part of our daily smiles here! 

Easter weekend

The blog has been sadly neglected and I have no excuse other than the weather having kept us busier than usual at this time of year.
Compare the following photos:
End of March 2011

2012:

Hard to believe that the beginning of April can be so very different. The first of the tulips are blooming:

The rhubarb is growing enthusiastically:

 The trees are turning green

Average temperatures for this time of year are upper 40s- mid 50s ( 9-13C) yet, this year, we have already seen 85F (30C), allowing us to start fencing where normally the ground would still be frozen solid. In the vegetable garden, normally one of the last places to rid itself of snow drifts, garlic is already 6" high and someone has been busy planting weeds! We have not been tempted to start anything yet as we are all to aware of the fact that there will still be night time freezes and snow is not unknown in April in South Dakota. This may be the first year that we are able to plant potatoes by Easter, though.

We expected lambing to be a slow and leisurely experience this year as we have young first time bucks. Combined with several first time ewes we are quite happy to let them take their time. Nigel and Fred were obviously up to the job because at the earliest possible date our first lambs arrived. It is a worrying and exciting time of year to see the babies doing well and to see other problems arise. First time mothers can be a problem and a couple forgot about their first born by the time they had cleaned and cared for their second born. We always put the ewe and her lambs in a small pen so they can spend 3 days bonding peacefully. One ewe had already trodden on one of her lambs before we could get to her, and Dorothy became our first bottle lamb of the season, needing extra care with her broken leg. Other than the leg she is a feisty little thing and is doing well with her splint. Two of our ewes sadly died and gave us 2 other bottle lambs, Toto and Fred. Eight other lambs are healthy and running round with their mothers.

We developed a slightly different system for lambing this year that seems to be working well. At the back of the barn we have set up the small individual pens. Halfway down the barn we have set up another barrier that includes one side of the automatic waterer and one side of the creep feeder. When the ewes are released from their small pens, we band the lambs and leave them in this new large  pen. They can get to water without us having to fill buckets for them, the babies are encouraged to find the creep feeder, yet they are all in the safety and calmness of this larger pen. Babies learn to find their mothers amongst several ewes but none have to compete with the crowd the other side of the barrier, and we can keep an eye on them without having to peer through 128 legs. When we are sure that mother and babies are doing well they are released back to the flock, a flock that is looking very healthy after such a mild winter:.

Each year we worry about keeping our male animals away from the females until the beginning of November, a real concern for us as we have no desire and no adequate facilities for lambing in the middle of winter. We no longer have a stud horse and, as we will have no more foals, we have no need to use the pen to the west of the house as a maternity ward for the mares. Next to the pen there is an old granary, still in good shape as well as an entire area of grass and shrub that we have never put to use. We have started pulling down the old fencing and will expand the pen to include the granary as our new Bachelor Pad. The existing fencing was in bad shape and barbed wire is not necessarily the best way to keep in headstrong, testosterone- strong sheep or goats, so we will replace it all with electric fence. There is no electricity out to that part of the property so we have invested in a nice new solar powered fencer that was made to power much larger areas than our pen, so we will have no problem keeping this sized area zapping powerfully! When this horrendous wind subsides we will be able to finish the fencing and move the boys out to their new area. We are thinking of moving Anita's old mare out with them for a while as there is so much good grass and she has been responding well to the extra care and attention she received all winter.

Last year we planted gooseberry bushes and currant bushes, the early spring weather has each of them budding and we are happy that not one has died. In a few years time our harvest of fruit should be bountiful and varied as all the blackberry bushes and elderberries are are also doing well. We will have to keep an eye on them as the weather forecast predicts freezing night time temps this coming week. Hopefully the apple and cherry trees will hold off blossoming till after the freeze.

Spring has sprung, even in South Dakota and whether you believe in Easter or Eostra, the oldest pagan symbol of fertility,we have much to be thankful for. Healthy babies, healthy soil ready to produce and, importantly, our health that allows us to do so much outdoors. However you celebrate this weekend, we hope you will take the time to count your blessings and enjoy your friends and family. Life is often better than we realise!

From left to right Toto, Fred and Dorothy, all managing to eat from the bucket!

 Fred is much pushier than Toto, but nobody seems to knock Dorothy off the nipple:

Feeding time for the bottle lambs but everyone else follows, don't want to miss anything!

Toby, the ultimate opportunist uses his time wisely to eat hay attached to Phylleigh's tail

Trying to get the bottle lambs curious about solid food

Toto finally gets a turn at the bucket

The other lambs are getting more playfully independent

they still hop skip and jump when Mama calls

Spring and sheep!

We may well be three days short of spring when looking at the calender, we may well be three weeks short of spring as far as recorded averages for this area will tell us, but all the signs are here. Yesterday we hit 80F (26C) and, for the last week, night time temperatures have stayed above freezing point. The geese have returned, the chickens have started laying eggs with vigour, the grass is turning green and, most importantly, the sheep need a haircut. We like to have them sheared a few weeks before we start lambing but that sometimes proves to be a challenge. Last year with too much snow, we were faced with a barn that the shearers were unable to reach with their vehicles, first because of 4ft snow drifts and then later because of knee deep mud. As it turned out last year was a bad year for us, with only seven of our sheep bred. Not to go into details, it was a mini disaster for us that meant lambing paid for none of the usual bills, like paying for all the winter hay. These things happen, every farmer will tell you woeful tales of bad years but the only real solution is to look forward to better times (or to give up, which is not in either of our natures!).

We do not have sheep that are bred for their wool, such as merinos or Wensleydales, we breed meat sheep. Wool is not our prime object in shearing. We shear for clean sheep during lambing, so we can see what is happening as the delivery time approaches, and so the lambs do not have to fight dirty wool in order to get to their food source. We shear so that our sheep do not get too warm in summer and die on us. We shear to avoid nasty things like fly strike, when flies will lay their eggs in damp wool and a little while later maggots appear and do gross things to your sheep.

I have been to sheep shearing competitions in the northern counties of England and Wales, I have read books about Australian and New Zealand shearers and all have convinced me that shearers are a breed apart! It came as no surprise that Anita used to use a local man who I can best describe as "a sullen man of few words". He sheared all the local sheep, gave a fair price and was reliable, which is about as much as anyone can expect or want. When we decided to have sheep, we used this same man except, by then, he was into his 70's and slowing down. The year he retired we decided to use the same man as our neighbour was using. It made sense that he would do our sheep after the neighbour's, thus making a full day's work for himself. He arrived and within five minutes he was arguing with Anita, shouting at her, upsetting her to the point that I was ready to go to the house for the shotgun. His visit lasted 15 minutes and we have neither seen nor heard of him since. We still giggle at the way Anita stood up to him and ran him of the property.

Imagine our relief when the old shearer recommended some young men from just across the Minnesota border. The first year they came there were three of them and they did a wonderful job, last year we made an appointment with them that we had to cancel because of the weather and the inability to keep the sheep completely dry. This year Luke came on his own. We put up panels to restrain the flock and another 2 to enclose the shearing area that housed six sheep at a time. Jake helped with the sorting, Luke sheared, Anita de-wormed and vaccinated and I bagged the wool. It took us less than 4 hours to finish up with 32 sheep. We laughed, we joked, we shared stories and both Anita and I were impressed with the young man. He was knowledgeable, well versed in all subjects that we broached, respectful and did a wonderful job with the sheep. In fact we felt honoured to have gotten to know him a little better! He broke the stereotype I had in my mind of sheep shearers!

We are happy, about 60% of our ewes look as though they are 2-4 weeks away from lambing and all the rest bar one look pregnant. If the weather holds, this may be a good year! If, if, if! The sunshine has brought the kids outdoors, too. They spend their days playing and eating, and as they have started eating hay and weeds, we think we will start milking Daisy next week. I can't wait to taste the first goatmilk ice cream of the year and to start the first batch of cheese. Spring holds so much promise.