Cheaper by the dozen?

new hay – ALL stacked by my guys this year! – hiding what's left of old hay

Only if you compare it to having 13. Bridger left for his new home today, leaving me with an even dozen sheep – who are DEVOURING the new second cutting hay we got, making me worry that I won't have enough to get through the winter. I don't want to admit how much we paid for the 150 bales of first cutting and the 94 bales of second cutting from our favorite local grower (we bought all he had); it felt rather obscene. And yet I'm hoping that we might be able to get some third cutting from him, too. Not likely, though. I should ask him about getting some bales of alfalfa for lactating ewes next spring....

Left to right: Bijou, Bench, Sanson

After Bridger left, I moved Bijou and Bench in with Sanson so the three boys can hang out in the  Ram-ada Inn together until breeding season starts. I peeked at fleeces (should have taken photos); my homebred boys have much finer crimp. It will be interesting to see how their micron test results compare next spring.

my weather app this morning

We've enjoyed some cloud cover recently, which raises the humidity but keeps temperatures more moderate. It would be wonderful to find a way to wring some rain out of the clouds, but I'll take  what they give us. As you can see, by next week we'll be longing for some moderation!

Clouds always make for more interesting skies, too. I've been taking photos of skyscapes here and there and finally downloaded them from my phone to share. This first set was taken on the way home from picking blueberries July 26:

The rest of these were taken during recent walks on our hill:

free sustenance for the picking

this was Friday morning's sky from our deck

I love walking by this big, beautiful Madrone tree

We didn't pick as many blueberries from Rick's client's field this year because they are charging us the same price per pound that I can buy them for, already bagged and frozen, at both Grocery Outlet and Costco. (I advocated for not picking any, but Rick wanted to "keep our options open.") Makes me so thankful for the gorgeous plums our tree is surprising us with this year; I picked another big bowlful this morning. My garden tubs/tanks are giving me a steady dribble of tomatoes (also, the first of the Japanese eggplant are ready to pick); neighbors are keeping us supplied with zucchini, cucumbers, and tonight, Delicata squash (yum!). Both our prune trees and all four apple trees are loaded with promise, so even without a garden proper we are being blessed with abundance.

That's it for now from . . .

Water and wool

Except for a Tuesday evening visit from an old friend now living on the other side of the country and his new(ish) wife, life has been quiet here. Lucky me; I like quiet – no, I need quiet.

Everyday constants are watering and spinning more Rechel roving. The round stock tank's tomatoes are looking happy, with little green fruit on three of the four. I'm not really sure what the ground cherries are supposed to do; the two little peppers in the middle are just sitting there, doing nothing.

The sheep tank container garden is booming, with thriving tomatoes, happy basil, and ecstatic eggplant. One has three little fruits already; the other has more blooms on it than I've ever seen on one plant:

Until this week, I've mostly been watering pots and tanks. Now I'm moving hoses around to water landscape plants as well, trying to keep things going through an already long, dry, hot summer. We're sweating through a three-day weekend of high daytime and nighttime temps right now. The dogs still play hard for periods, but then do a lot of napping:

I noticed that our white flowering plum has a lot of fruit on it this year. When ripe these are good-sized and very tasty, but there have never been many of them. This year, I think I'll get a ladder out and harvest them when the time comes. Without a garden proper, I'm more motivated than usual to utilize as much of our tree fruit as I can. I defrosted our 'fruit freezer' this week, sad at our dwindling supply of caneberries and strawberries that we've grown in the past. We'll buy and freeze peaches as usual, and I might try freezing our Brooks prunes in the same way. I still have canned spiced prunes and prune sauce in the pantry, and dehydrated prunes in the freezer.

One of our neighbors shared a bounty of small, tender zucchini with us this week. Then they left for 10 days, and I have permission to go over and pick whatever I want; there will be lots more zucchini and some cucumbers in our near future. Monday is supposed to be the coolest day of the foreseeable future, so that would be a good time to use the oven to bake off some muffins, cakes and burgers to store in the freezer. I still have some rhubarb from that same neighbor, so I should bake off some rhubarb goodies, too.

That's it for now from . . .

Sheep math

I've never succumbed to "chicken math;" I am happy with a small laying flock and no rooster. I have occasionally indulged in a little sheep math, but have admirably – in my opinion – reined in most of my inclinations due to limited facilities and a desire to stay happily married. This year, with a bountiful (for me) lamb crop, I find myself regularly reviewing my flock numbers. I started 2023 with nine sheep, added eight lambs, lost two adults, traded a ewe lamb* for a ram lamb, sold a ewe and lamb**, and have one last lamb to leave by early August. That should leave me with an even dozen, which is a net gain of three. Not too bad, but like pounds, adding three every year would quickly cause me to outgrow my jeans capacity. Come spring, shearing, micron testing, and lambing (if the little boys prove up to the job) will help me determine which of this year's overwintered lambs will stay on and which may be sold***.

*On Sunday I completed the trade for my new ram lamb. A friend picked Bailiff and me up in her Tesla X(!) and Bailiff, unconscious of the luxury transportation, cried loudly the whole hour-plus ride to Black Sheep Gathering. And probably continued to cry while we all shopped (my friend brought two other people), but the spaceship car is equipped with 'dog mode' climate control so Bailiff could stay comfortably cool on a hot day. I had just enough time to proxy-shop at the Jenkins booth for six other people (and score a Shetland Horn spindle for myself) and find a small family fiber mill willing to accept fleeces onsite (one for a customer and uncoated Broadway's too-trashy-to-sell fleece for myself). Then, at the official closing of this year's BSG, I was able to take Bailiff to her new owner's trailer and say good-bye.

Ed Jenkins with Ravelry member Uté, who made a last-minute trip from Germany!

Uté brought fiber snacks for Jenkins friends, so it inaugurated my new Horn

One of my friend's acquisitions

Gorgeous clematis at the entrance

One final shot with my beautiful Bailiff before we went our separate ways

**On Wednesday, Bree and Blackjack were picked up to join the fiber flock started by Berlin, Boomer, and Sarai (who later died) last year. I didn't get any parting shots, but their new owner sent me some heartwarming photos.

Traveling to their new home in style in the back of an SUV

Boomer and Berlin checking out the newcomers

***After Bree and Blackjack left, I spent Wednesday afternoon trimming feet, picking fleeces, evaluating, taking photos, and getting coats on my last three 'naked' sheep – Bench, Bonnie, and Bitta. I figured out that our empty wood/hay trailer made a great place to do all this! Sanson got coated when he arrived last Thursday, and I cleaned up and coated Bijou and Bauble well before that. Good thing, too, since I turned them out with mom Blaise in the grassy strip between barn and arena and they found the 'sticky weed.' 😱

I finally got the last of my vegetable starts planted. A neighbor had some extra soil and filled my leaky stock tank, in which I planted four tomatoes, two ground cherries, and two sweet peppers and surrounded with wire for protection. My little sheep stock tank garden is growing gangbusters; I need to get it protected before a deer discovers this tasty buffet. My garden deck pot is producing steady snacks of sweet pea pods, and has several green tomatoes, too.

One more thing that got surrounded with wire for protection:

I had noticed a little Oregon-race dark-eyed junco flying up out of the grass near the hen house several times while I was moving around doing chores. At first I thought it was a fledgling, but when it kept happening I got curious and looked around. I couldn't believe this tiny, perfect nest hadn't gotten trampled on by me or the dogs! I put our 'protective custody cage for chickens' over it and checked to make sure little mama didn't mind (she didn't). In the photo below, the location is that sunlit spot just below and to the left of the pop-door of the henhouse, between the driveway to the barn, the henhouse, and the hayfeeder for the wooded lot (just outside the photo on the right). Before this discovery sent me to allaboutbirds.org, I didn't know that juncos are ground-nesters!

If it's the hot season, it's hay season. Load #1 is in the barn; load #2 is waiting to be unloaded. ALL hay has to be inspected by Chuckie. 😉

Farewell June, from . . .