Beauty Shop

Tomorrow one lucky Ram gets to visit the girls for a while and they need to get ready. After spending the summer out making pasture land the girls are in desperate need for a trip to the beauty shop. Jeepers (left) and Kia don't look too excited.


Katydid knows that she will be more attractive once she has had her hooves trimmed and a bit of "knit" killer added to her wool. The girls would also get some wormer and a dose of pro-biotics.


The Commander would grab the girls one by one and bring them into a stall for their beauty "treatment". They all let me do their hooves with no issues. I checked all their eyelids for signs of worm induced anemia and they looked great - I gave them the wormer anyhow, just in case.


Once they were done I would put just a bit of grain in their bowl and the Commander would let them down to eat, as he held them in place I would add the "knit" killer to their wool. I didn't see any "knits" on anyone but it is probably better to be safe than sorry.


The only girl that gave us trouble was Kia, she seems to be a lot smarter than the rest of them. She never falls for the tricks we use to catch everyone, I think she has a strong Icelandic streak in her.



Kia seemed to want to let us know just who was boss. Temper, temper darling! (The guineas sat outside the sheep shed screaming the whole time we were in there, nice.)

Sleep Over?

In the last week the Guineas have decided to sleep outside of the coop on several occasions. I was hoping that they would sleep up in the pine trees but that hasn't been the case.


Since the snowstorm destroyed the protective netting the Guineas can come and go from the coop area as they please. Their first night out the Guineas decided to sleep on the group in a pile inside the fenced coop area. The next few times they perched on the fence around the coop. Yesterday, as shown in the pictures, the Guineas actually slept on the deck railing by the house.


A week ago Mary over at Big Oaks Farm posted that her Jesse crowed for the first time. It was funny because Leopold crowed for the first time that week as well!


Leopold is still a novice at crowing because he gets confused and has been crowing in the morning AND at dusk every evening. It must be hard being the only rooster and having to also serve as the King of the Guineas.

What to do with Leaves?

We basically live in the middle of a forest so every Fall we are inundated with leaves. They are everywhere, if we tried to burn them we would probably cause a forest fire. Last year we dumped them into the woods, but since we are trying to turn the woods into pasture that won't work any longer.


We tried piling them up and letting the goats and sheep eat them, but there were just too many. We packed a few away for Winter treats but another solution had to be found.


My dad suggested that we put them into the chicken coop. The Commander thought the idea was silly but he gave it a try. He took tarp loads of leaves into the coop and stuffed them under the coop, into the corners, and eventually had the whole area 6 inches deep in leaves. Notice what the sheep are walking on, shredded leaves.


The chickens and guineas initially were baffled by the massive amount of leaves, but they soon got down to work. They systematically shredded the leaves into pulp. They did such a good job that the Commander filled the coop a second and then a third time. All the leaves are now gone, they make up the floor of the coop area.

I cried all the way home!

Today we packed Addison and Becca Boo into the car to take them to another farm to be bred. Chip and Gidget didn't understand what was going on and when they were out in the barn alone they we very sad and did a lot of crying. (Notice Gidgets little black feet between Addisons')


Karen at Pelican Acres has beautiful Nigerian Dwarf goats and she offered her buck Trapper to breed my girls. The set-up is very goat friendly and her babies have wonderful personalities. Look at the smile on that little doe!


Addison and Becca were put right in with Trapper, and Becca didn't look comfortable at all.


I didn't get a good picture of Trapper but Addison doesn't seem too impressed. Addison should reconsider because Trapper has excellent blood lines and is quite a handsome buck.


"Becca, if we ignore him and turn our backs maybe he will go away!"


When it was time to go both of my little girls wanted desperately to come home with me. I couldn't look as it broke my heart and I just began to cry. I cried all the way home. I can't wait to go back and get them!

Hillbilly Sheep Shed

The snowstorm Tuesday was brutal, thank goodness a lot of the snow has melted in the last two days. The electric fence looks so funny buried in the snow. It wasn't funny to see the rams tent crushed under the weight of the slushy snow, so we had to come up with a different shelter before the next snow storm - quick.


We looked around and decided that the dog panels surrounding the garden were available for winter use so off to the ram's pasture they went.


I took out a 30 x 20 foot tarp and attached it to the panels with zip ties. The roof is made of 2 extra waterproof sheets of plywood and some tin roofing left over from the demolition of the old Blue Barn


We left the pop-up tent inside the shelter but placed it on an old plastic shed platform that we stored firewood on. The boys new winter home should protect them from rain, wind, and snow. Its not pretty, but it should get them through the winter. A bonus is that we can actually close them up inside if we need to.

Winter

Winter is here, and it arrived unexpectedly. It was only supposed to rain!


Instead we got a heavy slushy snow that crushed everything. Power was out all over NE Minnesota.


Our poor apple trees, I hope they can survive. Notice the electric netting covered in snow. We had to collect it and wrap it for storage in the garage - nice.


The netting over the coop froze over and collapsed. The guineas can now fly out (which may be a good thing) and explore on their own. Ultimately they were disappointed as without Leopold to lead them they seemed lost - back to the coop they went to join him. I hope that with the netting gone the owls don't eat my beautiful chickens before they get a chance to lay.


Trees and branches were broken all over the property. I had to walk the fence line to remove debris so that the sheep didn't escape. Anyone who owns goats knows what they did, they stayed inside their barn all day to avoid getting their precious feet wet.


For some reason I woke up at midnight and looked out to see how they boys were doing in their pop-up tent. It was totally popped-down, covered in slush and snow. I woke the Commander and out we went, the poor boys were still huddled inside their crushed shelter. We brushed off the snow and back it popped-up. The Commander had to repeat the process at 0530 this morning.

As OhioFarmGirl says we spent the afternoon "hillbillying-up" a solution for the boys, pictures will be up soon.

I promise......

I promise that I will NEVER roll in sheep poo again.


But if I do you will never find me..............