Little Farm Library!

Ever since I first heard about this wonderful idea, I have wanted to install a little library on the farm. For years I have collected dozens of kids' books, many about farms, animals and nature, and have been constantly searching the ReStore and the thrift stores for some kind of cabinet that could be upcycled into a weatherproof little library.

Last year, the Leadership Greater Rochester group sponsored a community-wide Mini Library project with the  Rochester Public Library.  I applied for Squash Blossom Farm to be a site but only  in-town sites were eligible.

However,  this spring I got an invitation to re-apply because the Mini Library project was being expanded County-wide. And, happily, we were selected!  In August I joined the other new mini library hosts in a painting party. We were each given a darling, well-crafted (much sturdier than my carpentry try skills would have accomplished)  library. I painted mine in our farm theme colors and when I got it home, I adorned it with corrugated metal farm animals.

Lots of books have already found new homes, especially because we have had lots of children here the past couple weeks for a birthday party, our last pizza and music afternoon of the season, and the Cow Puja & Farm Fair this past weekend.

Today, Kingsley and her mom came to pick up their weekly CSA box and Kingsley picked out a book about animal tracks.

Then two young boys arrived and perused the library.

The younger chose "The Bear With Bees in his Hair"

and his big brother  selected "Mama's Little Duckling."

Kids with books make me so happy!  I plan to downsize my own overflowing library soon and add some good adult books, too.  The Public Library will also contribute regularly to the selection.

Thanks, Rochester Public Library, for helping us accomplish this great project!  Come check out the Squash Blossom Mini Library!

Heller Heaven for Sheep?

It is sheep-shearing day at the Heller farm down the road. I love seeing this annual very agrarian rite of spring. Here is a before and after shot.

“I don’t know if I am going to like this..."

The shearing of  the sheep is done assembly-line style. Mattsen gets the next sheep ready to shear

while the shearer  gives the current sheep a haircut. All of my photos of the shearer are pretty much a blur.  It only takes him a couple minutes to shear an entire sheep, he works so fast. Yet, gently - with very few nicks.  Fewer than I would get if I were shaving my legs.

Don puts the shorn fleece into the “Hicky-Do,” kind of a simple baler which compresses the fleece into a bag so they don’t take up so much space.

Fuzzy sheep waiting their turn.

Velvety sheep feeling much thinner, lighter and a bit chillier.

The black sheep, brown and multi-colored sheep are done last  so their wool can be kept separate.

Some of the lambs wait outside the barn gate bleating for their moms.

Darling lambs!  Born in February, so big and sturdy already.

Lambs in the spotlight.

Bah, Humbug! Baa, Hum.

Earlier today I was all set to write a grumpy post  about how  my day was going.
Since the blizzard last week, our snowblower has not worked, except for (thankfully!) creating one very narrow car path down our driveway so Rog can get to work. The snow is pretty densely packed and back-breaking to shovel, so Rog has been focusing his efforts on getting the snowblower to work, to no avail. I have been pretty much stuck on the farm for a week and cabin fever is setting in.  I decided to shovel out the truck and risk driving it; the roads are still very bad and this truck does not have the greatest traction. But I had a good incentive--the snowplow had plowed over our mailbox and buried it in unshovelable snow. Our mailman will not  deliver mail unless the mailbox is at the precise, convenient height to insert mail from his car, so we have not gotten mail since last Wednesday, thanks to the blizzerd and the plow. I decided to drive to the post office and pick up our mail -there might be something important in it (like chick or seed catalogs!)

I shoveled most of the snow that was on top of the truck into the back of the truck, to add weight for better traction, north woods style (I already have three 75-lb tubes of sand in there). The doors were frozen shut, but I finally got the passenger side unstuck so I could clamber in to warm it up.The windshield washer spray nozzles were also  frozen and wouldn’t spray to clean off the thick ice coating the windshield,  but I was  smug because I had recently purchased some fancy windshield fluid that  is supposed to melt ice fast.

But darn! The new jug of windshield washer fluid was on the table, buried under this casualty of the blizzard. Last night I heard a tremendous crashing sound--I opened the door and discovered that our lovely, new patio gazebo had collapsed from the snow. (Another thing making me cranky. Yes, we should have taken it apart last fall but we didn’t get to it in time.)  I was so busy worrying about the weight of the snow on the tree branches, I didn’t even think of the gazebo. Grrrr.

So, finally I got  the truck shoveled out, the doors unfrozen, truck started and unstuck from its parking spot, and had it warming up while I went inside to call the post office. But the post office informed me  I could NOT pick up the mail AND they would not deliver it until the mailbox was fixed.  I asked how are we going to fix it when the post is broken off and the snow is packed hard, four feet deep, and the ground is frozen? She said I should call the  township and they must repair it if the plow knocked it over. I managed to get them to agree to have the mailman drive into the driveway and honk and I will run out and get the mail from his car.  (I am going to give him a dozen fresh eggs as a thank you; maybe he will consider doing it again.) Then I called the township and requested a mailbox repair. I have no idea how they will manage it - could be interesting.

Since I had the truck ready to go, I drove (slowly and carefully) over to the Heller farm to see their newborn lamb, the first  2014 addition to the flock.

I love the  animal characters of their   farm. One of their horses had discovered a broken window in the barn where he can pull out hay for a between- meal snack. The sheep and donkey gather around to eat the hay he spills. I was tickled to see a row of birds perched on the horse’s neck.

One of these sheep is not like the others...it is either Ranger or Bear, one of the two sweet Great Pyrenees dogs that protect the sheep.

Like us, Don and Betsy also have a few intractable chickens that hang out in the hay.

Don created a big birthing room  inside the barn to encourage the pregnant ewes to have their lambs inside. It’s forecast to be darn cold all week- you can see the sheep’s breath.

Here’s the new baby!  She was born last night.  Don had to assist with the birth - her feet were folded back underneath her with just her head emerging and she was stuck. When that happens fluid builds up in the lamb’s head, so it is still a bit swollen. The new lambs and their moms get to stay in cozy little pens with heat lamps.

Don took a photo of me holding the first lamb of spring. Baby lambs are a good remedy for crabbiness. The world has looked brighter all afternoon. (And, happily,  the mailman just now drove up and he did deliver both a chick catalog and a seed catalog... as well as a stack o’bills.)

Wordless Wednesday: When Dairy Farmers Fly

A Teeny Bit Sheepish

Our beloved neighbors, Betsy and Don, are away tonight for Don's son's graduation. It is a tricky time to be away, because a whole bunch of lambs are due to be born any moment. They hired Cadence to  farm-sit while they are gone and she and I got a crash course in lambing.
It is predicted to be a rainy, stormy, muddy night, so of course it is highly likely that a bunch of lambs will elect to be born tonight. I went over to help with the evening chores and we were met by this darling lamb outside the fence (he was born a month ago, a result of the ram jumping over the fence before his scheduled rendezvous date.) It's ok of he gets through the fence- he won't stray far from his mom.

Aha! We spied a new lamb, apparently born just minutes before we arrived, still wet. We were relieved to see it up on its feet, looking strong and healthy.

Cadence decided we should do all the other chores first then try to get the lamb and ewe into the barn. The other sheep were hungry and we wouldn't have to contend with their demands if they were distracted by eating.

Cadence and Israel fed the sheep, donkeys, horses, chickens, and dogs while I prepared bottles for the lambs.

When we returned our attention to the newborn lamb, we discovered a second lamb! It must have been born while we did the chores. We  followed Betsy's clever strategy of  putting the lamb into a sled (two lambs and two sleds in this case) and dragging them slowly to the barn as the moms followed. Easier said than done, however; my hour-or-so-old lamb kept jumping out of the sled.

Don has built a nursery in the barn with a dozen small pens where the lambs can become securely bonded with their moms - no risk of getting confused with the wrong ewe. Weaker lambs will get extra attention and supplemental bottle feeding. The  blue pvc pipe down the middle is a watering system.

We bottle-fed a couple of lambs whose moms were not adequately nourishing them.

This lamb was born  last night in the rain and when Don found him this morning, he thought he was dead until he saw him wiggle a bit. He was a very large lamb and had been stuck for a while during birth so fluid had built up in his head, which was very swollen. Don said he didn't have a very good chance of surviving, but showed me how to tube-feed him this afternoon. Don had put the lamb under a heat lamp, but he was shivering and if you put your finger inside his mouth, it was cool, not warm like the internal temp should be. Tonight I put my finger in his mouth and his temperature was considerably warmer than this afternoon.  It also looked like the swelling of his head had gone down a bit, but he was still lying motionless beneath the heat lamp, his mom curled around him. I was really nervous about tube-feeding him.  If you accidentally slide the tube into his lungs rather than his stomach, that will kill him. But the tube slid in easily and I fed him a whole bottle of milk while Cadence held him. As we fed him he wagged his tail and then he pooped on her boot, both of which seemed like good signs! I hope this baby is standing tomorrow!

Kind of nerve-wracking, but I like these sheep!
If you want to know more about Don and Betsy's sheep, you can listen to my very first episode Prairie Air, my new radio show on the COBB Radio.com, where I interviewed  Don about sheep-shearing and lambing season.