Shepherding Archive: 02-26-06 -to- 09-21-06

02-26-06 2006

8:39pm

• 18’ 1984 Layton fifth-wheel trailer

• Laptop

• Cell-phone not working here.

• Location: North of Athena, OR near the Dry Creek. Perkins wheat ranch 1000 acres of winter wheat stubble.

• 900 Debouillets ewe-lambs (age = 11 months)

• 52 Katahdin bred ewes (age = 1-7 years)

• 36 Katahdin bred ewe-lambs (age = 11 months)

• 2 Guardian dogs (1 female, Great Pyrenees/Anatolian age 24 months: 1 male Great Pyrenees/Anatolian age 8 months)  Dogs are staying with sheep

• Sheep tend to break into small groups during the day and flock together at night. 

• Heard one or two Coyotes tonight, Guard-dogs barked in responds to their calls.

• 8000gal water tank for sheep.

• Two 18’ water troughs.

• One 18’ salt trough

• 6 miles of three-strand ploy-wire fence.

• 18 joule fencer. 12volt, 64watt solar-panel,  4 deep cell batteries.

• Bought small generator today, hope it lasts for a while.

• Burned up small Black and Decker drill reeling in turbo-wire, hope to buy better one tomorrow.

• Sleeping bag.

• 30/30 rifle with scope. Scope is useless on rifle. Hope to buy a better gun soon.

• 2005 Honda Forman S four-wheeler.  4X4 with winch. Rolled three times on steep slopes.  No damage, good bike.

• Found dead ewe today, one of two ewes that have pregnancy - toxcima. Saved the other ewe using straight molasses and drenching her several times each day.  The second ewe was hard to catch and very flighty.  I did drench her twice but didn’t seem to be enough to keep her going.

• Found a long-dead ewe carcass yesterday.  Seems she was killed by Coyotes.  I heard many Coyotes calling the night she got killed.  I guess the Guard-dogs couldn’t keep track of all the sheep. 

• Bought a new puppy from Rusty Childs.  She seems to be a real go-getter.  Named her Gale.  Lot of white on her, too bad she cannot be bred to Mick now.

• Katie was here for the weekend.  She was very helpful, as always.

• Two ewes have lambed this week, un-expected.  They are out of a Scottish-Black faced ram I bought last year.  I cannot remember finding him in with the ewe-flock but the lambs don’t lye.  I hope they are the only ones.  A set of twins and a set of triplets.

• Very windy tonight.  Hope the trailer doesn’t blow over.

• Got a little rain.  Not enough to leak in trailer.

• 2 male border-collies. Mick and Rocket.  Sioux is with Cameron while I have Rocket.

02-28-06

11:28am

• Raining enough now to make trailer leak.  Of course the leak is over the mattress.  I will put a tarp over this area of the leak today.

• Still very windy and with the rain, makes checking the sheep every couple hours a real chore.

• Rocket stayed in the trailer last night.  I figured it was smart to have a dog around incase I needed him on one of my night-time checks.  It is also nice to have somebody there to hang with.

• Found a great salvation Army in Milton-Freewater.  I bought a new frying pan and some other odds and ends I needed for sheep-camp.  I found a small radio also so I can listen to the news, etc.

• I have the water working in the trailer now, including hot-water.  No shower but I need to go to the house every couple days anyway to change clothes, etc.  I have learned over this month I can go about three days without changing or taking a shower, then my body revolts.  Thank god I have a place to wash my laundry and take a hot shower.  Cannot think of a better feeling then being clean and having clean laundry.

• Found a dead ewe yesterday, seems to be pregnancy-toxcima again.  I never even saw her acting sick before I found her dead.  I am going to sort off the pregnant ewes today and get them where they don’t have to walk too much. 

• The new puppy, Gale, is doing well.  She likes to ride on the bike with me and hang in the trailer during breakfast and dinner breaks.  The older males have learned to put up with her.

• Bought a new high-power drill and managed to get all the poly-wire rolled up in a half hour.  Now the sheep will not worry about a fence being there and should come down for water more often.

• Hope to get the next paddock ready for fence today or tomorrow.  I need to mow the outside edge but worry about the tractor sliding down the steep slopes.  This job may have to wait until the rain stops.

02-28-06

6:38pm

• Didn’t manage to do much today.  The wind and rain kept me in the trailer for the most part.

• I did manage to put a gate into the fence along side the trailer and put about 30 pregnant ewes onto some scab-ground (too steep to plant wheat).  The grass is coming on very well there and they shouldn’t have to walk much to find good graze.  I have the 325gal water trailer hooked-up for them.  I didn’t put up more fence on the perimeter for them.  I hope they don’t force the fence that is there, it is only three-strand barbed-wire and they could easily move through it if they wanted to.  I guess I will wait to see if they force it before putting up more fence.  I plan to lamb these ewes on this small pasture so I will have to put in more fence before then.  Lambs tend to push fences a lot more then trained old ewes. 

• I fixed the front door to the trailer, it got blown off a bit today.  I used a couple bungee-cords to hold it together and prevent so much wind from getting in and warm air from getting out.

• I used Rocket today to sort those pregnant few ewes off of another group of range ewes.  He did very well.  He doesn’t shed yet but listens well so I was able to do the shed myself and use him to block, etc.  Went better then I expected.  He did lose a couple ewes while gathering the slope but he will learn soon.  His youthful enthusiasm gets the better of him when gathering.  He doesn’t go wide enough when running down a slope and up a steep slope to gather.  Needless to say he is learning as we work. 

03-05-06

7:00pm

• Saw one Coyote in the back 400 acre piece today.  I was surveying it in order to get ready for fencing it.  He took off in the direction of my sheep in the main section.  I thought he went off into the CRP (government payment for not farming land) but as I came up to the gate I saw him in with my sheep.  I road the bike over the gate and went after him.  I had Mick on the back of the bike and he was holding on with all he had.  I couldn’t get to the Coyote in time before he went into the next cattle pasture.  I stopped and waited to see him on the other slope but never saw him.  He was a huge Coyote.  I could see him above the stubble.  I will bring my rifle tonight when I do my nighttime checks. 

• When I was on the tractor mowing the area that fence would be put, I saw a Coyote.  I wonder if it is the same one.

• Kate was up for the weekend.  We really didn’t do much this weekend.  Mostly hung out at the sheep-camp.  We did go down to Crebbs place to castrate and dock lambs. 

• I am in the process of boiling lamb-sausage in order to have something quick for breakfast.  I have decided to not buy any meat from the store.  I am doing this for a couple reasons, one is to save money and the other is figure out different ways to prepare lamb.  Maybe I will get a couple chickens for morning eggs.  I wonder if the chickens would stick around the trailer.

• Just noticed the water pump was on for a long time.  The tank is empty in the camper.  Been going through 28gals of water ever 3 days. I use this water for washing dishes.  It is amazing how fast water gets used when it flows from a tap.  Makes you wonder how much water you use at your house.  Out here I try to conserve it as much as possible and still find I go through a surprising amount.

• No more lambs in the last couple days.  I think that Scottish Black-face ram only got a couple ewes. 

• Cameron’s dog Rocket that I have for a while got his first breeding yesterday.  Sky had a older bitch that was in deep heat.  He had bred her to a couple of his ranch dogs in the past but needed an outcross.  He is only 3yo and didn’t know what was what but she showed him what the deal was and he was tided with her within 20 minutes.  I would have put Mick to her but she has a lot of white and Mick is very white as well.  Too much white on a border collie can cause deafness.  She is from Sky’s base ranch-dogs line.

03-06-06

7:13pm

• Had some of that Lamb Sausage this morning.  It was great and quick.

• The rain and wind returned today.  I managed to get some lamb shipped to a new customer today.

• Hung out in the trailer for most of the afternoon.

• I am going to try to fence the 400 acre paddock with minimal fencing.  Meaning wherever there is already fence (barbed wire) I will put up either one or two strands of poly-wire.  I have plenty of posts and so if the sheep are getting out I will add more lines of ploy-wire.  This approach should also help the fencer keep up with the length of fence.  The fencer is good for 110 miles of fence but they never work as the package says.

• More rain and wind is predicted for the next few days.  I hope it doesn’t snow but that is a real possibility at this point.

• The main water tank is getting low, Randy is suppose to refill it tomorrow morning some time.  With this rain it makes it hard to get the water-truck in and out of the pasture.  Hope we don’t get it stuck.

• The 325gal tank for the pregnant ewes is getting low as well.  Cameron is suppose to bring my tractor back in the next few days.  I have all but a couple pregnant ewes on the steep slopes next to my trailer now.  Makes it easier to keep track of them.

• I put Cameron’s Llama in with the pregnant ewes as well.  The Guard dogs have enough to worry about just keeping track of the ewes in the big pasture.  I hope this Llama will bond and work for me through the rest of this spring lambing.

03-08-06

9pm

• VERY windy tonight.  A storm moved in this afternoon.  The wind and rain has gotten worse by the hour.  The trailer is now leaking in multiple places.  However, it is only over the bed that worries me.  The rest of it will dry out when summer finally comes.
• Something happened a couple night ago with the 12volt power.  The generator started and stopped soon after, I think this blow out whatever switch is suppose to switch between the 12volt power and the generator.  I will email into an RV group I belong to.  Hopefully they will know what the issue is or at least point me in the direction of fixing it.  In short, this means I have no heat when the generator is not running.  I don’t want to burn through too much gas so I run the Generator until I head to bed then shut it down.  A couple sleeping bags keep me warm enough at night.  Getting up in the morning is a real chore when you can see your breath.
• I let the two male BCs and Gale stay in the trailer last night.  Was too tired to take them back to the truck.  Mistake, Gale found lots of stuff to get into.
• I am glad I parked the trailer with the back facing south.  The wind is coming from that direction and is actually pushing the back of the trailer up a bit when a gust comes.  Don’t want to think about what would have happened if the trailer was parked sideways to the wind.
• The sheep have found there way to the other side of the rise and bedded down in the stubble out of the wind.  Smart sheep.
• The trailer is really shaking and rocking now.  It is worse then going over the bar at the mouth of the Columbia River in a small boat.
• No new Lambs.  This is a good thing at this point.
• I didn’t think I was going to make it back to Sheep-Camp tonight.  The road up to the paddock is really muddy and the tires on my truck are way past needing to be replaced.  Even with 4x4 it was not easy getting up here.
• No night check tonight, I don’t think any Coyotes would be stupid enough to be out in wind and rain like this.
• Was going to burn a fence line today but chickens out.  There was a bit of wind heading in the wrong direction.  Never done this before so was a bit worried about setting the neighbors CRP land on fire.
• The table I am typing this on is attached to the back wall.  This means every time the wind really kicks up I can literally feel it push the table in.  This old trailer may not make many more winters.

03-11-06

11:13am

• I saw a huge bold eagle yesterday.  The birds are very beautiful but what some people don’t realize is that they are scavengers.  I have noticed that whenever I see an eagle they are usually eating on something dead.

• Been working on the fence again this morning. 

• Heard Coyotes really close last night.  The moon is very bight and it is dry now so it would be perfect hunting weather for them.  After many days of rain it seems they would be hungry.

03-11-06

8pm

• Riding back to camp tonight lost Rocket off the back of the Four Wheeler.  When I went back for him, I said this time hold on, I imagine him saying in responds, but I have not thumbs you ass.  Just like the Goat in the Adam Sandler skid, but I have no dukes, when challenged to a boxing mach with his owner.

• I am in the process of frying up some lamb shank I cooked last night.  I cut the meat from the shanks and am going to make something with it, not sure what.  Yet it fries as I type.

• Getting a little lonely now.  I am finding myself keeping people in conversation for the sake of having them.  A bit like an old person.  I see myself doing it but don’t try to stop myself.  Human contact is very important.  I am learning that now more then ever.  I have always wanted to get away and be alone but be careful what you whish for, as the saying goes.

• I gave the bones from the lamb shanks to the dogs, they appreciate it.  I now have the two males and Gale in the trailer at night.  I brought back a small kennel for Gale to sleep in.  She is not house broken yet.  It is nice to have a puppy around, she always wants to interact and play.  I find myself talking to my dogs more then I have in the past.  Part of the looking for contact I believe.

• Almost flipped the 4wheeler backwards onto myself yesterday.  I was pulling new poly-wire out for this new section and attempted to climb a very steep hill.  I am trying to be more careful on that thing.  After the fact I wondered how long it would take somebody to find me.

• The dogs are making short work of the bones.  Gale is feeling very good right now.  She is challenging Mick for a bone.  She is going to be a handful when it comes time to train her.  I smile to myself.  She got that bone.  All 10lbs of her.

03-13-06

7:15pm

• The Velvet Underground on the radio.

• Lost three lambs this morning.  It seems one ewe had triplets, they all seemed to be dead at birth.  I had trouble with this ewe last year.  She is out of chances.  Not sure what caused the issue.  Perhaps she has Chlamydia.  This can cause late term abortions.  I give most ewes two years to produce healthy lambs, after that they are culled.  Too bad, she is a nice ewe.

• I took yesterday (Sunday) off.  I slept until 8am, it felt really good.  I did work on the fence for about an hour.  Just couldn’t resist.  The grass is really coming on in that 400 acre paddock.  I look forward to getting the sheep over there.  I want to make sure they stay on the gain before I put the rams in with them on April 1st.

• I put my small tractor (35hp) in the paper today.  I hope it will sale for enough for me to buy a feed-truck and a bigger however MUCH old tractor that will lift the big-bales of hale that are common in this area.  1300-1700lb bales are the size most hay dealers work with.

• I broke my rubber mallet today.  It figures, that is what you get with a $5 mallet I guess.  I bought a $1 packet of glue today.  Time will tell if a $5 mallet and $1 glue make for a good $6 mallet.  I use the mallet to pound in the 3/8 fiberglass posts.  This helps to pierce the hard ground that is not farmed.  The ground that is under wheat stubble is very easy to put posts into.  Almost too easy since, easy in means easy out and fence falling over.  I ended up putting up two wires on the north side of the new pasture.  There just isn’t enough fence there to make me feel secure in putting sheep on it.

• Mick bit Gale on the ear and gave her a nasty little puncher wound.  Mick is very tough on the other dogs and I have to keep a watch on him whenever he feels somebody is getting out of line.  Mick sometimes thinks he is in charge of the dog-pack when I am not around.  This has always been a problem with him and his father is the same way.  I guess Patrick was hoping to have a more level litter of puppies when he cross Mick’s dad with a mild-mannered bitch.  It seems as with sheep, when you cross two very different lines, you get either one or the other in the prodigy and NOT something in the middle as most would hope.

• Just heard on the radio that we are now 3thrillion dollars into this war on terrorism.  I was wondering how helpful that money would be for a sheep-farmer.

• What a beautiful sunset tonight.  There is a full moon and slightly cloudy.  I haven’t seen this much beauty in my life nor have I had the time to stop and appreciate it.

03-16-06

9pm

• Gale (puppy) playing in the trailer.  She is the hardest working one around here.  Sure, she works at play but she works hard at it.  She recently figured out how to jump onto my bed.  That is her joy.   It is almost as if she knows it is a place where only the oldest and hardest working dogs get to stay.  She knows she will be in that place.

• White Stripes on the MP3 player.  An uplifting sound from my little radio.

• Had another set of triplets a couple days ago.  They are out of the Scottish Black Faced ram. 

• My friend’s sister just bought another 260 ewe-lambs.  He is now running two bands of ewes.  I cannot imagine running two bands (a band is 1000 ewes).  But then again, I couldn’t imagine running one band before a month ago.

• It has been VERY windy.  This causes the dust to really blow.  My hair and face are covered in dust.  My beard is a hideout for dust mites at this point.  I must shave this beard and my head this weekend.  Katie is coming up for the weekend so she will help with this much needed shearing. 

• It has been very cold and this makes putting fence in a bit of an issue.  The poly-wire that I put out and pull tight pulls up in the wind like kite string.

03-17-06

7:37pm

• Lost three lambs last night to Coyotes.  I did a count today and when I found out I was very frustrated.  I was in the middle of completing my fence on the 450 acre section.  Goes to show you that life changes your priorities very quickly.  I went back to the  water tank and got my electro-net to setup a night pen.  I now have the pregnant ewes and the ewes that have lambed penned for the night next to the trailer.  I would have loved to have found a Coyote in with my lambs, it would have been worth them taking a lamb just so I could have caught them.  I am not sure most people can understand the frustration a Shepherd feels when he losses lambs to Coyotes.  It is as if they are stealing directly from us and shitting on us at the same time.

• The Guard Dogs are very active tonight.  I believe the Coyotes are homing in on us here.  I found the poly-wire fence was pushed way down tonight in the draw.  I believe something big must have come through there.  I didn’t find any sheep on the wrong side of the fence so I can only assume it was some type of predator.  A cat or maybe even a bear.

• I used Rock to bring the sheep into the night pen.  He hasn’t had much work as of late and was a bit wild.  Bringing the sheep in at night should give him some more experience.

• My bodyweight is down to 180lbs.  I haven’t been this light since Basic Train for the National Guard.  I imagine it is from the physical work everyday. 

• The 12volt system on the trailer is still not working correctly.  Most nights I don’t have heat.  I hope spring finally comes soon.

• While I was putting up fence on the new section it started to hail.

3-28-06

8:26pm

• The female Guard-dog is heavy pregnant. I expect she will whelp pups any day now.  They have been eating a LOT of dog food.  I plan to keep back two male pups and sale the rest.  I will give Cameron a couple pups for his operation.

• We ran all of Cameron’s ewes through and sorted off the lambs.  We laser-tested a sample from each ewes to put his ewes into different groups for shearing.  We will shear his ewes in about five days from now.

• We put all of Melinda’s sheep through the shearing truck today.  It was only 100 ewes so we where done by lunch.  There were only two shearers on the truck.  There are usually three shearers but I guess they figured there wasn’t enough sheep to bring all three guys.

• I have Sioux back.  I guess he was beating up on Cameron’s dogs a bit and so his wife wanted Rocket back.  Not a huge deal since Sioux is an old hand when it comes to EVERYTHING.  He is getting a little older now.  I hope to find a good retirement home for him to live out his older years.

• Mick has gotten a LOT of work as of late.  I used him to bring Cameron’s ewes in and to work them trough the yard.  He is a little too hard on the lambs but is figuring this out very well.  Needless to say he is a very happy dog with this much work to do.  He is eating a lot of dog food and sleeping very deep.

• Our lamb sales are doing well leading up to Easter.

• Jerry Seinfeld is on the MP3 player.  Meaningless.  He has no idea.  But funny.

• Had three sets of triplets.  One ewe lost all three.  The other lost two to Coyotes and the third lost one.  Had a single and a set of twins yesterday and this morning.  Haven’t been able to see them today.  Not sure how many we had today.  Don’t want to bring them into the pen because I worried about a ewe losing her new-borne lambs when gathering them.

• Putting the rams in tomorrow with the yearling-ewes.

04-01-06

7pm

• Put in 31 Texel rams and 7 Rambouillets I bought out of Montana.  The Texels seem to be working.  Time will tell.  They have 4 weeks to decide if the ewes look good to them or not.  The older Texels that have bred before are doing most of the work.  The 7 young yearling Texel rams are just walking around.  I don’t think they know what to do to court a ewe.  Hopefully the older rams get the ewes to cycle and then the ewes will chase down the young rams and they will have no choice but to breed them.

• I am into the thick of lambing my Katahdins now.  The first hit and I have about 5 new sets of twins out there.  I would guess the older ewes will be lambed out in a couple weeks and then we just have the ewe-lambs to start lambing on the 15th.  I am considering putting the ewe-lambs out with the Texel rams if they don’t have a lamb and try to get them to bread for fall.

• Johnny Cash on the MP3 player.  Good stuff to write by.

• Cameron came up today with a couple ram-lambs to add to the bunch.  One of the ram-lambs likes people and will hunt you down in the pasture.  Not to get a head-scratch but rather to ram you.  Will have to keep an eye out for him.

• I have to get the rest of my fencing from the Westside.  I need to build a pen in the bottom of the pasture to run those ewes into for preg. Testing.  I have 70 days to do this after we pull the rams.  I think this is a requirement.  I don’t want to put the entire flock on feed in Sept.  It would be nice to know how many ewes I have that are going to lamb so I can buy enough hay, etc.

• I put a bucket of molasses out for the ewes that are lambing tonight.  I put it in the night pen.  I think it will take them a while to figure out what it is and if they like it.  These ewes are not accustom to non-grass food.

04-05-06

3pm

• Things I have learned about sheep:  You cannot shear sheep in the rain, and if you have a band of sheep to shear, it will rain.  A shearing shed is a MUST have and if you don’t have one, plan on never shearing your sheep. ;-)

• Things I have learned about sheep:  Ewes don’t like to walk up hill.  Ewes really don’t like to walk up hill when they have a lamb that is only a few hours old.  If you want a ewe to walk up hill, you will be caring her lamb and possibly her.

• Things I have learned about sheep:  When you think a lamb looks a little off (sick) it is.  If you say “it will be OK”  It will most likely not be OK.

• Things I have learned about sheep:  Sheep do learn.  If you want your sheep to go into a sheep yard and then into a race to be sorted you should put your sheep through the yards and sorting-shoot a couple times before the day comes when you actually have to do this.  Makes you look good and it really makes your dogs look good.

• Things I have learned about sheep:  You may think you know your sheep; you don’t.

• Things I have learned about Guard Dogs:  Your Guard Dog will never have her pups in a place you make nice and cozy for her.  You will have to find the pups and move them to this place.  She will not thank you for moving her pups about.

• We were rained out of shearing again today.

04-09-06:

   New Guard Dog puppies.  Nine of them.

New Border Collie puppy, Gale.

Hairsheep flock I am currently in the process of lambing.

Yearling ewe with set of twins.

Flock grazing in west pasture.

Flock grazing in west pasture.  Walla Walla Valley in the background.

Guard Dog, Trooper.

Texel Ram (yearling)

Debouillet Yearling ewes.

Bummer Lamb and Gale.

04-11-06

10:31am

Speeds:

• Mick can maintain a run at 20mph for about a half mile.  Then a speed of 12mph for a few miles.  Mick can burst up to 30mph.

• Gale maintains a speed of 12mph for 2 miles then she wants a ride.

• Ewes with day-old lambs herd at 1mph.

• Ewes with no lambs herd about 3-7mph depending on how hot it is that day and if you are going up hill or down.  And, if you are moving with the crop-rows or against them.  Moving up hill and against the crop rows will leave you and your dog wondering if the sheep moved at all.

• A ewe with a newborn lamb doesn't move.  If you insist you can herd her and her lambs at less then 1mph.  If you pickup her lambs and she follows you, you can move her at about 1mph.

• I can fence at about 1-3 miles per day but much like the ewe with a new borne lamb, I really don't like it.

The individual:

• Each lambing you end up with one or two individual lambs that for whatever reason you tend to lookout for.  This lambing it is a lamb I have taken to calling Peanut.  This is of course, because he is no bigger then a Peanut.  Peanut was born to a yearling ewe that had triplets.  She lost the largest lamb.  Peanut couldn't have been more then a half-pound when he was born.  The difference is he doesn't know he is small.  He has a huge bleep and keeps up with his twin.  It is a very good thing that his mother is fantastic at keeping track of him.  He fell behind when bring them in a couple night ago and called his mother.  She came at a dead run from about 200 yards away.  Peanut will never be a great market lamb but his determination to stay alive sure makes me smile whenever I see him.

04-12-06

8:50pm

• Coyotes are a constant part of my life.  I dream about them and worry about them when I am away from my flock.  This constant worry gets worse when I have new lambs on the ground.  As my friend says, "Don't count that lamb until they are on a truck heading away from your pasture AND THE CHECK HAS CLEARED THE BANK."  As I have said before I don't have a problem with Coyotes unless they are within close proximity to my sheep.  I stress this point to my non-livestock owning friends.  I don't want them to get the idea that I am some kind of anti-wildlife person.  I understand the food-chain and that the Coyote has it's place in it.  I take a lot of care to keep my sheep out of that food-chain and this is what I think most ranchers do.  I have Guardian dogs and Llamas to prevent a conflict. 

• I found a Coyote in the pasture where I am currently lambing my hairsheep.  I don't have a Guard Dog in this pasture, until this new litter of pups gets old enough, I don't have enough Guard dogs.  I went up to the ridge to make a cell phone call and he was moving in the direction of my new lambs.  I didn't have a gun, just my 4wheeler.  I hung up the call and the chase was on.  I ran him until he went into a hole.  My bike was out of gas so I headed back to the truck for gas and my 30/30.  I pumped three rounds into the hole, no Coyote.  I returned to my truck for a shovel.  After a bit of digging no Coyote.  That Coyote took off when I returned to my truck.  I learned you cannot run down a Coyote with a 4wheeler.  Only another dog could have run down that Coyote.  I hope to god I never see him again.

• Friends:  My bestfriend is my lead-ewe.  She has the lambing-flock moving into the night pen when she hears the 4wheeler.  She really does take good care of her flock.  I think she feels important because she is the one that wears the bell. She inherited this position from her mother who was also my lead ewe until last summer. 

• Nicknames:  Sioux's nickname is Sioux-dog.  Mick is Micky-moo and Gale hasn't found her nickname yet.  I cannot spell the nickname that my dogs and sheep have for me, it is lost in translation.

 04-18-06

8:17pm

• We moved my partner's sheep today.  The feed he was on had run out.  We moved 800 ewes and 1200 lambs about .5 mile down the road to better pasture.  Thankfully we had fences on both side for most of the way.  The bad news is the family that owns the land we had to pass by don't like sheep.  They do have two strands of barbed wire up for their cows.  Things went smoothly.  I was at the back on my 4wheeler with Mick and Cameron was heading the sheep with a couple people posted at the four-way stops and where we needed to turn the sheep.  Lucky for us these lambs are about two months old now so the ewes didn't fight us that much.  But being at the back you end up pushing a lot of lambs and the ewes that don't want to move.  It was a little hotter today then it has been and the sheep and Mick where feeling the heat.  We moved them at about .5mph.  This was a good speed.
• If you have a dog that you feel likes to bite a little too much, I find the cure is to bring the dog when you are trailing stubborn ewes any distance.  Mick likes to bite sheep a bit, by the end of trailing these ewes and lambs I had to ask him to get in there and move them.  He had decided it was a bit of work to bite and he has figured out as the days go by and he gets a lot of work each day that biting is not the most useful tool when moving most sheep.  Dare I say he is starting to relax and become a more workman-like dog.
• I sold Sioux to a women in Eastern CA.  I feel he will be happy in his new home.  She has a bit of work for him but nothing like we was doing here.  I feel he would have been great to have here but I also know that he has worked very hard his entire life and deserves a little easier work and a family that will see to his needs far beyond his working years.  I had tears in my eyes when I put him in his kennel at the airport.  The truth is that it is easier to sell some dogs then others.  I must say this was the hardest for me.
• A friend of mine bought 80 ewes from a local farmer a few days ago.  I took Mick over there to help her load the sheep and to haul some for her.  We loaded the double-deck trailer and Mick was very helpful.  I left the pen when they loaded the smaller trailer to talk to the farmer, he runs a couple hundred head of cattle.  Mick continued to work and load sheep.  We talked about dogs.  He was impressed with the fact that he just kept working to load sheep without me talking to him.  I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in Mick.  Mick has loaded a lot of sheep in a lot of trailers so I cannot take any credit for training him.  But it made me think about Border Collies and their impact on my life.  They have changed the course of my life.  I can honestly say that I wouldn't be sheep-farming without my dogs.
• Gale (puppy) is coming along very nicely.  I can tell she really wants to work.  She is going to be a real handful.  I don't start my pups until they are big enough to outrun sheep.  I don't like for my pups to get beat by sheep when I am starting them.  I like them to feel like they can do anything with sheep.

Keeping a sheepcamp running: 

• It takes 5 gals of clean drinking water per week. 
• 5gal per week of propane to keep the heater working at night. 
• 28gal per week of non-drinking water.
• 5gal per week of gas for the generator.
• 3-5pounds of lamb.
• $45 worth of store-bought groceries.
• 2doz eggs.
• .5lb of coffee per week.
• 10gal per week of gas for the 4wheeler.
• 30gal per week of Diesel for the truck and tractor.
• Two boxes of hamburger helper.
• 1gal of cheap red wine.

• Katie was up this weekend.  We put up cross fence for Melinda's pasture on Sunday.  We put up two cross-fences so she now has three paddocks.  I also put a fence up in front of the house where I have my stuff. This will allow her to graze her sheep in the yard and prevent me from having to mow it.  Now that is a win/win.

04-20-06

1:12pm

• I moved most of the band back over to the 550acre pasture.  They have been keeping up  with the grass on the 450acre pasture.  They were spending too much time on the scab-ground and not enough time cleaning up the volunteer which is why they are there.  I don't have any scab fenced on the 550 and the volunteer wheat is very high now.  They should have it under control in a couple weeks.  The hard part for me is having to move them back to water each night which is 3/4 mile trail.  Needless to say this has to be done just before dark and timing is everything.  Wait too long and you run out of sunlight.  Start too early and your sheep will get hot.  Not to mention your dog. 
• Trailing sheep is easy with 200 sheep, trailing sheep with 1000 has taken me a bit of time to get the hang of it.  If you have two people with two good dogs it is very easy.  If you are alone and have one good dog it is do-able.  The issue is the lead sheep always move about 2miles an hour faster then the sheep in the back.  The sheep in the back are the slower ewes and usually the rams.  So you have to teach your dog to stay back there and push, push, push while you ride on the side and up to the front to keep them on the road.  It would be a lot easier with a fenced road but that is not an option.  The other thing I have learned is to not try to fight the sheep all the way.  We never move the sheep against the crop-rows, this is pointless and will take the entire day.  Instead we move the sheep along the rows until we come to a fence, then move the sheep down the fence line.  This is easier with sheep who are broke to electric fence.  The downside is that Mick hates electric fence and sometimes doesn't like to push close to the fence.  He is learning.  The other issue is to make your dog understand that he must stay on their butts and not head them.  With a dog like Mick, who has a lot of eye, this is a hard lesson to remember sometimes.  Mick has learned all of the tasks I have asked of him so far.  His eye has become less and less as he gets worked more and more.  By the time we are done moving the band, he still uses his eye but is loss about it.  I usually only have to fight his eye for about the first 5 minutes of a job, then he will relax a bit.

05-01-06

9:43pm

• I have created an archive of my old entries.  Please click HERE to read them.  I will be moving my entries to the archive whenever I feel like not having to scroll down so much to add a new entry.

• With the help of my friend Cameron and his sister Lisa we managed to draft off the rams from the ewes today.  Cameron and I setup the yards (sheep pens) last Sat. with the help of Katie.  We took them down from Cameron's pasture where they where setup for lamb marking. 

• We marked (band the tails, give shots and band the ram-lambs, as well as give each lamb a tag) Cameron's band the Sunday before last.  Marking is always a stressful time for the lambs, their mothers and the shepherds.  It takes a lot of labor to get it done in a day.  We started about 9am and went until done, around 7pm.  No major issues.

• I have intergraded the ewes with lambs back into the main flock.  There are only a couple holdouts left and they will do just fine.  I haven't counted the lambs yet but figure on having a 130 or so.  Not very many lambs to sell this summer.

• After drafting the rams off the ewes today we moved the rams down to a 30 acre paddock Cameron and Lisa helped me build last week.  They are about .5mile away from the ewes.  I am hoping the rams relax and don't try to find their way back to the ewes.  We then trailed the ewes over to the 550acre paddock and went about getting the water setup over there.  That led to a couple setbacks. I finally managed to get the water setup over there with my small water trailer.  I bought a 5600gal used trailer and truck but had some issues moving it up to the paddock.  Nobody was hurt.

• I am planning on testing the ewes for pregnancy in mid July.  I told the tester that if we don't find at least 20 in the first hundred then I wouldn't test the rest of the flock.  I see no point in putting stress on my ewes whenever I can avoid it.  Even running them through the yards puts stress on them.  If we find 20 that means about 200 ewes will be pregnant and I can lamb them in the field.  If 50-60 ewes are positive then that is worth marking all the pregnant ewes.  It means I have to buy more feed and get more jugs setup in the stubble.  It means a lot more work but it also means a lot more lambs for the Easter lamb market. 

• Between my sheep-work and Cameron's sheep-work, Mick is getting a lot of work.  He is moving a bit slow tonight.  He sleeps like a log and he seems to love his life.  I worry about something happening to him, I couldn't think of what I would do without him.

• The new Guard-dog puppies are getting big.  They are eat dog food now and leaving the den.  They see me coming and head home to the den.  Nine (the mother) is spending more and more time with the sheep and less and less with her pups.  You can see on her face that being a mother is starting to loss it's shine.  I will wean away the sold pups in a couple weeks.  They will be ready to start their new lives as guard-dogs.  Besides, they are eating me out of a a house and home.  ;-)

• Shearing for Cameron's flock is coming up.  That means taking the yards down and putting them up again for Cameron's flock.  Then, do it again and drag them back up here to mark my lambs.  I am looking forward to us taking delivery of the set of portable sheep-yards we ordered from New Zealand.  The cost was high but three of us went in together.  I can see these yards lasting for many years and preventing stress on the sheep and the shepherds.

• Sioux is doing very well at his new home.  He is the top dog.

05-03-06

10pm

• I found a couple rams with the ewes today.  Nobody but myself to blame.  I was working the drafting gate and missed them.  The rule is that when they are your sheep you work the draft.  We counted the rams out after drafting but it seems the count wasn't correct.  I am glad to have found them.  I saw them at the watering point first thing this morning.  I got Mick back out of the truck and we began to cut them out of the ewes.  It was easy since rams are don't seem to think the ewes are their flock.  Once we had them alone, Mick had to really work hard to keep them from breaking back into the flock.  I decided to try to trail them back to the other paddock and into the yards.  The yards were about 3/4mile away and there were a lot of ewes between us and the yards.  So, we ended up trailing them to my camp and I hooked up the lamb-bus (atv trailer with panels setup in it so a sheep can stand up in it).  We cornered the rams between the trailer and fence.  I then jump one and got him hog-tied.  We managed to move the other back into the same position and I leg-crooked him.  I kept saying to myself, don't lose him, don't lose him.  Most sheep are smart enough to know when something bad happens, like being leg-crooked, you are not going to be able to get them back there.  After getting them both hog-tied and lifting them onto the trailer we drove very slowly back to the truck at the watering point.  Did I mention the lamb-bus has a flat tire.  The rams were very stressed at this point and I worried about their health so I moved quickly to get them down to the ram pasture.  On the way down, about 8am, I ran into the guy I lease pasture from and we gave him a ride back down the hill.  I explained the fun morning we had had already and he just shook his head.  He then asked me what my plan was for the day.  I honestly didn't remember what was on my list. 

• Something I have realized about farming and sheep-farming is that you can make a list each morning but you should just take it to the bathroom with you.  Because that is about what a list is worth.  There is a saying that you have time and then you have farmer-time.  I can see myself moving into farmer-time.  It seems there is always so much to do that hours are like minutes and days come and go too quickly to get everything done.  I remember being able to count the minutes in a day and now it seems I can barely count the days in a week.  Mind you, I am not complaining.

• My old truck is starting to show it's age.  I replaced the tire-rods in it today.  I will finish the job tomorrow.  Driving in the paddocks has really taken a lot out of the front-end. 

05-06-06

11:45am

• $450 later and my truck now has a rebuilt front-end.  You know how these things go on old trucks.  You find one problem and the chain of parts needing to be replaced gets longer and longer.  On the upside it drives like a new truck now.  I wonder how long this front-end will last.

• I built a new valve system for the watering point on the west pasture.  I built it out of 2" PVC pipe and quick release adapters.  I have only one valve so I have to move it to the other pasture when the sheep are there.  I also got the water truck hooked up and everything working.  I put part of the water valve bracket into the ground hoping that when the sheep push on it, it will hold up.  There is nothing worse then losing water, when you have to truck water in.  I have to devise some type of cover to keep the sheep back away from the valve and hose assembly.

• Lambing seems to just keep going and going this year.  I found at least three ewes with new lambs yesterday.  At this rate I will be lambing 12 months out of the year.  Lambs=money and money=good but there is a limit.  The up side is that these ewes are pasture lambers and so I don't really need to do much.  The downside is that I need to mark the lambs and some are getting a little too old to be out with the ewes un-touched.  I don't like marking lambs before they are at least a month old but this year I may end up marking very young lambs, at least if this lambing doesn't stop soon.

05-07-06

6pm

Recent Photos:

Gale sleeping next to a bummer lamb. Cameron's water tower. Home Livestock Guardian Puppies at the water point. Trooper (LGD) with his head in the feeder. 5600gal water tanker.  The truck is a 1974 (older them me) International with a 10speed. The three important machines.  Truck, 4wheeler and House.

• New things I have learned this week:

• How to drive a 10speed truck. 

• Fill the water trailer with water and you have to re-learn how to drive a 10speed truck.

• Never go faster in the water-truck then you must.

• If you must have water to the sheep, something will either break or you will not for some other reason be able to hook everything up and get water flowing as soon as you think you will.

• EVERYTHING in sheep-farming takes twice as long as you think it will.

• The most important person in the sheep yards is the person at the drafting gate.  The second most important person is the one looking out for escaped sheep.

• Don't stop the flow through the drafting gate or the sheepyards unless you must.  Once stopped it takes a lot of work to get things going again.

• Before you leave on the bike to gather sheep, Open all the gates and the sheepyards before you leave.  Stopping the flow of sheep to get the gate open will cause your dog to work twice as hard to get the sheep moving again.

• Always have a full tank of gas in the bike before you leave to gather or check your sheep.  You may not think so, but you will need the extra gas.

• If you have only one sheepdog, he will get hurt and you will have no sheepdog.

• Always take somebody up on their offer to help you gather sheep.  A friend who will help you gather sheep or work the yards is a friend indeed.  On the same note, always buy lunch for or otherwise provide lunch for anyone willing to help you work your sheep.

• Even though a list is worthless, make one anyway.  It helps you think about what needs to be done and what should be done.  These are not always on the same list, so keep track of them.

• Take half the day off on Sunday or whenever you can.  Your body needs to recover and your mind will thank you for it.

• Get enough sleep before taking on a big task.  It makes you feel better and the task smaller.  It also makes you a nicer person to work for and with, when you are luck enough to have somebody helping you.

• Learn to swear so nobody can hear you.

05-21-06

12:48pm

• We got an insane amount of sheep-work done this week on Cameron's flock.  We put his band through the shearing truck early in the week.  It took three days to shear the entire band of sheep.  He has some fantastic fleeces come off and he was very happy.  The downside was that is was near 100 degrees each day and we were all feeling it.  This was very true of the dogs.  You run the highest risk of warbling a dog the first few hot days of the year.  This is because they are not accustom to the heat.  Most good dogs I know will not stop working to drink and so you MUST stop them and MAKE them get a drink and have a rest.  They will literally work themselves to death if you don't watch out.  As for me, both feet now have blisters on the toes and I am walking like an old man.  Mick ended up tearing the pad on his left foot early in the week but carried on working as needed.  As I have said before there are better dogs then Mick in this world but he has heart and heart counts.

• After shearing on Mon. - Wed. Mick and I moved my flock and all the stuff that goes with them (water trailer, salt, LGDs and LGD puppies, fencer, etc) back to Mark's paddock.  We have been grazing Randy's paddock for almost a month straight and Mark's has gotten a little out of control.  I had a hell of a time getting both LGDs to move to the new paddock.  I pulled a couple puppies off and kept them at camp, Randy's side, and Nine really didn't want to move on without them.  She found one male puppy (one I am keeping) and camped out by the fence but once I moved the sheep in the gate was closed.  I didn't have time to help her over.  Trooper the male LGD also didn't want to leave Randy's paddock.  It took me some time to figure out why.  It turns out I had a dead ewe in the bottom of a VERY steep draw.  I finally found here.  She had been bitten by a snake and "fell out of the pasture".  Trooper was guarding her body.  This is very common for a LGD to do.  Whenever you see an LGD staying in one place and not wanting to move on with the flock you can bet there is a dead sheep there.  After all that I managed to catch Trooper and put him in with the flock.  The four puppies left managed to find him in the pasture and Trooper is showing them the ropes.

• The sheep didn't have water for about .5 hour after I moved them.  It was already 85 degrees at 9:30am.  When I got the truck moved and the water hooked up I had to sit there for a half hour and keep them from killing each other at the water point.  They acted as if they never had water.  Mick and I then had to walk about a mile back to sheep camp, nobody to give us a ride back after moving the water truck.  By this time it was 11am and well over 95 degrees.  We then got the bike and went down to Mark's paddock to push the remaining sheep over to the watering point.  NEVER assume sheep will find the water on their own in a new paddock or one they have been out of for a while.  This is asking for dead sheep.  Some of these ewes had new lambs and it took a while to get them moved.

• On Fri. we re-gathered Cameron's flock back into the yards and sorted off the lambs.  It was 90+ degrees again.  And again Mick is on three legs.  Lucky for him Cameron has a young dog that is not bad and I put Mick in the shed to recover and used Cameron's dog for a while in the yards.  The ewes really didn't want to come down the race and things were VERY slow with the dogs needing to push very hard.  Once the lambs where off the ewes we hauled come culls to another pasture (got a trailer flat on the way) and came back to trail the ewes off to their paddock.  Today was weaning day.  Lambs are about the most crazy animal on weaning day.  They are also very inventive when it comes to finding ways to kill each other.  They will pileup on the fence and crush each other in a panic.  It takes a lot of work to keep them alive long enough to get the ewes away.  We trailed the ewes back to there paddock about .5 mile away.  I let Mick ride on the bike as much as possible.

• Once we returned we pushed the lambs into the shed and began vaccinating and worming them in preparations for moving them to green-peas.  The dust in the shed was just insane.  I coughed for two days after that.

• I left around 7:30pm and didn't go to the house for a shower.  Just headed to camp to check my own sheep and see Katie who came up for the weekend.  Katie has learned to deal with my dirt and my smell.  She says she doesn't mind.

• Sometimes when I am heading back to camp I get a feeling that something is wrong as I drive back.  It usually happens when I have been gone for more then 6 hours.  It was no different this time.  I found one of the rams in the ram-paddock had been bitten by a snake as well and was dead.  As you may have guessed this time of year is the worst for snakes.  It is the first hot weather and they are EVERYWHERE.  I don't walk in the grass or get off the bike if I can avoid it.  I mostly worry about sheep and dogs getting bitten.  This is common.

Photos:

05-29-06

1:36pm

• We moved the flock over to the 550 acre paddock.  I also moved the rams up to my friends pasture in Walla Walla.  Her grass is way out of control and she needed some backup.  The rams should have about a months worth of graze there.

• I have only two LGD puppies left and one is sold.  Cameron took the little female I had set aside for him.  I will be getting one of his LGD pups in return.  The two males that are left spend most of there time hanging around the watering point, eating and sleeping.

• I found a dead ewe this morning.  She was attacked by Coyotes.  We had a hell of a wind storm and she must have not been sticking with the flock.  The LGDs cannot be everywhere at once.  I also noticed a ewe that had triplets now has a single.  I never found any sign of the other lambs.  Again, Coyotes.  I am thinking I may start bring in the sheep at night again.  It is a difficult thing to do every night but it does save you from Predation losses.  The other issue with bring them in at night is you can only have the pen on scab-ground and not in the field.

7:27pm

• I found a lamb dead by Coyote.  That makes one ewe and three lambs.  I have no idea what happened.  Most likely, it was very windy last night and the Coyotes came in down wind of the LDGs (Live Stock Guardian Dog).  The LDGs most likely never knew the Coyotes where there until they found the dead lamb and ewe.  Last night was a very bad night.  I haven't found any dead sheep from Coyotes in almost two months.  I hope it wasn't a bitch with her pups.  Coyote females with pups must teach them to hunt.  They will, instead of killing one sheep, maim multiple sheep or lambs then let them go in order to let the pups kill the sheep.  A bitch with pups on her can be a shepherds worst nightmare.  I will call the trapper tomorrow and see what he has to say about it.  Most likely we will need to get the plane here to track her down.  The strange thing is that I haven't seen a Coyote in the traps or otherwise in a couple months.  What is worse, it could be a cat or a bear.  At least if it is one of those, we can find it and that will be the end of it. Needless to say, I am very frustrated. 

• There is no way to explain how I feel when I come across a dead ewe or lamb on my checks, however that will not stop me from trying to write about it.  I feel a deep sense of loss and then the next thought is about what I can do to prevent it and if I could have done anything to prevent it.  It is not unlike anything that happens that anyone is involved in that has a bad result.  Staying one step in front of the Coyotes is the hardest thing I know of. Buy more Guard Dogs? Bring the sheep in each nigh?  Move the trailer into the middle of the flock and never leave?  Never Leave?  As a businessperson with the daily reality of living, I cannot never leave.  I have stuff to get done that is not in this paddock.

• I got a contract to graze peas crop residue.  Nobody I have talked to has done this with sheep before so it seems I am breaking new ground.  I will test my ewes for pregnancy and take the ewes with lambs and the pregnant ewes to the peas.  I will leave the rest of the flock on the wheat stubble.  This is an important time of the year to have sheep on the wheat stubble.  They need to eat down as much stubble as they can before harvest.  This allows the farmer to not have to mow the stubble or burn it.  The sheep also help to keep down summer weeds.  I don't want to leave my farmer with no sheep on his fields but the lambs and ewes need to go on peas before harvest in late July.

• We have gotten a bit of rain up here and the wheat is coming on like wild-fire.  The farmers are in good spirits since it was so hot they feared the wheat going blue.  This means the wheat stops growing and the harvest is not very good.  In a sense the wheat thinks it is time to stop growing.

• Katie and I got a new house to rent.  It is a bit run down but has a 100 acres of pasture with it.  This should be enough to carry Katie's horse and a couple cows that I gave Cameron a while back.  It is high desert and fenced for cattle not sheep so I don't think I will run any sheep there.  The carrying capacity is not very good even in the spring so in the summer it will not carry many sheep.  Not enough to make it worth fencing for sheep, even with temp. fencing.  Besides we only have a six month lease.  I think it makes more sense to live closer to Pendleton where Katie got a job.  So, we will keep looking for new places to rent and someday, be able to buy a small homestead. 

• Soon I will move out of the paddock and into a house.  Nothing worries me more then being away from my sheep.

06-08-06:

12pm

• After a week of living in the house, I am starting to adjust.  I am like an outside dog that is not an inside dog.  I have to resist my impulse to just pee wherever I am standing.  Not to mention wash my dishes out and clean up after myself.  Living alone for the past 4 months in a trailer in the middle of a 2000 acres took some getting used to as well.

• Sheep are doing well.  They are hammering down the wheat stubble and maintaining their weight.  The lambs are not gaining that well but they only need to hold out for another couple weeks before they go to grazing pea-crop residue.  They will gain like crazy on those peas.  They are mostly able to build frame right now.

• I took my two Jersey steers into the butch a couple day back.  They broke out of the 4-strand barbed wire fence at the house and then out of 3-strands of electric at Cameron's and into Cameron's neighbors place.  So, they got shipped.  I am really going to enjoy eating them.

• We are lamb-marking on Sat.  Give me a call if you want to come help out.  541 215 9109.

06-13-06

6pm

• Still living in the house and still adjusting.  I must say there are things that I missed but didn't realize it until now.  It is good to have a place to sleep that is dry and not so windy.  It is good to have Katie here when I come home after work.  It is good to have a place for my dogs to play in the yard without having to worry about them.  Now, I worry about the sheep instead.

• House Challenges:  The septic system was over-flowing into the yard.  Come to find out, after a $480 pumping job, the pipe to the drainage field was clogged.  I dug this out and things seem to be moving freely now.  I bought a riding lawn-mower, an old one, and it blowup after mowing half the lawn.  The seller did take it back.  I got two used push mowers for half the price because he felt badly about it.  I took the two Jersey calves to slaughter this past week.  They where difficult, to say the least, to keep fenced and I will have a smile on my face when I bite into that first steak.

• I took Mick to a sheepdog trial on Sunday.  It has been 6 months since our last trial.  We finished the course and I haven't seen our score but I would guess we are in the top 10 or 15.  The gather was difficult.  The fetch had a large portion that was blind and the sheep, after three days of trialing, really wanted to break back to the setout pen.  I am not sure what Mick did in the blind section but he got the sheep moving.  I assume he wasn't asking them nicely. 

• We did get the lambs marked this past Sat.  It went smoothly.  I only lost one lamb out of the sorting shoot.  We also had one lamb jump out of the sorting pen.  With the help of Cameron and Lisa and Mick we managed to catch that escaped lambs and get them marked.  I have said it before and will say it again, the most important people in the sheep yards are the sorter and the watcher.  We ended up with about 130 lambs.  This would be about 160% lambing.  This is a good percentage considering almost half of the ewes that lambed are ewe-lambs.

• Next we have pregnancy testing to get done.  This will be another long day but one that must be accomplished.  I also hope to be able to start putting in some permanent fence on Perkins place this month.  It would be good to get some of the easier sections fenced.

06-19-06

6pm

• Just when I thought I was done with marking lambs for the year, my phone rings.  It was my friend Melinda and she had 100 lambs to get marked on Sunday.  The marking went fine but it started late, around noon.  All because I went to Portland for the day on Saturday and so of course my sheep found something to get into because one single day went by without me there to check them.  I figured they had two days of water in the tank but when I check on Sunday before lamb marking the tank was empty.  They had water in the trough still but the tank was all but out.  So, now I either had to move the flock back to the other pasture with that had a full tank of water in the water truck or I had to move the water truck.  Moving the water truck seemed like the fastest way to get water to the sheep so I could go mark lambs.  The down-side is that when I am alone after moving the water trailer to the other paddock I have to walk back to my truck.  This is a 1.5mile walk.   

• I decided to take Gale with me in the truck, she didn't like to ride in the truck.  This semi is not very big but it runs on a straight-pipe so you can hear us from a mile away and it is very loud in the cab.  I figured Gale isn't afraid of anything, including gun-shoot but she didn't seem to like the semi for the first part of the ride.  By the time we were done she didn't seem to care and I had a hard time getting her to jump down from the cab.  It seems she didn't want to walk back either. 

06-25-06

1:30pm

• Hot, Hot, Hot.  It is in the upper 90's today and every living thing is feeling the heat.  The sheep are drinking about 1500gal of water each day now.  I am putting them down on some scab-ground, the same spot where I pasture lambed my hairsheep this spring.  The weeds are about three feet talk and the sheep have been happy to have some green feed.  They have gotten through just about all of Mark's stubble and the summer weeds are just now starting to come on.

• We have Preg.-testing scheduled for Wed.  I really have no idea what to expect for a pregnancy rate.  I have been watching the ewes for signs of pregnancy but you just never really know until you have them tested or you see a lamb on the ground behind them.  I have several friends including Katie, Cameron, Sue Wessels, Lisa and Melinda coming out to the paddock to give a hand.  The vet gets paid $150 per hour so I need all the help I can get keeping the sheep pushed up.  I hope it isn't as hot as it is now.  The dogs, sheep and people will be melting.

• I have been asked to write an article for Stockdogs magazine.  I have no idea what I will write about, if you have an suggestions please email me: eric@harlowshillswestcoast.com.

• I actually had a ewe-lamb have a lamb yesterday.  That is what I get for letting the rams run with the ewes all winter.  I happy it was a Katahdin ewe-lamb because there really isn't anything I have to worry about doing.  Just another lamb to sale.  Nothing to complain about there.

07-07-06

• Preg-testing went off without a hitch.  I don't have nearly the number of out of season breeders as I was hopping for.  This is a mixed blessing in that I will only have a few sheep to lamb out in Sept.  Sue Wessels, Melinda, Katie, Lisa, and Cameron where all there.  It really helps to have lots of people on the ground when you are doing something that you are paying for by the hour.  The Vet, Jill from Spokane along with her assistant, was great.  It was amazing how fast she could test each ewe.  It took her about 20 seconds for each ewe.  Most of the time she was waiting on us to push sheep up and not the other way around.

• I sorted off the ewes with lambs and the pregnant ewes on July 1st to take them down to the peas crop residue.  Those are some happy sheep.  The peas are sweet peas, the type you buy in a can.  They ran out of time and left about 18 acres of peas un-harvested.  The funny thing is that when I let the sheep off the trailer I expected them to go right into the peas but instead they walked around the pasture eating all the China-lettuce first and are now working on the Russian-thistle.  I could hardly believe it.  Here they have sweet peas to eat and they instead choose to eat weeds.  Go figure.  That was last Sat. and on Sun. we CDT and wormed all of Melinda's sheep and brought them down to the peas.  Her ewes did the same thing.  Needless to say we got a lot of sheep work done last week.  It was 90-100 degrees each day but we where smart enough to start working at 5am.  I currently have about 18 acres of peas fenced and am interested in how long it will take them to get through it.  We have 66 pregnant ewes, 160 ewes with about 250 lambs.  This makes for around 450 sheep total. 

• There are a few shepherds and farmers around here waiting and watching to see how running ewes and lambs on peas crop residue works out.  As far as I can tell, nobody had done this before around here.  It isn't easy being a ground breaker.  You either look really smart or really stupid.  It is a 50/50 chance.

• Gale has started working this week.  She is about 7 months old now.  She is very keen and I don't have any commands on her accept for her name.  She is a very serious worker and very helpful.  I put her behind the flock and she moves them along.  I call her name to put her into the correct position to be helpful.  She has a lot of walkup.

• I have written an article for Stockdogs magazine.  Click here to read it.

07-12-06

4:17pm

• I have the sheep on peas another 4.33 acres of peas to graze.  I normally wouldn't give them this much this soon but there is a patch of Russian Thistle that I wanted  to get fenced and get the sheep working on before it gets out of control.  The sheep actually seem to prefer the peas that where harvested over the dried out peas that were not.  I guess it is because the peas that when through the harvester actually look like green piles of pea hay.  Perhaps the peas that were left standing and dried out are just too dry to taste good.  Of course they prefer the Russian Thistle to the peas.  I just don't understand it.

• The last LGD puppy went to his new home today.  I was a bit sad to see him go but happy to have him off my hands.

• Cameron brought my male LGD puppy I traded him a puppy for.  I traded him one of my females for one of his males.  The mothers of both puppies are sisters from the same litter.  But the fathers are different.  Nine's litter of pups where out of a Anatolian male and Sal's (Cameron's LGD, Nines sister) litter was from Cameron's Akabash male.  Truth be told I like the Anatolian dogs better then the Akabash but one must try other crosses to see how they turn out.  I named this puppy Frank.  He goes by "Dirty Frank" since his hair-coat is much longer then my dogs and so is always full of dirt and almost black from the dust.  He seems to be a really good puppy.  He is very healthy and is very forward and barks a lot.  He has no fear of people and is friendly.  When I drive up on the bike he first comes running out barking and then once he sees that it is me, his tale starts waging and he wants some attention.  He is actually really helping make Jorge (the LGD puppy I kept from Nine's litter) more friendly.  Both pups will come up to me now for a pat.  I think they will both make excellent LGDs.

• Trooper is still by himself down on the peas.  I am considering taking Jorge down there to get some training from Trooper.  Jorge is actually growing up fast.  I put the dry ewes on some scab-ground today for weed control and Jorge followed Nine and the band all the way down to the scab ground.  He didn't know what to do once we got there and the sheep went  down the slope but I was impressed that he was acting like a real LGD.  Frank is a bit young to want to travel with the band but I imagine he will start working in a couple month too.  Frank is about 2 months younger then Jorge.

• I will begin Gale's formal training tomorrow.  My friend has a handful of wethers at her house and I will start putting Gale on them in the morning.  I don't want to let her go long without formal training.  She will start to pick up some very bad habits.  I believe in having my dogs very well trained before I let them work on their own.  You can always tune them up once you have trained them to a high level.  But if you never train them as pups, it take a lot longer to break bad habits once they are there then to simply avoid them in the beginning.

• All of my lambs from 2005 are sold out.  We still have about 20 2005 lambs of Cameron's to sale before we get into the 2006 lamb crop.  I am sure we will have enough lambs to make the gap before the new crop is ready for sale.

07-29-06

• This has been a hell of a week.  I hauled 133 ewes and lambs up to Bonner's Ferry in northern ID.  We had the sheep sorted and load by 9pm and I was on the road shortly after.  I got there about 3:40am and unloaded by 4am.  I slept on the buyer's coach until 9am and drove back.  I then had to check all my sheep, etc, etc. before heading home.  I had to sleep in today until 7am just to finally catch up on my sleep.

• I also got about 70 acres of new wheat stubble fenced and trailed the sheep down to the new paddock yesterday.  Trailing them was insanely difficult.  The problem was the dust.  The wind was blowing from behind us and there was so much dust that when the sheep started walking they couldn't see in front of them.  This made the sheep not want to move.  On top of that it was 100 degrees by 11am.  We started at 6am.  Mick worked his butt off.  We took two small groups down the trail earlier.  I wanted to see how they would act since I was alone with just Mick.  I didn't really want to get 900 ewes on the road and have them go crazy when I was alone.  So, I cut off about 60 ewes and trailed them down the road.  they broke away a bit to get into some new stubble that wasn't fence off.  This is not a big deal, we just pushed them back on the road and it only took about .5 hour to get them to the new paddock.  Then we took a bigger second group of about 200 ewes.  This also went fine.  So finally, I knew we had to hurry up because time was ticking.  I needed to get them moved before the real heat got there.  It is true that we you turn the heat up the sheep just STOP moving.  So, there I am with 600 or so ewes breaking into the new stubble and really not wanting to stop eating and walk.  So Mick and I worked and worked them back onto the road and they began to trail.  I had to keep flanking Mick up the steep embankment in order to push the ewes off and onto the road.  Things where actually going well, until we hit the really dusty part of the road.  This is really fine dust and I am not kidding, I couldn't see 10 sheep in front of me, much less the lead ewes.  All the sudden they stopped.  It was like they hit a fence and refuse to push through.  You have to remember that these are yearling ewes and so are not very smart about trailing and such.  I sold all my Katahdins and therefore more experience lead ewes.  I must remember to keep back a couple wethers from this years lamb crop in order to put bells on and use as lead sheep.   So, long story short, I ended up getting off my bike and pushing about 100 ewes on the front down the trail about 100 feet and moving backwards back through the sheep and they would run past me.  I did this for about 1.5 miles down the trail.  The dust was so thick I felt like I couldn't breath. 

• After finally getting the ewes down the trail I went back and got the water trough and valve, etc.  Once I got the water going I had to stand guard on the water.  Ewes will kill each other if they get panicked for water.  If a ewe falls down she will get walked on.  This doesn't happen often but when they are off water for a couple hours and hot and dusty, they get very panicky about getting a drink.  Lambs are even worse. 

• To award myself for getting the sheep moved and everything done this week.  I took today off.  Actually, I didn't.  I just drove around in my truck doing all the stuff I cannot do while I am trying to move fence.  They just harvested the wheat and so my next two-three weeks will be spent taking fence down and putting it up on new stubble.  Life will become a blur of work and making sure I drink enough water.  Mick is going to get about a week off.  I am borrowing a friends dog.  She is actually very nice on hard sheep.  But, she is very out of shape so I will have to watch her closely.  If things work out, maybe I will put her to Mick. 

• One of the reasons Mick gets the week off is that Nine, the main LGD is in deep heat and I don't need any BC/LGD puppies.  Also, Gale is in heat.  Mick doesn't know if he is coming or going.  All he knows is these girls look great.

• I may be expanding to 2000 ewes.  I haven't decided to do it yet but I am considering it.  I mean, can you ever have enough sheep and work for that matter.  If I do expand, I will hire a full-time worker.  Running 1000 head alone is one thing, running 2000 head is another.

• I may have a really sweet lambing camp setup for this year.  I have to meet with the owners next week but it is really cool.  It has running water and power in two 150' barns.  Life would be sweet.

07-31-06

• I am in the process of looking for a new 5th-wheel RV.  I have decided to junk this one out.  The refrigerator crapped out and it will cost more then I paid for it to replace it.  So, If you have a $500 RV with everything working and NO leaks.  Give me a call. 541 215 9109

08-16-06

• I still don't have all of Randy's new stubble fenced yet.  Life keeps getting in the way.  The sheep have plenty to eat but it will run out in about a week.

• I have a older used John Deer tractor coming from the Midwest.  I bought it on terms and I just hope it keeps running past when I have it paid for.  It is amazing how well tractors hold their value.  Not like a car at all.  This is a 100hp two wheel drive with a Front End Loader big enough to unload semi-trucks (we get hay delivered by the semi truck-load).  The nice thing is that it also has a cab on it.  It did have a major over-haul so that should mean it will last for a while.  The thing that kills me is that I only need a tractor for a couple months of the year and to unload the hay-trucks.  The rest of the time it will sit around.

• The sheep are doing very well on the pea-crop residue.  The lambs are looking very well.  I am hoping to take the lambs to some new stubble right next to where they are currently grazing.  The Russian thistle is so thick in there, it is perfect sheep feed.  Not to mention the China-lattice.  I am hoping to get all my lambs and my friend's lambs contracted together.  This would make her very happy and she is helping me out with lambing my 66 sept. lambing ewes.

• I am going to lamb the 66 ewes out at Melinda's place.  She has about 15acres of irrigated pasture and jugs already setup.  It feels like I just got done lambing and I am back in it again.  This lambing should be more difficult than any I have done before.  These are all first time lambers.  They are also ewes that come from a long line of jug-lambed ewes.  That reminds me, I have to get more lambing supplies ordered ASAP.

• I just ordered 150ton of peas-hay.  Actually I got two truck-loads (80ton) of sweat-pea hay and two trucks of Austrian-pea hay.  The Austrian-pea hay will test dairy quality.  It does have a bit of volunteer wheat in it as well.  I cannot seem to find anyone who had oat-hay in this year.  I would kill for 60ton of oat-hay or barely-hay

• I haven't been able to nail down those people on the lambing camp yet.  God, I hope they go for it.

• Gale is just coming out of her first heat.  She is learning to fight off Mick, the poor girl.  I swear Mick is all man, all the time these days.  Nine, the guard-dog is also back in heat.  So much for LGDs only coming into heat once a year.  I really have to keep Mick away from here.  The worst thing would be to have Border Collie/Anatolian puppies.  However, I don't think Nine would mind one little bit.  Trooper is still on the lambs so he is not here to breed here.  I am actually happy about that, I don't need her to be having a litter of puppies around while I am lambing in Feb.  I will need Nine 100%. 

• Nine actually chased Gale off the sheep last night.  I was using her to move them down off the hill-top for some concentrated grazing and Nine cam out after her.  Gale ran to me and Nine turned away.  She has never done this to Gale.  I guess it must be a female thing.

8-19-06

• I fence off another 25acres of peas for Melinda's ewes and my lambs.  The battery had run out the night before for the fencer so by the time I got there around 12pm, I had about 24 sheep out on the road free-grazing the weeds.  Good thing this is a single lane dirt road that is basically only used by the farmers in the area.  I had the four-wheeler with me so I unloaded it and herded them back into the paddock.  Needless to say, I was pissed at them.  I mean, they had a lot of pea-residue left in the paddock I last fenced but they just wanted they green weeds instead guess.  Anyway, they have more feed then they need at this point.

• I have to pull the pregnant woolies off the peas next week.  Unfortunately Cameron it taking his kids to the water park for a few days and then going to Montana to buy rams.  This means, I have a trailer but no truck to pull it.  This is an ongoing issue, I will have to sort out soon.  If my house ever sells, I think I will buy a semi-truck.  Then I can pull the set of doubles as well as my double-decker gooseneck for small loads.  My poor old Chevy just will not do it in this heat.

• It was 106 today and I was feeling the heat.  I did manage to get some of the new stubble fence line dragged (use the four-wheeler and a small drag I found to knock the weeds down so I can put fence in).  The Perkins (the farmer I graze for) got almost all the fence line mowed for me.  So now the fencing should be very fast.  I am going to do a grazing job for him by his house, only 130acres but I guess it is thick in weeds.  They want to plant spring-wheat there so they need the sheep to clear the weeds and the stubble.  I hope to be able to finish my lambs on this stubble.  I guess it is 60bu stubble so should be good feed.

• In case I didn't mention it before, I sold all my Katahdins.  I am now 100 percent committed to super-fine wooled sheep.  It feels very strange to have my Katahdins gone.  There are a lot of things I miss about them and some I don't.  I don't miss how flighty they could be, but I do miss having the older ewes around to show everyone else what to do.  But, as my father says, "you can only be really good at one thing at a time."  You see my family is from the New England Harlows.  Some people who read that will know what I mean.

09-06-06

• Very busy this past couple weeks.  I fenced 130acres of new stubble for Melinda's sheep at Randy's house.  It has a LOT of China-Lettice on it and he needs it grazed off before he goes into plant Spring-Wheat.  This is a money loser for me but I wanted to help out Melinda and Randy and this way I can do both at the same time.  I traded Melinda the cost of the new fence for letting me graze and lamb my 66 Sept. lambing ewes at her place.  She has about 15acres of irrigated grass that I have been stockpiling for my ewes and very soon, new lambs. 

• My early lambing ewes haven't started to lamb yet but I feel it will really get under way around the 10th, due to the "Ram effect".  The Ram Effect is when you have ewes that are not cycling and not within smelling distance from a ram.  Then you add a bunch of rams and the ewes get well, excided and start to cycle.  Obviously this didn't work on my entire flock but I was asking a lot.  I mean, WAY out of season breading, on yearling ewes.  I knew this was a tall order but I figured why not take a shot and see what happens.  Needless to say, I will keep back any fine-wooled ewe-lambs from this lambing.  Their mothers bred in April so I can only hope they too will be out of season breeders.  It remains to be seen if I would try this again in the future but if I get a really good price for the lambs, I just may.  Wouldn't it be nice to have 50% of the ewes lamb in Sept.  The key to lambing in Sept. is that the band will be going onto grass-circles for the winter.  This is very good feed and the lambs should be perfect for the Easter market. 

• I have two ewes that are so pregnant that they have a hard time following the flock around a 7acre paddock.  I just hope they mother their lambs on pasture.

• As for me, I have been running myself to the bone.  I put up the new fence for the paddock and took down the old fence and moved off the peas.  Katie then followed me as I trailed the water tanker home.  It was a hair-raising experience.  This is a small single axle semi with a 5600gal water-tanker for a trailer.  The tanker-trailer has no brakes on it and the truck is older then I am.  Moving down the road was no big deal but I needed to take the back-roads, for this truck isn't officially suppose to be on the road, no tags.  Anyway, I had Katie in my truck behind me and I was trying to stay on the gravel roads.  I took a wrong turn, I am still learning my way around this county, and ended up in Helix.  This is a small town at the bottom of Butler Grade.  Our rented house is on the other side of Butler Grade.  I didn't want to go this way.  In fact it was a nightmare to have to drive a semi truck up and then DOWN Butler Grade.  Needless to say, I couldn't even dream of driving a semi with a trailer with NO breaks down the Butler Grade.  Well, I was now sitting at the intersection in Helix with a choice.  I could either turn around and drive back from where I came or attempt a run at the Butler Grade in this truck.  Did I mention that Katie was late for work.  Only because I am sitting here typing this would I even bring that up.  If I would have crashed the truck I wouldn't have mentioned it.  She is a saint.  Like my father once said, "If you do something stupid and it turns out OK, it is an adventure.  But, if you do something stupid and it turns out bad, then you should know better."  So, Katie is late for work, I am in a truck I drive maybe twice a year and the tanker-trailer has no breaks.  I do something stupid, I decide to just go over the grade and get home in plenty of time for Katie to get to work and me to go check the rest of my sheep.  I wasn't sure the truck would climb the grade to begin with but I remember a trick my father showed me on how to get the truck in a high enough gear to climb the grade but not let the wheels slip.  You see if you are in too low a gear the truck will not have enough speed to make the climb and as you apply more power you will be going slow enough to make the wheels start to spin.  On gravel this means you will dig in and the truck will stop.  So, I put her in third-low, this is a 10speed truck, and started up the grade.  She went along with little effort accept a couple hills.  So far, so good.  We got to the top of the grade and started our decent.  The key on a decent is to use the gears to slow you down and NOT the breaks.  Again, as my father says, "breaks are for stopping and gears are for controlling your speed."  I stopped at the top of the grade and put her in first-low. I then began down the gravel decent.  The trailer was really pushing on the truck and I could look back in the mirror to see the rear tires actually slipping on the gravel as they attempted to push back against the trailer in keeping time with the engine.  This truck doesn't have a muffler on it and so I felt apart of the engine and it's grown to absorb the forward motion of gravity.  With each turn and bend in the road the engine was able to keep the trailer at bay but just.  I had to use the breaks on a few of the steepest parts of the grade.  Me and this truck have a history with hills and I was afraid this would be the next chapter in that history.  At one point, Katie actually stopped following me and got out to pick flowers along the road "since I was taking so long."  That is sheep-farming for you.  One person picks flowers while the other shits their pants.  In the end, I made it down the grade.  Katie and I had time to fix the fence for her horses and everyone was happy.  I also had time to change my pants.

• We ended up leaving about 20acres of peas un-grazed.  I spoke to the farmer about it and he seemed to be OK with it.  One thing I am learning however, you never can read a farmer.

• I have started to train on Gale each day.  She is picking up on the training very well.  I can see that she doesn't like the come-bye side, clockwise.  With her I don't use Come-bye but rather "Fly."  This is so I can use her with Mick on the sheep and they will have different sides.  I can say Come-bye and Mick will pickup the command and Gale will not.  So, I have Mick on Come-bye for clock-wise and Away-to-me for counter-clockwise.  These are the most basic of flanks and have been used for as long as anyone can remember.  BUT, I have changed Gale's to Fly and Sweep.  I learned these from Derrick Fisher.  The thing to remember if you want to run two dogs at once is that they best not have the same commands.  I tried running Sioux and Mick together but I would have to say their names before each command.  So, if I wanted Sioux to flank, I would say "Sioux, come-bye."  This only worked if both dogs where dead on their feet.  If the dogs where feeling good and where a bit full of it, they would take each other's flanks even if I didn't ask them to.  It was not fare to get mad at Mick for flanking when I said a flank to Sioux because they had the same flanks.  I hope to not have that issue with Mick and Gale.

• I am getting a new pup from my good friend Robbie.  He has a Kelpie out of his Fern and from his Taco dog.  I have always loved that Taco dog and so I look forward to having the pup.  Cameron is also taking a pup.  He had one dog set aside for his herder but he knows the herder will need at least two or three dogs.  Actually, the perfect number of dogs per herder would be around 4-6 dogs.  It is one thing to run your sheep behind fence but when you are herding them, you need a few good dogs.

09-08-06

• I just got back from Burns Oregon.  I went down with my truck and 30' trailer to help Cameron move some wheel-lines back to his ranch at Pilot Rock, OR.  We didn't get all the parts moved back.  It seems it will take many trips.

• Began my fall lambing today.  Katie called me while I was in Burns, it always happens when you are not there.  It is a nice big Texel/Debouillet ram-lamb.

09-09-06

• Another lamb today.  I ended up turning the ewe and getting the lamb on the teat.  I let him go for the morning and turned the ewe this afternoon.  One of the nice things about lambing right now is that if you do have a lamb that doesn't start up right away they don't just die.  They can stay alive without milk for a little while so you can find them and help get them started.  If this was winter lambing, that lamb wouldn't have made it.  Then again, if this was winter lambing, that lamb and ewe would be in a jug before or just after she lambed.

• I put the rams in today.  The teaser rams have been in for nine days and each has a small harem following him around the paddock.  The Texel rams went right to work.  I left the teasers in with them.  I don't think this will be much of an issue.  If I see them fighting the Texels I will take them out.  I am re-setting up the yards so I can always run the ewes over there and sort the rams off.

09-18-06

• Fall lambing is in full swing now.  About half the ewes have lambed.  I moved all the ewes that where suppose to lamb to some irrigated pasture at my friends house.  I thought I had them all, but found a new lamb and his mother back on the stubble this morning.  Those are the types of surprises that make sheep farming exciting to say the least.  I didn't catch them to bring them to the lambing pasture.  I figured I would do more harm by messing with her and her new lamb then just letting them bond and relax.  The ewe was being a very good mother and so I had no reason to interfere.  I did lose a lambing ewe this morning.  Something I have never seen but have heard about, she was in full labor but her cervix was NOT dilating.  I caught her and did what I could for her, there isn't much you can do for this type of thing.  Thankfully it is rare.  I ended up losing the ewe.  I then went in and got the lamb but it was already gone as well.  Lambing time can be peaceful and calm but it can also be stressful as hell.  It changes by the minute. 

• Click HERE to see some photos Katie took yesterday day.  I have my bright red Wisconsin sweatshirt on.

• I have had two sets of twins so far.  Those are the number one, big-time ewes.  To have a set of twins your first time as well as breed way out of season.  I wouldn't sell those ewes for three times what I paid for them.  Not to mention they are white-face with 20 micron fleece.  It feels great to to be able to write about the good things too.

• I bought a new pup.  He is a six-month old Kelpie from my friend Robbie.  His name is Guy.  I hope to have his photo on the website by the end of the week.  I put him on sheep yesterday and he did well.  He isn't very attached to me so I will have to buddy up with him before he starts to see me in the picture.  I was able to break through a little bit yesterday.  It will not take much time to get through to him.

• I am suppose to be out fencing some grass that I will graze for a couple weeks but we finally got a little rain and I forgot that you can still work in the rain.  ;-)

09-21-06

• It is cold and rainy now.  I just cannot believe it was 106 about a month ago and now it is 56 and rain.

• My fall lambing continues.  The ewes are doing a fantastic job of lambing in the paddock.  I have at least three sets of twins.  The preg-testing only showed one set.  I really don't like ewe-lambs to have twins.  They just don't know enough to keep track of two lambs.  The best mothers can raise them both but not ever ewe-lamb that has twins can.  I had this conversation with a friend of mine.  He wanted to flush (feed the ewe extra feed just before you introduce the ram, this causes some ewes to produce more eggs, therefore more twins) his ewe-lambs and asked me why I didn't flush my ewe-lambs.  My responds is that I would rather them raise a single the first year then lose twins or one of the twins.  You end up having a lot more bummer lambs if the ewes are not raising both twins.  With lots of ewe-lambs they will get up from a sleep and one lamb will wake up and walk off with her, then the other lamb wakes up and starts to yell for mother.  The ewe doesn't think it is calling her since she already has her lamb.

• I had a meeting with the owners of my future lambing camp.  They agreed to allowing me to use their two lambing building and grounds for two months this winter.  I am very happy.  They also may have some Alfalfa Circles for me to graze. 

• This fall graze period has NOT been very good for finding grass.  I am having to take on 20 acre fields of grass.  Apparently, the grass seed companies have pissed of the grass farmers to the point where most of them are taking their grass seed fields OUT.  This is very BAD for us sheep guys.  I am told that most years farmers are begging us to come graze for them.  This year am running my ass off looking for graze.  I guess that is farming for you.

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