Another adventure for the city girl

It's been a loooooong time since I last posted anything to this blog, but there is so much to do on a farm. We have the usual laundry, but there seems to be more because chore clothes are always dirty. We have the vacuuming, but that has to be done daily to keep the bits of hay that get tracked into the house daily from getting the upper hand. We have the cooking, which seems to need more time because nearly everything is made from scratch; definitely healthier, but also time consuming.We have the usual lawn maintenance, like cutting the grass, but that now takes on average a good four hours instead of the hour I was used to because of the bigger lot size. And that is with the use of a lawn tractor. Can you imagine if I didn't have one?
Now we add to that specific farm things that need doing.We have the making of preserves because of the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables we receive. We have the feeding of animals; dogs, cats, sheep, horses and cows. We have cleaning up after the animals; dogs and cats specifically. We have nursing duties when lambs or kittens need attending to. We have the making and mending of fences to keep the animals where they belong. We have the chasing of sheep that find holes in those fences and the rounding up of cows that like to break those same fences. And this brings me to my latest adventure on the farm.
I arrived home from work (yes I work part time at a store as well) only to find I had sheep wandering around in the yard instead of being in the fenced enclosure where they belonged. As I studied the enclosure I saw that the boards were broken at a height no sheep could possibly have reached, which could only mean one thing. The cows were out! So I checked the barn and sure enough 3 of the 4 cows were gone. Molly, our cow with the crooked horn was still in the barn, but on the wrong side of the gate. I threw some hay over the gate to entice her to go back through the hole she had made to get out, but no way was she going to go through it again to go back in. I tried pushing her, but that was about as effective as pushing a wall to get it to move.  Finally I dismantled even more of the gate and threw in lots of hay which finally gave her reason enough to go back into the barn. Now to find the other three.
Into the car and down the road I went, looking for free roaming animals what weren't supposed to be free roaming. I found them not too far down the road in the neighbour's bean field. Luckily he had already harvested his beans, so I didn't need to worry that the cows were ruining his crop. But I couldn't take my car onto the field for fear of getting stuck in the mud, so I drove home, changed into my boots and hoofed it back to where the cows were. I wasn't sure how I would get the cows back home, so I went armed with carrots hoping to lure them back with the promise of a treat. But when they saw me coming waving my carrots, they looked at me with fear as if to say "Who is this crazy person waving orange sticks at us?" They didn't come to me as I had hoped but stayed as far away as they could. So I got behind them and more or less herded them in the direction of our farm. My herding skills are not very good though and they decided to go through our corn field to get home, but home they were. Now I had the task of getting them into some sort of enclosure so that they wouldn't wander off again. The last time the cows got out we had four people to get them back into the pasture; one driving them and the rest madly waving their arms to make them go in the right direction. But I was on my own this time. It was hunting season and all the men I could have called upon were away. I also tried to call two of my neighbours, but they weren't at home.
I was on my own. I decided on the gate I would try to get them through, which would get them into the pasture. It was beside the corn field, which I was hoping would act as a bit of a wall to guide the cows in the direction I wanted them to go. I opened the gate and swung it around to act as a barrier to stop the cows from going past the open gate. I then found a wooden wagon side and propped that up next to the gate to act as an additional barrier. I now had a pathway to the pasture that consisted of cornfield on the one side, cedars on the other and my wobbly barrier at the end. As luck would have it the cows were not far from the gate I wanted them to go through, so I sneaked through the corn field to get behind the cows and started herding them toward the gate.
As you may have guessed by now, cows don't always do what you want them to do and this was no exception. We were making good progress when two of the cows decided go through the cedars instead of following the path. But one was still going straight and I wasn't going to lose that one so I kept herding her forward, hoping for the best. When she reached my barrier she stopped to consider her next move, with me standing a short distance away muttering under my breath, " Go right. Go right. ". After pondering it for a bit she did indeed go right, through the gate and on into the pasture.  Now for the other two. I dove through the cedars and found them not far away. Upon seeing me they again went through the cedars, back to the pathway. I quickly went back to the path to make sure they didn't come back down. On seeing me they decided to continue forward and followed the first cow through the gate and into the pasture. Yeah!!!! I quickly closed the gate and prepared to secure it when one of my neighbours arrived to help. Together we fixed all the broken fences. The cows were now in the pasture with the horses and the sheep, but I left them access back to the barn. By the next evening they had wandered back to the barn and are now again happily under a roof. I still have a few sheep wandering the property, but they won't leave and this city girl has had enough herding for a while.

Sheep

I know very little about raising sheep, but I am learning fast.  And one of the things I have learned is that sheep can die in the blink of an eye. One day they look fine and healthy and the next day they're dead. Very unnerving.
Last year we had a very mild winter. Of the 23 lambs that were born that winter we lost only 3, leaving us with 19 healthy lambs. The first one we lost had gotten separated from its mom. I found it curled up in a corner on the other side of the fence. I tried to put it back in with mom, but the little thing couldn't stand, which meant it wouldn't be able to nurse. So I brought it into the house and tried to warm it up. Warm towels out of the drier did the trick and the lamb came around and nursed from a bottle. Unfortunately, its health disintigrated overnight and through the next day and it then died. Another lamb got white muscle disease, which meant it's legs went stiff and it couldn't get up or stand for long. I bottle fed that one for weeks in the barn and it looked like it was getting better, but then one morning we found it dead . Very disheartening. The third one just died. We have no idea why.
This year has been brutal. It has been so wickedly cold; we've already lost 6 lambs. But we do have some successes as well. There are 4 healthy lambs outside with their moms. If they can get through the first night okay then they do fine. The cold doesn't bother them. And we have 2 lambs that we are bottle feeding in the basement. One is a boy, his name is Stanley. The other is a girl and her name is Flopsy (Dan named that one). Stanley has a twin brother, Oliver, who is doing fine outside with mom. Stanley wasn't as strong when he was born and wasn't getting to the "milk bar" quick enough. He would have died if we hadn't intervened. But we brought him into the house, warmed him up and fed him milk that Dan milked from his mom. From then on he has been on lamb milk formula and is doing great. Flopsy was born strong, but wasn't nursing.  Dan tried to milk the mom, but got nothing. The mom was dry, no milk. So we brought Flopsy into the house and fed her milk that we got from Stanley's mom. That first milk has colostrum in it, which is very important for the lambs immune system. Since then she has been on formula as well and seems to be thriving. So now I bottle feed two lambs four times a day, change the cedar shavings in their box to keep things clean and take them outside for some sunshine and exercise. Slowly they will spend more and more time outside until I can comfortably leave them outside. Right now they think I am their mother. They probably always will.

History

I've been living on the farm for 17 months now. I moved down from Toronto to be with a very special man. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone I can be myself with; completely, holding nothing back. Someone who loves me unconditionally.
Was it a big sacrifice to move here from Toronto? No, not for me. I never did embrace big city life, so I don't miss it. In fact I have always wanted to live on a farm.

In the time I've been here I have gotten into a routine of feeding the animals; we have 4 cows, 3 horses, 46 sheep, 3 dogs and 10 cats, plus 8 new kittens. I have learned to drive a tractor, make preserves and administer to newly born lambs.
My challenges are: training the dogs, keeping the cats from all running into the house every time the door is opened, and remembering that dinner is a noon meal and supper is the late meal,
In the coming days, I hope to recount some of the rituals, challenges, frustrations and adventures I experience in this new venture,