Daily Life at Quiet Thyme Farm

Building a New Home

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 02:50:00 +0000

Our life it about to take on a whole new adventure. In a few weeks, we are going to plow over the 160+ year old farm house you see here and build a new one in the same location. I spent 4 months drawing the floor plan. Just before Christmas, I took it to a designer to have him make the construction drawings. We spent January interviewing builders and decided on 3 of them to bid the project. It is currently out for bid and we are waiting to hear back.

We have begun packing up our household goods. We will move everything out into one of the two barns (the old dairy barn or the new shop/office - pictured above). We will sleep in my office and cook & shower in the 5th wheel trailer while construction goes on. It's estimated to take about 6 months. So our hope is to be moved back in sometime in October.

So stay in touch with us while we build our new home!

More Babies

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sat, 01 May 2010 14:52:00 +0000

You might remember this picture of my bird feeders outside my office window. I shared it in one of my first blog postings. Well, Colton and I had gone to Florida during spring break to visit my Mom and Dad. When I came home I saw a bird's nest in the green feeder. I watched for a few days and discovered it was a mama Robin and she had layed 4 blue eggs.

When I got home yesterday from an overnight trip to Chicago, I discovered what I think are 3 babies. I know... they look like plastic ET's ... a face only a mother Robin could love. She's sitting on them now as I type, keeping them warm. After a couple week's of bugs and worms, they will grow into something more resembling a bird.

Our First Lamb

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:15:00 +0000

Here is our first lamb born to Delia and Rambo. She is 3 days old in this picture. She is a black mouflon and I feel horn buds, but we'll have to see. There is polled (no horns) ancestry on the sire's side.

I found her early Monday morning. Delia had been nesting all day Sunday ... staying close to the barn, not eating much. So Sunday I busied to get the post delivery stall ready for her and all lambing supplies ready. She only had one lamb this year after a tough breech delivery last year of one of her twins. I was happy for her easy and unassisted delivery!

Here are pictures of Rambo, her sire (solid black) ... this picture is last fall, so he's grown quite a bit since then... And Delia, her dam (moorit mouflon). The ewe is available for sale and will be ready to leave the farm early July.

We aren't expecting our next lambs until the end of May ... kind of an unorganized, unplanned breeding season.

Off To Market

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:37:00 +0000

Each year we have a few ram lambs that didn't sell and so their destiny is food on our table. We have a local butcher friend who handles the processing in a USDA inspected facility and prepares the cuts for us. We took 6 lambs last night to his farm and he will take them today.

I also have two intact adult rams who bear genetics not worth repeating. They both have very tight horns and they have had to be trimmed (at $65 a vet visit). One of them has very long legs and that caused difficult births last spring delivering long-legged lambs. These are both hereditary traits and the goal of a good breeder is to cull out the undesirable traits. That doesn't mean it's easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Welcome to life.

Anyway, we were concerned about taking older intact rams to the butcher for fear of a tougher texture and stronger taste due to their raging hormones. A breeder friend of mine said they would still be good ... have it all ground and make some into sausage to disguise the taste. So we'll likely take them as well. We just couldn't take them all in the same trip or the adult rams would have killed the wethered (fixed) rams because they had been living with the ewes.

In Iceland, the sheep are raised primarily for meat, although they are known as a triple purpose breed: meat, wool, and milk. The meat is much milder and more tender than domestic or Australian lamb. It is considered a gourmet meat. We have an upscale grocery store here in Dayton, Dorothy Lane Market. They have been importing Icelandic lamb for a couple of years. I spoke with them last week and they are selling it for ... $24.99 / pound. We plan to approach the meat buyer there as well.

Our lambs are all raised without hormones, antibiotics, pesticides or herbicides. They are also grass-fed and finished. I do not grain feed them.

If you are interested in purchasing any of our lamb, you can contact me at debhoeve@gmail.com

Here is the pricing:

** half lamb into cuts ($5.50/lb)
** whole lamb into cuts ($5.00/lb)
(average yield about 35 - 40 lbs.)

After these orders are fulfilled, we will fill orders for individual cuts, if available. These will be $6.50/lb.

Deliver should be in early February. 50% deposit required on all half/whole orders. We have a small flock and this meat will go very quickly, so do not hesitate!

Happy Birthday, Betty!

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Today would have been my mother-in-law’s 80^th birthday. Preston was in Colorado Springs on business on October 6^th having lunch with people he had just met when he got the call from Los Angeles that his mother had died suddenly. He called me immediately and I was in a state of total disbelief. Betty was someone you were certain would live well into her 90’s. But God had a different plan.

I only knew her for a few short years, but the lessons I took from watching her live her life will stay with me for a long time. At age 60, when the rest of us are thinking about retirement, she started a new career at an estate planning law firm as a personal secretary for one of the partners. She worked full time, a 40-hour work week Monday – Thursday… not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She ran circles around the younger girls and the attorney who spoke at her funeral said they’d have to hire 3 people to replace all that she did at the firm. Her work ethic was amazing.

But she still made time for lots of fun. She loved to come visit us on the farm and was eager to try anything new. She was here for 2 weeks in June. She saw lambs being born, saw her son milk a ewe, was here when our new llama arrived and helped us bale hay and even drove the tractor pulling the wagon full of hay when we were trying to get it in before the rain came. She had so much fun. She was my drinking buddy. She’d always say “Its 5 o’clock somewhere” and mix up a Manhattan while we made dinner.

She was a very active Red Hatter and went on several trips each year with her good friend Alice. In September of this year, she and Alice planned to go to Washington DC. Although they went with the group, the two of them always extended the trip to get in a little more site-seeing. A few weeks before the trip, Alice became too sick to travel, but Betty made the decision to go anyway. She navigated the nation’s capital, the Metro and did the tourist thing all on her own. What a brave woman!

Every weekend she would write us a letter. It usually talked about the weeding she would do in her rose gardens, the beautiful tomatoes she’d have year-round, the goldfish in her pond and errands around town. She’d include articles of interest from the newspaper to include maybe a letter to the editor she had written under the pseudonym Mary Johnson. And she always sent me a stack of coupons.

She wrote a letter to us that first weekend in October, put it in the mailbox Monday morning and went to work, feeling fine all day according to her co-workers. At the end of the day, she gave them a cheery good-bye – see you tomorrow. She stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a few things and apparently on the way home started to feel badly. She pulled in the garage and ran in the house, sat down on a chair and that’s where the fire department found her the next morning. A neighbor saw that her garage was open and called the police.

In her reviews at work each year, she’d always ask what she needed to do to keep her job. She said she wanted to go with her boots on. That she did.

She loved reading my blog. She said on several occasions that she felt like I was writing a letter just to her and not to burst her bubble by telling her any differently. I even found copies of some of my stories she had saved on her computer. So since her death, I hadn’t felt very inspired to write. But today, in honor of her birthday, the inspiration returned. Cheers, Betty! Here’s to you and your amazing life. I will miss my drinking buddy.

Store Opens on Etsy

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Just a very short, quick blog today to announce the Grand Opening of my store on Etsy.com. Etsy.com is a storefront for homemade items only. I picked up my yarn at the fiber show last weekend and have put some of it in the store. Please stop by The Icelandic Shepherdess Store and let me know what you think! I'll be putting some roving out there as well, so check back!

Beets are yummy!

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:50:00 +0000

When I attended the Michigan Fiber Festival last month, one of the Icelandic Sheep breeders recommended giving sheep beet pulp as a healthy treat . Well, it just so happens, I have beets in my garden the size of cantelopes, so I certainly have enough to share! Here is a picture of the half I didn't feed to them next to an apple just for perspective.

I ran chunks of the beet and some old grocery store carrots that were in the frig thru the grater in my food processor and made a big bowl of shredded beets/carrots. I took it out to the sheep and put it in the trough I use for grain. There were 4 or 5 of them that absolutely LOVED it! Bianca, the white sheep in the middle of this picture, was the most enthusiastic about their yummy treat. Her chin was all red when she finally came up for air.
Here you can see in the background the girls who didn't find the beets as appetizing.

The girls didn't quite finish it all ... there was a lot of it!! So I took the left overs to the lambs and they weren't as enthusiastic, but they did manage to finish what was left over the course of the day.
Beets are good for people too! And if you've only ever had a canned beet and think, "YUK!" then I encourage you to purchase a bunch of fresh beets in the produce department. Trim the tops, boil for 10 -15 minutes and enjoy. They are very sweet and butter tasting. I promise you will think differently about beets. I also like to top a toss salad with some raw grated beets.

From The World's Healthiest Foods here are some of the benefits of beets:

These colorful root vegetables contain powerful nutrient compounds that help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer.

The pigment that gives beets their rich, purple-crimson color-betacyanin-is also a powerful cancer-fighting agent. Beets' potential effectiveness against colon cancer, in particular, has been demonstrated in several studies.

Helps reduce total cholesterol and triglycerides and increase HDL.

Beets' Betaine Helps Lessen Inflammation

People whose diets supplied the highest average intake of choline (found in egg yolk and soybeans), and its metabolite betaine (found naturally in vegetables such as beets and spinach), have levels of inflammatory markers at least 20% lower than subjects with the lowest average intakes, report Greek researchers in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Detopoulou P, Panagiotakos DB, et al.)

Being A Mom

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:45:00 +0000

If you are a mom, you can probably remember the first day your child got on the school bus or the first day you left them at daycare and that feeling of "letting go." Well, I can tell you that none of the compares to the day your child drives off in his first vehicle. A feeling of complete and total helplessness.

Ben is starting college here locally tomorrow and will be commuting, so he needed to have a vehicle. We did some shopping on Craig's List last weekend and Monday we went out to see a couple of them. He fell in love with the first one he saw, but we looked at a couple others and "slept on it" that night. The next day we went back and made it his. It's a 1994 Ford Ranger with a new motor and transmission ... and a Pioneer stereo (and speakers) that allows you to plug your iPod into it. That was the clincher. For some unknown reason, he decided at the 11th hour of shopping that he wanted a manual transmission even though he's only ever driven one twice. Are you sure??! Ok.

So we drove to the BMV with the seller, got the title transferred and new tags. Then I followed him home in my car. We were about 50 miles from home and I don't think I was able to breath much of the trip. When I saw cars tailgating him, I wanted to drive up beside them and sideswipe them into the guardrail. They are being idiots with no clue that the guy in front of him has only been driving for 6 months and just bought his first vehicle 10 minutes ago. (So if you are reading this, please don't tailgate ... it might be my son or another new driver.)

As an aside, when we were at the BMV waiting in line for the tags, there was an older man there with a walker renewing his license. He couldn't hear the woman instructing him through his vision test. She was literally yelling at the top of her lungs so the man (and the rest of us) could hear her. Don't you think that people who drive should be able to not only see, but to hear as well? How will they know when there is an emergency vehicle approaching? How will they hear someone honk a horn if he's about to pull out and get hit? Just made me wonder.

So here is Ben modeling his new truck. Please keep him in your prayers.

So, Ben got his truck, Colton had to settle for new sneakers as his mode of transportation. We went last weekend to my favorite sneaker outlet store. I took him about 6 months ago and he'd grown from a size 12 to a size 13. He tried on a pair of 13's and they were too small!! I had him try on another brand in case they ran small ... nope. He wears size 14 shoes! Amazingly they did have a few pair in that size. They were having a buy one/get one 1/2 off, so we got two pair and did have to have the other one shipped from the warehouse. Ben's feet stopped at size 12 and he's about 6'1" , so I wonder if Colton is going to grow into his feet and be taller than Ben. Ha! Wouldn't that be the payback he's been waiting for for 14 years!! Here he is modeling the new sneakers.
Our other mode of transportation on the farm are tractors of all age, color and model. The older ones need to get "exercised" regularly to keep them running ... I won't make any comparisons to people here. So I was walking across the lawn and received my own personal parade ... Ben on the 1949 John Deere Model A (which is for sale by the way) ...
Preston on the 1940 John Deere Model B...
and Colton on the 4-wheeler (ya, I know it's not a tractor, but it goes a whole lot faster!)

On the topic of farm equipment, Preston gave the hay baler a complete overhaul, replacing worn parts and fine tuning moving parts. He cut one pass of hay a few days ago and we baled 10 bales yesterday just to be sure it was working properly. It did well and sounded a whole lot better. So now I'm back to my watching for a 4-5 day stretch with no rain.

A trip to the Fiber Mill

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:08:00 +0000

Last Tuesday morning, I was scrambling to get my last two fleeces washed along with the Coopworth fleece I bought at the Michigan Fiber Festival. I had made an appointment to go down to Ohio Valley Natural Fiber … the other fiber mill I use … on Thursday and bring my fleeces to be processed while I wait. But they have to be washed and dried!

Amid wind and rain, I was able to get them washed on the back porch. But how was I going to get these dried with all this humidity and no sun?! I brought all three into my studio / office and laid them out on screens. I turned on the air conditioner on high, both ceiling fans on high, and ran two portable fans. Amazingly they were dry by Thursday morning.

So I put all 12 bags of fleece in the car and headed down to Sardinia around 7am. It took about and hour and 20 minutes and I actually arrived just ahead of the employees, but Kent, the owner, was there to greet me. Kent is one of the funniest, eccentric, unassuming characters I’ve ever met. So he’s always a joy to see while I’m there. He and his wife Ginny have owned the mill for 20 years and do an incredible business. He said their backlog is out to next April for delivery! Thus taking the time to go down there is worth it!

First step is to weigh in each of the fleeces and assign them a number. Then decide which ones need to be picked. I want to pick any fleeces that are multi-colored so the color is even throughout. I also want to pick the fleece with the mohair I purchased so it will be well blended.

Then the fleeces are divided into white only and any with color. They have one carding machine for white fiber only so they don’t get polluted with color fibers.

At the picking machine, the fleece is laid out on a belt ... you can see the darker mohair and the white wool.

... and it rolls through some pretty hefty teeth to separate the fibers a little bit … nothing too fine yet...

Then it comes out into a screened room with a blower that blows the fibers all around the room to mix them together. Then someone goes in and scoops it back up and re-bags it and moves it over to the carding machine.

The carding machines are huge … probably 6 feet high and 12 feet long with lots of rollers with all different size teeth of varying densities. The wool gets tossed into a hopper and ...

then is fed up a belt with teeth just grabbing a little at a time. The belt at the back of the picture actually broke when I had 3 fleeces left, so they had to hand feed the wool in on the other side. It was not going to be a fun task to replace according to Kent.

Then it comes around and is dropped out of another hopper which feeds it through more teeth along another belt. Ya, it looks dirty and the machines can't help it if you consider you have to keep the gears oiled and then wool is constantly flying through the air. In fact the show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe (he's doing Ford commercials for his summer job) came to Kent's mill and filmed a show in April. He thinks it's going to air in October. If I get a head's up, I'll let you know.

Now the wool gets fed little by little into a series of rollers with teeth. They comb out and separate the fibers and will also pull out some of the remaining vegetation that didn’t get hand-picked out by me.

and more rollers ... see the wisps of fibers starting to grab onto all the rollers?

here you can see a lot of it grabbing on...
... and then down the other side

After going through all these rollers, it comes out the other side in a strip of roving … a small tube-shape of combed wool … it would fit through a paper towel roll. This is what spinners feed into a spinning wheel to make yarn. Someone has to hand feed it into a box ... this is the only step that requires human intervention.

They have one more carding machine that feeds into a spinning machine. They didn't have it running, but it was loaded with wool, so I could see the path it traveled. Truly amazing that someone invented these machines. The wool is spun onto a long roll about 4 feet long. This is one ply yarn. If someone wants it made into 2- or 3-ply yarn, it goes through this machine below. In the very top right, you can see about 4 spools of dark yarn hung from the top. It has to be hand fed into the machine to get it set up, but then it will ply the yarn onto cones auto-magically. This mill requires at least 25 pounds of wool to make yarn and I barely get that in one shearing. The other mill I'm using for my yarn only requires a 3 pound minimum.
It was about noon when the belt on the carding machine broke, so Kent invited me in for lunch while they hand-fed the rest of the fleeces. I got a tour of their finished addition to the house. The house itself is an interesting tour. He has added a lot of interesting features ... many of them energy saving. He also had much of the wood work, doors and furniture hand crafted by an Amish gentleman.

While eating lunch a big thunderstorm went through, so I enjoyed lunch, the tour and the stories until it passed. I left about 1:30 with my clouds of wool ready for the hands of eager spinners at A Wool Gathering next month.

A trip to the Michigan Fiber Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Last Friday we decided to take a last minute trip to Michigan. I wanted to attend the Michigan Fiber Festival and it is conveniently located in Allegan just a few minutes from Preston’s cousin’s house. This is a huge festival and I hadn’t attended it since I bought my sheep, so I was going with a new perspective. I also was going as a shopper and not a vendor, so I was able to browse at my leisure.

I knew that one of the fiber processors I use, The Wooly Knob, would be there, so I took 3 bags – 18 pounds total – of my wool with me for them to take back and process. The parents of one of the owners have a spinning mill where they will spin my roving into yarn for me. So I am having that done for the first time. To my surprise, he said they could have the yarn back to me when I see them at The Wool Gathering in September. I will have a booth there, so it will be great to have that for sale!

So after the wool drop, I meandered my way over to the animal barns. I spotted some beautiful Icelandics right away. Their farm was located nearby, so I may visit them next time I am up there. I saw some other Icelandics owned by another farm and I wasn’t as impressed. I guess I am developing a trained eye for quality.

There were other breeds of sheep, but none that stole my heart. So I went over to the other barn where the goats were… mostly Angora goats which were actually what I first intended to purchase when I started my flock, but something changed my mind at the time. I am still in love with these little creatures … they are just adorable.

Check out the horns on this buck (male goat)!!! Both does and bucks have horns, but these were amazing!

They come in different colors ... I think this one is considered black .. maybe gray.
This is a white one ... I think it was a kid (a baby). Oh! I walked up to one pen and there were two very small baby goats in with their mom. I was very surprised that an owner would bring a mom with babies so young ... much too stressful. Turns out she didn't know the doe was pregnant and the babies were born the night before! Surprise!!

This one is considered Red in color. This is the color I bought and mixed it with some white lamb's wool.

I met this young girl holding this goat on a leash. It was the most adorable of them all. So I think it's time I purchased a couple of them. I'll see what I can find when I go to The Wool Gathering next month!

I purchased a pound of mohair (Angora goat fleece) while I was there with the intention of combining it with some of my wool to make a wool-mohair blended roving. It will make it much softer.

On to the booths … I have been wanting to learn to felt, so I purchased a hat form and a needle felter to do needle felting. You basically lay the roving over the form in thin amounts in different directions and poke it with the 10-needle needle felter until the fibers intertwine and make felt. You keep adding layers until it is as thick as you want it.

I also met a lady who did something called nuno felting. It is a very, wispy thin layer of felting into a piece of fabric … something drape-y and loosely woven, silk for example. She had a stunning scarf that she had made unlike anything I’d ever seen. So I decided I needed to learn how to do that too. I found a book that taught all different types of “wet felting” … felting by using water and rubbing to make the wool felt. I experimented yesterday with a small piece of fabric to learn the process. I think it came out correctly; I just didn’t use an appropriate fabric. It wrinkled in the last step of the process, but I have other remnant pieces of fabric to play.

My last purchase was a Coopworth sheep fleece. I had never heard of them … they are a cross between a Romney ewe and a Border Leister ram. The fleece was beautiful and so clean (she puts coats on them) … so I had to have one.

It was a wonderful day and I’m so glad we decided to make the trip. I always learn a lot from my fellow shepherds and fiber crafters.

Gone Camping

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:15:00 +0000

Waiting (napping) while the pie irons cook.

When I told my neighbor we were going camping, she asked why we didn't camp on our own 30 acres. I told her we wanted something wooded and remote. She said, well then camp on my property. She owns 35 wooded acres. No, we were off to Hocking Hills, an area in south central Ohio that is a lot more wooded and mountainous than the flat farm land here in the Dayton area.

The boys and I packed up along with the dogs early Thursday morning and Preston came out on his motorcycle after work that evening. We pitched the tents. They boys each had their own (a good thing). Valur slept with Colton and Annie slept with Ben. They all thought that was pretty cool since the dogs aren't allowed upstairs in the house.

Camping for me is all about waking up in the morning to a chill in the air, a fire going and warming up some water for coffee. We make our camping coffee in a coffee press (too spoiled to make instant).

We made some "fun" food while we were camping. I brought some sweet corn and we grilled the corn in the husk for about 15-20 minutes. We didn't soak them as most people will tell you to do. It was amazingly good. You just pulled back the husk and used it for a handle and after thoroughly soaking it in butter and salt, just lean over into the weeds and chow down!

We used pie irons for a couple of meals. For breakfast, we brought pancake batter made at home and put it in the pie iron along with some fruit. If you've not seen a pie iron, it's two pieces of cast iron about the size of a piece of bread that hook together with a long handle and you cook it over a fire.

We also made pie iron pizzas. We made some with Italian bread and some with Pillsbury pizza dough. You put the sauce and toppings on one piece of bread and then top it with another and close it up. The key is NOT TO OVER FILL!!! I also took a hunk of dough and put it on a cast iron skillet ... it cooks very quickly. Then put the toppings on. That is oh so yummy. Try it at home!

You'll see from one of the pictures the view from our campsite and the big tree. Colton wanted to use a rope we brought along to make a swing. Well, the rope got caught in the crotch of a big branch and they spent the rest of the weekend thinking up ways to get the rope down. Just as we were finished packing to go home they freed the rope. It was such a great way to occupy their otherwise idle time and exercise their ingenuity that we think we'll throw a rope up in a tree next time just on account.

We did lots of camping when I was a kid and my parents always played cribbage at night after we went to bed. So of course there has to be a cribbage game in the camping gear. Ben challenged me first ... he lost by 2 points. Colton was next ... nope, not even close. Then Preston took a chance ... nope. As a kid, I heard 15-2, 15-4, pair is 6 ... as I was dozing off to sleep. When we got home, Sunday night we played partners ... me and Colton against Ben and Preston. Our team won that one.

Friday we went on a 7 mile / 4-hour canoe & kayaking trip. Preston and I along with the dogs took the canoe. The boys each had a kayak. I didn't think the dog thing was going to be a good idea at first ... dogs walking nervously around a boat ... not a good thing. But they finally settled down and slept for most of the trip.

They have a new zip line attraction in Hocking Hills. For a mere $85 you can ride in a harness for 3 hours (ouch! without a bathroom?) on a zip line thru the trees from platform to platform like a modern day Tarzan. We got to watch several people zipping thru the trees as we canoed. It does sound very cool ... but $85, not now.

Near the end of the trip, Preston and I wanted to try out the kayaks, so we switched with the boys. I'll just say this ... it was a good decision to spend most of the trip with the boys in separate vessels. I also learned that I could never do 4 hours of kayaking. You are much lower to the water than canoing so it's a whole different set of muscles. I also was feeling the pain from the twisting that Dudley did to my wrist during the sheep deliver.

So we ended the trip with me in the canoe with Ben and Colton back in a kayak.

We came back to the campsite exhausted and hungry. So we started a fire for dinner. When we arrived on a Thursday, there was only one other camper that we could see near us, so it was a very peaceful first day. As the evening progressed on Friday, the campsite was filling up quickly. Next to us was a group of adults who felt the need to blast their radios and started partying as soon as the tents were up.

Now I don't mean to be an old fuddy-duddy, but there is a place for loud music and drunken parties and there is a place for quiet sitting around a camp fire. Well, it turned out all of their friends had sites, too. And before we knew it there were dozens of people and several sites. It went on well into the morning and concluded with a woman vomiting very near our tent.

It was a disappointment to say the least and even my quiet morning was not to be. They somehow managed to get up at 7am and start again. We went hiking that day, but decided to eat an early dinner and not spend Saturday night there.

The hiking was fun. We went to Old Man's Cave ... you can see the pictures below. We took the dogs. Valur was overwhelmed with excitement ... you can tell he doesn't get out much. "So much to do! So much to sniff! So much to pee on!" Pour Annie was acting like an old lady, but Preston was more than happy to let her walk slowly. It was very pretty and very well done to make it accessible for people to hike without it being tacky.

Camping at home the last night turned out nicely even if I didn't wake to a fire. We had planned to go mini-golfing on Sunday near the campsite, so we did that here at Young's Dairy and got ice cream, too. We played cribbage and some other board games that evening and had corn on the grill again. So I guess we did end up camping on our own 30 acres after all.

Here are some pictures ... I hope the captions line up ok ... I was having trouble with that and couldn't rearrange the pictures so they sort of jump around.

Preston kayaking

Natural Bridge (see the rock formation above creates a bridge from one side to the other)

Looking down into Old Man's Cave

Inside Old Man's Cave

Valur checking out Ben's tent

Preston, Deb and the dogs at the Natural Bridge -- this was actually a stop along our canoe trip.

Colton kayaking

Colton on our hike to Old Man's Cave

The boys brushing their teeth (LOL! it was too funny to resist)

Ben and Colton in the canoe... sorry puppies!

Ben with all the food unpacked.

Ben kayaking

The Lower Falls

Colton's tent

Sheep, Sleep, Beans, Sleep, Sheep, Sleep, Beans ...

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:09:00 +0000

It all caught up with me today and I actually took a nap ... I might do that twice a year. It has been an intense week. The days blurred together but one day this week, I picked 16 pounds of beans from the "big garden" out back and canned 14 quarts. Colton helped me with the snapping while I managed the other logistics of washing jars and beans. Colton filled the jars and into the canner they went. It took about 6 hours from the plant to the last popping lid. We are up to 33 quarts of beans.

Then yesterday, both boys helped me pick beans from the garden near the house. We picked about 30 pounds of beans! I just couldn't imagine canning all of them, so we did a quick rinse in the deep sink and put them in a large cooler for Preston to take to work and offer to everyone there. I haven't seen him yet this evening, so I don't know yet how many he is bringing home. I wonder if sheep like beans?

I made two sheep deliveries this week. Dudley, an adult wether, and Hannah's little black wethered ram lamb were loaded up Wednesday morning in the rain with the help of Ben. We were able to get the lamb in a large dog crate, but Dudley got to run "free range" in the bed of the truck.

I drove by myself to Beaver, OH ... about 80 miles southeast of here into the beautiful mountains of Ohio. The last 45 minutes was a continuous series of 30 mph S-curves. Even I was car sick when I got there and wondered if sheep got motion sickness. I arrived at Lynn's driveway and panicked when I saw that their dirt driveway with a 45 degree incline was completely washed out by the rain. I quickly called and told her I wasn't going to be able to get up the driveway in the truck. So she drove down in her car that has a hatchback. I will use Lynn's description of the trip as her husband gunned the car up the driveway:

Dudley "who is now sitting in my lap pooping away as I hang onto his horns for dear life as we bumpity bump and get air hauling ass up the grand canyon that is my driveway."

Now I was really car sick! We then had to walk (read drag) 175 pound-built-like-a-brick-house Dudley about 150 feet to the entrance of their fence down a rain-slicked hill and he wanted nothing to do with wherever it was we were taking him. Finally, success. We catch out breath and back down the "grand canyon" we go.

We slide the dog crate (good decision) into the car and Lynn sits back there to keep the crate from going airborn. Ditto on the trip back up. I decided to take the lamb out of the crate and walk him down the hill ... probably not the best choice in hind sight. The smaller the sheep, the more they can swing their body in violent opposition to what you are trying to accomplish. It had to be funny to watch, I'm sure. But I bet that crate would have just slid nicely down the hill.

Well at the sight of lush greenery, both sheep walked into their new home like it was nothing to get them there. They have a beautiful shaded hillside they now call home. One more bumpity bump down the hill, catch my breath, and wind my way out of the mountains in the pouring rain.

Well, that was so much fun, I decide to email Halle to see if she's ready for her sheep on short notice ... I figure since the truck is a mess, why not get it all done at once. Halle lives near Cleveland and bought several sheep from me last year. She arrived in a UHaul utility van that couldn't have had more than 10,000 miles on it. We loaded the sheep in the van and she headed home. I can only imagine what the next renters of the van thought!!

This time, she asked if I could meet her half way. So Ben helped me load up two of the ewe lambs, one of Delia's twins and Bianca's ewe. They had the run of the truck bed. We met at the McDonald's off I-71 at exit 151. When I read the comments: This Mc Donald's is in the middle of a corn field! I thought this would be perfect if they get loose! Fortunately, everything went smoothly, but I had to wonder what people were thinking as they went through the drive-thru! "Yikes, is that what's in my burger?!?" You could be so lucky!

Back home, after picking the 30 pounds of beans, I cleaned out the bed of the truck ... always fun! Ben and I dug a post hole with the auger on the tractor and assembled an H-brace for one of the final runs of fence out back. When Preston came home, we also put in another H-brace along the property line so we could create an opening for a small gate between us and our neighbors. We've had to either jump over barbed wire or drive nearly a mile! from their house to ours. Now it will be just a quick jaunt across the pasture.

Today everything hurts ... my wrist from one of Dudley's quick moves, my head from the 2x4 framed lid to the hay feeder that fell on my head, my knee from wrestling sheep I can only imagine, the poison ivy all over my arm, neck and sides, even my ears from a build up of fluid according to the doctor. Therefore you can appreciate my need for a nap today. I washed a fleece and fell asleep reading a book.

And So I Decided to Ted the Hay

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:22:00 +0000

About 2pm on Friday, I decided to go ahead and ted the hay. After a couple hours I checked what I had done and some places seemed to have dried enough to bale. So I called Preston and Ben and told them my plan and spent a couple more hours tedding until they came home. Ben's friend usually helps us, but was out of town for the weekend. Preston went out and raked it into rows and I drove the tractor with the baler and wagon in tow and Ben at the receiving end of the baler. We did about 100 bales in 2 hours, put the wagons under cover and hoped that Saturday would bring enough morning sun to dry the rest of the hay and allow us to finish.

Saturday, 6:30am: I'm stirring awake and I hear the sound of thunder. "NO!!! The earliest guy said 8am and then actually changed his forecast to later!! They really have no clue." Then the wind immediately picks up and it starts pouring. I jump out of bed, throw on my bathrobe, run to close all the windows and then run outside to the porch to move the two fleeces that were essentially dry when I went to bed, but figured I'd get them in the morning. Well, the rain had already gotten them wet even on the covered porch. The wind had blown a bunch out on the grass, so there I am in my bathrobe and bare feet running around in the rain gathering up my wool. This is all within 5 minutes of waking up!!!! I collapse on the couch to catch my breath, say goodbye to the remaining hay and wait for the coffee to finish.

So Plan B was to work with the lambs. Several needed their second dose of vaccine, all needs their hooves trimmed. A couple who are leaving the farm this week needed to be tagged (an earring in their ear). And I dewormed them all for good measure since several more will be leaving the farm in the next couple weeks. After wrestling with some more than others, I decided who my favorites were. One little gal had more spunk that some twice her size. She flopped and fought me with every ounce of her being. But we got the job done.

This is the time of year when I am really battling parasites. I've lost several lambs to them in past years and I am so determined not to lose anyone this year. So I'm trying some new things. Aside from the internal chemical dewormers and natural dewormers, I decided I would try taking them off pasture (which is where the parasites are) and put them on "dry lot" for a week and see if they improve.

So Ben helped me fence in a little area adjacent to pastures 1 & 2 and the old barn. It's all concrete there with a door into an enclosed area in the barn for shelter. I put all 13 of the lambs in there along with Dudley, an adult wether who is leaving the farm this week. I wanted him to be with the lamb he is going with so they could do a little bonding. Dudley isn't really too keen on having to hang out with a bunch of whiny munchins, but he'll live.

So we go in for dinner and afterwards I ponder some relaxing things to do on my way to check on the lambs. The remaining 4 lambs were weaned today as well, so they were at the fence crying. I walk closer and don't see anybody else. I go inside the barn ... no sheep. Dudley had obviously led the charge and walked over the fence ... that obviously wasn't too enforced. There they all were out grazing in a bit of hay field that hadn't been mowed. Clover heaven!!

So I go get Preston, we decide there are a couple places where there are cracks in the concrete we can put in posts. We get that handled. We roll back the fence and psyched up to go herd the sheep back and here comes Dudley and all the lambs following him back to the barn! There is a God!! He's trying to make it up to me for all the rain. We close the fence, tie it to the posts. They are in there now.

I walk back around to pick up some of the tools and a I think I see something ... I back up ... a lamb is still out there! Two lambs!! I thought I counted right, but apparently not. So I get Preston again and we herd them back. They really want to be with everyone else, so we roll the fence back a little and they walk right in. Everyone is where they are supposed to be. So much for relaxing ... it's time for bed. Maybe tomorrow.

The Weather Man

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:53:00 +0000

The last week has been heart-wrenching to say the least. And I'm taking it out on the weather man. Every day we all start our day with a weather report. We plan our activities, our vacations, our ballgames, our picnics all around the weather. And the weather men know this. But do they really know how much the farmer depends on the accuracy of his report? I don't think so. In fact, being a weather forecaster is the one job where you can be wrong 75% of the time and not get fired!

We hope to bale hay three times per season... roughly Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day ... give or take a week or two. We decided to sell all of our first cutting because it is very "stemmy" and my sheep always pick around for the soft stuff, leaving the stems for me to haul away. The second cutting would be much softer and more ideally suited for the sheep.

Well, this also seemed to be the year for clover! It has taken over all of the pastures, the hay field, my gardens. The sheep love it, but it can be too rich, so a nice balance of clover and grass is best. Anyway, we began a couple weeks ago looking at the forecast for about 4 days of no forecasted rain. We wanted to cut a week ago Thurs, then bale on the weekend. But they were certain it was going to rain on Thursday. So we didn't cut... and it didn't rain a drop. The weekend was exceptionally cool ... a record low high temperature ... would have been wonderful to bale in, but no. We relied on the weather man and he was wrong.

As an aside, I am using the term "weather man" generically to cover all forecasters. I look at about 4 websites and it's no surprise that they are drastically different.
www.weather.com
www.wunderground.com
www.accuweather.com/
www.whiotv.com/weather/index.html (our local TV station's website)

So the week went on and it looked like we could cut Saturday & Sunday (18/19th). It was supposed to be sunny with either 20% or 30% chance of rain forecasted by everyone through Wednesday, with the next big chance of rain on Thursday. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were not sunny or even partly sunny (which is important to dry hay), nor was there any breeze (there is always a breeze in Ohio!) So the hay didn't dry very fast. And by Monday, the weather man decided there was now a 70% chance of rain on Wednesday!!

Tuesday night we baled 25 bales to see how they would be and they were way too wet. You can tell when the bale weighs 75-100 pounds instead of 50 pounds. And just a couple days later, it's now soggy instead of crisp and dry. When you break it open, it's warm to the touch and it smells of fermentation. In another 5-7 days, it will be moldy inside and it will be junk.

So Wednesday came and we received 1.4" of rain. It rained all day. I was happy for the garden. I was happy for the pastures. I was devastated for the hay field. Yesterday (Thursday), the sun never came out, so it just sat there remaining soggy. I went out this morning and it is still very wet and I'm wondering if I should ted it or not (fluff it up with a circular rake-type thing). Checking all of the weather sites, there is supposed to be rain tomorrow. The big disagreement is when. One says 8am, one says 11am, one says late afternoon. The hay may not be worth keeping in the end, but it has to come off the field to make way for the 3rd cutting. Otherwise we'll get all that dead chaff in the next bales.

So what to do with the weather man? They should provide a rating on their website with the percentage accuracy of their forecast. That would give you an idea of who to believe. I could send them a bill for the $1000 in hay I will have to buy to replace what I lost. Maybe the government would include me in their "bale" out plan. If anyone has a reliable weather site, please let me know!

Well, gotta close here ... need to go find a weekend with no rain so we can go camping :)

Summer Harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:00:00 +0000

My absolute favorite part of summer is growing and eating our own food. Over the weekend, Preston and I canned 10 quarts of beans... the first batch of many to come. It was the first time we had used our new (used) pressure canner. In the past, we just canned tomatoes which you can do in a hot water bath.

I purchased my 3rd dozen ears of sweet corn this morning. I can eat sweet corn every day of the summer and not get tired of it. We tried freezing it last summer and it had a funny taste. The farm where I bought it from made a few suggestions, so I'm going to do a small batch and try it out of the freezer before I do a bunch.

I planted one single solitary cucumber plant in my garden that claimed to be a "bush plant." I took that to mean it would be very compact and fit along nicely with the other vegetables that are in rows. HA!! It has spread across and thru it's two adjacent rows and has produced at least 20 cucumbers so far. I'm not a huge pickle fan, so I had to send Preston to work with a bunch the other day. I'm eating a lot of cucumber sandwiches for lunch!

We did try a refrigerator pickle though that came out pretty good. We are growing banana peppers and I cut up two of them with a cucumber and an onion and put it in a quart jar with vinegar, pickling salt and some pickling spice. I refrigerated it over night and the peppers warmed the mixture up quickly! Preston and Ben really liked it, so I'm treating it like a "friendship bread" recipe and just adding more cucumbers to keep it going.

Yesterday, I picked a variety of things from the garden... beets, cucumber, onion, beans and potatoes. I made 3 different summer salads and we took them down to a place on our property we call "The Park" for dinner.

The Park is a wooded area along the creek that we keep mowed down. It has a fire ring and a place to hang hammocks. Annie, our Sheltie, and I do our best to smell yummy enough to attract all the bugs away from everyone else.

Colton had the area freshly mowed and Ben weed-wacked so we could find the fire ring. They had a fire burning by the time I arrived with salads and hot dogs. Later we had s'mores for dessert ...yummy!

I Want My Maaaammy

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:48:00 +0000

Today was working day with the sheep. Some of the lambs needed a vaccine and we dewormed all of the sheep. Most of the moms were overloaded with parasites. I can tell this by looking at the skin inside their eyes. A bright red is good ... pure white is very bad. It means the worms are depleting their iron. Lambing and lactating really takes a toll on the ewes. I have one ewe that can't lamb and she is always the picture of health. The rams also look great.

Half of the lambs were ready to be weaned. But I thought since the moms were struggling, I'd wean just about everyone. So into separate pastures they went. I don't know if I can even begin to put into words what it's like to have 11 crying lambs non-stop for 24 hours. My sheep say "maa" rather than "baa." When they are mad, they say "MAAAAAAAA!" When they are really mad, it becomes multi-syllable, "MAAAHHH-AAAHHH-AAAA" and their voice goes up and down in octaves. Some start to sound like they are losing their voice. Some sound like they are crying. Some sound really mad. "I want my mom and I want her NOW!!!" It's pathetic and funny all at the same time. I was able to capture a short video of one of the lambs last night. Take a look ...

Meanwhile over in the mom's pasture, not a sound. "Ahhh, freedom ... finally. I can eat in peace without two little creatures coming up and attacking my udder until my back feet leave the ground."

We had to sleep with the furnace fan on to drown out the noise. Thankfully, that worked. I'm quite sure no creature on 4 legs got any sleep last night.

This morning, I was concerned a bit for the moms. They were clearly very full of milk. So I let them back to their babies for breakfast and lunch. Then the boys helped me separate them again. And do you know ... shhh...listen ... silence!! They are quiet now. Yippee!

Washing Wool

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:41:00 +0000

We shear our Icelandic Sheep twice a year... once in the spring and again in the fall. The fall clip is the most valuable and desirable for hand-spinners. It is typically longer and cleaner. On shearing day, the fleece is put into a bag and labeled with the sheep's name and the date. The bags are weighed and loosely stored in the barn.

The next step is to skirt the fleece. This involves laying the fleece open on a screen and pulling out any vegetable matter, short fibers or anything else that is not fleece... ok manure :) Even within the fleece itself, I will sort the premium fiber from the less premium and have it processed for different purposes. Once this is complete, I will put it back in a bag and weigh it again.

The next step is to wash the fleece. This can either be done by me or by the wool processor. It doesn't cost much to have them do it. However, the turn-around time for processing a fleece that requires washing is about 4 months. I have a fiber festival in September, so I am washing my fall fleeces. I can then call the processor ahead of time and they will allow me to bring my fleeces and have them processed on the spot.

So today is about the washing. I bought an old ringer washer at an auction a while back. I have it on the back porch outside the laundry room. You must remove the agitator from the machine as you don't want to agitate the wool or else it will felt. I fill the washer with hot water from a hose hooked to the laundry sink. I add laundry detergent and then gently push the fleece into the water. The water immediately turns to mud the color of chocolate milk. I let the fleece soak for about 15 minutes. Then I drain the water and run the fleece thru the ringer.

And, surprise, surprise ... some wasps had started building a nest inside the roller cavity. I battled them thru the washing, but they were sprayed later that night.

I repeat the process again with detergent and a third time to rinse. Hopefully by now the water is clean. I then lay the fleece out on a wire frame to dry. Depending on the weather, it will take a day or so. I then weigh it again and compare it to the pre-washed weight. The fleece typically weighs 65-70% of the pre-washed wool. This weight loss is mostly lanolin. Icelandic sheep are relatively low in lanolin. Many other sheep will lose nearly half their weight in lanolin when washed.

Now the fleece is ready for the processor. I'll share that with you when I drive down their next month!

A Bird's Eye View

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Preston fitted his model airplane with a camera yesterday and he and Colton flew it out over Quiet Thyme Farm. The camera took pictures every few seconds during it's flight.

I thought you'd like to see the actual view of the pastures and buildings as it compares to the drawing I showed in my first post.

You can see dots of sheep in pasture 3 now. The rams are in pasture D.

Preston just mowed pasture 2, that's why it doesn't look so inviting, but it will soon.

You can see more of Preston's aerial photos on our website in the Photo Gallery

Oh, and please note the tree where Frank's skin was found ... right outside the back door :)

Holy Lou Ferrigno!

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:10:00 +0000

We were just finishing up dinner the other night at the picnic table on the porch. I think it was actually the first night we've eaten out there this summer. As we got up from the table, Ben felt compelled to ring the dinner bell ... just because. Out came a very upset wasp. I guess you would be too if you just got your bell rung! It stung him on the top of his hand before he even knew what happened. My cure for wasp and bee stings is to put a meat tenderizer paste on the sting for about 15 - 20 minutes, keeping it moist. It will draw the venom out of the sting and should eliminate any swelling and subsequent itching.

Well, this wasp must have had "super venom" powers. Although there was no immediate swelling, the next morning, his hand was swollen around the bite. By dinner time that night, his whole hand was swollen. By the next morning, it was half way up his arm. And even today, although the hand has gone down a little bit, the swelling is almost to his elbow. His hand looked like the incredible hulk. We did go to the doctor yesterday just in case. He wasn't allergic, it was just how his body reacted, but it was considered "normal." YIKES!

He ran into a friend of his at the hospital and his friend reached out to shake his hand. Upon gripping his hand, he looked down ... man, what happened?!

The doctor did give us a page out of a book on things you can do for comfort ... anti-histamine, hydro cortisone, tylenol, ice... stuff we all know. It also confirmed my "home remedy" of using meat tenderizer. But they suggested making a solution and applying it with a cotton ball. I thought that was a great idea, as I use a ton of this stuff in the summer.

I am a magnet for wasps, deer flies, mosquitoes, and sweat bees. The sweat bees land on the backs of my knees when I'm out working on fence or something, I bend down, they bite me, they die, I scream ... and then run for the meat tenderizer. I guess I come out with the better deal in the end, but it's still aggravating. Anyway, I bought a new bottle of meat tenderizer today and added water to make a solution and will keep it handy with some cotton balls for the next attack.

I think our llama got bit in the mouth one day by a bee. The white clover is very much in bloom and one day he was eating outside my office window and all of a sudden, he started flailing his body all around and started spitting and coughing for several minutes. I was sure he'd eaten a bee ... poor guy. That had to hurt.

Ah, the joys of summer!

A New Llama

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:56:00 +0000

I always get emotional when my sheep leave here to go to a new farm. I know they'll be fine, but they don't understand where they are going or why they are leaving their sheep friends and the only home they've every known. So it's stressful... for all of us.

Well, we had a new llama arrive a couple weeks ago. We use llamas as guard animals to protect the sheep from coyotes primarily. If provoked, the llama would stomp the coyote. Sometimes just the sheer intimidation and vocal alarming is enough to scare them away.

Anyway, my friend Dawn who owns Carmen Llama Ranch in St. Paris, OH has brought me two other llamas and she needed a home for Care Bear, a female llama. So she has come to live with us.

Dawn and Lloyd arrived with CareBear in their trailer. I walked her into the ewe pasture filled with new moms and lots of lambs. CareBear was naturally curious and wanted to meet everyone which basically amounted to her chasing them. After a bit, I let her go and we watched for quite a while and things seemed to be ok.

... about 5 minutes after Dawn and her husband left, Preston and I went into the ram pasture to let the rams into their new grazing area. We look up and see Care Bear prancing from around the old barn and down the driveway!!! Apparently she didn't understand why she was being left behind and was going to let them know they forgot her!

... at this point Valur (our dog) sees her and starts to run after her. We were able to get Valur to come back and saw that Care Bear had gone past the house, but veered onto the lawn down towards the garden which is fenced all around. So Preston raced down the driveway on his tractor to close our gate. After a few minutes I was able to coax her into the pasture where Dudley & Mora were. They were still separate from the new moms. So I thought I'd best leave her there with just the two sheep for a couple days to get used to her surroundings without having to worry about a bunch of lambs and protective moms.

A few days later, I combined everyone together and she had calmed down considerably. She was so intent on taking in every square inch of her new surroundings. I knew then she would make a good guard llama.

She did see her first deer every and it was funny to watch ... it was an alarming llama / snorting deer match for about 10 minutes before the deer ran off. If you've never heard a llama alarm, the only thing I can compare it to is a turkey gobble.

I can tell she is taking her job seriously. The moms tend to get eating and forget about the where-abouts of their lambs and CareBear tends to them and keeps and eye on them. And I could tell the sheep had accepted her when they "let her" into the shelter with them when it was raining.
;)

Yesterday I went outside and saw a deer down toward the bridge. CareBear was busy eating and I called to her that there was a deer. She looked up and saw the deer and immediately took action to shoo it away.

Dawn chronicled her visit here on her blog. You can see more photos there ... http://dawnanewday.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html Scroll down to Fri, June 5th. You will learn about llama shearing and then there are photos from her visit here.

Meet Frank

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:45:00 +0000

When you purchase an old farm house, you have to accept the fact that there are permanent inhabitants. Some are friends and some are foe. It's important to know the difference.

For instance, when I see a mouse in my house or in the milk house where the feed/grain is kept, they are an enemy. They eat my food and that of the sheep and chickens. They need to go.

The wild barn cat is definitely a friend who will help eliminate the mice. We call her Tiger Kitty. She came with the place. She was not at all fond of people when we moved in and we would very rarely see her. Then in the winter, we started putting out a little cat food for her every few days. Then she would seek us out and coax us into following her to the barn to feed her. Little by little her trust grew and she ended up sleeping on the porch with our cats last winter and eating with them. Even though she still won't let me hold her, she will pester me until I scratch her head. Just today, she stood on a railing in the barn as I scratched her head and she actually snuggled up into my sweatshirt, purring and purring. She's discovered how nice the human touch can be.

There was another permanent resident who greeted me shortly after moving here. We have named him Frank. He is a Rat Snake. He is actually in the friend category. He dines on rats and mice, so he's helping with the enemy mentioned above. Here are some facts about the Rat Snake.

The common rat snake is medium-sized, averaging 3.5' to 6' (up to 8') in length.
Common rat snakes tend to be shy.
Rat snakes produce a foul-smelling musk and release it on the predator if they are picked up.
Common rat snakes are excellent climbers and spend a lot of time in trees.
Rat snakes are very useful around barns and in farming communities because they help control pest populations.
Due to people's lack of knowledge and fear of snakes, rat snakes continue to be the victim of human persecution. They are actually endangered in Massachusetts.

We came home from breakfast this morning and Colton asked if we'd seen the snake skin in the maple tree right outside our house. We checked and sure enough, there was Frank's skin. I was able to get it out of the tree intact and it was well over 6 feet long. You see Colton holding it here and he's probably 6'0" with his sneakers on. It was the entire skin, including the head, as you can see the eyes. We've collected two other skins in our cellar, but they were only partial.

I found the picture of the snake in the tree and the "facts" on: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/Facts/FactSheets/Blackratsnake.cfm

We're Moving On Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:12:00 +0000

(I'm singing the theme song to The Jeffersons while I type) ...

Preston is the webmaster for our www.QuietThymeFarm.com website. Any website owner knows that the goal is to be on the first page of Google. We've been working on things over the years to make that happen.

As of today, when you google "icelandic sheep," we are on page 4, up from page 14! But even more cool, on the first page, the 4th item down is "Image Results." The 3rd picture is one of my sheep from our website!! How cool is that?!

If you google "icelandic sheep ohio," we have moved to the #1 spot on page 1 ... even beating out isbona.com which is the Icelandic Sheep Breeders Association. We used to be further down the page a ways. Yippee!!

Sheep on the Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:41:00 +0000

I've raised Icelandic Sheep for about 4 years now. They are such a joy... each one with it's own personality, it's own "voice." I moved them to a new pasture today. It's always fun to see their enthusiasm over new grass. It's funny to watch when a couple of them have figured out that a new gate is open and then they are spotted by the others. They cry out as if to say, "Hey how did you get over there?! That's not fair!"

It's been a tough week for one of the moms, Hershey. She stopped eating last week and spent most of the day in the shelter away from everyone including her lambs. Certainly not a good sign. My first check didn't lead me to anything other than a hoof that needed to be trimmed (I couldn't reach it when she was pregnant) and a need for deworming. I gave her a vitamin boost, but the next day there was no improvement. I decided it had to be more than parasites, so I gave her an antibiotic. A day or so later, with no improvement, I discovered one side of her utter was infected. She had mastitis. I had checked it a couple days ago, but didn't notice anything wrong. At this point, it was clearly the problem. It was severely swollen and hard.

So I moved her and her lambs up to the barn and gave them a small area to graze. She had already stopped allowing the babies to nurse, so I knew I'd have to supplement their diets as well. My "bible" for ewe and lamb care is Caring for Your Ewe by Laura Lawson. She suggested an antibiotic, an anti-imflammatory, some vitamin B and to milk her at least 3 times per day. She would also need some oxytocin to allow her milk to let down. When I milked her, I discovered that she had blood in her milk. In fact, it really didn't even resemble milk, just watery blood.

After 24 hours of treatment, there wasn't any improvement, so I called the vet again and he suggested this antibiotic gel that is inserted into the teat. That didn't sound fun for me or Hershey. But surprisingly it was easier than I thought and she took it like a trooper. I think she knew I was there to help. She had been very easy to handle during all this which isn't necessarily like her.

Today I had to administer a 2nd dose of the internal antibiotic gel. She was a little less excited about coming in for her treatment and a little less cooperative during the procedure, and I took that as a good sign that she was getting her spunk back. She also seemed to be outside eating a lot more today ... another good sign. Tomorrow I give her the 2nd and final dose of injectable antibiotic. Hopefully the swelling will start to go down.

Time Out for Celebration

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Ben and I finished the ram fencing on Friday. I blocked each entrance with cattle panels and ran a hose to the waterer. We plan to trench a line for water out there soon, so the hose can be eliminated.

Saturday was a day of both celebration of achievement and of things to come. We spent the day with Ben at Wright State University for freshman orientation where he will attend classes in the fall. He ran into a high school friend who is also majoring in engineering giving him someone to hook up with. We gave him a $27,000 challenge. If he earns at least a 2.5 GPA his first quarter (along with a few other criteria), he is eligible for a full Air Force ROTC scholarship . This will save him $27,000 in Stafford Loans upon graduation and guarantee him a job. Stay tuned!

Mid-day on Saturday, we attended Colton's graduation from his first Civil Air Patrol Encampment. It is similar to the ROTC field training I attended while in college, but it was only a week long. They were up at 0500 (5am) for PT (running & exercise) and then a full day of challenges, team work, and education. He earned enough daily points from room inspection, general knowledge, and drill and ceremony performance to put him in the top third of the 99 cadets. This earned him a ride on a KC-135 for an actual airborn refueling mission where they refuel an E-3 Airborne Radar in mid-air. He got to sit in the cockpit for a while (here's a link to a picture: http://picasaweb.google.com/ohioencampment/TrainingDay6#5351662153282721010 ) as well as go back to the refueling area. His dad and I haven't ever done that in our active duty military days. So that was very cool. He had a wonderful time and was just exuding excitement and enthusiasm with all his stories. He can't wait to go again next year with a goal to be on the cadet staff. Following graduation, we went outside for a Pass and Review (military parade). Colton is in the front row, 2nd from the right. To view their photo album of the week's events, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/ohioencampment

Over the weekend, Preston and I started a mini-remodel of the kitchen. I currently have a cooktop/oven unit. We also purchased (several years ago) a microwave/oven wall unit. Preston built me a cabinet for it and we were finally ready to install it in the kitchen. We rearranged some of the existing cabinets and were able to do this without un-installing the countertop. It's amazing what you find beneath cabinets in a 100+ year old farm house. We are not the only inhabitants. Some day I will tell you about Frank. Anyway, on a wall that used to have an 18" pantry and 42" of base & wall cabinets, we are replacing with the new oven unit and a 36" wide built-in pantry with a screen door. Last night, I framed the walls for the pantry and Preston installed the new cabinet and the oven unit. Here's the status as of last night.

I'm enjoying a Red Bellied Woodpecker cracking open peanut shells at my bird feeder while I work. Oh, he got one open and off he goes with a peanut in his mouth! The birds dropped some sunflower seeds around the feeder and they are starting to bloom. This is the view from my desk with the ram shelter in the background.

4 years of catching up to do

noreply@blogger.com (Icelandic Shepherdess) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:01:00 +0000

Ok, so I'm regretting that I didn't start this blog 4 years ago. At Preston's encouraging, I started a diary of sorts in a Word doc, but that only lasted about 6 weeks. I really enjoyed going back and reading the happenings back then, so I know what I write now I will treasure later, so here goes ... A day in the life of a shepherd on Quiet Thyme Farm.

You can see more of our farm at www.QuietThymeFarm.com

So here is life on the farm from the eyes of the shepherd, the wife, the mom...

My older son, Ben graduated from high school June 6th. I told him if he didn't have a job when school got out, he would have to help me with projects on the farm and the pay was going to be room and board.

So, I'm excited to say he doesn't have a job (shame on me!). So he has been helping me put up more fencing to make my shepherding easier, my sheep healthier and the grass mowed by sheep and not people.

One of my projects is to subdivide the ram pasture into quads. The total area is about 235' x 275'. Last year, they grazed the area down early in the summer, then we had a long drought that began mid-July. So the grass never had a chance to recover. In addition, without rotation, they battled parasites all summer long.

Their shelter is in the center of the pasture and each line of fence will end near the shelter. I'll block 3 entrances with cattle panels and allow them access to the one remaining. Then I'll rotate them every 2-3 weeks depending on how the grass is growing. It will make it easy and safe for me to go in and fill their minerals and rotate them. After they rotate out of a pasture, I'll be able to mow it to clear out anything they didn't eat. I can also spray the fence lines they won't be near with RoundUp to keep the fence lines clean.

So back to the job at hand. We started Monday, but actually began in the lower pasture where the ewes and lambs are right now. There is a shelter there that will be used for 2 of the lower pastures (7 & 8 - see map). We needed to move them to pasture 7, but had to put up an interior line of fence to give them access to pasture 7 and the shelter, but block them from pasture 8. So Ben and I marked posts by stretching a string where the fence would go and then marking about every 12' for a metal T-post. Then Ben began putting the posts in the a post. For some reason, he didn't wear gloves and had blisters by the time he was done.

Preston came home and helped us put up the fence. He taught Ben how to tie the fence to the stretcher, attach the ratchets to the stretcher and the tractor and ratchet the fence upright against the posts. Meanwhile, I am tying off the other end. We stretch the fence, then I tie it with the T-post clips and Preston & Ben tie off the other end.

We moved the girls easily. With sheep, you just open a gate and the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so they run eagerly.

With the heat this week, Ben and I decided to get up early... ok, I decided to get up early. Ben wasn't excited, but it was better to work from 6:30-10:30am before it got too hot. So far, we have finished 3 of the 4 lines of fence and moved the rams into Quad B (see map).

I posted a map of the farm layout. This represents about 12 acres of our 30 acre property. The hay field is another 12 acres to the back. The two front pastures are divided by the creek and run the full 600 foot width of our property (less the driveway). These are not shown on the map.

Tomorrow, we will get up at 6am again to finish the ram pasture.