Picking up Pastured Poultry & Delivering a Single Sheep

It’s been a busy weekend, and it’s not even over yet since we’ve still got Memorial Day!

Friday afternoon I went out the back roads through places I’ve never been, and ended up at Mountain Fork Farm to pick up my order of pastured broilers.

Yes, I know we have chickens here on our farm. And yes, I thought about raising some for the freezer. There’s just one catch, but it’s a BIG catch. If I raise them, I have to process them, which is a nice way of saying I have to chop their heads off, scald, pluck and gut each chicken. I’ve done it in my time, but at this stage I don’t have the stamina for such a big project, so I decided to support some other farmer who does.

It was a nice drive, and what I saw of the farm was gorgeous. They had a canopy set up a little ways down their driveway, right before you go through the gate to their property, with chickens in coolers ready for pickup. I wish I’d thought to ask how many acres they have. It has to be pretty good sized, because I couldn’t even see their house from where I was.

The first thing you see is a big greenhouse in a field to the right of the driveway. They also sell a wide variety of vegetables that are grown using sustainable agriculture methods, so no doubt get a lot of use from the greenhouse.

They have a shed not far from the greenhouse with big coolers for the chickens and such.

There was a big field to the left, and the road winds on back through the trees. I could hear chickens way off, and I know from their website they raise turkeys, Berkshire hogs, Dexter cattle and horses. I was disappointed not to see any of that, but maybe I’ll be able to go back again another time.

Saturday I spent catching up on work in the house, with laundry and cleaning and baking a couple of Cherry-Orange coffee cakes, several pizza crusts, bread for us, and “Birdie bread” – made with whole grains and veggies, cut up in cubes, and fed to my picky parrot.

Today we delivered a ewe to a friend’s farm way out back of beyond. You even have to drive through a creek to get to the farm. I reckon they don’t go anywhere during hard rains! They were supposed to be home by mid-morning, having gone to a Fiber Festival earlier this weekend. We got there mid-afternoon, but nobody greeted us but the dogs.

Of course, that’s a pretty big greeting, considering they are HUGE Great Pyrenees, and there were about ten of them prancing around us. They will not, however, win any awards for vicious watchdogs, as they were far more interested in seeing if we would pet them. Of course, we’ve been there before, but even the young pups we’d not seen before were eager for their share of attention.

We wandered around the yard for a while. The dogs were all barking and the one inside was going nuts. I knocked at the door. No answer. What to do???

Fortunately, they have several pens, and there was one unoccupied behind the house, complete with shade tree, so we put the ewe in there, got her a bucket of water, left a note in the screen door, and went back home.

The funny thing is, a couple hours after we got home Kim called me. I figured she was going to comment on the new sheep and tell me where she’d been. Wrong! I said, “Did you find the present we left for you?”

Turns out she hadn’t, and she’d been home the whole time. I’m not sure where she was working, but her mother was in the house and never realized we were out there, or unloading sheep in the pen right by the house. I figured there was no way they could NOT know we were there considering how the dogs were carrying on, including the one in the house. We’d left a note in the screen door and left a sheep, so there’s no denying we were there!

At any rate, the sheep got delivered, and I got to check out a bunch of the ewes and lambs she had running around.

We’ll do the check and registration thing to each other through the mail, so … all’s well that ends well?

We tried a different route home, and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this lovely red barn we passed. Oh… and Robin… you won’t believe how many wild turkeys we saw on the way to and from their farm! They never stood still long enough for a picture, but I promise, we really did see LOTS of them!

Going to the Dogs

We have 3 kinds of dogs at our house.

1) We have two dog dogs, Toby and Neffie. Toby's an American Farm Collie and Neffie is a Maremma, a type of Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD).

Neffie on the left, Toby to the right. They're walking
towards me from the back pasture in the early morning sunlight.

2) We have a cat dog named Spot. He's a big white cat that follows us around everywhere we go outside, and comes when you whistle for him.

This is Spot Fencewalker, our cat dog.
3) Then there's my Bird Dog. She's an African Grey Parrot, and loves to imitate the dogs outside when they start barking. Remember, she's imitating it just as she hears it, so it sounds a little strange.

The picture is rather dark as I didn't have any extra lighting,
but it's the sound effects that are important anyway.

We have a strange household, and a farm full of strange critters. We're definitely going to the dogs here.

Welcome to the Funny Farm!

Firebugs and Berry Blooms

After a lot of rainy days, it was nice to see some sunshine today. Since everyone was home, it was also a good day to get a few things done around the farm.

The Cave Geek (aka Youngest Son) helped the Farmer get all the rotten particle board and other junk off the front porch and in a cart to be hauled down to the bottom pasture. Farmer Firebug likes to burn things, so he started a nice fire.


While Farmer Firebug is setting the world on fire, Toby the Wonder Dog is making an ash out of himself, chasing hot ashes all over the pasture and jumping up to catch them in his mouth. (This is the same dog who catches bumblebees. I'm not sure if he thrives on danger or is just an idiot.)

He seems mesmerized by all the floating ashes, either watching them or chasing after them.

While down in the bottom pasture, I noticed that the wild blackberries are in full bloom. Maybe the bugs and birds will leave a few for us to enjoy!

Critters in the Backyard

When I went out to do chores this evening, this is what I saw:
There's a goat to one side, a couple of llamas, a Maremma LGD in-between, and a rooster. But wait! Look closer! What's on that male llama's back?

Well, look at that, one of the Buff Orpington hens is resting her feet in llama wool.

As a matter of fact, the rooster was on Samson's back too when I first went out, but by the time I grabbed my camera, he'd gone off to see if I was putting out any feed.

Maybe sitting on a sheep or llama's back is like having warm, fuzzy slippers on your feet. Since it was a cool, rainy day, that probably felt good.

I just never know what those critters are going to be up to when I go outside!

Typical Scene on the Farm

It's a blustery day here on the farm. There's moisture in the air, sometimes just a light mist, other times it's wee little balls of stinging sleet. This is not my favorite time to be out and about, but the animals need hay even more on days they don't go out and graze.

The guineas don't seem to mind a little rain, running around looking for grain or perched on the fence.
I almost chickened out of my morning walk through the woods, but I figured if the guineas could hack the foul weather, so could I.

The wind was making quite a racket as it roared through the trees, and of course the creek was up a little from the bit of rain we had.

On nice days, when I let all the animals out together, it's not unusual to see all kinds of combinations of critters, with the chickens, guineas, dogs, sheep and llama.
This isn't the first time I've seen poultry perching on sheep. I think that nice thick wool must keep their feet warm, or maybe they just like being on top of things.

It's a typical scene on the farm.

Snow!

It's snowing here for only the second time this year. Now everyone north of the Mason-Dixon line, don't be laughing about how excited people in the south get over such a little dab of snow!

When I went out to do chores this morning, the first thing I saw was Toby cavorting around with snow dusting his back.

A couple of the peahens were out and had even more snow on their backs.

After I finished taking care of the critters, I walked down into the woods. There was snow dusting all the leaves on the ground, and some sticking to the trees. I took a picture of the slue on one side on our property.

I didn't see any owls or deer today. They probably had the good sense to stay tucked inside some sort of shelter.

My quince bush has frozen blossoms. Right now the iced blossoms look rather pretty, but I'm sure when it warms up they'll all turn brown and die.
Back up near the house, the birds were busy at the feeders and birdbath. We always have several cardinals and woodpeckers dining at our buffet.

They take turns at the feeders, and sit on the fence posts patiently waiting their turn.

You can see what blustery weather we're having by the way the feathers of this lady Cardinal are all ruffled up. She even tucked one of her feet up in her feathers to stay warm.
We won't get any accumulation worth mentioning from this morning's snowfall, but it was still fun to see some snow for a change!

Corn Crazy

In the mornings when I go out to do chores, the chickens always come running because they love me so much. Okay, maybe it has more to do with the fact I always throw some cracked corn out first thing.

The guineas aren't far behind, and rush in to get their share. It seems every critter on the place loves to munch on cracked corn. Even wonder dog Toby will lick some up now and then.

However, the top of the food chain here is the goats, and when I let them out, they chase everyone else away.

And just what do you think you're doing, trying to eat MY corn????

For that reason, the goats are always the last critters I let out of the night pens, but I always make sure there's some left for them to have a morning treat also!

It seems the only critter outside that never wants their share is the cat, Spot. I guess he figures that corn isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Toby Chasing Thunder

When we had that bad storm last week, I took a video of Toby running around like a demented critter, chasing after thunder. Yes, the dog chases after a SOUND. He runs, he barks, he jumps... he thinks he is going to catch it, sometime, somehow.

In this first one, you see the lightning flash, and him taking off through the main pasture chasing the noise while sheets of rain blow over him.

Here he once again runs through the field, but I caught him when he came back and jumped up against the fence, barking and trying to let that thunder know some day he's gonna get it!

I don't think there's a single critter on this farm that's normal.

Toby, our handsome wonder dog!

It was another cold night here. I was out taking pictures of the ice on the pond, when I happened to get this shot of Toby.

I was really pleased with this shot because I have a hard time getting good pictures of Toby. First off, it's very difficult to get a good picture of a critter with black fur. It's hard to see the details without making the rest of the picture too light. I have that problem every time I try to take pictures of Toby or our llama, Keira, as they both are dark. The background in this picture just happened to work out well.

It's also difficult to catch him standing STILL for a long enough time to bring the camera up, focus and take the picture. He's constantly on the mooooovvvvvveeeeee, and he usually comes running the minute he sees me look at him.

So there he is, standing still for a change, posing for a picture to show what a big, handsome dog he is!

On Guard!

I went outside the other night to check on something. Checking me out was our super-duper watch dog. He wants to know everything that's going on! Most of the time, I take him with me when I'm wandering around at night. He's got a lot of muscles and teeth, so I figure he makes a pretty good body guard. He doesn't ask for much in the way of pay either, just some praise and a pat on the head.

Sometimes dogs are also woman's best friend.

Toby the Wonder Dog Chasing Ashes

The Farmer was burning some old feed sacks and boxes yesterday. Toby loves it when his fellow firebug makes a fire. He thinks it's great fun to chase and jump for flying bits of ashes.



Every once in a while Toby gets hold of a hot ash, shakes his head for a minute, then goes right back to jumping for more ashes.

I guess everyone has their own idea of what's fun!

Friday on the farm...

It was beautiful out there when I went to do chores this morning. The weather has warmed up again, and I wore a light jacket instead of my heavy winter coat. Even at that, I pulled off the jacket before I was half way finished with the chores. Though the sun was shining, it’s pretty dreary. What colored leaves we had have either turned brown, fallen to the ground, or both. Still, there’s a little color peeking through here and there, like this lovely little violet.Toby was in rare form this morning, galloping all over the place, carrying around a big piece of lumber he found somewhere. He’s got to have a piece of wood in his mouth, whether it’s so tiny you can barely see the end of it sticking out of his mouth, or so large it’s twice his size and he’s dragging it along behind him.

He’s the farm jester, always finding ways to make me laugh, no matter how grumpy I might be. He loves to play in the water. In the original game, he jumped up and bit the water, but later it evolved to him wanting sprayed while he ran around with his lumber stogie in his mouth.

The other animals generally ignore his lunacy, unless he gets too close. Then they’ll scoot out of his way while casting a wary eye in his direction.

Eventually, they’ll go back to munching their hay or grass or whatever they were doing.

It’s another beautiful Friday on the farm.

Neffie, the Mighty Mole Hunter

Out in our backyard-turned-pasture where the sheep and the goats roam, there are also some underground dwellers roaming about. Their tunneling leaves behind a raised row of earth. When our livestock guardian dog, Neffie, finds one that's occupied, she starts barking frenetically.

Then she starts digging.
It's hard to see in the picture above, but she dug a hole in the middle of one of the tunnels, grabbed the occupant and carried it off.

When you got it carried far enough away to suit her, she dropped it. There it was, the digger itself, one ugly mole.
She seems to be wondering, "What should I do with it now?" Generally, her answer is to carry her prize around for a while, drop it and watch it run, then catch it again. (Sometimes Neffie acts a lot like a cat.) I'm not sure she ever kills them.

But she's really good at catching them.

Southern Heat

I don’t know about global warming, but I know it’s plenty warm here in the south. I’m not too thrilled when you pass a bank thermometer and it has THREE digits!

Even though it’s in the shade, our thermometer has been reading 98 degrees F. for the last three days. (For those of you using the Celsius scale, that would be almost 37C.) That’s just TOO hot.

Everything here on the farm is trying to cope with the hot weather, from “A” to “Z”. (Okay, so the closest I have to the front of the alphabet is cat, with sheep at the tail end.) All the critters look for shade, but have different habitats and various ways of beating the heat.

Spot, the Cat, likes to lounge around in the shade under our truck, and keep his thirst quenched with Birdie Broth, otherwise known as water out of the bird bath – just a “faint flavor of birdie essence”. I'm not sure if I put fresh water in there for the birds or the cat.


A dust bath is the method of choice for a quick cool down for the Chickens... … while the Dogs like to hang out under the back porch or in the shade of the big walnut trees in the back yard.

Neffie takes a rest (above), while Toby enjoys chewing on a hunk of wood while lazing in the shade (below).

Even our Garden needs help with the heat, especially considering we are also under drought conditions. I’ve had to water the peppers and tomato plants almost every day. (Thank goodness for well water!)

Of course the Goats like to hang out under the shade trees in the back yard with Neffie.

Keira the Llama often joins them, but she also cools down by “burying” herself in a sea of green plants in the bog area of the bottom pasture, though it’s not much of a bog right now!

In the aviary, the Peafowl go for a combination of bathing in the dust or pool.


Last, but not least, the Sheep also opt for spots under the shade trees. Our flock matron has a special spot under a pile of lumber and gets double shade from that and the overhanging tree branches.
One way or another, everyone is looking for shade and the coolest spot possible. I’m thrilled to be able to enjoy the air conditioning inside the house. Yep, I admit it, when it comes to extreme heat, I’m a Wuss.

Beating the heat from "C" to "W" -
Just keep that air conditioning on for the "W" please!

Wheel Addicts

The Farmer here stopped on the way home from work and got some feed for the critters today. After we did evening chores, he got the dolly out of the shed to tote the 50 pound sacks from the car trunk to the feed room.

Toby went nuts.

What is it about dogs and wheels? Every dog we’ve ever had goes crazy when a vehicle goes down the road, the lawnmowers start rolling, you move a wheelbarrow… whatever! If it’s got wheels, they want to chase it.

“You can’t possibly be talking about ME…”
Little wheels, big wheels, one wheel or many, they just don’t care. If it goes round and round, they give chase. Toby bites at the wheels so much, sometimes it’s difficult to continue moving things, and we have to lock him up out of the way.

Dogs… they’re wheel addicts.

A stitch in time...

We’ve been selling and delivering a lot of sheep and goats lately. Usually the goats are livelier and harder to handle than the sheep, but our last two deliveries were the exact opposite.

Today we had 5 goats to deliver. The three of us rounded up all the goats, sorted out which ones we needed and had them loaded on the truck so quickly we had to sit around and kill time before we needed to leave. All Right!

Some of the goats munching leaves off a catalpa tree.

Our previous delivery was quite different. We only needed to load 4 sheep. Easy enough. Ha! And again I say, HA!

First off, if our sheep don’t go in the shed the first try, it’s a problem. After that they’re spooked, flighty, and downright hard to manage. Part of the sheep did go right in the shed, but unfortunately, two of those left out were ones we needed to deliver.

Worse, one of those still out was an old ewe that’s half blind. Since she can’t see very well, she gets spooked easily. She runs right past open gates, so instead of going into the lot where we wanted them, she started running round and round in the main pasture. Sheep being sheep, the other three escapees followed her.

The three of us tried spacing ourselves in the field and heading the sheep back towards the gate. The four of them continually zipped through spaces between us and continued their laps around the field. Over and over we tried to head them in the right direction. Over and over they went in the wrong direction.

It became painfully clear sheep and people were all getting hot and winded. We needed a new strategy. We decided to try letting them out into their day pasture, then use some feed to entice them through the gate they’re used to coming in each night.

It seemed like a good idea, but the sheep did NOT cooperate. Instead of running around the pasture, they were now running in frenzied circles around the aviary and sheds, leaping and bouncing against things along the way. More time passed as sheep and people ran themselves ragged in the muggy summer heat. Whose idea was it to try this?? Oh yeah, mine….

Finally the sheep went through a big gate into a lot by the shed and we were able to pen them up. However, it was quickly apparent our troubles weren’t over. One of the ewes had blood running down her face. Lots of blood.

Naturally, it was one of the ewes we were supposed to deliver. Upon close examination, I discovered she had a cut about 2 inches long above one eye, and the flap of skin drooped down every time she blinked. Oh great!

Evidently at one point this ewe bounced against the aviary and a bolt sticking out from it had ripped clear through the skin. After almost a decade of shepherding, I’d never had a sheep that needed stitches. This one did.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any sutures. Also, I needed to know the buyer’s preference. Did she want me to keep the ewe until she was healed and deliver her later? Did she want to suture the wound herself? Did she want a vet to do it?

I called to see how they wanted to handle it, and at their request, we loaded the wounded ewe with the other sheep, and stopped at a vet’s office to have the cut stitched up while on the way to their farm. Nothing like sitting in a hot parking lot waiting on a busy vet after you're already hot and tired from running half the morning.

Once the wound was washed out, sutured up, and the vet gave the ewe a couple of shots, AND I paid the bill (there goes the profit!), we were finally ready to get the sheep to their new home.

Our friend with one of her Great Pyranees and a few of her sheep.

Fortunately, unloading the sheep was pretty easy, and we were able to enjoy a nice visit with the buyer. She has beautiful sheep and wonderful guard dogs and we enjoy chatting with her, but I must admit it was a relief to finally make it home again and put that fiasco behind us.

Which just goes to prove, a stitch in time isn't always a time-saver!