bide a wee farm notes

Ode to a rubber boot…

2011-11-28T22:17:00.001-08:00

In Western Oregon it seems like we only have two seasons… dry season - July through September, and mud season – the rest of the year. During mud season rubber footwear is essential. I’m not much of a shopper anymore - I don’t much care about my clothes as long as they’re comfy but when it comes to my rubber boots I’m mighty picky. I wear my rubber boots pretty much 24/7 and I REALLY hate having cold, damp feet.

My old pair of boots recently sprung matching leaks so I’d been tiptoeing through the mud to keep the mud and moisture from oozing into my boots. Ugh! Time for a trip to the farm store. After trying on all of the options (each pair more expensive then the last!), hemming and hawing, and generally annoying the hubby :), I plunked down my money and came home with a brand spanking new pair of knee-high mud boots. For once in my life my timing was perfect. The next day the skies opened up, the wind blew in and it got seriously wet and even more muddy. And I had a new, warm, dry pair of mud boots. Oh happy day!

Thinking outside the llama (er… box)

2011-11-25T12:29:00.001-08:00

We use four guard llamas, scattered around our property, to protect our sheep from predators and they’ve been mostly successful over the years. Unfortunately all of them are getting up in years (20+) and all are exhibiting varying degrees of arthritis. In July we lost one of our retired ewes to coyotes at our upper barn in an area we considered to be predator safe both due to good fencing and because we have a guard llama on duty there. We couldn’t find any obvious point of entry but shored up every possible place along the fence lines which might have been a possibility. We also decided that maybe it was time to try more serious predator protection – a livestock guardian dog (LGD).

About that time our neighbor, Linda Lowell of Ayers Creek Ranch, who raises great Pyrenees/Maremma LGD’s, mentioned that one of the puppies she’d sold a year earlier wasn’t working out in his new home and his owners were looking to re-home him. We’d heard good reports from other breeders who had purchased Linda’s puppies so we decided to give it a go.

SAM

Sam wasn’t too sure about us when first we met but with some encouragement (and a dog cookie) he climbed in the back seat of our truck and we all headed home. His people really loved him but their neighbors were complaining about barking and he wasn’t getting along with their house dogs. They did tell us they’d take him back if he didn’t work out at our farm so that was comforting to know.

Once we got on the road he put his front feet on the console between Doug and me. He stood there for a few minutes then decided to lay down on the console (feet still on back seat – he’s a big guy!). He decided it was okay to be petted and he settled down for the rest of the trip home. When we got home we walked him into the sheep barn and I sat down next to him while Doug set up a pen for him in the corner of the barn. We occasionally use our border collie Sue to herd the sheep but otherwise our sheep aren’t used to having dogs around so we decided to take it slow with the introduction. Sam was really calm as the sheep slowly started coming up to check him out. One of the ewes sniffed his nose, Sam sniffed back, then he licked the ewe's nose. Pretty cute :) Thinking all was well I went to the house to get a water bucket and some dog food. While I was gone Doug said the same ewe decided to try to head butt him so Sam growled at her - she backed off and so did he. Seemed like a good start!

After we put Sam in his new pen I sat in there with him for about an hour. He laid down next to me and seemed very happy to be petted. At one point he even laid across my lap. A lap dog!

That evening after we brought the ewes in to the barn for the night we took Sam out to the big pasture and let him explore things for a while. When we walked him over to one of the water troughs, he jumped into it and took a long drink, then he did the same in the second trough. When we put him back in his pen he seemed very content. We heard the neighbor's dog bark a few times that night and our house dogs barked back, but we didn’t hear a peep out of Sam. Good news since barking had been one of the problems at his former home.

SAM’S POOL

In hindsight, we probably went way more slowly with the introduction then was necessary but since Sam hadn’t been around sheep and the sheep hadn’t been around dogs we wanted to avoid a possible train wreck. Consequently it was several weeks before we were comfortable leaving Sam unattended with the sheep. At first we were concerned that Sam, in his playful exuberance, might hurt the sheep, but we quickly became more concerned that the sheep might hurt Sam since several of our adult Jacob ewes made it their personal mission to attack Sam whenever he turned his back. Baaad sheep!

Sheep/dog relations remained somewhat strained until the adult ewes left Sam’s barn to move into their breeding groups. At that point the 2011 ewe lambs moved to Sam’s barn and it was amazing how quickly they came to terms with Sam. So, at this point we’ve all settled into a comfortable routine and I sleep better at night knowing that Sam is on duty watching over the sheep and our laying hens. He’ll even go as far as to round up any stray sheep if he feels they’re getting too far from the barn or the rest of the flock. He’s a very sweet, affectionate dog toward us, but boy howdy! I wouldn’t want to be a coyote or stray dog who wandered into his territory.

SAM ON DUTY

Done at Last!!

2011-04-12T17:39:00.001-07:00

Lambing finished up here bright and early this morning – hurray! I always look forward to lambing with great excitement and anticipation, but after several weeks of intense lambing and the resulting lack of sleep, I’m generally just as excited when it’s done. The amazing (scary?) thing is that within weeks I’ll already be planning next year’s breeding combinations. Chalk it up to a short memory I guess.

I had planned to post more lamb photos several weeks ago but life (lambing, taxes, etc.) got in the way. I’ll be posting all of the lamb photos on our website soon but in the meanwhile I’ve included more lamb photos below.

Here’s a sampling of our Jacob lambs…

4 Horn Ram Lamb #301
(bideawee Mr. Darcy x bideawee Lizette)

4 Horn Ewe Lamb #337
(bideawee Tucker x bideawee Lizzy)

4 Horn Ram Lamb #338
(bideawee Tucker x bideawee Lynne)

4 Horn Ram Lamb #300
(bideawee Glyn x bideawee Maybelle)

4 Horn Ewe Lamb #333
(Kenleigh’s Imagine x bideawee Calais)

4 Horn Ram Lamb #315
(bideawee Mr. Darcy x bideawee Rosalie)

2 Horn Ewe Lamb #330
(Kenleigh’s Imagine x bideawee Winsome)

4 Horn Ewe lamb #325
(Sweetgrass Tobin x bideawee Marta)

4 Horn Ewe Lamb #338
(bideawee Tucker x bideawee Lynne)

2 Horn Ewe Lamb #343
(Sweetgrass Tobin x Rockies Wren)

4 Horn Ewe Lamb #344
(Sweetgrass Tobin x Rockies Wren)

4 Horn Ewe Lamb #345
(Sweetgrass Tobin x Rockies Wren)

4 Horn Ewe Lamb #297
(bideawee Mr. Darcy x bideawee Whitney)

And more Navajo-Churro lambs…

Black & Tan Ram Lamb #285
(PDF Harry x baw Beebe)

Spotted Black Badger Ram Lamb #313
(baw Salazar x baw Ailsa)

Black & White Spotted Ewe Lamb #284
(PDF Harry x baw Beebe)

Black Badger Ram Lamb #294
(baw Salazar x baw Oriana)

Black w/TGH Ewe Lamb #286
(SLR Bejay x baw Melosa)

White Ram Lamb #324
(SLR Bejay x baw Selma)

Black w/TGH Ram Lamb #278
(baw Pinto x baw Elisa)

White/Tan Ewe Lamb #320
(SLR Bejay x baw Paulina)

Black & Tan Ewe Lamb #293
(PDF Harry x baw Brunhilde)

Grey/Tan Ram Lamb #280
(PDF Harry x baw Querida)

Spotted Grey Ewe Lamb #306
(baw Pinto x baw Sissy Mae)

Thanks for looking!

Lambies at Last!

2011-03-06T19:33:00.001-08:00

We finally started lambing last week. It’s been a leisurely pace so far but a quick scan of bellies and udders today leads me to believe life is going to get much more hectic very soon…

baw Brunhilde

Rockies Wren

baw Beebe

Sweetgrass Katerie

Eight ewes have lambed so far with a total of 15 lambs. Mostly Churros so far - I think the Jacob ewes are holding out for a better offer. I’ve posted some of the lamb photos below. For now they’re just cute lambs. We’ll be evaluating them for breed quality characteristics when they’re a bit older…

Spotted Badger N-C ram lamb #268
(baw Bernardo x baw Tessa)

Spotted Badger N-C ram lamb #269
(baw Bernardo x baw Yolanda)

Spotted N-C ewe lamb #270
(baw Bernardo x baw Yolanda)

Black and Tan (Reverse Badger) N-C ram lamb #271
(PDF Harry x baw Audrey)

Black w/TGH N-C ewe lamb #272
(PDF Harry x baw Audrey)

White N-C ram lamb # 273
(SLR Bejay x baw Amorita)

White N-C ewe lamb #274
(SLR Bejay x baw Amorita)

Black Badger ram lamb #275
(PDF Harry x baw Winona)

Black w/TGH ewe lamb #276
(PDF Harry x baw Winona)

For more info. on the rams that sired this year’s lambs visit our website at: www.bideaweefarm.com/2011LineUp.htm

More lambs coming soon (very soon!)…

Easy Keeper

2011-03-04T19:42:00.001-08:00

Talk about an easy keeper! He doesn’t eat, poop, ram things or wander off looking for girls. Meet Capone II…

Jesse Leavitt of Willamina, Oregon, a fellow vendor at the McMinnville Public Market, carved him for us using a photo we provided of Maverick Capone, one of our past Jacob flock sires…

Capone II has been guarding our booth at the market. He’s a favorite with kids and dogs…

Here he’s pretending to be a Churro…

Thanks again Jesse – we love him!

If you’d like to have Jesse carve something for you contact him at 503-876-7024

Return of the prodigal blogger…

2011-02-24T22:40:00.001-08:00

Holy cow! My goodness how time flies! I started this blog back in December of 2008 during an unusually long and rare Western Oregon snow storm. I was pretty much trapped in the house at the time and didn’t have much else to do. I thought it would be a piece of cake to keep it up. NOT! As uneventful as our day-to-day lives seem here on the farm, there just always seems to be some new deadline looming which makes it hard to justify sitting at the computer for any longer than absolutely necessary. And honestly I’d rather be out on the property doing something, anything, rather then sitting in front of a computer. I’d think of the blog from time to time and would feel immense guilt (I was raised Catholic…) but actually sitting down to update it just never happened.

So, I’m going to try again. Curiously, it’s snowing today in Newberg. The first snow we’ve had this Winter. The weather report calls for snow through tonight then the temperatures are supposed to drop into the teens through the weekend. Our first lamb due date is Saturday so that should make things exciting.

A very quick trip through the last two years…
Lambing 2009 brought 106 lambs, and in 2010 we had 95 lambs. Our ewe flock (for both breeds) has decreased slightly over the last two years. The decreasing numbers are mostly due to attrition as old girls retire, so our resulting lamb numbers have also decreased slightly. Not such a bad thing ‘cause Doug and I aren’t getting any younger. For 2011 we bred 53 ewes so we’ll likely have 90 to 100 lambs again this year.

2009 Navajo-Churro lamb

2010 Jacob lambs

We’re been selling whole lambs since we first started raising the sheep but In 2009 we obtained a USDA prepackaged meat sellers license and I started selling lamb cuts, pelts, horn buttons and other woolly things at the McMinnville Farmer’s Market in McMinnville, OR. What a learning experience! And how fun! 2011 will be our third season at the Market. I’ve also spent Saturdays during the Winter and Spring months selling our wares at the McMinnville Public Market. Determining how much/many cuts we’d need to keep a steady supply of meat on hand was an interesting challenge. We butcher about 50 lambs, plus a handful of older animals, each year and that seemed like a lot – until people starting trying our lamb and discovered how tasty Jacob and Navajo-Churro lamb is. The good news is we’re now selling pretty much everything we can produce.

In the past two years we lost some of our favorite old sheep…

Swallow Lane Montgomery 1999-2009

Canberra Kirstin 1994 – 2010

And some of our farm friends….

Alice 1995-2010

Annabelle 1994-2010

Sophie – 2010 (age unknown)

Smokey 1993-2010

But on a more positive note, we added a few new friends...

Eeky

Bob (left) and Bella (right)

In 2010 we traveled to the N-CSA annual meeting in Idaho Falls, ID and the JSBA annual meeting in Ringoes, NJ. While in NJ we met several East Coast Navajo-Churro breeders and attended their regional meeting. So nice to put faces with names! And of course I couldn’t resist doing a little sheep shopping while we were there. We ended up buying five ewe lambs from Rebecca Gunther of Jersey West Navajo Churros, in Hillsborough, NJ, and Ingrid and Alan Painter of Puddleduck Farm in Brownsville, OR hauled them back home for us in late October. Here’s a peek at the Jersey West girls dressed in their thrift store finest on the cold trip home from NJ to OR. Their fashion stylist was Ingrid Painter.

While in NJ we also picked up a nice Jacob ram lamb from Joe Bohr and Peg Bostwick of Sweetgrass Jacobs, in Saint Johns, MI

Sweetgrass Tobin

And that pretty much brings us up to present!

A Modern Day Christmas Poem

2008-12-25T13:56:00.000-08:00

My mom e-mailed me this poem last night...

The Night before Christmas
(the rural version...)

'Twas the night before Christmas and out on the ranch
The pond was froze over and so was the branch.
The snow was piled up belly-deep to a mule.
The kids were all home on vacation from school,
And happier young folks you never did see-
Just all sprawled around a-watchin' TV.

Then suddenly, some time around 8 o'clock,
There came a surprise that gave them a shock!
The power went off, the TV went dead!
When Grandpa came in from out in the shed
With an armload of wood, the house was all dark.
"Just what I expected," they heard him remark.
"Them power line wires must be down from the snow.
Seems sorter like times on the ranch long ago."

"I'll hunt up some candles," said Mom. "With their light,
And the fireplace, I reckon we'll make out all right."
The teen-agers all seemed enveloped in gloom.
Then Grandpa came back from a trip to his room,
Uncased his old fiddle and started to play
That old Christmas song about bells on a sleigh.
Mom started to sing, and 1st thing they knew
Both Pop and the kids were all singing it, too.

They sang Christmas carols, they sang "Holy Night,"
Their eyes all a-shine in the ruddy firelight.
They played some charades Mom recalled from her youth,
And Pop read a passage from God's Book of Truth.
They stayed up till midnight-and, would you believe,
The youngsters agreed 'twas a fine Christmas Eve.

Grandpa rose early, some time before dawn;
And when the kids wakened, the power was on.
"The power company sure got the line repaired quick,"
Said Grandpa - and no one suspected his trick.
Last night, for the sake of some old-fashioned fun,
He had pulled the main switch - the old Son-of-a-Gun!
-Anonymous

Best wishes for a Joyous Christmas!
Karen & Doug
and all of the critters at bide a wee farm

Let it stop, let it stop, let it stop...

2008-12-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

Still snowing!! We have about 16" now. It's still incredibly beautiful but getting less fun by the minute. The temperature warm up the weather guys promised has now been delayed until this weekend so we'll be hauling water for the rest of the week. The newest forecast is calling for up 5 to 8 more inches of snow on Christmas day. I don't recall ever having a white Christmas before. The kid in me is thrilled, the adult is dreading the idea of MORE snow.

The snow truly is beautiful so I couldn't resist taking a few more photos. I promise to stop after this batch...

THE TRUCK AND FLATBED
WHERE IT'S BEEN PARKED SINCE THE HAY EPISODE ON SATURDAY

THE CAR (I THINK!)

THE NEIGHBOR'S HAZELNUT ORCHARD (SO ORGANIZED!)

KOS, THE GUARD LLAMA, AND HIS BOYS

KOS AGAIN, CHECKING ME OUT.
WILL HE SPIT TODAY OR NOT?

N-C RAM; CAESAR

And my favorite, one of the trees in our yard. It reminds me of the trees in my favorite animated Christmas show "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer"...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

More later...

Still more snow! And a bit of freezing rain...

2008-12-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

It's been snowing since early yesterday with a brief break late last night for freezing rain. I measured the snow on our patio table early this morning and we had 8" of snow with an inch of ice on top of that. Pretty amazing for us. Tonight it's snowing again and the weatherman isn't predicting a warm up until at least Wednesday.

We were getting low on grass hay so Doug picked some up yesterday afternoon. Unloading hay is definitely more challenging when it's snowing...

UNTYING THE TARP

UNLOADING (WITH HELP?)

We eventually had to unload the hay onto our small truck and ferry it around the property in batches because the snow drifts prevented us from getting the big truck and flatbed trailer into close to the barns...

Fortunately the sheep are loving the snow and while all of them have access to barns or shelters, many of them have been choosing to sleep outside. Below is a picture of Javier, one of our yearling rams. He wasn't the least bit bothered by the heavy snow but his pals were holed up in their shelter. Guess it's really perfect weather for a sheep in full fleece.

More later...

Let it Snow, let it snow, let it snow...

2008-12-20T10:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our farm blog. I've been enjoying the blogs of fellow shepherds for months now and have decided it's time to join the flock...

OUR MAIN BARN

It's snowing here at bide a wee farm. Snow is a rare commodity in Western Oregon. We usually get a dusting once a year but it rarely stays around for long. This year we're having an honest-to-goodness cold snap. At the start of the week the temperature dropped below freezing and stayed there for days. Because our climate is so moderate, our barns and water systems are not set up for freezing temperatures. The first day our water to the barn froze, then the pipes in the well house froze and we lost power - ugh! Fortunately the power is back on now and the well thawed without any broken pipes (yeah!) but we're still hauling water around the property and probably will be until the weather warms up. The exiting news is that we may have a white Christmas - that would really be a rare occurrence!

THE DOGS; (LEFT TO RIGHT) SUE, WILLIS AND NERO

Yesterday was sunny and beautiful so I shirked my duties and spent some time taking snow photos. I've posted some below - my apologies to those of you who get lots of snow and have seen this all before...

JACOB EWE LAMBS; SHELBY, WINSOME & ELOISE

NAVAJO-CHURRO FLOCK SIRES; MTF MR. MAJESTIC, PDF HARRY AND BAW SALAZAR

JACOB FLOCK SIRES; BIDEAWEE GERALD AND BIDEAWEE TUCKER

A FEW OF OUR CHICKENS (THESE ARE RHODE ISLAND REDS)

LARRY, THE GUARD LLAMA

JACOB EWES; TORRI AND ELLA

NAVAJO-CHURRO EWE LAMB; YOLANDA

OUR GRAND OLD JACOB RAM - SWALLOW LANE MONTGOMERY (ALMOST TEN NOW)

AND THE NEIGHBOR'S HORSE 'BLAZE' WHO CAME OVER TO SEE WHAT I WAS UP TO

OK, better head out and get my chores done. Learning how this blog works has been fun but time consuming. To paraphrase an old adage: you can teach an old shepherd new tricks but you can't make her learn them quickly!

Thanks for visiting our blog. I'll do my best to keep it current so I hope you'll check back again soon. Merry Christmas from our family to yours!