Hello dear readers! Nice to see you all again!
Welcome to the new folks. Pull up a tree stump and let the sheep frisk you for peanuts! They don’t bite “much”!
Poor Miss Runag came home with some sizable cuts on her neck yesterday. I suspect she got herself into a fight with the barbed wire fence and she lost. The cuts are in an odd place for barbed wire, usually I see them on their head, top of the neck and down the back. These run top to bottom on the left side of her neck. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the local mountain lion got her??? But she has no other marks, punctures, or cuts anywhere else. Besides, I suspect if it was the lion, she would not have lived to tell the tale.
The two dark lines on the right side of her neck are skin fold shadows. The two other lines towards the left are the cuts. They look bigger than they are due to me spraying her down with antiseptic and the dried blood started to run.
My flock all get tetanus vaccines against just this possibility of a run in with wire, rusty or otherwise.
As of this morning she is residing in the barn, her cuts have been cleaned up, and I started her on antibiotics and pain meds. She would not let us catch her yesterday. Today she was off her food, and staying away from the others, grunting, and grinding her teeth, which are all signs of a sickly sheep and being in pain. It made her easier to catch. When last I looked at her, she was eating her hay, so that’s a good thing!!
It’s no joke when they say sheep are born looking for a way to die.
According to the calendar, spring has officially arrived. We have had several days of warm sunny weather, that the sheep are enjoying very much. The feel being nekked has its advantages. They have been hanging out in the trees grazing the first green grasses that are coming up. The current haybale that is out has not been touched much.
Of course, we have had several days of warm sunny weather all winter long.
In the 7 winters I have spent in Wyoming, this has by far been the warmest, driest, and, frankly, the scariest.
Like many areas of the country that need the snowpack for the coming year, we are way behind normal. Like 71% below normal according to the state.
To show you the difference, this time last year we were 105% above normal.
Here are a few of the other differences vs normaliti’s for your reading pleasure.
Suet blocks for the wild birds used: 1 vs 6-8
Propane tank fills: 1 vs 2
Hay bales used: 10 vs 16-18
Frozen pipes thawed out: 1 vs 5ish
Winter gloves replaced: 1 vs 2-3
Tank heaters purchased: 1 vs 2-3 (we did have two burn out within a week of each other)
Wood burned: less than 1 cord vs 2
Days at -50: 0 vs 7-10
So, all in all, it has been an easier winter. And I’m not complaining about that at all. Anything that makes life easier is good as far as I’m concerned.
What scares me is the now elevated fire danger. We are already under red flag conditions. If we don’t get a decent amount of moisture very soon, I am going to be living in a constant state of heightened awareness of anything that remotely smells like smoke.
My property is tree covered. It has not been logged for about 30 years, and it needs it badly. The boy child and I have taken out quite a few trees over the past 5 years, but it did not even make a dent. I do have some friends that are going to be harvesting their next year’s firewood from here and that will be a big help. Plus, I know we will be taking more, including the one that came down over winter and took out a chunk of fence.
One of my biggest concerns is that there is a druggie/homeless encampment on public lands not far from my back fenceline. It has been there for over a year now, and none of the law enforcement agencies in the area have any desire to remove them. One errant spark from a fire, cigarette, or meth pipe would spell disaster for us here. Maybe the elevated fire danger will get them removed finally.
I’m not holding my breath on that one though.
I do need to get this place logged though. The companies in the area all want to do it during the warmer months, and I don’t blame them for that. Unfortunately, it would mean they would destroy any graze that I do have, and I would have to resort to feeding out hay for an entire year. Something I cannot afford to do.
Course I can’t afford losing this place to a fire either.
I started to de-winter the house this weekend. Got the water hooked up to the fridge again. Pulled the heater from the crawl space and closed up the hatch. Dumped the 5-gal buckets of emergency toilet flush water and emptied the two 2-gallon drinking water jugs.
Guess what is coming in for the rest of this week???
Winter!
Yup, starting tonight thru Friday, snow, cold, rain, wind, etc etc etc. I am not bitching about the moisture, but couldn’t it just come as 60 degrees and rain?
This afternoon will be spent getting hay, water, and the alley way set up so that I can run the sheep back inside for the week. I suspect they might be ok if I left them out, but I prefer not to take a chance on it. A few of the old ladies got skinny over winter on me. No point in putting them thru the stress of all that wet cold stuff now.
Another typical day on the farm!
Blessed Be!