Sunday Homestead Update: Tornado and Steeking

We had a cooler spring week, but not too cold, so that was nice! Tornado season officially started in our area. We had a tornado drop down (or rise up? It was a landspout tornado) about 7 miles from us. It headed solidly away from us and we weren’t in danger.

Flerd

The storm that included the tornado lasted almost a full day, and during that time we had our last wool sheep of the season born – a very large 16.5# single ram lamb. He is just a tiny bit smaller than the triplets we have that are a full two weeks older than he is. Big boy. He is a Wensleydale/BFL cross and should have a very fun fleece for a spinner’s flock. He is also already very naturally friendly and already comes up to people to be pet. His mother is super friendly as well.

From our largest lamb ever, to a preemie…last night we had our first ever premature lamb born. Not exactly a first that we want to experience – it seems this year is having a lot of those kind of firsts. We are not sure the exact cause of the preemie birth, but we have a few theories. She is a dairy ewe lamb and thus far is struggling, but holding on to life. Time will tell whether this wee girl makes it or not. Her first-time mama is doing excellent with her.

We are heading into the last spurt of lambing/kidding season. We have dairy sheep and dairy goats left. Then we will be done for the year. The last group is all very tightly interwoven on their due dates, so it might get interesting. One last “push” of effort for birthing season and then we will move into a different season of life – milking-like-crazy season. 🙂

Steeking

Surprising as it seems, I have been able to do quite a bit of knitting lately despite the crazy busy-ness of spring.

I didn’t know about steeking until several years ago when a friend at knitting club was doing it and told me about it. I didn’t think that I would ever necessarily be doing it – but then, when I decided to try a colorwork, seamless yoke, cardigan sweater I figured it would be nice to not have to do any purling and just knit the colorwork in the round. But to do that, I would have to steek it. Steeking is cutting your knitting in order to make a piece that is knit in the round, flat. But cutting your knitting means risking a major unraveling of all your hard work. So it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

I used the sewing machine method to secure my edges and then dove in with the scissors. It was fun! It all worked out great and I finally finished this cardigan I have been knitting on for over a year. A worsted-weight wool cardigan…just in time for summer…sigh. Oh well, it will be waiting for me when the late fall winds start up and I will be looking forward to having it!

Blocking my cardigan

The grey yarn is an Alpaca/Merino blend yarn my daughter made for me a couple of Christmases ago. The turquoise is a CVM/Bamboo blend Daniel made for me many years ago. I have already made a few pair of socks with it and have been just trying to find ways to use what is left. I like how the colors turned out together.

I am now working on gauge swatches to start my next sweater project, using BFL yarn made from our sheep that is oh-so-soft and squishy.

I also cast on some socks this week. This yarn is from my beloved CVM/Merino sheep, Fiona, who died a couple years ago. Daniel mixed her white fleece with some bamboo that had been dyed purple and it made a really pretty heathered purple color. I have been holding on to this yarn for 5 years now – other projects just kept getting in the way. But I finally cast it on and am really enjoying the yarn and the last piece of Fiona I have left. I am looking forward to having these socks.

Poultry

Mama hen and her chicks have moved out of the small brooder area into the small coop. It is fun to see the little ones outdoors enjoying sunshine and fresh air.

We are closing in on our first turkey hatch of the year. Mama is clamped down on those eggs, we will hear cheeping any day now. Can’t wait!

Winter Heritage Arts – Hexagon Quilt Supply Kit

Each season has its work on the homestead. I love the changing of the seasons and the rhythm and security that is found in the different seasons. Obviously, there are always unexpected things that happen. But there are also things that you can count on to happen. Babies in the spring and early summer, shearing time, the different stages of gardening, butchering season, canning and putting up in the fall…just to name a few. While I tend to do heritage arts year-round, I definitely get more time in the winter to really focus on them and complete projects.

My daughters and I have a very special quilting project that we have been working on for many years and it will likely continue for many more. It is a English Paper Piecing, hexagon quilt. It includes stitching and fabric from my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, myself, and my daughters – making it a 5-generation quilting project. The hexies are 1-inch and it is all hand-sewn, so it is time consuming, but very fun and very special.

We pull it out a couple times a year and work on it for a few weeks at a time. January/February it generally gets the most attention. One thing about it that has been a frustration for me is how to corral and organize all the supplies involved. There are several steps in the process: cutting the fabric into circles, basting those onto paper hexies, sewing the hexies together into the diamond shape, making the white hexies for in between, and then hooking them onto the quilt. I am constantly struggling to keep all the supplies handy and organized. So this year I decided to do something about it.

Many years ago I made myself a felt embroidery envelope using a pattern from Crabapple Hill. I then made one for my daughter and she made one for my other daughter.

We like them and they are useful for holding the supplies for embroidery work. But they don’t quite fit what we need for our hexie quilt supplies. So I decided to take the idea, change it up, and make myself one that worked for exactly what I wanted.

I have spent the last few weeks working on it and it is finally done. I am so excited with how it turned out!

It is just right for what I need. It has pockets for the circles of fabric and the paper hexies as I work on them. It has a pocket that can hold the partially or completely finished diamonds of hexies. It holds the thread, scissors, and needles I need. It holds it all!

Now I can easily pick up where I left off and have everything I need when I want to work on the hexie quilt.

Winter Days

With the passing of the holidays we shift into winter. Winter is a very different season on the homestead. Gone are the long days working outdoors. Days shorten and things slow a bit and take on a new pace and a new feel. While there is some extra work in keeping animals warm and dry through the winter storms, animal chores as a whole are greatly decreased. The herd and flock numbers are down to their minimums for the year. Breeding season is over and everyone is settled into their winter groups for a few months. No shuffling of livestock from this place to that, and no animal integration drama.

Indoor projects take the forefront. It is a great time to work on heritage arts projects – knitting, sewing, and quilting. It is a good time to repair tools and equipment. It is also a time of planning. Planning the next year, setting goals, making lists, filling in calendar pages.

More time is spent in the kitchen…well maybe not more, but the kitchen time is spent differently. I like to do some of our cheesemaking in the winter. Sheep milk can be frozen and thawed and then still can be made into cheese (not so with goat or cow). So I save up during the big milk season and spend the slower season making all that frozen milk into cheese. I also do some canning in winter. Mainly stocks. I made up a load of turkey stock from the Christmas dinner bird. Next I will make some lamb stock with the frozen bones from this fall’s butchering.

Daniel has always said that I am solar powered, and boy is he right. In the summer I bounce out of bed at 5:30am with energy for the new day and don’t go back until after 10pm. Come winter, Daniel is peeling me out of bed at 7, while it is still dark, and I drag along until the sun comes up. Then, after dinner, at about 6pm, I am desperate for bedtime to hurry up and come. Good thing there is less to do and everything slows down during the winter!

Sunday Homestead Update – Gardening Season?

Could it possibly be true that gardening season is starting? It doesn’t feel possible. And yet here I am, starting my first seeds of the year indoors. At our previous farm I didn’t start seeds until mid to late March. But our new climate means a longer growing season and an earlier last-frost. And so it is true…gardening season is starting. This will take some getting used to.

Cold Frame

We have wanted to build some cold frames for many years to extend our season. But at our previous farm there was really no good location to build them so it kept getting put off. The new farm has a great location, and so we were excited to get one built to plant this spring and hope to do more this fall if it works well. We lined up bottles full of water along the back to add thermal mass. We got down to 18F one night and the cold frame only got to 30F. So that is promising. This week I planted our first spring crops in the cold frame. Seeds and plants in soil in February? Again…this will take some getting used to.

Root Cellared Veggies Update

We are still happily eating out of the root cellar. We finished up everything we had except winter squash and pumpkins. So we don’t know the exact length that the onions and garlic could have lasted given time. The potatoes were all eaten, with a few withered sprouting ones left. But the winter squash and pumpkins are still going great. We have decided to purposefully slow down our consumption of them so we can see how long they will last. But the root cellar is holding a great temp and we are really happy with it.

Cheesemaking

I am working through all the frozen sheep milk from last year that we couldn’t make into cheese due to the move. I have now made 6 gallons of it into cheese. There is still over 20 gallons left to get through before the milk sheep begin lambing in March.

We set up two repurposed refrigerator cheese caves. One is in the root cellar. It is a mini fridge and is holding perfect temp without being plugged in due to the root cellar temperatures. And a few dishes of water in the bottom of it are keeping the humidity in a good place. The second one is in a regular temperature room, so it has to be plugged in to maintain the temp we need, and, because it is a full-sized refrigerator, we are using tiny fans in the bottom to blow across the water drawers with humidifier wicks in them. That keeps the humidity up enough.

To read how we made a small refrigerator into a cheese cave, you can click here. At some point I will write up how we did it with the larger one. The main issue with the larger one that makes it different than using a small one is humidity. Especially if you live in a dry climate like we do.

Birthing Barn

The new farm we moved to is not set up for birthing out sheep and goats, especially not in the colder months. We don’t have any enclosed barns, only large and tall horse loafing sheds. We have been discussing and contemplating what to do about this issue on and off since we moved in. We have toyed with several different ideas of converting the loafing sheds, but eventually landed on building a small birthing barn and pen to be used until we eventually build a full-sized barn for all the sheep and goats to use all winter. We attached it to the poultry barn.

With our first lambs due in March, we have been working to get the birthing barn built and ready so we could move the first two ewes that are due into it. It has 2 jugs (birthing stalls) with the possibility of setting up a temporary third one as needed. It is closer to the house so we can easily keep an eye on them. And it is warm and cozy to help decrease the chance of hypothermic babies. We finished the important aspects of it and moved the first two girls in this week. When warmer weather hits we will be able to finish the trim, painting, and all the little details. But for now, we are ready for lambing and kidding season!

We always enjoy building as much as possible with free pallet wood. High lumber prices definitely brought our pallet-wood building to a whole new level with this barn build.

Heritage Arts

I am only working on one knitting projects right now (gasp!) because I just want to get it done. It has been on the needles for like 2 years and just keeps getting put off for other projects. It is an alpaca shawl with a lace border. It will be nice to finally finish it (hopefully!).

Daniel also bought me a couple of jelly rolls of fabric to make us a new quilt for our bed. I decided on a bear paw pattern and have started piecing it. I am really excited about how this will turn out, but nervous about how long it will take me to complete with everything else in life. 🙂

Feeders, or Beds?

We have had LGDs and goats using the feeders as beds lately. Cushy hay up off the cold ground on a sunny winter day…makes sense to me. The rams just go on eating right around the dog.

2021 Year-End Homestead Review

At the end of each year I like to do a homestead review post where I sum up the year and give some statistics about each area of the homestead.  It helps me see how we did, what we succeeded with, what we didn’t do as well as hoped with, etc.  Usually, it encourages me because I realize we accomplished a lot despite potentially feeling like we didn’t as I lived in the day-to-day chaos of life.

To read previous Year-End Reviews Click the following links:

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

This year is quite a bit different.  In January we started preparing our house to go on the market, and then the rest of the year was quite the whirlwind of selling, buying, moving, and settling at the new farm.  So there were pretty much no records kept about the homestead the way I usually do.  Plus, we did not have a garden, since we moved too late in the season to start it.  So this year’s update will be a little different.

Statistics

Chickens:

• Started the year with 36 hens and 3 roosters.
• Sold or butchered the flock down to 10 standard hens and 1 standard rooster, and 5 bantam hens for the move.
• Put 7 store-bought chicks under broody hen to raise.
• 1 bantam hen and 1 standard hen died.
• Ended year with 16 standard hens, 1 standard rooster, and 4 bantam hens.
• No idea how many eggs we got this year, but enough that we didn’t have to buy any and were able to sell some.

Ducks:

• Started the year with 1 drake and 1 hen.  Both older.
• Butchered older drake and hen before the move.
• Purchased 10 Muscovy ducklings and 4 Welsh Harlequin ducklings to add to the new farm.
• Butchered 2 Muscovy drakes and 2 Welsh Harlequin drakes.
• Ended the year with 6 Muscovy hens, 2 Muscovy drakes, and 2 Welsh Harlequin hens.
• Not sure how many eggs we got, but the Harlequins started laying in about November and laid about 10 eggs each week between the two of them.

Guinea Fowl:

• Purchased 8 Guinea keets.
• Had some issues getting them free-ranging but were able to get it figured out.  They roost in their coop overnight.
• 1 was killed by one of the LGDs.
• Ended year with 7 free-ranging Guinea Fowl.

Farm Dogs:

• Anya, our 5.5-year-old Anatolian Shepherd continued to do well guarding the flock, even through the move to the new farm.  She has matured into an excellent LGD who loves her job and her flock.
• Since the new farm had more space and created two flocks instead of just one, we added another LGD to the family.  Ayla is almost 2 years old and is learning and growing into a good guardian dog.  She is Anya’s half-sister.

Sheep:

• Started year with 2 wool ewes,  2 dairy ewes, 1 dairy/wool ewe lamb, and 2 wool rams.
• 1 ram lamb and 1 ewe lamb born, both survived.
• An unknown (because we didn’t keep track), but good amount of milk produced for cheesemaking.
•  4 fleece shorn from our wool sheep, for a total of  24 lbs raw, skirted wool.
•  3 fleece shorn from our dairy sheep, for a total of  14 lbs raw, skirted wool.
• We weren’t able to process many of the fleece due to how busy we were with the move, so we only processed one for a total of  600 yds of yarn.
• Did not sell any sheep this year due to the expanded size of the new farm and our desire to expand the flocks.
• Purchased 1 East Friesian (dairy) ram lamb, 1 BFL (wool) ram lamb, and 3 BFL (wool) ewe lambs.
• Breeding season Oct-Dec: confirmed 2 pregnant dairy ewes, don’t have confirmation on the rest yet.
• Finished year with 5 wool ewes, 1 wool wether, 2 wool rams, 4 dairy ewes, and 1 dairy ram.

Goats:

• Started the year with 2 pregnant Nubian does.
• One doe died
• 1 buckling born, sold at weaning.
• Purchased fresh (milking) Nubian doe.
• Unknown amount of milk produced, but plenty for our family through the year.
• Re-bred 2 does in Nov.
• Ended year with 2 pregnant does due to kid in April.

Garden

• No garden this year, but we were blessed with a lot of produce from other people’s gardens.
• We did bring our container herb garden with us, and expanded it.  We harvested a lot of fresh herbs as well as harvesting and drying them.
• Brought cuttings from our Lilac bushes with us and planted those.
• Gifted an apple tree which we planted and it survived.
• Purchased comfrey roots and planted several of those for next year.
• Gifted some garlic and planted it for next year.
• Started construction on the new vegetable garden for next year.

Heritage Arts:

• There was a lot of knitting and sewing done, but I did not keep good track this year, so I have nothing to report here.

Kitchen:

• Canned apples in honey syrup, applesauce, pickles, and crabapple jelly.
• Root cellared garlic, onions, potatoes, pumpkins, and squash from a barter with someone.
• Made quite a bit of aged cheese.  Mostly from sheep milk, a few from goat’s milk.
• Made a lot of soft cheeses and dairy products, mostly from goat’s milk, some from sheep milk.

Year Summary

January was busy with house remodel projects to prepare it to go on the market.  I did some knitting and spinning, and we made firestarters to help keep the firemaking easy as we used them to warm our house.  We wethered our infertile BFL ram, and were excited to add a new breeding ram to the farm – an American Bond.  Unfortunately, he would later prove to be infertile as well.

February started with a hard loss – our sweet goat Pansy died after a long struggle with medical issues.  We had a deep freeze with days barely in the single digits and nights well into the negative numbers.  One of our dairy ewes, Daisy, gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl.  Her milk production was even better than last year (last year was her first freshening).  We decided to just let the lambs have it as we were up to our eyeballs with getting ready to sell the farm.  I did some knitting and decided to take a break from blogging as we were closing in on listing the homestead on the market.

I didn’t blog in March or early April.  But life kept marching on (of course).  Our house sold, with the stipulation that we find a suitable place to buy.  We looked and looked, but didn’t find anything during this time.  Our 5-year-old son had more liver issues, an ER visit which led to another hospitalization and his 24th surgery.  We continued to watch for our new farm.  The market was crazy with very little inventory, very high prices, and offers being placed and accepted in less than 24 hours.  It was easy for us as sellers, but hard as buyers.

In late April our Nubian doe delivered a buckling.  And we finished shearing all the sheep.  Just a few days before the contract on our previous house was going to expire, we found our new farm and our offer was accepted.  It was official – we were leaving the Rockies we had called home for many decades and heading to the High Plains.

In May we got really sick as we scrambled to pack and prepare to move a family of 7, plus grandma, a school, a business with large machinery, and a farm full of animals.  Thankfully, we were healthy in time for closing on both places and at the very end of May we signed all the papers and started the move.  Sadly, one week before the move, our sweet 15-year-old kitty, who we had owned since he was a kitten, passed away.  In hindsight, I am glad he didn’t have to go through the stress of the move at his old age, but we still miss him very much to this day.

June was crazy.  We spent two weeks prepping the new farm for us, the animals, and the machinery, then moving everything, and trying to somewhat settle in.  We saw our first tornado, way too clearly, on the third day we were here.  We added a new LGD to the farm family and she got right to work guarding one of the flocks (now that they were split into two at the new place with more space).  We started pasturing the sheep and goats and learning the ins and outs of intensive grazing with electric netting fence.  We started putting together a container garden with what we brought from our previous farm, plus some additional containers left on the new property.  Fencing the perimeter of the property with field fence to keep dogs out and sheep, goats, and dogs in became a priority, and big project, that wouldn’t fully get finished this year.  We also spent a ton of time weeding.  Weeding, weeding, and more weeding.  The area around the house that was covered in gravel was a jungle of weeds to the point you couldn’t see the gravel at all in some places.  We got a safe play area built for our youngest son.  Through it all, we were learning the new climate, the new views, the new landscape, the new wildlife….everything was new and different!  I continued to write online for Mother Earth News through the whole year, and I was really excited when I had my first article ever to make it into the print edition of the magazine printed in the June/July issue.

In July we thought we might just die of the heat.  We had more days in the triple digits than not, and several days got up to 108/109.  It was miserable for us as we had previously lived in the cool, high-altitude Rockies and had never experienced temperatures like that before, and certainly not day after day.  We continued to do what we could with the little container garden, but the temperatures were not helping.  Plus, pest bugs started killing everything we were working so hard to keep alive.  One of our sheep bloated, and we successfully tubed him and saved him since the vet couldn’t come.  We added ducklings, some chicks, and guinea keets to the farm.  By the end of the month the ducklings were out grazing in duck tractors we had built from odds and ends around the farm.  Milking the sheep and goat in the open with the flies and wind and heat was getting miserable, so we converted an old shed into a wonderful milking parlor.  Lastly, we built a door for the hay barn in preparation to put up hay for the year.

In August we started to feel somewhat settled at the new farm.  We added another Nubian milking doe and 4 Bluefaced Leicester sheep to the farm.  We did a lot of fermenting and canning.  Now that we had a couple of months under our belts, we were reading books like crazy and doing research to try to figure out how we want to manage and build the new farm in so many different areas – livestock, gardens, etc.  We started a new school year, our first and the new farm.  Sadly, our sweet, old house-rabbit, Wilbur, passed away.

September included a lot of illness and some death among the livestock, as well as illness among the humans.  We enjoyed a drop in the very hot temperatures and found we were able to spend more time outside.  I got my antique treadle sewing machine fixed and started to learn how to use it.  We built the poultry barn and moved around all the poultry to new housing.  We started to feel a bit overwhelmed as we tried to get to everything we needed to get done before winter hit.

October was full of guinea fowl adventures as we attempted to get our guineas to free-range but stay on our property and go indoors to roost at night.  I had another article published in the October/November print edition of Mother Earth News magazine.  Our youngest son had another round of liver issues with hospitalization and surgery.  I also spent a lot of time sewing on my antique treadle machine, making a quilt and aprons for gifts.  By the end of the month I felt completely proficient on the machine and it became my go-to sewing machine for most all my projects.

In November I was excited to be able to speak at the Homesteader’s Livestock Summit.  The whole family helped with my presentation and we all really enjoyed the opportunity to share what we love and teach about raising sheep for high-quality wool production.  The Nubian does headed to the breeder’s farm to get bred, since we don’t keep a buck for breeding.  Our sheep breeding season was proving challenging and we decided to try using ram harnesses with marking crayons to help figure out what was going on.  We finished all our “before winter hits” projects in time, including a root cellar/tornado shelter.  The girls had a very successful booth at a Christmas craft fair in the area.  And we got our first dusting of snow at the new farm.

December was shockingly warm, and we enjoyed it.  We also enjoyed the slower pace from a year of crazy busy.  We stopped all “projects” and just spent time enjoying our family.  We all got sick with a nasty cold, but it helped keep us slowed down, at home, and resting for the first time in a very long year.  The ducks started laying, and the goats came home pregnant.  We made our final plans for next year’s vegetable garden, and started working towards making it a reality.

It has been a crazy year of change and so much hard work.  But it is all a blessing and we are glad for the move and all that we have gone through.  We are looking forward to 2022 being our first full year at the new farm.  We are excited to see what every season is like here.  And we are busy dreaming and planning as we build this new homestead out on the High Plains.