Meadow Update

The meadow garden is starting to show some color, mostly yellow.  But if you get up close, there are some pretty flowers to see.

This is coreopsis:

The coreopsis is in front right.  The yellow in the background is more coreopsis.  The tall green plants are goldenrod that will bloom in the fall.

A single small sunflower is surrounded by coreopsis.

A bachelor's button has an unidentified beetle on it.

This is blanket flower:

Weed Trimmers

The spring lambs trim down the weeds in Jack's pen around the back of the house.

Gamagrass Update

Gamagrass continues growth  (2018-05-28).  Seed heads emerged.

Combine Flocks

Today we combined the spring ewe flock with the fall ewe flock, which already had the rams with them.  For us, spring lambing results in salable lambs in the 60 to 70 lb range late in spring and early summer when prices are generally lowest.  Best prices for sale of our lambs is in the winter, which the fall lambing provides.  There are other considerations as well, so yesterday we decided to make the switch to only fall lambing.  Forage is having a hard time getting going as well now, so we decided also to start providing additional hay and soon we will begin with the grain supplementation as well to help the spring ewes get in condition to cycle and make lambs for this fall.

Below is the Gator, with hay bale, towing the pallet lifter that Jeffrey made for me.  It is hauling the hay feeder that we will take out to the 60-acres.  The spring ewe flock was already there; this morning we led the fall ewe flock and rams out there.

Gator is in position to roll the hay bale into the hay feeder.  Jeffrey is stabilizing the feeder leg before we load the hay in.  From left to right are the livestock guardian dogs: Aurora, Kratos, and Anneika.  Aurora is visiting from Jackie's flock.  Kratos was with the spring ewes; Anneika was with the fall ewes.  They will work as a team now with occasional help from Aurora.  The sheep are in the background, hard to see with over exposure in that part of the photo.

The sheep followed me back from being out in the field.  Aurora, Kratos and Anneika also followed back to the water, hay and gate area. 

The combined ewe flock is out in an open patch of the 60-acres field.

Phlox Flowers

These phlox flowers were found blooming in some brush at the end of the pinelands driveway on 2018-04-28.

Disk Repair

With all the recent disking work and more disking to be done, equipment failures are inevitable.  There is a really big bolt that holds the pieces of a disk gang together; the head of that bolt broke off.

Here Jeffrey is removing the disk gang from the disk in order to begin repairs.

The disk, minus broken disk gang, is pulled outside, out of the way.

A photo of the tractor, with dozer blade, and disk....

All the individual disk parts slide off the bolt.  The head of the bolt broke off.  Jeffrey is welding a bunch of metal on the end of the bolt to reform a bolt head.

The built up weld material is ground smooth and into an appropriate shape.

The remanufactured bolt has an end flange slid down to the bolt head.

Jeffrey cleans the individual disk gang pieces with an electric brush.

I held the bolt upright and Jeffrey slide down the disk pieces to reform the disk gang.  With a big pipe wrench and socket we tightened the end bolt and remounted the disk gang onto the disk.  After a couple days of use, the repair is still holding. 

New Twins

Toward dusk on 2018-05-18 the ewe with tag MS1312 had twins.  Except for a another ewe that had a single lamb the week before, the ewes in the spring lambing flock all had their lambs in the late February through March timeframe.  I think we missed getting one of the rams out of the flock last fall.  But in any case, these are welcome additions to the flock, except that the flock is way out in the lone pine field and about to be put out into the brush of the 60 acres where it will be hard to keep an eye on her and her lambs.  Plus, I would like to give her a little supplemental feed while she is nursing.

So I decided to bring her back up to the barn area and the holding pens where we have the other ewe with her single lamb.  All the flock was gathered around this small tree, so I began encircling them all with a section of electric fence netting.  Once this activity started, the sheep became suspicious and mostly started moving away, which was okay.  The lambs stayed with the ewe in the shelter of the brush.  There were a few tense moments as I was trying to close the circle, all the other ewes were out and the mom and lambs wanted to follow.  I could have quickly closed the circle of net fence except a dead branch lying on the ground tangled the net and I couldn't get the fence pulled over to close the trap.  So there was a bit of waving around and threatening to convince the ewe and lambs to stay in the protection of the tree.  With some fussing with the fence and branch, I finally got it clear and closed the fence, containing the sheep to be moved.  I think that is Whitey in the left background, she had trailed out with me.

Once contained, the transport trailer is moved into position and the fence is gradually moved inward to crowd the sheep toward the trailer.  However, in this particular situation there was a big bush in the middle of the project that the lambs and ewes could hide in.  If I came at them from one side, they went to the other, and so on.  After flailing around with this for a little bit, I managed to grab the two lambs and hauled them over to near the trailer.  The ewe followed and I put up another section of fence between them and the brush.

So here we are with the ewe and lambs at the edge of the trailer ramp.  I started closing the fence in toward them a little bit and the mom did good and walked up the ramp with the lambs behind her.  The sheep generally volunteer to go up into the trailer as long as we go slow and she doesn't get into a flight panic.

So, with ewe and lambs in the trailer, I lift up the ramp, tie it off, pick up all the net fence and make the trip back to the holding pens up near the barns.

In holding pen 2 there is still quite a bit of tall ryegrass for the sheep to work on.  The other lambs that had weaned about a month ago now are in the background.  With the ramp down the sheep are allowed to come out of the trailer into holding pen 2.

Ewe comes off first leading the lambs.  In background is other ewe with her lamb.

Mom looks back, ensuring lambs are coming.  As I write this about a week later, mom and lambs are are doing good.

Pinelands Middle Field Transformation

The daily afternoon thundershower pattern is upon us now, but for the past several weeks it has been dry, allowing us to get in and do some serious work in parts of fields that are often too damp, such that the tractors get bogged down and stuck.  This past weekend and the week before, Jeffrey and I were working in what we call the "middle pinelands field".  This is a logged out pine field Jeffrey has been working on for some time, smoothing out the bed-form mounds that pine trees were planted on, pushing over rotted stumps and pushing down brush.  Now we are finally getting it ready for planting pasture grass.  The latest activity was to push back the brush and small trees along the edges of the field, grind down stumps the hadn't rotted, and disk the whole field to start smoothing it out.

With the International and the bulldozer blade mounted on it, Jeffrey pushes brush and trees to the field edge.

Small trees are pushed over.  

And pushed into the edge of the field.

Larger trees are cut down using the turbo saw on the back of the Fiat.  Here the grapple of the turbo saw is used to move a cut down tree to the edge.  Even larger trees are cut down with a chainsaw.

Once cut down, the remaining stumps are ground to bits with the "stump grinder" that is attached to the back of the John Deere.

Here is the stump, prior to grinding.  Attached to the large, heavy grinding wheel are carbide tipped teeth that do the grinding work.  The turbo saw is similar, it has a large horizontal metal disk with carbide teeth set in it that cut through the tree.

Here is the stump grinder grinding away.  It is a slow process.  Usually the cutting edge is lowered an inch at a time and swept over the stump, grinding off sequential layers. 

When done, one is left with no stump, a whole in the ground and a mound of chips mixed with dirt.

Here is Jeffrey in the International pulling the disk over the middle pinelands field.

Next step will be to have a couple tons per acre of lime spread over the field to bring the pH up a little bit so the pasture grass will have better access to nutrients.  Disk in the lime.  Then spread the bahia grass seed.

Blueberry Time

The blueberries are ripe and I've started picking, trying to do 2 buckets (about 2 gallons) a day.  Refrigerator repair man came to fix broken refrigerator/freezer we had standing by.  It's not worth fixing he says so Joy is ordering a new chest freezer so I have a place to put the blueberries I pick.  Crop looks good so far, a little bit early.

Flower Garden Update

Joy's flower garden is showing lots of blooms.  I've added several photos of individual day lily blooms and some other photos.   It's quite an impressive collection of flowers.