Peanuts with Lard---Yum!

Well maybe not so tasty to me....but to the wild birds Yum!

Today I will make up some "suet" to put into my suet feeder outside. We have finally had a freeze---for better or worse.
Of course it's a late one since ours is suppose to be around the middle of October, but that is to be expected after the freaky weather we have been having over the past year or so.

I don't really feed the birds all year long but since we have so many beauties I do like to help them out in the winter. Especially after this year with the lower amounts of food that we notice are available after our unusual Easter freeze and then the drought. Sitings of bears are occurring in our area, which is odd, so we will have to be particularly careful this year. The bears are hungry though and I would help feed them if I could---but I know better than to do that. All I would create is a problem. (I do hope they stay away as I wouldn't want my sheep or guard dog injured).

So, as I was saying, today I will mix up some homemade suet and put it out for the birds. There are numerous sites with homemade suet mixes (some don't even use suet) but check out the Sialis link for many many recipes all "under one roof". It's a bluebird site---and a very good one---but the recipes work for any species of bird that eats suet type food. Another link is this Wildbirds forever site. The have a nice little link section to some of the more common birds you will see at a suet feeder.

We have the two birds shown in the pictures above come regularly throughout the year to our yard. I stole these pictures off of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site. It's a nice site to check out and look up many birds and see facts and hear their calls. The one with red on his head is a downy woodpecker and the other---standing upside down---is a nuthatch. The little nuthatch that called our yard home this year made his nest in our peach tree this spring. Unfortunately for him he didn't think through how often we would walk by this tree and ended up having to scold us incessantly each day. The main problem was that the tree he chose is at the corner of our garden and near our chicken coop---so of course we were there very very frequently :-)


So, now that we have had frost in most of the south AND snow up north---don't forget your little feathered friends. They can always use a bit of help when it's really really cold.

Let there be RAIN! (finally)

Today---we have RAIN. rain rain rain rain. La la la. It sounds good to say that we are getting rain! Sounds like a Dr. Seuss book aye?
This time, unlike the few other times we have received it, our rain has been good rain----the kind that soaks into the ground and does wonderful things for the earth.
A few times it has come down fast too. During one instance my truck stalled as I drove through a large runoff section---it is an old truck but the "puddle" was a bit deeper than I thought at the time. Of course my son and I had to push it to the side of the road and got soaked for our trouble. However we have been so without rain for so long----that I DON"T mind getting my hair wet. Our pond even has water in it again. Not sure for how long---but it does have water. It has been bone dry for......5 months now for sure. It barely had any water previous to that---it just wasn't so hot that it could finish it off then.
I would love for it to stay around for a few more days. However---I won't fuss too much. This is the most rain we have seen in......months? almost a year maybe.
I have heard that Atlanta Georgia is getting missed. For that I am sad---however I am gleefully happy we are finally getting some that is soaking in.
Maybe I should run out and throw out some clover seed for winter/early spring grazing? Of course that is a guaranteed way to make it stop----and not come back for a while isn't it.

Hope everyone is getting the weather they need for their area---lately that seems to be a hit or miss proposition.

Daily life

Today, One of the things I wanted to show are two pictures of the trailer we use to transport our sheep.
I had to use it this morning to take a ram to the vet's office. He has been sold for a while but will go to his new home in Maryland this next weekend. When livestock cross state lines than need official "immigration papers" to say "yeah their healthy and are not bringing any disease into the state".
He is now official.

Anyway--back to the trailer.
We purchased this little jewel earlier this year and modified to fit our needs. We rebuilt the back door for air flow and added air vents on either side at the front (with removable grills). It also has a non slip mat and a hay rack on the inside and is painted a magnificent turquoise blue---very bright---to add some "ambiance" :-D.

When we were trying to decide what kind of trailer/hauler we wanted we kept coming up against two issues. Both having to do with our vehicles. Currently we own two vehicles (we have owned more at times).
One is a small 12 year old truck that we have had since we purchased it new. It unfortunately will soon need replacement (or maybe rebuilding ...) and we have been trying to decide what to replace it with. Since it is so old, though well cared for---we have started becoming concerned with the idea of taking it on long trips. Also, even if we replaced it with another truck---bigger possibly (or not) ---as a rule trucks don't get very good gas mileage. This issue lately has made our choice somewhat difficult in deciding what to replace it with---since it will be our second form of transport. Going to the mall in a gas sucking large truck just isn't my thing-----but that's a different post.
Our other vehicle is our vw diesel golf----that gets 40 to 50 miles to the gallon. Of course it is a car and not "traditionally" meant to haul things.
So, when we were trying to decide what kind of trailer to buy to haul our sheep we kept coming back to the idea of one that our car could haul instead of a truck.
When your going to make a round trip of 1000 to 1500 miles----gas mileage does make a difference. Comfort does too and our car is comfortable in a different way than the truck.

We finally settled on this 5x8 foot trailer and it has worked great so far. Since we painted it and keep a mat down it is easy to clean out to use for hauling furniture and other things too. Our truck of course can pull it---but it's fine for our car too which makes it much more flexible. We ended up purchasing it on line (Ebay as a matter of fact) instead of down the road at Lowe's. We saved $600 because of that---so remember even if your buying from a "big box" place---look around first because someone else may still have a better price.


The next "daily life" thing I wanted to show was the beginnings of another fence---yes, another. This time we are putting it up around part of our back yard. We do occasionally run the sheep through there to eat and we have, up to this point, had a cheesy hot wire fence there. It was build using temporary plastic fence posts that "step" into the ground. However they bent easily and so they were always askew, falling over and tangled in some of the plants. Overall---ugly looking and they didn't work well. So we decided to put up a permanent section and in this area and we will use livestock fence to fence it. Then, for the rest of the yard we will switch to a 4 rail wood or maybe something else (something nicer, more "backyard looking" than livestock fence) as it comes up closer to the house.
We still have about an acre left to fence in our side and front yard and I am undecided what to fence with. Stay with livestock all the way around since we have it every where else? or better yet something really cool like this.



By the way---notice the moisture in the pictures?---YES it is raining here !!
Hopefully all day---the last storm that came through with all those tornadoes for other states didn't give us more than a 1/4 to a 1/2 inch.

Water Use

As we struggle with the lack of water here in my area, I realize just how lucky I am to still have water. In a recent post Maggie in North Carolina wrote about her well needing some repair during which she made a point of mentioning how thankful she was that her well (unlike some in her area) had not dried up. She also mentioned something that I have also wondered about on occasion this year which is what the HECK do you do with your animals if you can't get enough water?? As she said: The YMCA isn't to keen on them following you in for a drink or a bath in the case of her geese.
Lately, even before that, I had begun to wonder exactly what would I do in an emergency brought on by NO water availability. I mean---in regards to the livestock. Obviously my situation as a human is a bit easier than a sheep's would be. I can leave if I need to---but they can't. And of course in the case of bringing in water for them, well my one small jack russell doesn't drink much. On the other hand my 16 or so sheep plus our very large Pyrenees does. I figured it up based on the daily "average" per sheep of 2 gallons (depending many factors---but seemed like a good settling point) and I would need currently 34 gallons of water per day for all the sheep and their companion Mikey (the big dog) or 920 gallons per month.

Early this summer we had purchased for $50 each some water containers. Plastic of course, wrapped with a metal structure attached to a metal pallet. We bought them used from a water treatment facility. They receive their water treatment chemicals in them---so we could drink out of them if we needed to. With a bit of filtration for the humans of course. Also, we have had water in them and out of them a number of times---so they are pretty well rinsed out I think.
So, though they were originally just to collect rainwater for our plants use, we decided that they would make good back up sheep waterers for emergency situations. Even something as likely as the water mains being broke, bad storms ect. and the water being off for a day or two (or three) could cause problems depending on when we last filled the troughs. So, to have an emergency water back up for the animals, we will put these containers up on a stand, kind of like a mini deck, and site them so that when we do get gutters up on the chicken coop and barn they can fill with rain. In the mean time, since we have not had rain in a while----we will manually fill them from our public system this time. Just in case you know. We will then attach an automatically filling drinking bowl (their small, about the size of a man's cupped hands) that will keep only a small amount in the bowl at any one time---refilling as it is drunk up. That way there is little of the water wasted if it gets dirty or something of that nature. No evaporation and only a small bowl to clean instead of a large trough. I mean really---when a hundred gallon trough gets algae ---you have to dump about 75 gallons on average to clean it out. Kind of a waste---especially at this time. (I am sure most of you have now heard on the national news how bad it is here in Georgia in regards to the drought and drinking water issues.)
Since we have three of these, that hold 250 gallons each, we should have a short amount of emergency water available to us. Enough at least to be able to figure out what to do--just in case you know? It equals a paltry 20 days worth of water, however it is a help and when we don't have to have it---well it will be nice fresh rain water instead of chlorinated water for the animals to drink. A small aside for those of you who don't know---the chemicals in the water interfere with the uptake of some vitamins and minerals leaving your animals, and you, with a reduced amount or none at all sometimes. We found this out when we began testing our animals to correct some mineral problems we had here.

Of course this is just a small itty bitty way to barely make it. I think cities and municipalities need to wake up to the idea that we need to be more open minded about some of our water issues. We need to think outside the box---or at least consider some of the "boxes" that have come along. We need to reduce, conserve AND reuse. We will always need a certain amount of water for irrigation of our crops---but we need to get beyond the point of choosing water to drink or for food production when it comes to droughts. Also, the wildlife ----- they would like some left for them too.

So I came up with a few things that I would consider if I built a new house---or that I think governments should start seriously considering.
Take toilets. We are incredibly scared about the idea of crapping in a toilet that doesn't flush our poop and pee to some unknown spot. If everyone was forced to switched to composting toilets----do people not think that a whole industry of "compost cleaners" wouldn't spring up to clean them for the squeamish in our society? Of course I'd rather shovel my partially decomposed poop than drink it with chemicals added to make it safe. Put like that it's kind of yikky isn't it.

How about grey water? Why, after all this time, is grey water not more often pushed by local communities for lawn and tree watering?

Or better even than those two idea how about an old/new idea----the "Living Machine". (Capitalize it because it is a patented technology---which I didn't know.) It's that idea we have all seen at one time were they send the water through all these tanks of algae, fish and water plants to re-clean it to as good as or better than it was going in. Developed by Dr. John Todd in the 60's---he has a whole institute, known as Ocean Arks that focuses on studying it. I could easily have a certain amount of ongoing water for my livestock to drink with this concept---something to consider if I ever have an extra dollar not spent on hay or remodeling the problems we still haven't gotten to with this house. Besides from the research I have read about in regards to this system---it costs a fraction of a traditional water treatment plant to build and run AND you get an ecosystem to walk through that doesn't stink to high heavens.
This idea obviously would not work if I had NO water---but in a drought I could absolutely help conserve with this method for supplying drinking water to my animals.
There are a number of places in Europe that use this idea too--not so much in the U.S though but here is Penn State college doing it for a research project.

Some words to search with for more information on this would be:
greywater + reed beds
vertical flow (alone or with one of the above words)

Here's a fairly decent picture site (see the link to move on farther at the bottom of the page)

Also here are a few links for some sustainable book sites that carry books about this issue (plus more):
Low Impact Living Institute (british site)

Eco Logic books

constructed wetland association -- books only on reed bed sewage treatments.

Finally some rain

Finally we got rain! For about an hour and a half it rained here. Not hard, but not one of those paltry little drizzly affairs that leave you with nothing but humid air.
Oh it wasn't enough that's for sure, but who can complain at this point? So far---depending on the exact location of monitoring we are approximately down 16" of rain for the year. With only about 9" overall having fallen on our area. I know---it really doesn't seem like that much but imagine your lawn or garden needs approximately one inch per week. You can get it as say...2 inches one week, skip a week then get some more but however it is it needs to average out to about one inch. So far we have had 24 weeks in this year to split amongst that 9 inches --which does seem to leave us a bit shy of the mark especially when you consider most of our 9 inches was back in the beginning of the year.
We personally haven't had more than 2 separate 5 minute rains in 8 weeks here on our property. That is absolutely not an exaggeration either (unfortunately). Also, to give you an understanding of what we are lacking, the average rainfall for our area is considered to be about 53 inches. Which works out to--you guessed it---about an inch per week.
Now lets consider where our family is in the Dallas/Ft Worth area of Texas and also East Texas. Now East Texas gets a little bit more than DFW which has an annual average of 33 inches. They had in the month of May 20 inches of rain. Yes, almost their entire years worth of rain fell in one month over the coarse of 21 days during that month. AND to make it even more of a spit in the face to us (had to make the water connection here) they have since then received about 6 inches just last week. How dare they? (As if they had a choice right?)
Well, it just goes to show you that no matter where you live or decide to move---the weather can get you every time, any place, any year.

Which leaves us to wonder? Will we be raising animals next year? That is a question I can not answer yet. Fortunately for us we have a great family and our cows now reside in Texas---eating their way through all that grass, waiting for a better year to come back to us. However that doesn't help our grass grow here for our sheep---it just relieves the amount of hay we have to purchase and feed each day. (which by the way Maggie are doing fine thanks for asking) Can one raise animals in an area that perpetually seems to be in a drought? Yes, I know we could cut down to two or three sheep however our pastures are so dried out that we would still need hay and we wouldn't get enough lambs to make the work involved, time and trouble worth it. So soon---we will work very hard to finish our house, sell and find more acreage somewhere else. Enough to buffer us and our animals even in times of extreme drought as we are seeing now. Even if I didn't raise animals the question of whether it is even worth raising veggies begs to be asked. Because really---we all think that when there is a drought that "oh well, city water folks can't water their lawn however we are o.k because we have a well" Wells go dry people---especially in extreme droughts. Lakes, rivers and streams do also--just consider Lake Chad in Africa. It's a pittance of what it was in the 60's.
Wells dry up, lakes dry up, rivers and streams do too. How then do you store and control your water to make the best use of it? Sounds like Austin Texas has a better handle on it than some of the rest of us do. Rain water collection, grey water usage for orchards, xeriscaping, low flow toilets or composting toilets....many ideas to choose from. Now we just all need to get over the idea that we should, and can, turn on the tap, flush the toilet and water our garden whenever and however we want with no repercussions involved. Screw the neighbors---every man for himself right? I think I smell a water war in those lack of rain clouds.

Funky yarn

O.k
So after seeing the Pluckyfluff web site the other day (I posted about it on May 30th) I decided to try my own hand at some extreme novelty yarn. In actuality this type of yarn was the reason I wanted to learn to spin---though I have not gone quite to the same "place" they had yet (call me a weenie). It's really fun though mixing the colors and wrapping others into it. I mean personally if I needed 10 skeins of exactly the same yarn (example: smooth two ply sport weight) to finish a project I would rather send my wool to the mill and have them do it. However if I need something with slubs, wraps, twists or other novelty things---it's kind of fun to do your own. Even when I first learned to spin and accidentally made all these thick then thin then thick spots----I was never discouraged. Why? Because I LIKED that type of yarn. Now that I have more experience---I can appreciate the difficulty of spinning consistently fine yarn--- however I still prefer the thick/thin/thick/thin "handspun" look. Add two colors to make it variegated or heathered looking and it is even nicer in my opinion.

This time however I decided to use colored and add wraps to it which I have never done. One reason I colored it is that this year I kept some of my white wool for myself. Usually we sell it and keep the natural colors (my preference actually). I don't know if I will use this yarn when its done but it should be neat. I will also spin some "regular white q tip sheep" roving I have--making the roving into a thick/thin/thick yarn--- then ply the two together leaving some twists hanging out and plying some areas more densely than others. Cool huh? I think when it is done it will make a great border for a kids winter hat. Fun and Funky. Perfect for those windy cloudy winter day---a snap of color coming down the sidewalk.

Also, I have been "saving up" for a new wheel for about a year and half and I will soon (hopefully) be ordering it. Part of the reason for not yet purchasing is that I did not know which one I would like---oh yes I tried a number of them but truthfully they are not THAT much different from each other so it came down to the extras or other small details. Anyways as I said---I was procrastinating UNTIL we went to the Middle Tennessee Fiber Festival and there was a lady with a majacraft suzie-pro. Yep---that's the one. It has some things that the slightly less expensive don't have and it is not too traditional looking either. I do after all live in a 1960's home and if you have seen some of the pictures of our house on the blog you will realize it is not traditional at all. So I didn't want a wheel that would look as if I were 1880's colonial for sure. I think this one fits the bill and though a bit more expensive than I wanted to spend it has some really nice features. Spinning wheels hold their value extremely well anyways so it's not like buying a new car :-D Drive it off the lot and boom! worth 3000 less than before. Oh yes---I can't finish my new yarn (though I am dying too!) until I get my new wheel. Why? Because the wheel I currently have does not have a large enough flyer to accomadate the bulk of such a yarn as I am making. Yes I could upgrade to a bigger flyer (I do believe I can with the Ashford I have) however---why bother when I am about to purchase another? I'd rather spend the money on extra's for the new wheel.

Anyways--hope all is well with everyone. Dry here still. We did get a very quick (5 minutes--seriously) shower yesterday. Just enough to flare the allergies, make it sticky and tease everyone with the idea of rain. To top it off---it had the audacity to send us a rainbow! Hah!---we don't want beauty---we want rain!

Missed Me

Missed me missed me couldn't even .......well I wasn't hoping for a kiss that's for sure. Rain from Tropical Storm Barry would have been well...

GREAT


But noooooooo it has to hit most of Georgia but not us. What gives here? I am becoming a frustrated feeder and waterer. Feeding hay in April May and June is NOT what I expected to ever have to do in Georgia. Maybe in Texas---but not here. Speaking of Texas----the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and most of East Texas (where we have family) received 20 inches of rain in the month of May alone. Can you believe it?!! Their yearly average for Dallas/Ft Worth is 30-35 inches per year. I'd be a bit annoyed with them however I know they didn't want all that in one month---just like we would like more than that in a whole year.
Well, for you viewing pleasure a few pics of my pasture and pond---well my almost gone pond. Think of us the next time you see moisture---and the next time you think : "Boy, wish it wasn't raining today".

The last picture without pond or cows is the view of my back pasture which has not had animals on it since about 6 or 7 weeks ago. That's how much it has grown. Pretty bad huh.

O.k---sorry about the whining and I do know it can't last forever (or at least that's my hope!).

Oh yeah--thanks everyone about chickens advice and comments----But I now know my culprit is an Opossum (bad little beastie) We just need to trap a relocate the little booger since he seems to have a regular schedule of stopping by our coop.

Drought & Desperation

Well,maybe the long term, on going drought is driving the sheep to desperation. I think Aleda, one of my Icelandic ewes (yes, females can be with or without horns) decided she needed to see if there was a back up meal just in case the pastures turn to dust and we can't find more hay.






For those of you wondering: Yes, we are still in a very very bad drought. We have had microscopic amounts of rain and about 1/2 of our pasture is now brown.
Sorry to those who live on the coast but we are hoping to have a hurricane hit and bring us some rain! Unfortunately, hurricanes are one of the ways that we get quite a bit of our yearly rain. For two years now they have pretty much passed us by: last year we got a bit fat zero from any of them. Odd considering how damaging they were to other parts of the country.
Yes, I know it is a weather pattern related to the change from el nino to la nina and back again ---and we should have rain as it finishes---however that does not make the grass grow or the trees quit dying. Bummer huh.

One last thing: yesterday evening we had very very "smoggy" skies. Why? Well, of course the smoke from the wild fires in south Georgia and north Florida. The wind was blowing this way and it was fairly thick (though Atlanta was much worse supposedly) and you could even smell it just a small bit---odd isn't it.