Catching Up and Getting Ready

It's been a while since I've last written.  The seasons have changed and spring has sprung itself upon us and warm days and stormy nights are bringing us into summer.  The sheep have been sheared.  Joey sheared all of our sheep himself this year, seven adults in total.  The sheep have been let out on their pasture and the lambs are enjoying their first taste of grass and Millie the pony has been kicking up her heels and running from one end of the field to the other.  Her joy to be out in the open is the same way I feel about being outside again.  Something about being pregnant this winter gave me a bad case of cabin fever and I couldn't wait for spring.

So I've been enjoying it as best as I can with my growing belly in tow.  I've been hanging laundry on the line outside (although I can't lift the basket of wet laundry so I have to wait for Joey to carry it up from the basement for me).  I've been nurturing tomatoes and peppers and basil from seeds in my windows and watching all the green coming up in the garden where Joey has planted onions, potatoes, broccoli, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, sunflowers, squash, and sweet corn.  We extended the second garden this year and we are still running out of planting room.

I've had two wonderful baby showers back at home with family and friends and I have one more in June out here at the library with all the friends I've made in the last 3 years.  I've been trying to prepare for our summer reading program at the library and get everything ready for when I leave to have the baby in July.  I will be at home for a few weeks with the baby and then back to work, bringing the baby with me to the library.  At least that is the plan for now.

Joey and my dad are still working on our upstairs on the weekends and trying to get all the work finished before baby's arrival.  I have eight weeks until my due date so we are down to the wire now.  Fortunately, the nursery is done for the most part, and we just have to set up the crib and dresser and do some painting touch-ups.  The stairs and hallway are another story...

Last night we had our first dinner of the season with food from our farm and local area.  Joey got 20 pounds of beef from his boss' father-in-law that was raised about an hour away.  We fried the last of the season's finds of morel mushrooms and made deviled eggs from our hen's bounty.  I picked some rhubarb and made a crumble and picked lettuce and spinach for a salad.  It felt good to go out in the backyard and find food again.  We ate our dinner on the front porch and watched a storm.  We are looking forward to a wonderful summer of food, friends, farming, family, and best of all, the arrival of our first baby, our little boy.

Taking it easy

On Friday, I over-did it.  I lugged one too many loaded laundry baskets and by the time I got to work Friday afternoon, my back hurt so bad it was painful just to walk.  I limped around the rest of the evening and went to bed early with a heating pad instead of meeting some friends.  It was a rude awakening that at 26 weeks pregnant, I cannot do the things I am used to getting done.  I didn't have the energy to get anything done during my first trimester, and now that I am almost finished with the second trimester I have the desire to get work done around the house, but my body does not agree!  Over the past couple days I have been trying to convince myself to take it easy, something I have a hard time with, as I am used to doing things myself.

Saturday morning, my back felt immensely better than the night before.  Joey went to the neighbor's to shear a few more of his sheep and I took a drive through the country to the vet's office to pick up some sheep dewormer they made up for us.  Of course, only in the country can you drive miles down a road before a sign says that a bridge is out and you have to turn around and backtrack completely before you come across another road to get you where you are going.  Despite an extra 15 minute delay I was able to make it to the bakery before all the donuts were gone.  I had to stop there before the vet to make sure I could get one with toasted coconut on top!

After I got home (and I ate my donut on the way), Joey and I drove twenty minutes in the other direction to meet my cousin and his girlfriend for lunch.  Even though they live about twenty-five minutes from us, we are all so busy with work that we don't get together as much as we would like.

Later that evening, we drove back to the city to support our friend Josh's work fundraiser, which was a night of local bands playing to raise money against rape and domestic abuse.  It was a lot of driving in one day, but worth it to see friends that we haven't seen in a while.

After getting home late Saturday night, I was ready to relax on Sunday. Although when Joey went out to the hardware store, I couldn't stop myself from sweeping and vacuuming the floors and I got reprimanded from Joey when he found out I moved the heavy ottoman to vacuum.  Maybe my nesting instincts are kicking in, but I just couldn't stand the dog fur rolling around in the corners.  Also, I am getting really good at staying on top of loading and un-loading the dishwasher.  I can't do anything about the upstairs getting finished so I have to satisfy my nesting instinct with cleaning, and unfortunately my back is starting to limit a lot of that as well.

Luckily, the weather was warm and sunny so I stationed myself in a chair outside with my book and some knitting and spent most of my afternoon watching sheep and enjoying the warm breezes.  Joey starting shearing some of our sheep and some friends stopped by on a walk.  Just as we were about to eat a little lasagna, we were invited to a small cookout.  So we walked to our friend Matt's with Jip on the leash and enjoyed some food on the grill with our group of friends.  When we walked home, I stopped in the convenience store and bought an ice cream sandwich for myself and an ice cream cone for Joey.  As we walked home eating our ice cream, we both agreed that it was lucky that we found such good friends since moving here.  It was a good end to a good weekend, and now on to a rainy week at work!

Productive Spring Weekend

This last weekend my dad and sister came for a quick overnight visit.  The weather was warm and windy Saturday afternoon when they arrived.  My dad recently purchased a used rear-tine rototiller and brought it down with him so we could get our two garden beds tilled.  Joey and my dad made quick work of the first garden bed and then moved on to the other one that seems to grow every year.  My sister and I pulled up the adirondack chairs and watched.  There's nothing like sitting on the lawn on a warm afternoon, with the smell of freshly turned soil in the air, and watching someone else do the hard work. :)

After the gardens were tilled, my dad and sister pulled up the remaining cement slabs from an old sidewalk that we started pulling up last year.  We had minestrone soup and french bread for dinner and then we were back outside.  Joey and Maddy planted some onion sets. When our backs were turned, my dad lit a fire in the bonfire/brush pit that made a loud "whoosh!" when the flames caught and we turned around to see my dad silhouetted against a 6 foot bonfire.  I think he likes to come to my house and do work just so he can throw stuff on the burn pile and then have a massive bonfire.

Sunday morning was warm and we ate our breakfast outside with a view of "sheep tv."  My dad finally got to work inside on the stairs and banister project and Joey got on his tractor to till up the field behind out house so he could plant hay for the sheep.  My sister and I alternated between reading in the sun, planting the garden, and hanging laundry on the line.  We planted potatoes, peas, spinach, and lettuce.  Joey ran over the hay ground with the cultivator twice and then borrowed a friend's four-wheeler and dragged a metal fence panel over the ground to even out the soil for the hay seed.  He then walked and seeded the acre by hand.

After saying goodbye to my dad and sister around 3 pm, we took a short break and then Joey went over to the neighbor's farm to shear some sheep for practice.  We recently bought a set of electric sheep shears and Joey took a class on sheep shearing at a university extension so that we could shear our own sheep.  Because Merino sheep are so wrinkly, they are very difficult to shear and it has been just as difficult to find someone to shear them in our area.  So before jumping into shearing our own sheep, Joey offered to shear some of the neighbor's for practice.  He's got big Dorset sheep, which are like horses compared to our little sheep.

He was exhausted after wrestling with two sheep.  It is hard to imagine sheep shearers who can finish each sheep in 4-5 minutes.  Hopefully, with practice and patience and a steady hand, our sheep will come out unscathed this year.  Last year, the shearer cut them up so badly I had to go sit in the truck because all the cuts and blood were making me sick.  Usually blood does not bother me, but to see my own sheep get injured bothers me.  I am kind of a nervous wreck around shearing anyway since there are so many appendages that could accidentally get cut off (we've heard all the stories) when a sheep squirms or the shearer gets too close with the shears.

Joey's planting season at work started last week so his long hours and Saturday overtime are starting again.  After three years of planting season and harvest season, I am getting used to the stretches of long nights.  I am just thankful that our baby is due in July when the corn is up and growing and things so down a little bit again.

Here's to spring and warmer weather, new growth, and productiveness at home and at work!

The Words of Paul Harvey

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.'

Paul Harvey made a speech in 1978 called 'So God Made a Farmer.'  I heard it for the first time this February during a Super Bowl ad for Dodge Ram Trucks.  At the time, Joey was sitting on the couch, cradling a newborn lamb that wasn't doing well.  When the commercial came on, we both were silent, gripped by the man's voice that seemed to be speaking directly to us and our trials and the uncertainties of lambing season.  The images of trucks and farmers across America did not matter as much as that man's voice.  I immediately wanted to hear it again.

Later that night, I found Paul Harvey's original broadcast on YouTube and I listened to it over and over.  I emailed the link to my sister.  I thought about his words, almost like a sermon that was speaking to me, confirming the reasons Joey and I want to be farmers.  It is a short speech, but it is spoken with such conviction and reassurance about the value of this life, the purpose of those that choose not just to sit in a GPS-driven combine and harvest thousands of acres of corn, but for those farmers that choose to nurture life on a smaller scale.  Those of us who sit in darkened living rooms with weak lambs on our laps, praying we've done enough.  Those of us who plant seeds on our hands and knees and then wait for the rain.  Paul Harvey speaks to us.

And Joey reminded me of this last night when we lost another lamb.  She became so sick over the course of a few hours, there was nothing we could do but wait for her to die and be free from pain.  And the worst part was the realization that I wanted her to die.  In a matter of fifteen minutes I went from hoping there was a solution to knowing there was no hope.  Joey left me in the barn with her so he could run over to the neighbor's and ask for advice.  Alone in the barn with a dying lamb, her mother incessantly baaing, all I could do was stand there, listening to the rustling of the birds that were flying in and out above my head and feel completely helpless.  Joey finally returned and I told him I didn't think there was any solution.  And at that point I just wanted it to be quick.  I felt like I was turning my back on her, I just wanted it over.

Once again, I knew that I couldn't do this alone.  Without Joey by my side, I couldn't handle the part of farming that involves death.  I'm not strong enough, and I'm not sure I want to be.  I know that this is the life I want to be living.  To know the adrenaline rush of joy at new life, to feel a greater power's presence when a new lamb takes its first unsure steps, is greater than anything I ever would have experienced if I had not chosen to follow Joey here.  But to feel my own baby kicking inside of me and know that a mother sheep is about to lose her first lamb weighed heavily on my heart.  

But on days like today, when I watched Grace sniff at the three remaining lambs and not find her own, I feel grief and guilt but I also feel the grace of life.  It is hard, and it goes by quick, and it can be taken away at any moment, so it is important to live a life you love.  God needs those who are willing to take the risk of placing our lives on the backs of sheep that will eventually die, in a field of pumpkins that can be wiped out by squash bugs, in a hen house that can be raided by raccoons, or in cornfields that can be ravaged by drought.

So God made a farmer.

And we dry our eyes and say "maybe next year."  And give thanks for three healthy lambs.


Check out Paul Harvey here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvm4zCsO0Jw

Pancakes

Joey tapped our trees around February 23 and the sap has been flowing heavily.  After filling a few gallon buckets within the first few days, Joey decided to scrub out our rain barrel to store the sap.  He got 55 gallons of sap to fill the rain barrel.

He then built a make-shift evaporator in our backyard using cement blocks and the metal grill from our charcoal grill.  He filled a granite wear tub with sap and built a hot fire under it, and watched it boil.  All. Day. Long.  By the late evening, the sap had boiled down enough that he could fill 3 soup pots and boil it on the stove top.  This method is not recommended.  It causes the humidity in your house to rise considerably, and is especially not advised if you have wallpaper.  Since we don't have any wallpaper in our house, all the windows formed condensation instead, and our dry skin got a break from dry winter air.

Over two days of boiling we got about 7 pints of maple syrup.  

Trees tapped along the street.

In this new year Joey has learned a new skill: making pancakes.  He has also learned how to make pancakes while I am sleeping and bring them to me in bed.  He makes an awful mess in the kitchen, but it makes the house smell good, and the pancakes are tasty.  For now, I can't sample our maple syrup since it is not pasteurized so I've been covering my pancakes with peanut butter and raspberry jam.  Baby doesn't mind though.  After eating pancakes for dinner the other night, he was kicking and moving as if he appreciates pancakes as much as his papa.

When Joey was little (like two or three), his family went on vacation.  And every day when they ate at a restaurant little Joey ordered pancakes.  After about a week of pancakes, his mom decided he had had enough and ordered him something else instead.  When that meal arrived at the table, Joey looked around quizzically and asked, "Pancakes coming?"  I don't know if he got pancakes that day or his mom made him eat what she ordered, but it's good to know that something as simple as a plateful of pancakes can make my husband happy.  He makes me happy.

Shepherd

I love this guy.

Happy Birthday Joey!

From Sheep to Skein

After many, many months of impatiently waiting, our wool has finally come back from the woolen mill!  What was once growing on our funny little sheep's backs, has now been turned into yarn!  Joey got home from work before me and found the giant cardboard box in the mail.  He probably wouldn't want me to tell you this, but he told me later that he actually yelled for joy in the kitchen when he realized what was inside the box.  He had to text me a picture right away with the caption, "Our sheep made this."  Pretty exciting stuff after almost 3 years of being shepherds.

Joey was worried that it would turn into a big tangled mess if we left it as it came in the box, so he started twisting all the skeins that night.

Here they are in the natural color of the sheep's wool.  They will need to be washed again since the spinning process adds a little grease to the wool that has to be removed before we can dye any of the yarn.

Joey's birthday is tomorrow, so I went to the store and bought a bunch of stainless steel stock pots, measuring cups, and slotted spoons so we can start playing with the wool dye that my dad gave me for Christmas.  I'm sure most men would not be thrilled to receive cooking pots to dye wool for their birthdays, but I am glad I am married to a man who thinks producing a beautiful product with your own hands is pretty cool.  He's got to counteract his wool dyeing this weekend with big manly bonfires and boiling down sap into maple syrup.  Plus, he's got a giant beard that sticks up for his manhood when he's playing with yarn. It's the dream of the 1890's.  (Ever watch Portlandia?  Cracks us up.)

 

I think we will dye about half of the yarn and leave the other half natural and see what sells better.  Some people may want the natural wool or they may want to play around with dyeing it themselves.  Between wool dyeing and sap boiling for maple syrup, it is sure to be a messy weekend.  We are very proud of the wonderful things we are producing from our very own backyard. 

***After washing and dyeing the wool, we will be selling some in a local yarn store and some on our Etsy store.  There is a link to our Etsy store on the right side of the blog page if you would like to check out our yarn.  Also, if you are interested in something specific, leave me a message on the blog!***