But back to the animals, so I can get you all caught up in time for some current news on this here blog.

Pigs

The short answer is that we’ve found it too cost prohibitive to breed our own pigs, so we will be buying in weaners (8 week old pigs who’ve been weaned from their mother) and raising them to slaughtering weight this year. But at this very moment, there are no pigs here at Red Row Farm.  Here’s what you’ve missed.

After we sent Betty off to the abattoir, we still had Barney, Wilma and her three piglets, and a mangalitsa we were fostering for some foodie friends. Barney was eating a 50 pound bag of feed a day, meaning it cost $35 a day to maintain a boar we only needed to sire piglets twice a year. Not worth it. So we bred him to Wilma one last time and had the vet come out to castrate him so that, in two months, Barney could become 800 pounds of sausage instead of the farm’s most expensive inhabitant. Unfortunately, there must have been some sort of complication, as the next day, Barney was dead in the forest. He’d awaken for breakfast and was walking around fine that morning, but by 11 AM he was no more. As he didn’t appear to bleed out, and it seemed too quick for an infection, we can only assume he threw a clout.

Because he was so big, we couldn’t move his body. And because he died in the forest, tangled with roots, we couldn’t dig a hole to bury him. So in the heat of a particularly brutal summer, we had a giant rotting carcass in the backyard, which Will would occasionally cover with lime, civil war style. Between the stink of death and the damage we sustained during June’s freak storm, aka the Derecho, let’s just say we didn’t have a whole lot of guests this summer.

In October, Wilma gave birth to two piglets, both of which did not survive the day. This we took as a sign to give up the disaster that was pig breeding, at least until we could both be on the farm full time, able to attend to the birth instead of hope nature would prevail. In December, Wilma and her three piglets were off to the abbatoir to become bacon, pork chops and bbq for The Whiskey Jar. So while I would consider us utter failures at pig breeding, what we did manage to raise was some incredibly delicious meat, albeit at an absurd financial loss.

Sheep

After the absolute shit storm that was our first lambing season, everything went perfectly the second time around. All five ewes lambed on their own without any human intervention. With one set of twins and one stillborn, we had 5 bouncing lambs on the farm, brining us to 10 sheep. I was one happy shepherd.

And then the heat hit. And it hit hard. One morning we found a dead sheep under the boxwood, with no obvious cause of death. Then the derecho hit, and we were without power for 11 days. And no power means no water. This is when having a pond becomes invaluable, because while we were holed up at my father-in-law’s townhouse for the week as my very pregnant self was not about to put up with 104 degree temps, no AC and no running water, at least our summer farm hand could water the animals bucket brigade style. Unfortunately, said farm hand was only around in the mornings, and with us living in town temporarily, no one was home when two lambs got tangled up in the chicken netting and died of exposure. The chicken netting was promptly abandoned, but we were down to 7 sheep for no very good reason.

The remaining sheep thrived, but continued to do damage to the young apple trees. Will deemed their service as lawn mowers and meat providers insufficient for reducing our future orchard of 18 trees down to 6, so all seven went to the abattoir this January and it is very unlikely that we’ll raise sheep again here. Personally, I loved having sheep. I loved watching them graze. I just enjoyed their presence, like it made this place feel like more of a farm. But, unless we can find a way to convince our neighbor to sell us the pasture adjoining our property (the one that belonged to our property two owners ago, grumble grumble), we really don’t have a suitable place to raise ruminants. We got away with it for two years because the land was virgin to them, but another year or two without proper space to rotate pastures and we’d have a parasite problem on our hands.

So we enjoyed some amazing lamb chops, have 7 more skins to send to the tannery for rugs, and are officially out of the sheep business.

Rabbits

You’ll notice a running theme here about the derecho. That’s because it pretty much took the little remaining wind out of our exhausted sails this year. Will was working insane hours at The Whiskey Jar, so much so that, on the way to school one morning, Alston asked me if this was the town where Daddy lived now. It was a rough first few months. On top of that, I was working part time, trying to entertain the boy and run all the household what-not, oh and did I mention the brain altering morning sickness I had this go around? 2012 will go down as the year we survived, and sometimes that’s enough. Well, all that sets the stage for June 29^th, when a massive storm blew across the greater US, carrying gusts of wind up to 80 miles per hour. Gusts that conspired to dismantle our 150+ year old willow oak and leave it strewn atop our house and my then brand new car. Defeat, thy name is insurance claims.

What does all this have to do with rabbits, you ask? Well, the morning after the storm, we walked outside expecting to find every single animal dead. Amazingly, everyone looked no worse for the wear with the exception of two rabbits, dead in their cages. Will, a little broken (a little?), decided on the spot to let all the remaining rabbits go. He didn’t have time to process them, didn’t have time to properly care for them, and so he opened their cages in an act of contrition and most likely defeat.

Two of the rabbits are still living free range on the farm over 7 months later, hanging out with the chickens. We may try to catch them again, or we may leave them be. What we will do for sure is get some new rabbits for breeding, now that life has calmed down, Ben is managing the farm, the baby was born, The Jar is now a year old and we’ve finally submitted the last of the claims to USAA (yes, it really has taken this long to get the roof fixed, car rebuilt, tree branches removed, etc. etc. etc.).

Overall

I know this post seems like kind of a downer, but the good news is that we survived. We didn’t thrive last year but we made it to farm another year and do it smarter and with help. We’ve reassessed what we think we can reasonably accomplish and now we can focus on running the farm as a business instead of a homesteading whim. It’s a healthy evolution, even if it kind of sucked getting to this point. So now we can focus on all the things we are doing in 2013 instead of where we fucked up in 2012. That’s got to be a good thing, right?

This morning, while still cold and rainy, both lambs were still alive.  Bertha gave birth the a large and healthy boy who was nursing well.  Flower gave birth to a little girl, maybe even smaller than Lucky (her boy last year), who was chilled but alive.  I rubbed her as dry as I could with a towel and gave her a mouthful of drench, and she got up and started nursing.  Interestingly, Newbie, the only first year ewe we kept, was hanging right with Flower, co-parenting if you will.  The baby would stand between them and nurse, sheltered from the rain and hidden from danger, which likely translates to New Dog.

In fact, New Dog tried to take a sniff and Flower charged that beagle with no hesitation, giving him the ass whooping he’s deserved for months of occasional sheep chasing.  Nice work, Flower.  Meanwhile Scout was lunching on a placenta.  Ick.

This evening when I came home, both lambs were doing well.  Unfortunately, I found a third lamb carcass that had been stripped to the bone.  I can only assume that either 1) it was a stillborn, 2) it died from cold, or 3) one of the dogs killed it.  I have my doubts about 3, but despite the lacking cause of death, it’s obvious that it was then consumed.  I checked the other sheep for signs of afterbirth and Newbie appeared to have some remnants on her hind quarters.  I wonder if that’s why she’s adopted Flower’s ewe lamb, who as of this afternoon was nursing from both Mamas.

The lambs are already getting into mischief.  The boy managed to crawl through the hog paneling and ended up in with the eight month old pigs – a potentially dangerous situation that I’m glad I was around to remedy.  The eight week old piglets are fascinated by the lambs and keep trying to check them out.  Always amusing when farm animals interact.

But let’s be honest, the story is less exciting than the prospect of lamb pics.  So without further ado…

The boy:

The girl (she’s a bit harder to photograph as her moms are rather protective):

Amusingly, the sheep that looks the most pregnant still hasn’t popped.  Gloria was the only “natural” birth mama (to Grace) we had last year, and I swear she’s having twins.  Although she has figured out how to jump the chicken netting to gobble up the scratch we throw for the laying hens, so it could be that she’s just packed on a lot more weight than her sisters.  The Other One, the only ewe of the original batch that doesn’t have a name, is also looking ready.  She had major problems last year as her lamb was too large, so fingers crossed that we didn’t do too much damage removing her stillborn last year that could lead to major complications.

So two healthy lambs out of three, with the likelihood of two or three more in our future.  I love love love having lambs on the farm, but lambing is so stressful.

Please don’t kill any of our ewes mid-labor.  No lambs too big to be birthed.  I’d even rather avoid having to perform any olympic obstetrics, regardless of their ultimately positive outcome.  No no.  Just let me come home from work only to find a newly born lamb happily nursing from its mama.

It’s not that I’ve earned this, or that I’m any more prepared this year vs last, other than a season’s experience and some time to think about what we’d do differently.  Quite the opposite.  I’m effectively a single farmer this year, unless all the lambs decide to be born on Sundays, Tuesdays or Monday evenings when Will is actually home.  I can’t catch a sheep by myself, let alone assist with labor.  I’m not that strong, and I’m not that skilled.  And I just kinda don’t want to.

I just want happy, healthy lambs and happy, healthy mamas munching on grass with no assistance from me.  Is that too much to ask?  That nature does what nature is supposed to do?  (Not that I’m accusing you of not doing your jobs, you guys are great!  Hurray for the Lambing Gods!)

I am happy to make the appropriate sacrifice, provided you let me know what that might be, it doesn’t involve killing anything, isn’t too expensive or heavy, and won’t be too much of an eyesore.  Or smell bad.  Basically, I can write you a “please have mercy” card, as I don’t think Hallmark makes those.

Lamb Watch 2012 officially starts Thursday, 4/12.

In early February, we returned Zeus, our rent-a-ram, to his rightful farm.  A few weeks later, our neighbor’s puppy (who we were honestly rather taken with), took up sheep chasing as a hobby, causing Big Bertha to run head first into a tree and knock herself blind for almost a month.  This was Vet Visit No. 1 for the girls.  In mid-March, a professional sheep shearer came over and gave everyone a much needed haircut. 

We sent the wool to our local mill and were told that the fibers were too short to machine spin into yarn, so we opted for felt.  I really need to call that lady, as I still don’t have our wool back.  Hmmm. 

Next set in the great lambing wait.  The shepherd from who we purchased our sheep let me come to her farm and observe some newly born lambs, which was incredibly helpful.  Although nothing would fully prepare us for lambing season.  The last day of April, the first of our ewes went into labor.  It was a disaster, resulting in Vet Visit No. 2, a dead lamb and a mother we had to put down for the sake of mercy.  The second lambing went perfectly, in that we simply walked outside to find the mother licking clean Grace, the first lamb of Red Row Farm. 

The third lambing was heroic, as we caught the struggling ewe, pulled out the babe and resusitated him back to life.  That’s why we called him Lucky. 

The fourth and final lambing was unsuccessful, but much less tragic than the first.  We lost the lamb, but the vet (Visit No. 3) was able to save the mother.  All in, we started out lambing with five ewes and ended it with four ewes, two lambs and three vet visits.  Clearly this was not a money making operation. 

Regardless, I think we will always keep sheep.  There is something remarkably calming about watching them graze while the lambs frolic, and that truly is the best way to describe how they play. 

In August, we purchased five more lambs so that we would have enough to make the trip to the abattoir worth the drive.  Eleven sheep probably pushed our pasture to it’s limits, so we’ll have to be better about rotation next year. 

In early November, Will took the lambs for processing.  We sold all but one to local restaurants and spit roast the one we kept.  We sent the pelts to Pennsylvania for tanning and I now have the luxury of a lambs wool rug to greet my toes each morning. 

Currently, Zeus is back, servicing the ewes and setting us up for lambing 2012.  We’ve since learned that our troubles were likely due to over feeding, so we’ve cut out grain from our sheep’s winter diet and are sustaining them on hay alone at the moment.  Since only one of the ewes is under 1 year, it is likely that we’ll have some twins come spring.  My biggest concern is that the sheep involved in the foruth lambing may have sustained some damage during last year’s birthing which will either hinder her getting pregnant or result in another year of complications.  This time around, Will and I have a new rule – if an ewe is having trouble, we give ourselves one shot at attmepting to assist with the birth, after which we immediately call the vet.  It seems both more prudent and more humane.  Also, next year we’ll try to better time our animal processing so the freezer isn’t so filled with pork that there is no room for lamb.  I do feel a bit robbed of a winter filled with shepherds pie right about now.

I almost can’t wait to get out of bed tomorrow morning, just to step on this.  Almost.

When I say small, I do mean the lamb was small.

Will created a spit over the fire pit.  He only had a square piece to use as the actual spit, but that worked out wonderfully as he could be assured that the meat stayed in place when he turned it.  He stuffed the lamb full of rosemary and tied the legs in place, seasoning thoroughly with salt and pepper.

As a side dish, Will wanted to try out the practice bacon, which had finished curing and soaking.

He chopped up a bunch and threw it in a pot with about four onions to simmer over the fire.

The rest would be placed in the smoker.

To the bacon and onions, Will added two gallon-sized freezer bags of our collards.

But back to the lamb.  Over the course of about two hours, Will had a beautifully spit-roasted lamb to serve with some pretty epic wine.

How did it taste?  Honestly, I couldn’t tell you.  By the time Alston and I returned home, it had largely been polished off.  Everyone raved, but Will was most proud of the collards.

Later in the evening, he confessed that all he could smell was the stench of sheep carcass that still lingers in our basement.  To him it tasted terrible, so he has no idea if the guests were simply being polite or if Will may need a break from lamb until our house no longer smells like death.

Well, at least it looked delicious.

Special thanks to Michael Davis for taking many of these pictures.

We called our vet friend and the guess is that she ate glass or metal or something she shouldn’t.  We didn’t bother with a vet visit as the animal was a few weeks from slaughter – giving any drugs means she wouldn’t be organic and we wouldn’t want to keep a sick sheep for breeding.  As harsh as it sounds, we had a gut feeling that calling the vet would have been $75 spent on confirming what we already knew.

The new mantra for the sheep became Just Don’t Die.  Fortunately, no one else did, although Lucky managed to get his head stuck in the netting/fencing twice such that we had to cut large holes in the probably now not functioning wires.

Last Tuesday, Will trapped the sheep in the shed on the first try.  It’s amazing how a whole summer without grain has those girls jonesing for corn and barley.  Ok, so he caught everyone but Grace, but she quickly headed right up to the shed to join her flock, having lost the urge for independence.

Will transfered Grace, Lucky and three of the smallest remaining newbie lambs to the horse trailer and released Bertha, Flower, Gloria and The Other One.  Originally, we thought we’d take in The Other One given the issues she had giving birth, but ultimately we decided that a 2 year ewe who was proven fertile but maybe a bit damaged was less risky than an unproven 1 year ewe.  Also, she got out of the shed with her sisters, and it wasn’t worth the chase.

Will drove them the hour and a half to Harrisonburg and let the butchers know we wanted to keep the pelts.  Given the drive time, they suggested he stick around as it would only take an hour or so.  He got to watch them process a couple of cows and all five of our sheep.

T&E is an awesome operation.  (Yes, of Joel Salatin fame – go ahead, be jealous that it is our local butcher.)  Everyone was incredibly approachable and happy to share their stories of how they became butchers and their role in the operation.  Will spoke to the man who does the actual killing and asked if it ever gets easy, and he said no, it never does.  From killing to skinning took about five minutes.  The skinner commented that it was clear that our sheep were well cared for and well hydrated, based on the quality and thickness of their skin (now there’s a compliment I’d rather not receive in a bar).  Then it was onto the butchers who took about five to seven minutes to break down an entire animal.  Amazing.

The FDA inspector was on hand, inspecting organs for sheep and organs and skulls for cows.  She was young, close to my age, and she was definitely a member of the team.  We always assumed the government agent would be a distant, authoritative figure but she was absolutely a part of the process, and in a good way.  She inspected our sheep and noticed very small abscesses on the livers, which she said was typical of organic lambs who don’t have antibiotics or de-worming treatments, as fighting off infection causes stress on the liver.  They were only the size of flecks of sand, so the animals were very healthy, but nonetheless we could not keep the livers. She said it was very rare that an organic shepherd ever keeps the livers.

When I got home that evening, Will told me to head down to the basement.  This is what greeted me…

It smelled funky, but not rank, if that distinction means anything.  Will would need to salt the skins and let them sit for a week before FedExing them to a tanner in Pennsylvania.  I’m not sure what was more shocking, that we couldn’t find a tannery in Virginia or that it was possible to FedEx dead animal hide.

Salted (and the legs removed), things look a bit more like this…

Once tanned, these pelts will become rugs next to all the beds.  I know it sounds insensitive to talk about how luxurious it will be to step out of bed in the cold of January onto soft lamb wool, but I don’t think it would be any more respectful to my sheep to throw away so much of them.  I know this is hippie of me, but if I am going to raise an animal to slaughter, I am going to use as much of it as possible.  This is not about a handful of lamb chops.

More than any animal we’ve raised, we were attached to Lucky.  We assisted with his birth, practically brought him back to life, and Will bottle fed him his first meal.  He would pal around with Bertha trying to nibble up any grain dropped while feeding the pigs, or sneak into the shed to steal alfalfa pellets from the rabbits.  And not to be too graphic, but we can even tell which pelt is his, as he had such a distinctive tail.  So yes, this does not come easy.  But it’s not supposed to.  After all, we are dealing with life and death.

Since this photo, Will created an X out of twine, to keep Lucky out of the chicken tractor but still let the chickens day range in the pasture when the door is open.  So far, it seems to be working.

Despite pulling off this tight squeeze in search of carbs, Lucky still won’t eat out of my hand.  Only Bertha does that, and only so long as you don’t attempt to pet her.  What a diva.

 We loaded the sheep into the trailer the manual way – Will picked them up out of the chute and carried them one by one, while I held open the door/blocked the other sheep from escaping.  It went shockingly smooth.  We also picked up two roosters, but that was a bit more of an adventure.  What I can say is that we’ve learned from experience that while a chicken may have you beat in terms of speed, you can outlast them so just keep chasing regardless of how silly you look, and you will look silly.

Back at the farm, we let the newbies out in the pasture.

Lucky served as the welcoming committee and in no time at all, all eleven sheep were happily grazing as if they’d always been part of the same flock.  (you can tell the newbies as they have a blue dot spray painted on the backsides – that’s how you know who you’ve de-wormed and who you haven’t when working a large flock)

Right now, the plan is to take Lucky, Grace and the ewe that had birthing trouble, along with two of the newbies, to the processing facility sometime in the fall (late October or early November – whenever the grass dries up and we have to start supplementing with hay and grain).  The rest will meet the rent-a-ram, Zeus, sometime in mid November so we have lambs come March.  But for now, I’m enjoying watching our nearly doubled flock graze away at the late summar grass. 

[insert “oh my god how did you manage to swing two weeks off, like, in a row” here]

Will only took 10 of the 14 days, which worked out ideally.  I’m sure other people who work from home feel the same way, but it’s difficult for Will to stop working when he’s physically at the farm.  Obviously, having livestock means there are some chores that have to be done every day (food, water, letting out and locking up the ducks, collecting eggs).  Luckily, those are only about 2 hours of work, theoretically leaving plenty of weekend time.  But then he’ll go to grab some tomatoes for lunch and instead he’ll spend two hours weeding.  There is just so much that could or should be done, it’s hard to sit still.  So 10 days away from the farm meant total relaxation.  And 4 days home less the wife and child gave him the freedom to work undistracted upon his return.

So here’s the lowdown on Red Row Farm for the second half of July.

Before we left, one of the khaki campbells went missing, so we are down to four ducks.  It was one of the three ducks that made it through all the trauma of our first poultry order, so we’d dubbed them the Survivors, which is to say we were a little bit more attached to this particular duck.  We will get more next year, I’m sure.  Probably mostly khaki campbells since they are such reliable layers.

The day after we left, a crushing heat wave hit the East Coast.  The thermometer on the back porch read 119 one afternoon (yes, it was in full sun, but still that’s insane).  This is just more than some animals can take.  We lost two laying hens as well as the mama rabbit and her entire week old litter.  We also lost one rabbit from the previous litter.  The rabbits were temporarily moved to the basement until things came down from their triple digit fury, and the market umbrella that usually adorns the back porch was re-purposed to provide even more shade for the hens.

Wilma is definitely very pregnant, but still no piglets.  The spaces above her nipples have swollen so they look moderately boob-like, which has to be some kind of sign.  Betty and Blossom have enlarged nipples, but no boobs yet.  These are the conversations I now have with my husband… the relative appearance of gilt breasts.

Because of the heat, we are only getting 10 eggs a day (we were back up to 20+ before the scorching inferno).  Will added a fan to the hoop house to see if that could help cool things down.  We shall see.

The sheep are total grain junkies, following the chicken and turkey tractor around, scavenging for dropped chicken feed.  They are also pretty lame lawn mowers, but that may be more a result of our not having the right grass than a problem specific to our sheep.  The lambs are almost the size that their mothers were when we purchased them last year, and we are thinking about buying 5 more from the same shepherd.  We are wavering between continuing to breed for lambs and buying just-weaned lambs in spring and raising them to slaughter in late fall.  Given the chaos of lambing and the expense of feeding the pregnant ewes over the winter, it may be more economical for our small holding to buy lambs every year.  It just feels less authentic than breeding your flock.  Unfortunately, authenticity doesn’t do much in the way of paying for organic grains four months of the year.

The turkeys already look huge to me.  Not yet Thanksgiving big, but definitely larger than a fully grown chicken.

 The polish chickens are not growing nearly as fast, and I think they may even be underperforming our more traditional breeds of chickens like Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons.  I suspect we’ll hang onto any hens and just process the roosters (who are already starting to crow, despite their meager size), given the variability we’ve experienced in the egg production department.

Ashley is still a rock star mama to her guinea keats.  I have no idea how we are going to separate them so we can get Ashley to surrogate some of our New Hampshire Red eggs.

The garden is doing well. The tomatoes got hit with blight, but only after a solid month of production so we’re not sweating it.  Next year we’ll space the plants better and probably move to two plantings to spread out the season.  This year production felt like a flood, which was simply more than the restaurants (or my Honda civic’s trunk) could handle.  Half the corn failed to thrive, so Will picked the mini-ears and converted them into delicious corn chowder.  The remainder (which is disproportionally popping corn) continues to grow.  We already have pumpkins and butternut squash coming in, which is very exciting.

We successfully grew black-eyed peas!  We are irrationally excited about this, like it’s our crowning achievement in terms of gardening.  This despite the fact that black-eyed peas may be one of the cheapest things we consume, even when buying organic.  Regardless, it feels more like a homestead when you are drying your own beans for the winter.  Just trust me on this, and don’t calculate the time suck that is spending an hour shelling a half pound of beans.

The biggest tragedy of the garden has been our lack of time to actually enjoy our bounty.  Will is too tired to cook by the end of the day, and I’ve been too busy/tired to process and can or freeze much of anything.  We ended up harvesting and selling all of our carrots to the restaurants without my having made a single batch of carrot soup.  Tragic.  None of the English peas made it into the freezer.  Only one batch of pickles was canned before the cucumber vines gave up the ghost.  Next summer, I need to make Saturdays canning day, and be sure to put something up every weekend, whether it’s jam, pickles, sauce, soup or bags of frozen veggies.  Sure, we probably needed the income more this year than a freezer full of food, but it feels wrong to be sending almost all of our produce to the restaurants.  The idea of buying canned tomatoes this winter breaks my heart.

Lastly, New Dog went on his own little version of a walkabout, only to be found care of our mailman a day later.  Crazy New Dog.